HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Chaos all over the place.

So far, I've posted pics of the living and dining room construction... but nothing about the effect this little project has had on the rest of the house. Literally, the only rooms that have not been affected are the three bathrooms and our upstairs master bedroom.

The dining room chairs and assorted small living room furniture are up in the "greatroom" part of the second floor. Breakfast room chairs and table are in the basement, along with the diningroom chandelier and lord-knows-what-else. And, on our main living floor:








Most of the dining room furniture is now in the breakfast room.....

as are the contents of the china cabinet and secretary desk.

The piano is in the hall, serving as a "catch-all" hotspot.

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Pictures and other assorted stuff are living on the guestroom bed.

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Annnnnnnnd the living room sofa is now tucked behind the TV room sofa, making the room nice and.... Cozy.

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Yeah, cozy. that's it.

(Is it any wonder that I'm just a WEE BIT CRANKY lately?)

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But painting is DONE... Pics of that next... and all that's left is getting the floors refinished.

GETTING THERE.

Progress!

When we finished the upstairs renovation, I sure thought we were done with "house guts"!
But NOOOOOO - so here's the living room, minus ceiling...

The rafters were so out-of-level that the low point in the ceiling was over three inches different from the highest point. Plaster can make up for the difference, but not so with drywall.

So, rather than having 2x4's added to every beam, Nathan The Supercontractor suggested this metal framework. Using a really cool laser level, Enrique and his drywall team had it installed in both rooms and drywall HUNG in less than two days. WAHOO!






The "Scene of the Crime"... showing the spot where the plaster originally fell.



(That yellow scaffold, by the way, was about the best tool investment we have EVER made.)


Dining room, with drywall hung but not yet mudded... Using another tricky little gadget, Enrique and crew were able to save the wallpaper! They installed a "zip strip" which they mudded into the ceiling seam. when the mud was dry and sanded, part of the strip zips off, leaving a clean joint which Tom then sealed with a clear caulk.

The wallpaper isn't "scrubbable", so we resorted to an old renovator trick - white bread. Take the crusts off, and wad a slice or two into a bread ball. It acts like an art-gum eraser, taking smudges off like magic. A quick vacuum to get any crumbs, and VOILA!




"Scene of the Crime" again, this time with drywall and mud completed!

Tom asked Enrique if his team could fix two or three cracks in the plaster walls - and they responded by going Above and Beyond the call. They went over the walls with a fine-toothed comb, and mudded every little imperfection and pock-mark in the plaster that they could find!

We probably should have mentioned to them that we like the "character" of old plaster... OH WELL! There are still plenty of little flaws left to make our hearts happy. *grins*





Living room fireplace. This is going to be SO much fun to re-paint... ummm... NOT.













Another living room shot... complete with drywall-crusted tarps on the floor. My job was to take those out and hose 'em down when we were done with this phase!















AHHHHHHHHH!!!! PAINT!

(ain't he CUTE...)(*grinning*)

We went around the whole dining room first, taping clear plastic to the walls to save that wallpaper.


At the time I'm posting this, we have finished the dining room painting completely except for a little scraping on the windows. We've sanded the living room woodwork, spackled and filled in with wood filler where necessary, and Tom has finished painting the ceiling in there.

This very moment, he's out there painting trim - and I'd better go join him!! ( POOF! I'm gone!)

News from the Construction Zone...

Hardhat work is DONE WITH!! Both ceilings have been cut into chunks, loaded into a truck, taken to the dump and are GONE. Underneath this dust mask, my jaw is hanging open in amazement at the hard work my sweet husband can do. (I only helped with the Living Room - he handled the Dining Room all by his ownself!)

One more little cleanup session for me tomorrow, and it's in the contractors' hands.

WOOOO HOOOOOO!

Ceiling, meet Floor

All right... here's what woke us up at 2:30am Saturday... the sound of 500-600 pounds of 90-year-old plaster, hitting the living room floor...








That's about an 8 x 10 foot hole in the ceiling... luckily, no one was hurt, and the only real casualty was Nana and Grandpa's chair - possibly fixable.
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Tom and I are sick about it of course, but SO grateful WHERE it fell ( the most open point in the room, causing the least damage possible) and, even more importantly, WHEN it fell - at a time when nobody was standing under it.
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We think it came down due to the years of construction that have been going on upstairs - all the pounding, nailing, etc... just loosening the plaster from the joists. And now? Well... we can't trust the rest of it - or the ceiling in the adjoining dining room either. Soooooo... Looks like we're back into Demolition/ Renovation Mode, tearing out the rest of both ceilings, *sigh*. But I'm painting flowers on my hardhat, and trying to fly thru this round with something like a smile. :)

We Interrupt This Dining Room....

For the delivery of BATHROOM CABINETS!

This is the final major phase of fifteen years of renovation...

Taking them out of the boxes...

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The "vanity" cabinets.......

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....Go HERE.

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And these are a set of cabinets for linens & stuff...

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They go by the windows, HERE.
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And one last cabinet - a bench with

a drawer, to go under the window.

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.Tom and I hauled the biggest linen cabinet up the stairs ourselves this morning (talk about comedy!), and he's installing it even as I write this!

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Using a backsaw to carve the window sill out a bit.

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Backsaw. I know the term. Impressive, Yes??
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I AM SOOO EXCITED!!!!

The New Game!!

All righty! In the weeks I've been with FlyLady's Chat room, there have been small changes accumulating around the house. Still, I'm feeling the need to grab the boulder and ROLL it... so I've decided on a new Game!!!

Along with the Chat, I'm going to use my :15 work sessions to tidy a room, then take a picture of that room as sort of a "baseline". In weeks to come, I'm going to revisit the pics to keep myself motivated, and see what kind of progress I might be making.

The Habit for the month of February is decluttering for 15 minutes a day. We'll see where it leads....

First of all, Welcome to my house! Come on in...

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This is the living room. Not much of a problem here, since we really use it only for company - just dusting, vacuuming, and the occasional plant maintenance session is all it really needs.

Oh, and drapes. And a mirror over the fireplace, maybe. But that's not "housekeeping"!

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(Lit a "fire in the fireplace" just for y'all...)

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Now, take a turn to your right, and we'll go down the hall....

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OOPS! Do I see a hint of CLUTTER???? Hmmm maybe we'll turn around for a minute and look into the Dining Room instead. ;-)

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Ahh better. Dining Room... not much to be done here. I do need to rethink some plants that are off camera to the right (scruffy babies), and work on some sort of heavier drapes... but that's for later!

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Hmmm... and maybe some clutter on top of the china cabinet!

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The door to the left leads into the "Butler's Pantry", which we use as a breakfast room...

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And there, the Real work begins!!

(To be Continued...)

My Symphony

(William Henry Channing, 1810-1884)

To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion;
to be worthy, not respectable
and wealthy, not rich;
to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly;
to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages,
with an open heart;
to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely,
await occasions, hurry never.

In a word,
to let the spiritual, unbidden, and unconscious

grow up through the commonplace.

This is to be
my symphony.

~

(Kind of says it all. - J.)

Home Home Home.

This is where we are now - a 1921 Craftsman style "builder's bungalow" in Louisville, Kentucky. It was a sad place when we first bought it. The previous owner, "Miss W.", had inherited it from her parents, had retired to live there, and had lived in a nursing home for a year when she passed away at age 94. In the 33 years that she owned it, she apparently kept the outside spotless - but did absolutely nothing inside. Having very little family, she left the house, contents, and most of her estate to the Salvation Army. (That's who we bought the house from.)

She apparently lived in only three rooms - the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen - all on the back side of the house. When we first saw it, the front 2/3 of the house and the upstairs had been sealed off. The wallpaper was hanging in strips, the plumbing was so old there was zero water pressure, and the dirt everywhere was incredible. Plaster was cracking, floors upstairs were incredibly out-of-level, and there was evidence of water damage in the upstairs front dormer (now our bedroom). First floor hallway was painted a dingy 1950's green, and there was a six-inch-wide strip of dirt on the walls, waist-high, where Miss W. had braced her hand on the wall while she walked from kitchen to bathroom to bedroom.

There were still pieces of coal in the coal bin, even though the old coal-fired furnace had long since been replaced with a forced-air unit. And, according to a neighbor who held Miss W's power-of-attorney, Miss W died a millionaire.

All in all, it was a sad, sad house.

First of All...

To start with, here we are! Me, with my sweet hubby Tom (taken Dec 2009)... We married on 7/27/91 and bought our current house in December of 1992. For 9 months we lived in a tiny apartment while we tore out plumbing, walls, ceilings, and the entire second floor (OURSELVES)... and gradually started putting it all back. We contracted out for plumbing and drywall, but Tom has done most of the rest of the work himself. His Dad and Uncle Bill helped for the initial rounds but are in their 80's now. I've helped some, but Renovating isn't one of my major skills! I have tried to keep the "crew" fed, clothed, and as tranquil as I can...

If it will ever quit raining here, I'm going to take an outside picture of the house to post next.

Time to Fly - with a little help!

Starting a new blog, What Fun! I'm putting this one out here for any of my new FlyChat friends to see, especially the ones who don't want to be on Facebook. I plan to post pictures of works-in-progress and any helpful or inspirational stuff I find along the way.

That's the plan, anyway! We'll see how it "Flies"... :-)