Remember this old window we found in the basement?
Well, would you look at it now!!!
I will take you on a full tour of the newly painted dining room later in the week and show you where I got the idea for this (*cough*Pinterest*cough*) Off for a family gathering at the lake today. Must go get in my new temporarily rigged shower!!
So, I know I have mentioned Pinterest to you all. I have a true love love relationship with this website. If you have not gotten hooked yet, please run on over there right this minute and let it suck the life right out of you!!! No, seriously, you will lose yourself for the first few days, getting bleary eyed and headachey as you wander through all there is to behold there. You will then come to your rational senses, limit yourself to a specific time limit, and come to love this site as much as I do. At first, I couldn’t imagine why I would ever have a need for yet another website (as if I don’t already have enough to follow around here.) But then I started wandering into the Home Decor section and started seeing some wonderful ideas for the reno…then came my organization kick and all the great ideas I found on Pinterest to push me along the organizational path. It is now my GoTo site for ideas, some of which I used in my “new” kitchen. OK, so it’s not “new” but I have fallen in love with it all over again as though it is.
Here’s the result: (Not going for photographic excellence here, so bear with me!)
Now, besides painting, I addressed a few problem spots in the kitchen. I figured that since I organized all the insides, it was only right that I also organize the outside. Here is a before shot of a real problem spot:
Seriously…we thought that cork board was a good idea at the time. But it simply became a clutter place. And that little basket holding pens and pencils (and a three year old Christmas candy cane reindeer??????!!!!!!!!) simply had to go. How about those keys hanging on the magnetic hook on the fridge? Messy messy clutter. And that calendar…thought I could do something a bit more stylish, since my Robert Pattinson one had to be taken down in January. *ahem*dontjudgeme*
So I started by yanking that cork board off the side of the cabinet, a much more painful and time consuming process than I thought it would be. Easy peel off stickies are not so easy to peel after ten years.
Then I bought a new hanger for keys…$7.99 thank you very much.
And then I made myself a new reusable calendar…just wipe off the glass and start over month after month! Old unused-for-years frame from the cabinet, a piece of the curtain fabric, and a printed blank calendar and voila:
Aint it grand?!! I also needed a spot for a few of those things I like to have at my fingertips, so instead of that icky cork board, I found one of those ribbon boards. Here’s the after photo of that space.
Muuuuuuuuch better!
Then there’s that hard to decorate spot above my cabinets. It has always had me a bit dumbfounded…I used to keep a bunch of “stuff” up there…unnoticed dust collectors. Then I got sick of it and wanted to declutter, so I emptied the tops and left them bare. But then I hated the echo that was left behind. So this is what I did….I threw these beloved containers back up there (containers my aunt gave me and I cherish) and left it.
Yucky yucky blah blah. (And yes, those are undelivered Christmas gifts in that basket….undelivered to whom? My next door neighbors…*ahem*dontjudgemeagain*)
So once we painted I did the only logical thing…I searched Pinterest for ideas! 🙂 I found this blog and knew she was onto something. I loved what she did, and how she explained the reasons behind her choices. So after a trip to JoAnne’s 50% off home decor sale, and a trip around my house hunting for beloved artifacts, I’m pretty pleased with the results. Looks better in person, but you get the idea. Only two of the pieces on each side are new, the others have a history and a story to tell. We also strung cord lights up there that are invisible, but cast a lovely glow, especially on dark rainy days like today. Really brightens up that space above.
And I know I have spoken about my new obsession with black? Check out my radiator!!
Can’t…..stop…..looking…..at…..it!!!
Lastly, I tackled my curtain problem. I would love to go curtainless, but we really like our privacy at night (who doesn’t?) But our windows are the old fashioned swing out windows. I love them so much, I cannot even tell you….but they have always been a bit of a problem to cover. There were old iron swing rods above the windows when we moved in, so I used those, loving the uniqueness and antiquity of them. However, they were actually too short for one set of windows so when closed, didn’t quite completely cover the windows. They also were a bit crooked, but still I clung to them. Not anymore. I decided to have Zan take them down to be repurposed elsewhere…perhaps as towel rods in one of the new bathrooms? And started thinking of these windows from scratch. Of course, I went to my best friend, Pinterest for advice. I found this idea. I liked the simplicity of them, and loved that they show all the woodwork around the window. Also, my sewing skills being as UNskillful as they are, I thought this was a project I could tackle. So this was what I did for a few days:
However, I finished them, and really didn’t like the hassle of having to tie them up every morning….I was annoyed with that task almost immediately. So, I used my OWN BRAIN to come up with a solution!! (Pretty proud of myself for this one.) I started wishing I had some of those squeeze gadgets that are on jackets….you know the ones- they allow you to pull the bottom tight, or pull your hood tight. Then I came up with this idea, and it actually WORKED!!! Whoohoo!!
It’s a bead slide! I had to search my bead box for beads with holes big enough to get ribbon through, yet small enough to grab the ribbon tight enough to hold. It just so happens that I had five of them…the exact number I needed! They work perfectly. 🙂 I attached them using cheap cafe rods to each window, and so for about $40 in materials I have three new sets of curtains. I could’ve done it for less if I hadn’t insisted on backing fabric, or shopped from the clearance fabrics. Up:
And down:
Phew! So there you have it…that’ll do for the kitchen for now since all funds are being diverted to new bathrooms and such. (Whoohoo!) This was a cheap do-it-your-selfers pick me up. Next up, the dining room! I found an old door window insert downstairs that I saved from Zan’s garbage pile…can’t wait to show you what I’m cooking up for that! 🙂
So, my 112 year old house is topped by a 112 year old slate roof. That 112 year old slate roof is beginning to show signs of it’s age, and has not been very reliable in recent years. Hard driving rain shows it’s weaknesses, as does ice. We have several buckets under the eaves catching most of the leaks, but now and then a new one presents itself. Right now my roof is topped with about 4, if not 5 inches of ice along it’s edges, along with several inches of snow which is becoming crusty and more frozen by the day because of the severe temperatures in these here parts. This of course means that more leaks become evident as water sneaks under the loose roof tiles and gets trapped there by ice. The icicles are a good four feet long is some areas, and none have come crashing down yet. Each day I wait for the earthquake-like crash of the roof letting go, and each day passes without it. Of course, the icicles are quite beautiful to photograph.
The only way I could think to show you how huge some of these are was to place my finger on one.
So my dear friend (*waves to Sue*) always says, “It all starts with a throw pillow!” or in this case, a leaky roof.
Zan and I figure, well, if we have to replace the roof, why not raise it while we’re at it? Raising the short roof over our kitchen in the back of the house would allow us to add a Master bedroom and a second bathroom. Right now, our girls share a room and we only have one bathroom…As they get older, we can see the wisdom in having a bathroom of our own.
Of course, this leads to all sorts of issues…
First of all, the cost of replacing a slate roof is astronomical. But I am irrationally against replacing it with asphalt…I can’t explain my emotional reaction to the topic, but putting asphalt on this house just seems sinful. The thought of losing the anchor that was designed with the differently colored slate on one side of the house, and the diamond on the other brings me to tears.
Then there’s the issue of moving interior walls in order to access the new bedroom in the addition…this would require stealing room from the present bathroom, which would mean a new bathroom, AND a bathroom renovation at the same time. All very exciting (and very much needed in the near future) but also very, very expensive.
When I say expensive, I mean more than we spent buying the house 12 years ago.
And I have thought about this plan every which way to Sunday, and still can’t come up with a better configuration for the extra space.
So, we ponder…
The roof HAS to be repaired, half of it completely replaced (at the very least…the main roof may need the same full rip and tear treatment as well…not sure until someone gets up there to investigate more thoroughly.) So do we spend a small fortune repairing/replacing the slate roof, and leave it at that? Or do we spend a large fortune and add a room, bathroom, and bathroom renovation on top of the roof replacement? Do we cut the costs by replacing a slate roof with modern materials? *yuck*sniff* Do we bag the whole thing and move to Florida? *just* kidding*
Oh, well. That’s what we get for buying a 100 year old fixer upper. No more Disney trips for us for awhile I’m afraid…glad we played so much last year since this will be the next few years of our lives.
My house got a little attention today…
Before:
After:
But now of course, the rest of the property looks shabby in comparison. Time to get busy!
As most of you already know, I live in a 110 year old house. It was built in 1898, and we are the fifth (or sixth?) owners. As the story goes, the original landowner (our street is named after him) built our home for his daughter next door to his own when she got married. These homes sat on acres of farmland, with apple orchards surrounding them. The home was then bought by Family #2 in 1906 and it remained in that family for more than 65 years. I had the pleasure of meeting “Gladdy” (who lived in this house from the time she was a little girl until her husband passed away) and she was able to tour the house, telling us stories of her childhood and stories of raising her family here. She talked about her father adding the kitchen onto the home in 1926 because her mother wanted a nice big kitchen. “Guess who had to wash that nice big kitchen floor!” she joked. She told us how proud her father was to have the first “second toilet room” in town! LOL And shaking her head, she shared how mad her father was the day she and her husband carpeted over his oak hardwood floors, and how much she regretted painting almost all the woodwork. “But I was so darn sick of all that brown!” she said. We also had the pleasure a year ago, of meeting Gladdy’s son. He stopped by while in the area, and we were so thrilled to hear his stories of growing up here. We’ve become pen pals of sorts, sharing news and construction updates periodically. To quote a recent letter, he said, “Looking back over the years, [our town] and the house will always stand out as one of the bright spots of my childhood. Back in the late 40’s and 50’s life was fun (we thought), safe and simple by today’s standards. Kids today would be bored to death…we thought it was great.”
We love our home, and feel very connected to it’s past and to the families who lived here before us. We also feel deeply obligated to be good stewards of the property. With each improvement I think about whether or not Gladdy’s father would approve. I swear I could “hear” him smiling the day we ripped all the carpet out on the first floor! And even though the “second toilet” is extremely huge and old, and uses about 10 gallons of water per flush, we can’t quite bring ourselves to replace it with one of those new-fangled water conserving ones.
I share all this with you, so you understand how cool it was when we unearthed these license plates over the weekend! In the past we have found letters and books, Valentines and shoes, medicine bottles and wallpaper remnants…this weekend it was license plates and a dairy box! Zan was cleaning out the garage attic, a nasty task, but at least we were rewarded with a bit of history. There were eleven plates in all, ranging in dates from 1935-1970. They will hold a place of honor on our garage wall, a bit more of the history that gives our home it’s character, and yet another connection to the families that gave this home it’s loving spirit.
A Half Hour a Day 