Could It Get Any Worse?

 Could it get any worse?  A person should never actually let those words come out of their mouth, because the answer to that question is always -- yes.  But this week has been a progressive series of things getting worse.  Monday our contractor knocked over our planter by the driveway.  Boohoo.


Also on Monday (and Tuesday) -- a sick chicken. She was in a kennel in our house and had to have electrolytes given to her every couple hours.  Whatever evil was inside her smelled even worse when it came out of her.  (By Wednesday she was doing better.)

Tuesday morning at 2:30 a.m. my husband got up to use the bathroom.

He stepped in an inch of water.  The bathroom that attaches to our upstairs bedroom was pouring out water from the supply line to the toilet.  Maybe a couple hundred gallons.

(We sleep with a fan on, so we didn't hear anything.) Totally saturated the old growth pine floor upstairs, and made it's way downstairs into our dining room which is right below the bedroom.  Every absorbable towel, blanket, bedspread, was used to soak up the water.  And of course the rugs were all soaked.  So Tuesday morning our contractor cut holes in the dining room ceiling and walls to get air in there.  I should have taken a photo of the stack of laundry I did Tuesday.  

Also, the insurance guy came Tuesday to say water mitigation company would be covered by insurance.  And he agreed that the pine floor would have to be refinished because of warpage (again, just had them done when we moved in two years ago.)  By the way, major pain.  You can't use that area for like two weeks.

 Mitigation company came yesterday.

They set up dehumidifiers and fans in dining room,

downstairs hallway, and upstairs.  SO LOUD.

They will be with us until Monday.  Did I say LOUD?

Sorry, can't hear myself think.

 My son is staying with us this summer.  Today (which is Thursday) he found out that the people

he visited last weekend have tested positive for covid.  So he is in quarantine for two weeks, at our house.  I put up this curtain to separate his area from the rest of the house.  He gets the guest room, downstairs bathroom, sun room and deck. (Basically the only places where there isn't loud machinery.)

 We will be sliding food to him from under the curtain.

Could it get worse?  Well, it is going to feel like 100 degrees today,

so the deck is probably not going to be usable for him.  It hasn't rained in weeks,

so I do need to get out and water in this heat.  I need a vacation from bad news.

Waa.  Waa.  Waa. Call the wambulance.

My Husband's Corona Virus Isolation Project #10 -- Two Boot Trays

 With the addition of lots of rain and chickens, our mud room was looking like --

 well, a muddy room.

So my husband started the hunt for a "boot tray" where we could set our boots when we came in.

I suggested this little berry basket.

(At that point it did not have a corrugated metal insert or a handle.)  

Nope, too small for his big boots and not heavy duty enough.

But he said he would go ahead and make it for the guest cottage.

After looking at farm stores and on-line, he decided to make one himself.

 He used old barn wood that we already had.

And "Helmsman" wood finish that we already had.

And corrugated tin that we already had....

And made the nicest looking boot tray that I have ever seen.

Goodbye to mud in the mud room.

Front Door Problems Solved

 I have had two posts about my front door problems.

I am pleased to say that the new (old) door is in place,

as of last week.  My handy guy Kyle did have to work

about 3 hours to get it all properly fitted however.

 We are loving the look.

We are loving the fact we don't skin our knuckles every 

time we open the door.

We are loving that it actually OPENS.

And we are loving all the light that comes through.

Front Door Problems Part II

 Yes, we are still working at replacing our front door.

Progress:  we decided on different doorknobs

(found these in our shop.)

 Progress: the non-working mortise lock

got replaced with one that is almost the same size.

Progress: I didn't like the shiny finish I had applied earlier, 

so I sanded down and did two coats of hand

rubbed poly.  I think I will do one more coat.

Problems:  * I still have the other side to do!

* I still have to get on our Handyman's radar -- he will

need to find old looking hinges and figure out how to hang

a door that is 1/4" too small for the opening.

Rural Neighborhood Fall Festival

 We live in a rural area, west of a small town.

Once a year our "country neighbors" Gene and Diane

host a rural neighborhood "fall festival" for all the

people that live in our rural neck of the woods.

 This is no small event.

It is a bit of a soiree.

Complete with facepainting....

and I mean really good facepainting.

(I asked this little tiger if I could take her pic,

she surprised me by roaring while I took it!)

Also: snowcones and a bouncy house.

(Last year there was pumpkin painting and a car show.)

Yummy hot dogs and hamburgers are grilled.

And of course, everyone brings "dishes".

And enjoys cool drinks.

 It is a great opportunity to meet neighbors

whose country homes you just drive by ordinarily.

 And a good opportunity to enjoy the home and grounds

of our hosts until evening falls.

Limestone Quarry Tour In A Ghost Town

 At a small town fall celebration we went on a free bus tour of a limestone quarry at the ghost town of Phenix, MO (spelled correctly!)  The site was once the center of a bustling limestone mining operation, complete with a "company town", "company store, school, church, and activity center for over 1000 employees in it's heyday around 1922.  The stone was distributed widely at the time. The New York Stock Exchange was built from limestone quarried here.

Apparently it was an expensive operation, and was forced to close during the Great Depression.  A few years ago, it was reopened on a much smaller scale. The limestone quarried now actually has replaced some of the original limestone quarried there in buildings like the Missouri Capitol.

They are also supplying countertops for homes.  Including ours!  Our kitchen countertop, bathroom countertop and shower interior is all made from this limestone.  It is one of rare types of limestone that can be "polished", but our doesn't look like it has be polished much.  You can see fossils in our countertops, which I find really interesting.  The tour guide says they find alot of starfish in the limestone. 

Front Door Problems Part I

Our front door has kind of a cool look,

but it is not original to our house.
It has a sludgy mold on the exterior that I knew I would have to tackle if we kept it.

It has never fit the opening well,

and lately (with humidity) the entire thing has warped.

The doorknob is so close to the casing that it actually touches.

And now, we actually can't get it open because of the warpage.

Stick a fork in us.
 We are done.

So we cruised craig's list and facebook marketplace,

and came up with a door that we thought fit the look of our house

(looks great with our windows.)

Only $80.

But did you think it was going to be that easy?

No, no, no. Of course not.

First of all, the finish on one side was all scratched up,

and if I was going to refinish it - now was the time.

 LOTS of sanding.  With the orbital sander, and by hand.
Then staining with a dark walnut stain to obtain the deep color I wanted.
(Two coats of this, and spots with a third application).
A thin coat of polyshade -- brush on and immediately wipe off.
Then a regular final coat of polyshade (brushed on and not wiped off).
(Time for each step to completely dry, and trying not to work on
days above 90 degrees made all of this this long and drawn out.)
😠
I hated it.  The final coat was all streaky --
probably would have been fine if I had done another thin coat of polyshade instead.
Argh.
Wait for the frustration and heat to subside.

More sanding.  First by hand -- not quite enough poly removal.
Then with orbital sander.  Then by hand to try to get rid of orbital tracks.
Just one coat of walnut stain needed this time.
And I've done one thin coats of polyshade (wiped off right after application).

Still to solve:
-- non-working mortise lock that is a strange size
-- door is 1/4" shorter than opening
-- workable door hinges that at least look old

New Lighting In The Shop!

 I took possession of the "garage" even before we moved in.

Mine, mine, mine.

But it needed a little TLC.

Out with the mud daubers....

In with four huge fluorescent lights,

a chandelier,

and three industrial lights over the workbench area.

Happy Birthday to me.

Moms And Their Boys

In honor of Mother's Day":
My daughter-in-law and I posing with our "boys".

Loving My Mudroom

This is how the mudroom looked when we previewed the house for the first time.   And yes, that is a bar in the middle of the tiny little space.  Three of the walls were the dark rust color.  And the fourth wall did not know what it wanted to be when it grew up -- stone, wood, window, door?

 
Then we made some improvements last September, which you can read about here.  The huge limestone bar top was gone by this time, and my husband was chipping away at the stone base.   We finally hired one handy man to remove the rest of the bar base, and another one to piece in the tile that was missing. 

 And here is the same north wall after completion.

The corrugated metal covers the whole hodgepodge wall.

The wash tub took the place of the giant whiskey barrel sink.

We painted all of the dark rust walls a light gray, 

which really lightened it up.  All of our tools (and much other misc) are stored in the lockers.

I found this green industrial barn light shade in

my stash, and we installed it above the sink.

This mid-century work table has been in my family

since it was new.  Like the rest of the mudroom --

small and hard working.

Finishing Touches On The Dining Room

Above is a realtor shot of the dining room before we bought the house.
I am still in shock over how different it looks now.  See the rest of the dining room updates here.
Notice the "pass-through" from the dining room to the kitchen.  It really visually
chopped up the already small dining room wall.

 So we closed it off the pass-though recently,

 and it really opened up the space.

 

It allowed for a "real" piece of furniture without making the space seem bunchy.

 And...I finally found a place for my yellowware collection.

 We dug the shelf out of the garage,

and we had the (super heavy) 1880s brackets

laying around OUTSIDE.  

Tiny Living Room Tour

 Our living room is tiny.  I knew the first time that I

looked at it, it would be a challenge.  A positive is the

large archway leading in from the dining room.  It keeps

the l.r. from appearing too closed off.  The chairs on either side of the "TV nook"

are the hickory ones on which we had to wage war with wood eating bugs, read about that here. 

And of course we had to battle the ugly eyesore of a bookshelf 

which you can read about here.

 I finally got to hang my large clock made out of junk,

read about how that was made here.

This week we finally got the antique bird prints hung

on either side of the "TV nook".  Hanging anything

on these walls involves using anchors.

 This is the south wall. We have some awesome

artwork, I was glad to have a big wall to display it on.

I had purchased the console table for just a few bucks,

but we had to replace the top.

The whole living room has a tree and bird theme.

Many of our prints are done by a friend of ours (one of his on the right.)

The one on the left was by an artist who came by our booth at an antique

show, he showed us his nest pen and ink, and we ended up trading him for it.

 North wall, which is the front of the house.
You can see the front porch arches out the window.

 Our tiny love seat, lots of togetherness now.
We had to get rid of THREE full-sized couches when we moved here.
I didn't know if I was going to get to keep the coffee table,
it is a hand carved monster.  But paring down the
size of everything else gave us the space we needed for it.
It kind of anchors the room, and continues to be my
favorite piece of furniture.