Window Project

I posted a bit about the project here Busy Weekend. So I won't go into it in full here, but the Living room window is in & looks great!

I never dreamed that a simple window project could have us tearing 10 feet of siding off, but it did. So... gotta love living in a 140 year old house!


Semi before (I forgot to take a picture of the old wall after all the siding came off)

After:
I should have emailed Easy Gard to sponsor the post, but alas I didn't! It was just the cheaper choice at our home improvement store. I suppose I could have blurred the labels, but I haven't installed the good photo editing software on the computer yet.*** Best part was we only used about 20 feet of the 150+ foot roll so now we have lots of leftovers for the next siding removal project (South Turret before winter).

***I am so far behind in photo editing I should do this we have had the new computer since February!

Bath revisted

Since I am still perusing the web for ideas on what to do with my bathroom...

I was just introduced to Taps4less.  Since it is a UK site, if you live in the Mainland UK you get the bonus of free delivery.  Worth checking out!  I'm terrible with my pounds to dollars conversions, so I had to find a conversion calculator...  I am certain that it would be cost prohibitive to have anything shipped to the USA, but I can look right!

My hubby would love this baby a Taps4less Steam massage shower enclosure.  I suppose it is possible, since bathrooms don't really count in "restoration" processes.  But I'm not convinced we'd get the full 1400 pounds (=$2844.00) back out of it in equity.

Now this is more my speed, the Taps4less Bath shower mixer on a newly restored claw foot tub.  That's what I'm talking about.  Of course that would be almost too Victorian!  It isn't like we are restoring the house to it's original Victoria Era Splendor, we aren't convinced it had any.  Best we have been able to find out is that the "wealthy" people who lived here & added the second turret declared bankruptcy.   We have not been able to locate a single picture of our house.  Of course the town historian had just begun digging through the piles left by her predecessor, maybe she has been able to locate something.   We'll have to plan a trip to the museum to check.

 My FIL can remember working at a dinner party here when he was young. It was converted to apartments in the 1940's or 50's.  The house has a history, I'm sure it is interesting it's just not documented in any easy to find fashion!

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Garden edging

This past week was a productive one for the outside of the Money Pit at least!

We smoothed out some parts of the yard that were un-mowable piles of dirt covered with weeds! I jammed up the mower a few times trying to cut them down. So I had dh go get my Dad's bucket tractor & smooth things up a bit. Now I have patches of dirt that will eventually be grass covered & as a bonus I had an abundance of rocks.

So I loaded them up in the kids red wagon & rolled them out front to edge one of my front yard gardens.

If you look at the front photo of my house you can see the sad empty space in front of the stone on the porch. The sad pointy evergreens are long gone & what you aren't seeing is a garden, landscaped & edged. There were actually plants here! A sad little azalea shrub on either side of the stairs, and misc other plantings. The previous owners had even used landscape cloth. When I ripped it all up (it just looked sickly!) I found that neither of the shrubs had ever outgrown their original root ball. The evergreens were still in their burlap. Since then I have been privileged to enjoy the work of former owner planting bulbs. There are multiple layers of flowers. In the early spring I enjoyed the white & purple crocus that came up, and now these are covering the entire length of my porch.

I have planted 2 Wisteria that climb up the posts, we almost lost one this spring to the unseasonably late cold weather, thankfully it has finally started to leaf. Last year I planted a mini rose bush I had received for a holiday, I was able to divide it into 2 plants so there is one on either end as well. Just this week I was at Aldi & bought a climbing peace rose for $3.99 and planted it to the right of the stairs.

The forget-me-nots are just getting started & will be in full force once the current display dies off. There is a daffodil in there & a tulip, but I think it got mowed.

This year we are going to focus on the right side of the stairs garden & getting a couple trees planted out front. I hate to cover up the facade, but we get a healthy wind as there is a wide open field across the street. DH wants to plant cherry trees, I guess I can live with that, at least they will be pretty in the spring.

Carnival of Home Improvement

Carnival of Home Improvement is hosted by Mortgage Low Down

I checked out #1 & there are some great submissions! I'll be back to check out 2 & see if I have anything worthy of submitting :D!

No new photos

We are still moving into the upstairs. Of course with hubby breaking a foot we aren't going to moving any more heavy stuff up soon. We have the desk set up & my sewing machines are up, but we are still missing the file cabinets, my old sewing desk, a table for the kids to play at & all my sewing stuff! Plus we still have the fridge & stove in here, we are going to get rid of them (maybe look for a mini fridge at yard sales)



I have been thinking of putting in a couple Solatubes. My sister has one in her bathroom & it is fantastic. The light it lets in to the tub is great, no electricity needed! Since both bathrooms are either under the attic or downstairs has it's own roof, this should be fairly simple. I gather that the first floor bath would be easier, since it is a roof hubby will go on... But we have to have the main roof sealed & worked on anyways, maybe I'll get this sooner than I thought I would!

I am going to be looking for Closet storage ideas, thought I'd check Elfa Closet Solutions that Work at Organize.com
. The bedroom upstairs is going to be used for storage of my fabrics (it's unheated, so it'll be fine as long as we remember to keep the door closed!) I am looking for hangning & shelving. I have a great Rubbermaid system downstiars, but it is over kill for my needs. I may just go with plastic ventilated shelving instead.

Couple of links I don't want to lose...

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Master Bedroom Work

We are still working in the Master Bedroom.

The walls are no longer wallpaper, I painted over it with Kilz Casual Colors. I think the color we chose was Cappuccino Spice, I couldn't find it on the website, but it looks exactly like it sounds!!! I like the Kilz One Coat. It covered the peach wallpaper well. It took more than one coat, but the second was really only to touch up brush strokes, it wasn't an overall 2nd coat. We used the same paint in my kitchen (red over wallpaper) it didn't cover as well, but I was in the hospital (had the Princess & dh had friends help him) when it got painted so I don't know why it didn't cover. The kitchen was a Satin & we used Semi gloss in the bedroom (wanted Satin, but think the semi reflects more light so the flaws aren't as obvious!) could be the difference.

We still need to wire for an overhead light fixture so the ceiling is still incomplete. DH is in the process of changing jobs & our time has become tight. I am happy that I finished the walls, so I could hang my clothes back in the closet. We also need to beef up the crown molding, it is quite wimpy!

This picture also shows one of the 2 leaded glass windows we have in the room. What's missing is the ugly blue roller shade hung just below the leaded window.
Shop at Wal-Mart for Kilz Casual Colors.

Not sure if I posted a picture of the surprises we found in the apartment when we took down the ugly 70s paneling so here:

We found 2 of these "holes" from old windows & lines where old walls must have been. The air leakage around these old windows was terrible, so we filled in with insulation everywhere we could feel a draft & even where we couldn't. Then we put the paneling back up (on this wall only) & painted it. It is so much warmer in the space.

That said our house is celebrating it's 140th birthday this year! So I guess we shouldn't be too surprised by what's behind the walls!!!