100 Year Old Planks

So.... I smell another project!

Here is Big E cutting a piece of 12 foot

100 year old tongue and groove pine boards 

from an old Baltimore distillery

so it fits in the truck.

Found these on the Facebook Marketplace.

Drove an hour into the boonies and rooted in a pile of boards

covered with straw in an ancient barn.

SO MUCH FUN

The woman who was selling them told us

her late husband was a woodworker.

She couldn't remember which distillery he told her the boards were from,

but she knew it was a 100 year old building in Baltimore.

We have 4 12 foot pieces

cut in half.

The plan is to build a pub height table for the kitchen

that will serve as a place to eat a quick meal,

extra counter space and

a "bar" or buffet for gatherings.

Can't wait to see it completed!

The Laundry Room Makeover

This is what our laundry/mud/sun room looked like

when we got the house.

Note the aluminum siding still on what was

the original outside of the house,

and the drop ceiling, 

and carpet over concrete.

The carpet was, of course, glued down

and required scraping.

I can say scraping concrete is far easier than scraping adhesive

off wood floors.

We painted over the paneling using a color

called Witch's Brew.

Yes, I often choose paint colors based on their name.

We removed the siding and saved it for other projects-

basically the 2 new construction windows on the side of the house

that will replace the former upstairs apartment door

and the window that was made smaller for the old apartment kitchen.

Note the old ugly door.

This space was obviously a porch that was enclosed,

hence the window that looks into the bathroom.

The window was taken out and boarded up

as part of the bathroom renovation still in progress.

All the above happened a while ago.

Fast forward to this past November/December 2018.

Big E wanted to see what the original house siding looked like

under the tar shingles 

(that were under aluminum siding).

Here is the white wood siding of the house.

And here is a peek at a gray color the house was painted 

before the white. 

Oddly, a medium grey is the color I wanted the house to be 

once we get to that stage of renovations.

Next, Big E needed to build a wall of sorts.

Our water lines were just hanging there as you can see.

We wanted to be able to hide the pipes,

and have a smooth wall.

The finished wall. 

The next order of business was the ugly door into the kitchen.

You might remember, I salvaged an older door (not old in terms of my house old, but aged)

from what was the town's firehouse/borough office/community center.

If you don't remember, you can read about it here.

This was the old Borough Office door,

 and I thought it would be perfect for this doorway into the kitchen.

The pebbled glass would let in light, 

but prevent people from seeing any mess that might be in the laundry room.

Big E was not thrilled with my door salvage.

He actually said no.

But someone tapped out the pins quick,

and voila'.

(I believe in the saying "It's better to ask forgiveness than permission")

Of course, the door was bigger than the opening we had.

So it required some cutting of wood and moving wires and such.

I'm please with how it looks.

(the missing trim and cuts in the kitchen have been patched and repainted)

Then we had to remove the drop ceiling.

We planned to drywall the ceiling rather than stick with the drop ceiling.

I'm not a fan of drop ceilings.

I'm only sharing one photo- the end result-of drywalling the ceiling.

My parents came to help,

and thank God they did.

Someone surely would have died otherwise.

Most likely me, crushed under a slab of drywall.

Next came the really fun part.

Three years earlier, 

Big E and I got laminate flooring for this room at a Home Depot 

Black Friday deal.

It's been sitting in the room for three years,

and finally it was getting installed.

That's our floor guy in yellow.

Kidding.

That's our neighbor who came over to help.  

The weekend before, Big E helped our neighbor with his laminate flooring,

and the favor was returned.

This is how life in small towns should be.

Know, like and help your neighbors.

Luckily, our room didn't require any fancy cuts.

It's basically a box.

The biggest issue was the threshold.

There was a slight incline into the kitchen that they had to figure out.

That and of course the door had to be shaved down

with the added height of the floor.

It was a rainy day.

Not a shocker since all of 2018 was rainy.

The guys used the easy-up canopy to 

make a make shift saw area.

And finally, the finished floor.

We have since put back the trim.

There's still work to be done in here. 

I need to repaint the walls,

spackle and paint the drywall ceiling (and the newly built wall)

and get some accessories for the room.

What an amazing transformation!

Stay tuned!

I have a few completed projects I need to blog about!

I Smell a Project

So there's lots and lots of things going on around the house on lists of things 

that need to get started around the house.  

I'm working on my upstairs hallway project, 

I'm working on prepping Ethan's room for new paint and furniture, 

I'm getting ready to redo the redo on the upstairs bathroom

 (turns out peach isn't a great color after all) 

and I'm Big E is finally getting the laundry room started.  

Back when we were waiting for settlement on the house,

 we saw a huge deal on laminate flooring during a Black Friday sale.  

We bought what we needed for the laundry room, 

and it's been sitting there ever since... for a couple of years.  

The room needs to have a small wall built to enclose the pipes and 

cover the old window opening into the bathroom (the laundry room was once a porch).  

And other than that, it just needs the floor (that can't happen until the wall) 

and some drywall on the ceiling to replace the drop ceiling. 

 Oh, and we need to work on the doorway because 

while helping friends salvage things 

out of the old historic firehouse and community center, 

I might have found a really great door for the laundry room 

that is a little bit wider than the door that's there.

So we need a little bit wider opening, 

and, you know, some minor electrical work 

to move light switches and what not.

No big deal.

But really, isn't this door worth it?

The pebbled glass let's light in, 

but hides whatever mess might be in the laundry room.

And it's a piece of town history.

Totally worth the effort

(says the person not doing the work).

So let the work commence!

We have about a month and half to get it all completed

(before we have our Christmas Open House).

You can read about how we helped salvage stuff here

Catching Up on Summer

I was a little shocked to learn I hadn't blogged here since April.

So I figured one big post of the summer

would get all 2 of my readers you caught up.

In May, we had our first camping trip with the new-to-us popup.

It was also the dog's first camping trip.

I'd say it was a success.

We had rain.

We had a lot of rain.

I think we had more rain than the Biblical flooding of Noah's time.

It was definitely more than 40 days and nights.

We salvaged some stuff from the parochial school at the Catholic church.

Yes, we cut out an entire double door entry way.

We had some baseball.

We starred in the town's annual cabaret show

(this year was based on the 60's)

We dug up more garden space and found bricks.

I really hate bricks.

We had another camping trip, this one being a week long vacation

on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

We saw wild ponies.

We burned stuff.

I started a project in the upstairs hallway.  

It's nearly done, 

and I'll post all the before and after photos when it is.

The garden hosted many monarchs.

I had so many caterpillars that they stripped all of the available milkweed.

I'll have to plant more next year.

(I had a lot- close to 20 large plants)

And there were shenanigans.

We also were going through some stressful times

concerning our family's place on the water.

You can read about that here.

So the summer is behind us,

and there are lots of projects ahead for the fall and winter.

(and more time to blog)

Home Over the Range

Big E has become enamored with Facebook Marketplace.

His latest find was an over the range microwave for $25.

Since I've wanted one

 (I hate that we use precious counter space for the microwave we have)

and this one seemed like it was in pretty decent shape,

he went and got it.

That meant cleaning out all the spices and meds from the cabinet.

So I cleaned out the cabinet,

and finally Big E had an evening to get to work.

He had to cut the cabinet above the stove.

He used this really cool gadget called an oscillating tool.

I NEED one. 

It didn't take long to get everything cut to make room for the microwave.

Really, I didn't even have to move the canning supplies until

he was ready to drill holes for screws and wires.

Take a look at the wall color on the plaster!

After a few hiccups,

we got the thing mounted and in place.

Big E used an extension cord to make sure it worked

(thank goodness it did).

We just needed to cut the doors down to fit 

and put them back in place.

Once everything was back in place,

you couldn't even tell that the doors were cut. 

I'm thrilled with this over the range microwave.

It's much bigger than the one on the counter top,

and now I have a bit more counter space.