The Best Laid Plans

Yesterday was the day I decided to clean up the back porch. I was going to scrub every inch of it. The light fixtures, walls, trim, windows. I was going to get down on my hands and knees and scrub the floor. It was going to sparkle. It was going to smell good. It was going to be so clean I could serve tea to the queen.

As I busily prepared the mountain of cleaning supplies needed for such a daunting task, I heard A hesitantly mutter from the back porch "Uh, Mom".

Upon closer inspection I found this:


Instantly, I was snapped back into reality like a twig in a hurricane.

Now the inside of my refrigerator sparkles.

And Then There's the Zebra

As we continue on our little tour I just wanted to throw out this disclaimer: Under no circumstances whatsoever, did I even remotely have even the slightest responsibility for this wallpaper border.

There is no need to be polite. No need to pretend you didn't see it. It wasn't me, I swear!

Welcome to the front parlor. Also known as the room I never use because it creeps me out to have those dolls staring at me. This is another room that has received little or no attention since we've moved in. We did refinish the floor, removed the mini-blinds and hung some curtains, but that's it so far.

Before:


Now:


The previous owners started installing a gas fireplace and never finished the job. Since this house was built with central heat, there were never any original fireplaces. From what they told us there was yet another door to the left of the fireplace leading to the family room. They left behind this beautiful old fireplace surround, but unfortunately it won't fit the gas insert. We'll either have to get a different insert or different surround. This one is made of oak and all of the woodwork in the house is pine so we're leaning towards a different surround and mantle. That would also give us the opportunity to make built in cabinets and bookshelves on either side to match.

There's another pocket door in this room. All the pocket doors in the house work perfectly. We even have all the original keys.

So one of these days we'll get around to stripping the wallpaper and painting this room. We're planning to add a picture rail with bungalow gold paint above and dark red below. Then add some stenciling. The paint alone should be a major transformation.

It's a Danged Zoo

We keep the other elephant we've been ignoring in the dining room. You'll find it just past the swinging door, in desperate need of refinishing, next to the fridge.

This room has some great features, such as this corner china cabinet and the pocket door leading to the family room. The other door on the left leads to the back stairs. You'll also notice another door behind it that also leads to those stairs from the family room.

So far, we haven't done much of anything with this room other than replace the lighting fixtures. The wallpaper, while I would have loved it in the 80s, is getting tired. So tired in fact you can see that it's trying to peel itself off and fling itself on the floor so it can lay down. I'll be doing the humane thing and putting it out of its misery soon.

Before:After:
Note the odd placement of the window. According to the previous owners there was yet another door to left of it leading to the back porch. You can see through the door on the left there is also one in the kitchen. There was also a door to the right of the window leading to the basement steps. I'm telling ya, the builders must have gotten one heck of a deal at a door sale.

They took the extra doors out so they could install the original kitchen cabinets here to use as a buffet. They're great, but they don't go all the way across the room. That and the fact that the window now seems out of place drives me bonkers. I'm kinda particular, okay anal, about stuff like that. It seems out of balance and I notice it on a daily basis. So this cabinet is coming out and will be located in the new mudroom.


Of course it's not just that simple. This is the only room, other than the laundry room and the upstairs bath, that has vinyl flooring. There's hardwood under there just like in the rest of the house. Of course they installed the vinyl after the cabinet so once it's removed, so goes the vinyl. Which wouldn't be a bad thing and we probably would have already taken on that project, but the previous owners also informed us that there once was a bathroom in this room. A bathroom with some yucky tile that was put down with a tar like substance. So there's tar on the wood floor. This is not going to be an easy project. And if we're going to go to all that trouble, we still need to figure out something about that darned out of balance window. The simple solution would be to add another window.

The other major question though is, should we open up that wall between the kitchen and the dining room? We wouldn't be able to get rid of it completely or my sewing machine upstairs would end up landing in the sink. But we could open it up considerably and make it look just like the other pocket doors in the house. We'd have to move the corner china cabinet to the opposite corner. Then move the current window over to the left. And make one heck of a mess in the process.

For the most part, the way we live on a day to day basis there's not much need to open it up. We have breakfast and lunch in the kitchen and dinner in the dining room. But when we entertain, which doesn't happen all that often since I live with two anti-social men, the dining room seems really, really cramped. Any more than six people and it's elbow to elbow. Not to mention that the rooms just seem all chopped up in comparison to all the modern homes with that "great room" concept.

So do we leave the wall and the cool old swinging door? Or do we yank it out and open up the rooms? And THAT my friends is why I haven't done a darn thing to my dining room yet. I'd have to make a decision.

What do you think?

The Elephant in the Kitchen

We've tried ignoring it, we've pretended it wasn't there, but our big honkin' refrigerator stands out like a guy wearing pink.

Overall the kitchen isn't in that bad of shape. It's not my dream kitchen but I've certainly lived with worse. I've always wanted an eat in kitchen with a farmhouse table. The location of the fridge drives me insane though. I don't think it was intended to be directly in the flow of traffic. I suspect the previous owners moved it there when they decided to partition off the back porch and add a door to what they called a pantry.

Before:

Another "upgrade" I wish they'd left alone. It's vinyl floor and melamine cabinets were lending nothing to the old fashion charm around here. And the two foot wide coat closet was grossly inadequate. It's a five bedroom house in Indiana for crying out loud. That's barely enough room to hold the spring outerwear, let alone the big-n-fluffy size winter coats and every other variety of layer known to man required to survive in these conditions.

But in spite of all that, I thought I could live with it for a while until we could get around to redoing the whole kitchen. Until one day earlier this spring when I decided to paint the pantry.
I had already stripped the wallpaper border and painted the kitchen.

Before:
After
Pleased with the result, I thought it would just be lovely to have the pantry match. Seemed like such a simple thing. Figured I'd have the whole project done by the end of the day. Mwah, ha, ha, ha, ha. Yeah, that didn't happen.

See, once I got in there we realized the gap between the cabinet and the wall was so large it would be nearly impossible to paint and have it look decent. I had already removed all the contents and shelving for the closet. So we thought maybe we could just move the cabinets out temporarily as well. So we detached them from the wall and promptly got them stuck in the door. They must have been assembled in place. The only way to get 'em out was to take 'em apart. Well, we knew we didn't like the cabinets. And we never had any intention of keeping them. We also didn't like the floor. We needed to reconfigure the kitchen someday anyway...blah, blah, blah. So one thing leads to another, as it always does, and the next thing you know we had the room gutted.

Right about that time the weather warmed up and the outdoor projects started calling our names. So we've been sitting here not only with an unpainted pantry, but a huge honkin' fridge AND a giant hole in the wall for five months now. Instead of the hole where the monster fridge would be recessed and the glorious mudroom I had envisioned on the other side, it's become my woodworking project finishing room.


But not for long! Now that the final coats of paint have been applied to the porch, it's time to get that hole filled with a fridge. I'll lose my handy finishing room, but that's okay. I'm afraid we'll be needing the expanded coat closet space before we know it.

Build Your Own Antique

Love antiques but don't have $3,000 to spend on one piece of furniture? Armed with a little bit of scrap lumber and a healthy dose of elbow grease yes, even you can build your own antique. Okay, it helps to have a live in handy man. This chimney cupboard started out as some MDF, part of a sheet of plywood and a little bit of pine. The distressing is the key. Basically we just beat the heck out of it in all the right places. And M hand planed the raised panel doors to add a little more authenticity.

We even added a few extra dings as we moved the piece inside. :)

Then I followed a finishing process that goes something like this: sand, stain, sand, paint, rub, paint, rub, tung oil, wipe, tung oil, wipe, tung oil, wipe, wax, buff, wax, buff. If you missed any of that or just want more details you can follow this link back to Making It Old Again and Making It Old Again continued.



Next woodworking project will be to finish building a sewing table. We've spent some time this weekend scratching our heads on how to get the machine to recess into the top. We think we have a solution, stay tuned.

A Farmer's Daughter

Seeing how I don't really have any home improvement news to report yet this weekend, and we've been talking about farming and all, I thought it might be fun to show all of you city slickers how some folks are making a living out here on the plains.

Then: Remember this? This is Old Mr. Kurtz's corn sheller that still sits in our back yard. They would have picked the corn by hand, brought the corn to this and fed it through. This is a "modernized" version. A large belt with a small steam engine would have operated it. Earlier models were hand cranked.



Now: Whoa Nelly! Wouldn't Mr Kurtz be impressed with this contraption? We've come a long way baby!

It's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it. (Notice the wiping of the windshield so I can get some pics.) So who's driving this bad boy anyway? Meet the modern farmwife a.k.a. Mom.


So we're cruising along devouring everything in sight. Throwing the fear of God into any varmints that might be lurking in the field. This is not like mowing your lawn folks, you've got to line it up just right or you end up just smashing everything (which would be uh, bad). And the dust, oy. It might be an air conditioned cab, but it's still dusty as all get out.

As we go, we can monitor how much grain we're picking with this new computerized GPS yield tracking device. Wouldn't this just blow Mr. Kurtz's mind?

Once we've gone a round it's time to unload. This is trickier than it looks. The idea is to make it nice and even and fill the wagon so it looks like the top of a nice fresh loaf of bread without spilling it out all over the ground (which would be uh, really bad). Easier said than done. This thing isn't exactly nimble.
Once the wagons are full, off they go. Either to be sold or stored. Well the grain, not the wagons.


Repeat this process, over and over and over from dawn to dusk. Eat, sleep and do it all again the next day. So there you have it, harvest in a nutshell. Doesn't it make you want to run right out and buy a tractor?

Everything but the Kichen Sink, No Wait...

By golly, that IS the kitchen sink. One of my favorite readers (out of all three LOL) mused about where on earth we keep finding things such as old doors on our property, so if you'll walk out back with me I'll take you on a tour of the old corn crib.


I desperately want to clean up and reinstall these fixtures. It won't happen overnight though. The current location of the kitchen sink is directly below a window and this model, as you can see, has a wall mount faucet. This creates a problem. Is it insane to completely redesign your kitchen around an old plumbing fixture?


the bathroom sink

the tub only needs a little polishing, eh?


Doors and whatnot
And finally, you know you're in Indiana when the basketball goal is in the corn crib.