The Making of a Bed and Breakfast

Tub Refinishing

2012-02-02T11:31:00.000-05:00

Not a large post today, but did want to tell you that Tim scheduled to have the tub refinished on February 23rd. I've been hearing very positive feedback about tub refinishing, so I'm hoping we've made the right decision. I guess we'll know in about a month! In the meantime, Tim finished up the transitions in both the bathrooms and they look fabulous.

This weekend is Tim's birthday, so I'm not expecting him to get anything done. In fact, I have a few surprises planned for him, instead!! (Happy Birthday, Tim!)

Kitchen Planning

2012-01-23T12:49:00.000-05:00

I haven't been completely idle. I've spent the last 2 weeks deep scrubbing the kitchen, thanks to Mr. Dead Rodent. I finally found the right tool to get the finger grease from decades of use on the kitchen cabinets and the walls beside the oven off. Yes, some of the cabinet wood is a bit "worn", but I don't mind -- at least I now know it's clean. When we first moved in my mom and I used every cleaner we could think of - de-greasers, Goo-Gone, vinegar, baking soda... the list goes on. I won't tell you what I finally used, because it's a bit embarrassing, but it's now, finally, clean.

As I deep-cleaned, rearranged, organized, etc., I kept a running list of small repairs that the kitchen needed. As Tim was waiting for something to dry or set-up, he came in and knocked a couple of those repairs off the list. The kitchen is finally beginning to come together. I still need a new floor, sink, counter, faucet and bright yellow paint with blue accents; but overall, it's a room I may be able to spend some more time in now.

Doesn't everything just gleam?! Mr. Dead Rodent is only a faint memory in the area of the cabinet by the 'fridge...

Another thing I did, based on an idea I saw on Home MadeSimple, was make a What's For Dinner Menu Planner. Over the last week I've had everybody in the family tell me what their favorite recipes and meals are and wrote them down. I also went through my four most used cookbooks, in which I keep notes, and wrote down the favorites from those. I included the cookbook title and page number.

Yesterday I bought a magnetic/dry erase board and extra magnets. I typed in all the recipe names (and cookbook info if necessary) and printed it all out on card stock. I cut the card stock into individual "cards" and the kids selected 6 recipes at random for the week (one day is for leftovers or pizza night). Then, each kid picked a random day of the week to cook. The thought/hope is that they'll learn how to cook, not based on what they like or already know, but by being challenged by the randomness of it all. It should encompass most things. I hope.

I decided to try this out for several reasons... first, we eat out too much. Second, we don't eat healthy enough and finally - my son leaves for college in August. While he can make an awesome omelet and knows his way around a mac and cheese box, he needs to be a bit more kitchen savvy than that.

It begins tomorrow... let's see how it works!

New Look and More

2012-01-22T17:09:00.000-05:00

I'm setting up a blog for a friend of mine and thought it was time to update the look of this blog. When I started this blog back in 2007, the skin choices were limited. Blogger has now greatly expanded their choices and I thought this wallpaper was much more appropriate to the style of the house and of the blog. I hope you like it. I may be playing around with it a bit more.

While I've been playing on the computer, Tim has been hard at work in the bathroom. The wall behind and around the medicine cabinet is finished and painted. He hasn't installed the medicine cabinet, yet, but I expect that will go in tonight.

He finished painting the chair rail for behind the sink and installed it. All he has to do there is caulk it. I'm very happy with the look of it. It's very "finished" looking, if that makes sense!

Tim also spent a good part of yesterday building the new transitions for the doorways from the bedrooms into the south wing bathroom. The height difference between the bedroom floors and the bathroom floor in the south wing isn't as big as the difference is in the north wing, so the transitions were a little easier to put together.

As before, he's using the reclaimed wood from the oak flooring we found under the tile in the north wing bathroom to build the transitions. Here (above) he's grouting the transition against the tile floor. I think the look is very clean and will keep folks from tripping over the floor!

As I'm typing, he went back into the north wing bathroom to finally permanently install the transitions in that bathroom. If you remember, we had them dry-fitted to see if we were going to like them. Since we liked them, it is probably time (after well over a year) to permanently install them. He's also patching the grout work between the shower enclosure and the neighboring wood closet. The original grout the contractor put in has pulled away from the wood.

I haven't been idly sitting at the computer. I'll post tomorrow on my kitchen escapades!

Chair Rail vs Sink

2012-01-18T09:19:00.000-05:00

One of the problems with the sink we purchased is that it extends up beyond the chair rail that Tim had already installed. He removed it before he began installing the support system behind the wall. Unfortunately, he damaged it while removing it.

After Tim finished all the sink plumbing over the weekend, he "scribed" (is that the term I want?) the back of the sink, then transferred that to the chair rail. He cut it to fit and dry fit it. Once he saw that it was going to work, he fixed the nail holes from before and re-primed it. One side was damaged enough that he had to do a completely new one.

On the left is how it will fit to the back of the sink. Once that gets caulked, it should look great. I actually think that having it fitted to the curve of the back of the sink will be different enough to make it look -- well - more retro. Maybe I'm deluding myself.

The Fancy Car

Tim's work schedule kicked up a notch again, so he won't be able to get back to this little project until Friday. Hey - that's why he drives the fancy car (with 190K miles on it).

I'm hoping he gets a lot of the bathroom finished by the end of this weekend. We've decided to take on a pseudo-border. She is somebody that Tim worked with in a previous job who was just hired by his current organization. She lives out of state and needs to sell her condo before she can move here. In the meantime, she commutes to the corporate office here for about four days a month. Staying here saves her money on hotel bills. Since she's staying adjacent to the only full working bathroom in the house, we need this second bathroom finished... quickly!

It's Sinking In

2012-01-16T19:24:00.010-05:00

Don't judge my titles. It gets tough to come up with new ones all the time.

Tim spent yesterday doing some last minute spackling and sink-prep.

Today he installed the sink. The wall clips in the picture on the left are to support the sink basin. They anchor the sink to the wall to keep it from toppling off the base.

Tim then pre-drilled the holes that will hold the bolts to keep the sink from tipping side to side.

After setting the basin on top of the pedestal, he connected the water to the faucet and fitted the drain pipe to the sink drain.

Then came his least favorite part... seeing if it leaked (right). It did. Not very much, but enough. A couple of minor adjustments and all is well -- no leaks. (below)

The water is running well, the pipes and drains don't leak, the sink sits level and centered and it all looks good.

Tim is now stenciling around the top of the sink basin to transfer onto the chair rail. It will have to be molded around the curved sink top. Keep your fingers crossed, this will be somewhat intricate work, I'm afraid. I may leave the building for when he cuts that out...

While I was sitting in the tub taking pictures, I realized just how nice the opposite wall really looked. I'm loving the color combination with the floor. Definitely the 1930s retro look I was going for. For a small bathroom, this should have some panache!

I'm now trying to decide what artwork to use. I found four great pictures online that fit the color scheme and the era perfectly. They are tastefully done partial nudes, so I have to consider them carefully. My other thought is to find the pictures online that I used as inspiration for this bathroom remodel, print them off and display them. I just really like the prints.

Sherry... or Amontillado?

2012-01-12T10:59:00.000-05:00

I can't but help the title when Tim's been working on repairing and rebuilding walls all weekend. Just a little amount of dark humor to start your day.

Tim finished the wall behind the sink and repainted it. I was hoping to get some pictures of the support system he put in behind the wall for the sink, but he finished it and closed the wall up pretty quickly. I may need to have him start taking his own pictures as he goes along.

The sink is ready to install. He's planning on recessing the back of the sink into the chair rail, which will also need to be reinstalled. Hopefully I'll have pictures of the installed sink up next weekend.

Tim has a few concerns about the plumbing for this sink, so we'll be bringing our plumber in to do the hook-ups and make sure all is done correctly. I believe I've said this before... Tim's two downfalls are plumbing and electrical. He'll only do the very basics on either. Making sure everything is up to code and safe is the most important thing.

While waiting for the paint to dry, he started fitting the new medicine cabinet into the wall. It seems that when the manufacturers say that a medicine cabinet will fit into an opening "this big", that isn't entirely true. I'm not sure I understand why this happened, but Tim had to make the opening smaller. He made the adjustments at the top of the opening and patched it up. He'll have to sand and repaint this area, too.

While taking a couple pictures in the bathroom, I thought I'd also get a picture of the bathtub that we are looking into having refinished. You can see that there's no corrosion or rust - it's just many, many years of build-up from improper cleaning.

P.J., a regular reader of my blog, recommended that we look into having it refinished. Ironically, Tim and I had just been talking about that during lunch earlier that day. One of Tim's co-workers used to refinish tubs and recommended it. This way we'll get the white tub to match the rest of the bathroom, keep our nice cast iron tub and it will look much nicer. We do not want the type that fits over top of the old tub... We want the porcelain look. This Old House has a great article on tub refinishing.

We're now looking for good tub refinishers in the area. If any of our readers know of a good one in southeastern PA, just let us know.

Pickled Rodent

2012-01-08T20:33:00.000-05:00

Each year Tim and I throw a party. Some years it's very small, other years it's very big. This year was our 20th Annual Party, so we decided to do a Holiday Open House. We had a great time! We really do have some fabulous friends!

The problem with this year's party, though, was the smell coming from the kitchen. About 1 - 2 weeks before the party, I smelled something like feces in my kitchen. The room with the dogs' crate is behind the kitchen in the old, unfinished garage. Thor often breaks out of the crate and the rest of the garage is used as their bathroom. We finally figured out a way to keep Thor from breaking out of the crate (this dog should go for hire - he can pick almost any lock) and the room had recently been sanitized. The room still smelled of bleach.

But the smell was coming from near the fridge and the stove -- on the opposite end of where any residual dog stink should have been coming from. Then the smell reminded me of rotten eggs - sort of. Then my son said that it simply smelled like dead animal.

I checked all over the kitchen and could find no dead animal. Tim figured something crawled under the crawl space beneath the kitchen and had the good fortune to die there. He promised that once his foot got better, he'd go check. In the meantime, I had an Open House to throw with a dead animal stink coming from my kitchen. yay.

So - I told our friends to stay OUT of my kitchen at all costs. I can't stand people in my kitchen and this house is not a house where people should be hanging out in the kitchen anyhow, so it was the perfect excuse. However, it really did stink. A lot. But, telling our guests why I didn't want them in my kitchen worked. People stayed out of my kitchen and I kept the smell mostly contained to that part of the house (with the help of lots of candles and pot pourri...).

Fast forward to today. The kitchen still stinks and it's in post-holiday-mess-mode, so I started the spring cleaning early. I pulled the 'fridge WAY out to sanitize the floor and walls around it and the smell was much worse back there. Tim checked inside the back of the refrigerator and lo and behold, there he was. Mr. Small Rodent decided to die behind the refrigerator compressor. Lovely. Tim had an interesting time getting him out of there while keeping him intact.

I figured that while I had the 'fridge out and Tim was in the back playing taxidermist, I would take advantage of the wider open doors of the fridge and clean the inside. Almost immediately, I dropped a jar of pickles, shattering it on the tile...

So, dead Mr. Small Rodent is out of the house and the kitchen now smells like pickled dead animal. Now, at least, I know what the smells are and that they will both fade very quickly.

Country living at its best!

WHEW!

2012-01-04T18:20:00.000-05:00

Have I used this title before? Well, it deserves to be used again, then. 2011 was one helluva year and I'm, quite frankly, glad it's over. 2012 should shape up to be a fabulous year. Our son turns 18, graduates and heads to college (that part is bittersweet). Our daughter goes to France for a week and Tim and I just want to enjoy our limited time with both of them.

Some updates on the house, since that's what this blog is supposed to be about, right? The mailbox... fell. I knew that the piece of wood that came with it just wasn't going to be sturdy enough. My dad and I did a temporary fix on it to get it through the winter. When the spring comes, I'll find a piece of 4x4 and make that thing solid. Other than that, it has made finding our house much easier and just looks so much better.

Tim has been out of commission again with his recurring foot problem. He spent most of November and December without the ability to put his weight on his foot at all. He worked at home. Since I'm home all day, we were obviously around each other a lot and... well... it ends up that we still like each other! That's good to know as we head into empty-nesting.

Once Tim's foot was better, he got back to work on the bathroom that he's been working on forever. He ripped out the wall behind where the sink is going to go and installed a 2x4 between the studs so that he can securely attach the sink top to it. He re-patched the wall, repainted and is now ready to install the sink... probably this weekend. I will be so glad when this bathroom is done. So glad.

I've been looking up ways to get the old cast-iron tub in that bathroom clean. With everything else shiny, bright and new, the tub looks pretty dingy (and it's a creme color). I'm okay with the tub not matching everything else and replacing it would be foolish... a good cast-iron tub in good shape is not something to throw away willy-nilly! What I've found is that it will need a lot of elbow grease, no matter what I do.

I'll get pictures of the sink install this weekend.

So the new year is off and running. I'm really hoping for a much more productive 2012 than 2011! Here's wishing you all a happy, healthy and joyful 2012 (and productive)!!

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night..."

2011-11-11T13:27:00.000-05:00

"...stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." ~ inscription on the James Farley Post Office, NYC

Except, perhaps, because of a really, really decrepit mail box.

The old mailbox (circa 1960s???) was a metal mailbox attached to a metal post. The joint where the mailbox and post connected had been bent too many times, probably from too many home run attempts during mailbox baseball. When you bend a metal tube too many times, it breaks. The old mailbox wasn't broken off the post... yet. It was only a matter of days. The mailbox was just sort-of hanging from the post and I don't imagine the mail carrier was too happy with that.

So, during our monthly work exchange Dori and I replaced the mailbox.

Tim had received a basic white metal mailbox at a Yankee Swap at his workplace a couple years ago, so all I needed was the post. This one was the most economical and seemed to be one that Dori and I could do on our own in one morning.

While it did take longer than we had expected, we did finish by lunch. I'm happy with it. The other good thing is that our house is now clearly marked with our address, making it much easier to find the place.

I've been looking for metallic mailbox covers. I haven't been able to find any in the stores, but there are a lot of places that carry them online. My favorite place is Flag Fables. They seem to have the biggest selection and the most reasonable prices.

The problem is that so many of them are very "country" themed and that's not really the theme of our house. I do, however, like this one for the fall. There are a couple others that I really like. I will be placing an order today!

The final thing I need to consider is what I want to put at the base of the mailbox. I'm thinking I should put some spring-blooming bulbs in now, before the ground freezes, then I'll deal with what will follow next spring.

Next up - maybe some outdoor lighting along the driveway...???

Spoooooky

2011-10-27T10:55:00.001-04:00

I've been a ghostly presence here, I realize. I've spent the last month plus running the specialist gamut with my son and volunteering for the JDRF's Kids Walk program. I'm just now starting to settle down. Believe it or not, the holidays are usually a slower time for me than the fall.

As far as house-progress, there has been a little made. We've had telephone line problems since we moved in. Any time it thought about raining, our phones would go out. The phones, when they did work, were never that clear. Fortunately, Verizon makes it easy to forward our land-line to my cell phone, but we just don't like the idea of not having a reliable land-line.

Tim has spent the last few weekends replacing all the phone lines. The line into the security system was fine, so we knew it wasn't an outside issue. He traced the issue back to a very old and rusty junction box in the basement. He replaced the box, then has been replacing each and every line and phone jack. He's replacing all the line with Cat 5 Cable, giving us the opportunity to use it for other purposes, if needed.

It's taking so long because there are at least 9 phone lines in the house. I think there are more. Fishing the line up through the cinder-block walls has been interesting. Some of it has come from the outside, some has come from the attic and some has to be run from the crawl spaces. Tim is making sure that all the lines come from inside the house and that each line is clearly labeled for future reference.

Once this project is finished, Tim will finish the south wing bathroom. The holidays often bring many guests and the second full bath will be much needed.

Once that bathroom is finished, winter may see a lot more indoor changes that can quickly occur. Or at least I hope so!!

Happy Halloween!!!!

Hurricanes and Hospitals

2011-09-18T21:27:00.001-04:00

Once again, it's been another long time since my last post. It has been a hectic month. We survived the earthquake and Hurricane Irene just fine. We also survived the rain the following week that caused so much more damage to Pennsylvania than Irene did. We are very thankful that we had the trees taken care of last fall. We feel very fortunate and hope that those friends and colleagues of ours who are still dealing with the clean-up from these events are able to recover quickly.

The other thing that has kept us very busy is that our son, who just started his senior year in high school, has been very sick. He was finally admitted to the hospital last week for tests and stayed there until Thursday. The weeks leading up to it were packed with doctor's appointments and all sorts of tests. Overall, our son has been handling it very well. He is glad to be back at school, though, so he can graduate on time. Tim and I are exhausted.

Tim is getting close to finishing the south-wing bathroom. He has to remove part of a new wall so that he can attach the sink-top to the studs behind it. He's not thrilled about it, so is procrastinating.

One thing the last few weeks of storms and rain did prove to us is that our phone lines really do need to be dealt with. Anytime it rains or the wind blows, we lose our land-line. This past weekend, while I was finally planting the mums I bought just before Irene, Tim started tracing all the phone lines back to find out where the issue is. When we switched to Verizon last year, they added a new box downstairs, but connected it to the old outside box through this weird connector-thing inside. The connector-thing (I really don't have a better name for it) is corroded and very old. We also have two different types of phone wires here. The best thing to do is rip out all the phone lines and replace it all with new - attaching it to the new Verizon box.

We have, I believe, 10 different phone jacks here in the house. Some are the old four-pronged jacks and some are the new ones. It's a lot of new phone wires, but it will be good to have it all done correctly and updated. That's been the theme here - replacing the old and worn-out completely, rather than just trying to piece it together. It's easier and safer.

So that's another quick update. I hope to be able to post more house-remodeling pictures soon!

Guns and Bathrooms

2011-08-07T16:33:00.000-04:00

Summers are so busy! Last weekend, Tim and I went up to the Finger Lakes to meet my college friend Gill and her boyfriend for some wine tastings. It was a much-needed weekend away for us and it was so good to see Gill.

This weekend my son and I went up to visit my parents so that Tim could finally work on the south wing bathroom. It's easier if we clear out of the house so he doesn't have to adhere to the family schedule. Our daughter actually stayed here, with the express understanding that she was not to bother him AT ALL. She had a weekend of social activities planned, anyhow. They both say that she stayed out of the way and was a help when needed, even. Whew. I had some concerns...

While up visiting my folks, I helped my dad with his Elks Club's annual Gun Drawing. For the last few years I've helped out, usually selling tickets or serving food. This is a central PA phenomena that is highly difficult to explain, but I'll try... Between the hours of noon and 5pm, they raffle guns, eat, drink from the "beer truck" and generally raise a lot of money for the various Elks charities. Usually over 1000 people attend, coming from all over central PA. You'll see all stripes of people, from Harley gangs to country club boys. Sometimes other regional Elks Clubs will bring busloads of people. There's so much more to it, but -- well - it's just an experience.

This year I checked people in. They are VERY careful about not allowing anybody under 21 even on the property; so we stamp tickets, check ID and give them a wrist band. If one of the volunteers sees somebody without a wrist band, they check their ticket to make sure they belong there. All tickets are registered to a name, so there is somebody accountable. Needless to say, security is necessarily tight.

I usually get to see a few of my high school classmates and see the friends of my dad's that watched me grow up. I also realized I was getting old when I was carding the "young" ones and they were actually 35. yikes. So it's always interesting.

When I got back, Tim was painting the trim that he spent a lot of the weekend milling up. We are going with the green, tan and white color scheme to be somewhat authentic with 1920-1930s bathrooms. I like it, although it's only the first coat.

I can see where we may have a second full bathroom (and a TUB!) by this fall. I hate to put a time-frame on it, as I've not been very successful with that in the past.

Transition problem.

One of the issues that Tim is trying to solve is what to do with the transition area between the tub surround tile and the door frame. A piece of quarter round fits nicely, but it doesn't work so well beside the tile above the door. It seems that we should be able to find a quarter round in the tile, but we've looked and looked.

Hopefully, by week's end, I'll be able to have some "close-to-final" pictures.

The Grass Is Always Greener

2011-07-25T11:10:00.000-04:00

When we first bought this house, over three years ago, our time-frame was to open the B&B in about three years. Yes, I guess you could say that we've reached that three year deadline. We tend to think that no, we haven't, because it is still, oh, about "three years" until we open.

Three years later also means that it was time to have our septic tank pumped, per township requirements. When the system was installed, the installer told us to flip a switch each year to switch the tanks. We could never figure out how to do this and where the heck the switch was, so we waited until the septic guys came to pump it for an explanation.

Well, there is no switch. There are two septic tanks, but they're designed to overflow into each other, not be switched back and forth. It has left Tim and me shaking our heads about how we both misunderstood that, but clearly we did. No harm done.

The only problem they encountered was that there were big branches in the bottom of the first tank blocking the overflow into the second tank. I would think that would've been something the installers would have picked up on, but they didn't. The upper overflow was not working well because the top of the sewage is mostly solids. So, the first tank was full and the second tank was mostly empty. Still, nothing was over-full and no harm was done there either.

The septic field was just fine, so all-in-all our "new" septic is working just as it should and definitely has the capacity needed for this house and the upcoming B&B.

As much as I hate to say it out loud, something went right. Knock on wood.

"The world belongs to the enthusiast..."

2011-07-23T11:07:00.001-04:00

"...who keeps cool." ~William McFee, author

Each year we've been here, the summers have become increasingly hotter and more humid. Pennsylvania has humid summers, but not usually temperatures in the 90s and even the 100s... until now.This house does not have central air. We have cinder block walls from the basement to the roof, which is great insulation. It holds the heat longer in the winter and keeps it cool longer in the spring. Up until now, we've been able to manage the hot summers with well-placed exhaust fans in the windows and tower fans. Most of the time, it gets cool enough at night to then open it all up, let it cool down again, then start over again the next day.

This summer has completely defeated that routine. Last night the temperature dropped to a low of 82ºF and they haven't dropped below 72ºF for almost a week. The cinder block has turned into oven bricks, holding the heat in and slowly roasting all of us.

We finally went last night to get air conditioners. We now have one in our master bedroom, the upstairs foyer (which will help with the downstairs a bit) and our daughter's room. We also bought one for our son's room, but he said he didn't need it. I think last night may have convinced our son otherwise, though. His will go in today.

We have gone back and forth on installing central air in this house. Because of the cinder block walls, running regular ducts isn't realistic. We've looked into the miniature ducts that can be fished through the walls (assuming the cinder blocks line-up well enough) and the 2nd floor only-style which you hope then keeps the first floor cool enough.

The house is so big and so much of it isn't used regularly that I question the expense of a central air system at all. Air conditioners in each room allow us to use them only as needed and allows guests to use them at their comfort level.

We slept in cool comfort last night. I still prefer to live in a temperate climate where air conditioning isn't needed at all, but it seems that the weather gods have a different idea for Pennsylvania. I think I'll plant my citrus trees next summer.

Later today I'm playing at the Newark, DE Food and Brew Festival. Outside. THIS should be interesting!

Out of the Woods?

2011-07-20T17:28:00.000-04:00

We are not sure if we dodged a bullet or not. Only time will tell. The shower drain wasn't draining because of hair. Such a typical problem, isn't it? My daughter and I both have long hair, so I guess it's not surprising, but I didn't think it would take such a short amount of time to clog it up.

Yeah - it was pretty gross.

Tim went looking for a finer mesh drain, with no luck. He's probably going to fashion one of his own. In the meantime, we're breathing a sigh of relief as well as keeping our fingers crossed.

Back onto other projects... if this heat breaks, that is.

The Bathroom From Hell

2011-07-16T17:04:00.000-04:00

The router that Tim needs to do the woodwork with for the south wing bathroom came in just before we left for England. He's been catching up on post-vacation house stuff (dealing with the 3-week neglected front yard, plowing through his backed-up work emails, gettingetc.) and hasn't had a chance to start the mouldings, yet.

The north wing bathroom, however, just doesn't want to be ignored. This is the bathroom we finished last December. The shower isn't draining.

Here's a refresher on the history of the north wing bathroom... When we moved in, the north wing bathroom had recently been redone because a branch had fallen into the roof above it. It had new tile floor and new fixtures - except for the shower. We thought this was the one bathroom that didn't need anything, so we started using it. Well, the old shower started leaking right away. Since the rest of the bathroom was new, we rebuilt the shower only, getting coordinating tile with the new tile that was already on the floor. Almost immediately after the shower was finished (and Tim had started ripping out the south wing bathroom), the sink stopped up.

Tim stopped work on the south wing bath, reinstalling the toilet over the bare sub-floor, and started investigating the sink stoppage in the north wing bathroom. The old galvanized steel pipes in the north wing bathroom were beginning to corrode shut, so - we had to rip out the tile floor that the previous owners had just installed and part of the wall behind the sink so we could replace all the pipes. When we were all finished, there was only 9" of galvanized steel pipes left under the brand-spanking new shower that we couldn't get to because we didn't want to rip up the newly custom-tiled shower floor - and it was still in good shape.

We knew it might come back to bite us, but at the time it was better to hope that those 9" would remain in good shape. We figured if it didn't go bad, then we saved us from ripping up the shower floor and if it did, then we'd rip it up at that point.

Well, it seems those 9" went bad. So, we're going to have to rip up the custom tile floor and transition, replace those final 9" and re-tile it all.

Without that shower, we have no other place to bathe in the house right now. We can still use the shower in the north wing -- it's just draining slowly. We don't want to push it, though, so Tim has to absolutely finish the south wing bathroom right away.

This north wing bathroom has been plaguing us with problems since day one and we thought this was the one bathroom we didn't have to do anything to at all.

Maybe it goes along with the ghost in there...

Traveling

2011-07-06T11:11:00.000-04:00

We just returned from a whirlwind tour of England - southern England, to be more specific - and we loved it. Our son is headed into his senior year in high school. Between that and the opening of our B&B, family vacations are coming to an end, so we're taking advantage of them while we can.

For the first week, we had a 2 bedroom, 2 bath flat in London, but after that we stayed at B&Bs or Guest Houses. I did some professional espionage.

All three of the B&Bs that we stayed at had accommodations so that all four of us could stay in one room. Tim had a really hard time finding that.

Our first one, which was the largest and closest to an actual inn of the three, was more like a hotel room, but had a full-size bed with 2 single beds. That's perfect when your two teenagers are of different genders. In the second, which was a "guest house", we had a king-size bed and two single beds, all tucked very nicely into an adorable attic room of a row home. The third B&B - probably the closest one to a B&B that we had, was also a full-size bed and a single bed, with a sturdy and substantial single cot added.

The inn served us a choice of either a continental breakfast or a full English breakfast along side a small buffet of cereals, pastries and fruit. The guest house served breakfast off a limited but very adequate menu and the B&B gave us an a la carte menu to choose from the night before, along with the time we'd be eating breakfast.

All three had very nice, private, modern bathrooms, with only the guest house having a tub and a double sink. Since it is England, no rooms had air conditioning and we happened to be there when it was hot (for England). All had windows that opened, though, and that was nice. (Side note: none had window screens, which was weird for us at first, until we realized that there are really no bugs over there.)

The inn's biggest problem I came across was that the inn didn't have any space for your toiletries. They had a small shelf by the shower, but it was completely full with their supplied shampoos and such. The sink was a small pedestal with no room around it and the toilet tank (which I don't like to put my toiletries on anyhow) had a slight curve to it. There also wasn't enough room on the nightstands or desk in the room for them. I made a note to make sure I keep the small table or night stands in our bathrooms for toiletries. The other two places had plenty of space in the bathroom for toiletries.

Like here in the U.S., England is trying to conserve water by asking you to consider not having your towels replaced each day. The problem we had there (and have here, too) is that they don't give you enough hooks to hang your towels on. I made another note...

All-in-all, we were very, very happy with our accommodations throughout our trip. Everybody was very friendly, the places were clean, parking was excellent (with only a slight problem at the guest house) and the food was good. I also saw that we have a long ways to go!

Woodworking

2011-06-29T15:43:00.000-04:00

Tim tried to do the millwork needed for the mouldings for the south wing bathroom. The router bit he bought just isn't going to cut it (no pun intended). He special-ordered one that he's hoping will work. What I'm hoping is that it's going to be one we can use in the rest of the house, since it's going to be made to accommodate thicker pieces of wood than most bits are for.

Since we're kind of ho-humming waiting for the bit to come in, there isn't much going on with the bathroom. We need to get it done by September. In the meantime, we're enjoying our summer with the kids and hoping it doesn't get too hot like last year.

Yeah, I know. It's a short post, but that's really about it for the "State-Of-The-House" right now. My next post should be VERY exciting! (I don't know what it will be, yet, but I am hoping it's exciting!)

Third Party Events

2011-06-24T15:29:00.000-04:00

Two weekends ago I hosted a surprise birthday party for our friend, Kim. Her husband has been trying to throw her a surprise party for 14 years and hadn't been able to pull it off. (Kim is the keeper-of-the-schedule and, well - let's say it's a very flexible schedule!)

With some help from Kim's friends, including a shopping trip to the mall, an afternoon chick flick at the theater and the promise of a girls' night out for some drinks, we were able to make it happen. Whew! It wasn't easy. She kept trying to change the schedule, but our friend Martha had an iron resolve to get this done.

Although this was for a good friend of ours, I still viewed it as a third party event. Mostly because Kim's husband planned most of it, with my input only being what would be needed for the house itself. I provided the space, he provided the catered food, drinks, invitations, etc. I did buy fresh flowers for the house, new tablecloths and some snack food for the bar, but that was about it.

As with all third party events, I learned a great deal about the house's limits. The weather was humid, so the Joyous Porch was the focal point of the party. In fact, if the weather is anywhere near decent, the Joyous Porch is the focal point and not the bar.

I also asked that the caterer not expect to use my kitchen. At all. It's one thing for me to work in there, but it's another thing for somebody else to try to use it. It is not Ready For Prime Time. I keep guests of out there, including family-guests, when at all possible.

The caterer had no problem with bringing things in without use of the kitchen. She was in, set-up and out within 10 minutes. When I asked how many chafing dishes, warming trays, etc. she'd need, she said none, that she had everything taken care of. We only had one dish to return to her, the rest were very, very nice disposable dishes that she didn't want back. It was efficiency at its best, but that efficiency was costly. The experience with this caterer was a good one to have under my belt so I can compare it with others.

The other thing I noticed with this event is that I had time to sit and enjoy a glass of wine with the husband and his friend BEFORE the party began. I'm learning how to do this efficiently myself!

The next planned event, you ask? Another reunion for my husband's fraternity this fall.

Happy Birthday, Kim!! We're all glad you screamed!

The Brandywine Valley Wine Trail

2011-06-20T15:17:00.000-04:00

I think that my friend Kathy's husband, Mark, just won Husband-of-the-Year (behind Tim, of course). For Christmas this year, his gift to her was an excursion each month for the entire year. May's excursion was that he would chauffeur Kathy and a couple of her friends to wineries on the Brandywine Valley Wine Trail. Oh, but there are much worse things to do on a Saturday afternoon!

Kathy deliberately picked the wineries that are farthest from our houses since we've all more than likely already hit those that are closest. We ended up going to three wineries and had a fabulous time! Our favorite happened to be the one closest to our houses, the Kreutz Creek Winery. To be fair, it was the third out of three, so maybe we were loosened up enough to enjoy it, but we really liked all of it!!

None of the wineries were bad, though, and that was the best part of it I've now been to four of the Brandywine Trail wineries and can't wait to get to the other two (or should I say three? A new one is opening soon!).

Wine weekends (with chauffeur) may become a habit here, and should make for some great themed weekends for the B&B once we open!

For more information about the Brandywine Valley Wine Trail, visit their website at www.bvwinetrail.com. Yes - we're also hoping to try out the trail's newest "event", the "Friday Nights Under the Stars" with music, food, wine and polo!

The Brandywine Battlefield

2011-06-10T08:16:00.000-04:00

The Brandywine Valley is the home of one of the largest battles fought in the Revolutionary War - the Battle of Brandywine. With over 15,000 soldiers fighting for the colonists and spreading out over 10 sq. miles, this was a large (and very bloody) battle. It was also a devastating loss for the colonists, because it allowed the British to take-over Philadelphia. I won't go into the entire history of the battle and its consequences here, but you can read about it at: http://www.ushistory.org/brandywine/thestory.htm

The Brandywine Battlefield National Historic Landmark Site is located about 10 minutes from here. If I understand correctly (and please, somebody, correct me if I'm wrong), the site was originally funded by the state of Pennsylvania, but dropped the funding in 2009. Two weeks later, a group of volunteers (The Friends of Brandywine Battlefield [BBPA]) reopened the site so that it could keep telling this important piece of American history. At this time, one state employed maintenance/groundskeeper remains. The rest of the battlefield is staffed by volunteers and staff from the BBPA.

My husband is a huge military history fan. I don't think I've known anybody who knows as much about WWII as he does. His knowledge of most wars is astounding. Our library/conservatory is mostly history books. My dad is a fan of Civil War history and during my parents' travels, often visit Civil War battlefields. While the Revolutionary War is not the favorite of either men, it's interesting enough to both of them that we felt it was time to visit the Brandywine Battlefield this past weekend.

The Visitor Center includes a very small museum, introductory film and gift shop. From there you can go on a tour of the house where General Washington was while commanding his troops during the battle. We then drove over to another house on the property that was there at the time of the battle.

What we didn't do (and didn't realize it was there until now) was take the driving tour of the battle. There are three parts to the driving tour, taking a total of 5 hours. This is something we can do on our own at another time, but we wish we had done part of it on Saturday. It is something that Tim would eat up!

Across the road from the Brandywine Battlefield is the Brandywine River Museum. That's our next local tourist destination.

Sickness

2011-06-08T10:59:00.025-04:00

While doing the yardwork this past weekend, Tim and I noticed these black oozing spots on one of the trees in the front yard.

We don't know what they are, but we're thinking it's not good. We're hoping that it's either
a) nothing
b) easily treated
c) something that won't bother the other trees in the yard, and/or
d) doesn't mean the tree has to come down.

A call to an arborist is needed...

Note: Happy Birthday, Dad! :)

"You Cannot, In Human Experience, Rush Into The Light..."

2011-06-06T09:26:00.001-04:00

"... You have to go through the twilight into the broadening day before the noon comes and the full sun is upon the landscape. " ~ Woodrow Wilson

1. Original size of boxwoods

2. Cut-back boxwoods from two summers ago

Thursday was the monthly Work-Exchange with my friend, Dori. We decided to work on the front beds. The boxwoods that Tim and I cut WAAYY back (1)(2) a couple years ago have shown some great regrowth (3), so it was time to attack the entire foundation bed. Given the success of the boxwood regrowth on the right side of the front door (3), I cut the remaining boxwoods in the front beds (4) back, while Dori weeded. We then mulched and planted a few shade-tolerant annuals.

3. Regrowth of boxwoods

4. cut-back of boxwood to left of front door

kitchen window bed

After Dori left, I dug landscaping stones out of the dirt from the beds by the driveway and repositioned them against the driveway where they belong.

entrance from driveway

cut-back holly

Yesterday, Tim and I cut back the large shrub in the bed by the kitchen windows, then cut the five or six courses of branches off holly tree in the bed on the other side of the steps from the driveway.

This creates a "cleaner" entranceway, but it exposes a lot of dirt that nothing was growing in because the holly had been so overgrown. We're hoping the pachysandra will take-over, but in the meantime, I put my plant hanger there and will get a couple brightly colored hanging baskets for the area.

I still have a few annuals that I didn't have a place for and I'll probably either plant them in the kitchen window box or I'll put them in the bed under the holly tree.

"new" front of house

Because the boxwoods are still so small, it doesn't look like much along the foundation. Boxwoods are slow-growing, so I'll just have to be patient. I'm considering window boxes under the windows that are on either side of the front door. I also would like to get three or four nice Adirondack chairs to put on the walkway that's to the left of the door.

There are so many other landscaping projects to hit next!! I hope Dori's ready for more in July!

Murder. 80's Style

2011-05-30T18:37:00.000-04:00

For our church service auction in April, Tim and I donated a Murder Mystery Dinner Party. Early in our marriage we had bought the How To Host A Murder Wall Street Scandal, but never got around to using it. The post-1987 stock market crash-based murder mystery was for 8 people and, aside from a murder to solve, included dinner and drinks. Our church auctions off items for more than one person not as a package, but by the person. We raised $720 for our church.

We were able to get everybody together this past Sunday and it was a BLAST. Shoulder pads, Ray Bans, blue eye shadow and big hair won the day.

Because all the parts were taken by those who won the bid, Tim and I played Mr. Bear Marquette (the butler) and Ms. Fannie Mae (the maid) respectively. I have to admit, we were so busy waiting on everybody that we would have never been able to have actual roles in the mystery.

We donated the same thing to the JDRF Hope Ball earlier this month, so we won't divulge the murderer. Now that we know what we're doing, we can't wait to do it again for JDRF winners.

We really enjoyed doing it, too. It was an easy way to raise quite a bit of money for both the church and the JDRF. I see us doing this more often and I also see us incorporating it into our B&B, perhaps as special weekends.

In fact - we've already bought our next one... a 1920s murder mystery - perfect for the house!

Three Little Birds...

2011-05-26T09:22:00.000-04:00

"...Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin', 'This is my message to you-ou-ou'..." ~Bob Marley

Detail of tub surround

Tub surround with subway tiles

It's the same ol' thing... Tim's foot just isn't healing, and although his travel has been lighter the last couple weeks, the bathroom is still going slowly. He did get the tile grouted, though, and I think it looks fabulous!

His next project is doing some millwork, including the mouldings. Once that is done, the rest should go fairly quickly. I know -- I keep saying that.

Floor

The outside work has been completely neglected. The biggest problem right now is poison ivy. Lots of it. I'm extremely sensitive to it (see: "...And Everywhere Was A Song..."), so can't work outside. We have it everywhere.

Tim isn't sure just how sensitive he is to it, other than he's been working in these beds and has been fine. I hate to pull him away from the bathroom, when this is something that I would normally be able to do. I'm getting to the point where I may just cover myself in garbage bags and see if that keeps me from getting it. We have it everywhere.

I would love to get back into the bed with my peonies so I can prop them a little better onto the trellis, but that's the biggest patch of poison ivy. They look fine, but could have been better this year.

I also saw that my mint patch is growing again from last year. I wasn't sure if it would regrown, since it's in a pot and not in the ground. We had a very brutal and cold winter. I know that mint is very hardy (and invasive, hence the pot), but I kept my fingers crossed. No worries there!!

This weekend is usually our Blues Festival Weekend at the Chaddsford Winery. Chaddsford, however, has changed the format and it is no longer a Blues Festival. Instead, we have one of Tim's fraternity brothers and his wife joining us to try a microbrewery around here that we just learned about. It's called Twin Lakes Brewing Company. They are not well advertised in the area and the driveway to the brewery isn't even marked. All very deliberate, I believe. My guess is that they do only small batches, because I've not seen their beer in the local bars or distributors. I understand they have a FABULOUS stout, which appeals to both Marty and me! We'll report back what we find out!

More of the same also means that we're running around with the kids' events. The ballet recital was last week. Mom brag moment (so you can skip ahead if you'd like...): My daughter, for the first time in 12 years, looked like a ballerina. Before this year, she looked like a new student, then an awkward adolescent. She looked beautiful and we were very proud of her progress, but this year -- wow.

Her school's chorus concert was earlier this week. I'm so impressed with the music program here. Coming from where we lived before, which focused way too much on sports and not at all on the arts, to be here is an enormous breath of fresh air. The middle school has about 1000 kids and probably over 300 of them are in the chorus. They have to split the chorus up by grade. They do everything from classical (in Latin) works to modern pieces. The 8th grade chorus finished the concert with the school's own string ensemble accompanying Viva la Vida by Coldplay. Amazing! The Jazz Band also performed a great rendition of 25 or 6 to 4 by Chicago (remember --- this is middle school...).

The 6th grade chorus did a fun arrangement of Bob Marley's Three Little Birds.

...AND that segues into my final house post. Our bird from last year is back in the nest by the kitchen door. Three of her four chicks survived her first hatch of the season and they are getting ready to fly the nest. Momma bird is not as nervous about the door opening as last year and seems to be taking us in stride. I was able to take a couple pictures of our own Three Little Birds this morning.

So, we're plugging along. We're frustrated at the slow progress on the house, at the rampant poison ivy and the stink bugs (I won't even go into the stink bugs), but we're enjoying the spring quite a bit and our Three Little Birds.

"Singin': "Don't worry about a thing" - I won't worry!
‘cause every little thing gonna be all right.""

"The days are long..."

2011-05-13T20:58:00.000-04:00

"... but the years are short." ~unknown

Yes. It's been over a month since I've posted. This is what happens when the "contractor" (see "Tim") traveled a lot during April the first half of May AND has a bum foot. So, no work on the house. The bathroom is as it was a month ago - at a stage I can't complete for him. We'd hoped to have the bathroom finished before this past weekend, since we had friends staying with us for the JDRF Hope Ball, but that just didn't happen.

This is one of the drawbacks of not finding a contractor. Tim has a fabulous full-time job, but he's also fabulous at doing the renovations. The renovations are secondary, which is good, because his full-time job is what's paying for them. Eventually we'll get to a point where I can help, but we each have our strengths in the remodeling and mine aren't ready to shine, yet.

This spring at The House In The Woods has been beautiful, though. We had a very rainy April so that even our hickory trees sprouted their leaves earlier than usual. We did lose another tree to a lightening strike. This week has had perfect weather in the 70s with clear skies. Our friend, Mike, said he "slept like a rock and woke up listening to the birds." It doesn't get much better than that. I have to agree.

We've also been busy with the typical kid-spring-activities. Our son had his Junior Prom a couple weeks ago and we did a round of college visits. Our daughter is preparing for her ballet recital, chorus concert and 8th grade formal. I always have said that I think spring with kids is busier than the beginning of school and even the holidays!

As I mentioned earlier, last weekend was the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Hope Ball. Our son was a Youth Ambassador and we had a fabulous time with our friends. We are very, VERY fortunate to have friends who support our goal to cure diabetes. I don't know that I can ever express my appreciation of that enough. We're beginning to utilize the house a bit by donating Murder Mystery Dinner Parties. Those will be fun to host!!!

So, the house renovations aren't progressing, but our lives with teenagers are going too quickly. It's a double-edged sword, to be sure. I would like the house to be finished with the renovations so that we can open the B&B, but that means that The Empty Nest Years are approaching much too fast. Yes, the years are short.

"Indoors or out, no one relaxes in March, ..."

2011-04-06T17:48:00.000-04:00

"...that month of wind and taxes,
the wind will presently disappear,
the taxes last us all the year. ~Ogden Nash

So, March flew by and it's April already. To say that we didn't relax in March is an understatement. We did get our taxes done in March and Tim is still tiling the south wing bathroom; although the month was so busy that not too much else around the house got done.

I think that the spring is the busiest time of the year - worse than the beginning of the school year and worse than the holidays. Fortunately, Tim did not travel as much in March as he has been, so that helped.   My semi-annual alumni board meeting for our college alma mater was in March and was immediately followed by our church's "Big Music Sunday", which included my Teen Choir. The following Tuesday was a Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation fundraiser that we held here at the house. This past weekend was my first "gig" with the Clarion Brass as well as our church auction. The first half of the month was getting ready for the second half of the month!

The result? The downstairs is cleaned and rearranged. We cleaned out the den, moved all the kids books to their rooms, replaced them with the paperbacks from the library/conservatory/living room (yes, still having trouble naming that room), filled in with more of Tim's WWII and Roman history books and rearranged the library/conservatory/living room to accommodate the fundraiser. The "rearrangements" look good and we're keeping them this way. For now.

The fundraiser was a Jockey Person-to-Person clothing party. The representative gave all her profits to the JDRF and we hostesses gave all our free items to the upcoming JDRF gala for auction.   All-in-all, we raised well over $1000 in cash and over $600 in free items for auction. I would say it was a huge success!

Tim did get the front yard raked and "spring cleaned" before the fundraiser.   There's a LOT more yard work to do. While I know that his first priority is to finish the north wing bathroom, preferably before the JDRF gala in May, I don't know what's on his list after that.

Tomorrow is our monthly "housework exchange". This month we're back at my house, so Dori and I are going to finish stripping the wallpaper in the back north wing bedroom. I'd like to get it finished so that I can start looking for paint. We may be able to have the upstairs of the north wing completely (including aesthetics) finished by the end of the summer. WOW!

Slow Tiling

2011-03-08T08:11:00.001-05:00

Tim has been traveling a LOT lately with his job. His recent travel has considerably slowed-down the remodeling process. That's okay. He does have a great career and it is very important that his first focus is that. Unfortunately, I'm not very good (or adventurous enough) at the remodeling part.

However, this housework exchange that Dori and I are doing may just teach me the "just go for it" attitude that I've never seemed to learn. This month was at Dori's house and her project was to reupholster a love seat in her guest room. I've recovered our dining room chair seats, but that's it. Dori has reupholstered this seat before, so we both thought I could get some on-the-job training.

The first thing we did was remove the fold-out bed frame under the seat, then started taking all the staples out from the last reupholstering job. The original seat had an extra attached back pillow that Dori removed at the first reupholstering and didn't replace. She just didn't feel like dealing with it at the time. Unfortunately, that meant that whomever sat in the seat ended up sinking far to the back of it, so she knew that she had to address that problem this time around.

She found some foam that she wanted to try to cut to shape against the back of the couch and I think she needed my moral support more than anything to try this idea out. We traced the outline of the back of the couch on paper, transferred it to the sides of the foam and, using a borrowed electric carving knife, she cut through the foam to get the shape she wanted. She then shaved off the top corner to round it out a little better.

Brilliant!! It worked beautifully! The foam basically replaced the back pillow she had removed all those years ago. AND - the strip of foam she cut off the corner ended up fitting the arms perfectly, which she needed to better pad what had worn into some sharp corners over the years. She says she "dumb-lucks" into these types of things working for her. I'd say so! I need to surround myself with more of this "dumb-luck" -- and learn a few things along the way!

(I did take pictures of the foam-cutting, but can't get them transferred from my phone to the blog right now. I hope to get them up later. )

"...And the words of the prophets are written..."

2011-02-21T19:06:00.000-05:00

"...on the subway walls and tenement halls." ~The Sounds of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel

Tim has been tiling the tub surround with the subway tile. I can never think of subway tile without thinking of Simon and Garfunkel. For some reason, that's soothing to me, in spite of the song's meaning.

The photo to the right is how far he tiled on Saturday. He ripped the black and white row off the back wall once to redo it. He wasn't happy with the original setting. It was a pain to redo, but we are both much happier with the redo and I think it will make setting the subway tile easier as he goes along.

Yesterday he finished that wall and started moving along to the back wall (seen on the left). Tonight he's going to try to finish the back wall. The subway tile is more difficult for him to position than the 1'x1' tiles, so it's going more slowly than he's used to.

One thing that we're having difficulty deciding what to do with is the border on the left wall. If you notice, the subway tile goes up against a column of 4"x4" tiles. We did it this way for a couple reasons. The first is that it better defines the tub area. The second (and more practical reason) is that we couldn't get subway tiles with a bullnose edge, but we could the 4"x4"s. It is working well, EXCEPT for the black horizontal trim. We couldn't get that in the bullnose, either. Tim found a 2"x4" black piece that had the bullnose, so cut it down to size to "cap" the end. It looks horrible. It gives a grout line only two inches in from the edge, then another one another 2" later. We're trying to figure out how to work around this and not coming up with much. Yet. We will.

Overall, I am really happy with the results so far. It definitely is giving me the look I was going for.

Always Something

2011-02-14T09:45:00.000-05:00

Saturday while I was running errands to prepare for dinner guests (giving us a great chance to take advantage of our newly re-arranged dining and living rooms), I noticed that my car was out of washer fluid. About an hour before our guests arrived, Tim decided to go out and fill it up while the task was still fresh in his mind -- and encountered a broken pipe in the garage, spraying water everywhere. This was the pipe that fed the outside water faucet and the water faucet in the garage.

We were very lucky... it had probably broken within a minute or two before Tim went out there, so there was only a very small amount of water in the garage. The other great thing was that not only was the shut-off valve just behind the wall in our laundry room and easily accessible, but it also shut off only that pipe. That makes an easy, temporary fix - shut off the valve, enjoy our guests (which we did very much), wait until the weather warms up and fix it when we're ready to use those faucets.

Whew.

On a side note - I saw my first big, fat robin of the season yesterday. It gets earlier and earlier every year!

How full of trifles everything is!...

2011-02-13T16:45:00.002-05:00

"... It is only one's thoughts that fill a room with something more than furniture.” ~ Wallace Stephens

Many years ago, Tim and I were in a situation where we were sitting at our son's hospital bedside on a 24/7 basis. Since both sets of grandparents wanted to visit, we didn't have a chance to come home and make the house guest-ready. Two of our very good friends came in to change sheets, do laundry and generally make the house more welcoming. Borne of that experience, we created the "housework exchange". Each month we'd go to one of our homes and work on a project that the hostess had chosen. For example, one month we removed all the decorative items from the top of the kitchen cabinets and gave everything a good scrubbing. With three of us working, it took no time at all.

Shortly after we moved here, Tim and I went to a Carrie Newcomer concert at what eventually became our church. Across the aisle from us sat a good friend of mine from high school, whom I hadn't seen since she graduated. We have since renewed our friendship by going out for lunch whenever we get a chance.

Dori loves to rearrange furniture and views my house as a challenge. We decided to do a two-person "housework exchange" and had our first session at my house this past Friday. We first attacked the dining room, at Dori's request.

The most difficult part of the day was lugging a very large curio-cabinet to the upstairs foyer. I'm still not sure how we accomplished it, but it's there! The dining room used to look like the picture on the right. Now it looks like these:

We then decided to go shopping for a small cafe set to put in the corner by the double entrance doors. We didn't find anything we liked, so moved one of the wing chairs there with a reading lamp. That gives us a cozy "tea" area and reading area, helping to make the dining room a little cozier.

What we DID find, though, were three green throw pillows that I thought would coordinate well with the sofa I'd bought at the consignment store last fall. I was sad, though, because that consignment store, the one from which I had bought pretty much all of my antique furniture from, seemed to be out of business.

BUT WAIT! As we were leaving to grab a bite to eat, the consignment shop had only moved - CLOSER TO MY HOUSE!! In fact - it is now just located in the plaza behind my house. The day just kept getting better... there were these two beautiful occasional chairs that went perfectly with the three throw pillows I'd just bought. The chairs were exactly what I needed to complete my newly set-up sitting area in the living room/conservatory/library.

Setting up this sitting area helped with two difficult decisions. First, it makes the bookshelves "fit" better into the room, so we're keeping them there instead of moving them to the den. Second, it gave us a very defined "music area" of the room, something that helps the piano fit in better, too.

The living room/music room/conservatory has ended up being the room we're actually using most right now.

We go to Dori's house next month.

Prime Numbers

2011-02-09T11:12:00.000-05:00

I am married to an accountant. Oh, wait... it gets better - he's a fifth generation accountant. Excitement runs supreme in our household! woohoo! One of his favorite things to do is celebrate birthdays that are prime numbers. (Have I put you to sleep, yet?). This past Saturday was Tim's birthday and I "forced" him to take some time off of remodeling the bathroom so we could spend the entire day together.

The kids happened to be volunteering most of the afternoon at the Food Bank of Delaware and had other plans for the night, so you know we took advantage of the time. We enjoyed every minute of it, too - going for a couples' massage, ate lunch at the Harvest Seasonal Grill, had a drink at the Flickerwood Wine Tasting Room (one of our favorite night spots) and a visited a couple used book stores. All-in-all, it was a fabulous day!

Unfortunately for Tim, this birthday was not a prime number for him. Such a disappointment. So, to make up for it, he spent Sunday priming the bathroom. (OH - really? You didn't see that one coming - prime numbered birthdays, priming the bathroom???) It may not be as exciting as celebrating a prime-numbered birthday, but I'll show you the pictures anyhow.

Okay - I admit. They aren't really exciting at all, but that is the progress he made this weekend. He expects to start with the top coat of paint this week, taking a break to celebrate our daughter's birthday on Thursday.

Admittedly, our daughter is not so excited about whether she's celebrating a prime-numbered birthday or not. She's more worried about what she's going to wear to her formal this year.

Vintage Colors

2011-02-03T19:40:00.000-05:00

I'm not very good at a lot of things, two of which are explaining and drawing. Tim recently asked me to do both. I was trying to explain what I wanted for the south wing bathroom - beige under a chair rail, green trim work and black stenciling on white paint above the chair rail. I even showed him the picture from the January 22nd post. He couldn't quite see past the bead board, so he asked me to draw it out. Well -- this the best I could do with my very limited skills and my son's colored pencil art set:

Just don't laugh at my drawing - it seemed to work well enough to give him an idea of what I wanted. Once again we went with the Sherwin-Williams Harmony Paint since Tim was happy with it how nice it was to work with when he did the north wing bathroom.

I chose the Utterly Beige for below the chair rail. I think it's fairly close to the once Michele suggested (sorry, Michele - they didn't have that exact color...). I chose the Restful for the trimwork.

Restful

Utterly Beige

Michele's suggestion

The sales clerk at our paint store also showed me the Sherwin-Williams Historic Collection Palettes! FABULOUS! I brought home the Victorian, Jazz Age and the Streamlined Years palettes. When I got home to look up the Arts and Crafts palette, I found this great tool! So much fun!

Tim needs to do one more coat of primer and expects to start painting the ceiling and walls this weekend.

"When snow falls..."

2011-01-28T14:57:00.000-05:00

"... nature listens." ~Antoinette van Kleeff

Once again, we are blessed with a snow-filled winter. I figured that last winter was our "big, snowy winter" for the decade, but apparently not. Much of the snow-events have fallen short of the weather forecasts here in our corner of Chester County, but this one on Wednesday completely made up for the over-predictions of the past "storms". Finally, we received a significant amount of snow. And it's beautiful.

This storm brought us a total of about 15". Tim was in Phoenix when it hit, so couldn't get a flight back. Thinking he'd have more luck from Chicago, he flew there. He almost got stranded in Chicago, but finally made it home late last night. He's glad to be home. We're glad to have him home.

House remodeling for the Myers family has been reduced to clearing the driveway so we can get the cars in and out. The kids and I worked a good part of yesterday doing just that, ignoring the front walk and focused on getting in through the kitchen door. While we were working, Tara and Thor enjoyed the new landscaping.

The one big drawback is that it's a heavy, wet snow and I'm afraid that a lot of our shrubs and smaller trees have taken a major hit. I'm very glad we had the big trees pruned this fall. Many of our friends have lost some large trees that have caused a lot of damage. We came through it with no large branches down.

This weekend is planned to be a work weekend around the house. Tim hopes to focus on the bathroom again, now that his gallivanting is done for awhile.

Off To the Farm

2011-01-23T14:09:00.000-05:00

You know by now that I love living here! The arts, the culture, the beautiful landscape... I could go on. One of the things I love about the summer is Kennett Square's Farmers Market. Every Friday from May until October, they have a bunch of great things downtown, including live music! Last year they added a small craft fair for one Friday, too - across the street. I think the idea will take off.

This year, they're trying a Winter Farmers Market. It's held once a month from November to April. There were enough stands to make it worthwhile, including two produce stands with lots of fresh lettuces and greens, some baked goods and many of the summer standards. I ended up not buying any food, but I did ask the "25 Cent Architecture Consultant" (picture the psychiatrist stand that Lucy from Peanuts sets up...) about finding a good structural engineer. He was immensely helpful. The scissors and knife sharpener was there, too, but I always forget to take my knives.

One stand really caught my attention. Two college students were raising money for their cross-country bicycle trip - but not just for a "we're doing this so we can say that we did it", but for something good! As they say in their website,

"Our mission is simple, to connect girls with their local food chains by working together to support community- based agricultural projects, as well as to encourage girls to stay healthy by participating in recreational activities. By helping girls make the connection between exercise and eating locally, and healthier and more connected communities, we hope to encourage the development of strong women who are conscious of the local issues facing themselves and their communities."

They will primarily be presenting to Girl Scout troops along the way, since their target audience is girls. I love the idea. You can read about their adventure on their blog The Localmotive Bike Tour 2011.

So, once again - my trip to the KSQ Farmers Market was successful! I love living here.

While Scrolling Through the Net One Day...

2011-01-22T12:56:00.000-05:00

If you remember, yesterday I mentioned that I had found a great site with some awesome vintage pictures of homes from the 1930s. The pictures came from Antique Home Style, a "... repository of vintage design inspiration...".

This picture of a bathroom really caught my eye: 1931 Church Bathroom Ad For Toilet Seats. Notice the black and white floor and the white bead board. Also notice the green accent. We aren't doing bead board, but we may do a chair rail. This picture has given me some solid ideas...

My friend Michele suggested this color for the walls. I like it. It's more "mushroom-y" than the "bona-fide beige", which is somehow appropriate. If we paint the wall below the chair rail this color here, paint the chair rail and other mouldings white, then stencil above the chair rail to somewhat mimic the wallpaper in the above picture, that might work.

It's not a big room, so I don't want the walls to be fussy. I like the simple black and white design in the picture. I also don't want to paper, because it's a pain to remove and I could accomplish the same look with stenciling.

So, for example, these stencils from Cutting Edge Stencils.

Or these from stencilease.com (all in black on white):

If Antique Home Design's purpose was to inspire, it worked! There are so many other pictures in their photostream that I'll be using for inspiration!

"My candle burns at both ends; it shall not last through the night;..."

2011-01-21T14:37:00.000-05:00

"...But oh, my foes, and oh, my friends --
It gives a lovely light." ~Edna St. Vincent Millay

We've been busy. Maybe not quite burning the candle at both ends, but close. The light, though, is burning brightly, as a lot is getting done. Tim has been traveling quite a bit again, which means he's not getting much done on the house, but is getting a lot done at work. I've been busy sewing, purging and practicing... my French Horn, that is. I've joined a brass sextet that has me, for the first time in 20 years, practicing my Horn again. Wow... I'm really bad. It's been a whole lot of fun, though, and I'm thrilled to be playing again - regardless of how bad it sounds right now!

Tim is going to be priming the bathroom tonight. I'm still trying to find a wall color that is somewhat vintage to the 1930s and will complement the black and white fixtures and tile. I found a FABULOUS website with all sorts of vintage pictures of home interiors from the early 30s. I hope to link to it soon.

In the meantime, we'd like your help in determining a wall color. The vintage pictures suggest a green, which was very popular then. I also thought a taupe would look good.

Here is a popular 1930s-ish green, called "lark green", from Sherwin Williams:

Here is a "bona-fide beige" also from Sherwin Williams that I like:

Remember that these will be paired with white subway tile with a black accent, both behind the tub and on the floor.

Tell us which one you like or suggest another color that may have been appropriate for the 1930s. I think I already know which I'm picking, but I'm not married to it, either. I'm curious to hear/see what your suggestions are!!

White Out!

2011-01-16T20:57:00.000-05:00

I've been disappointed in this year's snow output. I think last year spoiled me. We've had the threat of snow four times now and each time we've received only a couple inches. The last "storm" was the largest, with about 4 - 5" -- and it was a beauty. It was everything beautiful about snow - the trees covered, the creeks with pockets of snow... gorgeous. I'm ready for more!

Tim's vacation time is over, which means that work on the bathroom has slowed down significantly. He's been spackling (is that a word?) the drywall and today he sanded it. As a result, he's given me my "white out", as you can see on the right. He offered to hug and kiss me when I took the picture. He's so thoughtful.

The problem is when you are writing something in retrospective,...

2011-01-06T09:30:00.004-05:00

...it needs a lot of courage not to change, or you will forget a certain reality, and you will just take in consideration your view today. ~ Boutros Boutros-Ghali

Since Jessica brought up the 2010 retrospective post, I thought I'd give it a try. However, I agree fully with Boutros Boutros-Ghali - it's very easy to change your views on a past event by the time you get around to writing it down... which changes history.

I'll go through a list of 2010's major projects, what's completed and what yet needs to be done.

The Well-Pit. Ah yes. It's hard to believe this was a year ago already. To summarize, the solenoid that ran the electrical to pump water to the house was shorting out because the well pit was flooding. This caused us to lose water at random intervals. One large snow storm followed by a rain storm and a broken pipe caused the pit to flood completely. Water and mud were removed, new electrical and a sump pump installed and the tank was re-pressurized. The only things left is to figure out why the neighbor's electrical bill for their pool went up (it shouldn't have, because the electricians were able to recognize the difference between that electrical and the one for our house) and patch a hole where the neighbor's electrical runs through.

The North-Wing Bathroom. There are so many posts that I can't link to them (and they're intermingled with other bathroom posts.) You go to every single month in the year and you'll find posts or mentions about the north wing bathroom. We thought it was done in 2009 when we replaced the shower. This was not to be, since the plumbing ended up being bad. The old floor was ripped up, finding hardwood underneath, we replaced all the plumbing, tiled the floor, painted and decorated. It doesn't seem like what we did should have taken as much time as it did. We need to finish the transitions (which may not be until we redo the attached bedrooms) and probably replace some of the moulding on the floor, since we don't like the look of it.

Trees. We had a tree service come in and go through all the trees to remove dead branches, secure large branches from falling, remove dead trees and re-install lightening rods. It's a good feeling to know that the trees are safe and healthy. The only thing we need to do here is take some of the dead and removed trees and cut it up into firewood.

The South-Wing Bathroom. It continues to go into 2011, but it's well on its way. Tim has stripped the room down to the studs except for the sub-floor and the bathtub. We had a pipe break, which may cause some problems with the dining room ceiling. He's installed green board, backer board for the tiles and has started the patching so he can start priming. He has to tile the tub-surround and floor, sand, prime and paint and install the fixtures. Let's hope this bathroom doesn't take as long as the north-wing bathroom.

Electrical. We had our electrician come in to check the entire house for knob and tube wiring, upgrading that which was live and removing that which was dead. It didn't take but a couple days, but like the trees, the peace of mind knowing that it's all checked, fixed and safe makes it a big project completed.

The Furnace. Since the company who installed the furnace didn't think there was anything wrong with the furnace they installed, we called in the heating guy who works with our plumber. He found the problem (and it was a big one) and fixed it - for more money than we should have spent to fix somebody else's big mistake. We now have heat and it's delightful.

~~~~~~~

I also have a couple favorite little posts/pictures on quirky things:
The baby raccoon, the dogs helping Timmy in the well, the blizzard and the field of sunflowers (not my picture).

Tim is, unfortunately, coming down with what looks like may be the 'flu. It's running rampant in his office at work and our daughter seems to have picked it up, too. I'm still purging the house and looking forward to, when the clutter is gone, stripping wallpaper. I really see the north wing coming together in 2011!! Let's hope it's another productive year!

Heating Up

2011-01-04T13:33:00.007-05:00

I mentioned last week that we were searching for electric wall heaters for the south wing bathroom. We wanted a heater that recessed into the wall, had a thermostat, was small enough that it didn't waste energy heating a room that was only 100 sq. ft and wouldn't get hot to the touch. We found hundreds of recessed wall heaters, but none were actually flush to the wall. At the very least, they protruded 1/2" up to 4" from the wall. All of them were designed to heat rooms over 150 sq. ft. and most were not rated to be energy efficient. The most disturbing part was that all of them became hot to the touch and could ignite anything nearby. Because of the size of the room, we are not only very limited as to where we can install the heater, but there is no place in the bathroom that somebody couldn't accidentally brush up against the heater.

Then I found this... http://www.seabreeze.ca/heaters/OfftheWall/OffTheWall_SF12/offthewall_sf12.html

It is cool to the touch, has an energy efficient thermostat and doesn't require special electrical. The best thing is that we can easily remove it completely when not needed. Overall, it gets good reviews. The only drawback is that it isn't flush against the wall, but it isn't meant to be recessed, as the others were. Ironically, it's also the least expensive and easiest to install.

Another option we had considered was installing a heated floor system with the floor tile. We ruled that out, given that the transition from the two adjoining bedrooms is already going to be quite high. Adding a heated floor would practically create a full step up at the doors!

None of this has to be decided now. Tim is working on patching the drywall now. The last thing he'll be doing is the floor and installing the heater. We both think we've found our heating solution, though.

Pieces of History

2011-01-03T13:32:00.000-05:00

While Tim was taking the walls out of the south wing bathroom, he found a small piece of what was probably the original wallpaper. I love finding small pieces of the original house.

What we're able to piece together is that this bathroom had the above wallpaper when it was first built, probably circa 1930s. Tim also found framing for a door on the wall from the middle bedroom against the back wall -- sort of an odd place for a door. The actual door is two door lengths over in the center of the wall.

The bathroom was remodeled in 1980 - 1981. We know this because the contractor who papered the room signed his name and date before he papered. It seems that it was at this point much of the original plaster was removed and drywall was installed over what was left of the plaster, including the ceiling. What we can't figure out is if the door was moved from against the back wall to the center of the wall (as it is now) in that remodel or if the original door frame-out was decided against back in the 1930s. The 1980s remodel was done fairly well.

Our other thought is that this bathroom wasn't added until much later, with the door against the back wall being a door into a closet. We wonder if they used that closet and part of another closet from the adjoining room to fit this little bathroom in. That would also make sense... except for the age of the wallpaper above. It definitely looks like it's original paper from the 1930s.

The final bit of "remodeling" seems to have been done in the mid-2000s. We think that the previous owners installed the solid surface tub surround to hide wall and/or tile damage. This wasn't done quite so well and is what decided us in ripping out all the walls. We're glad we did.

The final interesting thing about the original wallpaper is that the scene in it is how we've already decided to refinish this bathroom. The floor tile design is almost exactly like we've picked out and the subway tile behind the tub is the style we went with for there, too.

I think I'm going to keep this small piece of the house's history and, if possible, find way to identify the wallpaper's age.

Bathrooms In A ... Week??

2010-12-29T17:14:00.000-05:00

Tim has taken two weeks to finally get the south wing bathroom done. I'm not saying that he's finally getting to it because he's been procrastinating. Hardly. He's finally getting to it because other projects have kept him from it. To catch you up...

This is the original south wing bathroom...

This was the first try at remodeling, when the toilet was leaking...

... and this is how we left it after we had to put out other fires:

By the way, we used it this way, since it was our only functioning bathroom.

Tim had some vacation time to use up this year, so this is his Holiday Project. Since the drywall wasn't green board (mildew resistant), he decided to rip everything out down to the studs, including the solid surface tub-surround (debris seen left). The bathtub is in good shape, so we're leaving it.

So far, we've only had one problem. While removing the drywall from behind the sink, the cold water pipe broke. Water started flowing into the area between the floor and the dining room ceiling. We turned off the main as quickly as possible (I didn't know Tim could run that fast) and waited to see what damage was done to the dining room ceiling. It's not pretty, but we also got lucky. The weather is cold and dry enough that it all dried very quickly, but there is some cosmetic damage to the dining room ceiling. It's an issue we'll address when we redo the dining room.

This is the second pipe that has broken in this bathroom without really being near it. Corrosion from hard water has done a number on a lot of the pipes, which is why we're replacing the plumbing as we go. I'm glad we're taking the time to fix the neglected maintenance properly as we move forward. Tim now knows how to install shut-off valves and has added replacing all of them on his to-do list.

Back to the remodeling... what we found out is that the previous re-do, probably done in the late 70s or early 80s, put drywall over much of the existing plaster. The plaster behind the drywall is not in good enough shape to salvage, so we'll be hanging drywall again.

He insulated the entire bathroom (since it had none) and put green board on the ceiling (seen below).

He then added a moisture barrier behind the tub (seen left) and hung the backer board to support the subway tile we'll be installing as the new tub-surround (seen below). Notice the two inserts toward the back of the tub for toiletries. He's now caulking as much as he can around the tub and will begin to hang the drywall in the rest of the bathroom tonight.

One of the problems we've been having is how to heat this bathroom. There had been a small baseboard electrical heater that ran only if you turned it on. We would prefer a recessed wall heater that runs on a thermostat. We've checked the local home improvement store and the small ones that fit between studs don't have a thermostat, so we will start looking online for one tonight.

In the midst of all this, we've been entertaining many out of town guests for the holidays, all with the one bathroom in the north wing, and it's worked out. Our Christmas guests did leave early the day after Christmas to avoid the Christmas 2010 blizzard (which ended up being a dud here in our part of Chester County). We have more out of town guests coming on Friday (yay!) for the New Year and all of it gives Tim a much needed break.

I know it's been awhile since I've updated, but as you can see, much has been going on.

We here at the House In The Woods wish you all a fabulous holiday and a very Happy New Year. May 2011 be a year of progress, peace and prosperity!

For Marriage To Be A Success,...

2010-12-03T07:55:00.000-05:00

"... every woman and every man should have her and his own bathroom. The end." ~ Catherine Zeta-Jones

We have a house with 4-1/2 bathrooms. That's great - especially for a bed and breakfast-wannabe. We knew when we moved in that we would have to redo most of the bathrooms. We didn't know that we'd be redoing ALL of them and that they would be completely dictating our remodeling budget and schedule.

The absolute worst bathroom when we moved in was the master bath. Do you remember this?

We ripped it out almost immediately, since it seemed to have the most pressing need. We now have a large gaping hole in our dressing room where the new master bathroom was supposed to be put in two years ago...

Then we realized that the south wing bathroom had a leaking toilet... into our dining room. So we ripped up the floor, fixed the leak, bought everything we needed to redo that bathroom (since we'd already started the process), then found out the north wing bathroom shower was leaking... into our great room.

Although the south bathroom was now pretty yucky, it at least wasn't leaking anymore, so Tim put the new toilet in and we decided to use that yucky old bathroom until the north wing bathroom was fixed. So, we fixed the shower in the north wing. Great!! Now we could use that bathroom while Tim went back to the south wing bathrooms to finish it...

Until the drain in the north wing bathroom wasn't working and we found out that the plumbing under the floor was clogged up and needed to all be replaced. Now it was time to address the ENTIRE north wing bathroom and get it done right. This was the best of the four bathrooms and was supposed to have been the easy bathroom.

A year later we're finally using the north wing bathroom. It's beautiful and I'm thrilled with it. Although the master bathroom still sits as a hole in the wall, the south wing bathroom is continuously accumulating mold and still has an exposed floor. It's time to rip this one down to the studs, replace the walls with drywall more appropriate for bathrooms (greenboard and Hardibacker) and do this one right, too. Since we already have everything bought, it's a matter of taking the time... which Tim happens to have because he works a lot...

Tim has a use-it-or-lose-it vacation policy at work and because of the Chicago project, he hasn't had much chance to use his vacation. This works out well for the south wing bathroom. He's taking the last two weeks of the year off to try to knock the bathroom out all at once. He already has everything laid out and ready to go. The one big thing we have to do is get our daughter's back room in her bedroom cleared out so he can store some of his work tools in there.

The question is... where does the toilet issue from our son's bathroom fit into all of this? Hopefully, it doesn't. We think/hope that removing the toilet and clogging the drain will take care of the issue until we're ready to do that bathroom. The big problem is that our son's bathroom was very low on our list of priorities, and certainly the last bathroom we had planned to address. This is mostly because we were going to be removing and moving walls to make a real bathroom, rather than just fixtures stuffed into closets.

The bathrooms have definitely been a lesson in how things never go as planned. We're hoping the budget can keep up with the changes, too!! At this point, I hope that our son's bathroom can wait until the south wing bathroom AND the master bathroom are finished. The immediate goal, though, is to have two finished and functioning bathrooms by the beginning of 2011. I don't see it happening.

Existentialism Means...

2010-12-01T07:22:00.000-05:00

"...that no one else can take a bath for you." ~ Delmore Schwartz (American poet and author)

A couple posts ago I promised some pictures of the final touches for the north wing bathroom. As promised, here they are...

Here is the nightstand from the twin bedroom suit. On it is enough room for the hand towel holder and a bathroom bag. I also have a small drawer there for little things (although covered storage isn't a problem in this bathroom, as you can see in the picture on the right. That's one of two linen closets in this bathroom).

On top of the stand is the hand towel holder which holds two small hand towels perfectly. Mom and I bought that and the toilet paper holder, seen below, while shopping a couple weeks ago.

I really do not want to drill holes into these walls unless absolutely necessary. Both the hand towel stand and the toilet paper holder keep my walls drill-hole free. I also liked the toilet paper stand because it's different from ones I have seen before. It includes a rack at the bottom and is sturdier than most.

I'm now using this bathroom, so have my personal belongings in here, too. There is plenty of room for everything. In a couple weeks, this will be the only functioning bathroom, so all four of us will be using it (more on that in a later post). We'll really test everything out then!

Tim and I have been trying so hard to find window treatments for this bathroom!! Last weekend we finally bought a roman shade that measured to fit the inside frame of the window. It didn't fit. We did have an unused adjustable roller shade, so are using that instead. Now I just need a valance on a tension rod.

OR - I'll make a roman shade. I have this pattern, but have two problems. The first problem is that putting a roman shade on a tension rod is not going to happen. The second is that I like the roller shade as an "under covering", but think that a roman shade would look foolish over it. My option, though, is to use the pattern to make a non-functioning roman shade, or, basically, I'd be using this pattern to make a valance. I like choice A.

Back to the nightstands... the nightstands from Freecycle that I thought would work in the bathrooms, but didn't ended up as actual nightstands in the fireplace bedroom in the north wing. They fit perfectly, although they don't match the bedroom suite completely -- and I'm okay with that. My parents stayed in this room a couple weeks ago and my mother was pleased with how well the nightstands held everything she needed by her bedside. (She's an avid reader and writes a book review column for her local paper, so needs her books nearby!) In spite of the partially peeled wallpaper it's a very cozy room.

In the other bedroom in this wing, which is the suite I removed the nightstand from for the bathroom, I just moved the cedar chest from against the wall into between the beds as a shared nightstand. This is the bedroom Tim's parents stay in when they visit, so I hope to find out during the holidays how this works out. Yes... the pink paint will be gone soon, I hope!! The wallpaper will stay.

ooh ooh That Smell...

2010-11-29T12:27:00.000-05:00

"...Can't you smell that smell?..." ~Lynyrd Skynrd

WARNING: mild, yet yucky body function details...

Awhile ago, a strange, sour, almost "onion-y" odor started coming from our 16 year old son's room, which is the room above the old garage and the original storage room/maid's quarters. It smelled disgusting -- really disgusting. He keeps the dogs in with him at night, but it wasn't quite a dog-odor. I'm not sure what type of odor it was... just bad. It actually smelled like old, rotted body odor on clothes. So, I've been at him to clean his room, wash the dirty laundry and change his sheets. You know - the standard "you-need-to-get-rid-of-that-smell"cleaning chores for a teenage boy. While he wasn't so great at getting everything cleaned as I had hoped, the cleaning was thorough enough to eliminate bad odors, yet it persisted.

It was getting so bad that I could smell it from the center foyer (through two more rooms) and in the kitchen at the bottom of his steps. He insisted that the odor was coming from the back room, where the unused bathroom was, but I didn't smell any difference between his room and the back room. In fact, I thought the back room was less smelly.

We closed the door between the two rooms and late last week I went back to check. Yup - it was the back room, which is our temporary storage room. This is the room where the maid actually stayed. When we moved in, we noticed that the toilet was leaking, so turned off the water and made that bathroom off-limits. In the meantime, however, the water in the toilet bowl had evaporated and the gasses were coming back up the pipes, or so we think. Not only yuck, but not safe. The weird thing is that the odor didn't smell like septic gasses, either.

Tim removed the toilet, sealed up the hole and aired everything out very well. The odor is gone. Whether it was from septic gasses or something else, the toilet definitely seemed to be the problem. Our son will be moved to another room until we're certain that all the odors are gone.

The bathrooms seem to definitely be the projects that are throwing the biggest kinks into our remodeling efforts, but I'll save that saga for another post. We're just glad that a) our son isn't the big slob I was worried about, b) the smell is gone and c) we caught it before anybody got sick.

EUREKA!

2010-11-22T20:06:00.000-05:00

I'm so happy! I've been looking and looking for something to put in the north wing bathroom that will allow guests a place for their bathroom bags and also hold a hand towel holder. I wanted something white, about 40" high, no deeper than 15" (closer to 11" would be perfect) and no longer than 20".

While looking around on the internet today for "bathroom floor cabinets", each one I saw made me think, "That looks familiar. It seems as if I already have something like that here at the house...". Finally, it dawned on me! The guest room with the twin bedroom suite has a nightstand just like what I've been looking for! I moved it into the bathroom and it fits perfectly! WALLA!

I pushed the twin beds apart enough to put the cedar chest between them as the new nightstand. It's not perfect, but it works well enough. In fact, I sort of like the uniqueness of it. Since I like the original nightstand better as a bathroom floor cabinet, I'm willing to settle for this look.

My mom and I did some shopping this weekend and found the perfect toilet paper roll holder and finger towel stand. I really don't want to put holes in the wall in this bathroom, so am looking for creative ways to avoid it. Both of these fit the bill.

I'll get pictures tomorrow if I can. It seems that the last piece of the puzzle for the bathroom is the window treatment. I think I found a roman shade that I like, but I keep forgetting to take the measurements with me. Today I wrote all the measurements in a small notebook to keep with me so that wouldn't keep happening.

I left it on the kitchen counter.

Winter Is the Season...

2010-11-13T07:53:00.000-05:00

"...in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat." ~Anonymous

We were able to go until November 1st this year without turning on the heat. I probably could have gone longer, but it wasn't fair to the kids. I'm hot all the time now and need to remember that not everybody else is!!

This is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak, to find out if the furnace fix (here's the saga of the furnace) is actually going to work. I can tell that the Great Room is already warmer than last year, even with one radiator still not working at all. Most of the radiators are warmer to the touch with temperatures in the 40s and 50s, than they were last year during temperatures in the 20s and 30s. SO - all is looking good, so far.

Having the heat work means we have some difficult decisions to make regarding the original installation.

Insurance Part 3

2010-11-11T06:00:00.002-05:00

Have I shown you this picture before? These are the fire extinguishers in the basement. I had done some research on them and found them to be somewhat collectible.

From what I can tell, they contain carbon tetrachloride, which, when released from the glass globe you see, sucks the oxygen out of the room, thereby putting out the fire. Oh - and putting "out" any person who happens to be around. Since they are in the basement, they can't really harm people upstairs, but we still need to remove them.

We're not comfortable with removing them ourselves and aren't sure what we could do with them once they are removed.

Does anybody know anything about the best way to properly dispose of these things? Or know of a collector who would be willing to come get them (at his or her own risk)?

This is the final piece to our insurance puzzle.

Insurance Part 2

2010-11-09T06:00:00.142-05:00

The second big issue with the insurance company was the trees around the house. We had been dealing with getting the trees taken care of since the spring. Unfortunately, the guy we were working with just wasn't returning our calls, which is too bad since he came highly recommended. Tim finally just went with another company to get this over with.

The tree company came out this past Monday to prune the trees in front of the house and lighten the load on the branch that hangs over the house (in the picture above). They spent all day here and got quite a bit done.

They also cleaned out the cavity in the white oak by the driveway to see how bad the rot was (in the picture above). Unfortunately, the rot is bad enough that they called Tim on Wednesday to highly suggest we have it removed. They came out right-away Wednesday to start the process.

They're keeping the wood for us and hooking us up with a mill and some other people to help us mill the wood into pieces that we can use for various purposes around the house.

On Friday, they returned to finish removing the trunk. It was initially thought they'd have to remove all the wires coming to the house, but we lucked out and they didn't have to.

The rot was farther up the tree than they suspected and it was actually in two different areas -- something they couldn't see from below, so taking it out was absolutely necessary.

The area looks very empty now. They recommend that we plant a copper beech there. By the way - the white oak they removed is estimated to be over 150 years old. Sad. Very sad.

I know the video is loud, but that's what chainsaws and big shredder-trucks do --- make noise.
This company has been fabulous at keeping the sawdust, leaves and other debris clean from the roof, gutters, yard, walkways and driveways. I'm very impressed.

Insurance Part 1

2010-11-08T06:10:00.000-05:00

We have had some difficulty in getting reasonably-priced homeowner's insurance. Don't worry, we have it. It's just that since the house is old, historic and had not been maintained for a long time, there are several things we've had to do to bring down the price of the insurance to something a little more affordable. We are on our last three tasks: the trees, the electrical and the fire-globes in the basement.

The first and easiest - the electrical. The home inspector from the insurance company was concerned about the knob and tube wiring he saw around the house. We were getting conflicting reports as to whether it was live or not. The previous homeowners and the home inspector for when we bought the house said that all the knob and tube was disconnected and not hot. The insurance home inspector said that he wasn't sure enough of that to pass it, so he wanted it removed whether it was dead or not.

Last Friday our electrician came out to do just that. What he found was scary. While most of it was dead and easily removed, some of it was hot. There was one live knob and tube connection that went to my daughter's room, so they simply removed and replaced that. It was all in good shape, but it's better to have it removed.

The scary part was that the rest of the knob and tube were connections that had been cut, but not disconnected and were just hanging hot and open in the walls! What the heck?? Who knows how long they'd been hanging there? Fortunately, we have cinder block walls, so a fire would've been difficult to start in there, but STILL... what type of decision tree leads you to leave hot wires open like that?

The good news... it's completely gone and all the electrical is now all "modernized". We still have things to add when we go through each room, but it's now all at least safe. Very safe. The home inspector came out yesterday to verify it and get the letter of completion to the insurance company.

Other bad news... the electricians found a nest of baby squirrels in the one corner of the attic. Erlich has been notified.

It Didn't Work

2010-11-05T09:41:00.000-04:00

Remember these nightstands that I picked up from Freecycle?
http://makingbandb.blogspot.com/2010/09/night-stands.html

I wanted to use one in the north wing bathroom as a stand for guests to put their toiletries on. Well, it didn't fit. It was much too large. Now I have two very sturdy nightstands that I think I will use in the back guest room in the north wing. There should be plenty of room and while they may not match exactly, I think they'll work well. I'll take pictures once I finish getting the room cleaned and set-up.

So, I'm on the hunt for another stand for the bathroom. It may be time to check out the consignment store again!

Allow Me To Introduce Myself

2010-11-03T09:44:00.004-04:00

Wow! I didn't realize how long it's been since I've posted!! So much has been going on here and most of it is not related to the house. Since my last post, Tim has been wrapping up a very large work project in Chicago, which means he's been out of town most of the time. His part of the project is now done this week. (Whew!)

I spent a week in October visiting my parents in central Pennsylvania to help them with some computer problems. Tim and I met up that weekend at our alma mater, Lycoming College, for homecoming. As usual, we had a wonderful time. The nice surprise was running into so many of my Alpha Rho Omega sisters from my era that had come back! I very much regret that I couldn't spend as much time with them as I'd have liked.

Then, of course, it's fall and we have children still in school. This is such a busy time of the year for everybody! When school starts, and particularly with Alex returning to a brick and mortar school this year, I return to being a SITCoM (that's a "Stay-In-The-Car-Mom"). As they get older, their activities become more involved! Hopefully, my 16 year old will be allowed to get his driver's license soon! That will help immensely.

I have taken full advantage of an empty house and better health and have been furiously cleaning and purging as much as I have been able. I also bought a couch for the living room. There is a consignment store near our house that I keep an eye on. This couch has been in there for awhile and was finally knocked down to a decent price. It's sturdy and in excellent condition! It is also exactly the style I was looking for in the living room/conservatory/library.

Speaking of the living room/conservatory/library... the couch does not have a "place in the room". You can see in the above picture and here to the left that I just have it in front of two of the bookshelves. I'm back to trying to figure out how to rearrange this room. The more I think about it, the more I think I want to float the piano behind the couch, which I want to be centered in front of the fireplace. (The fireplace is on the wall to the right from where I'm taking the picture.) As I've said before, the only other inside wall in the house is in the dining room and moving the piano to the dining room is simply too much work. Getting the bookshelves out of the living room/conservatory will make that room even larger and allow for a lot more wall space for art.

That means, though, that I will probably be moving the four bookshelves into the den, as I had thought about before, much to my son's dismay. Three bookshelves should fit into this corner pictured on the left and the fourth may fit on the wall here pictured below. If not, I'm not sure what I'll do with it, yet... move it to our bedroom maybe. Moving the bookshelves into the den will take up a lot of space in an already small room, but it will turn it into a true and cozy reading room, with space for only a couple of comfortable reading chairs and good lights.

Right now, the den is used as our kids' playroom (as much as teens have a playroom), holding their books, games, television, video gaming consules, etc. That also means that it's a mess most of the time. I'm warring with doing this now and making them either use it as a much smaller space or kicking them out completely. The other alternative is wait the 22 months until my son leaves for college, since my daughter doesn't use the room as much as he does.

I'll finish my cleaning and purging before I make a final decision. Heck -- that may take me up to when he leaves for college!!

“Originality implies being bold enough..."

2010-09-22T13:15:00.002-04:00

"...to go beyond accepted norms." ~Anthony Storr (English psychiatrist and author)

It looks like I'm being forced to be original. The bathroom is ready to be used. We have dry-fitted the transitions before putting them in permanently to see if we can live with them. Other than that, we just have to decorate it.

You would think that I could find simple window treatments and shower curtains. I don't need anything fancy. I'm just looking for "normal" 54 inch length curtains and a shower stall curtain. Yeaaahhhhhh - right.

First, the caveat - I have not yet been to one of the bed, bath-type stores since they're a bit farther away. However, I hit some local department stores, who will remain unnamed and should have had better selections of home goods. I found the following... Window panels in either 63" or 84", 216" swags, valances or cafe curtains. The cafe style isn't what I want and I didn't see a valance that didn't look -- well -- cheesy. Both styles are also too country for the style of the home. The panels and swags are just too long. The assumption is that if you don't want the country look, then you must want your curtains to hang to the floor. Nope... we have a radiator there and who really wants curtains close to the floor in a bathroom? If I'm going to buy curtains only to hem them, I might as well just make them. I really didn't want to make curtains, but I will if I have to.

In the meantime, I bought a simple roller-shade to at least give us privacy. (Although this bathroom faces the woods and really doesn't need privacy, except for peace of mind for the modest.)

Next item? A shower stall curtain. It seems that nobody has shower stalls anymore, but rather the tub/shower combination or the stalls with the doors. I really despise the doors. No matter what style door you get - either with the hated metal strip on the entrance or without - there are metal parts somewhere that eventually the water gets to and corrodes. I also never feel as if those hinges are completely clean. I much prefer curtains. Oh - and I like the look of a curtain better.

When we first set the shower up and tried it out, I put a 72" long shower curtain in, not realizing there was a difference. As you can see here, to make it long enough to get to the bottom, we had to drop the tension rod. Not only is it unattractive, but even I have to duck to get in the shower.

I looked for an 80" or so curtain, also called "shower stall curtain" or "extra-long curtain". Each of the department stores carried the shower stall liners, but no curtains to go with it. Now... can somebody please explain to me why they would carry the liners, but not the curtains that are being lined??

So, it looks like I"ll make the trek over to Bed, Bath and Beyond an hope they have a wider selection there. My daughter wants to hit Hot Topic at the mall anyhow...

The final thing I was looking for were bathmats and hand towels. Most of the guest rooms have their own towels for guests to take into the bathrooms and each of us in our family has our own set of towels, so I don't need to buy a set just for this bathroom. When the B & B opens, I'll go the traditional route and stock up on good white towels. I do, however, need coordinating bathmats and hand towels that will stay in here.

I want to decorate the bathroom in a beach/sea theme. The green on the wall is very subtle as you can see in the top picture. I thought about not trying to get a coordinating green, but going with a complementary blue. The department stores I visited had an ENORMOUS selection of towels, but none of the blues really caught my eye. I found this green at the last store I visited. It's a nice rich color and simple. I bought one bathmat and one towel to see if I'm going to like it.

This last picture shows the temporary transitions, but also shows the wall where I want to put that nightstand, to the left of the far door. I really think I want to paint it white. I also think I may install a hand towel bar on the one side of it, rather than put one into the plaster wall or have it in one of those ring-stands. I'll have to see how well it fits, first.

Tim has a foundation issue he wants to work on next that requires several days of dry weather in a row to do. The foundation issue isn't one that's a problem for the stability of the house. Rather, it's a hole that a previous owner had punched into the foundation to run a sewer line, but didn't seal, so there's a big gap between the wall and the sewer line. Are you seeing a theme here? This has happened in a couple of other places that we've since fixed.

Once that little project is finished, he heads back into the well pit.

What Do I Do When My Love Is Away?

2010-09-15T08:59:00.000-04:00

"...(Does it worry you to be alone)
How do I feel by the end of the day (Are you sad because you're on your own)
No, I get by with a little help from my friends..." ~ John Lennon/Paul McCartney

Tim was out of town this week on business (he has a pretty darn good day job... thankfully!) While he's been working, I've continued to tap the resources of my friends and my friends' friends for getting the arts-side of this business going. I know I've mentioned this before, but Tim and I have been blessed with some wonderful friends (and talented! Wow!) Not only has their feedback been incredible, but they've put me in touch with other great resources. I hope that by the end of the week I'll be able to put a definitive time-table and punch list together to get the living room opened.

We still have three issues that I need to come to terms with. The first is lighting. Ideally, for the art shows, we should install track lighting around the perimeter of the ceiling. However, we don't want to ruin the architectural beauty of the room. Here are a few pictures of the room from when we first moved in. I just don't see how we can nicely get track lighting up there.

The second issue is that we have a baby grand that sits by the wall here on the left. Other than the dining room, it's literally the only inside wall in the downstairs. The piano will come in handy for certain musical events, but otherwise it's in the way. It's not easy to move. I've looked into buying what's called a "piano truck" - those things you see on the bottom of pianos in schools and churches so they can moved easily - but they're really expensive.

I've thought about floating the piano in middle toward the back of the room (look at the second picture with the door and window), pushing it more against the wall, or actually moving it into the dining room (which would take away from the living room being the "music room").

The last big issue is that Tim and I have four floor to ceiling oak bookcases against the back wall (again - look at the second picture... they fill up that wall around the door and the window). The bookcases are FULL of books and we use them all the time. While they fit the physical space perfectly, they don't fit the style of the room and they take up a lot of space. There are too many books to fit into the den and its built-ins and we can't think where the bookcases could otherwise go.

I may have to rethink the entire downstairs!

On a side note... We finally got to the Mushroom Festival this year! It was great and I highly recommend it! Other fun events coming up is the Plantation Field International Horse Trials and the Kennett Brewfest!

Business Plan

2010-09-10T05:01:00.103-04:00

Most of this blog is about the actual house renovations, but eventually the blog will move into the business-side of setting up a B&B. One of the things I believe I have mentioned before is that in addition to (or as part of) the B&B, I want to host some cultural events (art exhibits, book readings/signings, etc.). Recently I was presented with the opportunity to have an author come do a book signing and reading here at the house. The book*, about Quakers and the Underground Railroad, is a perfect fit for those who live in this area, in spite of the fact that the story actually takes place in Bedford County, PA. Kennett Square has a strong Quaker heritage and a proud history of its involvement with the Underground Railroad.

I turned the opportunity down because I don't feel that the house is ready, even for an event that will take place in one room. Interestingly, other similar opportunities have come to my attention, so it looks like this is something that should be addressed very quickly.

Last September I hosted a very small book reading for an author/friend from California who was visiting. In spite of VERY short notice and no real marketing, we had eight people show up. I was pleased with the overall effect, in spite of the faded wallpaper and poor landscaping at the entrance.

Events for non-friends that have the potential to draw in a lot more people and a lot more strangers, though -- not so much. Faded wallpaper and half-grown shrubs just won't cut it. Aesthetics aside, I also need to wrap my head around how I want to handle the business side of these events when they won't always be a "profit-center" (so-to-speak).

Tim and I are both business-savvy people, but there is a lot more research I need to do before completing the business plan for this side of the B&B, especially if we want to open it quickly. I am fortunate enough to have a few artistic friends that are able to help me get a handle on what is needed to accommodate the artists' needs and the costs associated with events of this nature. I'm tapping as many resources as possible. Am I having fun tweaking and detailing this business plan? You bet!!

*The book, if you're interested, is Redfield Farm, by Judith Redline Coopey. You can read my mother's book review of it here. I still have the opportunity to host her at a later date!

A Field of Sunflowers

2010-09-09T17:05:00.001-04:00

(photo from Chester County Dwell - a GREAT website of local things.)

I passed this field today while taking my daughter to piano lessons. I was going to stop to take pictures (as were dozens of others) but Chester County Dwell has done a much better job of it than I can. Longwood Gardens has put it in.

A Field of Sunflowers

This is yet one more reason to love this area.

Night Stands

2010-09-07T20:36:00.000-04:00

As soon as I published yesterday's post, an email came from my Freecycle group offering a set of night stands. Since the timing was uncanny, I thought I'd better get them and see if one of them would work in the bathroom. My theory is that if it doesn't work, I still need night stands in two of my bedrooms or, if they really don't work, I could Freecycle them myself.

This is what they look like:

They are exactly the size I wanted for the northwing bathroom. The quality of the pieces are just okay - veneer over particle board, but they are solid, sturdy and very heavy. The inside of the drawers are plastic tubs, which would work well in a bathroom. There are no visible scratches or dents other than one corner (if you look closely and I believe a well-done touch-up would hide it completely). The adjustable feet are all in excellent condition.

I've thought about painting them white then faux distressing them. Or not. Or just changing the hardware. Or not. If I decide to use one in the northwing bathroom, I'm not sure what to do with the other one. I will need a similar piece of furniture for the southwing bathroom, but I'm afraid this will be too big.

So, here's my thought process... Do I paint it white and change the hardware to black wrought iron to match the bathrooms? Do I simply change the hardware to black wrought iron and leave the wood finish? OR do I leave them as is and use them as night stands in the north wing back bedroom?

I love Freecycle.

"There Are Two Ways of Spreading Light; ...

2010-09-06T16:18:00.000-04:00

...to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it." ~Edith Wharton

Tim has been working very hard on the transitions for the floor in the north wing bathroom. Neither of us are 100% happy with them, but since he's spent a lot of time on them already and we're probably just being over-finicky, we're going to dry-install them and see how we like actually living with them. He just has to shave about 1/8" off the bottom of each, then he'll drop them in.

Meanwhile, we installed the light fixtures I bought a few weeks ago. We had hoped to use the original mirror, but it just isn't in very good shape. I bought a new mirror today that fits in well with the style of the other fixtures in the bathroom and (very importantly) will be brutally easy to clean. Here are two pictures.

(Now that I see the pictures, I realize I need to adjust the shade on the left lamp...) When the vanity lights are on, it brightens up the room considerably (in spite of them being 40w bulbs) and should make it a good mirror for shaving and applying make-up.

I'm looking for a small piece of furniture to put on the left wall by the sink so guests have a place for their toiletries or toiletry bags. I think I'll spend this week checking out the local antique and consignment stores to see if anything appeals. I'm also unsure what to do for towel rods. Currently there is a rod attached to the back of each door. There is nothing for a hand towel. I really hate to drill holes into the wall, so am looking at the other options. I may wait until I get the piece of furniture I want to see if it's big enough for a towel-stand.

One thing that neither Tim nor I are happy with is the window frame. There are gaps between the plaster and the window. Tim did make it so that it's weather and bug-proof, but it just doesn't look very nice. We've been discussing options, including installing quarter round, painting the entire window (it's now natural wood that matches the closets) or installing a curtain that hides it all.

So the punch list is this:

• light switch plate covers
• small piece of furniture
• towel rods
• toilet paper holder
• window frame aesthetics
• curtain
• shim the one radiator leg properly (you don't want to know what's being used as a shim now!)
• install and grout the transitions
• clean up woodwork (remove paint splatters, dust, etc.)
• re-hang the door between the bathroom and the back bedroom

Not so bad!

Some Like It Hot

2010-08-19T12:49:00.000-04:00

It looks like the furnace is now installed properly. The plumber did turn on the heat (on a 90ºF+ day, of course) and checked that the radiators were all getting warm. They did. He even got heat back into the radiator in the kitchen, which has been stone cold since this furnace was installed. We won't know for sure just how efficient it really works until we need it in October, but the plumber offered several times to come back in the fall to make sure it's working as he promised.

Tim wanted me to clear up a couple things from the last post... One is to make sure I was clear in describing that the first furnace is actually larger than the second furnace. The other is to correct an error I made -- the second furnace fires if the temperature goes under 30ºF, not 15ºF as I incorrectly wrote. However, this plumber set that up to 35ºF for now, although it is something we may want to adjust this winter. He also asked that I put some pictures on showing the vast amount of piping involved with the system. I tried here, but the pictures just don't do it justice. (There Tim... I've done my duty...)

While we wish that we had four heating zones for a house this size, we only have two - one that heats the south side (both floors) and an other that heats the center foyer and north side (both floors). The thermostat controlling the north side has a lot more piping to it, since it's a larger side of the house and it also contains the center foyer. While this all helps to control the heat, it doesn't give us as much control as we'd like.

For example, our master bedroom is the front of the north side and gets very warm, but the Great Room, which is in back of the north side, gets really cold. Fortunately, when the addition with the Great Room was added, control valves were added near the furnace to control the flow of the water to the pipes - one for the back of the north wing and one for the front. (You can see the yellow tag on the right for the valve that controls the back of the north wing.) The front has less piping than the back, so (since water takes the path of least resistance and both valves were fully open), more hot water goes through the "front" pipes. The plumber partially closed the valve for the front of the house, forcing more hot water to the back of the house. We probably won't know how well this works until we get a several really cold days in a row, but it looks like we'll get just a bit more control and efficiency over the heating of the house.

I'm actually looking forward to the fall. Mostly, because it's my favorite time of the year (and I missed so much of it last year) and because none of us are big fans of the heat and humidity. However, I'm also looking forward to it so that we can test out our improved furnace and see, finally, if it's going to be as hoped for!

The Heat Is On.

2010-08-15T13:10:00.000-04:00

In spite of the stifling heat we've had to endure this summer, the bathroom is pretty much done!

The plumber came on Friday to replace the metal flange that the toilet is bolted to and, while he was here, seated the toilet and installed the sink.

Today I bought wall sconces for beside the mirror. I chose new "old-fashioned" style sconces to keep with the style of the house. I'll take pictures once it's all installed.

Tim and I have had several "discussions" about the transitions leading from the hardwood in the bedroom to the tile in the bathroom and, as a result, they sort-of need to be redone. He's finishing them up as I type. Once the transitions are finished and the wall sconces installed, it is ready to use!

While it's been so oppressively hot here this summer, it's difficult to think about our furnace, but we have been -- a lot. A couple times before I have mentioned that we've had some concerns about the new furnace we had installed the summer after we moved in. The furnace sometimes rattles loudly, something we haven't been able to duplicate when we've called for a service call. We also aren't really getting the house warm enough during the cold times. We have had a couple previous issues with this furnace and its installation. (See here and here if you want to read about them.)

The first winter ('08-'09) was a fairly mild winter, so we didn't notice just how warm the house wasn't getting. We did notice, however, that the heating bill was fairly high, given the new and much more efficient furnace. This past winter, however, was snowy and very cold. The house was cold and our heating bills were outrageous.

Many of the radiators were getting luke-warm at best. The kitchen radiators got no heat at all and we had to run a space heater in there. The basement was nice and steamy, though. The furnaces were also constantly cycling on and off. We've had the company that installed the furnace over a few times and they say they can't find anything wrong with it. We're just not buying that.

When the plumber was over the last time, we asked him what he knew about furnaces. In response, he brought a plumbing/furnace expert from his company who very, very quickly determined what he thinks the issue is.

There are two furnaces down there - one for most winter days and the other for days that get below 15ºF. This allows us to use a "smaller" furnace for most of the time and a "larger" furnace only when really needed. This was supposed to make our heating bills considerably less expensive.

The plumber/furnace expert detected several problems. The first problem is that the temperature of the boilers was set too high. It should be set at 180ºF, but was set at 230ºF. This is one of the reasons that the boilers were constantly cycling on and off, since it was trying to keep the water at 230ºF all the time. Also, with temperatures that high, we should have had radiators that would have scalded us if we touched them. None of them were more than warm.

The second (and big) problem is that there should be two circulating pumps. The circulating pump that is there is designed to shoot the hot water throughout the house, but it's not strong enough (or designed) to pull the water from the boilers into it. The system is designed to have an initial circulating pump that pulls the water from the boiler and sends it to the other existing circulating pump. That initial pump isn't there. In fact, at the top of the boiler where this should have been installed, the plumber pulled out a tag that read, "Boiler does not operate at full efficiency without circulating pump."

The third problem is that it looks like it was piped incorrectly. It was piped so that as one boiler heats the hot water it feeds the hot water to the other boiler, rather than to the circulating pump that sends the hot water into the house. That is another reason why they are constantly cycling on and off - they're pushing hot water back and forth between themselves.

So, the plumber is going to call the manufacturer of the furnace to make sure they're on the same page, then fix the problems. We'll let you know if the fix works.

Erratical Electrical

2010-07-21T12:04:00.000-04:00

(The title of the post only deals with a small portion of this update, but I just really liked the phrase so used it as the title. I think I may use it as the name of the punk rock band I've been trying to form since I was a teenager.)

This has been a busy summer, in spite of seemingly scheduling nothing. Between family obligations that took us out of town and other unexpected excursions that cropped up, the bathroom is coming along slowly. I won't even mention the fact that when we are here, the heat has been more than oppressive...

Tim has been painting the baseboards. He had a slight problem with the router bit, so he custom-ordered a new one that will match the other baseboards in the house. Barring any other unforeseen events, he expects to get a lot done again this weekend.

We're having some weird electrical issues that need to be taken care of immediately. I thought we had blown a fuse, but instead found out that it (the fuse?) is working erratically. Erratical electrical (try saying that quickly five times) is NOT something I want to have hanging around for too long. (Note: Ok... I know that "erratical" is not a word. I made it up. Why? Because I like the way it sounds with the word "electrical". While I may often use made-up words by mistake, this isn't one of those times. Come on - you have to admit... Erratical Electrical has a cool sound to it, right??)

Old friends of mine from my hometown who own a B&B there told me that once this bathroom is finished, to go ahead and open the B&B with only these two bedrooms in the north wing. She said that if we wait for the house to be completely remodeled before we open, we'll never do it. It's an easy first wing to open, as it's private from the rest of the house and the rooms are going to be easy to finish. With that thought in mind, I need to seriously re-adjust my timetable and some projects!

One other thing I wanted to mention is that this past Saturday evening, we went to the Delaware Shakespeare Festival with some friends to see MacBeth. Wow. I can't tell you how absolutely impressed we all were. If you live locally, make the time to go see it, even if you think you don't like Shakespeare. If you don't live locally, but still want to see it, just let me know. MacBeth will be running until July 31st. This is yet one more reason to come visit the Brandywine Valley.

So, this is the update that really isn't... just telling you that we're still here, still remodeling (albeit slowly) and still bemoaning a summer that's just too hot.

It's Getting Hot In Here!

2010-07-06T10:59:00.000-04:00

Tim has grouted the entire floor, patched and painted the wall around the radiator, put the final coat of paint on all the walls, sealed the shower tile (and I THINK sealed the floor tile...), and cut and dry-fit the baseboard.

His next task is to use the router for the top of the baseboards so it matches the rest of the house. (He had to get a new router bit and now wants a router table, of course...) He'll then paint the baseboard and quarter-rounds.

One of the things we discussed this weekend was what to do with the window sill. It's not in great shape because of some old water damage. We don't want to paint it nor can we refinish it without refinishing all the wood in the bathroom (which is a lot). My mother suggested tiling the top of it, which actually may not be a bad idea. We're still throwing the idea around.

He also has to create a transition between the bedroom floor and the tile floor. He's decided to use the old oak wood that he ripped up when he exposed the floor. He'll make it a slight slope (since there is a height difference) and as little lip as possible, making it less lip than the current transition has, which will be good.

The heat here has been more than oppressive. We don't have air conditioning and with cinderblock walls from basement to roof, installing ductwork for central air is not really possible. While we look at the other options (which are many, but none of them cheap), we've been using window fans. We set them to exhaust during the day and back to the intake when the temperature drops at night. I have to admit - it works amazingly well... until the temperature doesn't drop below 70F at night like last night. The downstairs stays relatively cool simply because of the cinderblock walls.

We do have a couple window air conditioning units that came with the house, but one is permanently in the Great Room, which is a room we don't use much in the summer. With the next 15 days not showing a single day with a high temperature of below 87F, the other should be taken out and checked over before we try it.

Poor Planning

2010-06-23T20:31:00.003-04:00

Do you remember that I briefly mentioned in our last post that Tim and I had a discussion about how to fit the floor tile against the wall tile by the shower? Well, Tim measured the floor tile before we made a final decision (and before he ripped off the lower level of tile from beneath the shower). What happened is this:

Can you see the gap between the tile and the wall just on the half tile there in the center? Here's another view:

We either have a really big grout joint between the wall and the tile just for that part of the tile OR... we rip out that one floor tile and replace it.

Even though I don't tile, I do know that ripping out just one tile is a pain in the behind. Tim is not happy with himself right now.

So, tonight he's going to put the rest of the wall tile in and glue down the rest of the pieces around the radiator (I'll put pictures of that in a later post), then maybe, if he's not too tired, unhook the radiator as planned. He's also teaching our son how to tile.

Tim was able to borrow a wet-saw from a co-worker and it made his life much easier. The saw is much smaller than I expected and very portable. I got some pictures of him cutting the replacement tile for the above problem. I don't know if buying a wet-saw is a good investment for us or not. We have two other bathrooms to tile, maybe three. I'm guessing it will be - just to get around the radiators!

On a bit of a personal note - I've had a lot of great comments lately and I wanted to say that we really appreciate them. In many cases, the comments have been very helpful, too! This is our 2nd old house and our 4th house overall. Each house and each project has taught us something different, and if we know only one thing, it's that we still have a lot to learn!

Wet vs Dry

2010-06-20T14:03:00.000-04:00

Tim is continuing to tile the bathroom, since it's been too hot to go on the roof and finish off the woodpecker (see below). We did decide to lay the tile out in a diagonal. It creates a bit more work, but it looks SO much nicer. Most of the tile is glued down, with the exceptions being where you can still see the separators.

He's been able to cut all but three of the tiles using his manual scoring saw and the Dremel. The last three floor tiles he keeps breaking with the Dremel, so he needs a wet saw for them.

Until he figures out how he can beg, borrow or steal a wet saw, he's going to re-tile the area under the shower entrance. He had to take out the tiles along the bottom from the new shower (seen here to the left) so that the floor tiles would fit better. It was a bit of a discussion as to whether the floor tile should be fitted beside the wall tile, or the wall tile be fitted on top of the floor tile. This will look much better.

Two of the three tiles he needs the wet saw for are around the radiator. Not a big surprise. If you look closely, you can see the missing tiles on the far right and far left of the radiator. The problem is cutting the tile around the intake and outtake pipes.

Here are the close-ups.
Left side:

and right side:

The final floor tile that needs the wet saw wraps around the closet door and the entrance from the back bedroom. It ends up that this cut is trickier than it looks because of the small area between the peak of the cut and the end of the tile.

He expects to spend the rest of the week finishing up the tile work, removing the radiator support and finish painting. I wonder if it's too early to pick out sconces for around the mirror...

Back to the woodpecker -- one of my readers, "Old House Lover", commented on the "Carpentry" post, that it does look like we have woodpeckers eating carpenter bee larvae out of the wood on the fascia. "Old House Lover" was dead-on. I did some research and found a picture on this site (scroll down a bit), which looked eerily like our fascia. Our daughter and I had told Tim that we heard a woodpecker up there, so it isn't really a surprise. Not fun. Woody the Woodpecker was one of my least favorite cartoons. Just sayin'.

Carpentry From Tim

2010-06-15T10:00:00.000-04:00

Post from Tim:

What we thought were just carpenter bees, turned out to be carpenter ants AND carpenter bees. The carpenter ants had dug some fresh holes, which we patched and painted over. So now everything is patched, painted and caulked and we'll see if there are any critters left.

I'll go up and look tomorrow. That's all the news fit to print!

A View From the Top

2010-06-14T12:01:00.002-04:00

While Tim was fixing the carpenter bee damage and taking his before and after pictures, he also took some pretty cool pictures from the roof that I thought I'd share:

Carpentry

2010-06-13T17:47:00.004-04:00

A few posts ago I mentioned that Tim had found a hole in the side of the roof that he needed to patch. Yesterday he went back up armed and ready to attack... carpenter bees. He also, without my even having to ask, took some before and after pictures.

To fix the problem, he scraped the area around the holes of the rest of the paint, filled the holes with wood putty and is letting the putty cure. Once the putty is cured, he'll go back up, fill any remaining holes, sand the putty down, then start priming and painting the wood to protect it (and keep it from happening again).

Those little guys were doing some damage! The paint wasn't properly primed, so peeled away, leaving exposed wood for the bees to feast on.

Yesterday morning was cool enough that he could spend some time on the roof without damaging the shingles. The rest of the weekend, however, has just been too hot to do anymore roof-work safely.

It IS supposed to cool down again on Tuesday, which should give the putty plenty of time to cure so that he can, hopefully, finish it.

This morning I heard a pecking sound in that side of the house, so he has to make another trip to the attic to see what's up or see if the woodpeckers are also at the exposed wood.

These are the "after" pictures, but still before the priming and painting:

This kept him from moving along a little farther in tiling the north wing bathroom than he'd have liked, but getting rid of the bees was a bit of a priority!

Tomorrow I'll post some of the pictures he took just for fun while he was up there!

Floor Tile

2010-06-07T12:33:00.001-04:00

(Note: I forgot to add... this is still work being done to the north wing Jack and Jill bathroom... thanks, Janet, for asking!!)

Tim did a lot more painting this weekend, as well as laid out the floor tile. He first laid it out so that it was horizontal on the floor. Neither of us liked it much and no matter how he laid it, it left small pieces on the ends. He then laid it out diagonally. I like the diagonal much better and it looks like the concern about small pieces pretty much goes away.

Next weekend he'll do the actual tiling. He has a co-worker who wants to learn how to do tiling, so he's coming over to watch

Tim actually asked me if I wanted him to do the finish work before starting on the south bathroom. YES! I want this bathroom to be absolutely, completely and thoroughly done! All I want to do is have to worry about what color towels I want to use in there!

Moving Right Along

2010-06-03T10:15:00.007-04:00

The painting is actually happening in the bathroom! It's a miserable time to be painting, what with the humidity and the stink bugs, but it's happening. Tim got the inside of the closet and the ceiling painted. You can see the brush marks in the closet, so it may need another coat. Unfortunately you can't see the color. It's a very, very light green. Also - since this is inside the closet, the pine walls change the color of the paint slightly. The ceiling looks fabulous.

Tim thinks he can get all the painting finished this weekend. While he's waiting for the paint to dry, he told me to get the household maintenance list to him so he can attack that between coats. I keep all the maintenance items (e.g. - switch the septic fields, change out the furnace filters, etc.) in my iCal so that it pops-up when it's all due. I do the same for the bigger housecleaning jobs that aren't done regularly. With a house this big, it keeps things from being skipped.

On to something completely different... my mom has decided to join the blogging world. She used to write a locally popular book review newspaper column for the town paper, but has decided to take it to a bigger audience and cover a larger variety of topics. For those of you who know my mom, you'll completely understand why it's called Pat's Opinionated View". You can see it at http://patsopinionatedview.blogspot.com.

It's a Pane

2010-06-02T10:00:00.000-04:00

Last week, our 16 year old son decided to put himself through the upper part of the back foyer storm door. Fortunately, he was not seriously hurt. We have many window screens sitting around, so checked to see if we could replace it with a screen for the summer and have a new storm window made for it for the fall. None of them fit, but interestingly, we found a bunch of old windows. Actual windows - with wooden panes, sashes and all. Our guess is that when the 1947 addition was added, they had to remove the outside windows on that side of the house.

In our great room, somebody had the bright idea of CUTTING AWAY the bottom part of the window to fit in a window-unit air conditioner. They didn't just open the window and fit it in, as designed, but actually sawed away the bottom half of the bottom pane. So - we can't remove the air conditioner. We have it taped up with plastic and, in the winter, covered with a blanket. It still allows in a lot of outside temperature. Replacing the window means that we'd have one window that won't match the others. We're really, really hoping that one of these extra windows will fit or at the very least give us the materials to fix it.

In the meantime, it looks like the storm door in the back foyer does not have standard windows, so Tim will be teaching our son how to make window screens!

Prime Time

2010-06-01T15:13:00.001-04:00

FINALLY, Tim has started priming the back bathroom. I went back to take some pictures, but you wouldn't be able to see anything different. The weather is so humid that it's going to take a while to dry.

While patching the walls and sanding, Tim found that the window in this bathrooms has "sunk" a little due to some damage that occurred to this side of the house during the previous owners' time here. He is certain that it has settled into its final resting place, so filled in the gaps. This should significantly cut-back on the problem we're having with stink bugs (although everybody says they're having problems with stink bugs this season. Oh yeah - and the stink bugs don't help the paint dry nicely, either!) The window still works fine and there is no damage to the structure around the window, so all is good.

I'm no longer predicting when the bathroom will be finished, but Tim is already thinking about how he's going to finish the bathroom in the south wing - his next project.

The Kitchen Door Room

2010-05-30T12:17:00.002-04:00

It seems that although we're still a ways from opening our doors as a B&B, we have one room that is staying continuously occupied. If you remember from the last post, we had a nest of swallows in the upper left corner of our kitchen door. Since that post, all three chicks have left the nest. Given their size, we're fairly certain that it all went smoothly. Their last day was very cute - three very proud, big chicks getting ready to learn how to fly.

Tim wanted to take the caution tape off the door yesterday, but we decided to leave it up a couple more days since we don't know if swallows learn to fly from the nest, then return or if they leave once and never come back.

This morning when we checked on the birds the nest was, again, completely empty. However, the bottom right corner of the door was not:

We know we can't let him stay there, because while baby raccoons are really cute, big raccoons are not. He also seems to be a little young to be without his mama, so our daughter is trying to find an animal rescue that will take him. No luck so far. Tim wants to take him back into the woods and let nature deal with him tonight.

He's not at all bothered by us being around him. He'll open his eyes and watch us, but just is sort of hanging out. We don't know if he's that's because he just wants to get a good day's sleep or if he's weak or ill (or all three). For now, he gets to stay there until we can figure out what's happening.

Yesterday's Blues Festival was fabulous, as always. Once again - great people joined us and the music, weather and wine were all great! We look forward to it every year. It's still happening today and tomorrow, for those who wish to go. We highly recommend it!

Today we're back to working on the house. Tim is outside dealing with dead and overhanging tree branches. While cleaning the gutter last weekend, he found a hole in the attic wall that he now has to go up and patch (another reason Master Raccoon has to go away). Then he's back to the bathroom.

I'm working on some overdue housework (in this house, that's an ongoing concern - forever "catching up") and then may help our daughter finish peeling her wallpaper.

Leisure No More

2010-05-26T08:40:00.008-04:00

Tim's foot is better and things have started to move along again. This past weekend he finished laying the backer board in the bathroom and ordered the floor tile. He has a couple more patches to do on the walls before he begins to paint. I've said this many times before, but think it might actually happen now - he should be able to start painting this week. We won't be able to have overnight guests for this weekend's Blues Festival, but everybody was forewarned. The one set-back is that he accidentally stepped on the flange for the toilet and now needs to be replaced.

I spent the weekend, as promised, planting flower pots to brighten the yard up a bit. Generally speaking, the outside yards are being left alone with only minimal maintenance. The front yard gets more maintenance while the backyard gets the dogs.

This window pot has plants that will survive the rain pouring off the roof, according to the nursery. The added benefit is that the red seems to be attracting hummingbirds.

These are the hanging planters I put in the driveway circle this year. The one on the right may need more sun than it will be provided here, so I'll have to keep an eye on it.

Tim also spent time this weekend finishing up the weeding and mulching two of the front beds. Eventually we're going to turn these into one big bed. I bought the irises last year at the Kennett Square Farmers Market and they were beautiful this year. They don't show up well in the picture. Once we get the big pile of dirt moved from the front lawn (which should be underway shortly) this bed should be a stunner from the road.

This is the bed that I love the most. The spring we moved in, my dad spent a LOT of time in here weeding and cleaning it up because it was such a wreck. Underneath all the overgrowth we found a peony. I put a small trellis around it and this year watched it as it grew to make sure it stayed within the trellis. The peony is blooming beautifully! Generally, the hostas, pachysandra and virginia creeper are filling in nicely after years of being under a lot of brush.

I did do some weeding early on this spring while the daffodils were blooming (GORGEOUS this year), but the poison ivy got to me again (hence my problem with weeding overall - I'm a bit "overly sensitive" it seems.) I'm either going to have to go in with a haz-mat suit and get rid of all the poison ivy for good or Tim (who, ironically, isn't as sensitive to it as I am) is going to have to do it.

I told you in a recent post that we had an arborist come out to look at the trees. This is the tree we're most worried about: See that big branch over the house? It's as big as a mature tree itself. Generally, it's all very healthy and shouldn't be a problem, but the arborists are going to do some things to make it even safer. We need lightening rods in about four trees and it looks like one of the big trees by the driveway may have to come down, as it's rotting from the bottom up. The coolest thing was watching how excited these guys were to see all the mature trees on our lot. They truly, truly seem to love their job!

Last year, Tim and I decided to cut back a few of the completely overgrown boxwoods. We cut them WAY back. This year, the ones against the foundation are coming back very nicely. We still have to rip out the beds against the foundation to regrade, but it looks like these boxwoods are going to be strong enough to withstand that. Some of the boxwoods in the backyard didn't survive, but we but them back AND transplanted them AND subjected them to the dogs.

Our daughter found a HUGE snapping turtle on the back patio on Sunday. By the time she came to get us, it had taken off. Sunday evening there was a smaller one over by the bed with the peony in it. This is their egg-laying season, so they make the trek up from the pond to lay their eggs, then head back. The dogs have seen them, but don't seem to bother them much (and visa versa). Thank goodness.

Finally, an update on the birds. The cardinal chicks didn't survive. I checked on them the day after they opened their eyes and all three were gone. From what I read, that would've been too soon for them to leave the nest. My friend who works for the Audubon Society said that something probably got to them overnight, especially given where the nest was located. Very sad.

The swallows, however, that are by our kitchen door, are alive and well. There are three rapidly growing chicks in there. Our daughter has taped off the kitchen door with CAUTION tape, both from the inside and outside, so that we don't scare them off by opening the door. Mama-sparrow got in our house on Sunday night and it took us a very long time to chase her out. She just sat on the open kitchen door and wouldn't fly out. We figured it was probably a good vantage point for her to watch and protect the chicks. That's all fine and good, but my kitchen didn't need her in there. She was pretty exhausted by the time we finally chased her out and that worried us a bit, but we saw her the next morning and she was back to full energy. The chicks have doubled in size just since Sunday and I expect they'll be leaving the nest soon.

If you'd like to join us for this weekend's Blues Festival, just let me know! We always have a blast!

Beauty in Forced Leisure

2010-05-12T11:22:00.000-04:00

Those of you who know Tim well, know that he has a recurring and very, very painful foot problem. About 3 weeks ago, it flared up again. He can barely walk on it. It COULD be that the running through airports he's been doing every week for the last 11 weeks isn't helping any - but he doesn't think so. I may want to disagree with that. Regardless of the cause, it's keeping him from doing anything around the house again. If you read back over the posts, you'll see this foot problem set the house remodeling back quite a bit and wasn't something we took into account when we created our time table. The foot-thing is real... his foot is the size of a small watermelon. That doesn't make the entire thing less frustrating.

Add to that the typical end-of-the-school-year that parents with school-aged children go through every spring: concerts, recitals, finals, competitions, proms... It just gets crazy. I truly believe, and have probably said this before, that the springtime is WAY busier than the beginning of the school year and the holidays. Tim is also crazy-busy at work. I need to stop depending on Tim for the heavy grunt-work and learn how to do it myself. Except paint. I can't paint.

I've been doing some outside work. The landscaping and yard is still low on the priority list, so I'm trying to fill some pots with pretty flowers to at least make it look halfway decent. The problem is that it's still getting very cold at night, so I haven't been able to plant the annuals that normally would be in by now. I'm starting with a few today and hope the low temp. stays above 45F.

We also have been watching the birds. A lot. We have a swallow that built a nest on the corner of our kitchen door - the entrance door we use the most. Everytime we use the door, she flies off, which CAN'T be good for the eggs. I'm encouraging everybody to use the garage instead. While she sometimes gets nervous if we do that, it's not as bad. I'm thinking of putting yellow police tape in front of the kitchen door...

Out the large window in the great room is a cardinal's nest with three very small chicks, right where we can easily see them. Their eyes aren't open yet. Papa cardinal is running around chirping like mad while mama is getting them food. We try to watch mama feed them, but she won't come back while we're at the window, so we take peeks every now and then. (Note: I just peeked at them this morning - their eyes are wide open and they are probably already twice the size they were two days ago!)

While we're in this time of forced leisure, sort-of, we thought it a good time for an arborist to come out and take a look at the trees on our property. We had a very large one by the house that wasn't blooming and thought it would have to come down. We also have a branch the size of a large tree that hangs over our master bedroom suite. It ends up that the "dead" tree is a late-blooming hickory. We also have tulip oaks, red oaks, ash, poplars and a bunch of other great trees. Unfortunately, it looks like the only black walnut we had was what the lightening strike took down last year.

The arborist is returning today with a cohort so they can give us some more information about what should be pruned and redoing the lightening rods. We should also have the lightening rods on the house redone. This is the type of thing Tim can't do, so dealing with it while he's laid up is ideal.

So, in spite of there being no real actual progress on the remodeling, we are getting a few minor things accomplished, as well as simply living the good life!

Coming Home

2010-04-09T11:51:00.002-04:00

I have spent the last two weeks running around the Mid-Atlantic region. I've first went to Williamsport, PA, which is jam-packed with people right now due to the drilling for natural gas in that area. If you need to go to Williamsport anytime within the next several years, book your rooms up there now -- and good luck. (Don't forget to check out the great B&Bs that are up there!)

We then immediately left for Williamsburg, VA. My kids love the history of Colonial America. This year the focus was on the Marquis De Lafayette, who talked quite a bit about his time here in the Brandywine Valley. The Brandywine Battlefield is only about 15 minutes from here and a very cool place to visit.

During our trip to Williamsburg, my son turned 16. All he wanted to do for his birthday weekend (after we got back) was stay home and play games with his dad. Yup - that's what he wanted to do to celebrate. So, my daughter and I met friends and had a girls' weekend in Rehoboth Beach, DE - shopping and eating. Rehoboth Beach is about 1-1/2 hours (depending upon traffic) from here and a fabulous little overnight trip. We loved it!

Now we're all home and together again and we're back into the swing of working on the house. Tim put the new sub-floor down in the north wing bathroom and has the concrete backing ready to install for the tile. He has yet to order the tile that matches the shower, but that's okay. He has some time, I think.

I'm working on de-cluttering the house again - getting rid of clothes that don't fit the kids anymore and the like. I'd like to work outside some, but just haven't had the chance; which is a shame, since the weather has been so beautiful. The screened porch (the "Joyous Porch") took some damage this year due to the heavy amounts of snow and wind. I have to learn how to replace the screens. Having the porch back open, though, does not foster good work habits!

With the mention of the Brandywine Battlefield, it brought to mind the Chaddsford Winery's Blues Festival, which has become an annual tradition for us during Memorial Day Weekend. (The winery is pretty much right across the street from the Battlefield). If you're interested in joining us this year, please let me know. I can't offer overnight accommodations, yet (no bathrooms you know...), but we would love to see you at the Festival!

Just How Cool is Kennett Square?

2010-03-24T12:59:00.000-04:00

Cool enough to be listed in budgettravel.com's Coolest Small Town in America Contest, that's how cool! We're all pretty excited here in Kennett Square and want you to see just how cool it really is.

Budgettravel.com's criteria for choosing their top 21 (from which voters will choose the top 10) is that the town must have under 10,000 residents. No small cities here - just towns. It also must be on the upswing, drawing the attention, and new residents, to its quality of life, restaurants, art galleries and proximity to nature. They are NOT looking for "quaint". They want avant-garde, not "country stores". Kennett Square has it all!

Kennett Square restaurants have been featured on Martha Stewart and the Travel Channel, just to name a couple. There is an awesome wine tasting room (one of our favorite places to go), art strolls every month, a downtown murder mystery each year, the Mushroom Festival (of course), the Beer Festival, Longwood Gardens and our YMCA has just been vote #1 in customer satisfaction in the country! It is also the smallest town with its very own professional symphony! Arts, music, great food, nature trails, museums... I could go on and on... but instead will refer to here: http://www.historickennettsquare.com/.

Go here:
http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-srv/coolestsmalltowns/CST2010.html to vote, and here:
http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-dyn/content/article/2010/01/28/AR2010012802688_2.html#KENNETT to read more about Kennett Square! As of the writing of this email, we're listed as the #5 coolest town in America, but quickly closing in on #4. You may vote as many times as you like between now and May 9th!

Regardless of where Kennett Square finished in this contest, it's already proven to me to be the coolest small town in America. That's why we're thrilled to be living here and can't wait to get this house finished so we can open the B&B and welcome others to experience it!

Trial and Error

2010-03-23T11:16:00.002-04:00

But mostly error, I think...

So, Tim has spent the last two to three weeks planing the boards that he pulled up from the north wing bathroom... to no avail. It ends up that after all that work, we still can't use them. They have nail holes in each and every one of them and do not match (even closely) the other boards that we'd have to fill in with. We're back to re-tiling the floor. Now, at least, the tile will match the new shower.

In the meantime, Tim has still been trying to figure out how to work around the radiator. I was fairly adamant about not removing it... it worked and you don't mess with a working radiator. He disagreed. Ok. I really had no problem with that. He really is better at house-maintenance than I am. So, the plumber came back and told him - don't remove a radiator that works. He did say that if Tim built a frame around it, he could suspend the radiator where it is currently, then remove and replace the floor under it.

After going through all sorts of plausible ideas of ways to do this in his head, he came up with this:

It's three pieces of wood bolted into the support beams of the wall (through the plaster, which isn't great, but he can repair that easily), then using straps to suspend the radiator to the supports. It's working!

Now it's time for him to start prepping the floor for the tile. Since Tim is good at tiling, there are no worries there.

Our first house was also an older home, although significantly smaller than this. We were very young when we bought it and, like this house, it needed some work. When Tim would need time to do bigger projects without interruption, the best way to handle it was for him to take a few days off work and for me to take our young son away for awhile. It was amazing the difference Tim could make in three days when we were gone versus when we were there.

He's asking for that time again and I've realized that it's much harder to do take two teenagers away then it was with a toddler who wasn't even in preschool yet. I'm thinking... the beach???

"The Impersonal Hand of Government...

2010-03-04T13:18:00.004-05:00

...can never replace the helping hand of a neighbor." ~Hubert H. Humphrey

I don't know if you remember, but about a year and a half ago we lost a very large tree on the far end of our property (see: http://makingbandb.blogspot.com/2008/12/from-fallen-tree.html). The township came and removed it from the road and left what remained on our property. Because the tree is so large, Tim's chainsaw won't cut through it and we've just sort of let it there until we could figure out what to do with it. It's a big old gorgeous red oak.

A week ago, a neighbor from down the road, whom we had yet to meet, stopped by to ask if he could have it. Tim and he worked out a deal - he cuts us two slabs of the wood from which Tim could make tables and some linear feet and the neighbor can take whatever he's willing to cut-up and haul away. I think they're both satisfied with the deal... and we met a good guy in the process.

In the meantime, Tim's been working in the garage scraping and peeling the concrete and tar paper off the tops of the oak floor boards he pulled up from the bathroom. It's been tough work, but there is some gorgeous wood under there. He thought he could get away without buying a planer, but now has changed his mind again.

Some time next week the plumber is coming back to remove the radiator in that bathroom so Tim can deal with the floor under it. Hopefully once that happens, the flooring will come together quickly.

Speaking of radiators (there is a connection in my head, here...) I'm seeing more signs of spring. I'm still not minding the snow, but signs of spring are always so beautiful. These are crocuses trying to come up beside our front walkway.

Unfortunately, this is where my daffodils that we transplanted last year are. I may not see them for a while.

The Bathroom and an Extensive Discussion on Radiators

2010-02-22T14:10:00.002-05:00

I'm running out of clever post titles, so now my titles have become the White House of Remodeling.

(A brief note: my computer has decided to not recognize the disk I have the pictures of today's post on. I'll try to get them added into the post later. UPDATE 2/23/10: I finally got the pictures. )

Tim spent the weekend patching the wall behind the sink, using drywall instead of plaster. He also reinstalled the long board that covers the plumbing in the floor and patched the sub-floor where he had to remove it - around the toilet and in front of the radiator. He's not happy with the sub-floor in front of the radiator because he can't get under the radiator and felt that he jury-rigged the patch. After discussing it, we decided that we'd wait on that patch until he gets the radiator out and can do it all properly.

Which leads me to the radiators. Tim has been looking extensively into how to deal with remodeling around and with the radiators. A couple of my readers have made some fabulous suggestions, and we are taking them into account.

As I think I mentioned before, the ideal situation is to remove each radiator, clean it, dip it, paint behind it, deal with the floor beneath it, replace the valve and seals, then re-install it. This will average about $250/radiator - best. We have approximately 30 radiators, a couple of which are easily 6 feet long each. You do the math.

I would love to spend some money on this to get it done right. One reason is that some of them look like they've never been cleaned behind. I've bought all sorts of cleaning equipment to do so, but just can't quite get to all of it to my satisfaction. Another reason is that radiators which work as they should will save us a lot on our heating bills. A lot. For example, we rarely use the back two bedrooms in the north wing - especially right now since the bathroom is out of commission. During this cold and snowy winter, we could easily use the valves to shut the radiators in those two bedrooms off completely and leaving the radiator in the bathroom on enough to keep the pipes from freezing. The problem is that we don't know the shape of the valves. Most seem to be stuck and forcing them may do harm that we don't want to cause in the middle of winter.

Tim thinks that, while he's read and listened extensively on this, he may hire somebody to do the first two so that he can watch and help. Then we'll do the rest ourselves. We'll have to figure out how to move some of them - those 6 footers must literally weight a ton. Seriously.

From an aesthetic point of view - I'd like to see them all dipped and completely stripped of their paint. In most cases, "raw" radiators look nicer to me than painted ones.

I also had pictures taken of big tree in the circle driveway that the deer have decided to use as their nighttime bedroom...

AND OF SPRING! The Magnolia tree out front has early buds on it. I also swear that I saw some daffodil shoots yesterday on the side of Newark Road! Don't get me wrong - I am not tired of snow, but there is still something about signs of spring that do a heart good. Again - I'll try to get the pictures up later, once I figure out what's going on here.

Plumber Day #2

2010-02-18T09:00:00.000-05:00

The plumber finished up pretty early this morning. Everything is a go! The only thing that he really added today was some shiny new hardware for where the sink is:

I also took a picture of all the wood Tim pulled up from the floor. The large plank you see is the plank that runs down the center of the bathroom covering up the plumbing. It will be easy to re-install. The rest is the hardwood that he'll refinish and re-install.

Now he turns his concern to what to do about the wood under the radiator. He says this bathroom will just have to be on hold until we no longer need heat so he can remove the radiator. I'm thinking there might be a more timely way to do this. Right now he has the radiator "up on blocks". I think he can devise a way to work that wood out of there and work it back once it's refinished. It's something we'll both have to look at carefully.

So, the next steps are to figure out how to remove the wood under the radiator, finish the hardwood, re-install the hardwood, patch the wall behind the sink, then finish the aesthetics of the bathroom.

We are SOOO behind schedule!

Plumber Day #1

2010-02-17T08:00:00.003-05:00

The plumber came today to switch out all the pipes. This is what he's done so far...

He said that there is about two hours of work left tomorrow and, knock on wood, everything is going smoothly so far. He will be here a lot less time than Tim expected.

Opening the Floor

2010-02-16T10:03:00.000-05:00

Tim got most of the hardwood up. He couldn't get the hardwood that was between the two closets as you go into the back bedroom because the boards ran under the closets. He'll have to sand them down to match the rest of the floor when it's installed. Interestingly, the hardwood took a lot longer to take up than he expected because rather than nailing the end boards down and floating the ones between (since they were tongue and groove) they nailed each board down.

The area directly under the toilet had pine slats instead of the oak. Tim's suspicion is that they had a leak, the oak rotted, so they cut it out and replaced it with the pine, then installed the tile over the entire floor. We have enough of the oak slats left over from the removal of the master bathroom that we can easily replace it with hardwood again.

Once he got all the black paper off, there was one wide board in front of the plumbing that came down from the sink. If you notice, all the other slats are done on the diagonal, so it was - um - really easy to see. SO - all he had to do was remove that one board and a few boards by the shower. The pipes look fine from the outside!

The area where the plumber said was completely corroded shut, is actually simply blocked off. You can see the large bolt near the center of the picture. So - that's not the problem we thought it was. However, we know that there is a lot of corrosion in the pipes in this bathroom, so while everything is up, we'll replace it all with copper pipes and know that it's been done right. The fun will be putting it all back together!

The Tough Spots

2010-02-15T09:00:00.030-05:00

There are two trouble spots in the bathroom so far. The first is one we've known about since the sink stopped draining - having to remove part of the plaster wall behind the sink. The problem is that once the plumbing in there is fixed, we have to patch it. Ideally, we'd re-plaster it, but that's not realistic. We're probably going to have to patch it with drywall. For now, however, it's just a hole in the wall. Maybe we should brick it in just to add a unique dimension to the room...

...or not.

The other, more tricky problem, is what to do about the flooring under the radiator. Here you can see that there is tile, the backerboard, then the hardwood under the radiator feet. This radiator happens to be one that works well, so we don't want to mess with it too much. Removing the radiator, so we understand, is very, very difficult. Personally, I would LOVE to know of a way to remove every single radiator in the house to thoroughly clean them and fix them so that they all work efficiently. If anybody out there has experience with remodeling around radiators of this type, we would love to hear from you.

Hardwood Floors

2010-02-14T14:33:00.001-05:00

Tim's suspicion proved to be correct. Under the tile was a layer of oak tongue and groove flooring above the pine slat sub-floor. He cut out a small section of a floor (happening to hit a nail and ruining his saw blade) to find oak. You can see here the tongue and groove and the pine board sub-flooring underneath. So, they tiled directly over the oak floor.

It looks like they ran the floor directly from the bedroom beside it and added the transition on top after the tile was installed. On the left here, you can see the guest room flooring (the left side of the picture), the transition (the lighter wood), the dark wood which is the pine sub-floor and the white area which is the top of the oak flooring. Why is the top of the wood floor white? Because it's that think layer of concrete (some of it's black, too as you'll see below) and that...

...is going to be the problem - getting the concrete off the top of the oak. The bottom was not made to be finished. The picture doesn't show it very well, but it has a deep groove down the center of the slat and the manufacturer's name stamped into it.

However, the top of the floor has a very thin layer of the concrete used to install the tile. That's the black and white you see here on the left. Tim thinks that he can get a planer (any excuse to get himself a planer) and can get rid of that layer by planing off 1/16". He thinks that the money spent on planing the wood will be worth being able to keep the original wood and not spending the money on new flooring. Since it's in a bathroom, we'll have to polyurethane (I'm making that a verb, thankyouverymuch) the heck out of it all, but if this all works, it will be beautiful.

The Easy Bathroom

2010-02-13T16:15:00.003-05:00

Tim started ripping the tile and flooring out of the north wing bathroom today. The installers did a nice job putting the tile down, which means it's tough for Tim to get the backing up.

These first two pictures were taken before Tim started ripping up the tile. He has the wall-sconces (near the top of the first picture) partially removed from the wall) and the sink base sort of askew so that he can get at the pipes a little better. The tile that you see in the bottom right corner is what he's going to be taking up. The second picture is of the area where the wall needs to be removed to get at the plumbing back there. Destroying good plaster is just wrong, but it needs to be done.

Tim started removing the tile. The concrete layer under the tile is in really good shape. It will be tough for him to take all this up off the sub-floor.

The tile is all removed here and he's started taking the concrete layer up off the sub-floor. In the second picture, if you look closely, you can begin to see the sub-flooring, which looks to be decent slats of ... oak...? maybe? We'll see.

He's done for today and all cleaned up. We'll see what he uncovers tomorrow!! If the sub-flooring is oak, we may consider turning them over and using them as our actual flooring. I think it would be great if we could use whatever is already down there!!

Blizzard

2010-02-12T08:09:00.000-05:00

My daughter turned 13 on Wednesday - during a raging blizzard. Somehow appropriate! On top of 20+ inches of snow that we got on Tim's birthday last Friday, we received another 15"(?) or so. It is tough to measure because of the previous snow.

We lost electricity for about 8 hours Wednesday night. We expected it to be out longer, but the house didn't really even get all that cold before it came back on. We had just built a fire in the Music Room/Conservatory/Living Room/Library (see - we STILL don't agree on what to call it) expecting to camp out there all night, but didn't need to.

The good news is that all of our trees survived the double barrage of wet, heavy snow and the wind. Our well pit's new sump pump must be handling the melting snow just fine and there are no leaks in our roof as of yet, in spite of the heavy snow laying on it and the gutters. We do have one gutter by the garage that we're keeping a close eye on, but so far - so good (and yes, I'm knocking on wood right now)! This house seems to be wonderfully blizzard-comfortable and that's a good thing.

So - enjoy the beautiful pictures!

Behind the garage:

From the Joyous Porch:

From the front door:

The circular driveway:

Bathroom Woes

2010-02-09T14:09:00.000-05:00

The north wing bathroom just continues to be a problem and now it's "hit the fan" so to speak. After Tim scraped out the inside of pipes behind the sink, the sink still wouldn't drain. He finally cried Uncle and called a plumber. Tim's suspicion is that the sink isn't vented, so there's an air pocket in there keeping it from draining.

Tim is sort-of correct. The plumber said that the vent is tied into the vent for the toilet and the area between the sink and the toilet vent is blocked with corrosion. He could tell that by holding a mirror down the hole in the floor where the toilet was seated. Basically - all of the plumbing of this bathroom is corroded almost shut (which is probably why the toilet clogged so easily) and needs to be replaced.

How? By ripping up the floor and the sub-floor. The tile that the previous owners had installed a couple years ago, so is fairly new, needs to go. Once that's all ripped open, we'll get a really good idea of just exactly what we're dealing with. We'll probably also have to rip out part of the wall behind the sink. The plumber didn't say, but it sounds like our new shower does not have to be ripped out. I don't need to tell you that THAT would really stink and make Tim say more bad words than he already said today.

I never liked the tile on the bathroom floor anyhow. That's the silver lining. Now we can get tile to match the shower we put in.

The summary of all this - the bathroom isn't going to be finished this weekend as planned. In fact, this bathroom will be out of commission for a couple months, yet. Up to this point, we could still use the toilet and the shower, if absolutely necessary. Now that won't even be a possibility.

The other thing that stinks (no pun intended) is that the vent for the toilet may need to be replaced, too, which would mean ripping open part of the wall in the Great Room. So far, it looks like that's not the case, but with the way this bathroom is going, I'm not going to assume anything.

This was the one bathroom that we didn't think needed anything done to it other than replace the shower and paint. This is because a couple years ago a large tree branch had fallen into this bathroom and they had redone it all, other than the shower. Now it looks like all four of the full baths will need complete overhauls.

"Get Them Up Against The Wall..."

2010-01-31T20:19:00.000-05:00

"...There's one in the spotlight, he don't look right to me." ~Pink Floyd, "In the Flesh" from The Wall

Well, the sink still doesn't drain in the north bathroom. For now, Tim has postponed fixing it until he can figure out what he wants to do. In the meantime, he's primed the walls and removed the light sconces from the walls.

I bought a quart of Sherwin Williams "Duration" paint in white for the ceiling and a gallon of their "Harmony" paint (in "sagey") for the walls. Both are in a latex semi-gloss and both are lower impact on the environment than regular paint. The Sagey is very, very light, which is what I ended up wanting to go with in there. The darker swatches just didn't look right and made the room look very dreary. I think the Sagey will really brighten it up.

Since Tim took down the wall-sconces, I need to figure out what I want to replace them with. This is something I haven't even thought about. I'll have to spend some time this week really checking out some of the lighting stores in the area and see what's even available.

Once the walls are painted, I'll start looking through my fabric swatches to see what I want to make the window covering out of. I've decided to go with lined Roman shades throughout the house. They are easy to make, but are not great for keeping draughts from the corners of the windows from entering the room. I think I've created a design-idea that would take care of that problem, so we'll see how that goes!

Our daughter started stripping the wallpaper in her room in earnest. She knows that her room needs to be "remodel ready" when Tim starts the southwing bathroom, since they are beside each other. She's realizing just how hard it is to strip wallpaper - especially wallpaper that's been there for a very long time and was done very, very well. She has the top layer of paper off the entire back room and is scrubbing the bottom layer and glue. Once I get a chance to get in there with her, it will go a lot more quickly.

Leak No More

2010-01-21T16:09:00.000-05:00

Tim fixed the leaks in the plumbing of the sink last night and finally was able to put the sink back together. It no longer leaks. Now, however, it doesn't just drain slowly... it doesn't drain at all.

Back to square one.

Sinking

2010-01-19T07:44:00.000-05:00

Since the well pit is in a good place right now, Tim has thrown his effort into fixing the sink in the north bathroom. He really wants to do this on his own, if possible.

He finally got all the pieces of the drain apart and found that the pipe right at the wall was so full of corrosion and other like "junk" it was like a clogged artery that was only about 10% open. Over the years the hard water had taken quite a toll on that particular pipe. We're not sure why that pipe, that particular segment of pipe and not others, was clogged. There must have been another unknown factor playing into it.

Drain snakes weren't going to get through it, Draino and other chemicals weren't going to get through it... none of it. So, he took an old screwdriver and just scraped away at it. And scraped. And scraped. And scraped. I was remiss in getting a picture, for which I could kick myself, because it was pretty cool looking. The description of a clogged artery is apt, though.

Did I mention that Tim hates plumbing? I believe I have. So... the next saga has begun...

Once the pipe was sufficiently scraped, Tim measured everything up to get new pieces to install (the s-drain and the pieces around it). Tim's biggest complaint about plumbing is that nothing is standard. He measured 1-1/2" pipes and trotted off to Lowe's to get the parts needed. When he opened the package (with 1-1/2" labeled on it) one side had a 1-1/2" opening, while the other side had a 2" opening. Nothing on the package indicated the difference and Tim's ignorance of plumbing may have kept him from knowing that 1-1/2 really means 1-1/2 and 2. So back he went. He came home with a different set of pipes that was supposed to fit what he measured. Nope. Didn't work. So, he asked me how I would measure pipes for sizes. I have no clue. The inside? The outside? Both? He did both and went back to Lowe's (actually - I believe there have been more trips than mentioned above, but we'll leave it at that).

Finally, last night, he must have had the right fittings, because I could hear the hacksaw going (??) after I was in bed. I don't know what time he finally called it a night, but when I sleepily asked him if it worked he said, "No... it *%&$@ leaks."

The Well-Pit Sump Pump Project Is Complete

2010-01-12T12:29:00.000-05:00

Sunday night Tim tested the sump pump by running an extension cord down to well-pit and was satisfied that he had everything installed correctly. Today, the electricians came to finish it up. Other than some 220v vs. 110v issues, everything went very smoothly. The electrician did say that he thinks most of the water is coming from where our neighbor's electric runs through the pit for their pool. A simple patch of the hole should fix it.

Now that the sump pump is installed and there's nothing else we can do with the well-pit until the weather gets better, we can focus again on the bathrooms. The north wing bathroom sink has a drainage problem that is behind the wall. Tim has done everything within his knowledge-bank to fix it and can't, so we have to call a plumber in for it. We did go to the paint store a couple weeks ago (before the well saga began) and picked three colors. One of the colors I really like is a sage green, but it's too dark. I'm going to try to get the same color in a much lighter version. However, we're waiting for a plumber to fix the sink before we can move on.

What's That, Lassie?

2010-01-10T15:34:00.001-05:00

Timmy's in the well?

For the better part of today and yesterday, Tim has been installing the sump pump in the well. Around the area where the solenoid is installed is a short concrete wall. It was constructed initially so that if the well pit did get some water in it, the concrete wall would keep it from getting to the electrical. Part of the concrete wall deteriorated, however, and started allowing water to get to the solenoid. Add to that the partial deterioration of the concrete between the stones in the well-pit walls and you get flooding that flowed over the short inner concrete wall. We ended up with all of that happening at once (or -- since April). That probably is a good thing, actually, because we can get this fixed all at once and not worry about it for a long time - or so we hope.

Tim spent yesterday digging the hole for the sump pump and pouring the concrete to fix the deterioration of the inner concrete barrier. Today has been spent installing the plastic sleeve, the PVC tubing and the motor for the pump itself. He hasn't told me what he's doing about the electrical yet, but it looks like he has all the plumbing in place.

Since the well drillers came on Monday we have had better water pressure than before and that's been wonderful. I think, though, that we didn't expect to have to deal with the well pit or pump and this has both of us quite frustrated. This could've been time used to finish the north wing bathroom, which is getting really, really close. Or, as Tim will loudly declare, he could have been watching the NFL playoffs. I have pointed out to him that the NFL playoffs isn't getting our bathrooms done, either. This argument has not worked in a single house we've lived in during our 20 years of marriage, just so you know.

As of now, he's back off to Lowe's for some other undetermined piece to this whole mess. Since I don't know what he has planned for the electrical I guess I'm just glad that there is no precipitation forecasted for the next 15 days. Now if I could just say the same for football.

Pushing Down On Me

2010-01-05T10:17:00.080-05:00

The well-drillers finished up very quickly and were out of the house by 2:30. They can't figure out why the well pit flooded, but they figured out why our pressure was bad.

What they think happened over time is that the tank filled completely up with water. To be effective, it should be about 1/3 water, 2/3 air. The 2/3 air is where the water pressure comes from. Too much water also makes the pump work too hard. Ideally, there should be about 40 - 60 psi in there. We were getting just under 30 psi. They drained the tank of most of the water (it would've taken 8 hours to drain all of it and there wasn't the time, the weather conditions, nor the money to do that now). They re-pressurized the tank with air to about 35 p.s.i. They then forced water into it until they got to 35 psi, then allowed the pump to put water into until it hit about 45 psi. This will allow the system to work just fine until we get a chance to completely drain the tank once the weather is better.

One of the reasons they are stymied about the leak is that when they pressurized the tank and didn't run the pump, there were no leaks. In theory, that means the system was properly sealed.

Now (sooner rather than later), we need to put a sump pump in to keep the new solenoid from getting flooded again. Tim's parting words to me were, "Now I get to read up on installing sump pumps". We will also need to redo the pressurization process when we get the time and better weather (something else that's easy for us to do). Once that's done, they felt we shouldn't need to worry about the well for 20 years.

Our well tank down there is very large, probably about 5' x 10'. We can't figure out why it even has a tank. The well also feeds our neighbor's pool, however pressure that comes directly from the pump should be stronger than coming from the tank - both for the pool and for the house. My question to Tim was, if that's the case - the pressure being better coming directly from the pump - why can't we bypass the tank? He didn't know the answer to that. Maybe if we can figure out why there's such a big tank (or any tank at all) we might be able to answer that question.

Under Pressure

2010-01-04T12:04:00.002-05:00

Several months ago, I mentioned that we have a very nice well pit. It's giving us a lot of trouble right now, but truly, as far as well pits go, this one is quite nice.

This morning we had water. Lots of wonderful hot water with lots of wonderful water pressure - more than ever before. We could've stayed in the shower forever, but didn't want to take any chances and, while long showers may be good for the soul, they aren't good for the world's water supply.

The well-drillers showed up at 9am as promised to fix the solenoid. When they got to the well-pit, it was flooded with about 3' of water (it was dry last night and there's been no rain). They can't do anything until we pump the water out.

It looks like there was a break in the water line near the tank, which means that water is being directly pumped to the house, bypassing the tank (and giving us great water pressure). It also means that, at the same time, water is being pumped into the well pit. Ironic that when there's a leak of that magnitude, we get better water pressure. Maybe it's a good thing we didn't luxuriate in the shower as long as we wanted to this morning.

As of now, he has the water pumped out, the electric to the well turned off and he is getting rid of the mud. The well-drillers have just returned (they, fortunately, have a light day) and have started looking at everything. They did say that they'll be keeping the piping and electrical near the ground as before to keep it from freezing and, as a result, we'll need to install a sump pump. We'll see what else is in store for us.

Did I mention before that Tim's two Waterloos (no pun intended - truly) are plumbing and electrical? I have to admit that I'm curious to see if he's going to try installing the sump pump on his own or hire out.

This well-issue, may "well" (haha - okay - deliberate pun there) become an ongoing saga like the septic was two years ago. Let's hope not. Saga or not, I have a feeling there will at least be a couple more posts out of it here in the next day or two, so keep checking back!

...And Not a Drop To Drink.

2009-12-30T15:21:00.000-05:00

Yup. We still are having water issues. The well pit is no longer flooded, but the solenoid goes out several times a day now, leaving us without water frequently. The water pressure in the house has never been that great, so it's sometimes difficult to notice that's it's starting to go. Interestingly enough, when Tim "bumped" the solenoid last night, we had the best water pressure we've had since moving in - close to what I'd consider "normal" water pressure. It didn't last long, but it was nice while we had it.

Tim has two downfalls when it comes to the home renovations - plumbing and electrical. He called a well-drilling company and they are coming out Tuesday to replace the solenoid and build everything up off the ground as Tim wants. It's not nearly as expensive as we thought it would be, mostly because what's down there already is pvc piping. It's also probably going to be more economical than Tim doing it himself, so hiring somebody is the path on this one. Maybe they can fix the water pressure, too!

Well, Well, Well

2009-12-27T20:52:00.001-05:00

Last weekend we got about 13" of snow or more. This weekend it rained. A lot. That's a lot of water seeping into our ground all at once. With so much water in the ground, a large leak developed in the wall of the well pit, allowing gallons of water to flow in.

Since April, we have been having trouble with the solenoid on the pump from the well to the house. We've noticed that it happens most frequently when the temperature is below freezing at night and the daytime is pretty warm, so it happened a lot during the fall and spring, but not during the summer. When that happens, the well tank in the house empties and we run out of water... often in the middle of a shower (or so it seems). Tim or I have to go down to the well pit to "bump" the solenoid to get it working again. We need to replace it. (Some day I'll tell you about the spiders - maybe wolf spiders - that live on the roof of the well-pit...)

This takes us back to the water leaking (I mean POURING) into the well-pit yesterday. The water was pouring in so fast that it looked like somebody had turned on a faucet. It completely flooded all the electrical at the bottom of the pit, including the solenoid. The solenoid shorted out, as before, but can't just be "bumped" to get it started again because it was now below the water level.

SO - Tim spent yesterday with a stick with a hook at the end of it and a two-gallon bucket bring up water. He estimates that he brought up over 600 gallons of water over the course of 5 separate visits to the pit throughout the day. The rain stopped last night, but he still spent this morning down there to "bump" it consistently while we showered. After having spent the afternoon out today and leaving the lid off the pit to let it dry out a little, it looks like it's all working again. Now we should be back to just having the solenoid go out when the temperature varies as before. We'll test that theory during our Monday morning showers.

Tim's trying to figure out how to redo the wiring in the pit so that it's higher off the ground and not be as susceptible to the weather. We know that we have to replace at least the solenoid and most of the other electrical. We need to move some of the piping around and this summer we should dig around the foundation of the well-pit and seal the leaks in it. The pump itself seems to be fine. We should also probably put a sump pump in there, but that's a little more than he wants to do at this time. He's hoping that moving all the electrical half-way up the pit (it's about 7 feet deep) will be enough to keep it dry.

He did spend a little time in the north-wing bathroom yesterday, too. He has just a little bit of sanding to do and some very minor repairs, then he's ready to tape and paint. Our daughter worked on her bedroom quite a bit this past week, too, so she and I are going to finish stripping the wallpaper in her room this week so that when Tim moves over to work on the south-wing bathroom, he can include patching the plaster and painting her room with it (since they adjoin).

Holiday Decorations

2009-12-20T14:55:00.000-05:00

When trying to decorate this house for the holidays last year, I was pretty disappointed with the overall effect. The decorations we had for our house in NJ worked for our house in NJ. They didn't work so well here.

This year I sort-of figured out how this house wants to be decorated. Each year I'm sure I'll add to it, but here's a sampling of what I did this year...

The living room/conservatory/library (still need to agree on a name for this one...)

The Great Room.

The doors to the formal dining room from the foyer.

The steps in the center foyer.

The Great Room bay window.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

2009-12-19T14:52:00.001-05:00

We are getting a wonderful Christmas-week snowstorm here in southeast PA and the Myers Family is loving it! It's so beautiful here. It looks like the height of the storm is here - it's coming down really fast right now. The forecast calls for 8"-14" and we're already at about 8". I think we'll easily surpass the 14" - probably within the next two hours at the rate it's falling now.

We just spent some time outside and are getting ready to enjoy hot toddies in front of a big fire in the Great Room. I took pictures while we were out.

Before I post the pictures, we are back to working on the house again! We're all healthy (knock on wood) and I have energy like I haven't had in years! I expect things will still move more slowly than I want them to, but it's nice to have the capability again.

From the driveway.

Our daughter by the back outside hearth.

Tim bringing more wood in for the fire he's going to be building soon.

Tim filling the birdfeeder off the solarium/kitchen. The chickadees were actually looking for food when there hasn't been any there for over a year. We thought it was time.

The view looking n/nw from our bedroom window.

What should've been our holiday card this year...
Happy Holidays everybody!