Cultivating this Old House

Long time Entryway Remodel

2011-07-18T06:13:00.000-07:00

When we bought this house five years ago it had been owned by ex military persons and every inch of the house was either red,white and blue or pasty army green. I tore down all the flag print borders and breathed a sigh of relief because as much as I love the USA, it just wasn't a style that fit our family. Three years later, the entryway was still bearing our flag's colors and sort of a mismatched patching of artwork and *stuff*. I was longing for something more calming on my eyes and a brighter, since our entryway is teeny tiny.

As in just about every room, layers upon layers of wallpaper had been painted over. The floor was checkerboard linoleum.

So, being newly pregnant and nesting with our sweet Addie, I decided to first rid myself of the floor and crossed my fingers that underneath this 120 yr old portion of the house would lie something exciting - wood or tile was my hope.

Six layers of junk flooring. Six!

I was so pleased to see hard plank floor boards under it all! The kids and I cleared out the remaining tacks and nails and mopped it and it happily lay so until a year later when I had time to refinish it. Having six children and a sick husband has made the last two yrs interesting, to say the least.

Wall color is Benjamin Moore's Wedgewood Gray on top. I saved some pennies by having Lowes color match the Benjamin Moore color. Stair treads and rail were painted black.

I needed to get rid of the chair rail hanging at different heights around the room but when I pried it off I found that someone had wallpapered above the chair rail and below it, but not underneath it so there was a large uneven gapping of no wallpaper. Simply painting over it all would not work.

I bought this thick wallpaper from Lowes and papered about 3/4 of the way up the walls. The thickness of the paper smoothed those nasty walls right out. (complete lathe and plaster demo was not an option at this time).

I used the old chair rail at the top of the paper, added another piece of moulding for a shelf and a piece of quarter round to make the picture lip for the photos of our foster babies. Ah... the shelf has gotten a bit too cluttered but until I have time to re-home some of the photos, here it is. It makes me smile and makes me heart ache every time I walk by. Love those kiddos.

The lone red white and blue survivor in the room is the heat cover. :)

The entryway also sported a 1980's fake gold chandelier so we upgraded to this cute stained glass one when Lowes was clearing out. I believe it was $20. I like the little bright pops of red in this small space against the cool bright walls.

I used my orbital sander to sand the floors with very fine paper and then stained them a dark maple. The stain was a few dollars on Lowes oops shelf.

Instead of all my mismatched oil paintings I had thrifted, I decided to create a black and white photo gallery wall. I'm repainting and distressing the frames as time allows and repositioning them as I go along. I found this great wall decal that says "Family: One of God's masterpieces". You can win the same decal here!

Hope you enjoyed our little entryway tour!

Spring up O well!

2011-05-22T18:39:00.000-07:00

We have a bit of an interesting water situation here on the hill. First, we have three wells here on our little two acres. Two of them are in the cellar. Because I suppose when the natives were restless and decided to attack 220 years ago, it was handy to have a water source downstairs. And iron bars on the windows to shoot your musket through. Those are still there too.
The original well is a dug well and sometime during the last century, someone decided, hey, let's drill a well next to the dug well. So they did. And lost their well drilling drill bit way down there somewhere, stuck in bedrock and I'm sure there were a lot of not pretty words being said. So they moved outside the house with a new drillbit and this is the well we use today.
But back to the dug well in the basement. What makes it even stranger is that it is in a room of its own, out underneath our front walkway, before you walk onto our porch - not under our house.
Back to the current well.
All of a sudden our water pressure was finicky. I didn't like it. I whined to Sean about it because the delicate balance of our water lies in his capable hands. Seriously, one of the things I worry about if he were to ever die on me is how in the world would I figure out the water systems.
Our water is HARD. Water is considered hard at 20 parts per million, ours is a lovely hardness of 120-130 parts per million. It is mineral rich. Not great for appliances or my hair and so...
it goes through a whole house filter, then an iron filter, then a water softener, and then a reverse osmosis system.

So after replacing all the house filters and the water situation not improving, Sean decided to pull up the well pump, replace it since that was the only thing left to check.
Neither of us had ever done this before, in case you're wondering. Sean is brilliant at reading up on how to do things and forging ahead and so he did, placing an innumerable amount of calls to Florida to consult with his dad.

Unbeknownst to us at the time, a well pump should be fairly easy to pull up. Sean had a tripod setup with the steel ladder and rope and the tractor, figuring that the tractor would easily pull up the well pump. Soon the strain on the tractor was starting to tip it. This was not an easy lift and I was a nervous wife. Tipping tractors aren't my thing.

It became a family affair. Finally, finally! it budged and we moved to old fashioned arm power, Sean and I lifting and pulling and the kids lying the pipe out across the lawn. 148 feet of pipe we pulled. I could not believe how hard it was to pull. I joked on facebook that there was a lot of pushing, pulling and gushes of water reminiscent of labor, and seriously, I felt about as exhausted by the time our weekend a la well was over.

(hands orange from the iron in the water)

So to make a very long, very tiresome weekend short. Sean replaced the well pump. We started to lower it back down and with about fifty feet of pipe left to go down, we hit the bottom. How could this be? Was it stuck on something? We had no idea. Five times that weekend, we pulled the pump up.

Final dx for our well, now with it's spiffy expensive new pump, was that it collapsed near the bottom. I guess the way they do wells is if they drill through rock at the bottom of the well, they won't line the bottom of the well. Over time, the rock shifted and our well caved in on top of our pump, which is why it was tipping the tractor trying to pull it.

We called in the well people and conferred. The idea now is to see how well our much shallower well works for our family. Sean installed a low pressure cut-off by the tank in the cellar, which will turn off the water if the well gets too low so the pump doesn't get burned out. It has kicked on once already when we needed to water the garden and newly planted fruit trees.

I'm thinking a re-drilling of the well will be in our future, especially since we are in our wettest season and a lot of watering is needed come summer.

Another day, another lesson in homesteading learned.

Painted Brick Fireplace

2010-01-09T20:13:00.001-08:00

Our brick always looked dirty, even if it wasn't. I sprayed it down with some all-purpose organic household cleaner, let it dry and went to town with a can of Valspar semi gloss in a creamy white (from their reject pile, most likely, because you can't beat a $5 can of neutral paint!) and a paintbrush.

So much better and brighter! Check out more winter home tips here at The Inspired Room!

Shabby Chic to Modern Country

2009-10-04T19:38:00.001-07:00

courtesy of "All that Jazz" blue from Lowes. And a free wooden mirror on the curb which I promptly painted black. It makes my dining room happy.

Upstairs Hall Floor Painting

2009-05-22T19:42:00.000-07:00

It's not quite done but I already love the change.

Old kitchen demolition

2009-02-21T06:10:00.001-08:00

So far Sean has spent about eight hours just on demo of half of the old kitchen that will be turned into a much desired downstairs bathroom. Why is it taking so long? Three layers of sheetrock, four ceilings, blown in insulation, old clothes wrapped around pipes....
My husband is a champ.
We are also having a wedding shower here in April for my younger sister so the scurry is on!

DIY Funnies

2008-11-07T10:33:00.001-08:00

I walked into the kitchen to find Sean running the liner for the woodstove up the chimney and this:

Tin backsplash scoop

2008-11-07T10:13:00.000-08:00

Bell wrote and asked: "Just beautiful! I'd been waiting to see it. Is your back splash tin?"

So here is the backsplash, thrifty inside scoop: It looks like tin, feels like tin, but nope, it is not tin! We decided to do tin here to tie it into the existing tin ceiling in the room behind the kitchen and also because I am not a big fan of tile and grout in a kitchen. But tin is ridiculously expensive. So were the fake tin panels sold in the kitchen section of Lowes and Home Depot for this purpose.

What to do, what to do.... After searching online, being sent samples of flimsy plastic "tin" panels that would never hold up on a backsplash, I had a moment of inspiration at Lowes and checked out their ceiling panel department and found these. I believe the panels were $16 each for a two by two panel. It wasn't exactly cheap but it was the best option with the least expense incurred. The panels are thick, sturdy, washable and went up with liquid nails.

Lastly, here is the wall being taken down. Sean says it is not a good thing when your wife calls you at work and asks where the sledgehammer is. I cannot imagine why not....

More kitchen remodel photos

2008-11-04T18:22:00.000-08:00

Welcome!
We (especially me!) are loving our new kitchen!

One of the nifty drawers...

I love the glass doors and plate rack. Must thrift some cuter plates for up there though...

Our sink is composite granite from Lowes. The faucet is from overstock.com.

Yippee! The wall is gone between the kitchen and diningroom!

I have to do a quick post on these lights. They were cheap-o lights from Lowes that I tinkered with for that Pottery barn on a budget look.

This original staircase is so very steep. I am getting used to it though. Upstairs will be the boy's bedroom and a family/playroom.

Our free fridge (credit card reward program) and free chalkboard that I pulled off a curb.

I love these deep drawers.

Sean says this is the supervisor's chair.

Another nifty cupboard!

2008-09-20T19:13:00.000-07:00

There's something new...

2008-09-20T18:36:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time we bought a house with a teeny kitchen and a big empty purposeless room. The said big empty purposeless room was also HIDEOUS. Brick red walls, gold trim, outdoor plastic green carpeting wall to wall. Weird walls and doorways... Luckily it had a door so I could close it off and sing a happy song.
And I had a dream....
Okay, so once upon a time was only a year and a half ago but that's two summers of canning in a small kitchen, five major holidays of holiday cooking and baking in a teeny space, fourteen elbows bumping each other constantly and nine months of being twice as wide in that small kitchen = a long time in a small kitchen!

Standing in our entryway, this is the view looking to the left. To the right is the living room, but to the left - well, that's where all the exciting fun is these days. Granted, the only people who use this entryway and its enormous set of double doors are neighbors at Christmas time and the porch is so dilapidated I'll have to put yellow warning tape around it soon.... but anyway, back to the left....

Past the table of birthday goodies....
Is that a counter top? A faucet? Be still my heart!

Beautiful, beautiful kitchen of my heart!

The agonies of bumping and tripping over other people you will save me! The lack of elbowing one another as we pass in the kitchen! The more than two square feet of space for kneading dough, rolling out six pie crusts, canning - oh, the room for canning!

The sweet little fridge that is pretty and has enough space for food for 2.1 people.
Since we are a family of seven, the massive monstrosity of a fridge that we use now will be housed in the garage to hold everything else and the twenty dozen duck eggs that are crowding us out. (They are de-lish btw.)

And this is my beautiful thrifted chair. Sean says it is my supervisor chair. I think it'll be great this winter with that wood stove roaring away on cold mornings, a cup of Earl Gray in hand.
Looking back the other way...
Lots of trim work/ veneer work/cabinet crown molding to be done but I am so excited! Love it.
(photos will enlarge if you click on them.)

Hand cut blue stone island counter top

2008-09-06T13:07:00.000-07:00

Finished!
And soon to be off my front lawn - Hallelujah!
The small cut out is for the prep sink and the larger one is for the slide in range.

Counter Tops

2008-08-03T18:25:00.000-07:00

We decided on blue stone for our counter tops. It had all the characteristics I wanted in a stone top for very, very inexpensive. $16 a square foot. Cheaper than anything available at Lowes or the kitchen store. You can see from these photos why it is so inexpensive. Sean is doing it all himself.

The slabs are straight from a quarry in PA that is owned by a local stone place. They ordered some slabs for us and we went over and picked out our favorites. Blue stone is GORGEOUS polished up and oiled. The first piece in already set in place in the kitchen. It resembles slate or soapstone in color but is very, very hard. And heavy.

All of Sean's cuts and polishing is done with diamond blades and diamond polishing pads.

I promise a photo of the installed counter soon!

Coming along now,

2008-07-25T06:33:00.000-07:00

View from outside on the porch looking through the kitchen door. Dining room is to the right, old fireplace and wood stove to the left.
(Just ignore the desk piled up with tools on the right.)

Faucets on their way...

2008-07-24T17:04:00.000-07:00

Small faucet for the 12x12 island prep sink:
Bridge gooseneck faucet for the double undermount kitchen sink:

Both in brushed nickel and courtesy of overstock.com. Gotta love the $2.95 shipping!

Drum sanders hurt...

2008-07-21T19:37:00.000-07:00

Its been a noisy night through that door. Three rented floor sanders and one owned one and five hours with 25 grit sandpaper have accomplished this:

Not even close to being done.
Whatever our mystery wood is - it is HARD.

I spent about an hour with the drum sander because I think I'm tough and can do anything. (Sean did make me go put shoes on after this photo below!)
Four blisters later (could they not make the handles padded?) I woosed out and opted for my dainty hand sander, starting to go over the dark spots.
That thing weighs about 100 lbs and you have to lift up and pull back on it to make it sand. I am suddenly not regretting all the money we have paid in the past to have someone refinish the floors in a previous home.
I don't think my arms will work in the morning.

I'm wining like a baby, I know. I think it was worse than labor...
Many kudos to my father in law and Sean for their hours and hours of monotonous sanding. Love you guys!

Kitchen walls!

2008-07-17T20:22:00.000-07:00

"Tell them that I'm doing the job I hate the most with the woman I love the most," Sean says as I snap away with the camera.
He hates sanding drywall...
Have I mentioned that I love that he's going gray?
Would now be a good time to mention that a policeman helping me a few years ago when I ran out of gas thought that Sean was my father?
I was mortified and when I explained that Sean is indeed my husband, the cop gave me the dirtiest look ever.

And ooohhh...lookie here. Whats that?
Some fine looking muscles on my handsome husband! Eh hem...back to the kitchen...

While he's been sanding the walls, I've been sanding this:

And these:

And the edges of the floor. Sean'll tackle the rest with a big rented sander.
Any guesses on what kind of wood? I have no idea.
Two hundred year old something.

These walls that he's sanding will be where our main cabinets are. The cabinets, the oh so beautiful cabinets, are piled in mega boxes in that back room right now. Just waiting...

That cut out section of wall above is for my new fridge. I have to downsize fridges. Is that wrong or what? Seriously, that was the only place to fit a fridge in the kitchen - and I love that it'll be built in. We are definitely going to become those people who have the old clunker second fridge in the garage.
More updates soon on counter tops. Our slabs are in and soon to be delivered to my front lawn. Our neighbors had no idea what they were in for when we moved in. Have I mentioned that the nice folks across the street mow at least twice a week and have PERFECT mulch around every perfect tree and perfect bush and they mow in nice diagonal lines?
Nice people across the street - I'm so sorry... ;)

From Mr. Sandman to Digger Dan

2008-05-28T17:46:00.000-07:00

I am so blessed to have a husband who can read up on just about anything and then tackle the project with gusto and have it come out beautifully!
We are not quite to the beautiful stage yet on this project. It'll be a while... Sean rented himself a digger thing. (Yes, I'm sure it has a more professional name than digger thing and our three year old probably knows it.) Anywho - Sean dug out around the lousy partially caved in, ant infested block foundation.
As an added bonus, he dug up turf beside the garden to double it in size for me. The extra turf filled in the endless Great Dane puppy diggin' ankle twisting holes.
As I mentioned, besides the carpenter ants, the fact that the yard sloped toward the house in this area, water got into the block foundation, froze, and pushed it out of place. Sean is debating getting a masonry estimate or doing it himself. Knowing Sean , I'm thinking he'll do it himself...

As a happy P.S. we got our house inspection fee returned to us since all this was missed in the inspection.

Oh-so-not-fun!

2008-05-22T15:52:00.000-07:00

No, we weren't planning on rebuilding an exterior wall in the master bedroom with the pretty tin ceiling, but when Sean reached down and a chunk of wall came off in his hands and ants scurried everywhere it became evident that we have a mess on our hands.
Yes, that is a huge run-on sentence but I'm typing with one hand and holding a pacifier in place with the other. Sorry..

Sweet, handsome, wonderful Sean is out pulling out bushes so he can get into the wall and see how far the carpenter ants have devoured. That and trying to be a good Christian and not curse the day we paid big money for a house inspector to tell us everything was fine. That and praying jacking up the house and replacing a wall is something our insurance will cover.

"oh-la-dee, oh-la-da, life goes on..."

A Thousand Dollar Job part one

2008-05-04T12:01:00.000-07:00

After finding out how much it would cost to have a new hearth laid and the fireplace in the new kitchen spiffed up, my brilliant Sean started reading on masonry.

He tore out the old crumbled hearth, put new supports in the basement below and began mixing cement.

The concrete dried overnight. Using bricks we had selvedged from the fireplace, Sean has begun laying them out and cutting them to fit the new hearth. It is slow work but looks fabulous. I can't wait to see the finished hearth!

In other news, here are some of the lights we've put in the new kitchen. Those beams will be stained and polished. A local home store is going out of business and we snagged a beautiful iron chandelier for above the island. Can't wait!

Future master Bedroom Discoveries

2008-05-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

The room that we plan on making into a first floor master bedroom with attached bath is right off of the new kitchen. It was an addition to the house and we have no idea of how old it is.
Recently gutted of its blue wainscoating, bad wiring, and endless lathe and plaster, it already looks much better!
The floor is covered in chip board based tiles (from the 50's?)
Sean peeled off a few and I was so happy to see hardwood underneath! We had been trying to decide what to put down for flooring in there and are very pleased that there is beautiful existing flooring ready to be sanded.
Sean also found a trap door in the floor.
You should have heard the buzz between the two older kids when they heard Papa had found a secret place! Endless fodder for two imaginations!

The photo above reminds me of the game "Whack a Mole", doesn't it? Nothing too exciting down there. Lots of dirt and enough room for running heating ducts.
The crowning glory of this room is this original tin ceiling. I LOVE it and can't wait to see it cleaned and painted with a pretty chandelier in the middle.
The wall unit we'll leave and use for running heating ducts upstairs. With old thin walls, you have to improvise! Obviously there was a stove in here at one point.

Kitchen Countertop Dilemma

2008-04-29T06:39:00.000-07:00

This is exactly what I do NOT want my kitchen to look like. Just wood everywhere... Dark, dismal, country bumpkin pioneer kitchen. If this is your kitchen and you love it, no offense is intended, it just isn't what I have in mind for ours.

We had decided to get butcher block counter tops. Some of my favorite magazines to browse are home magazines from England and I absolutely love the way that the wood counter tops shine and look so fabulous in all the homes. They are very popular in Europe and very tastefully done.

Because they look something like this photo above. I love, love, love this photo.

Last night I had an epiphany. Wood ceiling with wood beams with wood floor with wood counter tops with wood cabinets = a LOT of wood. A whole lot. Too much.
I spent the night scouring Flickr and google and HGTV to try to find an all wood kitchen that suited me. I didn't like any of them. I think having a contrast between painted surface and the butcher block counter top is key. I love this black island above.

Here's our dilemma. To my sweet husband, painting any kind of wood is a mortal sin.
I think that maybe if we just paint the island base and leave the side cabinets wood it would be an improvement on what we're headed towards now - that first photo I dread.
Another solution might be to use butcher block on the island and slate or soapstone on the side cabinets....
I'm scrolling through prices and photos right now.

In other happy kitchen news, Sean began saving us a $1,000 yesterday by cleaning up the broken old hearth and preparing to pour a new concrete base for the new hearth. I love having a husband capable of DIY!

I emptied out the last of the sewing room (above the kitchen) so that room can now be gutted. There are only two remaining room to be emptied of lathe and plaster in the old part of the house! So encouraging!

And lastly, still no sweet baby in arms. I'm keeping busy, drinking my nettle and raspberry leaf tea and last night began using Evening Primrose Oil. Not much longer to go, right?

2008-04-22T17:50:00.001-07:00

Just a quick update. Here's what is new:

1.) First estimate for getting the old fireplace re-pointed was way out of our price range. About $120 an hour. This price would be if Sean did all the prep work by chiseling out the existing mortar and laying a new concrete foundation for the brickwork on the hearth. We'll definitely be getting more estimates before deciding whether or not to do it ourselves.

2.) More sticker shock when the final price for our composite granite counter tops came back. We knew there had to be a beautiful alternative that we could love and live with and we've decided to go "green" with butcher block counter tops and island. The price for the granite composite? About $90 sq. foot. The price for the butcher block - $900 for everything.

3.)Tonight I'm shopping online for an under mount apron sink.

4.) We've been paying a friend to gut the extra rooms on the old side of the house. I'll post photos soon. It's coming along great!

Mr. Sandman

2008-04-05T12:35:00.000-07:00

He's been busy - the sweet, handsome love of my life. On Friday afternoon he came home pulling this monstrous contraption behind his truck.
From then on, breaking only for sleep and a pancake breakfast, he's been beautifying the old beams in the future kitchen. If you, recall, it looked like this before:

A sooty, messy fireplace that we had unwalled... Twelve layers of paint on every painted surface, included doors with antique hardware, 200+ year old stairs, etc. All just waiting for my Mr. Sandman. Here he is below in his superhero Sandman costume: And the magical wonders he performed on that fireplace:

And on the 1791 ceiling beams that we want to leave exposed in the new kitchen/old keeping room...

The wires up there belong to lights that we were trying out. We liked how they fit up in between the beams and so they'll stay.

Take a look at those stairs. They are steep and lead to some unheated upstairs/to be gutted rooms. They were most recently painted an unflattering gray and white with plastic non-stick thingies glued on.

Aren't they purty now? Just awaitin' my hand sander and some poly. Those fancy speckles all over the treads is the sand from my Mr. Sandman's sandblaster.
"Do you want me to replace some of these treads?" the sandman asked. "Some of them look worn down..."
He must of sensed the heat from my glaring because he turned around.
They are two hundred and sixteen years old. I think they've earned the right to look worn! I love them.

Here is some more of the sand all over. Sean also sandblasted the door in the background which leads to the future master bedroom.
I think he started out with four hundred pounds of sand. I'll have to ask how much he went through. The sandblaster came with his own supersuit, as seen in one of the first photos, with a separate air hose for Sean. It sounded like a jet was landing in the new kitchen while in use. My Dad and lovely Stepmom were here visiting and suddenly the air began to look cloudy and taste... sandy?
Even thought the rest of the house is closed off from where Sean was working his magic, that sand and dust went EVERYWHERE.
The kids and I took off for Panera and Target for the evening. After a sweeping, vacuuming and mopping, the dining room is back to normal. I thought drywall plaster sand was bad...

Enough of my messy, dusty house... Here is some more beauty brought about by Mr. Sandman.

This door in the new kitchen leads to a cedar closet. We'll be making it into a mudroom connecting to the garage.

Above is that same door before.

Here is the lovely original hardware, ready to be shined up. Love it.

Some more pretty beams. These were incredibly dark before being sandblasted.

Sean was also gracious enough to take off the cellar door and blast away the paint on it for me. It's most recent color was an 80's seagreen. It is a handmade door like the one above and looks great now. Photo to come later, promise.

Edited to add:
Sean says he started off with 1,000 pounds of sand and used about 800.

Fancy Smancy

2008-04-03T06:40:00.000-07:00

Our new slide in range is on its way! Ordered via ebay, it still cost as much as my first car (a 1990 Ford Escort hatchback that I once fit eight people in on the thruway and boy did it bottom out and no, I am not that irresponsible anymore....) and even though we payed a $1000 less than the stove's price in local stores, I'm still having sticker shock...

Why we picked this one:

1.)Very superficial here - I loved the professional looking knobs.
2.) It has a built in downdraft. Putting any cook top or stove in an island requires either an enormous hood and ventilation system or a separate downdraft.
A separate hood and pipe or a separate downdraft cost at least $1000 each. Jenn Air is the only company that makes a stove with a built in downdraft.
3.) It is duel fuel.
Electric is better for baking and gas is better for cooking. It is convertible to propane, which is the fuel we'll be using out here in the country with no gas lines available.
4.) Comes with a full warranty.
5.) Roomy oven. While I'd still love to find a nice wall oven on clearance for say, $200, this allows me not to have to hold my breath while we wait and watch.

So, viola, here is the stove and it should be in next week!

New kitchen plans

2008-03-14T17:32:00.001-07:00

I know I haven't posted here in ages. We haven't been slacking off at all, I promise. I've just been slacking at keeping this updated. Sean spent a weekend reinforcing the part of our house with a flat roof. This was messy and complicated and I'll get into that in another post.
Meanwhile, I've wallpapered a hallway and painted an enormous living room. But back to the new kitchen...
Remember this photo? Sean gutting and a lot of horsehair plaster and dust. We were blessed that a friend wanted some fill on her property and that all got dumped for free there. 3 truckloads, I think.

Here is the computer drawing for that same area with the stairs in the background. On the left are two wall ovens that we keep going back and forth on. Primarily because of cost. If I see two of these on Lowe's clearance aisle you can bet I'll make up my mind and grab them. Spending an extra grand or so just to have ovens in the wall isn't worth it to me.
On the island is a cooktop but here we are thinking of installing a slide in range with a downdraft.

The portion of the wall where our daughter is standing will be opened up to the diningroom on the other side.

Here is that same wall with the entry to the diningroom to the right of the fridge. We currently have a behometh of a fridge that we'll sell. Without downsizing our fridge, it would protrude at least four inches out from the cabinets. I figure we can always get a beater fridge in the garage for around holiday time if we need to.

This is our fireplace where my pretty enameled cast iron woodstove will sit with some sort of cushie chair nearby. meanwhile the search for a good mason in central NY who doesn't charge a $100 an hour is on. Anyone know anyone?

Here is that view of the fireplace. This tacky computer drawing of it was all they could come up with.

This is the island view facing the kitchen door and two front windows. I'm hoping for some enormous chandelier over the island. There will be plenty of room for some seating built in under one of the windows, I think.
Last but not least, this is the kitchen we're working with now. Not terrible at all and only three years old. Just not conducive for cooking for a big family and the size does not fit the house. We plan on selling it all. The neighbors that own a kitchen store and are doing our current kitchen installed this one as well. The owner says that these cabinets are still made and that we should have no trouble at all selling it. Anyone interested? Yes, my drawers do close, I just have little kids in them all day!

Oh boy....

2008-02-12T13:14:00.001-08:00

So what happens when they put plumbing in a 200 year old house, run it inside the uninsulated exterior walls and then the temps drop below zero at night?

(our three year old took the photo. Not so bad, eh?)

The pipes from the bathtub upstairs froze yesterday and burst today. I came downstairs early this morning and walked into the dark kitchen. Umm... wet feet. Not good.
Snuck back upstairs and whispered to Sean to get up. He confirmed my suspicions. Lovely.
Now we are in the process of moving the cast iron tub so he can fix the pipes underneath it. He can't get to them from the kitchen below.Yes, I am seven months pregnant today! And yes, that is a horrendous photo which I briefly considered photoshopping but how lovely can you make a photo of a large pregnant woman using a crowbar to tear off wall tiles around a tub? The three year old also took this photo which is why I'm laughing.
By the way, if you're missing any socks, I've found them. Someone once used them to insulate the pipes under the tub. Worked real well, huh?
Since we are in the process of making a new kitchen it isn't really all as bad as it could be - other than the fact that I'll have a torn apart ceiling for a few months until the new kitchen is done.
The upstairs bath will be redone later this year after we put a bathroom downstairs. It couldn't have gotten much uglier than it was already. There were no regrets having to tear that hideous tile off the wall to pull the tub out!

I choose door number eight!

2008-01-13T17:24:00.001-08:00

The three oldest kiddos got in on the action Saturday morning, helping to bang into some more walls in the future kitchen. As soon as the dust started, they went outdoors.
To the left is the fireplace we unearthed last weekend. Straight ahead behind the white door is another empty, unheated room with a beautiful tin ceiling. That will be the master bedroom. To the left of the white door, unseen, is a steep back stairway. I had hoped we could open it up a bit.Sean with his crowbar obliged. It'll be unframed a bit more and the crooked bulky door removed. It adds to the spacious feeling in the room. Notice underneath the stairs was a walled in door. Caution needed here, it is another entry to the cellar with no stairs! What a great place to put our double wall ovens! No need to build out a wall for them now.

Two other walled in doorways were also unwalled, bringing the grand total to eight doors in this one room. It seems past owners all had a different opinions on the best way to enter and exit the room! I am pleased to announce that there will be only three doors once we're done. The existing one to the outdoors, one to the master bedroom, and one to the mudroom. Through the laced door is our diningroom and we'll open that wall to the right of it wide open.
Sean uncovered some amazingly wide original boards in the wall. This is part of the original 1791 house. So end our adventures for the weekend. A big bonfire got rid of all the lathe and there is a mountain of plaster awaiting a dumpster in the middle of the floor.
Sean also got all the rest of the ceiling and walls down. It is bare bones now.
He also found live wires, uncovered, lying on wooden beams in the ceiling....

Demo Day - Unearthing a 200+ year old fireplace

2008-01-05T11:10:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the ugly red room. Ugly unless your an Indians fan, because this room, in all its beautiful glory, came with green outdoor carpeting and was the previous owners Indians fan club room.
Before it was a football room, it was the main room in the original house. The day we signed papers on the house, my husband took a crowbar and popped a hole into that back wall you see behind Christopher. He had been sure it sounded weird and he was right.

Until this morning, that hole just stayed there. I got up and warned Sean. "Just so you know, I'm putting on ugly clothes today because you said I could take down a wall..." Sweatpants and a long sleeved tee... He laughed.
And since the clothes were pre-pregnancy size, ninteen month old Catherine kept walking up to me and poking me in my exposed middle and laughing, "hu, hu, hu, Mama's belly!"

This is how you guarantee two little boys will nap in the afternoon. Give them hammers and let them have at it.

The first sign of brick. I was very excited.
Doesn't every pregnant woman tear down walls? Some women may get excited over getting their nails done or going shopping. Want to make my day?
Let me do some remodeling.

Old wall paper. Very cute and Christmas-y.

Notice the shelves that had been walled in...

I love that the opening is about four and a half feet tall. Very cool.
That bricked in opening though, very not cool. We had to chip out the mortar around each brick with the backside of a hammer, one by one. So tomorrow in church if my right arm is hanging limply by my side you'll understand why.

And there you have it. It is filthy and sooty since after it was walled in, someone vented a furnace through there. Some genius also sawed off the built in mantle before walling it in. We'll rebuild one using some old beams lying around in the garage.

You can't tell from my horrible photos but the upper half of the fireplace curves outward nicely. There are also two little built in ovens inside the fireplace and iron hooks for hanging your pots from.
It is a lot narrower than any I've ever seen and I'm envisioning a cute little red cast iron woodstove cranking out heat, nestled in there.
Now that I've showered off pounds of plaster dust and have blown all the soot out of my nose, I'm quite happy with the morning's project.
Sean ripped into the ceiling a bit over there and found more plaster and lathe under the sheetrock. Horsehair plaster, which Douglas thought was amazing, and lathe about four inches wide which will burn nicely on the bonfire tonight.
We plan on leaving the ceiling beams exposed. They are massive and hand hewn and linked together beautifully.
Thanks for stopping by! Be thankful there isn't plaster dust floating all over your house!

Welcome!

2007-12-20T17:29:00.001-08:00

I've been blogging about our daily life, being a Mama to four (soon five), and cultivating a home for just about a year now with more success and popularity than I ever imagined possible. Along with the questions and comments on basic things or blog articles, I have always received requests for more information on our old house. "How big is it? What does it look like? What are you re-doing now?"

The Story of Our House

We bought this house on just about 2 acres in a rural area about 11 months ago. It had sat on the market for almost a year, untouched. The realtor told us people were turned off by its sheer size and maze of rooms. At the time, we owned a craftsman bungalow that we loved but we were always on the lookout for a home outside the city for our growing family and dreams. Our requirements were that it had to fit our family, have some land, be in our price range, and not need major work. So this house fit the first three requirements. It needs a lot of work!
Sean showed me a blurry computer printout photo with the description and I gasped. The house was ghetto blue. "I cannot live in a house THAT color! Do you know how much paint it would take to repaint it?"
He convinced me to see it.
Turns out the computer photo was off and the house was more of a colonial blue. Not a great color, but better.
I wish I had taken a photo of the first room as it was when we walked into. It was large and the floor was covered in green outdoor carpeting, the walls were (still are) dark red and the trim (still is) gold. This one room had five doors leading in different directions. It was also unheated.

The rest of the house showed a bit better. Ages of wallpaper painted over, a new kitchen that didn't fit the house, bubblegum, dark purple and turquoise colored rooms. A Mary blue bathroom (so called out of the utmost respect for my sweet Catholic Grandma who loves this particular shade of blue - the shade of most icon Mary's gown). A foot of water in the basement. No downstairs bath. Patriotic borders and rooms in every shade of camouflage green. Wooden molding hung at different heights. Wainscoting hung to chin height. Half the house unheated. Chip board ceilings. I really could go on here but you get the idea. It was not glamorous.

So why did we buy?

The 200+ year old hand built foundation is solid. The home has beautiful character once you look past the obscenities that other humans bestowed upon her. The land is great and surrounded by farm fields. The water in the basement was just because of an unplugged sump pump, of which this city girl had never heard of. This house has wonderful potential. We bought it for $130,000 when single ranches down the road were going for more. Hopefully, once we fix it up and make her beautiful again, we can sell (gulp!) for twice as much and fund our next life in Germany. It was a strategic plan. It is kind of our thing, this pouring love and life into homes and then using them to finance the next move.
While I am trying to avoid posting photos of the exterior of our home for safety's sake (we do have a big dog and lots of guns here.. wink, wink. No, honestly, we do...) here are some photos in the style of our home. Our home was built as a center hall Georgian Colonial.
A Georgian colonial is characterized by five over four windows. Our home has a six room wing off on one side and an attached garage. Two of the rooms in this wing are the original portion of the house dating from 1791. As was typical of the era, folks would build a few main rooms and live in them while they built the rest of the home.We do have chimneys on either side of the house, as in these sample photos. One is in use now and holds our wood stove, the other is walled in and we cannot wait to unearth it! At some time a small front porch was added on that really doesn't fit the home. It is rotted and needs to be torn down this spring. We're thinking of putting a basic stone/cement stoop as in theses three photos.
So welcome to Cultivating this Old House!