More Poductive Holes

This morning Ben and Timmy cut a new hole in the roof, this one is for the benefit of the new kitchen, one of our skylights. We only got two skylights to put in, but with the new vaulted ceiling it makes us long for more. What is it about projects that never seem to be enough? You start one thing and it leads to 10 other things that you want to do... yikes.

Back on Again

The rafters for the new roof were finished this morning and then it was a race to get the sheething and tar paper on before the rain came. Things look good. We may even get a fun little attic/storage space framed out above the hallway leading from Asher's room to the bathroom, with an entry in the kitchen. Would be nice. We have some odd shaped closets in this house but not a ton of storage... a fun suprise. It's hard not to want to just eliminate the hallway and make the kitchen bigger! When you see all this space from a different point of view it becomes very easy to see how people keep getting themselves into bigger and bigger projects.

Um, there seems to be a hole in my house

Big changes on the kitchen front today. Asher and I got to watch Timmy, Clint and Ben tearing off the roof this morning. It was a bit of a blow as we put that roof on 4 years ago, if only we had the foresight to do the roof work then (but then my bro bill would have for real kicked our ass). Anyway, it started off innocent enough, just the guys tearing things up.

A and I left for a good walk to take care of the Dawseys chickens and join play group, we returned 3.5 hours later to this:

No Roof!! The boys worked another 8 hours and I have yet to see where they got. we are expecting inclement weather over the next few days, so getting the roof taken care of is a pretty high priority- let's hope the rain stays clear of us for another 12 hours. Supposedly the new roof rafters are up. The best thing about this extra work is that the highest part of our kitchen will be 10 ft. It will really open things up and make the small space seem bigger, I am quite excited to have a vaulted ceiling.

Just back from Milo's waiting tables, hope you are all well in the world.

The Wonky Floor

As usual with this old house, things have settled. When we got ready for baby and were placing furniture in Asher's room, we ran into some problems- mainly unlevel floor preventing us from placing furniture in some place, mixed with two doors entering the room and two closet doors, didn't leave many options for where to put the dresser, I guess I should be thankful that we didn't have a choice, really how would we have made that type of decision.

I ramble pardon, when the floor came up in the kitchen and the preparations were made for the new sub floor, the laser level came out and the results of how exactly uneven things were was a bit dramatic, so the boys (really timmy, but I try to give my husband credit) did some crazy math finding the highest point of the kitchen, subtracting the actual point from level, every foot across the studs/support beams and made a bunch of shims, what they are calling them.

These shims sit ontop of the studs down there on the floor, and some vary in width from 1/2 inch to 2 inches. We were able to see into the basement for a day but that is now covered with plywood.Plywood was then glued and screwed ontop of this as the sub floor and then a second layer of plywood was put on today to ensure stability when our new tile floor is put in. Some membrane goes on there as well. Good progress here by my standards. The levelness of the floor makes the rest of the house look a bit crooked, like the doorway, but that will all work itself out, right?

More Destruction

These are a few pictures that go between the two past kitchen posts, I will change the date after the fact, so all of my dedicated readers don't miss it. Where last we left the ceiling had come down and the debris was falling out the door- really good dramatic photographing hey?

So just imagine you haven't seen bare studs and an open window yet and travel back a couple of days with me.

Here is a good view of the ceiling down.

Timmy engulfed in dust as he busted down some dry wall. Ben said it was like snow in there. I wasn't allowed in with my own camera and fetus belly, so Ben snapped photos with T's camera.

Quite a mess though. Now you can remember the photos from the last post, where the kitchen looks suprisingly clean and the tiles were on the floor.

Walls torn down

The walls came down on Thursday revealing a few different flooring choices that preceeded us. Everything was in a red, black and white color scheme with some gray in there, so I am happy that we are sticking with the houses history as we remodel. We also found a newspaper from 1926, some crazy stories and advertisements. I guess the house is a couple years older than we thought. The kitchen is part addition, leading to a wonky roof that isn't necessarily condusive to putting in skylights, so that is going to be re-done and re-pitched, which will result in more of a vaulted ceiling in the kitchen which will be really nice.

There is a big hole where the window was, all the counters and cabinets are in the garage or dumpster and the old sink is in the backyard- thinking of possibilities for a summer kitchen?

Notice cubby area, in the wall, there was a random piece of wood covering it up and then our stove and pat peoples fridges sat there, we are trying to figure out how to use the 'dead' space knowing that it will not be feasible to annex it back into the kitchen. So a future project may be accessing it through the basement stairwell or Asher's closet.

Simple Fall Decorating

Corn hanging o the door, supplies- fishing line, magnetic hooks (steel door), and corn.
My favorite that I had to wait, too long to create, embroidery floss- 2 strands about 5 feet, lots of leaves collected on a walk= a beautiful fall colored leaf garland.
Oh and of course pumpkins, just go buy some.

And continueing with my garland obsession, these gourds were 2 for 25 cents, so cheap, so I bought lots and strung them up to make a sort of wall on the porch. I love it and will do it every year. I am wondering it there is a way to preserve the gourds so I can just pack them away and pull them out every fall, and then add to it and have tons of chains. HOORAY!!

Before and a bit after

The Kitchen remodel is on day three, and things progressed fast from recognizable to complete mess. It is a bit sad to say goodby to the old, as it is a room that we modified a lot and a room that attached me to this house in the first place, I hope that we are still able to recapture what I loved in the kitchen with the new everything... Day one was getting everything out, water and gas lines capped off, stove, fridge, breakfast nook and shelves down and then the roof came in. It has been supported by a jar of quinoa for the last three months, probably actually holding up the whole ceiling for the last two weeks after some very heavy rain. Turns out that there was an actual hole in the roof, just tar paper and shingles attempting to keep water out of the kitchen, which doesn't necessarily do the trick. within 5 minutes of removing the jar the ceiling fell in, much as we expected, but still just greatful that it wasn't before we were ready for it to.

Henry's Quilt

It has been over 5 weeks since I finished this quilt. Thankfully Henry was late, to give me some more time, but then he was so late that I actually thought it was my fault for not getting this quilt done.

I started it after his due date, and got it done fairly quickly, Ben took Asher fishing one evening and I was able to get all the machine quilting done- amazing what happens when you actually use tools for what they are purposed for- 10 years to get that stinking walking foot on my machine and these are the results? Why did I wait sooooo long?