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Saturday, November 24, 2007 in country living, renovations

Busy Saturday

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We got up and it was *cold*. It’s snowing, the wind is coming in off the lake, and while it is amazingly picturesque out there, you’d freeze your nose off in no time. So while we are filling the pellet stove and keeping the house warm, we also are working on fixing some issues at HSJ. Then, realizing the daylight hours are limited and we’ve got a pile of computer work, we deferred that until late so we could follow the wiring in our house.

We’ve narrowed it down and found a section of old wires. Problem is, we have to tear up floors to get to it to see if there are obvious issues. But we are finding nice floors under there. Not stellar, but bare unfinished WIDE plank floring. Ron and I take the tag-team approach when we’re not both directly involed in what’s going on – one of us takes a break while the other pulls nails or screws, someone spends a few minutes with Emma while the other check on supper slow-cooking away.

The snow falls, the wind blows, the fire warms. Loads to do, but it’s *fun* work and highly interesting. Meanwhile, I write really great entires in my head. We need a cameraman.

I’m being hauled away again.

Edit: under a floorboard, there was a hollow spot in the original floor. To level it out, someone stuffed in a folded up piece of junk mail. From 1918.

For supper we’re havign slow-cooked bbq boneless pork riblets & mashed potatoes, so the day has had very many high points.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007 in House stuff, renovations

Duct tape: Darn good stuff

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Ron has been working with the old furnace ducts in the basement. Since we are not using the furnace, they are just sitting there. One thing we wanted to do was reroute them to pull air from the far end of the house, in the dining room, to the vent right by the stove. He also planned to put a fan in the duct to help it along. This would help the air circulate better and warm up that end.

So there has been lots of me running downstairs to hold up one end of dirty metal. There has been black in my sink and his work pants… well, you don’t want to see them. I told him there was a reason a didn’t want to marry a mechanic or furnace repair guy. On Sunday when I helped him, I adjusted my arms and wound up with a pile of soot down the back of my shirt.

To that end, we have been taking down some of the previous owner’s handiwork. Example:
not what duct tape was for
The black part is not ductwork. It is stovepipe. It is also stovepipe that is at least an inch bigger than the duct. No worries! He had lots (and lots) of duct tape: the handyman’s secret weapon. That shadowy bit is indeed a gap covered by the shiny stuff.

Later, as I held up a much bigger piece of ducting, I looked to where it was headed to help line it up. The fan is in a small section of pipe. “So, how are we gonna put this big end of duct onto that small pipe?” I asked my dear sweet handyman.

“Magic.”

I nodded wisely. “Duct tape.”

“Magic and duct tape.”

He never fails to amuse. (We have a connector piece.)

Friday, November 2, 2007 in country living, House stuff, renovations, weather related

Batten the hatches

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Hurricane Noel is headed straight for Nova Scotia and we’ll get quite a chunk of it. We’re more inland than we were, but we’re closer to the Bay of Fundy area and further south. We’ll get a windy rainstorm like Maine will.

And we’re trying to finish installing the pellet stove before then. Ron is right now cutting a hole to the outside.

Thursday, September 27, 2007 in family, renovations, Them kids o' mine, weather related, what a guy I married

Under the weather of leaves

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Something must have struck us lately, for most of the week we’ve been somewhat zombie-fied, tired andlethargic. No other sick symptoms than a runny nose, which I chalked up to allergies or reactions to all the dust from the fields. One night we even just lay there watching a movie in my bedroom – with no sound but the subtitles on.

It wasn’t until I tried to scrunch lower down under the covers that I realized someone short-sheet my bed. I leaned over and smacked Ron on the arm. “WHAT?” he laughed. Sarah came in while I was still ranting at Ron, and she was grinning. You’d think with her birthday around the corner she’d wouldn’t be up to no good like that.

Otherwise, it’s been quiet. Ron did redo the dryer vent to the outside. I wanted to take pictures of the before and after, but he said it’d require too much explaining and was too head-shaking. We also stood around in the basement looking at the plumbing. It is a spectacular example of how to use as much pipe as possible. One section even does a u-turn, and anothe, instead of going straight across, goes left then two rights to get to the same point. Pictures when we get to fixing that who knows when.
We had weird weather too. It was cloudy, darkly overcast, sunny and hot, gale force winds then rain. And that was just YESTERDAY.

Fall colors are starting to get really bright here, so I think we may go on a photo hunt soon.

With the cold, we’re thinking about how we’d like to heat the house. There’s a sorry looking oil furnace down there, so we’re weighing the cost of gettign that running and a tank of oil (ew) versus something like a pellet stove.

And Thanksgiving is next weekend, so I have to cook for whoever is going to show up.

I know, I’m boring today. :) I had tons of ideas that all fly away when I open the “write post” window. *sigh* I bet a million little things will happen now.

Monday, August 13, 2007 in pictures included, renovations

It is finished.

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The gold bedroom that is.

Finally done

Ron made the stained glass window insert, Carl did the window frame. We replaced the ceiling material and scraped the original trim on the ceiling, we replasted and repaired the walls, ripped out the closet the previous owners put in this alcove, and refinished the floors.

I’d say it was totally worth it. You can click here to see the whole set, or just look at what we started with.

Bonus shot of Pinkie Tuscedero:
Pinkie Tuscedero beads thoughtfully

Monday, July 16, 2007 in renovations

Dumpsters are more fun than you think

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Ron and Sarha were tossing in a rather large item, and it took the two of them to carefully balance it on one edge to tip it in. They hoisted and pushed… then it rolled over and went off the other side.

Man, I wish I had been standing by with video. Alas, I was taking a break from painting.