Our Creekside Castle

Demo is complete!

2012-02-12T16:58:00.000-05:00

Tom cuts through galvanized iron pipe in the area behind the toilet and vanity.

Hi all, apologies for not updating in so long. Sometimes our full time jobs and commutes and appointments and dogs just take up all of our time! I know I have some catching up to do here. Hopefully by the end of the week I won't be blog-dragging any more. :)

The big project, our guest bathroom, is our main focus these days but even so, we can only really work on it on weekends. So with one day last weekend and two days this weekend we have officially completed demo as this Sunday draws to a close. Tom spent two hours yesterday and about five hours today to cut through 50+ year-old galvanized pipe and drag it to the truck for the dump. That stuff was HEAVY!

Here's the wall behind the toilet/sink after Tom finished that fireworks display. Pipe is gone and ready to be re-plumbed!

Why did we remove the galvanized iron pipe? Well, basically because a plumbing contractor told us that was the right thing to do. See, our pipes were a conglomeration of galvanized iron and copper on the older parts of the house, and plastic on the newer additions. The plumber advised us to leave the copper alone but remove the iron pipes and replace them with plastic. Tom listened politely and then decided to do the work himself. He does that a lot--he picks the brain of the pro to see if we really need to pay for the work to be done of if it's something Tom can do himself.

Here's pipe cut and tied as Tom cuts that lower pipe from the bathroom below. I was really hoping that rope held!

So anyway, it turns out galvanized iron pipe is REALLY difficult to remove and REALLY heavy. The plumber would have removed an entire wall but we were trying to avoid that. Here behind the bathtub area was this big heavy joint that gave us the most problems. Tom had cut it from the master bathroom below and we were trying to wiggle it free from the wall so we could remove it.

My job was to scream if it looked like the big pipe was going to fall through the ceiling onto Tom's head as he cut it from below.

Here's what the hole looked like after Tom finally wrestled the big pipe out of there. That's our master bathroom down there!

Here's the view from that bathroom below:

Oops! A bit more drywall repair than originally expected.

This is where that iron pipe used to be. Its opening is covered by a margarine tub, and the wrestling is what banged into the drywall and cracked it.

Okay back upstairs for a few shots of the guest bathroom as it looks today.

Definitely a blank slate, right?

Those are my blurry feet looking down at the floor. I guess I forgot to mention that when Tom was wrestling with 80-pound iron pipes, he was balancing on these floor joists. That's the ceiling sheetrock below the joists so if he had stumbled or dropped the pipes that would have been a bad thing.

Next on our list: a visit to the plumbing supply store for new plastic pipe. We're looking forward to building up instead of tearing down!

Sharpen your wits for a mystery!

2012-01-26T08:00:00.000-05:00

Got your detective hats on?
Behind the walls of our bathroom lurked a surprise.

When Tom knocked down the drywall behind the medicine cabinet, he was assaulted with deadly weapons. Several HUNDRED deadly weapons! And one very cute vintage box.

I had a theory forged from vague childhood memories, so I researched a bit and found out quite a few homeowners have posted similar pictures of their razor blade finds...and they confirmed my theory.
I thought I remembered medicine chests that looked like this when I was a kid:

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Apparently in the past it was quite common for medicine chests to have a razor slot where men could deposit their used razor blades. Like this one I found here:

Source: Apartment Therapy

The medicine chest we removed didn't have such a slot, so I guess the original chest was replaced at some point.
Medicine chests weren't the only places with razor slots. I found some photos of razor slots in tiled walls of bathrooms. If you really wanted to be authentic, you can buy a new one here to install in your renovation. (I think we'll pass, thank you.)

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And there are things called razor banks too! There's even a book about them.

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Well, for all those kids out there who wondered where the razor blades went when Daddy dropped them down that slot in the wall: the answer can now be revealed. They went between the walls, where they waited patiently for decades until the day when they could cascade down on future owners like us!
Mystery solved.

The Bathroom is Bare

2012-01-24T10:00:00.000-05:00

We have the bathroom pared down the studs. Well, Tom did all the work so I'm kind of pushing it by saying "we." He worked for an hour or two each day after work this past week, and then on Sunday morning, he broke the cast iron bathtub into pieces with a sledgehammer and took 4 big heavy chunks to the dump.

He broke the handle of the sledgehammer on the first chunk of tub:

We wheeled out four chunks of tub to the truck...

Tom and Sarge get ready to go to the dump. It's Sarge's favorite thing to do--riding shotgun in the truck. See how alert he is--you can tell by his body language he's thinking, "Truck? Me? Ride? Now?"

That tub is HEAVY! Each big chunk probably weighed 100 pounds.

The cast iron is about 1/4" thick, and the porcelain coating was about 1/16" thick. It broke into these jagged sharp edges that reminded me of dinosaur teeth.
(And I'm not sure why my pictures are so blue here. I'm going to google it. Could it be white balance??)

The edges of the porcelain broke off in sharp shards like glass. Safety goggles are a must with this job.

It appears that this tub was the original 1954 tub. Certainly overdue for an update. :-)

So with the tub gone, our bathroom is officially bare and ready for a whole new look.

Next step: plumbing and electrical. Oh joy!

Thirty

2012-01-23T05:30:00.000-05:00

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Well hello very young versions of us!

That was us. January 23, 1982. Weren't we young! We had no idea what was in store for us but we couldn't wait to get started on life.

We've been lucky together. We've had good health, good jobs, great kids, and very little heartache. If I could go back in time and whisper in that young lady's ear, I'd say, "You're gonna be fine! Just look what's in store for you two!"

Us. Last year.

14 cars

including 1 station wagon, 2 mini-vans, 2 trucks, and a bunch of "safe" cars for the kids to drive

6 homes

2 apartments, 1 base housing, 3 with a mortgage

6 dogs

Eddie, Lucky, Charlie, Sparky, Sarge*, & Sasha*

*still with us. :)

5 career changes

me: business administration; stay-at-home mom; teacher

Tom: USMC Tank Commander; systems engineer
3 states

We've lived in Virginia, Florida, and California

4 children

who were and continue to be blessings to us. They have grown up to be quite wonderful adult human beings.

Joe, Dianne, Christine, and Tommy

We have no special plans; just dinner at home on a winter's night. I don't like a lot of hoopla but I do get a bit sentimental so if you've read this far, thanks for indulging me here today.

A craft space I'm still sulking about

2012-01-22T11:11:00.002-05:00

Today is a cold, gray, icy day. The sky is almost white--you know how it looks when it's going to snow? That's how it looks but apparently it's just teasing us...no snow in the forecast this week.

Work progresses on the upstairs bathroom. It's down to studs and today Tom is going to try to demo and remove the cast iron tub, using mostly a sledge hammer. I'll post an update soon.

In smaller news, I got a new craft table. It's for my sewing and paper crafts. Here it is--it's that cupboard on the right with the bright light shining on it.

I got it from Walmart--online...not available in our little Podunk town Walmart but I could order it online & have it shipped to said Podunk Walmart. Walmart was selling it for $99 and the next cheapest place was Amazon for $169.

I actually ordered it in December, and it didn't arrive until January 17. So I didn't purchase it in January..in keeping with my $0 Budget January.

It's one of those Sauder pieces. You know the kind--mostly particle board, and you have to put it together yourself. In my case the assembly took me about 2 hours. You have to match every little screw to the picture on the instructions!

It has rolling casters on the bottom so I can move it into the room and have more space to spread out.

The tabletop extends to 6 feet long and is braced by the open cupboard--which has these handy little plastic compartments. I can take out the dividers to make bigger spaces--like for scissors or rulers or something. And the right cupboard has 3 adjustable shelves for bins or fabric.

I can sit here and see the TV while I work.

Oh good grief...see the baby oil bottle? Well, I didn't see it when I was taking the photos--honestly! I can't stand how I think I'm taking a nice little photo and then when I go to post it here, I find there's a bottle of baby oil right in the middle of it. (By the way I had used the baby oil to get the sticky residue off of some of the craft surfaces where there had been stickers. So it's not so totally random after all.)

I got this craft table because Tom & I had a bit of a ~~marital dispute~~ rational discussion about this AWESOME, made-to-order, craft space in the basement, which Tom insists on sprawling all his computer stuff all over. Look:

The previous owners left us the desk, which is a nice, big, smooth, flat surface that would be PERFECT for cutting out fabric and paper and painting and all sorts of stuff. I envisioned a space like this:

(Found on Pinterest; original source not known)

But no, Tom wants it for computers.

I wanted to paint the desk black. Or white. And get rid of the shelves that sit on top of it. Paint the little triangular wall space behind it a cool color...or maybe put some cute wallpaper back there. And then I was gonna put up these Ikea shelves on the back wall and make the space really pretty like in this picture.

(Apartment Therapy)

Isn't this just so nice? I could picture myself spending many productive hours in my little basement craft space.

But no, Tom wants it for computers. Tom: 1, me: 0. He'll never love and appreciate it like I would have.

So I got second-best. The factory-made craft desk on wheels, and I sulked while I put it together, and I had to squeeze it behind the sofa in the basement.

Anyway it's kinda cute and it was a good price. So I'm trying to sell it to myself as a silver lining to the ugly cloud of disappointment of not getting my perfect little triangular craft area.

Oh and see those vertical blinds? I used to ignore them and/or pretend I didn't see them. Like the baby oil bottle. But now that I will be spending hours sitting next to that window, those blinds are coming down and I'm putting up some curtains I found on clearance at Lowe's yesterday. They're supposed to be thermal and block 25% more cold air from coming in.

Source: Lowes

I'll show ya when I get them up. Which won't be for a few weeks, because I don't want to purchase them in January. :)

So anyway, my craft table is definitely not my first choice, but I'm making the best of a bad situation. Lemons from lemonade if you will. So to speak. As they say.

I've even begun my winter sewing project--Joey's T-shirt quilt. I've made a nice pile & I've started cutting.

I usually get my way. So it really pains me when I don't. But don't lose sleep over me...I'll survive this horrendous treatment and come through stronger on the other side.

Once I stop sulking.

January Book Choice: Enclave by Ann Aguirre

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

Hi all,

Here's our book club selection for January. I read it last month, really enjoyed it, and chose it for the club. It's young adult, dystopian, somewhat post-apocolyptic, and a really exciting and fun read. I'm anxious to find out what my bookie friends think about it, especially in comparison to Unwind and Hunger Games.

Also just finished this great book and highly recommend it. I love reading behind-the-scenes legal stuff and this story has a heartbreaking twist that will leave you just plain angry at our system. You'll recognize some characters too.

And now I'm reading this one and so far it's a compelling and unflinching look at a horrific historical period and the men and women who both escaped it and raised a generation to rise above. A Pulitzer Prize winner that's a must for history buffs and/or Social Studies teachers:

Happy January reading! What's on your reading table this winter?

It has begun...

2012-01-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

The dreaded bathroom renovation!

Actually it's not so dreaded; I've been looking forward to it for a long time. I spent 3 hours prying, banging, and yanking on Saturday. I took out the flooring, the beadboard, trim, shelving, and part of the shower enclosure. And today Tom took out the toilet and vanity as well as some more beadboard and shower enclosure.

We still need to disconnect these faucets and take down the rest of the shower surround. We confirmed our fears about the tub--it is indeed cast iron which will be a bit tricky to remove. In the past, we've had fiberglass tubs which we could cut through and remove in pieces.

Cast iron tub + narrow, turning stairs = a bit of a tricky situation. Stay tuned.

Here's what we looked like Saturday morning at 8am. 3 trips to the dump later, by the end of the weekend, we had the bathroom torn up to the point of no return.

After the tub, our next step is to take out the drywall. Tom thinks he needs to replace the plumbing pipes so I'll be photo-ing while he takes that on and post updates as they happen. Wish us luck!

One Word for 2012

2012-01-16T11:00:00.000-05:00

Patience.

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I need it, I don't have enough of it, it's a challenge every day.

Which I spend with children ages 11 through 14. 27 kids at a time, 52 minutes at a time. From 8am to 2:52 pm. Monday through Friday.

Patience.

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I live in a 58-year old house with roof leaks, squeaky doors, uneven floors, and a hopelessly outdated, dark kitchen.

We're planning to renovate that kitchen this summer.

Patience.

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I see so much that needs to be done. For others. For the world. For the creatures in it. I so often feel overwhelmed and frustrated.

Patience.

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My challenge, my prayer, my mantra.

Patience.

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Patience.

I'll need it this year more than most. So I choose it as my guide word of 2012.

It's Up! Our New Front Door!

2012-01-11T15:43:00.001-05:00

I already know I am strange in many ways. And one of those ways is that I don't want sparkly girl-y things for gifts. No expensive jewelry please--I'll buy something for myself on sale at Kohl's and it won't be anything real or genuine gemstone or expensive. No new perfume please--I've got 5 years' worth of that in a basket on my vanity. And no scarves or purses either...I'm not really an accessory kind of gal.

Nope, all I wanted for my last birthday was a new front door. And we finally got it installed! Thanks to several crazy warm December days with temps in the 60's, perfectly timed AFTER Christmas so no crazy preparation madness to get in our way. And on top of that, Tom had the week off from work. Add all that together and we had a perfect recipe for a couple of days of old door removal and new door install.

Old door New door

You might have noticed we switched the handle from the left to the right. That's because our kitchen/dining room is on the right as you walk in, and we want to "guide" traffic toward that area which will be an opened up great room sort of thing to the right.

Old door

New door! You can see why I'm doing the happy dance right?

Nothing says "happy birthday" like a new front door. :-)

The Big List 2012

2012-01-08T21:21:00.003-05:00

Okay, our list is much shorter this year than last year. 2011 was full of mostly cosmetic projects. But we've got to get serious in 2012--our main focus now is renovating a bathroom, and then the budget buster: the kitchen.

In January, we'll demo the upstairs bathroom. I'm doing the $0 Budget Challenge in January, and demo is FREE. :) So take a gander at what we're starting with up there. I ask you, which would you first attack with a sledgehammer?

The vinyl floor? (Maybe there's hardwood under there??)

Or the 1970's cabinets?

What about the 1980's tub surround, or the pained false beadboard?

Maybe the faucets?

I think the faucets may be from the 1950's. How about the the drafty windows? They may be that old too.

The ceiling fan and the vanity light. Is your sledgehammer hand itching yet?

Well the plan is to take this bathroom down to the studs. We'll keep the same footprint so no need to move any plumbing or electrical. One thing Tom's worried about is how old the plumbing or electrical is behind the walls. It may need to be updated once we get the wall opened up and see what we're dealing with.

Once the demo is over, we'll spend February and March updating this bathroom and I'll share our progress as we go.

In April, we'll rest and enjoy Easter. Our families have a bunch of birthdays in April so it's a time to get together and chill. I'll also have a week off from school, which I'll spend moving and packing up what I can in the kitchen and dining room in preparation for beginning that work.

Sigh. Our kitchen. Bringing it into the 21st century will take all of our summer, and maybe longer. There are too many details to name. So I'll just share one picture with you, and tell you that we're taking this room down to studs and completely reconfiguring this room. And we're doing as much as we can ourselves.

The kitchen lies beyond this wall in the dining room...and we're going to tear this wall down to create an open flow into the kitchen.

So...for 2012, first it's a bathroom party, and then a kitchen hoedown slash fiesta slash shindig slash hoopla. Wish us luck!

Off the list...

2012-01-04T10:36:00.002-05:00

There were some projects we completed in 2011 that we didn't plan on when the year began. I guess you could say I went rogue. Ha! That's what happens when you have 10 weeks off in the summer..you have lots of time to wander the house and see little changes and updates..but most importantly you have time to grab the paintbrush or tools and jump right on those ideas! Anyway, here are the top 5 projects where I went OFF the LIST in 2011:

I painted my vanity table and got a new rug for the closet floor to match.

I just got the itch to paint this 25 year old vanity one day last summer. I used leftover paint from our living room shelves and I spraypainted the pulls black. I found the rug on Overstock.

Here's how the vanity and rug look in the closet. I'll only show my side since Tom's side isn't nearly so colorful or organized. :)

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I painted and stenciled the master bath.

I did this over several nights in October when Tom was out of town on business. I used the paint I had left over from painting the vanity pass-through which adjoins this bathroom. I originally planned to stencil the whole room, but it turns out stenciling is quite labor-intensive so I stopped after one wall. :)

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We got a new front door. And painted it, put on our house numbers, and installed it.

This was actually supposed to be my birthday present from back in September, but it got a bit delayed. Here is Tom installing it...I hadn't finished painting the edges yet but as you can see I have my house numbers all pretty. I originally thought I wanted a super expensive wooden door but in the end I chose an in-stock steel door from Lowe's for $248. Saving money is good.

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We got a new stainless dishwasher. I chose one with a stainless steel tub, hoping it will be sturdier than dishwashers we've had in the past. I chose a Maytag because I'm leaning toward another Maytag Gemini stove like I had at our previous house. It has two ovens which I love...and I'd like to avoid having a double wall oven--I need all the wall cabinets I can get.

Anyway, all that is to explain why I chose the Maytag dishwasher...it might match my new stove better than another brand. Plus it got great reviews, it was half price on Black Friday, and my students gave me a cash Christmas gift that paid for more than half of it.

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Painted the basement stairs, then installed sisal stair treads for them.

I just got downright sick of those nasty stairs. Wouldn't you? I tackled them during Thanksgiving break and even though the basement is far from perfect, at least the stairs don't scare me anymore.

So that's the extra stuff that got done in 2011..which leads me to wonder--with only 2 big jobs on the 2012 Big List, what unplanned projects will I be reporting on this time next year? *grin*

2011's Big List Recap

2012-01-02T08:30:00.001-05:00

Early last year I posted our big list of home improvement projects for the upcoming year. It was a summary of what we planned to get done in 2011. In the interest of truth, and to help me feel like we're moving forward on this old house, I have a round-up of updates for ya. Most have links to the original post with before pics.

December 2010: Living Room Fireplace (rock facade, new hearth, new insert, new mantel) AND shelving in the old coal bin room in the basement.

*Update: Complete! But technically this one doesn't count because we finished it at the end of 2010. Also, the crown molding on the right and left are not installed...waiting for the major kitchen/dining work to be complete.

January 2011: Master Bathroom Pass-through sink room thingy (trying to make the best of a bad thing with paint and new lights, mirrors, and fixtures)

*Update: Complete!

February 2011: Upstairs office/guest room (paint shelving, organize, and re-arrange)

*Update: Complete!

March 2011: Dining Room (paint, crown moulding, update furniture)

*Update: I did paint, but there's no crown molding or new furniture. Why? Because this year we'll be tearing out a section of the dining room wall to open it up to the kitchen. So no point doing finish work like molding or furniture just yet. One little change we made was a new chandelier from Ikea.

April 2011: Stairwell, stairs, upstairs hall

*Update: Complete!

All we need to do is figure out what to do about putting the stair runner on the 3 angled bottom stairs. Within the next few months we'll either finish them, or decide we just can't get it to look right, and leave the angled stairs un-runnered.

May 2011: Screened Porch (new tile floors, new slipcovers, upgrade furniture and re-arrange)

*Update: Complete! We didn't do new tile; instead I just painted the floor with porch paint. Much less expensive, faster, and easier to change later if we choose to.

June, July, and August 2011: Front and Back yard hardscape and mulch beds

*Update: Lots of progress in the back yard and garden. I made a vegetable garden with raised beds, paved some pathways, and used a big stack of old brick we found on the side yard woods to make a paved walkway. We set up a potter's bench and a rain barrel and got a start on some planting beds we can add to in coming years.

September and October 2011: Upstairs Bathroom—new everything but keep the same footprint. (This will be easy since the youngest will be off to college and the upstairs bath won’t be needed for a few months)

*Update: Not even started. We decided to move this project to the beginning of 2012. So as soon as college guy goes back to school in mid-January, we'll begin demo on this bath and try to get it done by his spring break in March.

November 2011: Deep clean and organize basement (new carpet??)

*Update: Well we did clean and organize the basement, but we didn't put in new carpet. Instead we installed vinyl plank flooring that we could put in right over concrete. The project didn't actually start until December but we got it done in just about a week and we love the results.

December 2011: Decorate for Christmas and enjoy!

*Update: Complete! Christmas tree in the basement and lots of family for a hectic but wonderful Christmas. We ended the year with lots of improvement on the house and we feel pretty satisfied with our progress.

I'm not a patient person. I know I need to work on this. I want all of our projects done, NOW, so we can enjoy them. That's why it's helpful write down all that we accomplished in one year--it forces me to focus on what we've done rather than on what still needs to be done. PATIENCE. :)

I've linked this post to

BNOTP's Metamorphosis Monday

AND

Thrifty Decor Chick's January Before & After Party

1 Month, $0 Budget Challenge, January 2012

2012-01-01T14:00:00.002-05:00

We all have resolutions for 2012 and one of mine is to lighten up. As in, cut back, reduce what I purchase and use, and get to work on all those unfinished projects lying around. So when I read Stephanie's post about the January $0 Budget Challenge, the light bulb popped on in my head. This is just what I need!

Here's the deal. No spending on anything unnecessary. That means no crafting, sewing, or home improvement supplies. No restaurant meals or lattes on the go. No new clothes or shoes. Not even any unnecessary groceries--we'll try to use frozen foods and pantry staples that we already have and just buy the dairy and perishables we need each week to fill out our menus.

To accomplish this for one month, I needed to think about how to make it work every minute of every day. The key is to stop using the credit card. See, we use one rewards credit card for almost all of our purchases. Even though we pay it off every month, it gets way too easy to pull that card out and not consider how much we're spending. So I'll be returning to my old Dave Ramsey days--I'll hide the credit card at home somewhere and only carry cash for spending money. Sort of forces me to refocus on what we spend.

Image from here

The other piece of this $0 Budget month plan is to use what we already have. Along those lines, I've been looking around my drawers and bins and I've got a nice list of projects to finish--and believe me, I've already got ample fabric, paint, scrapbook paper, and printer ink to complete them!

And a final piece of the plan is accountability. Which is why I'll be posting about my progress here, with nothing held back. And sharing my posts with Stephanie's weekly $0 Budget Parties in January.

It's January 1st. Here we go!

Happy New Year 2012

2011-12-31T14:00:00.000-05:00

I wish you comforting moments by a fire this winter.

And shiny things that guide you to spring.

And light that glows as summer approaches.

And a light within your soul that nurtures your personal growth.

The strength to change what needs to be changed this year.

And the flexibility to accept with grace those things you cannot change.

And patience, health, and abiding peace to all in 2012.

Winter Porch Decorations

2011-12-30T21:56:00.001-05:00

A lot of us are taking down Christmas decorations right now, but I'm not feeling the rush. After all, this year I didn't get them up until December 20! And I do love them--they're just so lighthearted and festive. But I understand totally the need to put them away. Let's face it--there comes a time when we all want to clear them out and start the New Year all uncluttered.

But I do like to leave up a few festive touches. And what better place than the screened porch out back--where clutter won't really be in our way in the winter because it's too darn cold to go out there! So when I take down the Christmas decorations on January 9 (the traditional end of the Christmas season in our family), I like to leave some winter-y decorations up, especially out back. Here's what our screened porch will look like until March or so..

(Yes, the grass is green today but I still wish for snow all winter. It's a teacher thing.)

There's a little table set up for cocktails. We may have a party this winter...and we may not. But what's the harm in leaving the drinks table decorated?

Tom is so afraid I'll burn the house down with real flame candles. Thank goodness for the recent invention of flameless candles. I have them everywhere now.

These little pint jars work for me all year. They're filled with sand and a flameless votive (oops! one is tipped over). The red checked ribbon works all summer on the porch or at the picnic tables outside.

We have a big round table on the porch that seats six. It's covered with a queen-size snowflake quilt from Target and a candle centerpiece I got at Kirkland several years back.

Here's Sasha making sure the ducks don't attack. It's her sworn duty to do so.

The lamp table is decorated with an old Santa Claus tray from Target and a sparkly metal container I found this year at Hobby Lobby.

After Christmas I just put Santa away and leave the winter greenery.

Winter decorations--they add a lighthearted feel till the last snow melts and the daffodils show up!

Upstairs, Downstairs

2011-12-24T06:10:00.004-05:00

We've been working on the stairs over the past few weeks. Or I should say, Tom has been working on the stairs and I've been hopping impatiently on the sidelines ~~nagging and whining~~ cheering him on. Here is a quick update on how the stairs to the second floor look today:

Reminder--they looked like this before we started working on them:

Our runner is 28" wide so we began by cutting tack strips down to 24" and nailing them down at the back edge of the riser.

We ordered some stair pads, which came 30" wide. I cut them down to 24" and Tom stapled them down on the stairs. Notice the stair pad doesn't go over the tack strip; instead it butts up against it.

The stair pad overhangs the lip of the stair, so when we install the runner over it, there will be some padding that wraps over the bull nose of the stair.

We ordered this sisal stair runner with black twill edge from this source.

The runner is longer than the straight run of our stairs, so Tom cut the end of the carpet, then folded it under and applied contact cement to keep it from fraying. He used a knee kick carpet tool to push the carpet into the crack between each tread and riser, to be sure the carpet stuck to the stair pad underneath.

Tom did a lot of this work while I was out of the house, which is why I don't have pictures of the work in progress.

We have lots of extra stair runner, which is good because we want to experiment with the 3 angled bottom stairs. If we can't figure it out, we'll just leave them uncovered.

The carpet store gave us an estimate of about $1400 to install this runner on our stairs. So far we've spent $240 on the runner, $52 on the stair treads, and about $30 on additional supplies like tack strips and glue.

In other news, the basement stairs got a new addition. The carpet square for the landing arrived and is installed.

That's where we stand on the stairs...we won't be working on them again till next year! Time to get everything ready for all our Christmas visitors!

The Basement "someday" list

2011-12-22T10:25:00.001-05:00

The basement of our house is not a priority for us. It's functional as it is, but we've got bigger projects to tackle before we start working on the basement.

Although there's no rush, that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about all the upgrades we'd like to do once the time comes. So here's a short list for us to refer to later.

1. Fireplace: face it with stone and install a new fireplace screen.

2. Install the home theater system and hide the wiring behind a box that matches the one on the right of the fireplace.

3. Build a box around the support pole.

4. Remove the vertical blinds and put up some sort of drapes.

5. New ceiling. White planks?

6. New furniture. A sectional with chaise? Longer sofa with 2 nice comfy side chairs?

7. Move the flat screen; either install on the fireplace front, or mount at an angle in the corner. (I'm kinda afraid that will make it look like the doctor's office though.)

8. Paint these cupboards. And their baseboard! And then organize all my photos and crafts supplies inside them.

9. Paint this desk & chair; get rid of the computer and the hutch on top of the table, and make it into a sewing and craft nook.

And that's it! Pretty easy stuff, but first we've got a bathroom and a kitchen to renovate. If we survive those, we'll come back to this list. One thing I know--the projects will always be there.

Shut the front door!

2011-12-19T14:00:00.002-05:00

Actually, you can't shut it just yet. It's hanging out in the garage, waiting to be installed as our official front door. See, our front door is really, REALLY unattractive and outdated.

It's old, and it's been painted a zillion times and has uneven pits where some paint from 1962 peeled off and then got painted over again in...I don't know...say 1973..and then maybe five more times up till now. And then there's the question of safety. I just don't think a glass panel farmhouse door presents much of an obstacle to thieves or other bad guys.

In front of the farmhouse door, there's a glass/screen storm door with really tight hinges. That means it is always trying to slam shut, fast. So to get into the house, you have to balance on one foot like the Karate Kid to hold the storm door open while you open the main door. If you fail, the storm door bangs shut and whaps you on the butt as you try to scoot in.

Once you've gotten inside, you're rewarded with this stunning view of the inside of the door.

Here's a closer view of that oh so interesting gauzy, beige-y, yucky fabric panel that blocks the view to the outside. I took it off once and washed it, thinking it was supposed to actually be white. But no, even soaking it in Oxy Clean didn't change the beige-y color.

So I've been searching for a new front door pretty much since we moved in. I thought I wanted a very expensive fiberglass wood-look door, but in the end, I decided on this ordinary steel entry door I found at Lowe's on Black Friday.

Here's a closeup of the glass insert. And also a good shot of our garage lighting.

I was anxious for Tom to hurry up and hang the new door so I could paint it. But he told me to go ahead and paint it in the garage. It's still attached to its frame, so I just did the best I could, with plans to paint the edges and touch up the light spots after the door's hung.

I got this paint, which is kind of different from anything I've ever used before:

It's a super glossy oil paint in "National Red." It's interesting because it's not liquid, it's gel. That means there was no dripping or pooling as I painted.

After three coats, the door looks shiny and smooth and purty.

I'm not sure why it looks like there are pinkish blotches toward the bottom, but in real life they aren't there.

I ordered vinyl house numbers from Leen the Graphics Queen and I love how they look. I've got the handle and lock set too, all just waiting for Tom to get the urge to stand outside in the freezing air and install my new door.

I was hoping to have it in place before Christmas, but with only five days to go, the chances are looking slimmer and slimmer. I need a 75 degree afternoon. Is that so much to ask? Gotta go now, I'm writing my letter to Santa tonight to see what he can do for me.

Basement Floor: No More Sniffles (hopefully)

2011-12-18T14:49:00.002-05:00

Our basement is not beautifully finished, but it's functional. Here's how the previous owners had it set up.

In addition to the seating area, there is a little office nook tucked under the stairs. They left us the desk and chair.

Someday I'd like to switch out the desk and make it into my craft area, like this one I found on Pinterest:

(source unknown)

Along the back wall, there's a bunch of kitchen cabinets that give us lots of storage. Someday I'd like to paint them.

Check out those wacky knobs! For some reason they make me think of the Muppets.

The cabinets bump into the slider that goes out to a concrete storage area with steps to the yard. In this picture that seating area and fireplace are on your left.

The walls are painted concrete block, and the ceilings are awful 4'x8' beaded panels that have been painted white. Tom's got this big hole in the corner of the ceiling where he's running the wire for the home theater system.

The fireplace needs a new screen (the old one was shiny brass and we've already removed it). Someday we're going to face the brick with round stone like we did to our upstairs fireplace last winter.

But enough about all the someday improvements in the basement. The most important improvement is the floor and it needed to be done ASAP. That's because it was making our kids sick. Every time the kids and their spouses came to visit, they'd be wheezing and sneezing within minutes of coming down to the basement. I could only imagine it was the carpet. As you can see, the carpet was a short shag that came in tiles with wavy sides. They weren't even glued down which made them very easy to remove.

Before we started on the floor, Tom wanted to work on the fireplace. He mortared over the little wood box thing-y and he laid a slate hearth.

Because our floor is concrete, we were limited to vinyl flooring and when we went to our local flooring store I saw some vinyl plank that looked a lot like wood. I decided that's what I wanted, but their estimate for the install was over $4000. So Tom and I looked online and found the Home Depot alternative. It got good reviews and had a 25 year warranty.

It comes in 20 planks per box. Our color is Country Pine, which they had in stock. They had some nicer ones for special order but this was fine for what we needed. We needed 17 boxes, which came to about $800. Much better than $4000!

After finishing the hearth, Tom set up the laser level and got to work...

We were able to finish the floor in just 3 days after work, which is about 8-9 hours total. At first things looked a little bleak and sounded a bit colorful as there was a lot of ~~cursing and cutting mistakes~~ complicated measuring and cutting to get around the hearth.

Once we got past the hearth, setting the planks went really quickly. Tom left a little gap between the hearth and the planks which he'll cover with molding sometime later. He also has to put some sort of molding around the bottom of the walls...I'm lobbying for putting wood planks on the walls to cover that concrete block. All in good time, right?
After the first night we were this far:

After a couple of hours on Friday night, Tom had finished the whole room, up to the little under-the-stairs nook. In this shot you can see a great bonus view of the ugly ceiling.

Saturday morning, he finished the little nook and we started putting all the furniture back.

Some of the offending former flooring getting ready for the dump. The flooring guy said he'd never seen anything like this in his 20 years in the business. Which is probably a clue to how old this flooring is (and how many microscopic wiggly things were living in it). If I stare at it long enough I can almost see the itty bitty critters living their busy little lives...

Our only expenses for this project were 17 boxes of vinyl plank flooring at $42.95 per box which comes to about $765 with tax, and the rental of a floor roller, which was $40 for the week. The floor didn't need any prep as it was very smooth and clean already. The vinyl planks "float" on the concrete floor, which means they are glued to each other, but not to the floor. And they are fine if the basement floor gets wet.
Best thing about the floor is that little cooties can't live in it so we have a clean, hypo-allergenic floor in our basement. At least I hope so. We'll have the true test this weekend when the kids come for Christmas. Fingers crossed for no sneezes...

Stenciled the Master Bathroom

2011-12-02T23:35:00.001-05:00

I found some extra evening energy in October and I worked on the master bathroom. Here's a peek at the stenciled wall after I finished.

Before I started, the walls were painted in shiny hospital green, and the room felt cluttered and closed-in with lots of wall space covered up with towel racks and a medicine chest. I took it all off, patched the walls, and painted them with the same color as in the vanity pass-through just outside this room. This is the right side of the room as you enter:

...and this is the left side of the room:

First, I'm not in love with the 4" field tile and black edge tile..but we can't change that anytime soon. More urgent than the tile though---See how nasty that caulk is? We'd been living with it like that since we moved in. You have no idea how depressing it is to have to look at that every day..it really wears you down! I couldn't get it clean, even with bleach and a toothbrush. So, I decided if I've got to live with the tile, it might as well be as clean as possible. I attacked it with a scraper and got most of the dirty caulk off. Then I used some caulk remover that I found at Lowe's which was supposed to loosen all the remaining bits. I scrubbed with a toothbrush and wiped the rest of the caulk off. Then I cleaned the surface with Comet and bleach, rinsed it really well, and then dried it.

Before I could caulk again, I brushed mineral spirits on the tile to be sure the surface was completely clear of any residue. After it dried, I laid blue painters tape along the edges and corners, leaving about 1/8" where the caulk goes. Then I used the caulk gun to apply the caulk, smoothed it with a wet finger, and quickly pulled off the blue tape.

Voila! Look how clean and bright it looks now! And to be sure the nasty mildew doesn't come back, I put some suction-cup holders on the tile walls so we won't store the junky shampoo bottles on the corners anymore. :-)

Back on the right side of the room, we put a nice big mirror over the sink and toilet. It makes the room much lighter and brighter.

We replaced the corroded chrome faucet for a brushed nickel one, and we put a new darker woven Roman shade on the window.

So that's it--our nice clean, repainted bathroom. I absolutely love how clean the tub tile is. It makes it so much easier to wait a few years longer for a more complete bathroom renovation!

I can't stop stair-ing at our new stairs!

2011-12-01T21:18:00.003-05:00

We decided to work on our stairs to the basement. We'd like to put new flooring down there (big job) before Christmas (big holiday) and we're working up to it with baby steps. And these stairs really needed an overhaul.

Even Sarge looks disgusted by them!

They were painted a drab beige and had stair pads that were kind of disintegrating right onto the stairs. We needed to remove the old stair pads so we could upgrade. We decided to paint the stair risers white and paint the treads in a dark coffee sort of color.

Of course I jumped the gun and primed the risers before I removed the stair pads. That's because I don't like to do hard things and removing the stair pads was a pain. The staples were embedded in the wood and had to be pried out, then puttied over, and sanded smooth. Somebody about 20 years ago really wanted to be sure those stair pads never got loose. When I finally got them off, the stair surface looked like this:

I spent a full day scraping, sanding, and prying to clear off all the treads...then I could paint.

The treads are painted with semi-gloss "Barista," a Valspar color from Lowes. Sounded like the perfect coffee-brown color! I ordered some sisal stair pads in a boucle weave with black twill trim.

Tom got his staple gun out and shot some 1" long staples into the stairs to attach the sisal stair pads. I love them!

Oh, and I also painted the handrail black.

Did I mention I love them?

When I ordered the stair pads I wasn't sure if I wanted one for the stair landing. Here's the landing without a stair pad..

So now I've decided we need a stair pad for that landing and I ordered that tonight. We'll be able to install that one in about 2 weeks.

We've been working on some other upgrades for the basement and hopefully I can show some progress pics soon! In the meantime, I love these stair pads so I'll be happy with baby steps!
Here's a little before and after collage:

Happy Thanksgiving all

2011-11-23T22:30:00.000-05:00

It sure looks like fall here in Virginia. The Thanksgiving spirit is upon me!

We're not hosting Thanksgiving tomorrow, but I'm bringing four dishes: stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, and apple pie. And, because no one will be here tomorrow, I can enjoy the cooking and baking without worrying about keeping everything spotless.

For cranberry sauce, I follow the recipe on the bag of fresh cranberries and I add a little grated orange peel.

For apple pie, stuffing, and pan gravy, I use my old tried and true cooking bible: The Better Homes & Gardens cookbook I got when I got married 30 years ago. I love the recipes in this book because my mother and grandmother used the same ones, so these are our family heirloom recipes. I wouldn't dream of changing anything about them.

By the end of the day, I've got the fridge stocked with my homemade gravy, cranberry sauce, and apple pie. I've got 2 bags of torn toasted bread mixed with herbs, ready to make into stuffing before we head to our family feast.

Enjoy your day. Spend it with family and friends. Eat your favorite traditional Thanksgiving foods. Take time to be thankful, and savor everything about our uniquely American holiday of Thanksgiving.

Because you KNOW what crazy hectic season is looming right around the next bend!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I took the plunge..

2011-10-30T20:31:00.000-05:00

...and ordered a stencil for the master bathroom. Here's the blog post that inspired me. This is the only part of our house (besides the basement) that still retains its original wall finish, and I'm looking ahead to 10 days of relatively free time. It's the small "business" part of the bathroom that adjoins this pass-through:

And being the "business part," the room is about 5' by 5', and in that small space there's a sink, toilet, bathtub/shower, window, and door. Which is all to say that there's not a lot of wall space to stencil and hopefully it will be a quick job. And also to explain why I have no before pics to show you--I've just never had the urge to photograph this part of the bathroom.
Here's the rundown on the paint I'll use:

The background wall will be the teal of the pass-through (MSL River Mist)
Leaves of the stencil will be the lighter blue seen in on the wall of the room beyond (Valspar Sea Salt Blue)
Flowers of the stencil design will be the sort of grellow color of the rug's background (MSL shortbread from our kitchen).

I already have all the paint, so once the stencil arrives I should be able to jump right in. More on this project as it develops..

Area Rug update Number 2

2011-10-04T10:00:00.001-05:00

Continuing with the results of my area rug binge, I got a teal and yellow hooked rug in a floral design for our master closet. Over the summer I painted my makeup table and bench, so the old Oriental rug just looked dark and dreary. Here's what I selected--this is how it looked on the Overstock site:

And here it is in my closet:

Here's a before and after that shows the look before I painted the furniture and replaced the rug:

Here are the details on the rug: As with all three, I got it at Overstock.com. It's a hand-hooked wool Chelsea Kina in teal blue, 3'9" x 5'9". It cost $86.99 plus the shipping, which was $2.95 for both this and a larger rug (more on that one in the next post).

Happy with this one too!

By way of Explanation: School Started. And I went on an area rug binge.

2011-10-02T17:24:00.001-05:00

Hi all! Long time no post...

As inevitably happens each year, summer ended. School started for me on August 22. Which is why I haven't been updating here since then. When summer ended, the time I have available to work on house projects drastically declined. Luckily I have a laptop and I can make improvements by shopping online. So in September, I kind of went on an area rug binge. I actually purchased three new area rugs--all for the master bedroom section of the house. I could definitely continue this binge and replace every rug in the house if I don't get control of myself.

My site of choice has been Overstock.com which, I have discovered, has a seemingly endless supply of area rugs and a very helpful search interface that keeps showing me more like the ones I've liked. Plus, they only charge $2.95 to ship each order. No matter what!

Before I talk myself into going back there right now and searching for another one, I'll try to update you on the three changes in area rugs that have occurred since I had to go back to work.

The first rug is my favorite. I got it for the vanity pass-through area that connects the master bathroom to the master bedroom.

Here's the picture from Overstock's site:

With teal, cream, camel, and light green, the colors are perfect for my vanity pass-through.

The rug I replaced here was a yellow trefoil pattern dhurrie, which was okay, but not thick and luxurious. It kept sliding around even though it had a rug pad under it, and worst of all, the puppy had chewed it. Here's a before/after of old rug and new:

Here are the details about the new rug:

I got it from Overstock.com. It's called "Aurora Blossom" in light green, and it's 4'x6'. It is hand-hooked, and it cost $109 plus $2.95 shipping. It looks and feels so nice and luxurious and lovely in this space. I am just thrilled with it.

For the record, the paint colors in this room are

Cabinets: MSL Crevecour, SG latex

Walls: MSL River Mist, Flat latex

and I posted the before/afters of this pass-through area here.

I'll tell about the other two new rugs later in the week.

T-shirt quilt

2011-08-22T21:01:00.000-05:00

Well we took our youngest baby to college last weekend. And not just any college--a very strict, tough, military one that's gonna challenge him like he's never been challenged before. I'm dealing with it just fine so far...if thinking about him about every few minutes and tossing up prayers right and left is just fine.

Anyway, I was organizing his old clothes in his dresser, and I found dozens and dozens of old T-shirts that are not really donate-worthy, but do have sentimental meaning for him. We're talking 4-H, lifeguard, football camp, cross-country teams, Costa Rica, Yellowstone, Disney, and a bunch of graphic tees that have migrated to the bottom of his dresser drawers.

So I thought I'd somehow sew them into a quilt for him. You know, one of those picnic blankets that people keep in their car trunk? Should be pretty easy, I think, and good therapy for me. So I started googling the idea, and I found out that thousands of people already thought of this and there are even businesses out there that will make your quilt for you. Here's a nice example:

found here

Here's one that makes it look like a simple project:

found here

They've made an appearance in the Twilight movie Eclipse, too. Here Bella's mom presents her with a T-shirt quilt from all their wacky vacation destinations:

Here's an example of a really complicated quilt design. It looks nice, but it's way too much work for my skill level, and I think you lose the effect of the memories when it's this intricate too.

So I think I've found a winter project but I'll keep mine a simple grid design. I'll keep you posted once I start!

A Mind Shift

2011-08-09T08:05:00.007-05:00

Have you ever had a mind-blowing experience (besides that one party back in college) that opened your eyes to something new or made you think differently about something you thought you knew? That's what's happened to me this summer, all because I watched three movies:

I thought I knew where my food came from and I thought I ate a pretty healthy diet. Now I realize I've had my head in the sand, just like most of us. Without repeating a bunch of facts and information in these films, let's just say that what I have learned has caused me to make a few changes to how I, the primary food shopper and cook for our home, will approach our family's food.

1. Whenever possible, I will buy grass-fed, pastured beef instead of corn-fed, feedlot beef.

2. That means that I'll be avoiding buying meat or poultry from large supermarkets--since they are (for the most part) supplied by mega-stockyards that mass produce feedlot beef and mega-chicken processors that package chickens that never see sunlight. Instead I'll be buying more locally grown food.

3. I'm thrilled to have discovered (maybe I'm the last person in Fredericksburg??) that I have a local butcher shop right here in my little town. He sells only grass fed, pastured beef and pork as well as free-range chickens from the local or surrounding area. He makes his own sausages and sells smoked bacon without nitrates. I can also buy eggs, milk, ice cream, and even half-and-half from him in glass bottles. And, he's nice and answers all my questions. And, his prices are comparable to the big grocery store chains. I'll gladly arrange my weekly schedule to include a visit to his shop for our meat, poultry, and dairy needs.

4. I'm going to cut back on meat and refined foods and try to up my fruits and vegetables to 60% of what I eat each day. I'm even planning to do a juice fast in the week before I have to return to school. That's the week after we return from Disney World, and I can't think of a better time to purge and fast, can you? *smile*

5. Whenever possible, I'm going to buy our produce from local stands and farmers' markets, and try to find more organically grown products.

6. I'm going to stay educated and more in touch with local farmers and ranchers by subscribing to their FB pages and blogs. One that I really like is Polyface Farms--right here in Virginia and full of great information about farming animals and healing the land.

7. Last but not least, I'm going to start looking at herbs and nutritional supplements rather than thoughtlessly reaching for pharmaceutical medicines for my ailments. I already take melatonin to sleep and it works as well as or better than anything else I've ever taken, including Ambien (prescription) and Simply Sleep (OTC made by Johnson&Johnson). Obviously medicines are essential but I also think vitamins and herbal supplements are under-studied and underrated by the mainstream so I'm going to open my mind to their possibilities.

So that's my little , life-changing revelation for now. And I highly recommend the three documentary films shown here. They may not change your life in a drastic way, but I think it's important that we at least think about the origin of our food and stewardship of the land where it is grown.

What about you? Have you ever had a wake-up call or some sort of enlightening event that caused a real turnaround in how you approach something in your life? I'd love to know about it!

Instant Pop

2011-08-06T08:05:00.001-05:00

I never know what to call these things, but I decided my living room shelves needed a little pop of light so I went searching for what I call pop lights.

The top shelf is dark and easy to overlook. Here's the other side:

I found the pop lights today...They're LED lights without any cords or wiring and you just tap them to turn them on. They attach with a sticky back but they're also magnetized so they could be used on metal cabinetry or shelves. They're each powered by 3 AAA batteries which were included. And the best thing? They turn off automatically after 30 minutes so those batteries will probably last forever.

The hardest thing about them was opening the package!

They make a nice difference in the look of the shelves, I think.

Here's the whole room with the new pop lights. The picture doesn't do justice to the new lighting. It looks much better in real life.

I love my new pop lights. Instant pop!

My vanity table makeover

2011-08-04T08:05:00.004-05:00

This is my 25+ year-old vanity. My mother-in-law gave it to me just a few years after I got married. I guess she wanted to be sure I kept myself beautiful for her son. :-) Anyway, it is looking quite sad these days but I want to hang on to it for sentimental reasons.

The top is scarred, scratched and even burned from when the sunlight used to hit that makeup mirror and concentrate the heat onto the surface. And, can you read the words that are carved into it? Look closely:

Yep, it says I HATE YOU. I'm guessing that was a response to someone getting grounded or yelled at sometime in the 1990's. Which of these little angels do suppose it was?

Sure, they look happy and well-adjusted now, but they each had their moments as kids and well, none of them are admitting to inscribing their hatred onto Mom's furniture. But that's okay, it doesn't bother me...it actually cracks me up. What kid hasn't hated their mom at some point, right?

After I unscrewed all the pieces of my vanity, I needed to get rid of those scratches and umm--messages, so I sanded everything with the palm sander. It took 30 minutes, and then I switched to coarser sandpaper and it took 30 minutes more before I was happy with the smoothness. Then I painted everything with Kilz using a brush. Although you can see the brushstrokes, the Kilz'd surface is actually very smooth and ready for paint.

I decided to use leftover paint from the living room shelves, semi-gloss Tidewater by MSL. I only had about 2" of paint left in the bottom of a quart can, but it was plenty for this project. Here are the legs just hanging out and showing off their new color:

And here's the painted and reassembled vanity. I spraypainted the brass finished hardware with some hammered black spraypaint I had on hand, and switched out the seat cover with some scrap fabric I found at Joanne's. It's really outdoor fabric but that makes it more water-repellent and easier to clean.

I started the vanity on Friday afternoon and it was finished by Sunday afternoon. Not bad! But I wasn't *really* finished, because while the paint dried, I had lots of time to purge the makeup.

My makeup was a disorganized mess and I'm sort of embarrassed to admit that I hadn't organized it in years.

So I dumped it all on my bed and organized it...

And threw a bunch out. The trash bag weighed 5 pounds!

And when I was finished, I had a lovely vanity, all clean and easy to use.

And here's a little summary collage:

I love the fresh new clean and super-smooth vanity. Sitting here every morning is a pleasure! Now, as to whether it helps me get more beautiful--I'll get back to you on that. Truly, I think my mother-in-law would be proud.

Long Hot July

2011-08-02T06:37:00.000-05:00

Well, July has given way to August and we have a big Florida vacation coming up...then as soon as we return, I'm on my last week of freedom before I have to go back to work. I thought I'd take a quick minute to post an update on what we were up to this past July. First, Tom and I spent a quick few days in San Diego. We went to the San Diego Zoo's Safari Park. I remember this being called the Wild Animal Park when I was a kid. And we also had a fun day at Disneyland with our friends Laura and Lee.

Back at home, I built some walkways for the back yard. This one creates a way to get to the "island" of a concrete patio. I plan to build another, shorter path like this at the farther end of the patio.

This one leads to the garden and the back of the garage. The walkways create planting beds. The temperatures have been in the 90's to 100's in July, so I'm going to wait until cooler weather, September or October, to plant some shrubs in these areas.

The walkways I built in the garden get rid of the muddy walkways and define a work area:

And speaking of the garden, here's how things looked at the end of July:

With temps in the 100's, my outdoor walkway building is ending. And I have to admit, I have lost the enthusiasm for digging and hauling bricks, stone, and gravel around. It'll hit me again next spring and I'm sure I'll tackle some more paths, but for now, I'm calling a time out on hardscapes for a while!

Home Alone

2011-07-11T06:17:00.001-05:00

This almost never happens.

That's me this week. Just the dogs and me in the house till Friday. That means...

No menus to plan

No grocery shopping to do

Just my own laundry to keep up with

Plenty of time to knock out my to-do list--both inside the house and out

We'll see how this goes.

Notes to Self: Blackberries

2011-07-08T12:00:00.002-05:00

1. The pick-your-own blackberries were $2.20/lb. this year. One bucket cost about $14.

2. One bucket makes about 8-9 cups of crushed berries.

3. 8-9 cups of crushed berries yields 12 jars (12 oz. each) of blackberry jam. Plus another 8 oz. if you have the jar(s) for the extra jam that wouldn't quite fill the 13th jar.

4. The ratio of blackberries to sugar is 10 cups blackberries to 14 cups sugar.

5. You need to use 2 packages of Ball liquid pectin since you doubled the recipe.

6. 12 oz. jars are a little large for gift-giving. Next year use some 8 oz or some cute 4-6 oz. jelly jars for gifts.
7. You have another whole bucket left over! Next year try to control your picking! Or, buy another case of jars.
8. Also, next year go ahead and pick up a peck of their peaches for some peach jam too. It'll save you having to drive back over there like you are going to do this year.
9. Remember that you recorded this information next year when you get the urge to go blackberry picking.

Second week of Summer Vacation

2011-07-07T06:52:00.000-05:00

We left on Wednesday for New York City last week, so I didn't have much time to work around the house. On Sunday and Monday, we worked on the garden path.

I put down landscape fabric and we started unloading and spreading a truckload of crushed rock ($32 per pick-up load) on the path.

Also on Monday, I finished caulking and painting our stair handles and spindles on the staircase. This isn't a great picture but the handrails are now a smooth polished black.

We ordered the stair runner from StairRunnersUS.com, and I don't know when Tom and I will be able to actually install it but I can't wait to see how it looks when it gets here.

I finished my version of the starburst mirror and Tom hung it in the dining room for me..

I found a light, beach-y painting at Homegoods, which Tom hung up for me over the fireplace in the living room. The old painting is nice and has been in the family for many years, but it's not real summery...better for fall and winter, I think:

Here's the new painting..(not sure what happened with this picture but it's awfully blurry, isn't it?):

Here's a sharper photo of the painting:

Anyway, I like the softer look of the new painting. I'm thinking of leaving it up for the summer months and then putting up the more autumn-y mountain painting again in October or November.

On Tuesday, I had errands to run and shopping to do to get ready for our trip. We were going to leave Joey home alone while we were in New York, and that required some frozen pizzas, frozen meatloaf, frozen Chinese entrees, etc. While Joey & I were at it, we decided to knock out most of his college list as well. Think 14 T-shirts, 14 white boxers, 16 black socks, 8 black boot socks, 6 white top sheets...you get the idea--it's like a summer camp list on steroids! Anyway we got most of the requirements for his list, so there won't be a panic in early August to get him ready for school which starts on August 20.

And on Wednesday morning, we were off to New York City for the remainder of the week! Here we are walking the Brooklyn Bridge on our first day:

And when we got home on Saturday, our stair runner had arrived! Who knows when we'll find time to tackle its installation, but on the bright side, it is exactly what what I want!

As I write this, I am half way through my third week of summer vacation and I haven't accomplished much so far..so I'm off to the continuing saga of the garden path. I hope I can post something finished next week.

Weekly Menu, Week of July 3

2011-07-04T08:05:00.009-05:00

Sunday, July 3

This evening I am hosting Book Club with a few friends, and Tom & Joey are heading into town for a family dinner with Grandpa and all the sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, and cousins. For Book Club, I'm going put out nibbles but not major food or entree.

Monday, July 4

We're having a low-key Fourth. Tom is building a new dock so we're going to put a pork shoulder in the crock pot on the back porch and slow-cook some pork barbecue. We'll go out on the boat when it gets dark and watch the fireworks from the water.

Pork Barbecue

Quickie baked beans

Green salad

Corn on the cob

Ice cream cones

Pork Barbecue in the crock pot

(adapted from a recipe we found on about.com)

4-6 pound pork shoulder or pork butt

1/4 cup water

dry barbecue rub (if desired)

salt and pepper to taste

Barbecue sauce of your choice

*We like to set this up to cook overnight.

Place 1/4 cup water in the crock pot. If desired, rub dry barbecue seasoning over a 4-6 pound pork shoulder. Place the pork in the crock pot and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook on HIGH for one hour, then reduce to low and cook for 9 hours. Remove pork from liquid & pull apart with a fork, removing large pieces of fat as you go. Toss with your favorite barbecue sauce. Serve immediately or refrigerate and reheat at serving time.

Quickie Baked Beans

1 Tbsp butter

¼ cup chopped onion

¼ cup ketchup

2 Tbsp molasses

2 drops Tabasco sauce

2 Tbsp brown sugar

½ tsp salt

½ tsp dry mustard

2 slices cooked bacon, crumbled (optional)

1 can (16 oz) pork & beans, drained

In a deep skillet, melt butter. Add onion; stir over medium heat till onion is soft. Blend in all remaining ingredients except beans and bacon. Bring to boiling. Add beans; stir; pour into large casserole. Sprinkle crumbled bacon over top. Bake at 375^o for 20 minutes, or 325^o for one hour.

Tuesday, July 5

This will be an all-day trip down to Lexington, Virginia, to take Joey to VMI for the summer transition program. There will be a series of parents' orientation meetings that will take all day. Since this is a three-hour drive each way for us, we'll be eating all our meals away from home.

Wednesday, July 6

I have an appointment in town so this will be my go-to-town errand day. Last week I made some jambalaya with some chicken and Italian sausage that I had defrosted. It's sitting in the fridge just waiting for a busy day that calls for an easy dinner.

Jambalaya (I used Zatarain's Jambalaya mix and added sauteed chicken and Italian sausage)

Crusty bread

Savory green beans

Savory Green Beans

1-1/2 lbs fresh green beans

2 Tbsp chopped red onion

2 cloves garlic, minced
3 Tbsp olive oil or vegetable oil
1/2 cup boiling water
1 Tbsp fresh chopped basil, or 1 tsp dried basil
1/2 tsp each salt, pepper, and sugar
Wash beans, trim ends, and cut really long ones in half. In a pan that will hold all of the beans, saute onion in the oil over medium heat until onion is tender; add garlic toward the end so it releases the flavor but doesn't burn. Add beans, boiling water, and remaining ingredients. Cover and cook 25 minutes or until beans are tender. Add 1 or 2 tsp additional water if necessary.

Thursday, July 7

Garlic Buttered shrimp served over linguine or fettucini

Green salad

Crusty bread

Garlic Buttered Shrimp

(from Southern Living Microwave Cookbook...many years ago)

2 lbs unpeeled large shrimp

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup minced fresh parsley

1 Tbps plus 1-1/2 tsp lemon juice

1 scallion, minced

3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
8 oz. uncooked linguine

Peel shrimp and set aside. Place butter in a 13x9x2" baking dish. Microwave, uncovered, on HIGH for 1 minute or until melted. Stir in olive oil and next 5 ingredients; arrange shrimp around the outer edges of the dish. Cover with plastic wrap and marinate in the fridge for at least one hour.

Remove from fridge and microwave, covered, on HIGH for 7 to 7-1/2 minutes or until shrimp are pink, rearranging shrimp every 2 minutes. Cook linguine according to package directions; drain. Place linguine on a serving platter; top with shrimp mixture; garnish with fresh parsley and serve hot.

Friday, July 8

Leftovers Smorgasbord!!

Saturday, July 9

A cold dinner on the screened porch:

Cold shrimp over green salad (using unused shrimp from earlier in the week)

sub sandwiches

chips and pickles

Linking up with Stonegable's "On the Menu Monday"!

Weekly Menu, Week of June 26

2011-06-26T19:37:00.001-05:00

This week we're traveling to New York City for a Friday evening wedding. We're leaving on Wednesday and coming home on Saturday afternoon, so this week's menu plan is short and simple.

Sunday, June 26
We're boating over to Sharktooth Island with Jesse & Di for an eat-with-your-fingers picnic:

Fried chicken (Mema's recipe)
Chips & cookies
Apples & pears

Monday, June 27
Joey & I will be working in the yard on our pathways all day and we'll grill outdoors for dinner. I found chicken on sale at Food Lion today so Monday's dinner will be

Grilled chicken leg quarters with barbecue sauce
Quick Summer Vegetable Saute (Monticello recipe)
Skillet Cornbread (A Chef's Kitchen recipe)
Tossed Romaine salad

Quick Summer Vegetable Saute (adapted from a recipe found at Monticello, Virginia)

¼ cup butter or margarine

1 yellow squash, chopped into 1” cubes

1 green zucchini, chopped into 1” cubes

½ red onion, thinly sliced into rings

½ tsp Nature’s Seasons or similar spice blend

½ tsp salt

½ tsp ground pepper

1 cup chicken broth

In a skillet, melt butter. Add all ingredients except chicken broth; sauté over medium heat until onion is soft and squash are slightly soft. Add chicken broth and cook over low heat until most of the broth is reduced, about 10-15 minutes.

Skillet Cornbread (From " A Chef's Kitchen" in Williamsburg, Virginia)

1 ¾ cups stone ground yellow corn

5 tsp sugar

2 ½ tsp salt

1 tsp aluminum-free baking powder, like Rumford

1 tsp baking soda

1 egg

2 cups buttermilk

1 tbsp butter

Place a well-seasoned 10” cast iron skillet in the oven. Preheat the oven to 450. Allow the pan to remain in the oven 5 minutes after the oven is pre-heated.

Place the cornmeal, sugar, salt baking powder, and baking soda in a mixing bowl and mix together. Add the egg and buttermilk and mix smooth. Add the butter to the skillet allowing it to melt and to brown. Pour in the cornbread batter and bake for approximately 12 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Turn the cornbread out onto a cutting board, presenting the cornbread bottom side up.

Tuesday, June 28
We're going out of town on Wednesday morning, and I have lots of flour tortillas on hand that I'd like to consume, plus a bunch of limes and a stray mango and avocado that have been hanging around for a few days. Joey and I will be shopping for the VMI summer session and our trip to NYC, so dinner will be fairly easy and quick, and designed to use up those ingredients:

Grilled Fish tacos
Corn and Mango salsa
Mexican rice

Grilled Fish Tacos

4 tilapia fillets

4 garlic cloves, minced

1jalapeno, minced

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro

salt and pepper to taste

juice of 4 limes

2 Tbsp. white vinegar

1/2 cup canola oil

flour tortillas (taco or fajita sized)

1 cup light mayonnaise

3 Tbsp. nonfat milk

juice of one lime

1 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

shredded lettuce and/or cabbage

taco toppings of choice

1. Make fish marinade:

Mash garlic, jalapeno, cilantro, salt and pepper together; scrape into a jar with a lid. Add lime juice, vinegar and canola oil to the jar, cover tightly with the lid, and shake well to thoroughly mix the marinade. Place tilapia fillets into a gallon-size plastic zip-close bag, pour marinade in, and close. Marinate about 30 minutes (but no more than about 2 hours) in the fridge.

2. While the tilapia marinates, make the taco topping:

Mix mayonnaise, milk, juice of 1 lime, and 1 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro; set aside.

3. Cook the tilapia on the grill or on the stove on medium-high heat for about 2-3 minutes until seared on one side and cooked about 1/4 way from the bottom; Turn the fish, cover, and cook for 4-5 more minutes. Remove, let rest a few minutes, and cut into small pieces.

4. Assemble tacos: Warm tortillas on the grill or in the oven; then place several pieces of fish in a tortilla, top with lettuce and/or cabbage, drizzle some sauce over, and add additional taco toppings of choice.

Corn and Mango Salsa (also from " A Chef's Kitchen" )

1 cob of corn, shucked (or you can cheat as I usually do and use a small can of white shoepeg corn)

1 Tbsp butter

2 Tbsp water

2 mangoes, peeled and diced

1 tsp cilantro

1 Tbsp lime juice

salt to taste

Preheat medium sauté pan to medium high heat. Cut corn from the cob and, with the back of the knife, scrape any corn still attached to the cob. (Or, *open the can*.) Add the butter, corn and scrapings to the pan, and sauté until light golden brown, about 2 minutes. Remove the corn to a medium mixing bowl, and allow to cool. Add the water to the empty pan, scrape any brown bits from the bottom, and add this liquid to the corn. Toss all of the ingredients together and serve warm.

Wednesday, June 29 through Friday, July 1
on the road in New York City!

Saturday, July 2
Joey's cousins will be at the house playing on the water, so we'll have something that teenagers will enjoy.

Make-your-own grilled pizza
Ice cream cones and S'mores for dessert.

I'm linking up to Stonegable's On the Menu Monday. I'm hoping that this will keep me accountable every week to a planned, budget-conscious menu plan.

First week of summer vacation

2011-06-25T08:14:00.002-05:00

I look forward to summer vacation all year. I put off projects all year long, dreaming of the long empty days when I can accomplish big stuff during the summer. So far I'm off and running on this summer break. Here's what I did this week.

Monday June 20--it was raining off and on all day, so I worked on the downstairs hallway. The ceiling is papered with a textured paper that is meant to mimic a tin ceiling. I'm afraid to take it down and see what it's concealing, but it had some water stains and was painted with flat ceiling paint. I repainted with a glossy white paint, hoping it would make the pattern pop. It looks a little cleaner and brighter:

Then I worked on the stairs. This picture shows how the stairs looked when we moved in.

Since then I've painted the risers white, and on Monday I painted the wood trim on the stairs with more of the semi-gloss white trim paint:

I still need to caulk the stairs, add the little wood plugs for those round screw holes, and paint the handrail black. And then we'll order the stair runner and see how we fare trying to install that ourselves.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I had teacher training seminars to attend, which ate up my whole day. On Thursday, I organized my closet, packing up the sweaters and boots and making room for my summer things:

And also on Thursday and into Friday, I started on an outdoor pathway and some built-up planting beds. Here's what it looked like when I began:

And here's what it looked like yesterday evening (Friday, June 24):

See those flagstone pieces on the grass? Those were the old pathway that the previous owners had embedded in the grass. We're going to re-use those flagstone pieces on our pathway. We also have found lots of bricks around the property that we're reusing whenever we can.

So that's what I got done on my first week off. Today has dawned with beautiful weather, 80 degrees and low humidity. We'll put down the landscape fabric on the pathway, then cover it with some gravel. I really hope to finish this pathway by Tuesday of next week. Fingers crossed!

Just your garden variety varmint

2011-06-16T22:06:00.000-05:00

When I checked on my garden this morning, I discovered a crime. Our unknown varmint had eaten the entire chives plant!

See the little hole where the critter pulled the plant down into the earth?

This is not the varmint's first crime. He has eaten 2 marigold plants and *apparently* all the green beans I planted except for one. Why else would only one have sprouted? First-graders can grow green beans in styrofoam cups so I'm thinking the only reason that 64 out of the 65 I planted failed to sprout was...the varmint.

But on to more positive thoughts about my garden...

Cherry tomatoes are thriving after giving us a scare--the plant toppled and we hastened to stake it. The stem had a crack in it but apparently the plant will survive. Whew! We need our cherry tomatoes.

Tom chose Jet Star tomatoes because they are an indeterminate variety. That means they should produce fruit all the way until the first frost. They look very good so far. I chose another indeterminate variety, Heirloom German Johnson, which so far has blossoms but no fruit yet. I'm anxious to try my own home-grown heirlooms.

Your basic Better Boy. It's a bush, not a vine, which means it's supposed to not last all season. But so far so good with the BB.

We'll have lots of yellow squash, even though there's only one plant.

And lots of zucchini too. I planted two of these. (What was I thinking??) (Also, please no Anthony Wiener jokes about my zucchini.)

Jalapeno peppers coming along nicely. I also planted Cubano and Poblano but so far only blossoms on those.

Here's the view of the busiest raised bed. The plants in the back (tomatoes and cucumber) are supported by netting. The pepper plants are supported by round plant supports. The scallions are working hard just to hold on. I'm hopeful.

I also have a raised bed of strawberries for summer desserts and miniature white pumpkins for the fall.

Here's a view of the herb bed and the tomato/pepper/cucumber/yellow squash bed. Notice the trap for the varmint in front of the white flowers. I'm hopeful.

Sharktooth Island

2011-06-04T21:50:00.003-05:00

We live along a creek that flows into the Potomac River, and sometimes we take a break from working on the house to actually take the boat out ON the river!

On Memorial Day, we boated about an hour south to a small island--a sandbar really, to explore a bit. It's called Sharktooth Island because you can find ancient sharks' teeth right on the beach and in the water that laps the shore.

The sharks teeth come from these cliffs, which used to be under the Atlantic Ocean, thousands of years ago. Now, as the cliffs erode, the teeth embedded in them are carried into the river, where the current washes them ashore by the hundreds.

By the way, these particular cliffs are called Stratford Cliffs, because they are on the property called Stratford Hall, where Robert E. Lee was born and spent his boyhood.

People anchor their boats along the sandbar and wade ashore, where they picnic, grill, float in tubes, or just relax in sand chairs.

And everyone keeps their eyes peeled for sharks' teeth.

It was about 95 degrees, so I spent more time floating in the water than walking the island. The water felt wonderful.

Sharktooth Island is privately owned, but you can buy a summer pass from the owners. We were visiting with a friend who has had a pass for years...checking to see if we thought it was worth buying a pass of our own. We decided to take the plunge so we can spend a bunch more weekends there this summer.

We were only on the island for about 2 hours and this is just some of our bounty of sharks' teeth. I'd say the island lives up to its name!

Porch check

2011-05-29T21:47:00.001-05:00

Well, it's the end of May, and according to the Big List, I should have finished a makeover on the back screened porch by now. I've got it looking the way I'd like, with blues and lime greens and whites and creams. Here's a look back at what I started with:

Yes, that is a red floor.

The porch began with a lot of red. When we moved in, the floor was painted barn red. Our porch sofa and loveseat, coincidentally, were slipcovered in a red pattern with tiny palm trees and boats.

There were green roll-up shades that weren't wide enough for the windows, and I had two white rockers that sported a fine coating of mildew and dirt that I couldn't get clean, plus kelly green chair pads. I'm not sure why they're missing in this picture.

Our old hand-me-down table and captain's chairs were rickety and downright unsafe.

And the rugs were faded and stained with mildew.

First I painted the floor. We eventually want to tile this floor but I just couldn't stand living with the red floor for another minute, much less a year or two. I also replaced the old rugs with 2 sisal rugs from Pier One. This was a freebie since they were from the other house and hadn't found a home in the new one yet.

You can see that we also replaced the green, too-narrow blinds with white ones that fit the screens. We had to buy them in 72 inch width and then Tom cut them down to 60 inches with the table saw.

Then I found a nice lady named Sook with awesome slipcover skills and she made new slipcovers for the sofa and loveseat. I wish I could say I sewed them myself but I know when I'm in over my head, and matching large patterns and setting in zippers in cushions are way beyond my skill set.

While Sook worked on the slipcovers, I painted the tired wooden frames of the sofa and loveseat black.

I DO have the skills to use leftover fabric to sew new seat cushions for the two wicker chairs, and pull out some old white ceiling paint to lighten up the old blue corner lamp table.

It took 4 cans of gloss black spraypaint to cover the white rockers. I used coordinating striped green and blue fabric (thank you JoAnne's sales lady for helping me "find" the 40% off coupon!) to make new cushion covers for the rockers and pillows for the couch. Yes, I did that myself...no Sook needed.

I love this little painting by a local artist in Costa Rica. I got it in 2006 when my son and I visited with a school tourist group, and it looks just right with the new porch colors.

We got a new table from Overstock, and some chairs to go around it from Home Depot.

(Not sure why I didn't notice the Amazon.com box smack dab in the middle of this pic.)

I like the new round table because it seats six people comfortably and we can all see each other and talk.

You can see the back yard in this picture, with the creek, the hammock, dock, and boat.

I declare the porch done, finished, freshened up, de-redded and de-greened, light and airy--just in time for summer!

Stalled on the Stairs

2011-05-17T04:42:00.001-05:00

I have a master to-do list for the year and it contains one fairly big re-do per month. I was doing pretty well until April’s project—the stairs and stairwell. Well things didn’t go well and now the stairs are on hold while I try to figure out which way to go.

Here’s what I really want:

Things started off well enough. In one day I got all the risers painted.

I liked them better already! I blithely set off to pick the sisal carpet and twill binding I wanted. Little did I know the problems I’d encounter in carpet-land.

I visited the flooring store that I’ve used for most of our other projects, and I told them what I wanted. They sent a guy to measure, and when I went to the store to get the estimate, I fell out. The cost was $1400 and change. Just about 3 times as much as I thought it would cost! So that option was out.

Then we visited Lowe’s, where the very helpful lady told us we could order sisal carpet, cut it into the 27” strips we needed, and take it to a local carpet binding person to have the sides bound. She even gave us a business card for a carpet binder. But I was a bit nervous about all that cutting. So we put that idea on the back burner…

Next we stopped in at our local mom & pop carpet place, where the guy was very nice, but told me he could not put a twill binding on my stair runner. Instead, he was showing me the little 1/2” folded over binding like you see on any carpet remnant at Costco. NOT what I wanted.

Which led to my last option: Ordering ready-made sisal runners with the twill binding already on, and then installing it all ourselves, from this company in the UK. The runner comes in 24-foot lengths, and costs 129 British pounds, which is about $209.70 according to the online currency converter.

Oh, and if you’re wondering why this is such a tricky and unexpectedly expensive project, it’s all because of this quaint architectural feature. Because of this, we’re not sure if we’d need to buy 1 24-foot runner, or 2.

See that second step? The one that comes to a point? Well, installing a 27” runner and turning that corner is a challenge that will involve cutting and piecing and gluing edges together. Sisal edges fray really easily.

Well, thinking about it all just got to be too much. And as I wavered, the days passed, and it became May. And the weather got warmer, too. As you’ve probably figured out, I dropped April’s project and moved on to May’s, the screened porch. And then I got a jumpstart on the June/July/August project—anything outside! Landscaping, vegetable gardening, propagating and transplanting shrubs, mulching, and renovating the lawn are just a few of the fun outdoor jobs I can’t wait to start.

It’s nice to have something else to think about besides the stairs. I hope I find the energy and drive to come back to this project when the weather cools. October or November maybe?

We need professional help.

2011-05-14T05:29:00.000-05:00

Tom and I like to do things ourselves. But for the kitchen, we need to call in the pros. Because we want to turn this...

...into something more like this.

And then there's our dining room, which we don't even really need...

So we want to maybe knock down this wall. It separates the tiny, unnecessary dining room, from the kitchen behind it. So that our kitchen opens up, and our living room blends into a kitchen that is welcoming and comfortable. Something like this:

from houzz: traditional kitchen design

And when we start talking about knocking down walls, and words like load-bearing walls, and ductwork, and re-routing the plumbing start coming up, we don't even know where to start.

So the architect is coming next Tuesday.

secret weapon

2011-05-11T04:54:00.001-05:00

Time to start digging in the dirt!

This is our second summer in the house. Last year I felt no desire to work on the yard, but this year is different. For some reason I've got the bug to take my shovel out and tear everything up! We are lucky to have a fenced-in area to the side of the garage that gets full sun. I think it was used as a dog run by previous owners, but for us it makes a perfect veggie garden area.

Here's a view of the 4 overgrown shrubs alongside the garage. Tom is going to take the chainsaw to 2 of them. But the other two are hydrangeas, and I want to try to salvage them, or root them for new plants, or move them somewhere else...not sure yet.

This is my herb garden, with 9 varieties.

I've started to use all the old brick I've found around the place to build a pathway through the garden. I've just got a landing so far, as you can see through the fence here. But I've got a long summer ahead of me with nothing but time to fill...and lots of piles of unused bricks that the previous owners left for us.

We have 4 raised-bed areas: 2 that are 4' x 8', and 2 that are 4' x 4'. We're following (sort of) the Square Foot Gardening method, which advocates planting close together and using vertical space as much as possible. In one large bed I've planted strawberries and baby boo pumpkins, and in the other one are 3 vine tomatoes, bell peppers, green beans, scallions, cucumber, and yellow squash. In one of the 4x4's we have 1 bush tomato plant, zucchini, and 3 smaller peppers (Poblano, Cubano, and Jalapeno).

This year we're trying this water timer. It seems like every year, we start a garden with grand plans but by the first of July, it has wilted and withered in the heat. We seem to lose interest in tending it in the heat, and if we go on a vacation for a week? Forget it! Either way, the poor plants just pack it up and die. So I got this digital water timer from Wal-mart. It cost $24, but since then I've seen cheaper models. We've got it set up with a sprinkler and it comes on every morning at 6 am, waters the garden for 45 minutes, and then turns itself off. Later in the summer when the weather turns truly beastly, we can set it to come on twice each day. I have high hopes for my garden this year because of this secret weapon!

Happy Mothers Day!

2011-05-08T12:05:00.001-05:00

This is my very young mother and me in San Diego.

Wishing all of you a lovely day!

Upstairs office

2011-02-12T10:21:00.001-05:00

This room

looked like this when we moved in

and included these 2 tall laminate wood bookcases. At first I wanted to get rid of them, but then I decided that their storage was too useful, and Tom told me they would be a giant pain to move down the skinny stairs. So, as the Army says, If you can’t move it, paint it.

I grabbed the paint brushes and slapped the semigloss white paint on the shelves, and added some of my leftover MSL River Mist on the back of the bookcase.

Two hand-me-down wooden pieces got a coat of the leftover MSL Creveceour—the same color as our vanity pass-through in the master bedroom. In this room it looks more like a sage green. Maybe it’s the light in here. This old credenza used to be painted burgundy. Now it holds office supplies, batteries, and printer cartridges.

And this old nightstand is now the printer stand next to the computer desk, and the drawers are holding the extra printer paper. I found some new handles online that came from library card catalogs

We found a rug at Marshalls that’s got pretty much every color we need in it.

Once the painting was done and the rug was down, all I had to do was unpack, organize, and purge a bunch of old papers and files. We already had this computer desk and hutch from the other house, and the gold chair is from our old living room too. It’s begging for a slipcover I think—a future project. Right now it’s a comfortable, well-lit place to sit and go through the files.

So that’s the February project all wrapped up. I’ve still got to deal with the window covering options—they look like they’re just too bare—and of course that slipcover for the gold chair, but those are for later. We’re moving on to March’s project—the dining room!

Upstairs Office: First Step—Unpack.

2011-02-02T05:48:00.000-05:00

We have a big long list of DIY projects for the year. One biggie for each month. February’s project is to do a facelift on our upstairs office. Well, it’s only January, and I’ve already finished up there. This is NOT what it looks like now. This is what it looked like 2 weeks ago when I went in, shut the door, and made myself unpack the rest of the junk.

This was the last room we unpacked and set up. It’s looked pretty much like this since we closed on the house last February. It required a large black trash bag, and some tough decision-making, to sift through all this stuff.

I’ll let you know how it turned out in a few days.

Hint: It involves the leftover paint from the vanity bathroom makeover. That’s right, Crevecoeur and River Mist will make an appearance in this room too.

Have a great week!

Bathroom Makeover for under $500

2011-01-28T20:06:00.001-05:00

This was our January project.

Our master bedroom was added on to our house about 10 years ago. And at that time, a small existing room was converted to a pass-through vanity area that you walk through to get to the bedroom. As you can see, there are nice hardwood floors and a pocket door that we can close off.

But we didn’t like the yellow oak cabinets, the builders grade fixtures, the small oval mirrors, the dreary paint, and the white porcelain drawer pulls.

I decided to force myself to use some bold colors in here. Just to see what happened.

Painting this cabinet was easy. I used a 2” foam brush, and I only had to give it 2 coats. It was done and dry within a few hours. After that, I painted the walls, and we switched out the mirror, lights, and faucets. Then we added some drawer pull bling, and voila!

Here’s the cost breakdown for this project:

Vanity paint: Martha Stewart from Home Depot, Color MSL249, Crevecoeur, semigloss. I had them mix the color in Glidden low-VOC and it only cost $16.99. (I bought a gallon but I could have done the whole thing with just a quart. Now I’m going around the house finding old pieces to paint with Crevecoeur.)

Wall paint: MSL119, River Mist, matte.

8 brushed nickel “Nautical” drawer pulls from Lowes, $3 each. I already had the cabinet pulls lying around from a previous project.

I found a big mirror at Marshall’s for $39.99.

We got brushed nickel faucets at Home Depot for $70 each.

And I ordered new brushed nickel light fixtures online for $34.99 each.

The final touch was a new yellow lattice rug for $165.

So…total cost of the vanity room pass-through was a whopping $471.

Here’s the before shot looking from the other end of the pass-through. That’s a nice closet on the right, and the door to the main first floor hallway on the left.

I’m pleased with the results of this project. I actually love the deep turquoise walls. I may leave them that way for more than a year!

Living Room Fireplace

2011-01-18T12:28:00.001-05:00

Our November/December 2010 project was the fireplace. When we bought the house, it looked like this.

The white painted brick went all the way up the wall to the ceiling. The insert was shiny brass, and the gas logs inside didn’t work. We also wanted to replace the plain white board that served as the mantle.

The first step was to replace the gas logs with a set that work, and change out the brass doors with a flat black set.

When we started demo, we discovered that those 4” terra cotta tiles were set in sand. ?? Inside the house! I’ve never heard of that before, but on the bright side, it did make them easy to remove. We replaced them with big grey tiles that look like slate.

Tom ordered a thick distressed mantel from E-bay and installed it. Then, because the brick was painted, he had to install lathe over it before we could put the stone on, and then a layer of mortar over that.

We let it cure for a few days, and then Tom started placing the stones. (I love how he worked around the Christmas decorations!)

After grouting, this is what the stone part looks like.

But above the fireplace, we still had white painted brick. So once the Christmas decorations came down, Tom covered those with smooth plywood.

Then he added some plain molding strips and crown molding around the top, and I painted.

So this is what it looks like today. We are still trying to decide on the art to hang above. And there’s still some base molding to add. But overall I love the results!

Here’s the before and after side by side:

2011 Big List—Home Improvements

2010-12-29T15:26:00.000-05:00

December 2010: Living Room Fireplace (rock facade, new hearth, new insert, new mantel) AND shelving in the old coal bin room in the basement.

January 2011: Master Bathroom Pass-through sink room thingy (trying to make the best of a bad thing with paint and new lights, mirrors, and fixtures)

February 2011: Upstairs office/guest room (paint shelving, organize, and re-arrange)

March 2011: Dining Room (paint, crown moulding, update furniture)

April 2011: Stairwell, stairs, upstairs hall

May 2011: Screened Porch (new tile floors, new slipcovers, upgrade furniture and re-arrange)

June 2011: Front and Back yard hardscape and mulch beds (we need a plan!)

July 2011: Same as June—hopefully with a plan

August 2011: Same as June and July

September 2011: Upstairs Bathroom—new everything but keep the same footprint. (This will be easy since the youngest will be off to college and the upstairs bath won’t be needed for a few months)

October 2011: Finish up September

November 2011: Deep clean and organize basement (new carpet??)

December 2011: Decorate for Christmas and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I haven’t run this list by Tom yet…

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-26T14:35:00.000-05:00

Next year I hope Santa brings us some upstairs icicle lights. :-)

Thnigs I Should Have Blogged About When They Happened--Take 2

2010-10-21T18:02:00.001-05:00

My birthday. Which was a big one. The most infamous milestone, in fact...

Yep, my 50th birthday was the end of September, on a Wednesday. There were so many celebrations and gifties that I lost count. I have a lot of very wonderful people in my life, and I really wasn't bothered at all by the number 50. It feels the same as 40 did, except my feet hurt a bit more at the end of the day. So it's all good.

Things I should have blogged about when they happened, Take 1

2010-10-16T08:00:00.000-05:00

So there were 2 months that I let myself get too busy to post on this blog. Several things happened in that time that were, in fact, blog-worthy. I'll try to catch up slowly.

The first is this new amazing camera that Tom gave me for my birthday. I am very slowly learning to use it. It is much fancier than the one I wanted but he likes to surprise and splurge (although he won't admit it) when he gives people gifts.

I had mentioned to him that I was researching and comparing the Canon Rebel and the Nikon D3000. Both were endorsed by bloggers. They both produced excellent picture quality and were easy for a beginner to master. They both cost around $500. Well unbeknownst to me, Tom took my camera research much further and found a camera that I can use for the rest of my life and will never need to upgrade. It's a few years older than the brand new Canon models, but then again, so am I, right?

So now I have no excuse not to photograph every aspect of our lives here on the creek, our travel adventures, and our kids. Game on!

Looking for a Halloween Read?

2010-10-13T09:14:00.001-05:00

Just imagine you are in a creative writing class. Your assignment is to reach into a bowl and pick out two totally random topics, and somehow merge them into a compelling story. So, you reach into the bowl, pull one out, unfold it, and read "Abraham Lincoln." Okay...so far not too bad. You reach into the bowl again, pull out a paper, unfold it, and read, "Vampires." Oh crap. How are you going to do THAT? In what time, place, or context would Abraham Lincoln ever cross paths with vampires?

I don't know if that's how Seth Grahame-Smith decided to write the book Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. But he has managed to write a compelling page turner that is actually believable and thoroughly enjoyable. My young hip friend Lauren told me about this book and when she told me how much accurate history there is in it, I knew I had to read it.

I was totally enthralled with this book because it wove vampires into every facet of Abraham Lincoln's real life, including the deaths of his family and loved ones, his reasons for fighting the Civil War, his sorrowful countenance, and his assassination. I am such a history nerd that I found myself tearing through this book. Grahame-Smith portrays Lincoln as a man driven by revenge and righteousness, a tough and violent man on a mission--a mission to hunt and destroy all the vampires in America before they destroy the country first.

Be warned: These vampires are not the Twilight kind. There is violence in this book. People are murdered in some pretty nasty ways, and Abe's vampire-killing techniques are rough, to put it mildly. Turns out vampire killing is not a simple matter, and Abe learns that lesson the hard way. Which is why I'm only suggesting it if you are looking for a macabre Halloween read. (In other words, there's no Edward and Bella happy ending here.)

By the way, this book has been optioned by Tim Burton (right up his alley I think), and filming is reported to be starting this winter. So if you'd like to read the book before the movie, you'd better get started!

Halloween in Black and White

2010-10-11T10:00:00.002-05:00

I've never really liked Halloween decorations. I put them up every year for the kids' sake, but now that the kids are all grown up, I don't really want to prop up skeletons and hang spiderwebs and stick gravestones in the front yard. But when I saw Halloween decorations that were more adult and sophisticated, my eyes perked up (lit up??).

I saw a post by Yvonne at Stonegable last week. Which by the way is becoming one of my favorite blogs to follow...so many decorating and cooking ideas that I can totally click with. Anyway, this post was all about a beautiful tablescape with little white pumpkins and black and white china and ribbons. So I decided to take that idea and adapt it for my mantel and table.

Unlike Yvonne, who grew her own Baby Boo pumpkins (I'm definitely gonna plant some next year), I had to buy my little white pumpkins. I searched 3 grocery stores before hitting the jackpot at a supermarket fairly close to my house. I also found some fake little white pumpkins at Walmart, and fake big ones were half price at Michael's last week. Fake is good because fake is re-usable next year!

I found some peel-off stickers for walls at Target, and I stuck bats on the pumpkins and ravens on the white urns. Very happy because I can re-use them next year too.

(Same shot; just playing around with the focus on my new camera.)

I found a black table runner with white embroidery at K-Mart (it reverses to a pretty toile pattern), and I used Yvonne's idea of mounding the little pumpkins on excelsior and tying ribbons on their stems.

Thanks for looking, and thanks Yvonne for sharing your idea! You changed my mind about Halloween decor!

This is a test...

2010-10-10T21:06:00.000-05:00

...to see if I remember how to come here and type stuff.

So I've fallen out of the habit of writing and posting. For several reasons.

1. I started back to work on August 27.
2. And that's about it.

But now that I've sort of hit my stride with the new school year, I feel like I've got some breathing room, and I can come back here a bit more.

Starting tomorrow. It's past my bedtime already tonight.

Sweet dreams everyone!

Paula Deen and I have 2 things in common

2010-08-19T07:19:00.001-05:00

Paula Deen is fun to watch on television. She seems so happy and natural as she whips up food in the kitchen. She makes us television viewers feel as if she’s talking right to us, and we are her best friends.

Not me. I do NOT share this kitchen personality trait with Ms. Deen. I am a solitary kitchen worker. If people offer to help me, I tend to clam up and get grumpy. I don’t like assigning tasks or telling them where the cheese grater is or that there’s already an open tub of sour cream in the garage fridge…and if I have to remind them where we keep the small frying pan (it’s hanging right over your HEAD on the pot rack where it’s been since we moved IN to this house!)…well, you get the idea. In the kitchen, (in teacherspeak), I don’t work well with others. And Ms. Deen, with her over-the-top perky self, clearly does.

Obviously, Paula Deen I ain’t when it comes to kitchen personality. And besides that, I am not a rich and famous Food Network star who owns a chain of restaurants. And my hair’s not fully grey yet. It’s on its way, but not there quite yet. And with my luck, when I DO go all grey, my hair will be wiry and frizzy, not sleek and gorgeous like hers.

She has blue eyes and I have brown. Go ahead and add that to the list.

If you’re keeping score, we’ve established so far that I don’t share personality, wealth, attractive manes, or eye color with Ms. Deen…

So, what trait DO I share with Paula Deen? Here’s a clue:

I knew you’d get it! We have the same guest room rug!

You see, I was browsing a favorite design blog, The Lettered Cottage, and happened to see where the author, Layla, visited Paula Deen’s guest cottage on Tybee Island, Georgia. I got curious, and I found the rental listing for Ms. Deen’s cottage online. It’s called “Y’all Come Inn” and it is available for rent by the week.

(found here)

Layla posted a picture of Paula Deen’s guest room, which is lovely. But one thing caught my eye in particular—the rug. I looked at the rental link to get a better look, and sure enough…

Look at Paula’s guest room area rug. (found here)

And compare it to my guest room area rug.

So now I can say it—Paula and I have the same taste in guest room floor coverings. And that’s probably about the only thing we share.

Actually, make that two things in common. I think I look pretty good in coral too.

By the way, the rug is available from Lowe’s. If you would like to stay at “Y’all Come Inn,” you can check out the rental information here. And if you’ve never read Layla’s blog, The Lettered Cottage, I highly recommend it for a wealth of decorating ideas delivered with a fun and refreshing style, and you can access it here.

Very Tiny Powder Room

2010-08-11T21:03:00.001-05:00

There are two bathrooms on the main floor of our house. The master bathroom is really a room and a pass-through vanity/sink area. More on that sometime in the far future when I decide I can’t stand it another minute and decide to attack it.

The other bathroom is our very tiny powder room. This room is only 40” x 60”. That’s 3 1/2 feet by 5 feet of tiny bathroom.

When we moved in last April, the walls were divided in half by a dark brown chair molding. Above the chair molding, the top half of the walls were painted light tan and decorated with a row of sponge-painted mallard ducks.

The bottom half of the walls were trimmed with brown wood paneling that had a whitewashed finish. There was brown crown molding, and stained wooden molding at the corners where the walls met.

The floor was dark brown vinyl in a simulated wood parquet pattern. AND, the windows were adorned with dark wooden mini-blinds. Are you getting the feel for this room? Tiny, dark, closing in on you. The room was furnished with a very tiny pedestal sink with tarnished brass faucet, a very tiny toilet that performed its only function very poorly (frequently resulting in an embarrassed guest asking us where the plunger might be kept). The mirror above the sink was small and framed in dark brown. I had fun changing this room because 1)any change would be a vast improvement; 2)I was mortified for guests to have to see and use this debacle; and 3)it was so small that changing it would be quick and relatively cheap.

My first instinct was to change the dark to very very, very light. And to somehow bring in a beachy relaxed feeling without being cutesy. First, I removed the corner trim, and painted the ceiling, trimwork, and moldings a nice shiny white. It’s the Olympic semi-gloss Bright White that comes right off the shelf at Lowes—the same trim paint I use throughout the entire house. It keeps things simple. Then I papered the upper wall with a white-on-white pattern that made me think of fronds of sea grass. Tom and I found some closeout tile that is the color of beach sand with shiny tiles between. The sparkly square tiles make me think of the ocean sand sparkling. Tom tiled the room pretty quickly because of course, as I have pointed out, it is very tiny.

All that was left to do after that was to change the fixtures and furnishings. We had a little problem getting the toilet we wanted from Home Depot, waiting too long for it, canceling that order, and finally getting it from the local store who had it in stock. It is a super-dee-dooper flusher model and hopefully we never have to hear a guest utter the word “plunger” in any context. We really couldn’t justify replacing our little sink, so it had to stay, and I scrubbed it and p0lished it as best I could. Plumber Tom contorted his body into unnatural positions and cursed mightily as he switched the tarnished old brass faucets with some brushed nickel. Then we hung a white-framed mirror over the hole we found behind the old brown mirror. We added a glass shelf from Ikea below that, and we hung a bamboo Roman shade on the window.

One of my favorite artists is Elaine Hahn. Someday I’ll tell you why, but for now I’ll just tell you that I ordered a nice watercolor print of some boats at a dock at a little marina. It reminds me of the marina at the mouth of our creek. Well anyway, that painting now adorns the very tiny powder room. I had to use my flash to take a picture of it, so this certainly doesn’t do it justice. And after adding some towels and beach finds, our room was finished…except for one last finishing touch… Here is my vinyl graphic that I ordered from Leen the Graphics Queen—I was so thrilled with how it turned out! I sent her a jumbled and incoherent email, and she somehow was able to figure out exactly what I wanted. She got the design right in the very next email, and now our guests never have to ask us where the powder room is!

My latest fireplace crush…

2010-07-27T07:42:00.001-05:00

is in the July2010 issue of Traditional Home:

(source)

I just love that rounded river stone and the white mantel and white framed in wall above it. Here’s another very similar one:

(source)

This is Melanie’s house—she’s the blogger behind Pretties and Posies (which by the way is a lovely blog for inspiration in design as well as living)…anyway, again it’s the rounded river rock I love on this fireplace.

Here’s what we’re starting with. Sorry so blurry.

Here’s our hodgepodge furniture in the room.

I painted the shelves that flank the fireplace, because painting is the one thing I know how to do all by myself, and it’s instant gratification.

Here’s a little side-by-side before and after. Before the case was tan and the shelves white. I painted the case and shelves in a grey called Cobblestone, and I painted the inside of the case with a turquoise blue called Tidewater, because both those colors will blend well with that river rock when we get it installed. Both of these colors are from my new favorite color palette, Martha Stewart paints at Home Depot.

We’re hoping to get to the stone on the surround in September. Meanwhile, I’ll just keep dreaming of rounded river rock. But not today…

Today Joey & Tom & I are at Universal Studios in Orlando and we’re visiting the Harry Potter Theme Park !!

Light and breezy guest room makeover

2010-07-25T19:55:00.005-05:00

Our 1954 house was full of interesting color choices when we moved in back in April. Over the past 3 months I’ve logged lots of time with a paintbrush because frankly those color choices were just crazy!

This is the guest room before we moved in. We called it the Raspberry Room, OR the Strawberry Shortcake Room.

Here it is with a fresh coat of paint (it’s called June Breeze by McCormick—I love that name), and our white furniture.

I rescued the chandelier from the main hall downstairs. It was dusty bronze before I spray-painted it white.

I love this lampshade I found at Ikea! The lamp base was a find from Target’s clearance shelf but it was dark brown, so I used some more white spray paint. I needed a very small nightstand so I am using this plant stand that I found at Homegoods because the size AND the colors are just right . The little clock is from Ikea.
This watercolor painting above the desk continues the light and airy blue and summery feeling. The art is especially meaningful because it was painted by Tom’s beloved Aunt Shirley.
We keep Shirley’s photo on the desk near her painting. She passed away in 2003, and we miss her dearly. She was a wonderful person who lavished lots of time and love on her nieces and nephews, and our children have many fond memories of their Great-Aunt Shirl. It’s only fitting that she grace our guest room because she was the most gracious hostess; she went out of her way to make sure all visitors felt welcomed and loved in her home. Whenever I’m having people over, I always try to follow Shirley’s example.

Linking this post with The Lettered Cottage. She's highlighting guest room makeovers!

What would you do?

2010-07-23T07:11:00.002-05:00

I’m so angry about this whole situation we’ve got going on with Home Depot. We’ve been working on our itty-bitty powder room for about a month now. It began by looking like this.
I primed and painted those mallards away, and wallpapered the walls….
And the floor—oh wow. The floor used to have this horrible, dark, wood-look vinyl.
Tom and I found some tile on clearance for only $3.99 per square foot. It has travertine hexagons and little shiny squares.
And Tom ordered a very small toilet from Home Depot. It is not an off-the-shelf item. This bathroom is only 40” x 60”, so our toilet had to work really well, AND be only 26” deep from the back wall. Tom does really well at reading reviews and researching online.
Did you know there are reviews of toilets online?
Anyhow, we ordered the toilet from Home Depot on July 12, and it costs $410. Apparently very small toilets are not cheap. We were told that we could not pick it up in the store; it would be delivered to our home within 5 to 10 business days.
Well it’s still not here. And although it is still within the 5-10 business day time frame, what makes me mad is that it arrived at a delivery warehouse fairly quickly, and it has been scheduled for delivery on July 15, July 19, July 21—but it still has not shown up. We got a call on the 21st and were informed they would deliver it on Monday July 26—while we’re on vacation. I am so angry. This toilet has been sitting in a local warehouse for 8 days! I could drive over and get it myself but that is not an option—they won’t let me!
Finally I got fed up yesterday and went to a local plumbing supply store. We don’t usually use them because they have a nice showroom with very high list prices on display, and we assume that the big box stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s will always beat those prices. Anyway, I gave them the model number and asked if they could get us this toilet, and if so, for how much? Well, they have 30+ of this model in their warehouse and can get it for me the next day—for only $438! That’s only $18 more than the Home Depot price.
So we are cancelling our Home Depot order and I am picking up the toilet today—so we can get this little powder room finished—finally—before we leave for vacation.
I had assumed that the local plumbing showroom would be more expensive than the big box store, but I have had a conversion. The local store had a real person that spoke to me and worked hard to get the price as low as she could. She picked up the phone and made sure that our toilet would be on the next day’s truck. If we had come to the local guy first, we would have had our toilet more than 2 weeks ago. Home Depot’s customer service was non-existent by comparison.
Anyway, if all goes well I hope to be able to post some more pictures of our completed powder room sometime soon…

So what would you do in this situation? Would you hold out for the missing Home Depot toilet or cancel like we did and go with the local merchant?

July Book Club

2010-07-21T06:49:00.002-05:00

On Sunday I got to host book club at my house for the first time. We only had 4 ladies show up but it was a fun meeting all the same. This is a very unstructured book club and we talk a little about the book, and then we spend about two hours yakking about anything and everything else. It’s girly time at its best.
We read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (along with the rest of the world), and the consensus was that although it started slowly, the action, intrigue, and suspense built up so that up so that by the middle, we all found ourselves hooked. Everyone wants to read the second and third books in this series. I was additionally intrigued by the author, a Swedish activist of sorts who wrote all three manuscripts, delivered them to a publisher, and died suddenly shortly thereafter of a massive heart attack. He was only 50 years old and he had outlined a series of ten books for this series.
For our next meeting we are reading a YA book, The Hunger Games. I read it more than a year ago but no one else in the club has, and I thought it would be a quick and entertaining read for all of us. And, this gives me the chance to read the 2nd and 3rd book in the Dragon Tattoo series instead of a new book. I’m sure I’ll have to re-read Hunger Games before the September meeting to refresh my memory, but as I recall it is an intriguing premise—a future world in America that has been taken over by a totalitarian government and divided into regions rather than states. Each year teenagers from each region are selected from a lottery to participate in a fight to the death (an ultimate game of Survivor) which is televised every night for the whole nation to see. Everyone cheers for the contestant from their region—so this is a morale-booster for the nation as well as a way for the mean guys to rub their power in the faces of the people. Of course the book has a protagonist who is selected to compete but is going to try to buck the system…and so the reader is hooked on this book early on. It’s good teenager versus evil empire but with a new twist. It has a sort of jump-the-shark part towards the end and I’ll be interested to get the other members’ take on that.
I’ve been on summer vacation officially for a month now, and Tom and I have almost completed several rooms. I’ll be posting pics of the laundry room, powder room, and guest bedroom very soon…and now it’s back to the paintbrush for me.

Geek camp

2010-06-20T22:55:00.001-05:00

Okay, technically it’s Physics Camp, okay? We took Joey there today for 5 days of playing around with physics-type stuff.

It’s at VMI, which stands for Virginia Military Institute. This is a very storied old military school in the foothills of the Shenandoah Mountains. It’s one of Joe’s top choices for college so when they told him he could come to physics camp for a week, he figured it was an offer he couldn’t refuse. So we spent our Father’s Day driving about 4 hours down there and another 4 back. But it was okay, because it was 100 degrees outside and we wouldn’t have done anything at home anyway except lie on the floor and pant like dogs.

Something about this school grabs my attention and doesn't let go, maybe because of its fascinating past and my interest in history. Tom, Joey & I came to a weekend orientation for prospective cadets last October and we were really impressed by the presentation, tours, and open-houses in each department. We calculated that with our four kids, we've been to eleven different college tours, and VMI's was by far the most enjoyable.

The builders were inspired by medieval castles. This is the ~~dorm~~ barracks where Joey is staying. See the diamond pane windows? See the statue of the guy?

This is Joey’s room in the barracks and because of those diamond-paned windows, it’s surprisingly light and airy, don’t you think? Which is not something that a 17-year-old prospective student appreciates, but I’m thinking that renters pay premium dough for apartments with tall ceilings and awesome windows like those.

What a beautiful view! (And not much to keep a despondent cadet from throwing himself to the terrace below, I couldn’t help but notice.)

And here Joey appears to be thinking the same thing…

This is the interior courtyard of the barracks, where the cadets have to run to right after they get out of bed, and do their warm-ups or calisthenics or whatever they’re called. Also, a senior cadet counts them to be sure no one jumped overnight.
Remember that statue of the guy from the front of the barracks? Well, he’s super famous around this school. He’s their most famous native son.

Stonewall Jackson was not a student at VMI; he was a teacher. And apparently not even a very good one. But when the Civil War broke out, he found his true calling. He led VMI graduates and cadets in battle, and was accidentally shot by friendly fire in May 1863. He died 8 days later. It was just a month before the Battle of Gettysburg, which was a major southern loss. It seems like after Stonewall Jackson died, the Confederates just couldn’t get their groove back. Maybe things would have turned out differently if Jackson had lived to continue the fight.

By the way, General George Marshall is also a famous graduate of VMI.
The castle theme at this school really intrigues me. I couldn’t resist taking some pictures of some of the doors:

And the storage shed behind the barracks is castle-y too!
Well eventually it was time to say bye to Joe, and off he strolled with the other physics aficionados (try saying that 5 times fast).

Can you spot him? He’s the very tallest physics guy. Maybe he’ll be the next Stonewall Jackson or George Marshall or Stephen Hawking.
Or maybe he’ll grow up to be a world renowned roller coaster designer. I actually think I’d like that better. And probably so would he.

My son's Wedding

2010-05-31T07:36:00.001-05:00

Thank goodness this is a holiday--an extra day to return to a normal routine after a hectic and emotional week that led up to Friday's big event--my son's wedding to the cutest and sweetest girl on the planet. Tommy and Melissa have been dating since high school. They went off to college together, and both graduated together 9 days ago, and then got married 5 days later.

This is the chapel at the University of Virginia, where the wedding took place. I can't begin to describe what a beautiful setting this is!

My daughter caught Tommy getting ready beforehand...

Beautiful bride Melissa arrives at the chapel

Tom and I do that walk...it's very emotional.

Pretty girls in waiting

First kiss as husband and wife. Love the priest's smile.

Arch of swords outside the chapel

Beautiful peonies and roses

My youngest, 17-year-old Joey, was Tommy's best man. Here he does a very admirable job of giving his speech at the reception. I was so proud of him--that's tough to do at any age! Outside, a huge thunderstorm struck while the party went on. Then, by the time the party ended, the skies were clear again. I think that is a good omen for their marriage, don't you?

Leaving the reception, off to their honeymoon. Truly a bittersweet day for a mom. No wonder I need a ~~moment~~ day to compose myself.