Been a little busy

With all my long absences from this blog and my lack of visits over to your blogs, I sometimes wonder why any of you even show up, but I'm always thrilled that you do.

As always, there's a reason and this time I think you'll understand even more so.

Let me start with a cute picture and we'll go from there, because this isn't a post that's picturesque.

Bubba taking an afternoon snooze.

Okay, so here we go with the actual post...

This is a picture of the back of my home a few years ago.

Surprisingly bigger than it appears from the front, but not pretty.

That's why you've never seen anything except the front.

This view is actually the prettiest it ever looked.

But see the paint coming up?

Yeah, that's not the worst of it.

It was rotting, the nails and boards were coming apart and although it might sound fun, but wasn't for me... when you walked to the other end it moved. 

Also, there wasn't a way down into the main part of the yard unless you walked all the way to the gate that you can kind of see in the bottom picture to the left.

I lived with it this way for the last 8 years, hopping and planning that one day I could take it down.

Why not fix it or rebuild it?

Because, I found out that there was a flagstone patio underneath that was original to the house.

And if you know me at all, you would know that the wood porch was doomed from that very minute.

And so it started...

Just look at that darling step underneath!

You're probably wondering what that cage is for.

It was built for Bubba so that he can go in and out when he's not with me and not get eaten by random wild animals.

We're leaving the other side of the porch up until we get the top windows painted on the house, which are a lot higher up than they look.

Spraying off the flagstone patio...

Next the cage came off.

The house needs a little power washing, but it's not too bad.

And 4 or 5 of these still need to come out...

But overall, it's in pretty darn good shape.

Just a little patching here and there and definitely some deep cleaning.

We found a flower bed underneath all that dirt too.

We definitely have our work cut out for us, to make it what we want...

but I think the little house feels much better :)

Oh and because we're gluttons for punishment, we also have this little project going on:

More on that soon ;)

xo

rue

My sanity

It's something I question quite a bit.

Especially, when it comes to this house.

Case in point, my latest venture in un-remuddling.

The bathroom you see below looks perfectly fine, doesn't it?

Well, to my eye it just didn't look right.

Of course, I knew there had been some updates to it through the years. For one, the newish sink and toilet didn't match the 1930s bathtub. I happened to find the base of the original matching sink in the side yard.

I'm still looking for a matching top to go with it.

Picture this in pink-ish brown:

image via google

No toilet out there though.

The second thing that bothered me was that the tile happened to be from the 1950s, but I'll get to that later.

The third thing was the drywall.

In case you're not up on your drywall history, it's existed for a very long time, but it just wasn't commonly used until after WWII. Lath and plaster was much more common and the walls in my home are no exception. If you're curious enough to learn more, you can read more about it 'here'.

'So, what could it be covering up?'

That's the question that nagged me for almost 8 years, until one day about a month ago, I thought to myself...

'Why not just tear a little piece off by the outlet. Worse case scenario I could just patch it and forget about it.'

Cute wallpaper?!

And that's when it all started.

Okay, so I can fix the trim around the cabinet.

Why not try the other wall?

ah oh...

Okay, so I'll figure that out later.

How about the sink area....

And so it went and here I am.

Or was, to be honest.

The walls and ceiling are almost done.

You know what took so long?

These:

Those, my fiends, are the remnants when you take off drywall.

It leaves behind an evil hard glue that won't come off with anything except a hammer, a chisel, a sander and a scraper.

And if you're not careful it'll try to take the wallpaper with it.

You know what else it leaves behind?

Four billion screws and nails.

It's not fun.

at. all.

But, it's so worth it.

I found three layers of paint in different shades of tan-ish pink underneath the sink where it's never been wallpapered, so I know the wallpaper isn't original, but I love it anyway.

I think it's from the 50s, which was when the tile was redone.

Speaking of..

I also happened to find a tile in the side yard, that just happens to match one of the paint colors I found in the bathroom.

It all makes so much sense now.

My little 1930s bathroom, got a makeover in the 1950s and then the last owners changed out the sink and toilet and added the drywall.

So, I'm doing my best to take it back to when it was redone in the 50s.

It'll be like the rest of the evils had never been done.

And you'll never guess what else!

I know who the owners were in the 1950s, but I'm not telling you about Fred and Pearl until next time.

You're also going to have to wait for pictures of the finished bathroom.

Or at least as finished as I can get it.

Who knows when or if I'll ever find those missing bathroom fixtures.

xo
rue

Catch up

Since my computer went down right before the holidays, I though I'd catch you up on the goings on here.

Christmas was lovely.

But it was Annie's last Christmas living at home, so it was also bittersweet.

I acquired a vintage roaster from the 50s, just in time to make a beautiful turkey for Christmas dinner.

It worked!

Browned that puppy right up and happened to be the best turkey I've ever made :)

Who gets excited about a roaster?

This girl!

We went on a couple of ghost town trips (which I'll post about later).

And there's been a few projects around here, like putting the kitchen door back where it belongs...

and a few other things ;)

All of which i'll get into detail about later.

I'd get into it now but, you'd be here awhile, so you have to wait ;)

Be back soon!

xo

rue

A window tale

Once upon a time, a lovely woman built a darling cottage.

For some reason, years later, she had to sell the cottage.

A family bought it.

Now, this family was probably a very nice family, but there were these evil people that would go door to door convincing neighbor after neighbor that old windows needed to be replaced. Even though some windows had been on their old homes for over a hundred years and had nary a problem, they agreed to change them out.

 Eventually, the evil window people came upon the little cottage where the family lived and convinced them that the little cottage's wooden framed windows weren't good enough.

Unknowingly, the family fell into the trap, like their neighbors, and agreed to replace the windows with some that wouldn't last more than ten or twenty years.

Some years later the family sold the house to a couple.

Now this couple wasn't very nice.

They had plans to destroy the cottage on the inside, but before doing that they decided to paint the entire outside, including the window trim, brown.

Not only that, but they used latex paint over oil based paint without sanding it.

About five years later, there fell upon the world a great recession and the couple had to sell the little cottage, so their evil plan was foiled.

Along came a woman that immediately fell in love with the little cottage and she bought it.

Soon she started undoing all the bad things that were done, but discovered that some things were going to have to be replaced professionally.

Boys and girls, do you know what that would be?

Why yes, Susie! It is the windows.

Well, all except the four original windows downstairs, that escaped the evil window replacers, that you guessed it... have nary a problem, except they too have to have the latex paint scraped off.

Not only are the metal window replacements failing, because of moisture between the glass, the wood window trim is rotting, because of the latex paint pulling off from the oil based paint and the leaks that come from improper window replacement.

And this kids, is what happens when you do that...

So, the woman that loves the little cottage knows that she'll have to replace not only this window, but eventually ALL of the ones that were replaced by the evil window people.

For now though, she has scraped all the latex paint off and has done some patching with wood putty until she can get someone that knows what they're doing to replace them.

There's also another sad window tale, involving some not too bright person building a staircase in front of a window.

But the woman will deal with that eventually too.

Just like she has when changing the outside from this...

To this...

It's a slow process and the woman has much more to do, but the little cottage knows she's trying and is very very happy that someone finally cares again.

To be continued...

Eventually.

;)

xo

rue

P.S.

For information on old windows go 'here'.

Please read it before you get angry about replacement windows.