Disorganized Sewing/Robert's Room

I have two sewing projects on deck.  The trouble is that right now my home is not completely conducive to successful sewing.  Yesterday I wanted to get started tracing an Edwardian-era hobble skirt, and cutting bias strips to finally finish a quilt I started many, many years back. Step one was clearing off the dining room table - a Herculean task.  But it was done, wiped down, and worked commenced.  I was able to trace the skirt pattern yesterday.

The bias strips however, ran into a snag.  We have been, over the past, oh, six months or so, been doing some work on Robert's old room.  You see, Robert now lives in Portland, so the room is to be a guest room (and Robert's room when he comes to visit) and also a sewing room for me.  I've never had a sewing room before, and I long to have one.  But his closet was in need of repair (walls cracking, not insulated, cold), including a "secret passageway" that Tyler wants put in that leads from his closet to Robert's.  Fun, and has sort of a Narnia aspect to it (Mr. Tumnus?!).  So far the closet is insulated and has most of its wallboard.  All that remains is some electrical and the passageway door.  But we also needed to replace the ceiling in the room itself.  Right now the old ceiling is out, and 70% of the wallboard is up on the ceiling.  A paint job and new baseboards will follow (pre-stained oak this time, so all that needs to be done is the cutting and fitting).  But my sewing stuff is scattered to the four winds, including my iron.  Hence, the difficulty going forward with the bias strips.  So once I get all of my projects to the sewing stage, I will not have an optimal sewing space yet to do them.  Not really much different from when my sewing machine was in the dining room.

No one seems to know where the iron went.  To be honest, it is quite old, and I am tempted just to buy another.

My skirt project is for Book Club.  We are reading Doctor Zhivago.  I want to wear an Edwardian skirt and blouse ensemble, and I have my eye on an awesome faux fur Russian hat.  More on that in a future post.

Rocking Horse Farm #903 

Edwardian Hobble Skirt

My quilt - circa 1988

Little Boy's Baseboards

Tyler's bedroom has been missing baseboards for more years than I care to admit.  Other projects budging into the line have prevented this project.  Time and money have also been in play.  Over the years we have put up the window woodwork, and his closet woodwork and doors.  But the baseboards have been patiently waiting to be installed ever since we found them on a great sale ("Such A Deal!") and refinished them.  I am chagrined to admit that it has been almost seven years.  How is that possible?!!  Here are some of the work-in-progress photos, from those two "warm" days this month, only two more small pieces until all is complete:

Long piece, ready to be cut to size

Paul loves this saw - a Delta Compound Mitre 

- he has gotten so much use out of this saw

Southeast corner, note the window woodwork above it

Shaping the profile to fit - intense work with a Dremel saw

Northeast corner with shaped profile to meet properly in the corner

This Christmas Season 2016

Christmas this year was/is unusual.  It was very musical choir-wise, not harp though (at least - not played by me, we did a special piece with choir and a professional harpist).  I was on the "bad list" at work, so was scheduled for all of Christmas, other than a small window of time later on Christmas Eve. Robert is in Portland, and Julie and Tyler went to Michigan since I was stuck working.  So our big family dinner is yet to come.  But I will give you the highlights so far, starting from early December.

Early December: 

Handel's Messiah, a new church for us, with a new choir.  

I was asked to sing a "O Thou That Tellest", my first solo.  

It was nerve-wracking, but all went well.

Our fireplace needed extensive repairs: 

Tuck-pointing, chimney cap, a stainless steel liner, and a fan.  ($$$)  

But all is well, and I love being able to use the fireplace again.  

Before Christmas frivolousness:

Christmas red toenail polish!

(And a kitty who likes to rub his chin on toes!)

Christmas Eve Choir Music:

Multiple pieces, including selections from Britten's "Ceremony of Carols".  

We had Ben Melsky as our harpist (awesome, playing the difficult harp accompaniment).  

I practiced long and hard on this piece.  

Musically it is difficult, but also the text is Middle English and Latin.  

(Here's a sample: "Wolcum Yole!" Voci Nobili with harpist Willy Postma)

In a nice surprise, we have been slow at work.  I had to go in from 11 AM to 3 PM, but then was downstaffed for the rest. Paul, Kristin, and I had a nice Christmas Dinner together - enjoying each other, but missing the rest of our family members. But we will all be together next week.  Julie and Tyler are home, and Robert will be visiting from far away Portland.  

(I haven't seen the lad in four whole months!)

A New Front Door

Several years ago I bought a new doorknob and lockset for our front door.  The old lock was becoming more and more difficult to work.  The problem was - there would be a lot of work to be done to make the new one work.  We put it off many times because there was always something else to do.  Eventually the door lock was only working from the inside to lock us in.  Paul and I decided to look at getting a new front door.  We wanted one that was at least interesting (the old one was not) and one that would let in more light than the old door's four tiny windows along the top.  And of course, the door needed to look historical.  

We found one we liked.  It was a fair amount of work to do for Paul, but it was better to have him spend time working on a nice new door rather than spending the same time (or more) working on the old one but getting a less-than-desirable finished product in the end, due to the limitations of the old door.  I love the result, and it feels good to be able to lock the front door again when we leave the house!

The new doorknob lockset

We also got new hinges

Ta-dum!  A lovely new door!

(Note the beveled glass window)

Would You Believe - I'm Afraid of Heights?

However, necessity inspired me to once again conquer my fears in order to get some house painting done.  We have been painting one side of the house each year.  We did the front first, but already it was in need of a new coat.  I suppose we will just plan to keep rotating around our house, painting until the end of time.

As usual, we were in a time crunch due to weather and other projects (kitchen and dining room!) taking precedence.  So this past weekend we plowed ahead.  Paul set up the scaffolding.  Paul is fearless, and has no problem getting up on the highest point (top level of scaffolding with an extra half-height plank) in order to reach the yellow tongue and groove boards at the top of our house.  I can manage the top level, moving very slowly, often hanging onto the support braces for dear life.  I was up there twice for two different sections. Each time I worried that I would be too afraid to climb back down the ladder, much like a cat who climbs a tree but then can't get back down (visions of firetrucks having to rescue me!). But I just blocked all thought out of my head other than gripping supports and ladder rungs and placing one cautious foot down after the other.  

I suppose we shouldn't be doing this.  But house painting is so expensive.  Anyway the worst is over, the scaffolding is down.  I worked a lot on the front porch today, and Paul and I are going to try and finish up tomorrow morning.  We'll still have all of the balusters to paint and the top trim, may not get to them before the cold.  I'll post a photo of the finished front soon.  In the meantime, here I am, crazy lady on a scaffolding:

By the way, I do NOT recommend this to anyone!

A Peculiar Sort Of Echo

The dining room is moving along with the wall replacement.  We also scrubbed and repainted the other walls to refresh them.  Finally we moved the tools out and the furniture back in.  We have not put our shades back up (waiting for the window washers to come and clean all of our windows - so overdue!).  But I noticed that the room was very echo-ey. Surely this cannot only be because of missing shades?  We had moved my sewing machine and drawers upstairs to stay in the new location.   So there was less furniture there.  I couldn't figure out why that would make such a difference.  And it seemed so roomy.  Paul then pointed out that we had also moved our microwave into the kitchen and gotten rid of the wooden storage cart it rested on.  How could I have forgotten that?!  (The trauma of having the microwave in such an awkward location for so many years?)

Well, I do have plans for a narrow telephone/floral arrangement table to go against one wall. Maybe that will help?  Oh, and a plant stand to disguise the transition between the new wall and the old faux wainscoting that a former owner had put up and that I hate.  Perhaps that will do the trick.  Anyway, here are some progress photos:

  

Woodwork Refinishing - Casings, Plinths, and Rosettes

Yesterday I did some work on the woodwork.  Many years ago we had our original pine woodwork reproduced by a lumber company.  We had ordered a lot, intending to replace all of the battered pine woodwork with new oak reproductions. We had gone through a lot of it. When this dining room partial-remodel-mushroom came about, I thought it would be nice to replace the doorway casings, plinth blocks, and rosettes in the dining room with the oak stuff.  We are not going to replace the pine casings around the windows in the dining room, because those windows are going to be replaced some day (drafty, awful).  Paul and I did a woodwork inventory and managed to scrounge up enough to take care of the two doorways. One half-dead plinth will need resuscitation (this time by Paul, not a nurse, but a darned fine woodworker).  Some of the long pieces were formerly window aprons (that go under the windows, with one side flat up against the sill), which he routed the flat edge to match the opposing round one.

I had previously stained them and put one coat of polyurethane on.  Yesterday I did coat two in the early afternoon, and Paul came home and finished them up in the evening.  Also, this past weekend we went out and bought the new door jambs, which have to go on before the casings.  So I will be working feverishly in the next few days to get them stained and polyed so Paul can put them up on the weekend.

Long casings in the yard.

Plinths and rosettes in the basement.  

Note the "patient" plinth mid-left.  He needs to be glued back together.  

When I Got Home From Work

After a very busy evening at the hospital, arriving home after midnight, I discovered that Paul, who had started the wallboard for the north wall of the dining room before I left for work, had completed it.  All it needs is goop and paint.  And the reapplication of the beloved wallpaper border.

With the obligatory cat, of course!  (click on the photo to see creepy cat eyes)

The Hole in the Wall (Mushrooming Project)

There is a saying in any remodeling project, that of "mushrooming".  What this means is that while doing one project, one may uncover (or cause) another project to spring up.  In our case, the work in the kitchen (gutting, hammering, etc.) caused the weakened plaster on the north wall of our dining room (adjacent to the kitchen wall), which was already suffering from a large crack, to begin to fall off.  Thus the "hole in the wall".

Of course, with me being musical, this brought up a piece, one that I have played on harp, but also love in Regency/Vitorian era movies, such as Wives and Daughters.  The music is by Henry Purcell, and it has many names: The Hole in the Wall, Hornpipe from The Moor's Revenge, or Hornpipe from Abdelzar's Suite.  So I have been playing that piece on my harp and hearing it in my head all week. (You can hear the piece here.)

Before we could begin, there was a *small* task, i.e. preserving the wallpaper border that I love. Since we are only re-doing the north wall (the east wall had already been replaced with wallboard prior to the border being applied; we are not touching the south and west walls until a later date - huge mushroom, involving new windows, structural stuff, insulation, etc.), I did not want the border to just end.  So, faithful Paul undertook the painstaking task of removing it.  This is not an easy task.  But he did it, and it is rolled up, waiting to be reapplied once the new wallboard is up.  (More to follow in upcoming post once complete.)

The border - isn't it beautiful?

The Hole in the Wall

Paul starting the tedious process of border removal

He did it in stages - it took three days 

  

Gutted corner with cats

The full view

 

Donnie, on the dropcloth-covered table, looking beauteous

Mini-Pantry Remodel (Phase 10) Completed!

Paul has really outdone himself on this one.  He took a small pantry area that had been constructed of painted, roughly cut pine pieces and constructed what is (at least, to me!) a fine piece of furniture.  Our mini-pantry is a bookshelf-sized area just off the kitchen, just before you traverse the basement steps.  Silly me, I did not get a before picture, although I do have one after I painted the backboard and before installation.  It is wonderful to begin to put everything back and organize.

The raw space with old structure removed, after I painted the backboard

While painting that, I was inspired to paint the basement stairwell 

(trim along that edge to follow later)

Paul, using the new gizmo he got from Rockler 

(a "Jig-It") to make the holes for the shelf support nuggies

Tyler "helping"

Paul made a total of 204 little holes, so I have optimum choice of shelf placement

Glorious: putting stuff back (lower shelves)

Upper shelves, including a gluten-free specific shelf up top, 

and a nice space for my cookbooks, 

and a little more room next to them for something else

Restoring Order From Chaos

Our kitchen project goes on, but we have definitely turned the corner.  We have cabinets, countertops, a working stove, a small but fully-functional dishwasher, an awesome fridge, and now, running water.

It is so lovely to be able to function in the kitchen.  Paul hooked up the sink late last week.  This weekend we started putting things back, as much as we are able to pending certain organizational tweaks we are doing (pot & pan organizer, lazy susan shelf trays, etc. to be shipped in the coming days).  Today I continued putting things away and organizing.  The fridge, although new, has been with us for almost a month, and needed a wipe down inside.  I also moved some of the of the food that was housed in the basement fridge upstairs.  I stopped by Mariano's and got some nice produce.  It's time to eat healthy again since the kitchen is open for business!

Two really special things that have occurred now that we are moving back into the kitchen are: 

1. Reclaiming the dining room table, where lots of kitchen stuff was sitting for months
2. Having a cup of tea!  There was really nowhere to set up my tea kettle and brewing cup.  

We have had family dinner at the dining room table the past two nights.  Our dining room was so bad, it literally looked like a hoarder's house.  It was so nice to unclutter and clean it, and use it again for its proper purpose.  This afternoon I brewed a cup of tea in the mug Aunt Martha gave me long ago.  It's battered and bruised, but it feels like home to me.

I'm so glad to be getting back to normal, but a new, delightful normal with this wonderful kitchen Paul has created for me.  More photos to follow in the upcoming weeks.  

Kitchen Moving Along

Paul has finished the cabinet install, and the countertop man came and measured for the countertops!  We're just waiting for that, could be one to three weeks he said.  We are going to install a contraption for the blind corner, a device that swings out so you can get at the things stored in aforementioned blind corner. Pots and pans storage, where one does not have to lift two to get to the third, clanking clanking, and kathunkadoodling to get the one you want! (Update: unfortunately, the device did not work with our particular blind corner; the opening of the cabinet needs to be larger than what we have or it cuts off too much of the doorway opening; we had to return it - sad!).

In the meantime, we are able to cook a bit.  The stove and oven are gorgeous, work very well; we can microwave.  Once the countertops are in, Paul can hook up the sink.  He has already done a lot of preliminary plumbing, so the hooking up should go smoothly (famous last words?!).

I must confess that I have been climbing the walls in this here home stretch.  I am irritable and sometimes depressed.  It's just getting to me.  It's very hard to keep one's composure when the chaos and lack of functionality is a daily trial.

Anyway, here are some updated photos:

Stove side, blind corner cabinet is to the left, doors/drawers will be attached later.

Southeast side, small spice unit next to fridge (needs its door/face).  Note: we still are keeping large cardboard sheets on the floor to protect the new floor while we are working).

Sink side, the dishwasher will be elevated two inches, so it is level with the counter.

Blind Corner Unit photo, how it looks inside with the door closed.

Kitchen Remodel Stages Update

It's time for a progress update on the stages of our kitchen remodel.  For Phase 6, the old sink is long gone, donated to someone who likes that sort of thing.  Paul is, at this very moment, roughing in the plumbing for the sink.  When done, he will wallboard and goop.  One that is done and painted, the bases can go in.  Phase 7 has the new upper cabinets hung with the exception of one.  We traded that one in for a slightly larger one, and Paul is tweaking the design so that we have a few more inches of counter space in the corner next to the fridge.  Phase 8 is mostly done.  That section just needs some more goop on the walls, and prime and paint.  Phase 9 - complete!  The floor is done and beautiful. And I am adding Phase 10 - Mini-pantry remodel.  We have a small pantry area, the size of a narrow, not-so-deep bookshelf, located as you head to the basement stairs (just inside the doorway in the photo below).  It was sort of made up of old, repurposed materials by a former owner, but Paul is going to replace the wood with nicer wood, so that will be divine!

   

The Phases (a √ indicates completion):

1. Make it livable (completed in 1988): remove "island", place south wall base cabinets and cheap countertop) √
2. 2011-2012: New kitchen windows √
3. 2012: North wall gutting, insulating, initial electrical, wallboard, and upper cabinets, west wall uppers √
4. 2015: New basement laundry sink √
5. Knotty pine removal, wallboard, and electrical for east and south walls √
6. New base cabinets for north and west walls (including a blind corner cabinet with pull-out hardware for easy access), new sink (buh-bye old metallic monstrosity), built-in 18" dishwasher, adjustment of stove on north wall to accommodate new bases, new countertop
7. New cabinets and countertop for east and south walls
8. Knotty pine removal, electrical, and wallboard for last portion of south wall (no cabinets here)
9. New Floor √
10. Mini-pantry remodel

Stove Disaster

First, here is a preview of our progress.  This is the north wall of the kitchen.  The uppers and the microwave are in.  Paul completed the electrical adjustments and moved the gas pipe so we could center the stove between the two windows - much nicer.  Nothing is in to the left of the stove area because Paul is currently working on the west/sink wall.  The cabinet to the right of the stove is not set in permanently yet - it was there in anticipation of us being able to use the stove again while we complete the kitchen.  But alas, this was not to be.  We had a *little problem* with our current stove.

Originally, we were going to wait on a new stove.  This project has ended up over-budget (big surprise!).  So I spent an hour last weekend cleaning the stove completely.  I even had Paul lift up the burner section so I could clean the area inside/underneath.  That was the mistake.  Although it was not too messy, and I did not do much, I apparently jostled something while cleaning.  Or perhaps when we moved the stove something shifted.  The oven worked well over the weekend; no one tried the burners.  But when I came home from work after a night shift this past Monday morning, trouble ensued.  After so long without a homecooked breakfast, I wanted to have some scrambled eggs and veggie "bacon".  But when I turned on the burner, it was making this hissing noise.  We looked underneath, did not see anything loose.  When we tried again, there was the hissing, followed by a loud pop and a whoosh.  Terrifying.  All I could think of was blowing up the entire house.  We turned off the gas in the basement and at the wall.  And trembled a bit.

We discussed options.  We could have it repaired, but it is old and we were aiming for replacement anyway.  And frankly, I was so traumatized, I never wanted to turn that stove on again, in spite of any repairs we might have done.  Buy a new one?  But then there is the budget.  Oh dear, what to do?  Thankfully, a solution presented itself (more on this later), so that we can replace the stove (Squee!).  I feel completely blessed.  

An updated list of Remodel Stages will follow this post.

Happy Update

Paul finished unpacking all of the cabinets last night.  They are all gorgeous; we could not see any flaws or damage.  This is night and day from the first order/different brand.  It pays to upgrade: one can be too economical, to the point that the result is exponentially far worse than the dollar amount would lead one to believe (does that make sense?!).  

Paul has the gas pipe mostly moved.  He needs one more part and then just needs to hook up the new source.  He is also adjusting the electrical for the microwave to be placed above the stove.  I will paint the opposite two walls tomorrow or Friday.  Once that paint is dry we can put up the cabinets there.  As there are no wall adjustments, electrical changes or plumbing changes on that side, we can put in all of the cabinets, one by one, whenever we find the time.

Phase 9 (Floor) Ready to Launch

So, our floor in the kitchen has mushroomed into a whole new animal.  (In fact, the whole kitchen project has mushroomed, more on that later).  Our hopes of restoring the old floor were dashed: the floor boards were too damaged, to separated, and it would cost so much to restore it that it would cost more than a new floor. Plus the result would not be as nice. We made the decision to replace it.  And it's a good thing we did - the flooring contractor found that the sub-floor was water-damaged, weak, soft in some places.   Added to that, the existing floor smelled icky too, like old grease or something from bygone years spilled long before we moved here.  Buh-bye.

The workers started today, removing the yucky and placing the new sub-flooring.  Here are some photos of the empty room, the night before they started.  There is some weird brown paper-like substance on top of it all:

Updates

We have had some delays in our kitchen.  The cabinets we had ordered were delivered, and unfortunately were mostly damaged/defective.  Very disappointing.  However, the company (Home Depot) has been very good about making this right.  They took back the whole order, no restocking fee, and gave us discounts on upgraded cabinets - much nicer ones than the ones we originally ordered!  The people at the store were aghast at how bad our order ended up.  We all talked about being perplexed as to why the cabinet company would have shipped out cabinets in that state.  Weird.  This has caused a delay in our cabinets, since the whole ordering process needed to begin anew.  Anticipated delivery date: April 2nd.

Our floor ended up not being restorable (technically we could have, but the result would have been unsatisfactory in too many ways), so we will have a new floor put in.  That was delayed a week due to illness of the contractor.  Anticipated start date: March 30th.

But, these delays are a good thing, because Paul became very sick this week (nothing serious, but incapacitating nonetheless).  He was not able to do much of anything.  There are some things that must be done prior to the floor installation.  So we are in this kitchen rehab limbo.  We still have a stove, sink, and running water in our mostly empty kitchen. Our refrigerator is in the dining room, along with some of the existing cabinets.  But we are not cooking much, and it is all chaotic and disorganized.  This is a challenge to live with. My mantra: It is not forever, it is not forever.  

Awaiting the chance to report exciting, happy news in two weeks.

Buh-Bye Knotty Pine!

Part of our kitchen renovation is to get all of the knotty pine off the walls.  We still had it on the east and south walls.  I had not taken many pictures of it before, because it was not my favorite spot in the world.  But I was able to dig up this picture of Kristin when she was little, sitting on the counter by the knotty pines.  She had either gotten into some paint, or we had gone to the children's museum.  Anyway, she had climbed up on the counter by herself and gotten into the chocolate chips:

Isn't she a cutie?! (Very proud of herself for climbing up on her own and foraging a treat!)

Here's Paul starting on the east wall knotty pines

Another view before removal

Paul sadly saying goodbye to the knotty pines!