Winding up Week Two at the New House

It's hard to believe we are at the end of the second week living in our new house.

When I look around, I think of everything we have accomplished, but then I look at our second storage unit still half full of boxes and totes that need to be hauled over here. Then I think "Oh my, when is this going to be over?"

The weather has not been cooperating very well for the projects that we want to work on outside. It has been raining almost every day and night. So I jumped the order of priority and started working on some inside projects.

One small project that I wanted to do was to add matching handles and drawer pulls to our center island. The previous people had built an island to match the rest of the kitchen, but never got around to putting on the handles and drawer pulls. Fortunately, I was able to find matching ones and set about to mounting them.

Steve had to help me on a couple of the last drawers because the wood was so thick to get through. He had to create a recessed area on the back sides for the screws to completely reach the pulls. Now it's done, and I am glad that the front surface of the island matches the rest of the cabinets

We ordered a couple pull-out shelves for the back side of the island on each side of the stove. These are Rev-A-Shelf units which will each contain a trash can and a recycling can on each side of the stove. Those should be delivered on Saturday and I bet Steve will have them installed before the weekend is over.

Steve started some inside projects as well. He took off the fake beadboard paneling of the laundry room and put up sheetrock. The laundry room was the original bathroom of the home so he is going to install a toilet and sink back in where they originally were to create a half bath. By moving over the washer and dryer he can make a more workable floor plan. The drywall will look much better than the fake beadboard paneling that was in there.

Once he gets everything all taped up and mudded, I will get in there with the primer and paint. It will look spiffy in no time and we will have added a half bath to our home.

Some of the grandkids got into our home improvement projects as well. The oldest grandson Jameson came over and gave Grandpa a hand. We needed to secure the closet shelving more securely than the original fasteners from the manufacturer. The combination closet shelf and clothes hanging rail crashed down after we brought home all of our clean clothes from the laundromat!!

Grandpa showed grandson Jameson the trick of slowly moving a strong magnet on a string, dragging it back and forth across the surface of the wall. Once it hones in and reacts by sticking to a nail or screw underneath the plaster, you know that's where a stud is. Then Jameson marked the stud locations with a pencil. Now they knew where to drill the brackets into the wall to securely hold the clothing shelf and hanging rail.

They also worked on putting up two pieces of white boards on the wall between the master bathroom and bedroom door. Jameson already knew how a level works and showed Grandpa what to do. Again, they located the studs in the wall so they could secure the two white backing boards.

Once the boards were in place, the guys then installed six nice stainless steel coat hooks. These will be used for our bathrobes, extra clothes we may wish to wear again, and our jammies! When the door is open you don't see any of the clothing hanging back there.

THANKS JAMESON FOR THE HELP!

Jameson's little sister Whitney came over for a tea party this week. She shared her tea with four little doggies. We were babysitting Biscuit and Ewok grandpuppies. Our daughter Erin and husband Waylen are having a new roof put on their house. Their dogs were just going crazy with the sounds of the roofers working outside, so the grandpuppies have been spending the day times over here while the roof is being completed.

Little Whitney enjoyed the chance to bake some cookies with me while she was here for the morning. She carefully placed the little sections of dough on the parchment paper. She counted each and every one.  (we later slid them around to more uniformly spread on the parchment.)

She kept a close eye on those cookies as they baked. Something else that I am enjoying is that this new fancy-dancy stove has three wonderful roll out racks to bake 3 trays of cookies at one time!

She was very anxious to try out a cookie 

but they had to cool off first on the baking racks.

Just look at those eyes! 

They say: "I want a cookie, please?"

We shared some cookies at our little tea party and yes, 

I sat at the table with her while we had our tea.

Later when her parents came to get her, 

she even taught her Mommy and Daddy to drink tea with 

"Pinkies Out!"

When it was time for Whitney to go home, she was very proud to bring a plate full of cookies back to her family, to show them what she did at Grandma and Grandpa's house!

Well, it kept on raining this week so I did another inside project that was setting on the back burner. I had bought a vintage chandelier from Facebook Marketplace but it needed to have a fresh paint touch-up. The old surface was pitted and corroded. The best thing to do was remove all of the crystals. Can you believe it, 75 crystal chains of 2 crystals each... making 150 crystals????

The imitation candle sleeve pieces were just white plastic tubes. I slid them off the light fixture and decided to give them new look.

I slid all of the tubes onto a long piece of metal rod that Steve found for me. Using this Krylon paint called Make it Stone I gave them a couple coats. Now the candle sleeves were a soft creamy color with a texture.

The light fixture itself got a new coat of silver which covered up the tarnished and pitted areas of the original surface.  I covered over each bulb socket with a square of tinfoil. It keeps paint from getting inside of the socket and causing connection problems. I used a dull silver and then a shiny chrome silver to touch up just the highlights to give it a two tone appearance.

Now it will match the big mirror 

that we are going to hang over the diningroom buffet.

I started re-assembling the light fixture piece by piece, crystal by crystal. The little delicate wires had to be squeezed into place and carefully bent over. If you bent them too many times they are sure to break.

I had previously purchased 12 of these interesting hexagonal light bulbs, of which I put some in the chandelier in the bathroom. I had eight bulbs left over to do this chandelier in the dining room. Exactly what I needed to complete the fixture.

My wonderful tall husband 

mounted it on the ceiling

 over the dining room table. 

Voila!!

We will later add a dimmer switch to create different moods. But for now the eight light bulbs really shed off a lot of light into the room.

The rain kept on and on. Thursday, even though it was raining, Steve had lawn mowing on his mind. With all of this rain, the grass is going to grow tall very fast. With 2 and 1/2 acres to mow he decided to reconsider his lawn mowing methods and invest in a bigger zero turn riding lawn mower.

He found one on Craigslist that he decided was the right mower for him. If Steveio's happy, then everyone's happy.

He was so happy, he even test-drove it in the pouring rain....

 Before loading it up and bringing it home.

It's now Friday morning. The weathermen are promising that the rain has stopped for the day. I do see some bright sky outside. Not quite sunshine, but close enough.  I have some outside projects that I would like to get started on.

So I better get off this computer and get my butt in gear.

 Starting week 3 in our National Folk Farmhouse.