Our Old House Project- Going from Green To Blue

Ahhhh  --- we are home for a week and getting a few things done on the house.  For my newest blog readers, we fondly refer to our 104 year old home as "Our Old House".  We decided this summer to spruce up the outside.

Long ago our house looked like this: 

When we bought it in 2012 it looked like this:

(vinyl siding was added in the 70's) 

We removed the heavy overgrown cedars to show 

the delicate custom fretwork lattice under the porch.

Some of the cedars broke in the first winter's snowstorm anyhow.

Then I painted up some of the trim GREEN in 2013 like this:

When the previous owners had the house resided with vinyl, they also did  the soffits and eaves.  The soffit material has a pattern of two smooth sections and then two textured sections.  For some reason, they put a piece of the vinyl soffit material along the front of the house as trim???  In 2013, I had painted the textured sections of this material with green just to cover up the dirty looking parts that trapped dirt. 

Next project in mind: Steve is going to tear it off and see what is going on underneath it.  We are thinking of adding some curly cue stuff or trim strips of color or whatever.  Still messing with photoshop on ideas.


Yesterday, I got out my gallon of Cabots Solid Colored Acrylic Stain.... it works so much better than paint on things like concrete or treated wood (or even aluminum like this trim)  It doesn't flake off like paint does. You really can't use it over paint, but you can use it over stain, which is what I used the first time when I did the green back in 2013.  (I did a gazebo with it back in 1987 and it still looks great, as well as the shutters on our log house in 1997)  It lasts a lot longer than paint.

Mind you, Steve HATES painting... whereas I love it.  So this is "my thing" and I only ask him to assist with the difficult or up high stuff.

I went to work on the front steps, which are concrete and then some of the trim along the edge of the porch flooring and three columns from when the house was originally an open porch. 

I didn't get up high on the ladder yet for the top three blocks, but I will do that when Steve gets home and can help me.  He will need to put up the ladder to remove that soffit material with the green squares anyhow. Going from Green To Blue!


Whoooo hoooooo am I blue??? I did wear a bit of the color here and there on my hands and arms.  Hahahah I had fun... I even did the little house numbers as well.  It was a nice cool day in the low 70's and I got double coats on everything.  I think it looks great, and we will be adding to the trim around the windows, perhaps with shutters or some bric a brac or maybe even some corbels around the diningroom bumpout.

I even painted the birdbath (WITH water in it!) 

and I joked to neighbors passing by:

"Since I bought this cute little Dutch Boy and Girl, 

now I have to paint the house to match!"

Next up on my list of ideas was to stain up a bunch of new strips of wood, some quarter round and some half round pieces.  I convinced Steve to get out the air compressor and nail gun to put some up on the front of the house along the bottom edge of the fretwork lattice.  Ahhhh  I think that looks good!   (It's a "test piece" for some of the trim I might want nailed up around the windows and in the gables....)

That was it for Tuesday... 

not too bad for one day's work, don't ya think?   

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Now it was Wednesday!  The weatherman said that it would be nice in the 70's today, but the rest of the week will be muggy and higher 80's.  So if I want to get ANY more done, I better do it today!!!!


I had the paint department mix up a quart of matching paint to the same color of the solid colored stain.  Because this adorable little round picnic table and benches had been painted before, I was more confident using paint on this for a new color.  The table was red, and I bought it for a donation to the Wisconsin Sheltie Rescue Group a few years ago. I like it better than a rectangular picnic table with attached benches.  This one fits better in the corner by the back porch and the benches are positionable for comfortable seating while eating.

I had Steve spread out a tarp in the shade, but the sun was moving fast so I had better hop to it!   I set out an MP3 player with my soft celtic music and spent the whole morning changing my table from red to blue!  I did all of the legs first one coat, and then a second coat in that order.  Once the legs were all done, then I could do the edges and tops of each piece.

Ahhhhh I got them done before 11 a.m. and just in time because I was losing my shade! It looks a little lighter blue in the pic because of the sunshine, but it's the same colonial type blue color as on the front.

Once that was done, I still have paint on my brush.... I asked Steve to remove the triangles from the cross buck design from the two storm doors on the back of the house.  They are not my "favorite" feature, more of a ranch house design.  I would love to find two old fashioned wooden screen doors with some character and bric a brac to replace them with.  But then we would still need winter storm doors....   Steve said we could in the future keep that in mind.

I finished up the triangles and set them to dry... 

After that I painted the stairs to the back kitchen door as well. 

This is using the stain again, because that is what I used before 

on the bare treated wood that was here when we bought the house. 

Steve put the triangles on the doors while I took a shower 

(and a nap!) 

He also moved the picnic table back into place and set the benches around it. On top in the center goes my funky big coffee cup planter that I garbage picked last summer.  My jade plant wintered well indoors, and we have been bringing it out daily to acclimate it to outdoor temps again.  I even painted the filigree holder for the garden hose next to the back door to the basement.  Hey.. when I get a paint brush in my hand, there is no stopping me!  LOL

Ahhhh 

now that part of the house is done!  

except maybe some strips of color trim

or shutters around the windows? 

I am anxious to see what we are going to do next ????

Wonderful Weekend Weather

It looks like SPRING is finally here!!!   Our weekend weather was up in the 70's and we didn't have any plans to go anywhere.   Soooo of course, we worked on some house projects!

I will back up a bit leading to the weekend....

Thursday I had gone quilt shop hopping with two friends, Paula and Linda.  We also attended the warehouse sale for Nancy's Notions (a PBS quilting show)  in Beaver Dam.  Besides loading up on sewing stuff, I saw this fantastic pedestal fan in the clearance area of the sewing room stuff.    I loved it at first sight, and hoisted it up and over to the holding area until I was ready to check it out.  It was all metal and very heavy.  Here are us three, shopping till we were dropping!

Part of the shopping marathon was to stop at various quilting stores around Wisconsin.  We hit some in Ripon, Oshkosh, and Appleton.  (plus stopping for lunch)   On Friday, I had one more shop to go to in Plymouth so they would stamp my "passport" for all 12 shops that I had gone to.  Then I am eligible for more prizes.   On the way back from Plymouth, I stopped at a rummage sale and saw these three pretty handpainted metal buckets.  I believe it's called "rosemalling".  They are stamped 1976 on the bottom and I have no idea how much later they were painted, but I really liked them.   I chose the creamy one as a trash can for in my Loom Room.

I bought it for a whole $2... but after getting it home, I was thinking about the other two buckets... and regretting that how I should have bought all three.  The rummage sale was 20 miles from home.  On Sunday, we got in the car and drove back down there.  The rummage sale sign was still out by the road for the rummage sale, but when we pulled in the barn yard, all the sheds and barn that had the sale stuff we closed.  I knocked on the door, but the people said they were not opening until 1pm.  I told them I just wanted the two buckets, but they said I had to come back at 1pm!   I said I drove 20 miles to get them.  No dice....

We went home and worked on some projects instead.  I figured I would just pass on the buckets and not drive another 40 miles round trip to get them.  About 2pm, Steve said we could go back and see.... and we did!   Can you imagine, 80 miles total from two different round trips to get some $2 buckets?????


But the nice part was ... on the way back home from the rummage sale, we stopped by a nursery.  Steve said he wanted to buy me a tree for an early Mother's Day present.  I could pick out whatever I wanted.  We walked around and found this wonderful "Weeping Cherry Tree" !!!   This is what it will look like when it's more mature in full bloom!

The tree is created by grafting on a weeping Japanese Higan cherry top onto a stronger sweet wild cherry rootstalk of a tree...   it needs to be trimmed back each spring of any sprouts that grow upwards and just leave the weeping branches that hang down.  It will be ready to bloom into full flowers in a week or so.  Some of the older ones at the nursery were already in bloom, but we bought a younger one to make transplanting it easier. It will bear ornamental fruit, but more to the liking of birds and not really edible like cherries we know.

Last night I picked up four curved pieces of the same cement trim we put around the flower beds... and will stain them today to put around the base of the tree.   I like to make things match.  I know, kinda obsessive, but at $1.88 each piece, I can manage to add four more to the yard.

Our lawns are greening up nicely.. though the grass is not quite long enough to cut yet.  Steve has the mower tuned up and ready to cut as soon as it does though.  He actually seems anxious to get in some lawn cutting???  

All alongside of the house I have wonderful bright colored tulips opening up... reds and yellows!  So pretty and springlike!   I spent a couple hours pulling out weeds around the tulips, and once they are done and spent, I will plant some of my coleus plants along the house where I am marking the empty spaces... so there won't be any tulip bulbs disturbed.   Then I will space some pots of white petunias in between on the areas setting where the tulip bulbs will be laying dormant till next spring.  I also did a little stencil paint job on my metal watering cans....

Saturday morning Steve rented a stump grinder to get rid of the three big tree stumps in the back yard.    He cut down the two big rotting trees last January before we moved the motorhome over to the yard.  A third tree had been cut down in the past but the large stump still remained.  He ground away at each of the stumps, section by section, and soon they were all gone--- reduced to a pile of sawdust.  He also did a stump for the neighbor lady, and also the three small ones up front where we cut out the overgrown cedars.   It's like a rototiller, but cuts with a big saw blade instead of rotating tines.

Yup.. that pile of sawdust WAS a big huge tree stump!

One day this week, the landscaper company is coming to level out the yard and lay a gravel parking pad for the motorhome.  The excess black dirt from the leveling we will have piled up on top of the sawdust piles leftover from the stumpgrinding.  I will make those into flower beds.  There are already some beds of perennials back there, like peonies, lilies and some kind of snow on the mountain variety.  I can split up some of those and move things around--- and maybe add some more?

It's still too early to plant flowers here yet, the danger of frost has not passed.  I have been carrying in and out my pots of coleus that I have been wintering over inside the house. They will harden off to get used to the spring temps after being in the warm sunny Loom Room all winter.

Steve also bought me a clematis vine to add to my pretty metal trellis he got me for Xmas out alongside the porch.  There are some clematis plants there already, so we will mix them with the new one and get a whole trellis full of blooms!


While I worked on some other yard projects, Steveio was cleaning and sorting stuff in his garage.  He is quite pleased with all of the space he has in there. It's extra deep so he can get things in and out of the workshop space to the left without having to move out the Tracker. Look how far the Tracker can pull forward in there!  

He has the peg boards arranged with tools and supplies, and he hauled a load to the city recycling area of things he didn't want around.  While he was gone, I touched up the back porch where I had been staining and added a new entry mat at the doorway to the kitchen...

Seeing as I had my solid colored green stain out and a brush already wet... I went to work on the sides of the front steps!  They had been plain grey concrete for 100 years.. and had some repair patching work done recently.  They looked splotchy and sad.  I spruced them up with new green solid colored stain (that won't chip or flake or peel like paint would)   and I spruced them up!   I added a little bit of green to the pillar blocks on the corners and on each side of the door... along with a little trim line along the porch between the siding and the cutout trellis work.  Now for a few pots of bright red geraniums???

We got most of our stuff done on Saturday...  (and then spent Sunday running around buying stupid buckets)  but one other project I wanted to get tackled was the icemaker installation!  

In our last home, we had an icemaker in the door of our fridge.  In our motorhome, we have an icemaker.  But in this house, the fridge that came with the home purchase didn't have one.  (I HATE FILLING TIPPY ICE CUBE TRAYS AND FINDING LEVEL SPOTS IN THE FREEZER)

We realized the Frigidaire fridge we have is already pre-wired and pre-cut with plugs covering the holes to add on an icemaker!  For $49 at Menards, this gal was gonna be made HAPPY!   We found the correct unit for our model and read the directions.  Between the two of us, we got it installed, tapped the fresh cold water line in the basement (no water softener taste for our drinking water at the sink or the icemaker).    The whole process took less than an hour....

 the end result????