Farmhouse Projects Continue and a Sinking Feeling

Guess we were lucky, the storm missed us.

Most of it moved to the South and ran up through Illinois and southern Wisconsin and over into lower Michigan.

All that we got was a light amount of snow that made things look pretty and fresh and clean again. Just a couple inches.

Maybe we will get some more later on again tonight, but only 1 to 3 inches.

We took a run up to Menards and grabbed some more supplies for replacing the electrical outlets and switches.  He went through a lot of wire and is changing outlets faster than I expected.  Yanking out old cloth covered wires and metal boxes, replacing with good non-conductive plastic boxes and new grounded outlets and good grounded wires.

Steve of course is going a lot faster than we originally planned with this project. We were only going to do one or two each day. But he has made a "job" out of it.  Up and at em at 6:30 a.m.

As of now he has all of the main floor outlets and switches changed over. The only thing left now will be the ceiling light fixtures once he gets up in the attic. Won't do that till things warm up more this spring.

He also rewired the 4 connected light fixtures in the basement.  Now if we enter a basement from either entrance, he has a three-way switching setup to turn on all 4 the of the lights. That way if we go down using the scuttle hole entrance and turn them on, but if we decide to exit the basement through the full-size door outside, we can turn them off without having to double back like we do now. Good thinking, Stevio!!

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Now for that "Sinking Feeling" I mentioned in the title... Lol we are okay, just a cute play on words.

While we were at Menards, I wandered down the kitchen sink aisle. I wanted to double-check if there were any garbage disposals on sale. We don't have one in this house, and I did have one in each of our last two homes, and I kind of miss it.

Oh Lord, keep me out of home improvement aisles if I don't have the budget to spend on things!!!

I SAW THE SINKS!

PRETTY 

SHINEY 

NEW 

KITCHEN 

SINKS!

I am not entirely happy with the sink that we have currently in the house. It's a perfectly fine sink and does it's purpose. But it's a two bowl shallow stainless steel sink. If I turn the water on too fast it splashes out at me.

Also the cold faucet handle 

is located way too close 

to the sprayer attachment.

We don't ever do dishes in the sink. We have a dishwasher. So it's mainly used for rinsing plates, washing vegetables, food prep, canning vegetables, washing the large things like roasters, the inner liner of my pressure cooker, or my large baking sheets. The two bowl design is kind of limiting the usable space, plus the lack of a garbage disposal is frustrating.

Like I said, it's okay and perfectly fine to use. But for some reason, after walking down that aisle, I found the Sink Of My Dreams!!!

Whhhoooooohoooooo!

Yippee Skippee!

It comes as a complete unit with the faucet, the cutting board, the roll out rack, the drying rack, the bottom grid, the rectangular rinsing basket, drain strainer, and soap dispenser.

Right now it's on sale for $50 off. It's on sale all week so I am going to see how much I can convince my own mind and our budget as to whether or not we need this.

This month is also property taxes and we just made it through Christmas without going into any debt.  We try to be sensible and practical.  But on the other hand, we mostly cook at home, rarely go out to eat, and this sink would be a great veggie prep area with a garbage disposal added at the same time.  Hmmmmm?

Steve did mention the sensibility of preparing the wiring underneath the sink for a garbage disposal while he's doing the rest of the rewiring. So that makes sense too.


We will see what happens...

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Yesterday we took care of a silly little Packer Backer Fan who came to spend some time with us.  Her daddy dressed her up in her adorable little Packer Fan clothing.  He made this video of her "reading" her book about No More Monkeys Jumping On The Bed.

He was called into work, so she came to hang out and watch the pregame festivities on tv. She is such a smart girl, she said the football players on tv were wrong. They were red and blue.... not green!   

(the Packers weren't on yet, it was the Chiefs and the Texans) 

We had a little pre-game tailgate meal of her choosing:

Hot dogs, carrots, a boiled egg, 

some shredded cheese and applesauce! 

In the evening, she went back by her parents while we watched the actual game. Of course, the Packers won and are on their way to the final playoffs this upcoming weekend to determine who goes to the Superbowl.

Her Mommy and big sister Chelsea were out of town at two Cheerleading Tournaments.  Chelsea is on a Cheer Dance Team and is only 10 years old. Those girls work hard and rehearse and practice a lot of hours to get where they are. They did a great job and won FIRST PLACE in their divisions at both tournaments~

Like Mother Like Daughter

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I worked a little bit on my quilt today on the big frame. It's coming along well and I'm totally enjoying working in my she shed on my fun stuff.

 The lights really make the work space BRIGHT! 

I'm not sure if I posted any pictures of the completed she shed in use. Here are some shots I took today:

 West wall and stairs up to the kitchen

East and South walls with new corner closet,

 the tv and the fireplace. 

North wall with quilting frame

and West wall with 3 windows

instead of the garage door

West wall with my weaving stuff and sewing island

and out the windows

to the Big Backyard 

with snow snow snow~! 

and more to come! 

Getting a Facelift for Christmas!!!

Yes, I am getting a facelift for Christmas! And best of all, Steve wants it too...

Not surgery, silly readers, we are going to give a facelift to another room in what we fondly refer to as "Our Old House" which is our 1914 home.

See, most of your readers remember that we bought the house 5 years ago. The bathroom was not in the best of condition. It was the only room in the house that really wasn't original to the house date of construction anymore.

Those are not real tiles,

they are plastic glued on tiles from the 60's....

Keep in mind, the elderly people who had last lived in our home probably made these changes in the forties, fifties and sixties to the bathroom. After they passed away, we bought the home, unchanged, from their 3 daughters.  Nothing else was updated or changed over the years prior to our purchase.

We do cherish the originality of our home with all of the gorgeous woodwork, the hardwood floors, and the overall structure and construction of the house. It was just the out of sync bathroom that needed to be addressed...

In striving to make it more pleasant than original, we also had to deal with the evidence of a leaking toilet over time, and removing a turquoise bathtub and shower enclosure that had seen better days.

The ceiling was in rough shape as well, there was some evidence of a past roof leak (that have been repaired), and over the tub it was falling down due to not having a bathroom vent installed.  There were ugly acoustical square tiles that had been attached to the ceiling. The upper walls were adorned with patterned printed wallpaper and the lower walls are covered in plastic square tiles that are just glued on.  It was a mix-mux of patterns highlighted by the gold metallic and white linoleum flooring that was curved up the walls as faux baseboards?? 

This is how it looked when we bought the house:

Notice in the pic above of the crazy medicine cabinet had those two vertical fluorescent tube lights that drove me nuts. Not only did they flicker on and off to get started, but the plastic housing covers were all yellowed and cracked. We removed those and later added two beautiful wall sconces instead.

After repairing the plumbing and the sub floor boards, we replaced the flooring with something neutral.  With  all of the patterns to the wallpaper and tiles, we didn't need another pattern on the floor.  So we chose a soft creamy neutral ombre sheet vinyl to cover the floors with (after fixing the sub floors and plumbing and then using leveling compound).

We cut down the wall between the tub/shower enclosure and the open space behind it.  We were planning to use this space for a whole new configuration. 

Instead of the crazy outdated bathtub shower enclosure, we pulled that old cast iron tub out which was a HUGE project.  We had to bust it in half with a sledgehammer to haul it out in two pieces.  Steve and I slid each half down the staircase (with three turns!) out the front door and porch, and onto a tarp to drag it to the garage for the metal scrappers to pick up.

We pulled off the wallpaper, yanked down the ceiling tiles and did new sheetrock all over the ceiling and upper walls. We also installed a new bathroom fan/light fixture that had an old fashioned appearance with the fan hidden up under the light shade.

We put in a more simple white plain looking bathtub and a separate stand up shower stall tucked away behind the door. It was the best of both worlds, because I enjoy the baths and Steve enjoys the showers ---- he likes a separate walk-in stall like we had in our last home.

The toilet and the sink had been more recently replaced by the previous owners and those were of good quality. We kept those 5 years ago when we did the other work in our bathroom.

Don't get me wrong, we love our beautiful old house. But we want to restore things back to what it would have been like in 1914 and erase stuff from the forties and the fifties and the sixties if we can.


All of that work you see in the pics above was being completed 5 years ago when we first bought the house. It was all well and good and we liked what we did to improve the bathroom.

FAST FORWARD TO 2017

Those crazy plastic tiles bug me!!!!! They are not attractive to my eyes, and they are really a creamy faded non-white with brown speckles that never seem to be clean. Not to mention, the cracks in between aren't really grouted, the tiles are just glued into place. Of which those tiles keep falling off and we have to keep gluing them back into place. arrgghhh!!!

As we undertake this new facelift project, these are our "BEFORE" pics of the bathroom. This is how it presently looks right now.

SOUTH WALL

WEST WALL SHOWER

 WEST WALL TUB

(ps the antique lamp cord is not plugged in, it's just for looks) 

 EAST WALL

NORTH WALL

Steve and I were having a tough time finding ideas of what to get each other for Christmas. So we decided we would jointly work on this bathroom together and pick up all of the materials as our Christmas Presents to each other.  Besides, we like working on projects together, so that makes it extra special fun.

Our first stop last night was to the Restore for Habitat for Humanity, just in case they had what we were looking for.  I used to love going into the Restores, but lately they seem to be so filled up with furniture and not actually leftover building materials. Over half of the display floor in the Appleton and Fond du Lac Restores is covered with discarded couches and chairs and crazy fiberboard cheap bedroom dressers and headboards. I think people are using them as a Dumping Ground of Junk rather than a place for contractors and home fix-it people to donate their leftover or reusable construction materials.

We then drove to three different home improvement stores to get some ideas.

Here is a hint: This is our lovely linen closet in the hallway.

Steve removed a door to set in the bathroom to get an idea....

I guess now you'll have to come back here to see what we are up to.

 Check back as my face lift goes under the knife ----- errrrrr saw?