now we know where all the bricks came from...

Brandon asked our next door neighbor if he had any old photos of our house.  Tonight we got a text message from him saying that there was an old photo on the property tax database for the county.  I swear I've looked at the database before but have never seen a photo.  We checked, and sure enough:

So, it looks like the PO did some good things, like maybe losing the chain link fence (although that could come in handy now!) but--is that a carport?!  I can live without the screened in porch (although that would also come in handy now), but I would really love the carport back.  But now we know where all the bricks (cemented into the ground under the back porch) came from.  It also looks like there was a tree in the front yard, which would explain the small sinkhole we now have.  Sigh.

Random side note for the day:  Brandon found a snake ON THE PORCH.  In a planter.  Ew!

you're my blue sky, you're my sunny day...

As much as I like high ceilings, after painting our porch ceiling,

I am somewhat relieved that ours are not. Here's before:

During (notice truck in background):

And after:


Brandon removed a piece of trim on the ceiling and was surprised to find that that we had come close to matching the old ceiling color! We had no idea that it used to be blue. Next major project here would be to remove the paneling on the ceiling and restore it to the original beadboard...but no time soon.

a blog post with no name

It's been a busy, busy week since I last posted. Or two weeks, I guess it's been. We got back from Asheville with a rush schedule ahead of us to get the house ready for our first family event--a double baby shower for B's sister and cousin. There was some stress, some yelling, and some making up, but we managed to get most of it done in time. Other things (like the molding in the hallway that's just propped into place) will have to wait until we can get around to them.

We did get the bathroom finished, thanks to some trim painting help from my mother-in-law, who also came over to clean before the shower since I had to work. A million thanks for that, Patrice. The shower was a huge success and the day was the most gorgeous we've had in months here, so the girls ended up opening their gifts in the front yard since all the guests had all drifted out to the porch during the morning. We had maybe 40 guests and received numerous compliments on the house. Brandon's aunts and cousins did a fantastic job with the food and decorations, but I don't have any photos because my camera was in a cabinet behind all the gifts!

We've been looking through the Craigslist ads this week for doors and furniture, and may have a lead on an old Craftsman door. We also found this loveseat for $120, and the guy agreed to deliver it for another $20. It's not old, but we like the way it looks. We might re-cover it eventually, but for now the colors match the living room. Not sure yet if we're going to use it in the living room or move it back to the den. Obviously, it won't stay where it is in the middle of the room! You can also see that Gecko has already adopted it as his new home. Ha!

More photos are under the links to the right.

hgtv = the devil

Before:


After:


Not a great "after" photo, but you can at least see some of the work we've done. The grass is a little worse for wear, not to mention watering restrictions, but it's perked up a bit since we've had some rain.

Flowers. They look like we did zero work and just threw them in there. WRONG! That was hours of work, baby. HGTV gets everything done in a half hour including commercials. I can't watch it anymore because I know they're lying to me. Digging out the CLAY, adding in the potting mix stuff, digging the holes in the CLAY...notice said pile of clay to the left of the flowers. It's still there, actually. Anybody got a wheelbarrow they want to get rid of?? We hauled all the weeding and extra dirt to the back yard in our recycling bin! 200' is a looooong way when you're carrying a big bin full of dirt...



Kitchen light fixture, in progress (the garbage bag taped to ceiling was Brandon's idea...definitely helped with cleanup when he had to install the mounting bracket in the attic:



Closeup. Oooh. Aaah.



I'm lame, though. I don't have a picture of the actual light fixture after we installed it. I know you're dying to see it. (ahem)

shaken, not stirred

Well...Tim and Donald returned on Thursday night to work on the floors some more. We'd hoped that they would finish, but no such luck. They got most of it done, including a coat of poly on most of the floors, but didn't get the hallway or master bedroom finished. They left around lunchtime on Saturday to head back home, and Tim promised to return on Monday to finish the job. There was some question about one heavy coat (thought by all to be a bad idea) vs. a couple of lighter coats, the second of which Brandon and I would have to do ourselves unless Tim returned yet again. Not sure if the message didn't get to Tim in time, but half the bedroom turned white. We guess it was due to a coat that was a little too heavy, but we're not really sure. We didn't think to take a photo, but it had the appearance of old, moldy boards--all the dark grain lines in the wood had turned a grayish white! This was only on half the room, and around some of the edges of the room. Brandon and I arrived at the house last night to discover this, and discuss our options. We could go rent a sander, try to figure it out on our own, and redo that half of the bedroom (and the end of the hall, which didn't seem to get a good sanding the first go-round). We could put a second coat on anyway, and hope the first would regain some normalcy and color (doubtful this would happen). Brandon was exhausted and ready to go home, but we headed over to Lowe's to see what we could figure out.

We bought lots of sandpaper for our electric hand sanders, more poly just in case, rollers, paint pans, etc. We finally got back to the house around 9:30pm, having picked up Chick-Fil-A for dinner (Does anyone know why there would have been 20+ cars in the drive-thru of the Camp Creek Chick-Fil-A at 9pm on a Tuesday night??? The whole place was packed!) We got back home, sat on the front porch eating our dinner, wondering if our neighbors thought we were strange since we always eat dinner on the front porch...we have no furniture anywhere else. Next door neighbor Chris came home and we helped locate his cat, who had gotten out at some point during the day. Then we started sanding. And sanding. And sanding. We went through several sandpaper refills, and Brandon tried to catch his sander on fire (when he dumped the sawdust, there was actually smoke rising from it!), and finally we decided we were done around, oh, I guess it must have been around 11:30pm or midnight. Then we swept, vacuumed, wiped, and vacuumed again. We started putting the poly on and it was BUBBLY! Turns out Brandon shook the can rather than stirring it, which is apparently the biggest no-no of all when it comes to floor refinishing (at least according to all the websites--it's on the Internet, it must be true!). We debated on whether or not to open another can and start over, but forged on, bubbles or no bubbles. If there end up being bubbles once it dries, I will resist the urge to say told you so ;) Actually, as long as it's not WHITE this time, I'll be cool with whatever it looks like.

We did the bedroom with a roller, then went over it with a brush as we did each pass with the roller (before it dried) to get rid of the bubbles and smooth it out. I did the edges with the brush, and then started on the hall, turning off lights as I went (wouldn't be able to get back to the switch once we painted ourselves out of the house). We worked our way towards the front door, where we'd put all our stuff, and finally finished around 1am. We did a lot of the poly in the dark, so I hope it doesn't look that way once it dries. It was really hard to see where we were painting it on, so I hope it doesn't look awful. Will try to take photos tonight, when we go to put on the second coat if it's dry enough.

On Sunday, we went to the Scott Antique Market to look for doors and anything else cool for the house. We had gone to pick up an outdoor ceiling fan from someone on Craigslist, but when we got there, Brandon decided he didn't like it, so we apologized and left ;) We ended up spending the fan money on a church pew for the front porch, instead! We got it for $85 (down from asking price of $125), and we think it's from Macon. The guy we bought it from is the same one I bought my vanity from, and he's from Macon, so most of his stuff comes from there. The church pew needs a little cleaning up, but all in all it's in pretty good shape and it looks good. We also picked up a silver wall mirror ($5!) for the soon-to-be-dusty-purple half bath.

We also seem to have found a buyer for the carpet that we pulled out of the house the day of the closing (that seems like ages ago already). They plan to come get it this weekend, and we plan to move in on Saturday, so hopefully it will all work out.

Here are the results all the hard work!

Living room:

This is the bathroom threshhold (threshold?). (It still looks like this, even after moving in.)

Back bedroom/den. This room has the most gorgeous floor of all the rooms.



Hallway. I hate this picture of me! But I include it because it's apparently the only one of the hall... Notice how the hall is shiny but the living room is not, but it gets shiny again before the front door?? Apparently the more coats you put on, the more matte it becomes (satin finish poly).


Here's a close-up. I'm glad we caught this with the camera, because we were beginning to think we had lost our minds. The hall was shiny, and the living room was matte, except for a small area near the door. We thought the poly was defective (either too shiny or too matte), so we did a test area on a matte section. It came up shiny. So we went to work recoating the living room and the dining room. Halfway through, we realized that the coat we were putting on was making everything matte, not shiny. So we stopped. You can still see a couple of spots that we missed, and eventually we'll redo either the hallway (to be more matte) or the living room and dining room (to be more shiny).

Master bedroom:
Office:

Living room and front door:

Dining room: