A Blog Challenge!

I am going to send out a challenge of sorts. If you are blogging about the restoration of an old house, then do a before and after of the biggest/most intense/best job you have finished. Link to it in the comment section here...and also link to this post on your blog..Let me know that you are doing it. Next Thursday, 5/24, if anyone participates, I will post all of the links to all of the pictures and stories of the *Big One*.
In your blog let us know what you did, how you did it, why you are proud of it..whatever information you want us to know.

Mine is the front parlor. When we moved into this house the walls were multi colored. They had been painted yellow and then someone had gone back and used texture to fix holes. Only they didnt bother to paint over it. There was an off off off white carpet throughout and the entire house smelled of rodents. ew.Any way...I stenciled the design on the parlor walls and faux finished the woodwork. I stained and shellacked the oircutre ral trim and Marc installed it. I still need to make curtains to finishe hte room but I am happy with the results so far.

I have been thinking about where we were and where we are and decided to encourage myself, and impress you with soem pictures of the actual progress...

The reception parlour then (2003)


and now (2007)


The downstairs hall then:


and now



And the front parlour then:


and now..



See, when it is all laid out like that it seems like we have atually accomplished something..It is just that in the every day, dealignw ith cracks, holes int he floor, countertops that are ugly..and seeing the new corian counters and shiny floors in other homes..well you know..it is tough..I want it to be done..yesterday.

I haven't said much on this particular blog about our lives outside of restoration hell. We do have them, sorta.
Marc actually has a paid position at a respectable company and wears suits to work. He cleans up good and people never suspect his *other* life.
People know I a weird from the gitgo. It's o.k. I don't clean up quite so well. But outside of public stuff we have our farm. Well, can you call 2.some odd acres of mostly floodland a farm? I hope so, because we do. We did actually have chickens, sheep and goats as well as horses at one point..The sheep produced enough wool to keep me spinning until I am 90,provided I actually had time to spin, and so I gave them away. Yes gave. I gave them to an unsuspecting family at our church..They still do talk to us but I am surprised.
The chickens died last summer in the heat. I am suposed to be replacing them even as we speak but I am having an adhd moment and cannot decide..Golden laced wyandottes? Barred Rocks? New Hampshire Reds? Too many choices...I hate making decidions.
We have the goats, which we milk...and the horses, which we don't. We did try to sell the horses because a flood a few years ago took out our pasture and the horses are costing us enough every month to provide rice for the entire country of Bangladesh..but horses don't sell for much in a drought and Marc and I do not want to see them go to Alpo.
Normally we have a vegetable garden, altho I haven't put one in in the past two years. Last year my back was out and I was flat on the floor for 6 weeks...This year the tiller wont run. I plan on getting in some tomato plants at least. ANd I better do that soon!
SO I guess, besides having a house to restore we are trying to homestead a little. One of these days I am going to commit and really do it but for now, I am just nibbling at the edges of the idea, not really totally committed to it but really wanting to be.
SO that is our life outside of the house. HEre are some pictures that I have taken over the time we have lived here.


You get a feel for the size of the house here, even though it looks small from the road because of the design it is huge.The house was moved 30 miles in 1950..and cut in 4 pieces to move it...At that point I think it lost the original roof line..Here is a picture of hte house at it's origianl site in 1914..and let me tellyou it took alot of research to fined that!



Here is a picture from a series I did on my other blog, Road Not Taken. You can find it on my profile. It is called, A Day in the Life, and I did a photo journal of milking for my grandkids...Anyway, this is our best milker, Grin, waiting to be let out after milking...


and the horses, Candy, Hope, and Buddy.


This is the BRANCH of a tree that came off during recent high winds.In our area of Texas there are not many big trees like on the east coast and such but we have alot of them here..mostly walnut and pecan..which would be awesome if they weren't native and so wormy that you couldnt do anything with them


SO that is a little background on my life outside of just fixing..Hope you enjoyed the tour. I am going to glaze the venetian plaster today and hopefully get some things cleaned up.

And the border is UP!
I dont know why I put it off for this week but I did. It just seems like such an overwhelming hting until I get started..then it only took about 30 minutes.
Of course I waited until afternoon and so up at the top of the ladder, in a small room with 10 ft ceilings it was hot. Very hot...But I like the results...and I am getting quite good at borders I think.

The first picture is as close as I could get of the border itself...aqua, plum, gold and cream with some forest green...


Here is another picture of the corner. The hardest thing about doing borders in this house is the age of the house means that the ceiling lines are not perfectly level and I am not good about being able to adjust a mass of wet, sticky, slimy border...



ANd finally, here is a picture from the hall. Now to decide what fabric to go with for curtians..and then do I crackle paint the trim??

but it looks SO much better than before.

The last coat of venetian plaster is curing...about this time tomorrow, maybe thursday, I will put the glaze over the whole thing. It should be ready for hte border htis weekend..and hten I plan on deciding what happens next...I am leanign toward a tiled counter with inset tiles in aqua but I am not sure...yet. I want to wait until I see it with the border up before I decide...The colors seem to be heading toward aqua, green, plum and gold. I really like the mottled effect that happens. I think that if I do it again in another room I may try to base coat it with a contrasting color and then do glazes...Wow the possibilities!

You can see that I left room for the border at the very top of the wall...The light fixtures look awesoem with this color.

a closeup of the color/texture

I promised the retaining wall...and here it is..

They worked really hard today...and i htink it looks great!

Here is Marc and his landscaping crew shoveling dirt into the retaining wall they made...

Here is Shiloh shoveling dirt into the wall...

One of the important aspects of parenthood is training your children to do as much of your work as possible..Here MArc supervises Kyrie as she puts dirt in the retaining wall...

Now..I am tryng to decide what to plant...for this year, since I am so unprepared i am thinking about tomatoes...YUMMY!

Well today I actually got the hall bathroom primed AND the first coat of venetain plaster on..The color is Roman Bath ...Behr is the manufacturer..MAybe I all ready said that? Sorry..Paint fumes..

Any way the first step was to sand down any loose wallpaper backing..remember it is stuck there because the PO's (and we KNOW what that stands for) did not prime the walls before applying the disgusting wall paper that was on it.....I had the oil based Kilz primed a weaker version of the venetian plaster I was using...so far so good...

The I had trouble deciding how thick to do the plaster...I mean what exactly is a thin coat? How much is *some* undercoat showing through? What exactly does *IS* mean? Where DO socks go when you put them in the dryer?

o.k..here is a close up but not a good example of the color.

So, we ill let the first coat sit overnight and plan on finishing tomorrow...so far I think I like it..and that is a good thing..

Also while i was doing this Marc and the kids were workign on a retaining wall on the west side of the house..I will gget some pictures tomorrow ..it is fabulous.

I really feel like we accomplished alot today. I know it seems like it is taking forever but eventually it will be done and the house will be so cool....

I havent said much about hte OTHER bathroom...The hall bathroom. If you recall I stripped the wallpaper to find that the PO's (apt initials because it stands for either previous owner or pissed off..in this case both work) had not primed the wall before wallpapering and so in trying to get the backing off I inadvertantly took off hunks of wallboard. Sigh. So what to do?

Well I am going to begin priming it this weekend with Kilz oil based, which I have had tinted slightly lighter than my paint color. When that dries I am going to do a venetian plaster technique in a mottled light turquoise color...I think I have enough that I can do the ceiling as well...I got an awesme idea to stencil the ceiling with a faded look but we will see how I feel AFTER this weekend. I am going ot get moulding and use liquid nails to attach it as a frame to the large mirror..and then I am thinking about crackle painting hte baseboards but again, we will have to see how it goes...I will get some pictures as I go...here is what it looks like now.

O.k..so it is going slow but it IS going..the floor is in..the sink is in..the toilet is back down...and really it looks so much nicer than when the vanity was in...someday it will be done..really.

you would think we hadnt done anything in two months..and you would only be partly wrong...
We have begun landscaping on the front...several bushes of some sort, and some antique cabbage roses...I can't wait until they bloom..Marc has the tile down and the sink and toilet in the office bathroom..just waiting on him to patch some holes so I can paint..
So , you see, we are dong somethng..we are moving ahead..albeit slowly. Think of a snail in slo-mo...

Marc is working on the bathroom this weekend..YAY! We are keeping hte tub for simplicity and cost but replacing the sink with a pedestal and putting new flooring and painting..it iwll lookincredible!
This is how it looks so far warm, cozy and inviting!!!

I currently have 2 bathrooms that have needs. But, yay! we have the flooring and the pedestal sink of one of the bathrooms and I just need to paint hte other and possibly replace the countertop...nothing too bad. i am going ot paint the hall bathroom in a light aqua with a texture so it looks like plaster..I am looking at arts and crafts borders for the wall..and I am really wanting to paint and stencil
the ceiling.
Sometimes it seems we have slowed to a halt here on what we are doing but any movement forward it positive, right?
I so want to see this house restored to the grandeur that it once had..I dont know if I will get ot or that will be someone else's pleasure..but I am determined it willhappen.

SO while slave labor has been basically outlawed by all civilized world except wal-mart it is alive and well at our house. YES. I am paying my 13 year old $30 to strip the wall paper int he bathroom.
Ahhhh...if he would only clean the kitchen that thoroughly.

more Christmas out our house!

I htought I would put up some pictures of the Christmas decor...This is the front hall and the kitchen....I will get more pictures done later...

o.k. so things are going really slowly at the moment..I am not doing much and I cant even plan...
True confessions time....I am really bad about starting alot of projects at once. Oh..You figured that out?
So...Marc HAS to finish the back adn we HAVE to get the office bathroom back in commission (8 people 2 bathrooms doable but not prime) and we have to get the landscaping done before the fall rain sweeps the 400.00 worth of mud into the creek bed.
Of all of htat stuff I can do exactly...nothing. Ewwww..and doncha hate women who nag? yeah me too. so...
I am done reminding Marc abot it..I would rather the house rotted out and caved in than I morphed from awesome, hot wife to naggy mom stand in.
I will be quiet..I will..I will.

It will get done..he is incredible with what he does..such perfection and precision. Maybe haste will fall into place at some point..
Meanwhile i am going to finish up painting and faux graining (I CAN do that) and begin making some curtains...I want to get done with some basic stuff ebcause there are a few ceiling areas that I want to stencil and gold leaf. By the time I get done with this place i know I will not want to sell it. sigh.

Got the electric hologram fireplace/heater for hte bedroom..I really like wood fireplaces better but for the ease of installation and cost you can't beat htis..and it really adds charm to the room...

I don't know whether we will do this or not but as I looked at the pictures of the porch I thought about building the base of the posts out, craftsman style. I think it would look really cool..need to talk to Marc about it but not untilw e get the other stuff done...I wish I could do more of the work..I have the time but not the ability...and my mind definitly comes up with things faster than he can build them. Pray for him.
So I am still flat on my back from pain...which gives me way too much time to think...

I am feeling hte pain from the land scaping on saturday...but it is looking good..and we did get it doen before the rain came in..Now..just to plant it!

So the dirt is here, and it does NOT look like much but MArc assures me it is a great deal of dirt. I am on my way to Home Depot to buy landscaping junk (that is a technical term for those of you that don't recognize it) and try to get the front bed in before the rain hits. It is going to be a tight schedule..it is dark and cold-ish out side so we will see..I just hate that we have so much rain coming in...a somewhat large pile of dirt is much better than a somewhat large pile of mud...and then of course there is the flood fear...what if it floods and takes it out? There goes 300.00. Ah well...
I don't have pictures now but will try to get some before, during and after...
I am excited though. Marc said that he was thinking of making cement steps..YAY! It would be so much better with them....
And he also told me to go ahead and order an electric fireplace off of ebay for the bedroom. It is not the electric fireplace of the 60's...sort of stupid and cheap looking..Now days they have flames and realistic logs and mantles...By the time we get hte house ready to sell I won't want to move.

Just ordered 10cu yards of topsoil..WHOOOHOOO..It should be here friday. SO I have between now and then to plan which gardens I am going to put in first. I am definitely thinking hte front..but I imagine moving the stairs first would be the way to go?
SIgh...I wish that I was a guy..they just seem to be able to do all this stuff naturally...
Do you think if I learned how to burp it would help?

O.k..so out of the blue I hired an electrician to fix the bathroom wiring and decided since he was doing that to put up my wall sconce and put new lighting in the bathroom..well now that there is new lighting in there of course it needs a new wall treatment..the old one is from the P/Os (Previous owners or P---ed Off or whatever you want to call them)and it is ugly. It is sort of an adult If You Give A Mouse A Cookie book..You know..If you give a restorer a new light fixture she will want to change the wallpaper.....
Anyway.so here are the fixtures...and then the 2 pictures of the antique sconce...I cant decide if I like it with or without the covers. Still need to get the wall behind it painted but I am one step closer.
AND Marc did get the wood rot dealt with on Monday..Yay!