Just another day in Paradise.

Today was clean up day around here. It started with the yard clean up guy. It's a free service the town does continually. 

We met the man who use to cut the yard for the previous owner. His name is Calvin. He's a nice guy, a believer. He unfortunately had a stroke awhile back so he walks with a cane but is still capable to do light work. He offered to cut the yard for us when we first got here. It's only needed one cutting. Then he came back weeks later and we asked him to trim all the bushes around the house.

We waited for the plumbers who didn't show up. We have a gas log fireplace heater to put in the room we are using as our bedroom. Hopefully we're on the list for tomorrow. Just in time for that 70 degree weather coming up.

While we waited I got to tiding up and washing THE FIVE DOOR HALL and John put in some electrical outlets in the den by the fireplace.

THE FIVE DOOR HALL

Door to the Den

Door To A Closet

Door To The Now Laundromat And Back Room

Door To The Lemon Bathroom

Door To The Supposed To Be Our Bedroom

It's great to be married to an electrician in a house like this. Even if he also walks with a cane. He goes gingerly slow but he gets it done. Sometime with a surprise. He cut in an outlet and looked for the wire down the wall and realized he cut it in the closet. He laughed as he looked for his wire and saw a can on paint in the wall instead.

Just another day in Paradise!

Staples

Today was a travel day. That means for us it's a "not gonna get much done here" day. Our town boasts a Walmart and a Harvey's grocery store and a Fred's along with the typical Dollar stores. It does have a building supply store if you want to pay $2.50 for a .50 electrical outlet gang box.

Instead we headed to Vidalia. The town famous for the Vidalia onion. As a side note of information, there are five counties in Georgia that can grow the Vidalia onion. If they try to grow them in any other county they will not be the same onion. Something in the soil produces the famous onion.

But we didn't go for onions, we went for paneling at Lowe's for the den, the room with the stapled wallpaper! That's right we are becoming southern . . . With all the damage in the walls it is better to cover them up with something rather that plaster and paint or wallpaper. We plan to put up 8 ft paneling and drop the wood trim boarder. So we will paint the ceiling and the top part of the wall. Someday it would be nice to drop the ceiling as there is a tremendous heat loss with 12 foot ceilings.

Here are some earlier pictures and a few from tonight . . . 

The water marks on the ceiling is from the use of the upstairs shower off the bedroom. Like the shower downstairs the people continued to use it even though the shower walls had worn away from the shower floor. 

Pardon the mess.

This is after John removed about 300 staples.

. . . and then my phone died.

You scream. I scream. We all scream for ice cream.

Over the weekend and today John spent most of his busy time working on rewiring the house. It is not uncommon to see this type of bare wiring in the house.

As far as for me, I spent the weekend painting the bathroom. 

Today we had Lowe's deliver a refrigerator and a washing machine. Dad hasn't been able to have ice cream since we've been here. It was nice to have had a stove and refrigerator left here for us. It saved us some money but it was time for the frig to go. I mean, a man needs his ice cream!

Today was the last day for the builders to be here. Financially we needed to take a break until March. Bill spent the morning rounding the corners on the counters and finishing up the by laminating them. 

Now to finish the kitchen painting.

58 days later . . .

Today we showered. "I feel like a human being," said John.

TGIF

Today was an extremely busy day. First on the agenda was to discuss where do we go from here with our builders. The first thought was to start on the Yellow Lemon. That is going to be a huge mess. It is also going to cost a chunk of change. All the bathroom fixtures need to come out. Yuck! So we jumped ship on that plan and decided financially we needed to regroup.

The plumbers showed up and finished all the plumbing in the new bathroom off the empty bedroom. We have a working shower, a toilet and running water in the sink. The door is coming after the 1st of February. Now all I have to do is finish painting and put up a shower curtain. Who needs a door?

In anticipation of the delivery of our washing machine we decided we better make a decision about flooring in the laundry room. We had that installed in both the hall and the laundry room today. 

For the carpenters the laundry room was first on their list. They removed the mushroom table from the kitchen and placed it in the laundry room as a folding table for me. Last night we took the left over piece of wood from making the curved shelf out of the dumpster, the one that has taken up residency in our yard. I thought it would make a perfect shelf above the folding table. It looks so much better in the laundry room.

Then as Huey put trim in the laundry room and did the finishing touches on the shower, Bill started to build a counter shelf in the kitchen for me. The rest will be finished on Monday. I think the switch looks so much better.

From this . . . 

to this . . .

to this.

And, yay for us we get to sleep in tomorrow.

Indecisions

I feel like I'm looking at a mushroom.

This is our attempt to utilize the space in the kitchen that houses the water heater. Why is the water heater in the kitchen when it should be in a basement? Gotta love the south. There are a few things you seldom find down here, snow, rain gutters, and basements. The idea was to box up the water heater and build a work area in the kitchen. With limited space it doesn't lend itself to a lot of counter area. I'm not keen on the circle and think I will ask Bill tomorrow to put it in the laundry room for a folding table. Perhaps straight edges will work better.

Kepper says, "hi".

The idea in the kitchen is to paint the walls white. What is on there how is vintage plastic tile and old paper wallpaper. Wish me luck. Then on the bottom cabinets I want to put a "pop" of color. Another indecision.

While Bill was here building the kitchen mushroom table I was on my way to Lowe's in Vidalia for a few things. John accomplished this. It's an old lamp we bought at a farm auction in Ourtown, Wisconsin years back. It just seemed to fit the period of the house. It now hangs in the Parlor which is the entry to the house. The old brocade wallpaper will have to be removed from the walls and major cracks mended before I paint. What color? Ah yes, another indecision.

One Step Closer

BATHROOMS

Perhaps the most necessary room of the house, bathrooms. Ours is getting closer. When it is finally finished I'll have to set up side by side comparison pictures. Our work today consisted of the vinyl being laid in the bathroom. Then the builders put beadboard up and finished up with the trim. It was suggested we paint behind the toilet before the plumber come to set it. We're getting pretty excited.

It's almost a bathroom.

We had to change the door opening because it was only 24" wide. This one will be 36" which will be handicap size. It's finally coming together. 

Lemons

As we patiently wait for our new bathroom to be completed we have to use the Yellow Lemon. Could this room get any yellower? Gotta love the painted window.

This is where we now shower. The tub faucets are actually outdoor water spigots so we needed to be inventive. Thankfully the plumber came yesterday to snake out the drain.  So now we no longer need to use the old faithful blue plastic tub. I know for sure we will never forget this place.

Winter

Today started out as a very frustrating day. Maybe because it started just too darn early. It was too cold, too early, too busy. Kepper felt the same way. At the end of the day we did get a lot accomplished.

We picked out flooring for the bathroom. Every day we get closer to having a real bathroom. While we were at the flooring/furniture store we found a nice little loveseat for the parlor and a dryer. The loveseat was $50 and the dryer $125.

Huey and Bill put up paneling for the laundry room, and installed the tub and enlarged the door into the bathroom from the bedroom because the door was only 24" wide.