On the lighter side of life . . .

Our property is a smidge over 3/4 acre. Not bad for being in town. It was one of it's selling points. It too has been neglected in the past years but in it's glory days it must have been a show piece. It is lined on the east side by three huge magnolia trees. You can't really appreciate them because of the over growth. It's on that side of the house that multiple Camellia trees grow. Each need a good raking and pruning. Yet in their neglected state they carry on. I have yet to research what actually is growing back there.

ENJOY

Then there is a flood of Azaleas that are taking over.

Looks like a bit of Baby's Breath.

A few sparse flowers popped up in the side yard.

How to kill a live wire.

The cock-eyed wiring here has really put my dear electrician husband to the test. A simple feed can run from one end of the house within the walls and ceiling spaces to be used to light up an overhead light in one room and in another room no where near.

We ended up opening up the wall at the top of the stairs to the upper bedroom.

Finding a live wire, not knowing everything it is feeding, is nightmare material for an electrician. 

Then he opened up a small floor board in the upper bathroom to find the live wire that was (of course and again) partially bare. 

Lucky for John we had already tore out the closet space in the bathroom because the floor we had to open up was in the far corner of the closet.

Electrical nightmares.

Our weekend was very busy although I didn't post anything. I'll try to catch up. While I rested up after falling off the ladder, John worked on the electrical in the bedroom. If you remember from a few days back I posted there two pictures.

1.

 2.

After further investigation of the wiring John found out that the long wire that ran from the splice was also spliced in the wall on the way to an existing outlet and the wire was bare.

 So, he tore it all out and replaced it with new wire. He also added in a three way switch so we can now turn on and off the light at both doorways into the bedroom. This house truly need an electrical to buy it. He suspects he would have charged around $10,000 to do the electrical in this old house.

Watch that step, please.

I didn't post anything last night because I was a little under the ladder. Yes you read that right, ladder. I took this first picture wanting to complain about having to use this big, too big, too heavy flipping ladder.

 It turned out not too much later after this picture I fell off the third step of it clutching the paint roller in my hand. Thank God I didn't break anything. I was left with bruises on my arm and my hand. I was moving rather slow today.

I kept working after taking a break slugging down some noni juice and rubbing essential oil on me. I was determined to cover everything that was supposed to be white instead of that ugly brown wallpaper. You might be able to see I need to do a second coat in a few places and paint the ceiling. (. . . and this isn't even the 12 foot ceilings)

I didn't paint the top trim above the cabinets. I also have a shelf that was original to the house that matches the top trim. We plan to put it above the refrigerator. I'm thinking they will get painted a bright dark blue. Julia thought I should add some color for pop. Maybe this will work.

"I want to show you some ugly"

It's never good when he walks up to me and says that.

The day was hot here, about 80 and the morning fog that finally cleared around 10:00 a.m. added to the humidity. I can see why I'd never make it here in the summer. The warm weather was to our advantage to continue working on the porch. This is the front section of the porch that was once repaired and poorly. Just the top boards were replaced not the rotten beams underneath. Upon further inspection there was a small lizard running across the beam.

It's kind of hard to see put the beams under the house are strategically supported by bricks.

This is where we left off until tomorrow.

While I was making dinner John started to tackle how to put a three switch in the room that would eventually be the bedroom. After awhile he walks in with that look I've seen before. You know the wide eyed look where the pupils are spinning around. "I want to show you something ugly," he said.

This is part of an early remodel. The thick cloth wire is coming up from under the house. He's thinking they must not have had a long enough piece so they spliced another piece in and feed the outlet. At first look he thought it was a dead mouse. To me it looks like a pile of cat crap. In the electrical world it's called a flying splice.

On it's way to the outlet.

Travel Time

Today was an outing day, the dreaded trip to Home Depot in Dublin. Luckily for us the door was is great shape. It was interesting the amount of extra foam padding there was around every inch of this door. Not so the first time. The woman who helped us was the same one from last trip. She was very generous to give us an extra $25 off besides the 10% that we had already received. It sure took the sting out of the experience. Still, we don't plan to go to Home Depot in Dublin for a long, long time.

Travel days are so disruptive. Hopefully tomorrow we will accomplish great things.

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow . . .

Today was a great mail day from a great mail lady. Grampa and Gramma were blessed.

Everybody needs a little Love Supreme to press on with their daily work. 

Other than slurping coffee and eating chocolates we continued on in turning this house into a ::cough couch:: home. It rained most of the day here and had the feel of a fall day after a long hot summer in Wisconsin. As for me, I didn't paint. To be honest I can't really remember what I did productive. We had the bug man come today so most of my time was tiding up and keeping the dogs out of the way. 

John worked putting in a few more outlets. Most of the porch work was done over the weekend but I managed to get a few pictures in between the rain.

Aside from being fixed because it had to, the porch is being repaired and the crawl space covered up on the request of the insurance company.

Monday

I decided not to post anything on the blog over the weekend. We both were terrible busy on Saturday. John continued on his porch and I continued painting the kitchen. We worked till dark and when I went out to take pictures it really didn't do justice to the fantastic job he had done on the porch. Plus he still was not finished.

As far as the kitchen. I was frustrated and exhausted. It's one thing to paint a room and then to have to decorate it with blue or green tape. It's  another thing to paint cabinets. They are a royal pain. And, buying a $44 can of paint doesn't seem to cover wood cabinets any better than the bargain can. It still takes three coats.

As Sunday rolled around we took the day off to enjoy the Sabbath rest.

Today was spent repairing a window in the kitchen so it would be ready for tomorrows painting. I do have pictures but they are on my other computer as I transferred 2517 files off my phone tonight and placed them on my old Lenovo.

So for tonight that's all folks!

Southern Angels

The angel was spinning today. She was left behind for us. I'm sure there has to be more than one around this place.

It was a busy day at the old homestead. We worked on the porch. It's probably the main reason I became interested in this place. Unfortunately age and rot has over taken the porch. There was a tattered blue carpet piece that covered a hole on the entry of the porch. This is what we found. We're lucky no one fell through.

We worked until dark but it looks great.

Once you start this type of repair you just have to keep going.

This part will wait until tomorrow.

The plumbers came today, so I stayed in the kitchen with the dogs and made peanut butter cookies. They removed the old log fireplace and replaced it with a new one. Kepper got to sniff it out after they left. He wasn't to sure.

Now to wait for cold weather.