OF MICE AND HOUSE CLEANING

Saturday was a washout.  Rained all day.  I think the final total was about 2 inches at the farm.

Not sure if a photo can convey cold, but this is damp and cold.  With the good rain we had Saturday there was no watering needed and no outside work needed either so the plan was to work inside.

It had gotten a bit cluttered as we take out boxes for future packing and some things we brought from storage as we downsize a few more things.  You know how it goes, you use any available horizontal surface to put stuff that you'll put up later...and "later" takes a little time to come around, ha!

Plus we haD spider webs in corners, dead bugs in windowsills, etc.

Here's the dining room after we got everything off the table and put up where it belongs and cleaned the corners and ceiling and window ledges.  Looking much more like it should. For those new to the blog, this room was an addition, it used to be a porch and the previous owner turned it into a dining room.  

Turning back around to where I was standing to take the first picture, here is part of the other direction.  The doorway on the left side (the other side of the canning cabinet) used to be the back door but now goes into this dining room.  You can see part of the kitchen in the doorway.  The doorway you can see just on the right edge of the photo is to the mudroom which is where the refrigerator is and that light you can kind of see is the door to the front porch.

Coming around the corner of the canning cabinet doorway into the kitchen and looking to the left, this is the stove and 2nd Man's marble top baking table.  We have another one of those at the apartment.  He loves rolling out dough on them.  Plus it's got a couple of drawers and a shelf below.  I put the shelves up above it to give us some more space.  Once again, this table had some cooking magazines stacked on it and a couple of boxes. They have been put in their proper places. 

Here's the other side, the sink and counter.  Again, the stainless counter was covered up with boxes and stuff and the window ledge full of dead bugs and spider webs.  Now it's all clean and a bit neater.

Next something yucky.  I got my socks wet stepping in some standing water so I went into the dresser to get some fresh ones to put on.

I opened the dresser drawer...

...and found this.  The t-shirts shredded up and ruined by mice...and on the other side of the drawer...

...the socks, also all eaten up and ruined.  Ugh.  Mice.  They might look cute (I used to have one as a pet when I was younger!) but they are the bane of our existence.  If they want to do their thing outside, fine, live and let live, but STAY OUT OF THE HOUSE.  Sigh.  We're not even sure what the other material is.  Good thing, no mice were inside and we do keep bait down so that did its thing but not before they did their thing.

I put my mask on and dumped the entire contents into a trash bag.  Wasn't even going to try to salvage anything from the drawer.  We don't keep a lot of fabric items in the drawers like that.  Also checked the couches, they were fine too.

Let's end this post on something pretty, ha.  When you come in the other front door from the porch (not the mudroom) you see this right straight ahead.  It's the desk where we keep the things you've seen in some posts that hold memories.  It's a great desk we found at one of our favorite furniture stores, NADEAU. 

There wasn't much to do in the living room, but I forgot to get some pictures.  Will do that next time.  This took care of 1/2 the house...next time will be the two bedrooms and bathroom and closets in those rooms.

Hope you all had a great weekend before Christmas!

BACK OF HOUSE

Not sure if we've ever shared this angle of the house.  It's the back, from what is essentially the backyard, near the fig trees.  

The two window units are in the windows of each bedroom.  The little window in between them is the bathroom.  On the left side of the picture is the set of stairs that lead off the porch and toward Barnabas (the party/dinner tree) from the front door, and on the right side of the picture, the bump out where the roof slopes down, is the dining room.

Back of farmhouse, pier and beam

For those not familiar, this house is what's called "pier and beam".  There is no concrete foundation or "slab", instead the house is built up, on "piers" which are the concrete cinder blocks (often bricks are used as well) and across each of those lies a "beam".  It is this beam that the floor of the house sits on.  The upside is that it makes it very easy for working underneath the house, for example moving pipes if you are plumbing, running wiring (though ours is mostly in the attic and walls) and/or leveling the house.  There are a couple of downsides to this as well.  One is that creatures can get under your house, and the other is that in Winter, you have to worry about freezing pipes.  

Now most homes like this put up lattice or something along the bottom to keep out the animals and this is something we have planned.  It's on our list but just not quite at the "top" yet.  Then of course planting bushes and other plants around the outside to keep it looking nice is important as well...we haven't done that yet because when we work on the exterior and have the roof done, we figured no point in getting everything trampled down.  But that being said, it looks a bit barren, I might plant a few things this Spring.

CLEANING THE PORCH

With supposedly just one day of nice weather this weekend, (Sunday ended up staying dry and warm after all) we decided that Saturday would be porch cleaning day at the farm.  

Another thing checked off THE LIST for 2015 projects.

We took everything off the porch and put it in the yard.  I hosed it all off and then swept the porch.  Then we stood back to figure out what goes where.  

So we had this blank space...

Porch blank space

...and a while back, we found this small stand/table on clearance at the local big box hardware store.  It's made for outside use and has tiles that fit in the top.  It actually looks like a sideboard.  There is a rack for wine glasses on the left side and wine bottles on the right and then a large middle shelf.  On the bottom is a bin of some sort, but we're not sure what to use it for.  

Hampton Bay outdoor table

So I cleaned it all up and we put it in the empty spot...

It fit perfectly and it looks great!  

I put a cast iron candle holder and a couple other things on top and then put the clay pots on either side.  I need to figure out what to plant in them that won't have to watered on a daily basis (or maybe use one of those things that stick in a pot and provide dripping water for a few days).  It will also have to be shade tolerant.  Either way, we are happy that's it's looking less cluttered and more clean and organized. 

Porch with rockers

We even washed and cleaned up the rockers, though since they came with the house, they might need to be replaced at some point.  They are old and very used and while they may look good in a photo, the paint is starting to peel and they have some loose wood in places.  For now though, they'll work fine.  

And the porch looks better.

I forgot to get a photo of the other end, but it's more or less empty and ready for some more furniture.  Our porch is 36' long and 10' deep with all of it fully covered.  There is another blank space between two kitchen windows where we are thinking of some sort of armoire that could store outside stuff.  

For those with porches, any "must have" suggestions?

PORCH IN THE RAIN

In a heavy rain, this is how much of the front porch gets wet.  Not too bad, we can actually sit on the porch in the rain and be dry (mostly).  

Farmhouse porch in the rain

For those new to the blog, our porch is deep and long.  It's 10 feet deep, and 36 feet wide, along the front of the house.  That means we actually have 360 square feet of outdoor living space!  Or as I like to think, another 360 square feet of decorating space!  We haven't done much on the porch yet, it's something that we won't do until the house is painted and finished outside.  Then, we'll be able to start 'furnishing' the porch.

Until then we have the rockers that "Ma" left behind and really, isn't that all you need on a porch, a rocking chair (or two)?

OUR MESQUITE TREE FROM THE FRONT WINDOW



Party Tree

This is a view of our cool "Party Tree" (blogged about HERE) from the inside of the house, specifically from the foyer when you first walk in from the front door and look out the window.

The painter's wife, when they were out there working up an estimate, looked out the window and then turned to me and said "that's a great tree!"

Yeah, we think so too!

FARMHOUSE KITCHEN FROM A DIFFERENT ANGLE

We recently had the old stove removed and hauled off, and I realized that I never took pictures of this side of the kitchen. Ma had a stove in that corner and a vintage butcher block type table next to it.  

We have found the stove we want, a 4 burner electric of course, with convection oven for 2nd Man's baking, and we found a really cool "island" that we can use as a counter table next to it.  The water cooler won't stay there, it's only temporary.

And for nostalgia's sake, here is a picture I found of when Ma had it as her her kitchen.

We'll always fondly remember many a great meal coming from this spot over the years.  I only hope that we can continue that tradition
in our own way.

THE PORCH WAS COOL

Shady front porch

While the porch is still a work in progress, it's also still a place of respite on a hot day and we were surprised when we were out there last weekend.  The temperature was hovering in the low 100's, and outside, in the full sun,
it was hot....VERY hot.

We did our measuring and took some photos, and then stopped to rest in the rocking chairs on the porch.  It was surprisingly cool!  It felt about 15 degrees cooler.  As you can see, it's deep enough (10 feet!) that is stays shaded.  The front of the house faces South, so the porch never gets direct sun shining into it.  We had a bit of a breeze blowing and it was actually pretty relaxing!

This is good to know, as I foresee lots of time spent on the porch, probably with a nice big
mason jar glass full of iced tea.

CONVERTING A SMALL PANTRY INTO...

What to do?  What to do?

Here is a picture of the small pantry in the farmhouse kitchen.  On the left, before, when Ma lived there and it was full, and then on the right, after we emptied it out.

Click on the photos to enlarge.  

Ma used this as her kitchen pantry, as it's right at the end of the wall where the stove is.  Since we'll be using the mudroom as the main pantry, we've kind of got this as a "freebie" storage space.

There are several thoughts.  Or course, the obvious, a second pantry, again.  But then we're thinking of what other uses for that space.

DRY BAR

Place for storing all the cocktail drinking necessities such as glasses, hard liquor, blender, tools, etc.

CLEANING CLOSET

We could take out some of the lower shelves and store brooms, mops, the vacuum, and cleaning liquids, etc in there.  Of course, we could also put that stuff in the mudroom.

BAKING CENTER

I've seen this idea online, a designated place for all your baking supplies, the bowls, mixers, pans, even the flours and cooking ingredients.  As much baking as 2nd Man likes to do, this is a possibility.

CHINA / GLASSWARE STORAGE

We have extra sets of dishes that we use for different occasions.  This might be a good place to store some of that overflow, as well as extra linens and such, but then I worry it runs the risk of just being another "junk closet" to store random stuff in.

APPLIANCE GARAGE

Of all the ideas we've tossed around, this one intrigues me most.  Using the space to store all manner of appliances that you need, but don't use on a daily basis.  Things like the blender, the slow cooker, toaster, food processor, etc.  It frees up valuable cabinet space elsewhere and keeps them all in one spot.

So, we'll have to decide what we want to do.  As it happens, you'll be the first to know, so keep checking in from time to time.

UPDATE:  2nd Man is leaning toward a bar, leaving the door off and making it like an open cabinet and putting all the glassware and stuff in there (in addition to the standard bar stuff).  I'm of the mindset to leave the door on and that way we can close it, so we'll have to see how that all comes out.

And thanks for a new suggestion, Dawn K, another option would be a laptop station/computer center.

 

THE LONG AND WINDING DRIVEWAY

Here is another small view of the property....
This is the driveway looking from our end, near the house, toward the road we turn in to way down at the other end.

The Driveway

The flag in the picture belongs to 2nd Family who live down at the other end.

We'd like to plant trees down the driveway, perhaps Crepe Myrtles.

Would also like some wildflowers growing along the side, and maybe some wild berry vines of some sort growing on that fence (if 2nd Family is OK with that, it's their back pasture that the fence borders).

Anyway, just thought I'd share.  I stare at this picture on occasion and think of how many times over the years I've driven and/or walked that very path to Ma's house and now it's ours.

Sometimes I still can't believe we own it.

It truly is a dream come true.

PIERS PIERS AND MORE PIERS

 Well it's done!  The piers are all redone, the house is level and we're ready to move on to phase two.
It cost a bit more than we anticipated but we're glad it was done.  The foundation is really the most important part of your home, it can affect other things more seriously later on.
This is an example of what they did.

Piers before

Above is the exterior of the mudroom portion of the house before.  Notice the big space between those two piers?  That is about 10 feet between those piers.

The best solution (and up to code) is 4-6 feet apart.

Piers after

Here it is after the extra one was added.  It literally raised the floor of the mudroom an inch, no more sag in the middle.

Here are some more random pics, showing that everything is straight and level, and if you notice under the house, all the piers now line up in a row.  As he told us, if you see one pier on any side, they should all line up in a row all the way to the other side of the house.

They didn't do that before, but they do now.  So we now have good support for the house.  The gaps that were around the windows and cracks in the wall have closed up, and just need to be filled in, sanded and painted over.  As I said, that will be phase two.

We have someone coming out next week to look at that, so we have progress happening at last!

We'll be headed out tomorrow so 2nd Man can see the foundation work, and then we want to take some measurements, do some other little things around there, and then visit with our family out there that lives at the other end of the driveway.

It should be a fun day (and I'll have new pictures to post!).

 

MUD ROOM / PANTRY

A really cool feature about this house is the nice size mudroom/pantry right off the kitchen and the dining room.  It's actually the door at the other end of the front porch as well, so you can go in 'the back way' if necessary.  For those who might not know, a mudroom is something that is making a sort of comeback in larger homes now.  Back in the day, the mudroom was an integral part of the home.  It gets its name from the fact that it was a place where you could come into the house "muddy", i.e. dirty, wet, dusty, whatever, and clean off your shoes, hang coats to dry, etc, before entering the house.

As you can see, this one is in an all wood finish, very rustic.  We've been asked if we are going to paint it and we have decided to leave it as is.  Our changes in here will be mainly to the floor, we want the same matching black and white linoleum checkerboard pattern.  Also, the exterior door currently has a window so, in order to keep the room cool, and since we'll be using it as a pantry to keep the food in good shape, we will replace the door with a windowless one.

This is the spot for the refrigerator.  It's still convenient to the kitchen but not taking up valuable floor space. We'll have to find one that fits just right, but we think we've narrowed that down as well.  By the way, that doorway is what goes into the dining room and right around the corner is the kitchen.

These shelves were screwed into the wall, but we're going to put up floor to ceiling storage shelves.  Ikea or Container Store, here we come!  The only other major change is that this is the room where Ma also had her washing machine.  We are not going to have one out there at this time, but in the interim, we want to put in a utility sink to do all those big washing jobs, craft projects, rinsing off big pots or maybe even the occasional animal that might need a bath.

SO....there you have it.....the house.....I know you're thinking, but wait, what about the bathroom?  And the other bedroom?  I don't have any good pictures of those.  In a nutshell, the bathroom is just that, a small bathroom, tub on one wall, a small window opposite, sink on one side, toilet on the other and 2 doors, opposite each other, opening into each bedroom.  The guest room is slightly smaller than the master, one set of windows, and has the unique feature of two closets.  I'll get pics at some point to share soon.

Tomorrow,  I'll post some more yard pics, and then some pictures of, hopefully, the work I'm doing out there today (while y'all are reading this!).

Thanks for touring the house with us, can't wait to watch it change!

MORE TO SEE - DINING ROOM

This is the awesome dining room.  It was once a back porch, but was changed into a living space.  It's surrounded by windows and it's just a great, feel good room.  It has an entrance to the mudroom / pantry (the dark doorway at the rear), one to the kitchen, as well as a back door that currently doesn't go anywhere (no back porch), but we'll remedy that eventually with a fresh herb garden right off the kitchen.  Door is painted with more of Ma's stencils, hate to cover them up though...but we are thinking of replacing this door with one with windows in it so that we have even more light coming in.

This table and chair set stayed with the house.  It's a great family heirloom piece.  Not sure if we can keep it though, we have a different type of table and chair set in mind (bigger and more seating capacity), but we've got some ideas to reuse this elsewhere.  Notice the sunlight streaming in....again, great light in this house.  We will take the blinds down eventually, but instead of heavy curtains, I think we'll go with something light and airy.

Tomorrow, last stop, the mudroom/pantry!

THE TOUR CONTINUES - KITCHEN

Normally, I only have a photo inspiration on Thursday.  I will continue that today, but I'll interrupt this Thursday's inspiration with the continuation of the house tour!

So here we are in the kitchen...this is where all the magic will eventually happen.  The kitchen is always the heart of any home and that won't be any different here.  It's a small kitchen, but has a lot of character.  We're considering putting down black and white linoleum in a checkerboard pattern.  We think it would be very retro.  These hardwoods are not original to the house and hardwood in a wet area is just never a good idea.  It would be easier to clean the kitchen floor from spills, grease pops, etc if it wasn't hardwood.  We think there is old linoleum under there, so it should be pretty easy to fix up.  

This sink/counter top is original to the home.  It's all one piece, no seams at all.  The cabinets were built by Ma out of reclaimed wood.  We're going to keep those, but will paint them all white.  It's sort of a galley kitchen, by definition I suppose.

The white stove in the picture above is not staying, that's the old one.  We have already picked out the stove we want, 2nd Man has to have a convection oven for his cooking.  Our range at home now is dual fuel (meaning gas burners and electric oven with convection), but out there at the farm there is no gas, it's all electric.  It was not easy finding an all electric oven with convection.  The other picture above is looking back toward the wall that separates the kitchen from the living room.  Sadly, that old Franklin style stove does not belong to us, and is not hooked up.  It's just temporarily being stored there.  No easy way to hook it up without some major retrofitting so it will soon be gone.

This is on the other side, it's a pantry. Since we'll have a big mudroom, we won't need a pantry here, so we're leaning toward new shelves and then turning it into an "appliance garage", a place to store all the extra appliances that might not be used all the time, but would take up too much space on the limited counter space.

Tomorrow, the dining room....

MASTER BEDROOM

And the tour continues!  When you step through the doorway in the living room, you come into the master bedroom.  To the left is the closet door of a  small walk in closet, and then the other door is the one bathroom.

Looking this direction, you see the far end of the room, a sitting area.  Ma used it as her office area, and we want to make it into a reading area; a couple of big, comfy chairs, one under each window, maybe an ottoman or two, a couple of reading lamps, it will be heaven on a lazy afternoon.  This is the only part of the house currently carpeted.  We are considering floor options here and I am pushing for new carpet, just something in a nice shag, or at least fluffy and soft.

This is looking back toward the wall, seeing the closet door and the bathroom.  Room is big enough for a queen size bed, but probably not going to get a king size in here.  That's ok.

Floor in here has a couple of worn spots but it will be under the bed so I think it will be fine.  As with the rest of the house, we will be painting of course.  Ma painted the stencils on the door, patterned after leaves she found in the yard, and while I'll hate to paint over them, I suppose it's all part of making it our own....

Tomorrow, the kitchen!

WELCOME TO THE INSIDE - ENTRY / LIVING ROOM

OK, after my absence, I return to continue the tour!  Best place to start is just to walk in the front door and go from there...

This is what you see when you walk in the front door.  The wood straight ahead is what was under the old shiplap on this wall.  The top portion is still sheet rock (and was test painted with white primer).  I want to put a desk on this wall and make it sort of an entry/office area.  To the right is a window and to the left takes you into the living room....

This is the view from standing in the front entry way looking into the living room.  Small but cozy! The door on the back wall goes into the kitchen area, and the door on the right side goes into the master bedroom...

Another view of the living room.  You can see one of the two windows on the right side, they look out onto the front porch...

Looking back from the kitchen entrance toward the living room/entry. Note the original hardwood floors, they are solid and in great shape.  Love the sunlight streaming in, it's like that all over the house, it's so nice...

One last view, looking into the living room and a sneak peak into the master bedroom...






SO......that's the living room/entry.  Obviously we will repaint, we're currently looking through paint samples.  Already "window shopping" for furniture.  We're thinking of sealing up that opening into the entry area by the wood wall, so that we can create more wall space in the living room for bookcases.  But that's a month or so down the road.  Master bedroom in the next posting!

PARTY TREE WHAT THE HECK IS IT

It came to my attention yesterday that in my list of things for the property, I mentioned something called a "Party Tree".  Some of you might be wondering just what the heck that is?

Here it is.  It's a giant tree off the front porch. Looks like something from a Spielberg movie. Be sure and click on each to see it in detail. Side note, these pics were taken in the dead of winter, so the tree was in its dormant phase.  This is a huge Mesquite tree, estimated to be at least several decades old, possibly a hundred. 

At our family's house at the other end of the property, their house also sits next to another huge old mesquite (ironically, these are the two oldest mesquites on the property), and every time we had family get togethers, everyone ended up sitting around and under the tree. So she coined the term "Party Tree" for us when we were all out there.  She built cobblestone paths around it, an arbor, a pond with a water feature, ferns, wind chimes, and seating all around.  It's a great place to hang out.  Since we'll have the other "twin tree" on the property, we feel it needs to be a party tree as well.   

So the first thing I'd like to do is start cleaning it up, pruning the branches that need to be pruned, cleaning out some of the dead stuff, and then working the area under it.  We'll need some seating, a table and chairs, and eventually, I'd like a water feature as well.  There's nothing more relaxing than the sound of moving water.  Another thing I want to do is put white lights in the tree.  Not a lot like Christmas, but a few diagonal strands would look great during a dinner party as well, and of course they don't have to be turned on all the time.


We're actually going to make this tree and the area around it a focal point of the porch by adding a new set of porch steps off the front door that will lead people in this direction (in fact this second picture was taken while leaning off the porch).   

Ironically, I did some Googling of the term "Party Tree" and found out that a party tree plays a significant role in the Lord of the Rings series of novels.

Here is an artist rendering of the Hobbit's favorite party tree.  If you look really closely, you can see our tree in that one, somewhere, ha ha.  Ironic that we've called it the "party tree" for years and didn't realize the role in played in the novel.  Kind of cool actually.  In this painting, I actually like how the ribbons are on there for special occasions.  Might be neat to do for a birthday party.  Again, the pics of our party tree above were taken in the dead of winter so it had not yet greened out, but it is very pretty in the Spring and Summer as well, not unlike this one from the land of the Hobbits!


So that's our "Party Tree".  A place to gather during parties, a place to have a nice leisurely dinner on a cool evening, a place to just sit and relax in the shade of an old friend.  I think it even looks like it needs a name.  Is it weird to name your tree?  I don't think so.  Any suggestions?