Round Two... Attack

And now for the next remodeling project: the back bedroom.


It is a cold room in the winter and a hot room in the summer--indication of little to no insulation--thus the reason for remodeling. Luckily, the walls are not drywall or plaster and lathe, simply luan. Easy enough to take down with a hammer and crowbar. The only place where we were going to try and save the new construction was in the above picture--the closet. But upon further inspection, we saw that the closet was an after thought, making it so that the luan was caught under the drywall and still used to line the back of the closet. To cut out the luan on the ceiling and not damage the drywall just to save a few extra $$ wasn't worth the headache. (It's coming down today.)


(Before...duh)


(After)

Much to our surprise, there was insulation. It was H E A V Y and slightly moldy. The cardboard holding the insulation in place said "Sears Rock Wool Insulation." Lots of dust, but no dead animals or bats. (Thank goodness!)





My original idea for this room is to leave the chimney exposed and add a few sky lights. Hopefully we can afford to do both!

Memorial Weekend

What a wonderful, productive weekend! Friday Maggie, Kevin and I made a quick visit to an animal adoption center to see if there was a kitty there for us. There wasn't enough time to play with any, but we saw the selection. Then that evening, some Art Therapy friends came to visit.

Saturday morning Kevin and I went to see about adopting a cat. From the visit the day before we had a few selected that we wanted to see. The center has a room where they bring the cat to us and let us interact with the cat for as long as we want. It is a nice way to see right off the bat how the cat handles stressful situations and change. The first cats we looked at were a mother/daughter pair. The mother was 2 years old and the daughter was 8 months. They would be bought together as we didn't want to separate them. The mother was nervous and not very sociable. The second cat we met was Simone. Kevin saw her while we were filling out paperwork and said, "Carrie, she just looked at me a meowed. We have to look at her!" She is a 9 year old, 17.5 lb cat who was nothing but a mush when she was put in the room with us. After about two minutes of allowing her to explore the room, Kevin went over to her while she was in a corner. She flopped down on the floor and rolled over on her back for a belly rub. I think right then we were hooked. She was purring and meowing, loving every minute of it. And that is the way she has been since she's been home. She sits on the back of the couch as I type this, purring away.





The rest of Saturday involved filling up the planter's boxes with soil and cow manure and cutting down the lilac trees that were rubbing on the roof of the porch and allowing moss to grow up there. We weren't really sure how to trim a lilac that had grown so big. There weren't any branches of green below four feet on the trunk. We are hoping that the trunk sprouts, but if it doesn't there are a lot of other lilac saplings around where Kevin cut the others that will hopefully take over.










Our neighbors took down the old fence to replace it with a new one, but we kind of like how big the backyard looks now. The mowed down the ferns and forget-me-nots :( which, as I mentioned in an earlier post, were apparently on their property.




We also went to the Public Market for flowers because they were having a special event this weekend of just flowers and vegetable plants. We bought 5 strawberry plants, tickseed, butterfly bushes, cone flower and some other flower I don't remember the name of but love the deep purple. It kind of reminds me a lavender, but it doesn't smell and is a deep purple. I'll have to take a picture once they are planted and bloom. Oh, and Monday morning, Kevin and I made about 5 trips to the free mulch mound and mulched around some of the trees and flowers in the yard. The front flower bed needs some attention!

Kevin cleaned out the tool room upstairs--making piles of Dad's tools and ours. We put ours in the garage and Dad's downstairs. The paint cans all have a shelf in the basement and will (hopefully) stay somewhat organized. And Kevin put molding around the closet between the bathroom and the hallway closet.

I was too beat last night to plant the garden and now it is supposed to be cooler and rainier for a couple of days. I might wait a bit to plant to make sure the seeds don't get too wet.

It was a productive, well spent weekend.

Nature May

Another month of full weekends! A wedding, graduation and Mother's Day, a wonderful trip to Ann Arbor, and birthday celebrations.

Forget-me-knots are one of my favorite flowers. They remind me of hikes I took as a child through a friend's creek. The sides of the creek were painted with forget-me-nots.


I really wanted to get out earlier and take some pictures of the ferns unfolding, but never got to it. So, instead I got them before they were mowed down by our neighbor because, apparently, the ferns were on their property.



Kevin and I went to a local college to watch the Ghost Bird, a documentary about the sighting of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker and everything that was wrapped up with it. It was very interesting and there was a skeptic from the documentary at the viewing. He was able to comment on the film and answer questions afterward. We even saw a couple specimens of an IB.

I was sitting at our dining room table one morning and watched this Red-bellied Woodpecker(I think?) pull an abandoned Grackle nest apart. The bird has now taken up residence in the hole, but I am unsure as to whether or not he/she is building a nest. The bird talks a lot! I like hearing her/him while outside or working in the craft room.



We have seen an increase of deer in our backyard, too. This guy wasn't too afraid of me taking his picture. I went back later to take down some laundry and there was a younger fawn laying down in the back yard. I didn't mow the lawn back there because there were pretty flowers that I wanted to grow in. I'm wondering if they like the taller grass to munch on?

April

Kevin worked on building planter boxes for our vegetables which will be in May's post. Molding got put around the tub and perimeter of the bathroom after being primed and painted. Again, Kevin was reminded of the convenience of the nail gun after we borrowed one from a friend. While he had it, Kevin decided also to build some shelves for the garage. I think the nail gun will be on top of Kevin's Christmas wish list.

Warmer weather at the end of the month enabled us to enjoy some spring evenings on the screened in porch.

March

Obviously it isn't March when I am finally getting around to making this post. Our days, evenings, and weekends have been so busy, posting updates have been postponed until a free moment, like now. We have made a lot of progress on the bathroom and deciding the next project to start. But, for March there was a lot of bread making, routing molding for the bathroom, and a party with Kevin's co-workers that involved smoking pig and fish.





(What a dusty process!!)

Spring is Here!

Special Moments

I don't usually use this space to share things other than renovations on our house, but this week, I really felt that it was our home. It is all coming together.

Almost every evening this week, Kevin and I danced around each other in the kitchen. We started (and almost finished) a 10 lb. bag of flour and discovered King Arthur’s Flour Baking Companion which not only has fabulous recipes, but also teaches the science behind the baking. Kevin made many batches of the most wonderful breads and I baked gifts for traveling siblings and a pie for this weekend’s travel to visit a dear college friend and her growing family.

Baking and cooking always reminds me of my grandmother and her love for sharing her yummy food. It reminds me of being in the kitchen with my mother when I was growing up. While I make food, I often find myself thinking about who it is going to and the times we have shared together. I look forward to sharing the product with family and friends and making memories. And this week, I cherished the family time spent with Kevin working alongside me.


Thank you home.