Nearly There!

Posted on by jsudar

For the last few days, I have been helping Dan clean the furnace room. It’s taken longer because there was so much stored in there that belongs to my sons. We finally dragged it all out and began to pressure wash and bleach it.

Today we finished up bleaching and pressure washing the laundry room, hall, furnace room and the stairwell. I sorted through books too. It was very hard to throw some of the damaged ones away. I hope I can find replacements. I also took about 15 to the library for the FOL. (Friends of the Library)

Tomorrow, we finish! Well, at least the cleaning part. We still have a mountain of trash to get rid of, and lots of painting and repair work. However, we are getting there!

We had a surprise too when we got home. My Auntie Janie sent us a set of teacups and saucers to go with the teapot! I can’t wait to have a cuppa on the balcony!

Aunty's prezzies1 Aunty's prezzies2

Little Improvements

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I’ve been painting. 🙂 We have two rooms done. Well, nearly done. There are a few touch ups to do in the room that was turquoise. I’ve started painting over that green in the bathroom too.

Today, Dan fixed the little telephone niche that is in the hall. The top was very beaten up. So, today he made a new one. He made a relief in the top, where the cords will come up so that we can recharge our phones there.

We worked on the Furnace room too. It was the last ‘dirty’ place. While I’ve been painting, he’s been cleaning out the basement. What a slog. What a mess! Rotten food, cat shit, trash, discarded clothing, etc. Horrid. Well, today I helped in the furnace room. I did my best to sort out trash from treasure. Sometimes I found treasure, but it was fouled. Yeah, you can guess by what. We also checked out the furnace. It reportedly didn’t work. Well, if you don’t add water, and don’t bleed the lines, it doesn’t work as well. As soon as the room is clean and we have propane, we will have heat!

The worst was the books. My books, that had been left behind. Ludlum’s, Mitchner’s, all sorts of books. Some were in boxes. Others were just dumped on the floor. Some are only good for decoupage or distressed book art. grrrrr… I am not happy. Those two were librarians, and they let these and other books just be destroyed. Akkkk!

Tomorrow, we will finish the furnace room and begin to sanitize the basement. We will haul out all of the salvageable stuff, clean it and then once the basement is clean, bring it back in. Gah!

Here are the latest pictures:

Our House…

Posted on by jsudar

Is a very very very improved house! With a trash pile in the yard. Life use to be so hard, now everything is easy ’cause we’ve cleaned!

Sorry for the filk, but the song has been running though my head today. We’ve gotten a lot done. All the holes in the walls are spackled. We found a rot spot and will have to fix that in the ceiling of the library, but that’s it. Sunday we sanded the floors with the help of a friend. Monday we took a trip to  Pueblo as Dan caught a virus and felt horrid. We got all kinds of bits and pieces for the house. Then while he went to bed, I swept, mopped, and started oiling floors.

Tuesday was more of the same. Sweeping, mopping and oiling. Today I had a lot of stuff to do outside of the house, but I finished oiling the living room and dining room floor. All that is left is the library floor. That won’t get done until Dan fixes the ceiling. I also began to tape rooms for painting. Wheeee! Yes, I’m crazy, but I actually like painting. My big fear is just how much paint it is going to take to cover the green and yellow paint.

Dan started working in the basement today. Ugh! While he was taking out a partition wall, one of the 2×4’s that was under tension snapped and broke his hand and killed the saw. It’s just a small bone in his pinky finger, but it hurts. He hauled out 6 mattresses and took them to the dump. He let me into the basement for the first time, and oh… oh my… oh my gods what a mess! We will salvage what we can, but :::shudder:::

This evening, we went to an SCA shire meeting tonight too. We discussed what we are going to do for various events. Best of all… two of our friends offered to help us paint!

Here are some pictures of our progress.

Another milestone

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The main level of the house is CLEAN. I was a bit of a slow mover as I felt horrid today, Dan went above and beyond. He pressure washed the ceiling in the shower stall. After that, he used the pressure washer on the living room and dining room walls. They are rough stucco, so it was just about the only way to clean them.

We are taking a two day break. First to get over the whole clean everything with bleach until it dies, and secondly, to attend an SCA event called Viking Vinter Vonderland. 🙂

Sunday we sand the floors and then oil them. Monday we spackle and then start painting. We aren’t sure how far 10 gallons of paint will go, but we will see. Once the paint is dry, I will start moving things in, and Dan will begin cleaning the basement.

Dimensions

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We were sorting through some papers this evening and I found one of the appraisals for the house which had dimensions. I realize that it is sort of difficult to understand just how big this house is from the pictures. It is 1627 sq.ft on the main level of the house.

Living room  21 x 15     Dining room 15 x 13.5     Breakfast nook 7.5 x 13

Kitchen 15.5 x 11      Guest bedroom 15 x 11     Master bedroom 13 x 15.5

Library 13 x 15.5     Bathroom 8 x 11     Hall 19 x 3

The basement is finished and divided up into a main area, laundry room and furnace room. It covers an area 34 x 30. (1020 sq.ft) There is also a detached garage (367 sqft), a small balcony off of the dining room, a covered front porch and a front balcony. (365 sq.ft.)  That’s a grand total of 3,379 sq.ft.  (314 sq meters)

This is a far cry from our wee Wendy House.

dsc04266 dsc04267

These pictures are from 2007, but it’s what it looks like right now with the snow we had a few days ago. And yes, the pink exterior paint will be going away as well. 🙂

The cleaning continues…

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Today we hit a milestone. The kitchen and breakfast nook are totally clean. Every surface from ceiling to floor and every cupboard and drawer has been cleaned. Lots of bleach, water and elbow grease. Over the next few days, we will be getting ready to sand the floors and prep the rooms for painting. All of the rooms are getting new paint. Especially the bathroom. I like lime green, but in the bathroom, I feel overwhelmed.

Here are some pictures to show you what we’ve been doing. I should have taken some “before” pics, but… I was too busy cleaning. The dining room minus about half the stuff on the floor is the best example.

I will be posting more pics as we refurbish the house. The dining room will become my sewing area. Dan will have office and workspaces downstairs. We have a ton of books to put in the library. We are looking forward to returning the house to more of it’s 1936 glory. Our big challenges at the moment are paint and fixtures. We are looking for Mission style switch plates and lighting. Some of the rooms have what I think of as the ‘boob lights’ from Home Depot. You know, the dome lights… sigh. I’m hoping we find the old lights downstairs. If not, we will do our best to figure out how to replace the three domes.

We’ve decided to paint all of the rooms a cream color. Sort of a hint of wheat/gold. The bathroom will have an olive/forest green highlight. We haven’t found a color to work with the tiles in the kitchen and breakfast nook. We’ve tried green and blue, but they don’t work. Next time we head to Pueblo, we will be looking at the tans. We are trying to keep in that Mission/Arts & Crafts style color pallet. The kitchen inner cupboard on the one side was yellow. John and Beth decided to match it, but it is just too much. The original paint on most of the kitchen was white. We found this out when we were scrubbing shelves.

We will be touching up the woodwork with a matching stain. Eventually, we may have to replace doors, but we are trying to hold off on that. As it is, six of the kitchen cabinet doors need replaced as well as four drawer fronts.

Once we are moved in, I will be making curtains or modifying the ones that I have to fit the rooms. Some of the curtains I made 12-14 years ago are still viable, and they will go back up as well. Once again, that historical color pallet will be put into play.

So Tired…

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I fell off the Blogsphere for a while. Life got busy, hectic, crazy. Oh yeah…

The day of John Thomas’ memorial at the library, it snowed. So, there were about 55 people there. Lots of people shared memories.

Since then, I spent a lot of time sorting out possessions, trying to be organized, attended school holiday parties, did a wiring job with Dan for District O.N.E., sew new clothes for an SCA event in January, attended an SCA holiday party, and went shopping on December 19th. Oh that was a mistake. It was crazy!

Then Yule, Christmas and Yoolis. The first was the solstice. Our quiet time. Spent it doing lots of catch up stuff. Christmas Day I made green chile and we had tamales from Romeros. Yum! Daniel and Angela came over for dinner and we all ate way too much. Yoolis was the SCA holiday party. It was fun. Good conversation, food and a relaxing time.

On December 30th, I took Gir to a no kill shelter in Trinidad. Beth hadn’t been able to find a home for her. It was a sad but necessary thing.

We had a computer job on December 31st. Drove up to Castle Rock and back by 8pm. I stayed up watching stuff off of Netflix. Dan woke up at about 11:55pm, and we celebrated the New Year with a bit of whisky.

New Year’s Day started on a fast track. I started off my day with cutting out two Viking hoods, and a new Viking dress. Then we went off to pick up furniture that Ethan left at the John Mall house. He wasn’t there, so we headed to get some lunch. Just got lunch when Beth rang to say that she was almost ready to go. She’d been packing for a month, and was finally ready.

We headed over to the house and said our goodbyes. Then we finally picked up the stuff from the JM house and then did some organizational work at the house. We just got started when Daniel and Angela showed up to pick up his stuff. He and Dan moved some furniture that will go to friends. Got home in time to finish up the pinto beans, make corn bread and slice the ham. Yum…

Since then, we have moved furniture, rounded up cats (9 of 16), bagged trash, sorted out ‘stuff’, and cleaned. For the most part, it has been sort, toss, sort, keep, sort… I am amazed at all the stuff. We’ve been downsizing a lot over the last few years, but omg! We took a truck load of stuff to the ARC, the thrift store in Pueblo. I will have another load by the end of the week. Today was a rough day. We cleared three rooms. After we scraped floors, Dan bleached sprayed the walls while I wiped them down. Then we mopped the floors. All with bleach water. The worst room was the breakfast nook. However, I think we got all the cat shit off of the floor. I’m hoping that the smell is lessened.

Tomorrow, we will prep the rooms for painting. We will Spackle holes, cracks and divots.  Then we will tape off windows, and edgings. Then the paint… We’ve decided on one color for most of the rooms. From there we will highlight them with colors from the same range. We are working towards restoring the house to it’s 1936 Mission/Arts & Crafts glory.

Twas a Dark and Dreary Day

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Yesterday was cold! Wet! Rainy! Even Penny, my nephew’s dog didn’t want to go out.

Penny

We put our work on emptying the storage locker on hold. Instead, we got soaked while we picked the last of the tomatoes. Had to toss almost as many immature tomatoes as we picked that were viable. Probably close to 12 pounds worth of regular and cherry tomatoes combined. Now my kitchen is festooned in green globes. 🙂 We picked bell peppers and pulled onions as well. Kale is all that is left in the side garden and onions and leeks in the back.

This last week has been busy. I took Mom to Littleton to visit my sister on Wednesday. Friday I went to Golden for a two day CASB conference. It was really good. Saturday afternoon, I drove home and we attended the Spanish Peaks Legends Gala that night. Fancy clothes, good food and awards to people in the community who have made Huerfano County Great. Sunday we had the big post festival meeting. That actually went pretty well.

And the school district has been trying to get back on it’s feet. We have a dispute to deal with, and our executive secretary is just back to work. It’s been really rough on her.

Today we are hauling more stuff in from the storage unit. Wheee! My desk!!! I’ll be squeezing it into our bedroom. We will be moving other furniture and boxes as well.

Mom comes home on Saturday. 🙂 I hope to have all the reorganizing done by then. (mad cackling….)

 

Okay, it’s been like FOREVER since I last posted.

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It’s been busy. Never Ever let anyone tell you that taking care of your elderly parents is easier than babies. Nope. Not even gonna believe that. It’s been three months of adjustment and reorganizing. Between shopping, drives, housecleaning and just everyday things, my life has been HECTIC.

Plus, it’s been busy. Usually our lives slow down around the end of the Celtic Music Festival. Not this year! Our one client in Denver moved, and we’ve been doing a lot of work getting their new home tech ready. On top of that, having new admin in the school district has been interesting. We’ve gotten more done in the last few months than we have in the last few years. Oh, and Morgan goes off to College in January.

So, now for some highlights.

Sunday Drives. In trying to meld my parent’s schedule in with ours means that we try to take Sunday drives. We saw some brilliant aspen in October. November and December brought sunny but cold days with snow. We also try and have breakfast at this little diner in Trinidad, called Bob and Earl’s. It’s the kind of place you walk into and everyone knows each other. Good food too.

Along with this is the Wednesday shopping in Pueblo which has been fun and yet eaten my life!

The Spanish Peaks Community Foundation Gala.  A night to dress up and honor people in the community. It was a very nice evening and lovely to dress up!

Skunked! We were woken up out of a dead sleep around 3am. Our dog Brandy got skunked on the front porch of the Wendy House. We had to open all the doors and windows, and I sat up until nearly 6am, trying to breathe. Ugh…

So, instead of working on some of our various projects, we will be washing Brandy and her area along with bedding, curtains, etc. I hate skunks.

Halloween. Dan and I handed out candy on my parent’s front porch. We must have seen over 300 kids. It was a lot of fun, and the weather was so nice!

Outlander Yes, I’m a fan. The series was fantastic. And… All the costume work. So much of it that a group formed on Facebook with all sorts of knitting, sewing, crocheting, etc. I have knitted two shawls and a cowl. 🙂 One man put out a survivor’s guide.

School stuff Our new superintendent is great. We’ve worked out a lot of the issues that the district has had problems with in the last 6 months. We have a lot of new staff as well, and it seems to be going well. Plus, we took a big chance. We bought iPads for every student in the district. It’s been interesting. We’ve also started a clothing bank. Too many kids without coats or basics. We are running out of a class room. 🙂 I went to the CASB Winter Conference at the beginning of December as well. It was a really good conference. Lots of info, ideas and connections.

We’ve had a Veteran’s Day celebration which honored Vets from our community, and local nursing home, and some creative literary nights. Night at the Museum was a lot of fun. The One Room Schoolhouse was great too. We also had a holiday dinner at La Plaza. More dressing up. 🙂

Weather November had some bitter cold and snow. Brrr! December has had it’s surprises as well. We are having a white Christmas as there was about 6 inches of snow on the 22nd. Oh, and it’s going to snow on Boxing Day as well. (26th) Lots of deer in the yard too, eating everything.

The Wendy House. We painted! We trimmed! We built another raised bed and oh have we gathered, chopped, split and burned firewood! We got permission to trim up two dead trees and were given two loads of wood. Wow. Morgan teased us that we love Halloween so much that we live in a pumpkin. Oh, and we got a bathtub and on demand water heater for the bathroom! 

Family. My Great Uncle Richard Ridge passed away on Halloween. He was 91. My Great Aunt Ann Sudar had her 100th birthday on December 13th. That was a wonderful party with 75 friends and family present. I got to see a lot of Sudars I hadn’t seen in years.

The Great Experiment Dan and I have been looking into hydroponics and aquaponics. So, we tried a small inside experiment. There will be more on that on this blog. We learned some lessons and will be trying it again in the spring.

Thanksgiving. My sister and her family, my aunt and her family, my parents and my family all got together for Thanksgiving dinner. Eleven people for three days. Wow! It was really nice.

And now for some pictures. 🙂

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Rain, rain, rain, oh, and More Rain.

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It started yesterday. Just a wee mist of rain. My mom and I were running errands, and I swear that every time we got out of the car, it rained harder. By the time I got home around 4pm, it was cold, wet and miserable. The alley was dumping mud out onto the street like it did this summer. Our front porch leaked more and my sewing area was getting soaked. The wind did more damage to the roof than we’d realized. All the rain also meant that Dan and our friend Mark were not going to cut firewood.

So, today between taking my parents to the library and for a drive, I started moving my sewing room into the living room. I had to change how the room worked. I knew where I wanted my sewing stuff. That was the easy part. The difficulty started when I wanted to move my white cutting table in and place the tubbies of fabric. Keep in mind that all of the stuff which I’d been storing in Morgan’s room is now in the living room. Once I got to a certain point, I asked Dan for help.

Do you know what happens when you get one person with great spatial relations and an engineer in the same room trying to rearrange it? Chaos. 🙂 At one point, he tried to put a coffee table, a cedar chest, a lamp table and the rocking chair in the same 6 x 8ft space. It took a few hours, me landing on my arse at one point and a lot of furniture shuffling, but we figured it out.

As I was trying to figure out what to do with all the little knick knacks, I realized that Halloween/Samhain and my birthday were less than a month away. So, I had Dan get out the box of decorations and I decorated. 🙂 This is my favourite time of year.

Now we only have a small pile of stuff in front of the fireplace to find a new home before it gets too cold. (oh wait… it nearly is!) That and figure out what to do with the dining room table which is still living on the front porch.

Oh, there was one family member who wasn’t happy with the new arrangement. RedTom. He keeps waiting for the stuffed cat to jump him, and he just can’t get comfy.

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