Thanks, Ray! You Made My Day!

Earlier this year, the stackable washer/dryer we were using in our rented farm house, gave up the ghost. First the dryer, (after months of a very noisy squealing noise while in use), and then the washing machine decided it shouldn't have to work anymore either. I guess it figured if the dryer was retiring, they might as well go together.

Anyway, for WEEKS now, we've been hauling about six loads of laundry to the local laundromat each week. That's only for 3 of us. If I did Jessica and CJ's too, it was more like nine loads. The washing machines cost $1.75 per load, and the dryers could be bribed to go a whole 8 minutes for a quarter. It was quite an expense, not to mention the chore of hauling it all out to a vehicle... and into the laundromat...and back to the vehicle... and into the house... Ugh! To say that I hated laundry day was a gross understatement. Some would say that it should have been the landlord's responsibility to repair or replace the appliances, but they've been very kind and patient with us, and besides, we had a perfectly good washer and dryer sitting out in one of the out-buildings here, from the house we lived in before.

So...first of all, we had to move the freezer from this corner, to where the stackable unit had been, so we could vent the dryer out the wall. Then Ray bought a laundry tub, which he later assembled and installed.

Notice there is no plumbing, gas hook-up, or electricity in this corner...
(Pay no attention to the hideous, filthy linoleum, circa 1930. It doesn't GET any cleaner)

Next, he cut a hole in the wall to put the dryer vent hose through...

And a week after I took the first pics, he had the electricity, LP gas and plumbing all ready to go. There was even hot and cold running water in the laundry tub!

Ray then hauled in the dryer, and I cleaned it up and set it in place, just to see what it would look like. It was finally starting to seem like this project might actually come together!!

But first, my old dryer had to be converted from natural gas to LP.
After that was done, he brought in the washing machine and hooked that all up...



And voila!! My laundry room was finished! I was pretty excited. No more traipsing to the laundromat! Yay!! We tried it out with a small load and it worked just great. The next day, I was happily doing my laundry, and had even brought a small TV in the room to watch while I was folding. Here's the thing that I DIDN'T expect to happen...
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*My grandson, CJ thought it was a great place to hang out, and he (along with the two dogs) sat in there (in a laundry basket of course), watching cartoons for the remainder of the afternoon.
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And to top it all off, when Molly came home, she promptly made herself a PB&J sandwich and joined him in there. She's sitting on the table amongst the folded clothes...Silly kids.

Oh, and if you're wondering how I took a picture from over the laundry tub...since this room was added after the rest of the house was built, there is a window between my laundry room and the living room. Quaint, don't you think?

Opening New Doors!

That's what we get to do every time we leave the house, or come back home now!

Our landlord bought 2 new doors for the house a couple of months ago. Ray was supposed to replace them, and deduct the installment cost from the rent. He replaced the side door shortly thereafter. However, he got busy with work after that, (PTL) and then we got nothing but rain...and even snow...for weather after that for quite some time. Finally, this past weekend, the weather cooperated, and Ray got a chance to replace the back door, which is the one we use most of the time.

This is what the inside of the old door looked like, after Ray removed the trim around it. It wasn't that bad looking...for an old door. However, there was so much cold air coming in around this thing last Winter that it was unbelievable! I'm not sure how much money went out that door, while the cold winds were entering in. We should stay much warmer (and richer) this year.
Here's what the new door looks like. He still needs to put the trim around it. I'm sure CJ will get after him about that. He told him last night, "Grandpa, you're NOT finished with your door project yet!!" That was after Ray had spent a couple of hours finishing the trim around the OUTSIDE! LOL!

As an added plus, the new door lets a lot more light in than the old door...which really helps, since there is no light in the entryway.

Here's the old door from the outside, Ray had to remove the canopy first, since it was attached to the old door frame. I was a little afraid those bricks were going to fall down on his head! I made sure he had his cell phone close, while CJ and I ran some errands...just in case!

Here's the brand new door with the new trim around it. Ray plans on adding another canopy sometime too...but that may not happen until we get some nice weather again for a few days. I think it looks great...except for the smudges that the dogs already put on it...stupid animals.

Morning Has Broken ~ The View from my Front Porch

It's The Most _____Time of the Year!

You fill in the above blank. What word comes to mind for you? Busy? Crazy? Frantic? Hectic? Stressful? Of course, we all know it's supposed to be the most WONDERFUL time of the year, or at least that's what the popular Christmas carol tells us. But after a long day of running from store to store, trying to find that perfect gift for Aunt Agnus, Uncle Jim and everyone on your Christmas list, don't you sometimes wish you could just slink yourself down into a nice deep bathtub full of bubbles? I sure do.

We recently moved into an old farmhouse, and while I was taking a bath in my ordinary tub, (which is way too shallow to cover most of me with water), I was thinking that it would be really nice if this old house had one of those old fashioned clawfoot tubs to go with it. That way, I could fill it almost to the rim, and have nothing but my head and neck sticking out of the water. Wouldn't that feel great right about now?

But then, it occurred to me, that one of the things I really miss about the house we used to live in, is the whirlpool tub we had there. If I had one of those, it could surely work out the kinks I'm feeling in the back of my neck and shoulders at the moment. And then, the thought actually crossed my mind, that it would be totally awesome if someone made an old fashioned-looking clawfoot tub, with the modern technology of today's whirlpool bathtubs! Now, that would be just way to good to be true, right? Wrong! I found the bathtub of my dreams at SimplyBathtubs.com. Seriously! Here it is:Wouldn't that be the coolest thing ever? The website says this tub is made of "Acrastone" which is naturally warm to the touch, stronger than cast iron, and durable enough to carry a lifetime warranty. This bathtub features a "Champagne Massage system", which means that it has strategically placed air jets, that are said to give you a better "therapeutic effect" while you're bathing. I think I'm going to put this bathtub on my Christmas list, and hope that Santa can deliver. And speaking of delivering things, they even offer free shipping with no sales tax, (unless you happen to live in the state of CA).

Simplybathtubs.com also carries a variety of walk-in bathtubs, that are a great solution for anyone who has trouble getting in and out of a regular tub. They carry a line of discount walk-in bathtubs too. And for today only, they are offering an additional 10% off this Deep 30 Inch Walk In Bathtub:

Wordless Wednesday #16 ~ My Gingerbread House with "Icing" on Top

All Comfy and Cozy

Ray and I have been busy creating a warmer and cozier home this past weekend. We bought some new curtains for the living room, which he hung for me. He finished up hanging the other curtains that were on his "honey-do" list from last weekend, and we put poly over all the windows on the main floor so far. That should help with some of the draftiness in this old house.

The back door simply needs replacing, you can see daylight around it. I'm going to have to talk to the landlord about that one. There's a lot of cold air coming in under the front door too, but it's such a pretty old door, that I wouldn't even want to replace that one. Hopefully, stuffing some insulation in between the doors will help.

Other than that, we haven't been doing anything exciting lately. That's a good thing sometimes. Very shortly, we will have a four year old running around the house, which should give me lots more "blog fodder". Well, I'm off to my bible study for "Frazzled Females". Have a great day!

New And Improved Farmhouse Virtual Tour ~ Now With Furniture!

For the past couple of weeks, I have been unpacking boxes, trying to find a place for everything, (so that everything can be in its place) and working on a "honey-do" list for my husband. I now have MOST everything the way I want it, and Ray has decided to take the day off from "work" and work on my list, he's about halfway through it now. Anyway, this is what the place looks like so far. A friend of mine says our old brick farmhouse reminds her of a gingerbread house, and this just happened to be hanging outside the backdoor when we moved in.

Mr. and Mrs. Gingerbread welcome you. Come on in, shoe removal is not necessary, but feel free to do so if you'd like. Just watch out for my 40 lb attack frog below the gingerbread couple.

Just inside the entryway, off the kitchen to the right is THE bathroom. I'm finally getting used to only having one again. All of my bathroom frogs hopped right in and made themselves at home. They seem to really dig their new "pad". And look, I even found a box of tissues with frogs on it!

And you see that door right there? That leads to the dungeon basement, of course. Doesn't everyone have a basement door in their bathroom?

Now, step back out of the bathroom, into my country apple kitchen: Quaint, don'tcha think?

One of the things on the "honey-do" list was to put this table together and get rid of the oval one I had in the kitchen before. Another was to tighten up our extremely wobbly chairs, so they wouldn't fall apart and land someone on the floor some day. He's got those two checked off, yeah!

That door leads to my laundry/exercise room. It's not quite "picture-ready" yet. But just to the right, there is a door to the dining room living room. Come on in. Now, turn around and look back toward that door, and this is what you'll see:

The kids and the grandkids were the first ones to move into this house. Well, at least their pictures anyway. That high shelf is supposed to be for plates or something I guess, but it works great to set our 7 kids on, and I didn't even have to try to get them all level that way. Everyone should try to raise "level-headed" children, right? So far, we have 3 grandsons. If we end up with more grandkids than will fit on that wall someday, I have one more empty wall I can use. See?

I had originally put the love seat in front of the front door, (which has a beautiful etched glass design in it), because we don't really use that door anyway, but the "feng shui" didn't feel right to me. Not that I'm into that sort of thing, it just didn't look good with the door blocked. At least this way, we will be able to get out of it easier in case of emergency. Try not to notice that the curtain rods are still sitting on the back of the love seat. They're on his list...he just hasn't gotten to them yet.

Notice that we now have "privacy" curtains up between the dining room livingroom and the livingroom bedroom. I wasn't going to hold my breath while I waited for Ray to build his temporary wall with a door in it instead of the curtains. Not that he doesn't have the technology...

You may have seen my bedroom pics before, but just in case you missed it, here's my side of the bedroom again... And one more time...

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His side. Yes, the buck stops here.

Now, next to that chair, there is a door. Step through it into my office. This was supposed to be the master bedroom...but it's a bit too small for our furniture...and um...there's no door on this room either. The top of our old entertainment center makes a great storage shelf for our karaoke equipment:

And the most interesting thing about this room is the curved wall, which if I look up from my computer, (which is just around the corner to the left in the above picture), this is what I see:

This picture doesn't even do it justice, the wall is really curved. In fact, if you look back at the "his" side of the bedroom pic, next to the dresser, you can see the angled corner on the other side of this strange wall. I'm not really sure what they were thinking when they built it that way, but it's one of the things that gives this old house its charm and character.

That pretty much does it for the main floor, now come on upstairs again. The first door on the right is the guest room. It's not real big, but it's cozy:

I was going to give the teddy bear toddler bed away, but I talked to CJ while we were moving and he said, "Grandma, are you going to bring the little bitty bed to your new house?" I asked him if he wanted me to, and he said yes. Now I'm glad I kept it, since they're going to be staying with us for awhile. Molly was big into "The Lion King" as a toddler. Can you tell?

The door to the left, is our "TV room". Molly's big into "Captain Jack Sparrow" these days, can you tell? Below, you'll see the bottom half of the same entertainment center from the office, upstairs. You can probably figure out why we couldn't use the top of it up here. Not without cutting one side of it off anyway. Don't ask me what the heck was on TV, I have no idea.

Now, here's my favorite part of this room. Again, I didn't know when I put all this here that my grandson was moving in. I just like to have a kid-friendly place for the grandkids (or any other little visitors that come to my house), to play.

Seeing as how Molly's room is not "picture-ready" yet either, I will end today's tour here. I hope you had fun on my new, improved virtual tour, and if you're a friend or relative that hasn't visited in person yet, feel free to come on over for real. Just call first, and I'll put the coffee on for you.

Week 30 Weigh-In ~ A "Moving" Experience

Well, I decided to go weigh in tonight even though I had decided to weigh in every other week. I had gotten on my home scale and was encouraged. It appeared I was actually down close to 40 lbs total. I was down CLOSE to 40lbs! To be exact, after losing 1.8 lbs this week, I'm down a total of 39.4!!! I just can't seem to break that 40 mark, but then it took me a LONG time to get over the 20 lb and 30 lb marks too, for some reason.

Honestly, I have no idea why I lost anything at all this week. Let's see, I had McDonald's, DQ, Pizza Hut, Halloween candy...a rootbeer float at church...and probably more that I shouldn't have. I'm pretty sure it has to do with moving and staying up all night last night to get it done.

My hubby and I had to get everything out of the house and garage before today. We had some wonderful help during the day on Sunday. Ruth and her hubby Dan are still here, so they were a big help, (especially to Ray with all of his stuff), and then, after church, our friends Lisa and Donnie called and asked what they could do to help. After we'd all had our lunch, I called her and they, (along with three of their older kids), met us at the old house. Not only did they help us with getting things packed up, but when we delivered the refrigerator they were buying from us to their house, they invited all 5 of us in to join the 8 of them for a wonderful dinner of pot roast and potatoes and corn, before bringing a load out here to the farm and helping us unpack it. You can't beat that, can you? Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! You were a real blessing, all of you.

At about 10:00 last night, Ray and I decided to go back to the house alone. I really wanted Molly to go to bed, and figured the other two were awfully tired anyway, after all the moving they'd already done for us the past two days. So they might as well stay here with her and go to bed too. We were hoping to get everything in one load. Yeah, right. It didn't seem like I had much left in the house, but I'm pretty sure it was a full van-load. We were both driving vehicles, each with a trailer in tow, but we still didn't have enough room for what was left. We brought that load back and went back for another. By then, all that was left was the garage stuff...but if you know Ray...that's a LOT of stuff.

I lost track of how many trips we made after that, but by the time we got back to the farm the 2nd or 3rd time, it was going on 5am! We were both exhausted and my body hurt so bad I could hardly move. Ray was running on empty by then too, but he told me to go in and go to bed and he'd make ONE more trip. He did, and he pulled in the driveway at about 7:00 AM! He never did go to bed, he and the kids went off to work. I went back to sleep for a few hours after they and Molly left. He's now sleeping in his favorite place, (sitting up on the couch), and I'm pretty sure I won't get him to move until morning. But we're officially here.

His and Hers Bedroom ~ the Rest of the Story

I can't believe the response I got from almost every woman that has seen the pics of our bedroom, I didn't think it was that big of a deal, but my dd just called and said, "You didn't REALLY hang that deer head in your bedroom, did you?" Yes. I did. And it's not that bad.

To be fair to my dh, I thought I would post a picture of another corner of our bedroom, that HE has to wake up to every morning. I figure if he can stand to have all those dolly eyes staring at him, I can handle just one deer's. It's either the bedroom or the livingroom, and at the moment it doesn't really matter, there is no wall between them yet.

Wordless Wednesday #13 ~ His and Hers Bedroom

My Side

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HIS Side

We're Back Online...And We're WIRELESS!

This is my first blog from the "new" house. I just got the phone and internet hooked up, and it's all wireless. The phone signal actually comes from the internet thingy, I'm pretty sure that's the technichal term for it, "thingy". There is even a back-up power do-ja-ma-hicky, so that we'll have internet even if the power goes out. Cool, huh? Who knew they had such modern technology available down on the farm.

Well, I've gotta run to town and weigh in now, and then I'll go over to the old house and grab another load of stuff. The majority of our things are moved already, but there is always more STUFF, in closets and storage areas etc. What takes so long is weeding through it all, and deciding what is good STUFF, what is garage sale STUFF...and what is just plain GARBAGE.

I'll post again a little later about my weight loss. I think I did pretty good this week. I haven't had TIME to over-do this week-end, and I keep forgetting to bring my bathroom scales over here, so all I can do is hope I did okay.

Moving Right Along...

Well, we got a LOT done yesterday, thanks to some wonderful family members and friends. Thanks for your help, Mom and Dad, Ruth and Dan, Bob, Rose, Katie and Liz, and Podma and Eric!!!

We got most of our furniture and a lot of other stuff out to the farm, and actually spent our first night there last night, since that was where our beds were. We even managed to get six people to church on time this morning, in spite of the extra miles between our new home and church. Ruth and her hubby and Molly's friend all spent the night with us. I can't imagine how in the world we ever managed when I was a kid and we had 12 of us under one roof with only ONE BATHROOM, but we did.

So far, everything is going well out there. The dog is getting used to things, and seems to know that this is his new home. At first, every time we let him outside he'd try to jump in the van so he wouldn't be left behind. There are good things and bad things about living in an old farmhouse. The worst thing is that there are really no closets in the place to speak of, so we'll have to get creative as far as storing certain items. But all in all, I think it will be kinda cool.

I'm at the other house now, as we need to still go through a lot of junk and decide what to keep, throw, donate, put away for a garage sale next spring etc. I'll be packing up this computer and moving it tonight too, and then they're supposed to be transferring it and the phone service tomorrow afternoon. I'll get back to y'all then and let you know how the wireless DSL works.

The Big MOVE

Okay, here we go. We've gotten quite a few things moved over to the farmhouse already, but as I look around this one, there's still a LOT more to move. I'm not looking forward to this "moving experience" at all, but it must be done.

I actually do think we'll like it out there, I was out there for a couple of hours yesterday, and it just feels very peaceful, (even with the dead bodies hidden in the secret sealed-off room), it's even a very lovely drive out there this time of year.

The thing is, I have SO much packing and cleaning to do, that I need to get off of this computer and get going. I'm not sure how much I'll be on over the weekend, but I'll try to get on after WW on Monday to update y'all on my "progress" there. Our computer and phone system are going to be changed over to the new house sometime on Monday afternoon.

I got a call from Molly's new bus driver yesterday. It happens to be a gentleman that goes to our church. How cool is that? He said he'll be picking her up between 6:55 and 7:00AM! That will be a big change for Mo. She's used to getting on here at 7:40AM and getting home around 3:40PM. She'll have to get her butt to bed at night so she can get up a lot earlier than she has been. She'll get home at about 4PM at the farm, so that's not too bad.

I would like to invite any of my local readers to come out and help us move tomorrow, anytime you can. We'll be making trips back and forth all day, I would imagine. We'll be doing some moving on Sunday afternoon too, but it's supposed to be pretty nasty weather that day, so we want to try to get all of the furniture moved tomorrow and spend our first night there that night.

"Wordy" Wednesday ~ Farmhouse Mysteries presents: The case of the Secret Room

There is a part of our "new" house that I did not share with you all on my virtual tour post. That's because, I don't know how to get to it! In fact I hadn't even noticed it myself, and neither had my usually observant husband.



Last Friday, I went out to the farm with my dd Molly, her bff Liz, and QTpies #5 Hope-Anne, who is also a friend of theirs. We were upstairs looking out the window, (next to the white boarded up door above the laundry room addition), when Hope-Anne asked, "What room is that?", as she pointed out the window to a small dormer on an entire other room. We checked it out, and there is absolutely no way to get to this part of the house! This mystery room is above the kitchen and you can see it here with the white boarded up window, and the dormer with the satellite dish on top of it. My guess is that it was an attic at one time, that for some reason or another has been closed off, but it was pretty funny that it took an 11 year old visitor to figure out that there was a part of the house that none of us had even noticed yet. Curious, don't you think?

The Grand Tour

Last Wednesday, I posted a pic of our "new" house from the front. Here is another view of the house. It is absolutely surrounded by trees and the yard is also surrounded by sunflowers. The sunflowers were in full bloom the first time that Molly and I went out to check out the farm a month ago or so.

Below is the 2 car "garage" that we get to use. If you ask me it looks more like a small barn...but we'll call it a garage... if you insist. The great part is, we get to use the "hay loft" for storage, and everyone that know us well, knows we need a lot of room for storage.

Here's a picture of the house from in front of the garage. I'm thinking twice about parking my van in the garage and traipsing through the snow all the way to the house this winter. Hmmm.

Come on inside...I'll put the coffee on...oops... sorry, I haven't moved the coffeemaker yet. Oh well, this is a virtual tour so it was only going to be virtual coffee anyway. Do you take virtual cream or virtual sugar?

If you look to your left, this is what you'll see. If you turn a little more to your left you'll see the next one. (Ignore the date stamp on some of these. The camera battery had died and I didn't take the time to reset the date when I put the batteries back in.)

Are you getting a feel for what it was like to live in the modern farmhouse of 1913 yet? Well, they probably didn't have an electric stove and refrigerator back then, but you catch my drift.

Okay, now just off the kitchen you'll find the newly remodeled bathroom. I'm not sure I would have wanted to see the "before" version of this bath. It's okay now, but just wait until I move my frogs into it. They should liven it up -what with all their hopping about. I also want to get some type of cupboard to use for a linen closet. Then it will be awesome. Well, at least it beats going to the outhouse, which is what I'm sure the original bathroom was for this house.By the way, that door leads to the basement. How convenient! Just think, you're in the bathroom showering, when you hear on your shower radio that a tornado is approaching. What do you do? Why, you just wrap yourself up in a towel and head directly down to the basement. How clever! I never would have thought of that myself in a million years.

Okay, next we'll walk through the kitchen to what is supposed to be a formal dining room, but we're going to use it for a living room. We're such rebels.

The next room you see is what is supposed to be the living room, but we're going to use it for a bedroom, which is why we're using the dining room for a living room. My handy hubby says he can make a temporary wall with a door in it leading into the bedroom. I'm hoping he actually does this before we decide to move somewhere else in a few years. I used to think I was the greatest procrastinator in the whole world. I'm not. My husband is the title holder in that department. Follow me through the "living room" into the "bedroom". Don't you love the wallpaper? Oh well, at least there will be room for our bedroom set in this room...

...unlike the next room, (which is just off of this room), and is supposed to be the main floor bedroom. I'm not even sure if the queen size bed itself would fit in here with room to walk around it. That is why we've decided to use the bedroom for an office, the living room for a bedroom, and the dining room for a living room. After all, we do most of our dining in the living room these days anyway. Anyway, we're using this room for an office. But look, no red wallpaper, or red curtains, or red shag carpet. That will take some getting used to. It has a huge walk in closet too, that goes around the corner under the stairs for even more storage. We like storage.

Okay, now we're going to go upstairs. Don't you just love the alternated green and yellow/brown stair treads? Quaint, don't you think? It looks like the steps end right there, but the stairway actually turns to the left, and there are two or three more steps. Do you understand now, why I don't want to use one of the upstairs bedrooms as a master bedroom? I don't want to have to get that much exercise while I'm making my trip or two to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Here's a view from the top of the steps. Straight ahead is our 11yo dd Molly's bedroom. And to your right, you'll find this lovely guest room, or as we'll probably call it, "the Blue Room". This will have a double bed in it and perhaps a dresser if it will fit. It's not a huge room, but there is a handy dandy shelf on which to hang your clothing. What more could guests (usually our grown children coming home to visit) need? I'm going to try to find a small carpet remnant to put in here and maybe repaint the walls before we move in just to clean it up a bit.

Next, we'll enter Molly's room. Take a good look. This will likely be the last time you'll actually be able to see the entire floor in this room. Molly likes to create her own "carpet" of sorts with the clothing she tries on and then decides not to wear. So I guess I don't have to worry about finding a rug for her. Right? The lavendar color reminds me very much of the room I shared with my sister Laurie for a while when I was a kid. Laurie would love it, but Molly would like to paint it a lovely shade of hot pink, what do you think?

Finally, the last room upstairs, to the left at the top of the stairs is going to be a family room/TV room/rec room/play room and also an extra guest bedroom (with the double futon in it), for when more than one of our kids and/or their spouses and/or their children come to visit at the same time. I will definitely need to find some kind of rug to put on the floor in here to make it a bit more comfy and cozy. I'm not sure where that door led to before, perhaps there was a balcony of some sort, but it was boarded up when they added on a laundry room below it.

Here is the laundry room. You can see the brick here that used to be the outside wall of the house of course. This is where my treadmill is going to go so I can use it while I wait for the washer to wash a load of clothes. Thirty minutes at a time should work. At least that's my plan.
And look! A window to the living room! I figure if I place my folding table under the window and strategically place the TV in the corner of the LR, I can watch TV without leaving the laundry room while I'm folding or ironing clothes. Of course I may have to use the closed captioning. This concludes the virtual tour of the new Grot family home. Here is one more parting shot. It's the view from our back door. As you can see, the nearest neighbor is probably a mile away from us, so someone has suggested that we host an outdoor karaoke bash next Summer. Sounds like a plan. Thanks for taking my virtual tour today. Y'all come back now, ya hear?