Day One Hundred Seventeen 2013

Neil spent a lot of time today hanging new mini blinds on our living room windows. The old ones had been there for nearly thirty years. Back then, we couldn’t find blinds to fully cover our rather large, old-house windows.

I don’t have a before picture to show you, but take my word for it, the after blinds look so much better. And brighter. And definitely cleaner. Hooray for my handy man hubby!
Happy Saturday, y’all!

Day Fifty Four 2012

Fierce winds in my neck of the woods today. In fact some of the 'woods' ended up on my front porch, not to mention a rather large limb (middle picture) that came crashing down only a few feet from me and my daughter's car this afternoon as I was saying goodbye to her and the grandkids out there on the sidewalk. Had to drag the limb into the yard as it was partly in the street. Daughter Holly says her dad and I could be crushed to death in our sleep if one of our big (and dying) Maple trees gets blown over onto the house. Now there's a nice thought. Neil and I do get concerned about falling trees when the wind gets nasty. We've talked about taking those Maples down for decades now and planting new trees. Somehow I think that ship has sailed. We'd never live to see any shade from a tree planted today. But I suppose whoever ends up in this old house after we're done with it would probably appreciate the shade from some nice sturdy Maples. Something to think about. In the meantime, I'll keep a good thought that one of those old trees won't do us in sometime in the middle of the night.

Day Two Hundred Twenty 2011

Hubby Neil is gearing up for phase two of the ceiling renovation, pulling down the last of the crown molding and ceiling tile pieces. It's not an easy job when you have to balance on a ladder and climb over furniture that can't easily be moved out of the way. The bead board ceiling on this side of the living room is not level in some places (no big surprise in this old house) and will require some thoughtful tweaking before Neil can even begin to install the tin ceiling tiles. It's slow going but it's getting there. Stay tuned.

Day One Hundred Eighty Four 2011

Hubby Neil has worked hard installing our tin ceiling tiles in the living room, which back in the day, used to be two separate rooms. He finished one half of the project this evening. We have to paint the corner pieces and he's got some more tweaking to do on it in certain places where seams show, etc. Mostly it's done. And it was a struggle to say the least. Now he has to do it all over again on the other side of the room. He's done an outstanding job I think, especially for someone who had no idea what he was doing when he first started the installation. We're hoping part two will be a piece of cake. (We can dream, can't we?)
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Remembering my little brother, Rob, who would have been 48 today. Love him and miss him.

Day Thirty Six 2011

Hubby Neil was in destroy mode today as round two of our ceiling renovation began. After uncovering some nice vintage bead board in one half of the room a couple of weeks ago, we were hoping to find the same on the other side of the room. No such luck. It was very disappointing but not too surprising to find the other half of the ceiling covered in plywood. There are two separate ceilings because our big old living room used to be two separate rooms way back when. So much for sanding and painting. I guess that would have been too simple. So on to Plan B, which is...we're not sure. Neil is tilting toward Sheetrock. Stay tuned. But don't hold your breath.

Day Sixteen 2011

The ceiling in our living room is finally undergoing a long overdue renovation. Hubby Neil spent several hours this afternoon pulling down ceiling tiles from the 1970s and exposing bead board (or tongue in groove) from the 1920s. It's not a pretty sight to say the least. We've considered several options such as sanding and painting, Sheetrock and re-tiling. We're tilting toward installing ceiling tiles which will be the easiest and least messy. Stay tuned.