More from the yard

Lilacs and lupins...

Mock Orange that smells like jasmine...

Rushing windy field

Some of the dozen rose bushes on the property...

Climbing roses, I wonder what colour they'll be?

Spicy smelling dark pink roses...

Lovely...

Wild Thing - Riding the fence rails

Bathroom BEFORE

Peek through the door at the PROMISE this room has!

Clawfoot tub that takes 30 minutes to fill (we need a stronger water pump).

This sink'll be replaced with a 100.00 Bargain Harry edwardian styled pedastal sink we got...

And this toilet is being replaced with a toilet that matches the sink...before it falls through the floor into the kitchen below.

This room needs a lot of work but I took a bath there a couple of days ago. I was skeeved out by the rotting floor under the toilet and the sink. I wasn't feeling well and suddenly had that "transition - no going back but I really don't want this house today" moment. I sank into the water - absolutely unscented by chemical - deep well water, closed my eyes, felt the breeze on my shoulders, listened to the red wing blackbirds in the field behind me, and rested against that warm sloped back of the tubn and thought THIS IS NOW MY FAVORITE ROOM IN THE HOUSE.

It'll be fabulous.

The Kitchen - Before!

Big south facing window, smaller west facing window.

Sink and stove and door to side porch. The area back behind the sink wall is a 1/2 bath, laundry/mudroom area.

DOORS! From left to right - front entry hall, basement, diningroom, pantry.

Wood cookstove and door to livingroom.

We're switching the fridge and stove placement, and putting in a dishwasher and an enamelled farmhouse sink. The piece of furniture sitting in the middle of the room was a 1930's kitchen cabinet (douglas fir just like all the trim in the house!). It's too low by today's standards so we're going to set it on a base to raise it and replace the top with a piece of butcherblock. Papa Pan found it for me at a yard sale for 40.00.

Actually EVERYTHING in this room is yard sale finds. The old school desk was 10.00, the vintage table under the window was 30.00, the island, the farmhouse sink, our chairs for in here...we'll be using salvaged wood for the cabinets we plan to build too. The big expense will be the cookstove. It isn't CSA approved and we need to replace it. It's a secondary heat source and we're unwilling to lose the cookstove feature (hello power outages in Nova Scotia are an every season occurance - yesterday it was high winds!). Hard to find CSA approved secondhand ones.

I found a picture of our house in the Ontario archives!

“we toiled up a long and winding road with pleasant houses and farms on either hand, and at last reached the bank. The view which burst all at once on us was, I think (the) finest in my experiences of rural landscapes…the scene was so bewitching that we all burst into rapturous expressions which us men are rarely given to indulge. We lay and gazed for several minutes and then we did the inevitable, we each took a picture of it.”

1907 - August 15th

2010 June 11th

I wonder if you can spot us? If it helps any there is a two storey barn right behind the house and across the road is a long low white house and a very large dark barn, behind our house and across the road are orchards.

Surveying where they'll make their path...

The field behind the house is a wee bit intimidating right now. The grasses (all sorts including buckwheat) come to Wild Thing's shoulder. There are all sorts of surprises out there. There are animal trails, places where the wind has flattened big swaths, giant patches of buttercups and indian paint brush and daisies and red clover that reaches past your knees to compete with the grass.

But if you can make it to the trees there's a a babbling brook with little fish and frogs and turtles.

Tomorrow I'll take before shots of the kitchen and bathroom - the worst things we have to contend with with our renovations/restoration.

Entertaining Little People While We Work

A rainy day and no big sister to watch that Sprout doesn't wander off down the road meant entertaining the boys inside a near empty house.

We brought lots of drawing stuff and a basket of blocks.

They helped Papa Pan pull staples out of the floors we'd pulled up carpet frpm and helped pound nails down in the sunporch.

They spent most of their time playing Tag and Hide and Seek. Any bets on how long it'll be til someone hides in the flour bin?

Day One of the Clean-up...

My favorite room in the house is the butler's pantry. Really, I'm in love with the hardworking farm history and the potential it has. There's the coolest flour bin in a barrel that pivots out on an iron thingamajig with a vented tin lid in one ccupboard. The room is pretty grimy right now and it's looking pretty ugly right now too. Its was wallpapered 15 years ago with mac tac. On removal I found that on the shelves the mac tac was papered over fresh latex paint over old oil paint! The ceiling is pressed board paper tiles. Icky...

Honey? I think we need a bigger cat!

The house was built when indoor plumbing was an after market consideration.

After discovering the latex sludge mess under the Mac Tac I decided new shelves might be a good investment.

Tomorrow I CLEAN, Today I got down all the Mac Tac.

Upstairs and outside...

Our bedroom...

The scary orange room (you had to see what a shrine this was to 80's hair bands before) will be a studio after the kid's attic is done.

Sunporch...

Wild Culture kids racing to the graveyard

Inside our new house!

Main Floor Foyer...

Upper Foyer...

Diningroom...

Livingroom...

Lots more to come. The best surprise was when we pulled out all the sheet flooring and carpets upstairs we found bare pristine wide plank pine floors. Those that are painted look pretty easy to strip. Downstairs, we're not quite sure because the flooring choices are strange - painted tentest in the livingroom, vinyl sticky squares over chipboard in the diningroom. But, we have high hopes!

So Close, Yet So Far!

I was looking forward to showing you round our new house as today was closing day, but our mortgage company is in Toronto and our banks close an hour before theirss do...so the final stuff on the sellers end will not happen til tomorrow morning. BOOOO!!!!


Instead, here are the doors into our new house!

The side door into the mudroom/kitchen...

The front door that's inside the sunporch...

The side door into the sunporch....

Tomorrow I'll welcome you INSIDE!

Nature Girl's 10th birthday!

We'd planned on a picnic but the weather did not cooperate so we moved inside and had a tea party instead

No one minded - see that window behind Nature Girl - that's 3 hours BEFORE sunset, inside was most definitely nicer!

We didn't need to hire a clown, we have Darkmirror instead.

Nature Girl asked for an old fashioned dollhouse that she could paint and renovate just like our new house. The funny thing was I found this at an antique shop a week before she asked, and on the way home from Red Barn Antiques we realized with all the crazy packing going on there was nowhere to hide it at home, so it's been in a friend's basement for a month.

Mudmama knows all.

HAPPY 10th BIRTHDAY my beautiful spirited wild Nature Girl! I am so blessed to be your mommy.