Patti's Ponderings

Ouch...

2009-06-06T20:40:00.008-04:00

So sore...yesterday I weeded this flowerbed...

There were lots of weeds - the flowerbed above looked like this one before I weeded it...
I weeded a whole wheelbarrow full of weeds out of the bed. Today I weeded the other large flower bed in front of the house (the one in the photo above). Tortellini, the tortoise, enjoyed wandering around in the sunshine while I weeded. I learned that he likes to eat dianthus flowers. :-D
Last night and today, DH and DS moved all this mulch (15 yards/2 truckloads) to the flowerbeds and the area around the pool and patio. DS said that he was beginning to think that the tractor purchase was a good idea, as DH moved a lot of the mulch to the patio area with the front end loader on the tractor. It saved them both a lot of manual labor...
Don't the beds look nice now that they are all mulched? The area around the flowers was deliberately left without mulch. The mulch delivery guy said not to get the mulch up next to the flowers until the mulch had cooled off for a couple of days...otherwise, the plant would get burned by the mulch and die.
Here is another mulched bed...
And another...

Out by the patio, DH spread the mulch around these plants...
but ran out of steam here...
This yellow butterfly stopped by for a drink from this puddle today...
My yellow primrose have blossomed...
And my pink lupine...
I have been unable to embroider for a while, as my d-card that I use to transfer designs from the computer to the sewing machine was faulty and needed to be replaced. We found one on ebay and it arrived today, so I was able to make this door sign for Doris' husband...
And, as usual, Let's go PENS!!!!

Just a few new things this week...

2009-06-03T20:35:00.003-04:00

The photo I posted the other day of the lights that DH put up between the trees behind the pool didn't show up well, so here is another photo of the lights at night...
My two sisters were visiting the week before last and one of them brought some old music that my mom sent down. We divided the music up between the three of us and I decided to frame some of my music for the walls of our music room. I found 11x14" floating frames at WalMart and bought 14 of them. Since most of the music was 9x12", the pieces fit in the frames with a 1" border all around. The music was old, most of it from the 30s, 40s, and 50s, but some of it dated back to the 1890s.
Here are a couple of the pieces close-up...
And here is one with Frank Sinatra on the cover...
I made this door sign for a friend from church (if you know Doris, don't tell her about it). I am also making one for her husband, Wayne, but I'm having issues with my embroidery card and need to get it replaced before I can embroider anything else.
We didn't get much done this weekend on the house. Friday night was a wedding for the daughter of our friends and Saturday we hosted the end-of-the-year party for our church choir. On Sunday, DH planted the five lilac trees that I bought last week. The outdoor TV is not up yet, as the pole that it was to be mounted on turned out to be the wrong size. DH ordered another one, so it shouldn't take long to get it up once the pole arrives. Here is the happy wedding couple...
Oh, and of course, LET'S GO PENS!!!!

A little of this, a little of that...

2009-05-28T20:53:00.007-04:00

I thought I would update the blog while I watch the National Spelling Bee. These kids are amazing!

Here is a photo of one of my Hot Cocoa roses. Isn't it gorgeous? It almost doesn't look real!
I have another blossom on my Lollipop Gerbera daisy. It is a variegated pink color with some very deep pinks when it first blossoms - then it begins to fade...
This is the second garden bed near the pool/patio area. It is where I planted the hot peppers, sweet peppers, banana peppers and peas. The supports along the wall will (hopefully) keep the pea plants in line...
Here is my flower bed. This is also in the pool/patio area and has mostly perennials, with a few annuals thrown in for good measure. The plants really shot up the past couple of days with all the rain we've had. I've had a couple of my coleus die, but mostly the plants are doing really well...
DH has been working on installing a TV out by the patio/pool. It will go under the garage overhang so it will stay dry. The TV will go on this pole; the hole behind the pole is for an outlet...
Here is the view of the TV pole from the hot tub...
The bench for the half bath arrived today and I assembled it. The half bath is near the pool and will also be used as a changing area. The bins on the bookcase will provide places for people to store their clothes while they swim. I still need to purchase some large bath towels or beach towels for this bathroom...

The Pens are in the Stanley Cup Playoff game against the Detroit Redwings. The best-of-7 series begins Saturday night, so LET'S GO PENS!!!

Progress on the homefront!

2009-05-24T22:14:00.009-04:00

The hot tub is up and running and we love it! This is a Bullfrog spa with jetpaks.

The Jetpaks are interchangeable so that you can move your favorite jets to your favorite seat location. The Clusterspray jetpak is in the left in this photo; the Oscillator jetpak is on the right...
The jetpak on the left is Cascadia (it has a waterfall at the top); the jetpak on the right is NeckMasseuse...
The last jetpak is the Rainshower and it is currently located on the lounge chair in the spa. If you want a good laugh, take a look at this video on YouTube.
DH finished stringing up the lights between the trees on the far side of the pool today. They looked really nice after it got dark out. You might be able to see them better in this photo if you click on the photo to enlarge it...
DH ordered 10 blueberry bushes online - 2 each of 5 different varieties. Some of them look like they will survive...
And some look like they are already dead...
This is another rose bush that has blossomed. It smells wonderful! I can't remember the name of this one off the top of my head...
We planted a Clematis near the pool fence. We were amazed at how fast it attached itself to our fence...
I love the color of this rhododendron. I'm used to seeing the pink varieties, but love the deeper purple color of this one...
I don't know what this plant is, but the blossoms are pretty...
The dianthus keep putting out lots of blossoms...
I bought this cute pair of boots at Target and had DH drill some holes in the bottom for drainage...
I planted mini sunflowers in the boots. I hope they continue to grow and eventually flower...
DH ordered a lawn mower online and the delivery person left it in our driveway. It is a Toro TimeCutter Z...
I used it to mow the lawn last week and it is really fun to drive!
DH spent yesterday planting 18 more trees/bushes. This time he planted out near the pool. He also put stepping stones from the pool to the shower using leftover travertine from the patio. Today he finished up the shower - added the stones and the wood tiles for a platform...
Here are some more of the plants he put near the pool...
Last weekend DH re-sealed the deck. Today he worked on the light over the French doors...
Here is what the light looked like after dark tonight (ignore the clamps on each end - they are only temporary). The lights face up and reflect back down off the metal conduit...
Last week, my 2 sisters and a friend were down for the International Quilt Market in downtown Pittsburgh. While walking in the woods we came upon a mass of May apples. The flowers grow down under the large leaves and are difficult to see unless you are looking for them...
I planted some flowers out front by the driveway and sidewalks today, but didn't get any photos of them yet. I also bought 5 lilac plants at the nursery, but DH is too sore to dig any more holes for a couple of days. We'll just keep them watered in their pots for a while...

Let's go PENS!!!!!

The to-do list never seems to get any shorter...

2009-05-09T20:47:00.006-04:00

Last weekend, we were able to get the pool cover off the pool. It was a lot more work to get it off and get it cleaned up than we thought it would be. Here are DH and DS emptying the water out of the bags that weigh the cover down...
We started up the pool vacuum and it did a pretty good job of cleaning up the leaves and dirt...
And we have more critters in the pool. I found 2 adult toads and 2 young toads. Here is one of the adults and one of the young toads...
On Thursday, the weather was fairly nice, so I ran the pool cleaner again and used the hose to spray all the dirt and leaves off the concrete around the pool. One of the adult toads disappeared while I was working out there and I was afraid that it had gotten sucked up into the vacuum. I couldn't figure out how to open the pool cleaner debris compartment though. Today DH opened it and found the toad inside the bag - he was alive and hopped away! Doesn't that pool look inviting? The water temp was only about 60 degrees though!
DH has been running the electrical wires for the hot tub. The hot tub has arrived at the dealer's and is supposed to be delivered on Wednesday. DH installed the electric panel on the far side of the deck today (I didn't get a photo of it) and here is where the hot tub will be hooked up...
I found another little critter in the garage on Thursday. Fortunately, DS had already seen it and warned me that it was there, so I didn't flip out. He's actually very cute. I used to have pet mice when I was young, but I don't like to be startled, which the "wild" ones always seem to do to me...
On Friday, the box of tiles that we needed for the outdoor shower arrived. I think they will work well and I like how they look...
Last Saturday, I went to the Oakmont Garden Club sale and came home with a lot of perennials and a few annuals. Today I planted them in the flowerbed underneath the kitchen window, out near the pool.
Here is another shot of the flowerbed...
DH planted roses out by the pool a couple of weeks ago. He planted 3 different kinds. This one is really prolific and smells wonderful! It is called a Knockout Rose...
The trees have really leaved out recently and we are quickly losing our view of the river. You can just barely see it through the trees now...

Oh, and "LET'S GO PENS!"

Projects between the raindrops...

2009-05-01T20:02:00.005-04:00

Even though it rained a lot today, DH was able to get a lot done around the house.

The pool pump has worked wonderfully to remove the 2-3 feet of water from the pool cover and even ran all night without being plugged in. I didn't realize that the pump would continue to siphon off the water even after I pulled the plug. That was actually an ideal way for it to work however, as we didn't have to worry about whether the pump remained under the water. We were a bit worried that the pump would break if the water level dropped below the pump, so I went out every hour or two to make sure the pump was still submerged. With the pump unplugged though, if the water level went below the pump it wouldn't matter. The poor little tadpoles, however, were not so thrilled about the water being pumped out of the pool cover. Sorry little guys... :-( While I drove up to Slippery Rock University to pick up DS today, DH worked today on installing the outdoor shower by the pool. This is what it will look like when it is installed - it is a stainless steel thermostatic shower panel from Wind Bay...
This is the 8 gallon hot water tank that he mounted inside the garage to connect to the shower...
Here he is soldering the connectors onto the pipes where the shower will go. He loved the hammer drill that he bought (refurbished/reconditioned - are they the same thing?). It went through the brick like a knife through butter!
Underneath the shower, he plans to put a drip pan intended for a washing machine, covered with these snapping deck tiles. They will completely cover the top of the drip pan and allow the water to drip between the tiles into the drip pan which will be connected to the drainage system. He will put a wooden moulding of some kind around the edges to conceal the sides of the drip pan. The sample the company sent has 4 slats per tile, but we ordered ones with 6 slats. They are also available with 8 slats or diagonal slats. The slats are made of "pre-treated, expertly kiln-dried, extremely durable hardwood. Mold, mildew, fungi, termites, rot and decay resistant."
Here is what the back of the tiles look like - the "plastic feet elevate for drying airflow." The tiles just snap together. We ordered tiles made from eucalyptus for our outdoor shower. Stay tuned for photos of the finished shower...
Here are some more shots of some of the plants that we put out in front of the house...just don't ask me what they are. I saved the tags off them, so I might be able to figure it out, but certainly couldn't tell you off the top of my head (although I do know that the one on the back left is a rhododendron).
I believe the tall tree is a Japanese red maple and there are some butterfly bushes in front of it...
The 5 plants to the far right are dianthus. They were all marked alike on the tags, but 4 turned out to have red flowers and 1 has pink flowers. They are still very pretty, and luckily, the pink one ended up in the middle.
Our builder has started work on the punchlist for the house. It doesn't seem possible that we've been in the house almost a year (it will be a year at the end of July). Yesterday, today, and next Tuesday the drywall guy was/will be here to fix the places in the walls and ceilings that have settled or have nail pops. He is also fixing the area in the kitchen ceiling where we had the leak from the second floor furnace...
He informed me that he hates our stairs. He just knew that the way the stairs were open up to the top floor that the house would settle all around the stairs. There was a lot of repair work for him to do around the stairs... The other place he had a lot to do was in the great room. Some of the seams in the walls are very obvious, especially when the lights behind the valance shine up or down the wall and illuminate all the little imperfections. He suggested we just leave the lights off. :-D
It's pouring rain out now, with lots of thunder and lightening. I hope it stops before the plant sale that I was planning to go to in the morning...

A third pond?

2009-04-27T09:05:00.014-04:00

My apologies for my long absence from my blog. There wasn't much going on with the house and I needed a break. So...let's see what I need to catch you up on...

DH has been busy around the house. He has been trying to come up with a design for an outdoor light fixture that will not be annoyingly bright. He wants the lights to be directed up and then reflected back down as indirect light. Here is the start of what he has in mind...

The 4 lights will shine up and bounce light off a reflective surface that will be attached to the upper frame. Stay tuned for the end result...
A trench has been dug in the side yard from the end of the garage to the trees outside the pool fence. DH plans to run electrical wire to the trees and string up some decorative lights out there.
The Saturday before last we had a huge bonfire going. There were several trees that were taken down when the house was built that were left lying in the field behind the pool, plus some trees that fell in the remnants of a hurricane that passed through last September. We worked for 5-6 hours cutting up the trees and brush and burning it.
There are still a lot of trees that need to be cut up and burned, but at least we made some progress...
This past weekend (starting on Friday), we purchased and planted what seemed like a gazillion plants and trees. DH brought home a van load of plants on Wednesday and we brought home another van load on Friday. By Sunday evening, thanks to DH, they were all in the ground. I kept him supplied with diet Pepsi, removed all the tags from the plants, and watered them each day. Most of the plants went in the front of the house. We still need to buy and plant things near the pool and on the edges of the long section of our driveway.
When we moved last year, we got rid of our gas grill that was no longer in good shape. We decided to replace it with a charcoal grill and Saturday night we put it together...
It has a small propane tank that is used to ignite the charcoal. Once the charcoal is burning, the propane is turned off and the charcoal continues to burn. We cooked hamburgers on the grill last night and they were delicious! We haven't cooked over charcoal in so long, we'd forgotten how much better the food tastes! The container on the right side of the grill tilts out and holds a bag of charcoal...
So, this weekend we discovered a third "pond" on our property. The melted snow/rain that collected in the pool cover over the winter is about 2-3 feet deep and the bottom is covered in leaves. On Saturday I was out by the pool checking out the planter boxes...
and discovered all these TADPOLES in the water! There must be thousands of them! I also found 6 toads around the edge of the pool cover, popping their heads up out of the water every now and then for some air. DH is getting ready to drain the pool cover. I think I'll try to catch some of the tadpoles and transport them down to one of the ponds, otherwise they'll get pumped out with the pool cover water and die.
So, Tortellini had a great time outside while we were planting and watering the new trees and bushes. He wandered all around the front of the house and seemed to be having a wonderful time...
He didn't stay in the dirt and grass - he climbed up on the sidewalk and wandered around the driveway too...
Here is one of the flowers that I splurged on at Lowes this weekend. It is called a Lollipop Gerbera and the color is Watermelon. The actual colors are a bit deeper than the photo shows...
I wandered down by the ponds a couple of weeks ago and found some crocus, and some daffodils like this one...
And this butterfly...
And, wonder of wonders (!!!), I actually found the koi that we were told were in the ponds. We've never seen them in the two years that we've owned the property. There are both black and orange koi. Supposedly, the ponds were stocked with 1000 koi several years ago. I'm not sure how they survived after what I've read about the specialized care they need. The ponds don't even have a filtration system. You'll need to click on the photo to see the koi...
OK, on to the craft projects I've been working on...I embroidered this little dress for a friend's daughter...
And this little top with the furry bunny...
For a bridal shower, I embroidered napkins...
And made some placemats and napkins...
I made this necklace and earrings set...
And this one took forever to make!...
It was time for a new purse, so I made a Springtime one...
With lots of pockets on the inside...
Back in February I found a really good deal on a slightly used Pazzles Inspiration machine and have been experimenting with it. This was a card that I made for DD...
And I made cards like this for my mom and my MIL...
This is the inside of the Easter card...
And I learned how to make overlays - cutouts for photos. This one is for DD's fraternity, Kappa Kappa Psi...
This is an overlay that I made for my BIL. He hasn't seen it yet. My sister will be up visiting from TX next month and will take it back with her. The overlay is 12x12...
At the end of March, DH and I drove to Winchester, VA to hear DD play Bohuslav Martinu's Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra with the Shenandoah Conservatory's Symphony Orchestra. She was one of the "2009 Student Soloists Competition Winners"...
I had a run-in with a very large, very sharp knife just before Easter and ended up with 6 stitches, and a splint to keep me from bending my knuckle. This photo was taken several days after it happened, when the wound was to be left uncovered but I still needed the bandages to hold the splint on my finger. After almost 2 weeks the stitches came out, and it is now healing up well.
I leave you today with this sign which I see whenever I drive up to Slippery Rock University to pick up our DS - it makes me laugh...

Scrappers' Give-away

2009-02-12T12:18:00.002-05:00

So, head over to Wendy's Paper Therapy blog and leave a comment for a chance to win a Scor-pal (yeah, I'd never heard of one either, but it looks like it will come in handy for making cards and scrapbooking).

Mystery of the hunter solved!

2009-02-03T14:16:00.007-05:00

So, DH had a call on Friday...it was from the "kid" (not sure how old he is) that had asked (back in October?) permission to bow hunt deer in the ravine on our property. At the time DH had said it was fine. This time he was calling to see if we might have his hunting blind. I don't know why he set it up down by our pond back in November, as it wasn't anywhere near the ravine and I don't think a blind is particularly good for bow hunting anyway, but at least now we know who it belongs to. He hasn't come by to pick it up yet, but plans to. DD and I should have left it in the pond and let him fish it out himself!

So, DH's latest project has been on-going for a while now. He is installing computer monitors and electronic photo frames on the wall in the great room. Here are the first 3 boxes to go in the wall...

He added 2 more openings for the smaller frames...
Here, the 3 monitors are up...
All of the monitors and frames are up on the wall...one of the small frames actually has a photo showing on it! Progress!
All 6 monitors/frames were up and working on Superbowl Sunday...
Speaking of the Superbowl, I had to make a quilt to hang in the entryway by the front door...
And here is a photo of our projector screen when Santonio Holmes caught the football near the end of the game to put the Steelers ahead again!
And the look of disbelief on the face of the Cardinal when Holmes made the touchdown... :-D
And the final score - Go Steelers!!!!

This is the box that arrived on my doorstep yesterday - could it be my birthday present??? I want to play with it (but I have to wait until the 12th)! :-(
Here is Tortellini - out for a walk in the kitchen...
And here is Tortellini trying to bite into a grape tomato. It kept rolling away from him.

After he gave up, I held onto the tomato so he could bite into it. He gobbled it all up after that!

Uh-oh...we seem to have a leak...

2009-01-16T13:49:00.006-05:00

So, I walked into the kitchen this morning, a couple of hours after breakfast, and saw a small puddle of water on the floor in front of the refrigerator. Then I noticed a drip from the ceiling. When I looked up, I saw a "blister" of dry wall hanging down from the ceiling, dripping water...
Here is a close-up...you can see there are water stains around the light fixture also. The blister is about 2"x4.5"...
About 1-2 feet away from the blister and stains are 2 more circles of water stains, about 1.5" in diameter each...
My first thought was that our master bathroom shower was leaking. Upon further investigation, it appears that the water is coming from somewhere near the furnace that is on the second floor in the laundry room (adjacent to our master bathroom shower). You can see a puddle of water near the bottom of this photo.
There is also water puddled in the leg of the furnace. I put an old towel down to soak up the water. Most of the dripping in the kitchen has now stopped and the blister has shrunk. Luckily, we have the builder coming by tomorrow to look at a couple of other things, so he can take a look at the leak while he's here.
I noticed another oddity yesterday on the porch roof over the front door. If you remember, the roof in this area is made out of metal. I guess the snow and ice started to fall off the roof and froze in place, in the shape of the metal roof slats.
So, Tortellini the tortoise loves to eat! Here he is chowing down on his dandelion greens, romaine, and collard greens...
The only problem is that he usually ends up standing on top of them, and can't figure out where his breakfast disappeared to!
Here is a video of Tortellini eating...

He ate!

2009-01-08T12:10:00.003-05:00

I rearranged the "furniture" in our Russian Tortoise's cage this morning in the hopes that he would discover the warmer basking spot where the heat lamp shines. It worked, and after he was under the warmth, he also ate - a lot! (Tortoises and lizards can't digest their food unless they are warm enough.)
Yum...
I worried he might mistake my finger for some food!
More?
He feasted on kale, romaine leaves, and some squash and he seemed to thoroughly enjoy it!
I think his name is going to be Tortellini...

A couple new additions...

2009-01-07T15:42:00.007-05:00

So, there are a couple of new additions around here. First, we have a new pet - he is a Russian Tortoise and he does not yet have a name. We think it is a male, but we thought our bearded dragon was a male until she laid eggs. The girl at the pet store said that it was too young to tell what sex the tortoise is yet.
Here he is from the front. He will be 6-9" long when full grown. I think he is 4-5" long now.
This is the cage we used to have our bearded dragon (lizard) in. I think it will work well for the tortoise also. He is still very nervous and huffs at us when we touch him or pick him up. This morning he was a little more curious and was peeking out the window of the cage instead of hiding his head in the corner.
The other new addition is the bookcase we bought for the powder room. Our powder room is near a door that leads out to the pool so we made an "L"-shaped powder room where we could incorporate a changing area. We placed the bookcase in the short side of the "L" and bought fabric containers for people to put their clothes in while swimming.
We also hung this fun mirror on the wall so people could see themselves full-length...
Here is what the tall part of the "L" looks like - you can see the position of the mirror on the far right...
And this is how the bookshelves and mirror are positioned in relationship to each other. We also bought 2 small square tables to use for a bench near the bookshelves, but I decided they were too deep and stuck out too far into the room. They didn't go to waste however - we used them to hold the tortoise's cage.
DD headed back to college yesterday and I am moving DS into his dorm today. We will be true empty-nesters for the first time.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T22:32:00.005-05:00

It's been a busy few weeks around here, so I have a lot to catch up on! We celebrated our 27th anniversary the week before Christmas. It turned out that we had a church choir rehearsal/party that night, so we went out to eat before the party. I gave DH a new coffee mug...are you hypnotized yet?
Now you can read the outside of the mug! Unfortunately, it is too large to fit in our coffee maker, but I still like it!
DH removed the door off the "water closet" in our master bathroom. We never close the door to the toilet area anyway and the door blocked the light switches just inside the bathroom.
He took off the moulding pieces on the door frame edge and patched where the hinges and plate were. Here is a shot of the moulding on another door frame...
And this is how it looks where DH removed the moulding and hinges - what a great patching job!
DD and I made a couple of batches of peanut butter cookies to give to the orchestra members who played at church on Christmas Eve. Most of them turned out great (although you would never know that those were bell-shaped peanut butter cups that we put on top)...
A few of the cookies in the final batch didn't fare quite as well - I walked away and came back to find little chocolate blobs under the cooling rack! We gave some of the holey cookies to my brother-in-law and told him we'd taken all the calories out of his cookies. :-D I embroidered shirts for myself...
and for DH...
and for DD (DS has a Bah Humbug shirt to wear for Christmas)...
And I got the most awesome gift from DH for Christmas - a Segway!
DD and I spotted these deer behind our house - they only look like they are eating DH's newly- planted grass...
So, on Tuesday I looked out the window and didn't see the hunter's blind behind our house. The chair was still there however, which led me to believe that the blind wasn't gone because the hunter had come back for it - he would have taken his chair too.
So, DD and I took a hike down back to see if we could find the blind. DD spotted it in the pond!
We decided to try and get it out before the temps dropped and the pond froze around the blind. We tried several different sticks that we found lying around, but they all broke.
We finally got it out - DD pushed with a stick from her side and I pulled with a stick from my side. Here it is after we got it out of the water...
We carried the blind and the folding chair up to the driveway so the blind could dry out. I guess if the hunter ever shows up looking for them, he'll have to knock on the door and ask for them.
Have a wonderful 2009!

"O Christmas Tree"

2008-12-18T09:46:00.004-05:00

Just a quick note today to post a couple of photos of our Christmas tree. In my last post, I wrote that we cut down a tree on our property and used the top of it for our Christmas tree. It has a huge gap on one side and no branches in the back so it looks like the tree was cut in half!

Here is what it looks like with decorations on it. This is the fullest side and the one we see most often...

And here is the gappy side. I actually like having that big old gap - it makes watering the tree really easy this year! No more crawling under the tree to water it! LOL!
The gifts are all wrapped, I've finished writing our Christmas letter (but they aren't ready to mail yet), and the packages were mailed yesterday. We still need to get the letters ready to go, put away all the wrapping supplies, and do some baking. And I'm wondering what else I need to do that I've forgotten! :-D

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Freshness guaranteed!

2008-12-14T16:28:00.005-05:00

So, we decided to walk our property after church today to see if we might be able to find a tree suitable for use as a Christmas tree. We discovered that the ponds are partially frozen, but with the warmer weather today and tomorrow I bet the ice doesn't last long.
In a couple of different locations we found corn cobs. DH thinks that hunters put the corn out to attract the deer. We don't know if these are from this year or if they've been on here for a long time.
One of the trees down by the river has a large nest in the top - not sure what, if anything, lives there...
So, we found this tree which was growing too close to the hardwood tree and decided to see if the top of it would work as a Christmas tree...
DH decided that the chainsaw was the way to go...
Cutting down the tree (we think it's a blue spruce)...
TIMBER!!!!!
I can't believe that DH carried the tree by himself all the way up to the house! It was a heavy tree!
The tree was a bit sparse on one side so we put that side toward the door. The trunk is a bit crooked, so we had to tie it up to insure that it won't tip over.
There is a bit of a bare area on one side, but once we hang some of my longer ornaments in that space, it won't look so bad...
It does, however, look very funny from the side - it looks like half a tree!
Here is a shot of the river - I took 4 photos when we were down near the river, and stitched them together into a panoramic. Click on the photo to see it better...
And DH found another golf ball for DD while we were out looking for a tree!

So, we didn't have to buy a tree this year, we took down a tree that needed to come down so a nearby tree can grow, and the freshness of the tree is certainly guaranteed this year!

We have mirrors! And shelves!

2008-12-10T12:54:00.008-05:00

It's been a long time coming, but we now have mirrors in our master bathroom! We had to special order the one for over my sink/vanity area, but it finally arrived. DH made frames for them to match the frames on the cabinet doors...

Here is DH's mirror - we'll have to put some artwork up on the blank wall...
DH also built me 2 more shelves in the utility closet across from the powder room. He installed 2 outlets so I can plug in phone/GPS chargers and my sweeper vac.
I managed to get a lot of my house decorating done. The goal was to get it done in time for the church women's dinner party that I hosted last night. I had everything done except for the tree, and it (for us) is still a tad too early to get the tree. I think we'll probably get the tree this weekend. Here is the fireplace with my new wreath over the mantel...
I hung greens around the border of the great room on the valance. I had to get up and down off the ladder every loop in order to move the ladder - it was a good thigh workout! In order to get the swags even, I laid out each section on the floor next to a tape measure and connected a wire ornament hanger to the greens every 3 feet. Then I just had to make sure the bottom of the swag hit the bottom of the valance and there was no need to measure where to hang each hook.
The Santa/Reindeer quilt and nativity are in the entryway...
Underneath the table I put all kinds of stuffed animals and toys, most of them belonging to our kids over the years (and some that even belong to DH and I when we were little).
The stairs were adorned with lights and more greenery...
We set up the tables for my dinner party on Sunday night and I set them and decorated them on Monday. I was expecting 15 guests (plus me) for the third year in a row. There must be something about the number 16 and our women's dinner - they are not the same exact women every year either. Interesting...
Here are the Santa napkins on the table settings - no one wanted to use the napkins for fear of ruining them!
And other place setting...
So, some of the next projects on the list are to find tiles for the backsplash of the beverage area, and to find floor tile for the floor at the bottom of the basement stairs (that we can see when we look down over the stair railing). Here is the beverage area that we want to tile...
I'm thinking I'd like to bring in some of the red color from the adjoining family room. Here is one with very narrow tiles (1/4") in shades of red...
This one has several colors in it which would pull in the colors of the cabinets, counter, and the red from the other room. It seems a little dark to me though, so I'm just not sure. I also have samples of smaller red squares in colors similar to the above tile. Maybe we can combine this tile with some of the red squares, or something...
And in the continuing saga of our hunter...He has never returned - his blind is still down in back of the house, collapsed from the wind. It's very strange...

My, how time flies!

2008-12-01T19:20:00.007-05:00

My apologies for taking so long to update my blog. There hasn't been all that much going on with the house - at least that's my excuse! I hope you all had a blessed Thanksgiving day. We had some of DH's family down and had an enjoyable time.

I drove to Winchester, VA on Tuesday to pick up DD so that she could spend all her time in the car doing homework. It was the only way she could come home for Thanksgiving. She also did homework pretty much morning to night the whole time she was home, and also in the car on the way back (I didn't have to drive her back - she was able to catch a ride with a friend from OH).

We have been having a problem with water getting into the basement. While DH was up on a ladder outside my sewing studio, he spotted the problem. The flashing in this area is missing, or not done correctly. There is a gap between the gutter and the wall to the right and the water is missing the gutter and traveling down the brick wall into the basement.
You can see the white marks on the brick (to the left of the ladder shadow) where the water has been trickling down the bricks...
DH has made a lot of progress in sorting boxes and things in the basement. Here are all the games - we sure do have a lot! I've gotten rid of stacks of games the past few years at the church rummage sale. We used to go to garage sales and buy games for $1.00, which is the reason we have so many. I'll have to sort through these again and set aside some more for next year's sale. Our family was big into board games, but not so much anymore.
The holiday decorations and textbooks/papers are on shelves, but we either need to get rid of some, or get more shelves...
Here is the corner where the leftover paint is stored...
And here are the empty boxes and luggage...
Our kitchen/family room stools arrived today! I got them assembled (only 4 screws per stool) and I think they look nice there. They certainly are sturdy, not to mention heavy!
Here is a shot of the room where the stools are...
I spent a good part of today sorting through the items behind the French doors in the great room. I arranged the shelves and got all the plaster dust off the shelves from when DH when doing some electrical work inside the closet.
We were very surprised on this first day of deer hunting season that our hunter did not show up to hunt. We figured the hunter set the hunting blind up behind our house 3 weeks ago to stake out a spot for the first day of hunting season, but he was a no-show today. We'll see if he shows up tomorrow...

The changing views...

2008-11-21T09:59:00.003-05:00

It's interesting to see how different the river looks depending on the day, or even the time of day, that you are looking at it. I took this photo yesterday and the river looks very white, but we sure can see a lot of the river without the leaves on the trees!
I took this photo today. The river looks much more blue - whether that is due to the adjacent snow on the ground or perhaps there was a bit of fog lying over the river yesterday, I don't know...
And here is our view of the river when the trees are fully leaved-out. You can barely see it! We're planning to thin out the trees down on the edge of the cliff so we can have a clearer view of the river year-round.
On Wednesday, I enjoyed a luncheon and program sponsored by the Oakmont Garden Club. I put a silent auction bid on this wreath and (with the help of a friend!) won it. I haven't decided where to put it yet. It could go over the mantel, or in the entry, or on the front door...
Last night I embroidered more Santa napkins for the women's dinner that I'm hosting in December. I also made up this quilted name banner for a friend who lives in a senior apartment building. If she wants people to know where she lives, she can put it on the outside of her door; otherwise, she can hang it inside her apartment. She is a huge Steelers fan, so I had to make it with Steelers colors. It will be a Christmas gift for her (so no one tell her, please!)...

The never-ending to-do list...

2008-11-17T10:29:00.007-05:00

DH spent Saturday installing the gas logs in our fireplace. It's wonderful to flip a switch on the wall and have a fire in the fireplace. I have used it often since he finished installing it...

And the weather outside made it all the nicer to have a fire in the fireplace. We had snow flurries all day Saturday and Sunday, but fortunately only a bit of it stuck to the ground.
DH's other project for the weekend was to work on the broom closet. The builder only had one shelf in the closet and it doesn't hold much. DH will add a couple of more shelves for cleaning supplies, an outlet for plugging in chargers for phones, etc. (he actually installed it before I shot this photo), and an outlet to plug my Swiffer sweeper vac into to charge it.
While he was at the store to get a longer pipe to install the gas logs, he picked up a couple of thin sheets of metal to put in the bottom of my spice drawers to keep the magnetic tins from sliding around.
DD asked me to take some photos of her room and post them so her friends at college can see her room, so here they are. There are still a couple of piles of things laying around that didn't go back to college with her.
The dresser and closet side of the room and the all-important golf ball collection...
The desk area and entrance to her room...
The bookcase...
For those following the saga of the hunting blind that someone set up on our property, we still haven't seen any sign of the owner. The winds were strong on Saturday, so the blind collapsed but didn't blow away because it is staked into the ground. Gun season for deer hunting begins the Monday following Thanksgiving here in PA, so my guess is that he set up the blind early to stake out his territory. He'll be really surprised when he comes back to hunt and finds the Posted signs that we've hung up around our property!
A good part of this weekend was spent searching online for some stools for the bar in the kitchen/family room. I sent DH a long list of possibilities and he sent back a list of his 3 favorites. This one is the Tommy stool - I was a bit worried that the legs on this one would mar the wood floors and they were so narrow at the bottom it wasn't obvious that felt pads would work on the legs...
This one is the Hillsdale Cierra stool. Part of the problem with all the stools we looked at was the risk that the reds wouldn't coordinate with the red chairs that we already have in the room in front of the fireplace. They came in other colors, so the second dilemma was trying to decide on color.
We finally decided on this stool. It is the Hillsdale Venus stool and we bought 4 of them for the kitchen bar area. The online reviews were very good - very well made, sturdy, and comfortable...
I think this stool is really fun, but DH didn't care for it. Maybe I'll get it for my sewing studio. I'm planning to get a stool to sit on at my cutting table while I work on my scrapbooking. I need to get the counter-height cutting table in there first, then a 26" stool should work well.
I spent Saturday doing some cleaning and cutting shelf liner to fit the shelves and drawers in my kitchen. I didn't do all of the cupboards, but wanted to get the ones done that might get water or dirt on them. I mainly did the cupboards where I store my glassware and the drawers where I store my spices.

I also worked on a set of placemats that I'm making for our family room table. I finished one last week and yesterday I almost finished a second one. It may be a while before I get all 6 of them done! The embroidery takes 45 minutes to an hour per placemat and the handstitching around the embroidery takes about an hour per placemat. I hate handstitching, but it really adds to the details on the placemat. Photos to come later...

Home for the Holidays...

2008-11-11T23:09:00.011-05:00

This post was written for Houseblogs.net as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by SC Johnson’s Right@Home.

Decorating for Christmas this year will be a lot different from previous years. We lived in our last house for 11 years, and have only lived in this one for 3 months. I had gotten in the habit of decorating the same way over the years, so it should be fun to figure out how to decorate our new house.

I guess our first step will be to find the decorations! The basement is not yet in any kind of order, although I can see some of our Christmas decorations amid the jumble!
Here are some more decorations. I used to gather all our Christmas-themed stuffed animals and some of the stuffed animals that the kids played with when they were little and I had a collection on the floor in our entryway by the front door.
DH has started to organize down in the basement. He bought 6 sets of these plastic storage shelves to put all the boxes on...
This December will be the third year in a row that I have hosted the women's dinner for our church. Last year I used a snowman theme for the party. I embroidered redwork snowmen on the dinner napkins and had snowman take-home ornaments and chocolates for everyone. The past two years we had 16 women over for the dinner. I had two tables set up in the eat-in kitchen for 8 of the women...
And the other 8 table settings were on the dining room table...
Here is a close-up of one of the place settings...
And another place setting...
This year's theme is a Santa theme, so I've started stitching the Santa napkins...
We have a new mantel to decorate this year. DH's grandmother made all of us felt stockings when she was still alive and we always hang those for Christmas. I think they will look good on our new mantel...
A couple of years ago I decided to gather together all the Santas that we have collected over the years, instead of having them spread around the house. They made a nice display...
Here is a close-up of some of my Santa tree ornaments...
The other thing I do to prepare for the holiday is to sew gifts. Here is a purse that I made for DH's niece a couple of years ago, along with a matching mirror...
And I made one for her sister also...
Of course, we have to decorate the tree! We haven't decided where to put the tree in our new house yet.
I posted this quilt a couple of days ago. I'm glad to have it done so I can use it to decorate the house this year...
And I have to find my Christmas purse, because it just won't seem like Christmas without it! The reindeer's antlers are lighted and flash on and off!
I know it isn't even Thanksgiving yet, but Christmas is coming (and I have to start early because I make so much by hand). What are you going to do to get ready for Christmas this year?

The tile man cometh (sort of)...

2008-11-11T16:58:00.004-05:00

The kitchen cabinet guy and bathroom tile guy arrived yesterday morning to add the backsplash to the bathtub in the master bathroom. It turned out that the tile guy was just there to explain to the cabinet guy what needed to be done, and then he left. The cabinet guy worked all day yesterday and most of the day today and got the backsplash done. We had them echo the angle of the top of the shower...
He also added the tile over the vanity that we asked him to do so that the mirror won't look lopsided. The tile guy had to get 2 of the shower tiles to do this area, as the backsplash behind the tub was done in the floor tile, not the darker shower tile.
DH recently added the glass doors to the fireplace...
The photo below was taken from the back of our house. The blue arrow is pointing at the hunting blind. While eating my lunch today, I noticed something over near the bushes to the left (where the orange arrow is pointing). Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a young buck that was lying there dead. :-( I saw this young buck running across our property the other day. I don't know how it died. If a hunter shot it, they would have taken it with them.
Here is a close-up of him. I didn't get close enough to see whether he had been shot (the zoom on my camera comes in handy sometimes). I'm wondering if he was shot somewhere else, or hit by a car, and then made it this far before he died. So sad...
The pool inspector came this morning to check that our fence was in and the alarm system worked on the doors that open out to the pool. We passed!

Christmas is coming!

2008-11-09T18:46:00.006-05:00

So, we finally found the right size light bulb for the glass-topped coffee table that sits between the 2 red chairs in front of the fireplace, and now that there is an outlet in the floor, we were able to see how it looks when it's lit up. It's a fun table!
Last night I decided to finish a UFO (UnFinished Object) in my long list of quilting and sewing UFOs. I'm also probably procrastinating on finishing DD's window seat cushion because I'm not exactly sure how to go about making it. :-D

I started this quilted wall hanging back in 2004, right after I'd taken an online quilting course (Starting From Scratch) at http://quiltuniversity.com/. I embroidered all the reindeer and Santa squares and sewed the top together. After that, it sat for quite a while because I had never done machine quilting before and I wasn't quite sure what my next move would be.

The green squares were embroidered after I put the quilt sandwich (backing fabric, batting, quilt top) together so that the stitches would help hold the 3 layers together. I was having an issue with my sewing machine back then and the tension was really loose on the back of the quilt, but I didn't realize it until I had embroidered most of the green squares. I set the quilt aside for a while (which turned into a couple of years - I didn't like going down to the basement to sew in our former house). Last night I got the quilt out and "stitched in the ditch" in the blue squares, in the two text squares, and around the outer border. Then I trimmed the quilt up and sewed the binding on the outer edge.

I like how it turned out. I designed the quilt from scratch, using embroidery designs from http://emblibrary.com/. Here are some close-up shots of some of the squares. Here is Dancer and the Christmas tree outlines...
And here is Donner and the Santa hat outlines...
And, of course, Rudolph had to be embroidered on blizzard fabric instead of the snow fabric that all the other reindeer were embroidered on, since Rudolph had to save Christmas in the midst of a blizzard...

I still need to make a label and sew it on the back, but it's nice to finally have it done (and it's only been in the making for 4 years!).

The fence men returneth...

2008-11-08T17:19:00.010-05:00

The fence guys returned early yesterday morning to install the two gates. I like how the fence turned out, but wish we didn't need to have one.

Here is a shot that shows how the fence looks from the driveway. The fence encloses the pool equipment which is at the end of the garage (you probably can't see the fence very well unless you click on the photo to enlarge it).
DH took the day off work yesterday and we went shopping for some things. I needed to get an area rug for underneath the rolling chair in my sewing studio. The bamboo floor was getting dented from the wheels on the chair and was starting to look bad.
It was difficult to photograph the dents in the bamboo floor - you can see some of the dents near the bottom of the photo where the spot of light is. I love the look of the bamboo, but it is definitely softer wood than what we're used to having on our floors.
We also bought a wheelbarrow to move dirt around. We have a small handcart, but it isn't sturdy enough to move heavier things in.
DH spent today putting a couple of outlets in the floor and working on the security system. One of the outlets went in front of the fireplace so we can plug in a laptop, or the light that is inside the base of the coffee table. The other one is near the end table in the great room, between my chair and DH's chair. He also installed some new light switches in the kitchen and family room. I spent a good part of today arranging DH's closet. It's something he hasn't had time to do and I was able to get rid of about 50% of the casual shirts on the bottom rod. They were shirts that were very old, or work shirts that were not in good shape anymore. I also had to change out all the hangers so that we only had plastic hangers in our closets. The wooden rods in our closets are too large in diameter to use wire hangers.
One of the other things we did yesterday was order mirrors for our master bathroom. DH's mirror choice was fairly straight forward. We ended up buying a rectangular mirror, 36" high x 30" wide. We plan to attach them to the wall and then DH will make wooden frames out of maple to match the cabinets in our bathroom. The wall space to the left of the light will be a spot for some artwork, I guess...
My mirror situation was not quite so straight forward. The difference in the height of the sink counter vs. the height of the vanity counter was an issue. We weren't sure whether to get one mirror, or two. I need to be able to see in the vanity mirror while seated. The other issue is that the light fixture over my sink is not centered, so if we get two mirrors, the light would probably have to be moved and centered over the mirror/sink.

We finally decided to get one large rectangular mirror for the area. Then we'll have the bathroom tile guy put tile above the granite backsplash over the vanity to extend the vanity backsplash to the same height as the sink backsplash. I'll still be able to see in the mirror while seated at the vanity, and the stone from the shower will look like it wraps around the corner to fill in that area above the backsplash (4-6" high). The tile guy is supposed to return on Monday morning to add tile behind the tub, so hopefully he'll be willing to add a few tiles in the vanity area. This is the mirror I've been using since we moved in at the end of July...DH doesn't even have a mirror in the bathroom. He has to go out and look in the mirror on his dresser in the bedroom.
There hasn't been any sign of the hunter yet. DH put up Posted signs around our property today - his note is still in the hunting blind.

The fence men cometh...

2008-11-06T16:30:00.006-05:00

The fence men arrived bright and early this morning. I heard the familiar "beep-beep-beep" of the construction equipment. We have to install a fence surrounding the pool in order for the pool to pass inspection. We also need alarms on any doors from the house to the pool area, so if anyone opens a door to the pool area, we will be alerted. DH will be installing the alarms.
They did a good job on the fence. DH told them that he wanted it as level as possible, and there was only one place where it is noticably lower.
Here is where one of the gates will go...
I'm assuming they need to come back tomorrow (or a later date) because they left this "anchor" attached to this section of fence...
Neither of the gates were installed, which also led me to believe they were coming back again...
These boxes must contain the 2 gates...
Most of the leaves are off the trees and we have a better view of the river now...
The hunting blind is still down by the ponds. I don't think the hunter has been back since we first noticed the blind on Sunday, so they haven't found DH's note yet asking them to remove the blind.

You'd think they would at least ask permission!

2008-11-03T13:54:00.002-05:00

So, yesterday morning, both DH and I noticed that there was something behind our house that didn't belong there. It was down by our ponds and looked at first glance like a giant rock, or maybe a large tree stump lying on it's side...

Upon closer inspection, we figured out that it was a hunter's blind, used by hunters to hide in while hunting (judging from where it was located, we think they are after ducks, turkeys, or geese). Are we crazy to expect that a hunter should ask permission before hunting on our private property? They aren't all that far from the house, so we're assuming they are bow hunting. Even so, I don't want them killing the birds that live on our property - I enjoy watching them.
DH wrote a note and put it in the blind, but no one seems to have been around in the last 24 hours and the blind is still there. The next time I'm out shopping I will be buying some No Trespassing/No Hunting signs to put up around our property!

DH worked hard this weekend filling the small areas near the front door with top soil. These areas will be planted with shrubs, flowers, etc. and mulched next Spring so we won't be planting grass in these areas...
Here is the other area. This one took quite a while to fill as parts of it were nearly 2' deep!
We still have some of the top soil left and will use it to even out the land near the garage so the bank won't be quite so steep there.

Baking for the election day bake sale continues. I've had such a nasty head cold that I haven't gotten as much made as I'd hoped. The caramel crunch, peanut butter balls, and banana bread are made. I will be making 2 apple pies and 2 pumpkin pies today, but will skip the almond apple braid and funfetti cookies that I had intended to make.

Remember to VOTE tomorrow!

Long time, no post...

2008-10-31T15:39:00.012-04:00

Happy Halloween!

So, I left my DH and DS at home to continue working on the house while I went down to Houston to the International Quilt Market and Festival from Thursday-Monday. (For those not interested in quilts, scroll down and you'll find some info on our house projects.)

On Friday, my sister and I and a friend of hers spent the day attending 14 different 15 or 30 minute classes. These classes were to introduce shop owners to new techniques, new books, new fabric lines, etc. The three of us picked out our favorite classes and went our own way until we met up for lunch. After lunch, we again went in different directions to more classes.

These photos are from a class on knitting fabric into squares that you can then incorporate into your quilt. This photo is actually using yarn to knit the squares. The squares are then quilted with different designs. It was a very interesting effect...(click on photo for a larger view)

The solid squares in this quilt were also knitted, but they were knitted using 1/4" strips of fabric. This was also a very interesting effect...
This class was on spiral quilts and introduced a new book that the teacher had just had published...
There were also classes on purse-making. I attended 2 of these. My sister went to one of them with me and ended up winning the raffle in that class. She was given the new City Bag templates from Nancy Zieman. Very cool! These are some of the purses from the other purse class I attended...
On Saturday (all day) and Monday morning we went to the vendor area and had the opportunity to see all the new items that are on the market now. There were lots of freebies and much walking, and we had a great time.

Later Monday morning and early afternoon, we walked over to the Quilt Festival area where there were many amazing quilts on display. Here are a few of my favorites...

This one won a first place award, I think. Most of the quilts hadn't been judged yet, but this one had a large ribbon next to it. Here is a close-up of the horses...
And here is the info about the quilt...
This chicken was fun, and very beautiful!
Here is the quilt info...
Another beautiful quilt - I think it was done by the same quilters as the horse quilt...
Detail of the wings...
And info on the quilt...
This quilt made me think of "Critter", a donkey who lives near Teresa, a fellow blogger and quilter...
Here is the quilt info...
This one just cracked me up!
Here is the quilt info...
So, with our kids grown, I was missing our pumpkin carving tradition, so I bought myself a pumkin and carved this jack-o-lantern this morning. In case you can't figure out what it is, it is window panes with 3 ghosts peeking out (top one is upside-down)...
Our lawn has come in nicely. This was the first area that DH planted and it looks like a real lawn now!
This is out back, the second area that he planted. It's also looking pretty good...
This is how it looks near the pool. You can just barely see the grass starting to come up. It may not grow anymore until Spring, but at least it has taken root...
The areas on each side of the driveway haven't sprouted yet...
And this area beside the garage still hasn't been seeded yet...
We had a load of topsoil delivered today.
It will be used to fill in these last 2 areas between the front door and the garage...
DH has been working on the HVAC system. He added a more efficient air filter unit and a whole house humidifier.
DH and DS also closed up the pool while I was in Houston. Next year I think we'll close it up before the leaves start to fall...
There - I hope my blog is happier now that it has been updated, and that it no longer feels like it's wearing week-old socks (see October 22nd post comments). :-D

I'm getting ready to go on a baking spree. It's time for the election day bake sale at church and I'm planning to bake apple pie, almond apple braid, caramel crunch, funfetti cookies, pumpkin pies, banana bread, and buckeyes (peanut butter balls). Yummy!

Let there be light! And fans!

2008-10-22T16:44:00.004-04:00

It was very busy around here today - two electricians arrived at 8am and didn't leave until 4:15pm! They came with a HUGE ladder so they could access the fan in the great room. It hasn't worked since it was installed - until now!
Here it is - all in working order now...
Our master bedroom fan/light was installed. We could have used it last month when the weather was really warm. It's nice to not have a bare bulb hanging from our ceiling anymore!
And DD's fan/light also went in today...now that I'm looking at it, I think they put the fan blades in upside-down from what she wanted (they didn't ask, and I didn't even think about telling them). I think the other side of the blades are white and that side was supposed to face down. I'll have to go investigate, which I guess will require a ladder since her ceiling is so tall.
Our whole-house fan at the top of the stairs hasn't been working either. The electrician said that the fan belt had come off.
He fixed the fan and also installed a speed control for it. We finally have an outdoor light at the front of the house. This lamp was installed on top of the post out front...
We had a couple of visitors to the house today. The first one we discovered when the electrician told us that something had strewn the garbage all over the driveway. We must have had raccoons in the night. They made their way into the locked garbage can, spilled everything from the plastic garbage bag all over the driveway, and dragged the torn bag into the yard way over by the pool. What a mess!

Later this morning, I looked out and saw our neighbor's HUGE great dane out by the pool. This guy is so big that I mistook him for a white horse one day while driving down the road! He makes me nervous when I'm walking down for the mail and he comes up behind me and growls at me. :-O
I made myself a tote bag while I did the laundry last night and this morning. I'm going to head to Houston, TX tomorrow for the International Quilt Market and Festival. My sister told me I should bring a tote bag to collect all the freebies that will be given away. This bag is made out of red pet screening and 3 different fabrics.
Here's a close-up...

DH had been busy changing the heating system to a different type of filter, which is more efficient. He is also adding a whole house humidifier to the system.

Come in and have a seat...

2008-10-19T16:44:00.004-04:00

So, on Friday while I was in the kitchen making our usual Friday night homemade pizza, I glanced out the window and saw this...

I guess the birds decided to try out the seat wall on our deck. It looked like they were settling in for the night, but after I took their photo, they flew away. I think they are mourning doves.(Sorry about the quality of the photo - I took it through the window screen, figuring if I opened the door it would scare them away before I could take the picture.)

DH and DS finally finished putting the pool table together. This is the pool table that we bought from Sears for $99. It had to be assembled though, which is probably why it was on sale for so little. DH figures that a lot of people bought one, took it home, saw how much work it was going to be, and took it back to the store!
Here is the first game played on it - you can see in the foreground some of the piles of things we still need to sort through in the basement.
We are making progress though. I've sorted through the large black garbage bags and boxes of linens that were in the powder room and in the guest room closet and in the laundry room. Most of it I've bagged up to give to Goodwill or saved for next years church rummage sale, and the rest will be stored on the guest room closet shelves, guest room bathroom shelves, or in each of the bedroom closets where the sheets, blankets, and towels will be used.

I'm so glad to see that http://houseblogs.net/ is back up and running. Welcome back to those of my readers that get to my blog from Houseblogs and haven't been able to read for a while! If you want to catch up on the posts that you missed, here's the link to my main page: http://bellsrus.blogspot.com.

It's a Western Conifer Seed Bug...

2008-10-16T11:35:00.002-04:00

According to Daniel at http://whatsthatbug.com/, my bug is a Western Conifer Seed Bug. I sent him a photo yesterday morning via his web site and that's the answer he sent me today. They are slightly different than the leaf-footed bug, but related.

Here is more info, if you're interested... http://www.ento.psu.edu/extension/factsheets/western_conifer_seed_bug.htm.

I opened one of the windows in our bedroom this morning while I was exercising, and there were half a dozen of these bugs on the sill outside the screen. I could also just barely see the back legs of one hiding under the window crank! I guess he's found where he's going to hibernate over the winter!

Mystery solved (I think!)...

2008-10-15T11:34:00.003-04:00

I think I've identified the bugs that are on our house and, in some cases, in our house. They are related to the stink bug, which is why my friends thought that's what they were.

Here is the bug I photographed:
And here are a couple of photos that I found on the web...

They are called leaf-footed bugs because their lower legs usually look like leaves. Here is what it says on the Ohio State University web site:

"Certain bugs may become a nuisance in and around the home or cause concern especially when individuals are found indoors. Homeowners may confuse them with some harmful insects associated with the home or humans. Actually, most bugs live outdoors, feeding on plant sap, seeds, fungi and fruit juices with their piercing-sucking mouthparts. Some bugs do feed on the blood of humans and animals, but the great majority are of no direct economic consequence to individuals. They do not cause damage to the household, infest the pantry nor eat fabrics or wood. They do not reproduce indoors. Many accidentally enter the home through windows, doors or other small openings, sometimes near night-lights. Others may enter to overwinter. Many bugs have scent glands on the side of their body used in secreting odors."

Western Pine Cone Leaffooted Bug
"Adults, nicknamed Pine Seed Bug, are about 3/4 inch long, elongate, moderately heavy bodied (resemble squash bugs), reddish, dull brown with a faint, white zig-zag straight line across the center of the wings. The hind legs are flattened (leaf-like) at the tibiae with a white dot on the upper side. They have well developed scent glands with odors pleasant (like pine) and not so pleasant. Individuals can become a nuisance when crawling up the sides of buildings during the autumn months (September and October). Sometimes, they cluster in small groups of five or so, with as many as up to 100 on one house at a time. Bugs can take flight readily and can make a buzzing noise if disturbed. Some overwinter in the house and re-emerge on warm, sunny days during the winter and spring months. The nymphs (immatures) feed by sucking nutrients from the seed cones of pines, Douglas fir and incense cedar. This feeding damage does not hurt the tree, but reduced seed production may result from heavy infestations. Usually a single generation occurs each year. "

We certainly have a lot fir and pine trees on our property, so I'm sure that's why they have decided to hang out around here...

Fall has arrived!

2008-10-15T09:54:00.004-04:00

My apologies for not keeping up with my blog lately. I have absolutely no excuse, except that there haven't been a whole lot of changes around the house. Now, gas prices on the other hand, have dropped down to $2.99/gallon locally!

So, does anyone know what this bug is? I've had a couple of people tell me that it might be a stink bug, but they weren't certain. It's a fairly flat bug when you see it from the side. There are many of them outside our house and a few have found their way indoors. They are fairly slow-moving critters, so I don't freak out when I see one. (you can get a better look by clicking on the photo)

DH put sealer on the deck which has really brought out the color of the wood.
The grass that DH planted out back has sprouted and he planted grass seed near the pool and along one side of the driveway.
We've been enjoying some more gorgeous sunsets lately!
And the leaves have started to change color. DD was home for fall break this past weekend and we drove up to the outlet mall in Grove City, PA, about an hour north. There was much more color on the trees there than here. It's amazing how that small distance can make such a big difference in how many leaves have turned.

This photo was taken from the deck, looking behind the house toward the river...
These trees are out near the pool...
And the trees on the side of the house haven't turned quite as much yet...
Our bathroom tiler is supposed to come back and put a tile backsplash around the tub. He was planning to come on Friday, but I got a call from the KD that the tiler was in the hospital with epoxy grout in his eyes, which prevented him from opening his eyes. I haven't heard anything from them since then...

Join the Army of Women!

2008-10-08T21:05:00.003-04:00

Visit http://www.armyofwomen.org/ and register to participate in breast cancer research studies. The goal is to have an "army" of 1 million women (with or without breast cancer) from which to obtain research study participants whenever a new breast cancer study is started. Participation is always voluntary. If you meet the criteria for the study, and wish to participate, you just reply to the email.

Please spread the word to as many women as you can! Email your friends and relatives, promote it on your blogs, advertise it in your church bulletins...

Thanks, everyone!

Bookshelves, crafty things and more grass!

2008-10-07T20:30:00.005-04:00

Goodness - it's been almost a week since I posted! I've been working on the tall bookcase shelves in the great room. I've never been very good at figuring out how to decorate shelves, but they look better like this than with cardboard boxes stacked on them!
I still need to arrange the things on the shelves in the closet next to the tall bookcase. I unwrapped all the breakable knick knacks when we moved and put them all on these shelves, out of the way. I moved some of the things onto the tall bookcase shelves and will arrange the rest of the items, plus probably put our photo albums in here. The shelves behind the closed doors at the bottom have plastic bins with my greeting cards, paper pads, pens, markers, etc.
I've also been putting my sewing studio to good use. I've been planning a ladies' luncheon for Thursday of this week. Here are the place cards that I created (with an obvious Autumn theme)...
And I made this scarecrow decoration. It is an embroidery design from http://www.embroiderygarden.com/.
Our grass is getting taller and denser. The other areas of the yard that DH planted are just starting to sprout. He planted those about one week after he planted these areas...
I also made myself a new purse. It's been about a year since I've made a new purse, so it was definitely time!
Here's a close-up of the embroidery...

Grass!

2008-10-01T22:36:00.004-04:00

We have grass! It's not all there yet, but it's a start...
We've gotten some rain the past couple of days, so hopefully we'll get some grass in the areas that the sprinklers aren't hitting...
So, I've been working on making some napkins to coordinate with the bowls and plates that I bought the other day. I embroidered leaf outlines on the orange and yellow patterned fabric and backed it with cream fabric.
Here's a close-up...
And another one...
The KD's photographer came today and took a gazillion photos of the kitchen and master bathroom. The KD will use them on his web site or in his store to show to potential clients. The landscapers also stopped by today and took some photos of the patio and deck.

I'll have to take some updated photos of the kitchen now that everything is off the counters!

"One of these things is not like the others..."

2008-09-27T15:34:00.006-04:00

The landscapers showed up again on Friday and pressure washed the deck. They also spread the top soil around...
Looks a lot better, even though DH still has a lot of work to do to make it look like a lawn...
DH took Friday off work to work on the lawn some more. He raked, harrowed, mushroom-mulched, and seeded the back yard. We're getting rain right now, but it's rather heavy. I hope the seed doesn't get washed away...
Remember that Sesame Street song - "one of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong. Can you tell which one is not like the others, before I finish my song?" Can you tell what doesn't belong in the pool photo below?
Here's a really big hint...

Poor little guy - I'm not sure how long he was in there. DH spotted him this morning from the upstairs window. When I tried to get him out with my hand, he moved away and sat on the pool seat...
I had to get him out with the net. He must have been really pooped - he hopped a couple times and then just sat there for a long time.
Later on he hopped away, so I guess he's fine...
I went to Pier 1 the other night and found these dishes on clearance for a really good price and bought enough for 12 people. I hate serving people out of styrofoam or paper bowls and thought these would work well when needed. The only bowls I have 12 of are my good china dishes and they are the really shallow bowls, which are good for salad but, in my opinion, not always so good for soup or chili. The plates coordinated well and were pretty, so I got those also.
The painter showed up this morning to touch up some spots on the stairs, and in our master bathroom, and some exterior spots. He only ended up doing a bit on the stairs. He said he needed to buy more paint for the bathroom and re-paint the whole room. It looked like they had tried to touch up some spots with paint that wasn't thoroughly mixed, and the touch-ups dried a different color from the rest of the room. I don't know why he didn't do the exterior touch-ups. So, he'll be back...

And the landscapers returneth!

2008-09-24T19:56:00.003-04:00

Wow! What a surprise! I thought for sure the landscapers wouldn't be back to finish the patio area for a week or two - it's only been 2 days! They sealed the gaps between the two seat walls and the deck...
And the gaps around the two columns...
The rest of the travertine arrived and they cut the remaining pieces to fill in the triangle...
They didn't seal the gap between the seat wall and the travertine. My guess is that they need to let the pavers that they just installed dry before they fill in this gap...
They filled in the other planter with soil (thought I took a photo of it, but I don't see it anywhere - hmmmmm), but they didn't spread the top soil yet. The Bobcat and some of their other equipment is still here, so I suspect that they will be back tomorrow to finish up.

The landscapers leaveth...

2008-09-22T22:18:00.004-04:00

We have a deck railing! The landscapers showed up a bit before 7:30 this morning and went to work putting the aluminum slats in the deck railing.
Here is a closer view - I really like how it turned out...
They spent some time cleaning up the area and made a bonfire of a lot of the junk that had been lying around. They didn't spread the topsoil yet.

And they still need to finish the pavers. I guess they ordered 10% more pavers than they needed for the area and still ran out. They talked their suppliers into selling them less than a full palette, so when that comes in they'll be back to finish the patio and spread the topsoil.
They still need to fill this planter with soil also... The landscapers loaded up their utility trailer (which has been parked beside our garage since the second week in August) and left about 12:30 today.

DH took the day off work and spent the day on the tractor getting the lawn ready to seed. He seeded part of the lawn area, spread the smelly mushroom mulch on it, and watered it. He'll do another section next weekend.
I started working on the cover for DD's window seat cushion, but didn't get very far. It was nice to be able to hang out in the sewing studio while keeping an eye on the laundry though.

Tractors are so useful!

2008-09-21T17:56:00.004-04:00

We've had some gorgeous weather in the Pittsburgh area lately. Today couldn't have been nicer - highs in the 70's and sunny with a slight breeze now and then. Look at that sky!

When the landscapers finished on Friday, the deck floor was done and the railing had been started...

DH was hard at work today, taking down trees (near the pool/patio - ones that were mostly dead, or just plain ugly) and clearing trees that fell in last week's storm. He tried to knock this tree over with the tractor...
It bent, but it wouldn't go over...
Plan B involved the use of a chain saw...
And some brute strength...
I think he ended up taking down 4-5 trees. Here goes one that he pushed over with the tractor after getting the job started with the chain saw...

TIMBER!
And another one...
The tractor also came in handy for moving the downed trees - this one was a bit off-balance in the front end loader and caused the tractor to tip up off the back left tire.
So the rest of the trees were attached to the front end loader with straps and dragged away...

And now we're waiting for the Steelers to make a comeback!

Deck details...

2008-09-18T22:17:00.004-04:00

The deck is not yet finished, but it's getting there! All the diagonal boards are down and the ends trimmed so that the border boards could be added...
We really like it. The landscape guys have really done a great job with it...
In response to a comment on yesterday afternoons post, I can see how the person could think that there isn't anything for the ends of the boards to connect to. I hope the photos from today will make it more obvious how this deck is constructed. Some of the photos that I posted in past blog entries didn't show the support beams around the edge of the deck. These supports are what the ends of the diagonal boards are connected to...
It took a while for them to get the border boards under the seat wall, but it looks nice now that it's in there!

The step looks great too!
Here's the deck from another angle. The border isn't yet in place on the side that meets the house, the railing needs to be finished ,and the deck needs to be sealed. The landscapers planned to be done tomorrow, but I'm not so sure that will happen.
Here are a couple of close-ups of the screws in the ends of the boards...
and in the middle of the boards. I don't think this deck is going anywhere! :-D
I restocked the refrigerator today. I'm glad I didn't do it last night, as I had planned to, as the refrigerator door was accidentally left ajar last night and I would have had to throw away all the new food. Replacing the food once following the power outage is definitely enough!

We (almost) have a deck!

2008-09-17T17:39:00.003-04:00

Yes, we have had our power restored!!!! It was off for 67 hours, almost to the minute.

On Tuesday, the landscapers showed up with a generator so that they could start work on the deck. They finished this much on Tuesday and also put a coat of sealer on the exposed aggregate around the pool.
Today we had a delivery of mushroom mulch (my apologies about the smell to anyone who comes to visit us) which DH will use when he seeds the lawn.
Today they got most of the deck done. If you are wondering why the boards don't go all the way to the edge, I wondered that too. DH told me that they are planning to put a border around the outer edge of the deck so it will all work out in the end.
This is the last little bit that they need to finish up - I assume they will do that tomorrow. They haven't said anything about when they are going to finish the travertine pavers - we still have a corner that isn't finished because they ran out of pavers.
Hopefully, my updates will get back to a more normal schedule now that we have power again. I'm going to cook dinner tonight, even though I haven't made a run to the grocery store to restock the refrigerator, so I must run...

Remnants of hurricane Ike got us!

2008-09-17T08:45:00.004-04:00

Well, we've been in the dark here in Western PA since Sunday night, around 9:20pm. No electricity, no hot water (we have an electronic starter on our gas water heater!), no phone or internet (we have Vonage phone), etc. I can't open my oven door (I was in the middle of a cleaning cycle), the dishwasher has undrained water in the bottom, as it was running at the time, and yesterday I had to throw all the perishable foods out.

The awning that belongs to our landscaper didn't fare well in the storm...
Our pool was a mess from the storm - those are pieces of styrofoam that were packed around the pavers on the palette...
We lost a couple of trees and some large branches. This tree trunk just twisted right off...
Here is the rest of that tree...
And we lost this medium-sized tree...
But my favorite tree was safe, so that was good!
The landscapers spent Monday cleaning up the debris around the patio area and I scooped out most of the debris from the pool...
Our neighbor lost his barn in the storm. Part of it fell on Friday during some high winds and downpours, but the rest of it fell during the storm on Sunday night.
I don't know when the power will be back on - according to the electric company's web site, it should be back on sometime this afternoon. I'm at King's Restaurant eating breakfast and using their free internet access. My battery only has half-power though, so I don't have too long to post.

I tried to go to the local library yesterday and get a library card. I couldn't, because they were running a program on their computer that they couldn't interrupt. I was told to call them on Friday and see if the program was done running! They let me get on one of their computers for 30 minutes (only if I gave them my license to hold - the computer was all of 2 feet away from the checkout desk). I asked them if I could sit at one of their tables, plug in my computer to charge, and do some work offline - no, you can't do that here! Unbelievable! Fortunately, I remembered that I have a power converter in my car and was able to plug my computer into that to charge.

I'm about out of battery - not sure when I'll get back on to post again, but hopefully soon!

Uh-oh! No more pavers!

2008-09-11T21:28:00.004-04:00

So, the patio still isn't done - so much for my estimate of another half day to finish it! On Tuesday they added another 3 rows, or so...
By Wednesday afternoon, they were down to this small area to finish. DH was fairly certain that they had run out of pavers. We had 4 palettes of pavers and he only saw a few pieces left. When none of the landscapers showed up this morning, we knew DH had been right about them running out of pavers! The other 3 landscapers will be back next week to work on (and hopefully finish!) the deck. I'm not optimistic about the pavers getting done anytime soon - I'm sure they will have to order another whole palette and that will take some time to get delivered.
My sewing studio is done for now. All the boxes are unpacked and I think I've found places for everything to live. Here is the sewing table (which will eventually be replaced by a rectangular table which will support quilt bulk better than the oval table), the computer table (which is behind the sewing table so that when I am embroidering I can see the color changes on the computer instead of wasting paper by printing out the color changes), and in the back is my pressing table (which is actually my portable folding handbell table with a small pressing pad on it - eventually I will have a full-size tabletop that will be covered in batting and muslin).
Here is a better shot of the current pressing table with several tubs of fabric beneath it. A lot of this fabric is only used for church sewing projects (school kits for 3rd world countries, adult bibs for senior citizens, quilts for babies, etc.), so these tubs will either stay where they are with a fabric skirt to hide them, or they may end up in the basement.

Here is my other handbell table which is currently being used for my cutting table/planning area. I need to have a counter-height table and a stool for this area of the sewing studio.
I emptied most of the master bathroom boxes today. I still have this box to empty, but it's good to have most of the boxes gone.
I have 2 more bathroom cabinet drawers that need to have full-extension hinges put on them. The cabinet guy is coming tomorrow morning (at 8am!) to install them.
And I'm hoping that all of this stuff will fit in those 2 drawers, but I'm not going to hold my breath!
The tax lady showed up at the door yesterday to do a tax assessment. So far, we've only been paying taxes on the property. She asked questions about the house and then took measurements on the outside, so I suspect we'll be getting a new tax bill soon. I was happy with just paying for the property, but I knew that had to end. :-D

Golf balls and outlets and deer, oh my!

2008-09-08T19:03:00.004-04:00

I saw a couple of deer down behind the house today. When I walked back from the mailbox, there were two deer (not sure if they were the same 2) at the end of the driveway. One ran but I was able to get within about 10 feet of the other one before he ran off. (Click on the photo to see them better.)
There were only 2 guys working on the patio today. They only worked on the travertine tile and are almost finished. It will take about another half day to finish, I think. Here is what they have done...
And here is what they have left to do...
So, my sewing studio is almost done. Here is the closet...
It still looks messy, but I only have a couple of boxes left to empty, plus these 5-6 boxes that need to be carried down to the basement. The two on the right are packed with things for next year's rummage sale at church...

This pile in the corner will stay in boxes for a while. DH's grandfather built a corner cabinet years ago from trees on his property. The cabinet needs some TLC before it can be put to use in my sewing studio. DH's list of things to do is very long, so I'm guessing it will be a while before he gets around to working on the cabinet. Most of the items that will go in the cabinet are crafting supplies that I don't use all that often, so it's OK for them to sit in boxes for now.
Here is the photo of my sewing studio chair that I promised to post...
And I also said I would post a photo of the black outlet covers in the kitchen. They blend in with the granite much better than the white ones that used to be there.
This last photo collage is for DD. She has been collecting golf balls from the property ever since we bought it last year. Here are 4 more for her collection, but she has to find them herself when she gets home on school break. :-D (Hint: they are all along the driveway...)

All you need is a screwdriver...

2008-09-07T16:10:00.007-04:00

I guess I haven't updated since Thursday morning - sorry about that! Here is the patio area, looking toward the back of the garage. The landscapers started the tile on Thursday and by the end of their day on Friday were about halfway done with the tile. They also attached the sandstone to the seatwalls of the deck.
Here is where they were at the end of work on Thursday. They had recently sprayed the tile with water, so it's looking a bit spotty...
And at the end of work on Friday...

They filled in one of the planter areas with dirt...
And added trim boards above the steps...
And more trim boards on the far side of the deck where the railing will be...
I really hope they finish up this week!

So, my long-lost desk handle (for the sewing studio) has been located. It is the one that couldn't be put on when the rest were put on because it didn't have any threads inside. DH has a friend with a set of punches and he punched threads into it for us (I hope that's the correct terminology!). I asked DH about the knob the other day and he said he thought he gave it back to me a long time ago, before we moved. I didn't remember seeing it since he took it to have it fixed. Fortunately, DH located it in his office boxes while he was unpacking things the other day!

So, I told him I could handle putting on the knob. In my defense, if the screw had been the right length I could have put the knob on. The screw that was with the knob was too short. I found another one that turned out to be too long. DH had to get his handy drill and make a recess for the head of the too-short screw to fit into so it would be the right length. I guess all it takes is the right tools for the job...and it took more than just a screwdriver!

The sewing studio is taking longer to organize than I imagined it would. In this house, I have combined the office supplies (paper, notebooks, bill-paying things, calculater, etc.) that used to live in a closet near DH's office, with my sewing studio. That wasn't the original plan, but seemed to be an obvious place for all those things since I pay the bills and use most of the stationary supplies. It has required me to rethink where everything will go in my sewing studio, however, and has made me wish for the closet I had in my old sewing studio (DH built me a walk-in closet there that was about 8'x6').

My current closet is about 1/3 the size (it looked bigger than that on paper!) and I'm having trouble figuring out where to put all my sewing, craft, and office supplies. It will all work out...I'm just having to sort through everything and throw out some things, and box up things for next years church rummage sale. I should have done this culling out a long time ago, so it's all for the best. It just takes lots of time...

Fun find and patio progress...

2008-09-04T09:57:00.004-04:00

After finishing the concrete around the pool yesterday, the landscapers laid out the tile pattern...

The step is done...
And the other step is done...
All the concrete around the pool is now finished...
The sandstone topper for the seat wall was on, but not attached...
DH worked on the wiring for the pool light last night after he got home from work. He also hooked up my computer and TV in the sewing studio, so now I have something to listen to while sorting through boxes.

DS and I were busy yesterday driving to Monroeville to pick up DH's latest find. I am married to the master of deal finders and he found this for $99.00 at Sears...

It was originally priced at $800. and went on sale for $400, then down to $200, and now any stores that still have them in stock are selling them for $99. The Monroeville store still had some, so we were able to get one. It actually has gotten very good reviews, even though it doesn't have a solid slate bed. We figured that even if just the kids use it, we'll get our moneys worth out of it. It will go down in the basement, once we clear enough boxes out of the way and DH finds a spare 3-4 hours to assemble it (in other words, we might have it up before DD comes home for Fall break in October, but I'm not going to hold my breath)!

The landscapers are busy bees this morning. There are 5 guys working instead of the normal 3. Two are working on the travertine tile and the other 3 are working on the sandstone for the top of the seat walls. We're ready for this project to be done!

Beep, beep, beep...

2008-09-03T08:57:00.005-04:00

(that's the sound of the construction equipment backing up at 7:20am, right beneath our bedroom window!)

The landscapers poured half of the concrete around the pool yesterday. It is exposed aggregate and is not dry in this photo...

In the afternoon, the landscapers built the forms for the steps to the deck, which will be exposed aggregate concrete. This is the longer one...
And here is the shorter step...
We wet the travertine to bring out the color. Here it is next to the concrete...
DS and I went shopping yesterday. I made him go to Bed, Bath, & Beyond with me. He said the only thing worse would have been making him go to Joanns with me! I found this rug for the guestroom bath (I still need a new wastebasket, tissue holder, and soap dispenser for this room)...
I also found some hand towels for the powder room. I bought this rug which I really love, but the size/shape isn't right for this bathroom. I do think the colors work well though, so I'm going to return this one today and search for something similar.
And here is the mirror that we bought on Monday for the powder room...

The landscapers are busy this morning pouring the concrete on the other side of the pool. I don't know what we'll do when we don't have them arriving at 7:20 every morning. I think we've grown accustomed to waking up to the sounds of construction vehicles' backup beeps, drills, saws, and every other imaginable tool sound. The fog was so thick outside this morning that I didn't think they would be able to get anything done, but it's burned off now and the sun is shining.

Getting ready to finish the patio area...

2008-09-01T21:32:00.005-04:00

The wood has arrived to finish the deck. It is Brazilian Teak (cumaru) which is the same wood we have on the floors in the great room, family room, and DH's office. The landscapers will be back tomorrow to do some more work. I don't know whether they will be pouring the concrete around the pool tomorrow, or working on something else. Here is the cumuru...

The travertine pavers have also arrived. Here is one up against the brick on the back of the garage. The colors in the travertine don't show up well in this photo and show up better when you wet the stone.
Here is a photo of the patio which shows most of the yard. The area that is currently covered with concrete will have the travertine pavers on top. The area around the pool will be exposed aggregate concrete.
While my mom was here we stopped at Joanns to buy fabric to cover my hope chest which is in the guest room. This is the old fabric that I took off the chest...
And I recovered it with this striped fabric...
We went out and found a mirror for the guest bathroom when my mom was here. Today we went out and found a mirror for the powder room. We struck out on finding mirrors for our master bathroom however, so I'll have to keep using my little pink-handled hand mirror, leaning against the wall. It makes doing my hair very interesting...

I've been doing some more sorting and unpacking in the sewing studio. I also spent some time trying to figure out what to do for a cutting table and a pressing table. I need some more book storage, so I think I'll try to find a couple of short bookcases and use them as the legs for a tabletop and use that for my cutting table. For the pressing table, I'll cover a piece of plywood with batting and muslin and figure out something to use for legs. I've seen some table legs at IKEA that might work well.

And the most amazing thing that happened this week...local gas prices are down to $3.49/gallon!

Home again, home again...

2008-08-28T20:51:00.005-04:00

Sorry to be MIA for a couple of days, but I drove my mom back to Northern New York State yesterday (8 hours) and drove back home today.

On Tuesday, while Mom was still here, we tackled some of the sewing studio unpacking. I forgot to take "before" photos, so these are "in progress" photos. This is the larger side of the room...
and the smaller side of the room...
The closet is filling up fast! I'll have to rearrange things after I get everything unboxed.
Mom was the expert box opener and made short order of breaking down the boxes after they were empty...
The landscapers finished the second seatwall (on one side, at least)...
They also worked on extending the exposed aggregate concrete that will be around the pool so there will be a strip of it along the edge of the pavers.

There was a gorgeous sunset on Tuesday night...
Must have been the calm before the storm...
On the way home from NYS, I stopped at the Grove City outlets to pick up some spice tins from Pfaltzgraf. I was planning to order them online, but the shipping charge was so outrageous I decided to stop at the outlets sometime to pick some up. I didn't get quite enough, so I'll have to get back up there sometime and buy more for my baking spices. These are my cooking spices, all labeled and in their tins and in the drawer near the cooktop...
The edge of the covers on the tins have both sprinkle and pour areas and there are magnets on the bottom of the tins. I'm going to have DH find me a piece of metal to fit the drawer so the spice tins will stay where I put them.
While I was gone, the landscapers finished putting the stone on the second seat wall and then grouted both seat walls. The concrete around the pool wasn't able to be poured because of the rain. The wood for the deck and the pavers have arrived, so they can work on those next week.

DH spent a couple of hours replacing the white outlets and switches on the granite backsplash in the kitchen with black outlets and switches - what a huge improvement! I didn't get a photo yet. He didn't get enough, so I'll wait and take a photo after they are all changed to black.

Bits and pieces...

2008-08-25T23:31:00.006-04:00

My mom and I mostly goofed off yesterday while DH ran wires around our house to various electronic devices. After church and lunch at Eat 'n Park, Mom and I went for a swim in the pool. The temp was 79-80 degrees and felt nice after we got in. Those first few minutes were a tad chilly, but not nearly as cold as it was when DD and I swam in it last week! Now I have a sunburn...

Sunday evening, Mom and I headed to Leechburg, PA to hear the Kiski Community Band play a concert in the gazebo. It was a very nice evening with enjoyable music.
The landscapers were here bright and early this morning. They worked on the seat walls (part of the deck) today and got the stone put on one of the walls...
They got started on the second seat wall, but didn't get it finished...
And DH got to take a dip in the pool tonight. The water temp was up to 90 degrees this evening and was about 87 when he was swimming.
Mom and I did some shopping for the house today, as well as stopping for groceries. My goal for tomorrow is to get some work done in my sewing studio. For some reason, every time I start to work on it I get sidetracked with something else that needs to be done.

Don't you love vacuum tracks?

2008-08-22T20:32:00.003-04:00

I'm back! The pool looked good enough to jump in - well, almost. And I didn't jump in it because DH had said he was going to shock the pool and I didn't know whether or not he had already done it. The landscapers have prepared the pool for the concrete (exposed aggregate) surround...
The retaining wall for the flowerbed is in now. The white pipe in the foreground is what the water from the pool and patio will drain into. It will become more obvious after the concrete is poured and the pavers are in. Just trust me for now - it's a drain...
The pool equipment is all hooked up and the pump was running when I got home...
The vacuum even works! The pool was so dirty that I could see the tracks that the vacuum made as it wandered around the pool! DH used the net to get most of the stones out of the pool before he started the vacuum, but every now and then the vacuum would stop because it choked on a stone.
And the satellite dish was installed while I was gone. I'm hoping we will have better reception than we had with the cable. I missed parts of many Olympic gymnastics routines because the TV program would break up right at the very worst possible time! :-(
I think the next few days will be spent working in my sewing studio, unpacking the boxes (I'll make my mom help me!). My chair arrived, but I didn't get a photo of it yet. I'll wait and take a picture once DH and DS carry it upstairs to the sewing room...

Wow! Lots of progress today!

2008-08-19T20:54:00.003-04:00

We said goodbye to the POD today - DS was not sorry to see it go. He's done a lot of hauling of boxes and furniture this summer...
My backsplash is finally finished! The granite guys replaced the backsplash behind the cooktop (it had a very jagged cut in it and was not done well) and finally installed the backsplash behind the sink. Now we just need to get some dark outlet and switch plates so they don't stick out so badly...

The fireplace guys were also working with granite today as they installed the verde butterfly granite pieces to cover the firebox in the fireplace. Once the grout dries and lightens up, it should blend in well...
Here is a close-up shot of the granite. Now we need some doors and I think we'll be all set.
The landscapers poured the concrete this morning in the patio area. This concrete will be the base for the travertine pavers that we are putting in.
Gravel was brought in and packed down around the pool, and leveled. DH decided to hire the electrician who worked on our house to do the pool wiring. DH could do the wiring, but wasn't able to buy the small amounts of wires and other things he would need to do it, whereas the electrician probably already has the right materials for the job. The inspector is coming on Thursday to inspect the electrical and will come back later to inspect the deck, and the fence and security system for the pool.
I love it when we make progress!

The case of the missing pipe...

2008-08-19T10:04:00.004-04:00

It appears that the water we were adding to the pool the past few days was leaking out into the ditch that contains the pipes coming from the pool, which will eventually be hooked up to the filter and other equipment alongside the garage. DH fished out 4 of the flexible pipes, and found one more stationary pipe at the bottom.

He thought there should be one more flexible pipe, so he attached the air compressor to the pipe marked "return" and I watched to see which return in the pool the bubbles came out of. It turned out that bubbles came out of both returns, so there must be a T in the pipe somewhere between the end of the pipe and the pool. Mystery solved...
The landscapers laid mesh down on the ground yesterday in preparation for pouring concrete today. The pavers will be installed on top of the layer of concrete.
And DH used the backhoe on his tractor to dig a deep hole, and put this pole in the ground (with concrete). The satellite dish will be attached to this pole and then DH can run wires from there to the house. He didn't want the dish up on the roof and thinks we will have better site lines to the south if we put it on the pole. We can then plant shrubs and trees to block the view of the pole from the driveway.
I'm headed up to northern NYS tomorrow to see some of my siblings and to bring my mom back for a visit. We made my mom a photo book for her 80th b'day gift (a few months early) and the books were shipped to me, so I'm going to deliver them (each of the siblings ordered at least 1 copy too). The book was supposed to be ready to give our mom at the family reunion on the 10th, but it was delayed at the printers, so she hasn't seen it yet.

The granite guys are supposed to show up today to install the final section of backsplash behind the kitchen sink, but I haven't heard from them yet. Later today, a couple of guys are supposed to install granite strips around the firebox in the fireplace. And the POD will be picked up today - it will be good to get it out of the driveway!

Brrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-08-16T21:31:00.007-04:00

DD and I walked down to the ponds this morning to see if we could find any fish. I snapped a photo of the patio side of the house on our way down to the ponds...

This is the larger of the two ponds. We saw only one small fish and it didn't look like a koi. We've been told the pond was stocked with 1000 koi fish by our neighbor. I have yet to see anything that looks like a koi.
There are some very nice cattails at the pond however...
This is the smaller pond. There are lots of frogs in this pond. We can hear them jump in the pond as we walk around the edge, but they sure are hard to see!

We saw this wasp nest hanging by the back door. We have several of them near the front door also. I had never seen a tube-shaped nest before...
DH started a bonfire tonight to burn all the packing paper and boxes from our move. There was a lot to get rid of!
The pool is filled about half way now...
DD decided to go wading in the pool this afternoon. She said it felt pretty good. She swept some of the stones down to the deep end.
After dinner we loaded the car with DD's "stuff" so we can deliver it to her new college apartment tomorrow. Then DD decided it was time to go for a swim. She and I went in the pool and it was VERY COLD!! She made it all the way in first. It took me a while to work up the courage to get all the way in, but eventually I made it. Afterwards, I ran myself a nice hot bath to warm up!

DH has been working on getting the projector and screen up and working. Tonight we were able to watch some of the Olympics on the big screen. The screen is hidden up behind the valance when it's not in use.

The weather was just beautiful today and I opened all the downstairs windows, turned on the whole house fan, and let the breezes cool the house. It felt wonderful! The whole house fan really did a great job of drawing the heat up the stairs and out of the house, and it also drew the cooler breezes in from outdoors.

Progress on the patio...

2008-08-15T20:32:00.010-04:00

On Wednesday at the end of the day, this is what the patio area looked like. The beams for the deck were laid and a lot more dirt was moved around and packed down around the pool.
By Thursday, the crosspieces had been attached...
And by the end of today, we don't have a whole lot that's changed since yesterday. Those boards sticking up on the far side of the deck are different from the ones I posted a photo of on Tuesday. They ended up cutting those off even with the crossboards and then attached new boards for the railing. They also have strung some string around the yard. I'm not sure what it is for. It may be prep work for the pavers that will be going down.

We started filling the pool with water. This is how much is filled after running the hose all day long. We have a ways to go yet...
I'm making progress again on the boxes. DH, DS, and DD carried all the boxes from the POD that had been stacked in the entryway up to my sewing studio, so the entryway looks clear now. Yesterday I think I emptied all the kitchen boxes from the POD, except for a couple of large boxes that were mis-delivered to the basement, and today I emptied all the POD boxes in the music room, so that room is looking better again.

The chair we ordered for my sewing studio is ready to be picked up at the furniture store distribution center, but that is an hour's drive each way. I called the store to see if we could get it delivered to the local store for pick-up and for 15 bucks they will do that. That will save us the time and gas to drive to the distribution center, and is well worth the money! I had to stop by the store and pay the delivery charge today and my chair will be ready for pick-up next Thursday. Maybe I can get some of my sewing studio boxes emptied by then!

Lots of guys here again!

2008-08-12T19:23:00.006-04:00

So, I had a houseful of people here working again today. Two electricians connected the whole house fan and fixed the way the puck lights in the great room were wired. We wanted them wired so that the front ones were on 2 switches and the back lights were on 2 switches. They now work correctly, so we can turn off the front lights when we are watching the projector and leave the back lights on. Here is the whole house fan, which is mounted on the attic level in the hallway. It will suck the hot air up through the staircase and vent it out of the house.

One of the builder's guys was here to work on several things. He recessed the medicine cabinet in the kids' bathroom. I forgot to ask the electrician to hang the light the other way up (and I'm not positive that this particular fixture can be hung in either direction). We need to do something different with that light, as I don't like the way it looks right now. I think the medicine cabinet looks a lot better recessed though.
He also installed the grab bar in the guest bathroom, for times when we have older guests here, to help them get in and out of the tub. He installed the push plates on my pantry door and removed some stray stain from the grids in the French doors so it doesn't look messy from the outside.
The landscapers have been busy working on the deck off the French doors in the family room. These concrete block structures are seat walls which will be covered with the same stone that is on the fireplace, columns, and chimney. There will be steps in-between the two seat walls, and between the one on the right and the house. I think the tall poles in the back will form a guardrail to keep people from falling off the edge there (there's probably a 6', or more drop-off there). I'm guessing they are too tall and will be cut down to the right height after the deck is finished.
The pool is definitely not ready to swim in - yuck. DH has to hook up the filter and skimmer and all that other pool equipment and the concrete will need to be poured around the outside. The pool then needs to be inspected, so it will be 2-3 weeks before we can use it. DD is sad that it won't be ready to swim in before she returns to college next weekend.
The cabinet guy was also here today. He installed most of the rest of my full-extension, soft-close drawer glides. He was short by 2 and will need to come back and do those, plus the ones for the master bathroom. I love the full extension, but don't really care about the soft close feature. Unfortunately, the cabinet company doesn't offer full extension without the soft close, so I had to get both. While he was here, he also added the upper moulding around the one cabinet that was missing it and he worked on the vent over the cooktop. It's not nearly as noisy now and he fixed it on the inside so that you don't see all the equipment up inside it.

I made it to the store yesterday and bought some storage bins to put inside the closet (closed storage part) in the great room. Today I sorted all the stationary supplies, greeting cards, pads of paper, etc. into the bins and got them put away.

It was starting to look like I was making progress with emptying the boxes, at least on the first floor, but now that DS is emptying out the POD all the boxes are piling up again.

"Take the long way home..."

2008-08-11T09:45:00.006-04:00

What a day yesterday was! We left at 7:30am to drive to Warners, NY (near Syracuse) for my family reunion. We originally intended to drive part of the way on Saturday and get a hotel room, but decided to stay here and get some more things done around the house. Other than having horrible storms to drive through from Buffalo to Rochester, we made good time. It took us 6 hours to get up there.

We had fun catching up with our Schnauber/Robinson relatives, most of whom we haven't seen in several years. We were celebrating my Mom's 80th birthday because all 5 of her "kids" were there and many of the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It was a surprise for her (especially since her real 80th isn't until February, but the weather is too "iffy" to get all of us together in the winter) and she couldn't figure out why people were wishing her a Happy Birthday (until the cake came out)! She thought her brother had put them up to it!
We had a great time with our Texas Snowball Fight - if you've never done this, buy a bunch of bags of large marshmallows and go at it! Adults and kids alike all enjoyed this...

Just to keep this post house-related...my brother and SIL moved into their house a couple of years ago. This is the bathtub in the master bathroom. It is about 7' long and 5' wide! My SIL puts all her grandkids in there in the winter so they can swim when it's too cold to be outside in the pool!
So, we left the reunion about 5:45pm and drove for a while without any problems. DD took over the driving and shortly after that, we found ourselves in traffic that was at a standstill. It took us 35 minutes to go exactly 2 miles! We couldn't figure out why - no signs of accidents, or anything else. Two more times that traffic came to a standstill, still without any sign of the reason. We finally decided to get off the thruway and attempt to get somewhere on the back roads. We got on route 21 south and figured we would eventually get to 17 West and from there to 90 and 79 south.

Somewhere around the small town of Cheshire, we had to pull off the road because the downpours were so severe DH couldn't see the road, and it started to hail! Here is a shot out my window of the "river" that was flowing on the sidewalk next to our car...
And this is what the street looked like after the hail stopped falling...it looks more like winter than summertime!

We finally came to route 390 and took it down to route 17. We stopped for a very late dinner (9:30pm) in Hornell, NY at a Friendly's. We had a lot of fog between there and Erie, but DH made good time. I took over the driving near Meadville and stopped for gas in Butler, PA. I decided to stay on the back roads instead of getting back on the highway. Maybe I shouldn't have done that...

I was pulled over by the police as I drove through downtown Butler at 1:45am. This is the first time I've ever been pulled over for anything but I was so tired, I didn't even care. It turns out that they pulled us over for a burned out tail light, but it took them a while to get around to telling us that. They ran our plates when they pulled us over and the license plate came up on their system as being inactive. They had us get out of the car so they could show us that the license plate didn't match what was on the registration, but the VIN number did match. They were very confused, as were we. The plate number on the registration was very close to our actual plate number, so perhaps it was just a typo by someone. We've had this car and plate for about 8 years, so it's amazing no one ever noticed before. I'm sure the policemen thought they had drug dealers, or a stolen car, or something when they couldn't run the plates!

We finally made it home at 2:30am. Our 6 hour trip had turned into 8 hours and 45 minutes! I'm still not sure if we would have been better off staying on the Thruway in all the traffic jams, or if we made the right decision to get off. I'm just glad to be home! (We decided that the traffic jams were due to torrential rainfall and hail along the Thruway near Buffalo and Rochester.)

The landscaper and his crew are here this morning working on the patio area beside the kitchen and family room. Needless to say, we didn't get to sleep in very long this morning, and DD had to be at marching band camp at 8am. It's going to be a long day! I'll try to get some photos of the work the landscaper has been doing and post them later today, or tomorrow.

Can I just tell them all to go away?

2008-08-07T23:21:00.009-04:00

What a day yesterday was! Every time I turned around the doorbell rang! We started out with the landscaper and his guys arriving with the backhoe to dig the pool hole a bit deeper. The pool guys also reappeared and stayed all day.

After the hole was dug deeper, the pool guys spread gravel on the bottom...
A trench was also dug off of one corner of the deep end of the pool and filled with gravel and dirt, as a drain for water that might be under the pool.
After the hole was prepared, the pool guys drove the pool up the driveway and between the trees and the end of the garage.
There is a 3' deep trench right near the right-side tires of this truck as he is driving through there. The pool guy who was guiding the driver thought the driver was going to cause the side of the trench to collapse and that the truck was going to end up falling into the trench - that would have been very, very bad. Thankfully, he made it safely through...
The sky started to darken while they were moving the pool to the back of the house. I was certain we were in for a storm...
Once the pool was around back (well, actually it's on the side of our house, not the back), the crane was attached and the pool was turned right-side up...

And there it is!
Now the sky is getting really dark - I'm afraid we're in for a downpour...
The rain held off and the pool was attached to the crane on both sides now...
And lifted into place... And then the rains came pouring down and we all ran for cover!
Five minutes later, the sky was clear again...
After many adjustments, the pool was finally in place!
While all that was happening with the pool, the kitchen backsplash people were here again to try to get the backsplash installed behind the sink - still no go. The right-hand end of the sink piece doesn't abut to the left-hand end of the cooktop backsplash and they aren't quite sure what to do about it. Our KD said he would get the general manager of the granite place involved and get them to resolve it. The granite guys were here all morning and into the early afternoon.

The glass people arrived to correct the door on our shower which was hinged on the wrong side. They were probably here for an hour in mid-afternoon.

I had package deliveries from UPS, FedEx, and the mailman. Someone showed up on a large truck with a delivery of wood. I decided it must be for the deck in the patio area and had to figure out where to have him dump it off his truck, as it couldn't go near the patio because of the pool install.

And then our dear neighbor dropped by on his lawn tractor for a chat. I saw him again last night after I walked down to the road to get our mail. He asked me if I wanted to go for a ride in his car around his golf course while he took his dog on orientation (which, I guess, gets the dog used to knowing where he can go on the property once he is let off his leash). He pointed out the different trees on the golf course and told me which ones are also on our property and that we shouldn't cut them down, or accidently mow over the plants that are there. Prior to our property becoming a golf course, it was a tree and plant nursery. I asked him if there were any hickory nut trees and he drove me over to see this huge hickory tree and said I was welcome to any hickory nuts that I wanted. Yum...

I was actually able to get the guest room in order while all these things were going on in and out of my house yesterday! It was the only room on the first floor that still needed to be arranged (except for DH's office, which he gets to arrange) and with all the people ringing the doorbell I didn't want to be upstairs. I did run up to do a couple of loads of laundry, however, and I really love my new washer and dryer. They are both high efficiency and they hold huge loads of clothes. The dryer keeps turning on for a few seconds every couple of minutes to keep clothes from getting wrinkled in case you can't get to the dryer right away to remove them.

And before the night ended, DH had to play with the Bobcat before it goes back to the rental company...
Today, the landscaping guys are working on the patio area. I think (I hope) that is all that is going on, other than the bobcat getting picked up by the rental company. I need a vacation!

The pool men cometh...

2008-08-06T22:13:00.006-04:00

and the pool men leaveth...without installing the pool.

The Bobcat rental arrived on time this morning. DH wants to take it for a spin...

The pool men arrived with the pool, I think around noontime while I was out running errands.
They decided that the hole that our landscaper had dug for the pool wasn't deep enough (by 6-10"), and the landscaper couldn't get the backhoe here again until tomorrow morning, so the pool men left. Fortunately, they are returning in the morning. I was afraid they would say, "So long. We're going back to NJ and will be back in 3 or 4 weeks." Here is a close-up of the pool, still upside-down on the truck.
This is a shot inside the pool - you can see the tile edge and a couple of the seats that are in the pool.
When I returned from the grocery store and the bank, these 2 deer were watching me get out of the car. They didn't seem to be very afraid...they must know that I like them, unlike DH who would have chased them away. :-D (if you click on the photo, you can see them better)
Our table and chairs arrived without incident this morning. The rectangular table fits the space much better than the oval one did. We put one of the two leaves in it - I think the maximum length with both leaves is something like 104", so we should be able to fit quite a few people at it.

The UPS man has been trying to find us for a couple of days. We finally were able to talk to a real person on the phone and give them directions, so hopefully whatever package they have will get delivered tomorrow.

DH and DS have been unloading the POD, but with all the mud from yesterday's and last night's rains, it's slow-going. Most of the boxes with my sewing studio and kitchen things are way at the back (or is it the front?) of the POD and will be the last to come out. I guess I still have enough boxes to unpack without getting any more from the POD, but I was hoping to send some more things to the church for Saturday's rummage sale.

The delivery men cometh!

2008-08-04T11:02:00.006-04:00

I thought I would give a quick update on things while I wait for the delivery of the PODS unit. I always get a phone call before delivery people arrive, because even with directions they can never find us! Here is the PODS delivery truck backing up the driveway, after 2 calls to find out how to find us. The POD is full of things that we packed up before we put our old house on the market. There is extra furniture that we could do without until after the move - DD's desk and a bookcase from the guestroom, etc. - and her Irish dance floor, boxes full of things from the kitchen and dining room that we wouldn't be using until after the move, and lots of stuff from the basement. I'm hoping to be able to sort through some of it and send some things to our church rummage sale this week.
Hmmmm...seems they loaded the POD onto the truck in the wrong direction - the door will face the house and we wanted it to face away from the house.
There wasn't room in the concrete area of the driveway for the delivery man to turn the POD around, but he managed to do it on the gravel part of the driveway and the dirt off to the side...
Ahhhh, that looks better!
Safe and sound, and ready to be unloaded!
Earlier this morning, the Lowes guys arrived to deliver the washer and dryer. They were awesome! Very friendly, very careful, very thorough...they even asked if I wanted them to switch the opening on the dryer door so it would hinge on the left instead of the right, which is great for the setup we have. It was a bit of a tight squeeze to get the washer in there, with the door right beside it and 2 delivery guys trying to finagle it into place.

The Lowes delivery men didn't ask for directions to the house. When I commented on it, the one guy said that he had already made a bunch of deliveries out to our house during construction, so when he saw the address he knew exactly where he was going. I was amazed!

Some of the rooms are coming together. The music room is pretty much set up, except for the tall bookcase that needs to be carried down to the basement sometime.

Here is the other side of the music room. The long tables along the window wall are my handbell tables.
This is the family room. I finally emptied all the boxes from the family room and kitchen, but I'm sure once DS starts unloading the POD I'll get a bunch of new boxes to unload.
I found a treasure today! There are 2 areas near the front door that haven't yet been filled with top soil. There are broken bricks and other trash there that will probably be buried under the top soil. In the pile near the back...
look what I found! I saved a whole box full of various shades of blue glass tile and some dark tile that I think is slate. I don't know where they came from, or why they are there as we have nothing like them in our house. My only guess is that the tile guy tore them out of someone else's house (they have drywall stuck to the back of them, which I hope I can scrape or soak off) and he was looking for a place to dump them. I figured I could probably make a tile-topped table or a serving tray out of them...
OK, the POD is delivered now. I'm going to grab some lunch and run out to the store. I keep having to ask DD to stop somewhere and buy milk, as I haven't had a chance to get to the store since we moved. My list is a mile long! Even DS commented on how long it was, and he usually doesn't notice things like that.

It looks like we also had a delivery of stone for the pool. I don't know when they snuck in and unloaded, but I just looked out the kitchen window and saw the pile of stone in the field near the side yard.

Tomorrow looks like a fairly calm day (the kitchen cabinet guy may put in an appearance), but Wednesday we have delivery of the dining table and chairs scheduled, the pool installation, and the delivery of the backhoe that attaches to our tractor.

The gas man cometh!

2008-08-01T21:48:00.004-04:00

The gas man arrived about 8:45 this morning and started hooking our gas line (which had already been run from the house to the end of our driveway and then down the semi-private road for a couple of hundred yards) to the main gas line. He stopped back at 11:45 to tell me he was done, but that the plumber needed to come back and bleed the air out of the 1000+ feet of line and then start the water heater for us. The plumber arrived at 2:45 and about an hour later we finally had hot water! What a relief! No more cold showers. I started the full dishwasher and also washed a bunch of dishes by hand in the sink.

The arrival of the gas was very good timing, as DD has a friend from Norway spending the night and I'm sure she will appreciate being able to take a hot shower.

The landscape man cometh too! He arrived around the same time as the gas man, but with much more equipment and several men, and he stayed much later. They spent the day digging a big hole in our backyard where the pool will go. The pool is being delivered next Wednesday. It is being driven here on a large truck from New Jersey and will be installed on the same day. I guess we have to provide a Bobcat and something like 6 tons of gravel and the pool people will get the pool installed.

They also dug a trench for the pipes from the pool to the equipment area...
I made homemade pizza for the first time in this house. The oven cooked it faster than the oven in our other house. It took 15 minutes instead of 19, and I didn't even have it set for convection bake.

Our bedroom is looking a bit more organized. I went up last night and moved furniture around and emptied a couple of boxes. Today I worked on the kitchen, family room, and music room. Bit by bit...

Flies galore!

2008-07-31T17:46:00.002-04:00

Oh, dear - someone please make these flies go away! I guess that's what you get when you have someone spreading smelly topsoil on the same day that the doors are all open so the movers can unload the moving van. I swatted a bunch of them, but there are a gazillion more, I think!

So, I spent the day unpacking boxes. Here is a photo of the vent over the cooktop. It is 1000 cfm and doesn't block my view of the family room like a regular vent would have...

The granite backsplashes look nice for the most part. There are a couple of spots where it looks like they filled in gaps with some kind of caulk, or something. We may have to complain about that. Here is the backsplash near the beverage area...
And the splash behind the main sink still needs to be done...
I took a photo of the scratch that I put on the floor when I moved the table. It's about 5" long, I think...oops...
The plumbers were here today and hopefully fixed whatever was leaking into the basement. They thought it was the ice maker. They also ran a test to prove that the gas lines weren't leaking so the gas company will come and finish hooking up our gas so we can shower and run the dishwasher. We are supposed to have hot water sometime tomorrow morning (fingers crossed).

I think I'm actually going to try to cook tonight, although I may leave the dirty dishes for tomorrow when we have hot water.

I smell the bread in the breadmaker, so I'd better go start dinner! Yummy!

The moving men cometh...

2008-07-30T18:48:00.003-04:00

The moving men arrived bright and early yesterday morning. Seven guys and two trucks, with an estimate that it would take 11 hours for them to load the trucks, drive them to our new house, and then unload them. As they wandered through the house looking at what was to be loaded, they were all joking that "it will be an easy day", "there's no way this is an 11 hour job", "we'll be done and out of here in a few hours" - and they were serious when they were saying all of those things. Well, 11 hours later (almost to the minute), they finished unloading the truck! I guess the estimator did a much better job of figuring out the time than they imagined he did! Here are the trucks being loaded...

DH stayed at the house while the guys loaded the truck and DS, DD, and I headed over to the new house to get the van unloaded and to try to get the kitchen boxes that we moved on Monday unpacked. We also took all the cold and frozen foods over. DS and DD finished unloading the van and got in a couple of games of chess while I worked in the kitchen. (Oh, and that cute little round table that we put together so they could play on it? I pushed it closer to the fireplace when the moving van arrived so it would be out of the way, and in the process I scratched the floor - oops! I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. DD was glad that I made the scratch, instead of her.)
So, DD figured out how to turn on the cooktop and she made mac and cheese for our lunch. Later, she figured out how to turn on the oven and she made chocolate chip cookies for the movers (and us!).

Here comes my piano off the truck - it was very scary to hear DH say, "Watch out! The leg is buckling!". I should have stayed in the house while they took it off the truck! All is well now, but "egads!" that was scary! (Another little side note...at the end of the day, one of the movers called me over to the music room and asked if he could play something on the piano. He played a wonderful piece and said that he is here from Jamaica on a work/study program to earn money to continue his education. He is a piano major there and hadn't been able to play for a long time.)

Last night was the first time we had a chance to see the puck lights behind the valance lit up at night - it was a very cool effect. (I'm not sure what that moon-like thing is on the wall.)
So, the one bad thing about the new house is that the gas line was never hooked up. We really don't care that we don't have heat at this time of year, but we would really love to have the hot water working! DD, DH, and I headed over to the old house this morning to do some cleaning (while DS stayed here with the kitchen guys and the granite guys) and she took her towel and supplies with her so she could take a hot shower while we were there! I attempted to take a bath in my air tub this afternoon, hoping that the heater on the tub would take the worst of the chill off the water, but it didn't work. It did, however, wake me up! Brrrrrrr! The builder told DH that the gas will be hooked up on Friday.

So, our old house (where we lived for 11 years) is clean and we will close on it tomorrow. It looks very sad now that it's empty...this is DH's office...
And this is the family room...

I didn't think I would get emotional leaving the house, but I didn't sleep well last night and was exhausted and achy from the move and from cleaning our old house all morning. I think all those things just set me off and I bawled most of the way home! I feel much better now! LOL! Sometimes all it takes is a good cry to make things all right!

So, the granite fabricators were here to install the granite backsplash in the kitchen. They got most of it in...the pieces behind the sink were too thin, or something, and were crumbling. So, they will be back out another day to install behind the sink.

The kitchen guys were here to work on the cooktop vent and to do some other odds and ends. They have to come back another day also, as they still aren't done.

Pack, load, haul, unload, repeat...

2008-07-28T21:54:00.004-04:00

Hey, this part of the house almost looks like we're living there already, with the new rocking/swivel chairs and some things stuck up there on the mantle! Yeah, I wish!
We drove 2 more van loads of "stuff" to the house today and packed up the van with one more load to go over tomorrow. DH and DD took the first load over and emptied it while I packed up the kitchen. We loaded up another load and DH and I took it and emptied it. This is a photo of some of the things that have been moved into my sewing studio already...

And the kitchen is full of boxes because we moved all of the kitchen things ourselves...
And more boxes in the kitchen! You might also notice that we angled the lights over the penisula to open up the center, give it more interest, and to move the right-hand lights away from the wall a bit more. I think I like it this way better!
Here is a shot of the master bathroom so you can see how the granite looks with the rest of the stone in the bathroom.
And here is the tub side of the bathroom. There are still several things that need to be done in the master bathroom - some of the tile in the toilet area isn't grouted, the shower door is hinged on the wrong side, there is a pull missing from the cabinets, and a few other minor things...
Tomorrow the movers arrive bright and early. I think DD and I will head over to the house with the food from the refrigerator and freezer and spend the morning unloading the van and attempting to put things away in the kitchen. We might even take DS with us to help unload. We'll come back here on Wednesday to do some cleaning and to move the cleaning supplies, vacuum, etc. over to the house.

I can't believe this is the last night we'll be sleeping in this house - we've lived here for 11 years. That's the longest we have ever lived in any one house since we were married 26 years ago!

Countdown to move day: 1 day and counting! (or, more accurately, 10 hours and counting!)

Well on our way!

2008-07-27T22:53:00.002-04:00

DH and DS did an incredible job getting things moved this weekend! I had stacked most of the things they were to move in the dining room, and the dining room is now empty. They also took everything from the garage and a bunch of things from the basement over to the house.

Tomorrow is more of the same - I need to pack up the rest of the kitchen and we'll move the kitchen things, small musical instruments, and clothing on the hangers (and probably a bunch of other things I don't even know about!).

The movers come on Tuesday to move the furniture and the non-breakable things that I boxed up.

Countdown to move day: 2 days, and counting!

Master bathroom granite!

2008-07-26T08:03:00.003-04:00

DH emailed me a photo of the master bathroom granite, so I thought I'd post it before I hit the road again. It's a bit hard to tell from the photo, but I think it looks nice! We were afraid that the bathroom as a whole would be too busy with a granite that has this much movement, and it's a bit hard to tell without seeing the granite in context with the floor and shower, but I like what I see in the photo! (clicking on the photo will enlarge it so you can see the details better)

Countdown to move day: 3 days and counting!

Have a great day, everyone!

We have a house! And it's mostly finished!

2008-07-25T22:49:00.003-04:00

I don't have any photos to post tonight, as I am in WV at a hotel and have been on the road since 5pm. DH met the builder out at the house tonight and had the final walk-through. We now officially have the keys to our house! I guess there is a long list of things to be finished/fixed, but overall the house looks great and DH and DS will be hauling things over to the house this weekend that the moving company can't/won't/we-don't-want-them-to move.

I spent this morning and afternoon packing up a lot of the things in the kitchen - baking supplies, boxed mixes, spices, things we won't need until we're in the new house.

Since I never got around to sewing the cushion for DD's windowseat, I packed up the fabric and my machine to transport to the new house.

Items completed as of today are marked in green...

septic tank - I think this is done
gas lines - still need to be connected by the gas company (Monday)
furnace
A/C
painting
kitchen - granite, finish-work, vent fan (Monday), pulls, granite backsplash, appliances
plumbing
electrical - lights/fans, valance lights (done, but not correctly - need to be re-wired)
gutters
brick/stone/pillars
driveway - concrete, gravel
grading - rough, topsoil (Tuesday)
sewing studio - knobs/pulls, upper crown moulding on cabinets
master bath - grout, finish shower, cabinets, glass doors, baseboard stone, granite
stained woodwork on great room walls
closet shelves/rods
pantry shelves
stain front door
paint garage doors, install gaskets
grab bars on guest tub
shower curtain rods in 2 bathrooms
stairs
fix vanity granite backsplash in kids' bathroom, recess medicine cabinet?
top for windowseat
doors on bookcase shelves in great room
doorknobs
carpet (going in on Monday)
fireplace granite surround

Countdown to move day: 4 days and counting!

So bummed!

2008-07-24T19:13:00.004-04:00

DS and I headed out to the house this afternoon so that I could see the master bathroom granite before I leave town tomorrow. Just as we arrived, 2 workmen were getting into their truck to leave. One of them said that they had just put another coat of sealer on the hardwood floors and stairs and they had it taped off as a reminder not to walk on them. It took a few minutes for his words to sink in, and to realize that I wasn't going to be able to get up the stairs to the master bathroom to see the granite. Aaargh!!!

The floors did look lovely though, and were very obviously still wet from the sealer that had been applied...

I couldn't go in the great room because of the wet floors, but I did sneak a photo of some of the puck lights that were installed up under/behind the valance that circles the room. It looks like the lights are up, but not wired in yet.
The rough grading is still looking very rough and was a bit smelly. I also saw some of the flies that I was warned about yesterday.
The columns look nice now that they have been painted to match the house and trim colors...
The granite backsplash in the kitchen was not installed today - I don't know when it is scheduled to go in. The granite fabricators were trying to get it ready in time to install it today when they did the master bath, but that obviously didn't work out.

So, DD and I are off to NC tomorrow afternoon for the wedding (well, actually we are only going as far as Beckley, WV because we can't leave until about 4:30 - we'll go the rest of the way on Saturday morning). I told DH that I was going to leave him the camera so he can email me photos of the master bathroom with the granite counters installed!

Items completed as of today are marked in green...

septic tank - I think this is done, although their equipment was still there
gas lines - still need to be connected by the gas company
furnace
A/C
painting
kitchen - granite, finish-work, vent fan, pulls, granite backsplash, appliances
plumbing
electrical - lights/fans, valance lights (almost done)
gutters
brick/stone/pillars
driveway - concrete, gravel (part of the driveway had gravel on it, but not all)
grading - rough, topsoil
sewing studio - knobs/pulls, upper crown moulding on cabinets
master bath - grout, finish shower, cabinets, glass doors, baseboard stone, granite
stained woodwork on great room walls
closet shelves/rods
pantry shelves
stain front door
paint garage doors, install gaskets
grab bars on guest tub
shower curtain rods in 2 bathrooms
stairs
fix vanity granite backsplash in kids' bathroom, recess medicine cabinet?
top for windowseat
doors on bookcase shelves in great room (doors are on site and stained, but not installed)
doorknobs
carpet (going in on Monday)
fireplace granite surround

Countdown to move day: 5 days and counting!

A view through the window...

2008-07-23T12:07:00.006-04:00

While I was out at the house today waiting for the cable guy to show up, I took several photos from inside the house, so excuse the view of the window screens...

The septic guys were there on their bobcat, filling in the trenches with dirt...
The builder had someone doing the rough grading of the yard...
There were many painters there doing last minute jobs and touch-ups...
The electricians were there to install the small lights behind the valance in the great room. Each light was individually packaged and one guy sat there for a long time just unpacking all the lights.
The kitchen guy had put the fans up in the vent over the cooktop. He still doesn't have the vent cover and needs to add some insulation in around the fans to lessen the noise.
After the heavy rain we had last night, it looks like we still have a couple areas in the basement where water is getting in...
DH is heading out to the house after work tonight to see how things are coming along. I think I'm going to stay right here and pack, pack, pack!

Countdown to move day: 6 days and counting! (oh, and did I mention that we're going to a wedding in NC on Saturday? and that we're driving and leaving on Friday? and that we won't be home until late Sunday? well, DH decided he and DS need to stay here and move a bunch of stuff this weekend, so he won't be going to the wedding after all. dd and I will lose out on 2.5 days of packing while we're away - yikes!)