First Refinishing Project Done!!

The mirror is finally done!

Before:
During:
After:

I think it came out amazing for having no idea what I was doing! I used Citristrip, cleaned it with mineral spirits, let it dry for a couple of days, then sanded it with an industrial strength scotch pad, used an attachment on the air compressor to blast the dust away, and stained it with Minwax Red Mahogany and finished with a coat of poly.

It's now ready for it's new home. It's going to go above the couch in the living room. That's really the only place where it'll look right because of it's size. It's about 4'x3'. I'll post pictures once it's been hung.

Ummm...

I left hubby alone with a chainsaw and this is what I came home to: (yes, that is him making a rare appearane in a picture)And there it is being hauled away. It is now sitting by the barn. And we are going to plant a new tree there in the spring, James just hated the cedar tree so much he decided it needed to go.

We are looking into having it cut into rough planks because I really don't want to waste all that cedar. I say rough planks because this past weekend I found out that we have use of a planer and band saw! They're not ours, they actually belong to James brother, but they're brand new still in the boxes and we have full permission to use them! If we can get find some place to rough cut them then we can plane them ourselves and save a lot of money.

Quick update

I have successfully stripped for the first time! The mirror is finally done! Well, almost done. It still needs to be stained but the worst part is over and it was much easier than I thought it would be. I chose Minwax Red Mahogany stain which is a dark reddish stain like I had planned to use all along. And I'm hoping to get it stained this weekend. I would do it sooner but I have a huge test I have to study for and some cleaning that needs to be done before I can do it.

We've also been getting ready for winter since the temp has already dropped to freezing at night here. We removed the a/c unit from the bedroom and laid it to rest in the garage for the winter, and James put a new filter in the furnace last night because we finally had to start using it, and we put a heater in the laundry room to keep the pipes from freezing since the room is not insulated.

I found the material to make the curtains for the living room on clearance at WalMart for $1 a yard! It's actually pretty good material, but I wanted cheap because I know I'll have to make more before too long. One of the joys of having a lab that feels the window is his and anything covering it must be removed. Which is the reason why there are no curtains there right now...he tore them off the widow. Along with the curtain rod.

Termite Inspection and Dining Room Progress

We had our annual termite inspection yeasterday and it went well. No activity, sprayed for other bugs (spiders, crickets, ants, etc) and it was all under $100! When we were under the house last fall we found evidence of previous termite damage in one area. It wasn't anything really bad as far as termite damage goes, but we were curious as to how long ago it had happened so when I made the appointment I asked them. They had no idea and said that there was no record of it in the account history so it had to be before the account became active. So the next obvious question was...What year would that have been? 1946! Our house has had continuous termite inspections since 1946 with no record of activity and the person I talked to said that it was one of their oldest accounts! He also said that since there is no record that it had to have happened before 1946 so it's really nothing to worry about. That makes me feel better.

The dining room is still slowly coming along. A lot of ceiling tiles have been removed from the house and most of the nails are out. Bought patching plaster today to fill the nail holes so I'll be starting on that soon. Hopefully next week. Still have to wait for James to sand the glue off the wall before I can really do anything with that wall. New deadline to have it all done is Christmas since I have to work Thanksgiving Day.

Stupid Computer

I tried to make some changes on my layout and I'm not sure if it was a Blogger problem or computer problem, but some thing doesn't like me. See the way the page looks? It's not suppossed to be like that. The blogroll is supposed to be towards the bottom, and it's not complete...it only listed a few of the sites I entered. And I can't move it or delete it, so I'm going to have to figure out something to do about it. I really wanted to add the blogroll so I don't have to sit here and try to remember the names of all my favorite blogs while houseblogs.net is down. So expect more changes soon, because it's not going to look like this for long.

In house news it's something like baby steps. A little bit everyday, but not a whole lot at one time. Especially since I now have to rewash all the clothes that were in the laundry room. They have that nasty dead mouse smell so they're all getting a good dousing of Tide, Febreeze Laundry, and Clorox 2. And I finally decided on paint colors for the dining room. I think. For now anyway. Now I just have to find the time to get to Lowes and get the patching plaster so I can fix the 100's of nail holes in the walls and ceiling. But, I no longer have a Thankgiving deadline, it's now Christmas since I have to work Thanksgiving.

I'm Back!!

Yes, that's right...I've started up the blog again. It's been awhile, but the only thing thing that's happened around here was that I finally removed the coffee table from the middle of the living room to the garage. I haven't been lazy though. I started college! It's proving to be much harder this time around so all my free time has been spent studying my ass off. But a few days ago I realized that Thanksgiving is not that far away and for the first time ever I'm supposed to be having dinner here in a dining room that looks something like this right now...
This just isn't going to work for the first time my family sees our house. And this picture doesn't even show all the crap that's covering the table or the ceiling tiles that are still stacked 6 feet high or the paneling that's leaning against a wall because it still hasn't made it to it's final resting place in the burn pile.

Here's what I have to do before Thanksgiving:
Remove the rest of the paneling
Take the panels and the ceiling tiles out of the house
Figure out something to do about the curtains (they're pretty gross...they came with the house)
Sand the glue off the wall (otherwise known as removing the artwork seen in the picture)
Fill in about a thousand nail holes
Paint walls, ceiling, trim
Maybe figure out something to do about where the plaster is crumbling from where they removed the top trim pieces to put the drop ceiling in. I have no idea what to do though...any suggestions?

I really don't want to paint the trim, but it's going to be awhile before we have the time or money to strip, repair, stain, and poly the trim so paint is the only reasonable short term solution. We already have the paint so the cost will be $0...which is in our budget.

I'm thinking about gray walls...any input? Other suggestions? I'm clueless about paint but I'm loving gray walls with white trim.

Oh, and that's our new chandelier. I don't think I posted any pictures of it since it's been put up. We were trying for a look that fits our little Victorian farmhouse. I think it works. As I make progress I'll show more pictures...it really looks better than it does in the one. And I can't help the bulbs, we only use the long life fluorescent and they stick out the bottom. When they burn out I'm hoping to find the new ones that aren't as long.

Well, it's starting to get a little cooler here so things are getting ready to start back up on the house. It's still blistering hot during the middle of the day, but morning, evening and nights are cooler. We've mainly been working on the yard some. The other day James parents gave us a bunch of pretty concrete edgers so we'll be doing some landscaping soon. And I'm still loving the weedeater. But that's really all we've been doing here. Nothing worth posting any pictures about yet. There's other news though...

We have a coal mine under us now...or beside us...I'm really not exactly sure which, but I was told yesterday that it's here and that's what all the soil samples and drilling in the field next to us and down the road.

A hot air balloon went down in the field behind us yesterday! We were talking to the neighbor and heard something so we looked around our garage and there was a hot air balloon flying kind of low, so we started watching it and it went down in the bean field behind our house. I ran in to get my camera while James and the neighbor were trying to figure out what to do (call the balloon company, 911, or walk back and see what was going on) and by the time I got back out it was just about out of sight and thats when the balloon company van went by our house. There is a company here that does hot air balloon rides and tours, so seeing one around here wasn't a big deal, but seeing one go down is.

That about covers it for now...more to come on the house soon!