I just Can't Decide!!

We have been planning a vacation to Gatlinburg for the last year. It's our delayed honeymoon. The time has finally come to finalize all the plans and book the cabin. We already picked it out and the only days left are the days we wanted. It's perfect with beautiful views for miles from the hot tub on the deck. Completely secluded at the top of a mountain, but not very far from Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge. 2 nights, plus gas and food are going to cost us around $500. Well, last night we were talking to some one we know and found out that they know some one who has a pool for sale. For $500, for everything including deck and privacy fence. Now here's the thing...we have been talking about getting a pool for over a year now, but we were going to wait awhile because they are so expensive. This is really, really cheap though. The problem is if we get the pool we can't go to Tennessee, because they are the same price and, well, we just don't have the money for both right now. However, we can get the pool this year, and go on vacation later (as in a couple of years). James has left the decision up to me, and I don't know what to do. I love the thought of kicking back in a hot tub and looking at amazing veiws of mountians from the middle of nowhere for a few days, but the temp here in Southern Indiana stays between 90-100 degrees with 100% humudity all summer.

Which would you do...get the pool now and vacation later, or vacation for 2 days now and no pool for a long time?

Refinishing a Paper Towel Holder

Yesterday I took the vintage metal paper towel holder off the kitchen wall and took a heat gun to it. Blogger is not letting me upload pictures right now, so the only picture I have of it right now is this one you have to scroll down a little to see it. And look close, it blends in with the wall because it's covered in the same wallpaper. All I know about this towel holder is that it came with the house, is metal, and appears to be from the 50's. We don't use it right now because the few times we have we usually forget that it's there because it blends right in and then we end up with two rolls of paper towels in use. And then we end up taking the roll back out so we don't forget that it's there again.

So back to the refinishing. I took it off the wall, which was a pain since it was screwed through the plexiglass backsplash and took it out to the garage. I then grabbed the heat gun and got to work. This was the first time I have ever used a heat gun, so it was an interesting experience. I only had one small fire before I realized the heat was up way too high. It was rough at first because, well, I had the heat too high so all I has doing was melting and smearing the paint underneath. After I got that figured out it went nice and easy. Peeled all the layers right off with no smearing. I have to go back over where I started though because its rough and bumpy. I'm going to try using a scotch pad to get that straightened out. When I get off work this evening I'm going to paint it bright red. And hopefully blogger will be working right again so I can post pictures of it. There ended up being a layer of wallpaper, a layer of paint, some kind of fruit decal, and the original finish which has some kind of writing on one side and a design in the middle.

I'm painting it bright red because I want a red kitchen. Since hubby said no to red walls (actually it was something like if you paint the walls red they'll be white again before you get home from work) I'm using red accents everywhere I can. Like storage containers have red lids, red Kitchen Aid cooking utensils, red towels, red corners on the cutting board...you get the point.

It's like a scab...

You just want to pick at it until it's gone.
This is a wall in our kitchen. This is also the only room in the house with wallpaper. I noticed today that there was some separation at the top of the paper (it only covers about half the wall) and it was bugging me while I was trying to do dishes so I stopped what I was doing and picked at it a little. I thought there would only be one layer of wallpaper and I'd just have the top a little messed up. I guess that's what I get for thinking. I've read enough blogs and talked to enough people to know that it's never that easy. What is there looks to be plaster, paint, wallpaper, paint, cardboard, wallpaper, paint, and more wallpaper. And there may be a few more layers in there. I may be missing something, but I have no idea why there would be cardboard. So all together the kitchen has been neon green, sky blue, dark striped paper, a brown color, and the curent white/flowered paper. I'm not exactly sure what the cardboard has to do with anything, but it's under a couple of layers in there.

And now I'm going to have a whole lot of ugly in my kitchen for a while because I just can't stop picking and I promised I wouldn't do anything in there until the dining room is done, and that's going to be a while. Great.

Happy Anniversary!

Yesterday was our 1 year wedding anniversary! It was an absolutely beautiful, burning hot day (I think the temp was 94, but James says 97). We had an outdoor ceremony in a small field at the barn my great grandpa built (and where all our family reunions are at) in Stewartsville, IN. I found out later that this is also where my grandma and grandpa were married.

This picture was taken in the barn and is one of my favorites. And it was not taken by the wedding photographer...go figure, right?

And for fun, this is what we looked like 5 years ago when we started dating.

If we were still dating today would be our 5 year anniversary. This picture was taken at his going away party shortly after we started dating. (He was going to basic training for the Navy).

And history kinda repeated itself this year...about an hour after this picture was taken we went with a friend (who had not been drinking) to see the flood water on the White river because no one had seen the water as high as it was then. This year we also went to see the flood water because it was the highest it has ever been...although we couldn't get within a mile or more of that same place we went before because the boat isn't ready for the water yet. And the river shattered it's record high.

Flood Pictures

Today I decided to post some pictures of the flood. I have a lot more taken from different areas than where these were. The water is now starting to go down some, and the National Guard has pretty much left the area. For a week we were seeing the National Guard everywhere, and we are very thankful for all their hard work. These are random pictures that were e-mailed to me. The first is due to levee breaks on the Wabash river, the rest are from the White river.

This is Westport Auto. Taken from a boat. They started moving their cars on Thursday (last week, not this past Thurs.) evening, and got them all moved by Thursday night. The levee broke and flooded their lot the next morning. Their cars are in Kmart's parking lot (my work) and they are selling lots of cars there.

This is Highway 358 going to Davies County (Washington, IN...taken from helicopter). If you look in the right side you can see the water over the road. Also on the right at the bottom of the tree line you can see the water running over the levee.

Edwardsport. This is not very far from where we camped on a sandbar in the river on our honeymoon last year. This was also taken from a helicopter. The river is the squiggly line between the trees in the middle of the left side. The power plant is in the brown spot in the middle of the upper part of the picture

This is Highway 67 looking from Edwardsport to Bicknell. Bicknell is top, Edwardsport is bottom.

I also found lots of pictures of Lake Lawrence in Lawrenceville, IL (just across the river from us) but I'm not going to post those because they are mostly all of people's homes, and I'm not going to put their flooded houses on here because I know if our house was under water I wouldn't want some one to do that to us. I think nearly every house on the lake has some water, but some are all the way to the roof and one even looked like it was starting to collapse. On top of that a water main broke in Lawrenceville, and all the stores in Vincennes ran out of bottled water because several other towns were already under boil order or without running water. And as fascinating as it was to see the water that high, I hope that it never happens again.

And as far as I know, Mt. Carmel is still OK. They were worried about the water breaking the levees in East Mt. Carmel and on the southside of town, but I haven't heard any more about it, so I'm assuming they are ok for now. I do have a picture of the train bridge on my phone and as soon as I get a memory card for my phone I'll post that one. It was taken by my best friend and the water is level with the tracks on the train bridge, which I don't think has ever happened.

Stripper Supplies

HaHa...not that kind of stripper. But hopefully that got my google hits up a little. I just got (hopefully) everything I need to start stripping the woodwork. I wasn't sure what will work the best so I got 2 different kinds of stripper and a bunch of different tools. I already have a heat gun, mask, and glasses.

I'm going to start small though and refinish this mirror and a bookcase before I start on the woodwork in the house.
This mirror is huge. It's like 3 feet high and about 2 and a half feet wide and it came with the house. It has a stamp on the back that says the glass was plated on 9/25/59 and packed on 2/17/60. When it's done it's going to go in the living room over the couch. And anchored really, really good in case of another earthquake. I'm going to stain it dark like all the other wood in the house but maybe with a reddish tint.

I figured I'd start small so I can figure out what I'm doing and not ruin any of the original wood baseboards, doorframes, doors, or floors. I am hoping to do the mirror tomorrow and I'll post pics if I do.

And I figured out how useless people who work at Lowes are. I had a $10 off $50 purchase so I got all the stripping stuff there. They were friendly, but when I asked about something specific they led me to the area and said "there they are" and then left me to search for about 20 minutes for what I needed (it was in a box that had been pushed back on the bottom shelf). Now I see why so many people get frustrated there.

Memorial Day Weekend

Sadly our extended Memorial Day weekend has come to an end. James went back to work today, and I go back tomorrow. (I worked Sat. & Sun. though). It was great to have nothing to do for a few days. James weekend wasn't as easy though. He installed a new Mohawk wood laminate floor in his parents living room. It looks really good, but he got a little frustrated with it a few times. I didn't take an pics because I didn't have my camera, but they are doing the hall this weekend so I might have some then. Yesterday and monday we were lazy though. I didn't know that my dad was a speaker at the Memorial Day services in Mt. Carmel or we would have gone to that. I didn't know until yesterday when my mom called to tell me that he was on the front page of the Daily Republican Register (the Mt. Carmel mewspaper). Yesteray we went to see my best friends new house. It was a great hour and a half drive with the top down (well, until the rain hit about a half hour from her house). Her house is actually an old house thats already (mostly) remodeled. Its really nice and it looks like the p.o.'s did a good job on the remodel. I did notice that her stairs had been relocated at some point, which confused her. There is a flue cover in the wall on the staircase. That means that there used to be a stove or fireplace of some kind there at some point. But the stairs have also obviously been where they are now for a really long time. And James pointed out that her bathrooms were most likely originally a porch because of the low sloping ceilings. They still have a little bit of painting to do but thats really all that needs to be done, and its really nice. Makes me wish our house was already done. Speaking of which, if I can get a day with no wind I'm finally going to drag all the paneling and the ceiling tiles outside to burn them. And then I can get started playing with plaster!