Our First Fire!

We lost power on Saturday and the house started to get cold fast, so we had our first fire in the fireplace! It kept that part of the house nice and toasty, and happy to report our house is still standing.

While I enjoyed it, the cats enjoyed it the most. Clearly they are not happy that we keep the house chilled, they were enthralled with the fire and also loving the warmth in the room.

A Little Background on The Cabin

A few people have asked for more information about the cabin, and for more pictures. I will do the best I can with what I've learned so far. I promise more pictures, I had to wait for the ice to melt so I could actually make it down there.

The Cabin

Below is a picture of the cabin from the summer of 2010. Our first summer owning the property. The cabin is essentially located 150 feet below the ridge our house sits on down in a valley, next to Blair Creek. Getting things down there isn't the easiest, but contrary to this picture we were able to get a lawn mower down there and did get the yard cleaned up.

Now that we have met some of our neighbors we have gotten some of the history of the cabin. We were told by the prior owners that it was an old hunting cabin built in the early 1900's. Which makes the cabin a brand new building compared to our house, which was built in the 1820's. Aside from our cabin, 3 others were constructed in the general creek area by the owners of the tannery building. Our neighbors to the south live in what was the Tannery building, and have 2 fireplace remnants still standing on their property from 2 of the cabins (See picture below). I've included a picture of the fireplace in our cabin.

Our cabin isn't in "great" condition and according to tax records it is dilapidated. I like to think we can make it so much more special than it already is. At this point, we need to just make sure it doesn't fall into further disrepair. And while it needs work, water and electricity, it is actually in decent shape considering no one lives in it.

You enter through the front door into a large open room that is home to the fireplace. To the back and to the left is a small bathroom and to the back right is a kitchen, which has a door out the back of the cabin, as well.

Yes, There is a bathroom...

It needs help.

It's on the list... I plan to do some cleanup this spring and at least get the windows sparkling and clean the brush and trees from around the immediate area of the foundation and roof. There is nothing better than sitting on the front porch of the cabin with the creek flowing in front of you, not being able to see another house or person. It instantly transcends you to another world.

Lights, Camera, Angles..

Ahh, when I see this picture I instantly begin to unwind and destress. Part of the reason we picked this house was because it came with the cabin. I may love the cabin more than the house actually. I do believe I kept saying over and over, but it has a cabin and a stream, who cares about the house. So when I see it all snow covered, I instantly transport myself to Walden Pond or some other idyllic setting. Lucky for my, I only have to walk down 100 stairs, and on this particular day ALOT of ice and snow, but all the same, this is in my very own backyard.

In loving old houses and cabins one of the great things is the cool (and sometimes not so cool) things that you discover. Below is the door handle to the front door of the cabin. To me, it's ridiculously fascinating, but I'm a dork.

I took this to show how diverse the cabin is in structure. Notice the clapboard ceiling, the log pole and the cool light fixture. What you can't see are the slate porch floors which add even more character. You may see work, or old or crap, my eyes gloss over and I see cool old cabin.

And these! Oh there is a pair of these amazing light fixtures on the front of the cabin. No electric down there, but how wonderful these must have looked all lit up and welcoming. Now they are home to some birds, but still give the place some personality.

Gah, I love my cabin.

The Dining Room

That is powder blue trim around the windows, as well as the wall trim and oh yes, the doors and windows were painted that lovely shade as well. The walls themselves were white. They are no longer. Meet our dining room. It's actually completely open to the living room and is the whole back half of our house on the first floor. The dining "area" is a wonderful little set up. It is partially open to the kitchen, has that lovely bay window (which isn't so lovely and rotting up close, so don't look when you come over). It's hardwood floors, and well, it's got some personality.

This is what it looked like almost a year ago from today... when we did our home inspection.

Below, as you can see I was just not sure what color (hence the red splotches everywhere), and we were still in the midst of unpacking, cleaning etc. So excuse the disaster.

And POOF! this picture is from just before our housewarming party in November 2010. As you can see it is looking MUCH MUCH better.


The Paint:

Walls - Behr's Tea Bag

Trim - Behr's Ultra Pure White



Rug- pottery barn (hand me down)

Buffet - 1920's piece from craigslist

Dining room table & chairs - Harden (this was my parents table and they gifted it to us!).



The floors still need to be refinished throughout the entire house, and I think these will look amazing when that happens. We kept the light fixture the same, but eventually I would like to change it, but no rush. I have not yet put anything on the window (except Christmas lights) and not sure if I will in this part of the room. As I said above the window itself needs to be replaced sooner than later, so I may just enjoy the natural setting look for awhile.



I still don't have much on the walls, and hopefully the right pieces will find their way there, somehow. While it isn't a room we utilize often, we do look at it and walk through it everyday. I do love it, but it's far from finished. It is just another shining example of what a little paint can do to spruce up a space.

You can read more about some of the pieces and ideas in this post.

Mouse Patrol

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a cat person. Over the years I had a desire to have one, but sanity quickly prevailed and I never was a cat owner. A roommate in college had one and Simon was a cool feline, but they are just not my type of animal. Dogs are more my style. However, I do love all furry, fuzzy, cuddly creatures. Given the opportunity, I would most likely own any number of animals... cow, raccoon, sheep, goat, horse etc. Oh, how I would love to own a cow. Shh, don't tell my pets but I've always loved cows. Living in Vermont for 4.5 years was like living in cow heaven. They were everywhere!

But alas, I've never lived anywhere that would be considered cow permissible. Although, a cow would probably love our property, fabulous husband veto's it before I even finish saying "cow".

Back to our mouse patrol. Shortly after moving in, I found mouse poop in the utensil drawer. Um, can we say disgusting?!?! Everything in the drawer was promptly entered into the dishwasher and the drawer was cleaned and I was grossed out. It is one thing to know that you have mouse potential, it is another entirely to have their poop on your fork. We live in the country, the possibility of mice is higher than the possibility of cell service. I get it, and I'm okay with it. I wouldn't say I embrace it, but if I don't think about it, it doesn't bother me.

Within 24 hours, I was a cat person. Into our lives came Layla. Layla was a barn cat from a dairy farm in Upstate NY that we adopted from a local couple whose parents own the dairy farm. She is also the head of the mouse patrol.

Layla was getting lonely. Or I said she was, or I was thinking really she should have a friend. And 2 months later, we adopted Gutter. Gutman as we affectionately refer to him came from a Philadelphia shelter via his wonderful foster home and into our lives. I am now a 2 cat person.

Scooping poop and cleaning litter has most likely made me a forever and only 2 cat person. I do every now and again get a twinge, but then I scoop some litter and that twinge is long forgotten.

Layla and Gutter at first were not friends. In fact Layla wanted nothing to do with Gutter and I thought, OH GOD, I made a huge mistake. But alas as time went on, they have become the best of friends, or at least to a non-cat person they seem as if they tolerate each other enough to sometimes cuddle together, play together and occasionally clean each other. Gutter is second in command of the mouse patrol.

Prior to them gaining their mouse patrol skills, we did have 1 incident where Rissa, our foster dog and the Dyson Animal vacuum had to step up and rid us of a mouse. Oh yes, fabulous husband and I cornered a little field mouse and not wanting bloodshed, swiftly kicked Rissa out of the room, and decided that the only safe, humane, CLEAN way to get him out of the house was to vacuum him. And yes, I'm aware that Dyson most likely did not mean the Animal version of their vacuum to be used for such purposes.

Ode to a Thermostat

One of the things I know enough to stay away from is electrical work. My dad taught me that nice and young and I'm forever grateful. Sure, I could tell you all about arc chutes, arc shields, circuit breakers, and switchgear among other things, but that is all technical knowledge. Thankfully there are people that are trained in the APPLICATION of that knowledge. At the end of the day, I was just happy our house wasn't still rocking the old Knob and Tube (which the remnants of can be seen in our attic).

While there is a decent amount of electrical work that needs to be done on the house, most of which I am staying far, far away from, there was one thing I was determined to tackle.

The Downstairs Thermostat

Here is what was here when we arrived. A generic, non-descript thermostat. If you look closely, it almost looks as if there had been a different one there and it had been replaced with this generic wonder. Thank you prior homeowners, once again, you baffle me.

We have 2 zone heating in the ole' house here, one upstairs and one downstairs, which is great. But without a programmable thermostat it's not very efficient, and add propane heat and we'd be broke.

So I took a little trip to the Home Depot (where everybody knows my name) and I picked up a mid-grade thermostat. Nothing overly fancy, but it is programmable and that was the goal.

The instructions were simple to follow, and the installation was minimal. Without little hassle and maybe 15 minutes of my time we now have this fabulous little beauty.

And don't worry that blue trim paint is gone BUH BYE and that fabulous wood spindle is now white.

The Pepto Pink Bathroom

This is the true story of our retro pepto pink bathroom makeover. Initially, this half bath was not going to be renovated beyond maybe removing the wallpaper, and painting the walls and maybe in 5 years we would totally redo it. Well, plans changed. I got sick of looking at it. Truthfully, you access it through our foyer, and it's the bathroom that would get most used and most viewed. After getting through most of the downstairs rooms, and realizing this was the ONLY room on the first floor that wasn't getting touched, I decided to touch it.

Reading up on painting tile, I ventured to Home Depot (where everybody knows my name) and bought several options for covering the tile. I was going to take this pepto pink wonderland and turn it into a simple, elegant bathroom.

Here is what it looked like the day of our home inspection, almost 1 year go. Can you believe we still bought this place?!?!

The wallpaper was removed, I covered and taped up until I was sick of tape and newspaper and garbage bags. This was also where I realized that holy crap, this is a tight space to work in. I then set out to Epoxy Spray paint the tile with a Tub and Tile paint kit. Complete with my gloves, cleaning solution, crappy clothes and a mask that would make any chemical war victim survive I started the process. Scrub walls with cleaner, wipe clean, dry, steel wool walls, wipe clean, dry... REPEAT THREE TIMES!?!?!? Ugh, did I mention I work full time?

Finally I got to the spray part. It went okay, not good, not horrible. The fumes were TERRIBLE. And this bathroom is not that well ventilated. So after 2 coats of the spray, and realizing I could still see ALOT of pink. I headed down to the basement to grab option #2.

A really good, highly recommended primer for tile. I primed up the walls, with 2 coats. The walls now had 4 coats and yes, I could still see pink. At this point, I'm thinking maybe it's just me, but then fabulous husband concurred.

In comes Behr's ultra pure white in the new formula and POOF! No more pink. Beautiful WHITE tile. Thank you God for creating Behr paint. And in the picture below you will see the finished product. The green walls are also a fabulous shade of Behr paint, trim is all Behr ultra pure white.

I think we can all agree, that even though the tile is not 100% perfect (please, if you come to my house don't look TOO closely) it is still sooooo much better than the pink. And don't worry all you retro tile loving people, I've got a mint green bathroom and a powder blue one as well that will NOT be getting painted over. My tile painting career began and ended with this project.

There are still some outstanding projects that need to be done to complete this bathroom. Eventually the flooring will get replaced. The medicine cabinet will be going as well. I have the new light fixture that will go above the tile, and a new outlet will need to be put in as well since the one that is built into the medicine cabinet does not work. However, if there is one thing I am sure of, I do not do electrical work. I will leave that to our electrician. I won't know what will go in the place of the old mirror/cabinet, until I take the one that is there down... stay tuned.