Gotta love spray paint!

I've completed a couple of quick projects that only took a little spray paint.

I love it when a project is quick, easy, and inexpensive!

First one was the trash can in my bedroom.

Since we re-decorated with a purple/gray/silver color scheme, the gold-ish garbage can was out of place.
It may have taken me a few months, but I finally got around to spraying it silver...

BEFORE

AFTER

The next spray paint project were little kids chairs.

BEFORE

They were natural wood, but were looking grungy after 7 years of use (probably more than that since some of them were hand-me-downs!)

AFTER

I decided on a fun, bright red- since it can then be used in either the nautical bedroom or the airplane bedroom.
Plus red will be fun for birthday parties (I love having kid-size chairs on hand!)

The natural wood really soaked up the paint, taking 3 cans of spray paint (and of course, I bought them one at a time- thinking each time it would be enough!)



Since there was a little left in the 3rd can, I added a 4th little rocking chair in... It was already red, so just needed a touch-up.
My grandfather had built this one for my mom's classroom when she was teaching 1st grade.

Catching Up- May edition

Here's another random collection of the little things we've gotten or finished, but weren't big enough to have a whole post of their own.

More planes!
My youngest son has an airplane theme for his room.  The theme was centered around cast iron airplane wall hangings that I found at a church rummage sale.
I found two more of them on Esty!  We already had the yellow one, but the red, white & blue one is really cool.

Here's a picture of them all together:














Found! 
We haven't gotten the chance to use the metal detector that often...
When Mike's parents were here for a visit this spring, his dad had a little fun sweeping the yard.  Check out what he found!

More rusty stuff-
railroad spike and horseshoe

Cameo pin

Mercury Dime

Some kind of tag from 1956
Has town & county printed on it.

Chickens!



They're not cute little chicks anymore!

While still too young to lay eggs, they look like full fledged chickens now!







Look what I won!
Heather at Post Road Vintage had a giveaway, and I won!  I got to choose one of her pretty mason jar soap dispensers.
I had to get the lavender one- it's perfect for our purple bathroom!

Installing the Stack- Complete!

Around 7:00 on Friday evening, we had the kids' bathroom back up & running!

There's still a little work that Mike wants to do to neaten things up, and he still needs to get the master bath reconnected.  

But at least we now have one bathroom fully functional!

<--- This is looking up into the foyer ceiling.

This is the newly installed manifold in the basement --->
I have to get down there with the label maker, before we forget what goes where!

By the time all is said & done, we will have saved a couple thousand dollars by Mike doing this himself.  It took two days to get to this point, and I'm guessing another one or two days to wrap things up (not including putting up the drywall & painting of the wall and ceiling). 

We're now figuring out what our best plan of attack is on the to-do list- there's just so much!!!  We're considering jumping into some bathroom projects, while we're here dealing with plumbing... we'll see!

Installing the Stack- Part 1

Yesterday Mike started the ripping out of the old cast-iron hole-riddled stack that goes up to the kids' bathroom.  This is all an extension of the leak from the bathroom pipes down into the foyer.

Mike purchased the supplies including PVC pipes, connectors, glue, crimping tool, a water distribution manifold (not sure if that's the correct term!)  Then he took off two days of work to try & get this done!

Here's what it looked like when I left for work Thursday morning:

Mike didn't take any photos through the day, but when I came home from work, there was definitely progress, and a couple of surprises...

The amount of removed piping in the hallway should have tipped me off...

Here's the hole in the foyer floor, where the stack will be re-installed. 

Looked good to me!

Surprise #1- 

Mike also decided to remove the second stack, which went to the Master Bathroom. 

Someone had (years ago) patched it with a weird epoxy and it was just a matter of time until it too would start leaking.  

Plus, we don't need two stacks- they can be combined into one run.

So, Mike ripped out the whole "Mystery Cabinet"!  

I'm happy with being able to open up the corner of the family room.  

However this meant NO functioning bathrooms in the house!

I went upstairs to change into comfy clothes, and ran into this (Surprise #2):

I knew this would be affecting the bathroom.  

In fact, I was kinda happy about it- but it was more torn up than I expected 

(don't ask me what I actually thought was going to happen!)

The vanity drawers were removed to gain access the shower/tub pipes, 

which are also getting replaced.

So yes, there's a mess everywhere we turn.  

The boys tinkled in the great outdoors this morning

(the little one says "Mommy, I like it!"- UGH!) 

This can't go on much longer... 

luckily I can "hold it" for really long and Thank God for the gym/shower at work, 

but the Holiday Inn is starting to sound quite good!

I definitely wouldn't have survived in the 1700's!

We're hoping to have some good news/great progress to report on Monday!

Siding turned into Signs

Back when we replaced the siding on the goat barn, I had Mike store some of the old barn siding.
I told him I had big plans for it (he lovingly rolled his eyes and left me a pile of it in the workshop!)

Sorry- name has been blocked :o)

The first sign I created was to put on the front of the goat barn, which is also home to the chicken coop.
I thought it would be cute, and I love alliteration!




I bought a pack of stencils and used some old white paint that I had left over from the driveway sign.  The red was the original barn siding color.  It had faded into almost a pink, but had just the right amount of chippy-ness for a rustic farmyard feel. Once the white lettering was dry, I used a clear spray paint sealer (also left over from the driveway sign).  As I hoped, the clear coat made the red more vibrant, instead of  faded pink.

When I held it up to the barn, if felt lost with the red-on-red.  So Mike pulled a piece of the old barn door out of the scrap pile to use as a background.  I painted it white for contrast.

While I was thinking of the chickens, I made a couple of signs for when we have eggs to sell.

Mike is going to attach them to a metal post that we can stick into the ground at the end of the driveway on days that we have eggs available (though that probably won't be until around September).

Closing the Barn Door

Continuing the activities from two weekends ago, this is one of the PLANNED projects- and we made great progress on it!

As detailed in the horse barn highlight, the barn itself is in pretty good shape- except for the big, sliding barn doors...

Front barn door- BEFORE

Back barn door- BEFORE

Mike and his brother worked out a little labor trade- some jobs are just so much easier with two!  His brother (who's really good at wood-working) would help Mike build new barn doors, and Mike is going to help him trim-up some trees at his house.

I got the best part of the deal- spending time with my sister-in-law and adorable nieces (while watching my two boys too, of course!)

In just one afternoon (after moving the butler's pantry) they got the two doors built...

Front barn door- in progress

Back barn door- in progress

Last week the hinges/rollers got a fresh coat of black paint.

And this past weekend our neighbor helped us hang them back up.
They were HEAVY!

Then Mike & I did a little trim work to dress them up a bit.

FRONT

We ran out of wood for the last "x" on the back door... so we have to finish that up.

BACK

And then, of course, they need to be stained.
We'll save that as a summer weekend project!

Butler's Pantry- Cabinets

The second project we worked on this past weekend was very exciting (for me, at least!  Probably much less exciting for my brother-in-law who helped us move it!)... we bought an antique butler's pantry!

When Mike's parents were visiting, his mom & I went to a barn sale around the corner from our house.  We didn't get anything major- just a fruit bowl for me, some candles for her.
BUT they had the most amazing butler's pantry for sale!

I took a few quick photos to show Mike, and dragged him back there before the sale ended.

It was originally a U-shaped butler's pantry.  The cabinetry on the left went down one wall.  The drawers in the right photo went in the middle under a window, and the glass-door section behind the drawers sat on top of the cabinetry in the far back (and was the right wall of cabinets).  It was a little confusing because the top glass-doors in the right photo are bigger than the bottom cabinetry because there was a dead space in the bottom corner.

We measured (like 5X) and poured over our floor plans to ensure that we can make it work.  We'll be putting them along a single wall- with the help of our contractor. It's long- like 11.5 feet.  With some slight modifications to the plans, it should be perfect!

We negotiated through the week, and made arrangements to pick it up on Saturday.

It's slightly less exciting that I don't have more great photos of it...
The doors & shelves were removed to ensure their safety during the move.  But, it's nice & safe in storage for now.

I think we saved a bundle when I look at how much it would have been to get new reproduction cabinetry... and I love these so much more!

Pink Wallpaper

Having a big hole in the foyer ceiling and wall is a pain, but it also help us uncover secrets of our home's past.

Like the bright pink foyer ceiling...

and pink and silver wallpaper...

There was also a wallpaper border behind the boards where the pipes run behind... It doesn't look like it would have gone with the pink, so must have been from an earlier period (before the installation of the plumbing)

I love uncovering stuff like this!!!

More plumbing...

It was a busy weekend, full of planned and unplanned projects!
The good part is that we've got plenty of fodder for the blog this week!

Hint on project #1: Here's what the foyer looked like last week...

Our first challenge for the weekend began on Friday morning.

I came downstairs and saw dripping from the ceiling.  Mike stood on a chair, pressed the ceiling, and it dripped faster.  Uh-oh.

Mike was off for the day, and I figured that he might rip down the ceiling (he generally underestimates the mess it will make, so leaves the furniture & rugs in place)... so I removed the table, shelf and painting before I went off to work.

Mike ran to Lowe's to pick up building supplies for our planned weekend project (more on that later in the week!)
<-- Shortly after, I received an e-mail with this photo.




Mike ripped the rest open, so we could take a look at what was going on up there.  We weren't sure if it was coming from the flashing on the porch roof, or the bathroom that's right above.

Turns out the water pipe going into the bathroom sink was leaking.  Apparently for quite a while!




We had family coming over on Saturday, so just stuck a bucket under the drip & cleaned up best we could.
Thank goodness they're the understanding DIY type!

But it didn't stop there.  Remember back with the mystery door, we figured there might be a leak on the foyer side?
Well, Sunday seemed as good a time as ever to open up that wall.

There wasn't any drywall- just boards nailed vertically, and paper on top (then painted).


Behind the boards was some electrical, and a bunch of pipes (hot, cold, steam, bathroom drain stack, plus a second drain pipe that doesn't join to the stack until it reaches the basement)


Unfortunately, the drain stack is in bad shape on the bottom half.  So, Mike went last night & got supplies- he plans to replace it all the way down into the basement, & consolidate the second drain into it.

Here's the best shot I have of where we are now-->
I'll have to take a wider one, showing the whole mess later.





There are two silver linings on this little rain cloud!
1- I already picked out the new paint color for the foyer, but it was pretty far down on the To Do List.  This moves it right up!
2- Mike thinks he may need to rip out the sink cabinet in the kids' bathroom to properly get at the pipes (my fingers are crossed!)  I've got a new one all picked out- Bye, Bye mint green sink!!!!

Spot the Differences?

What a difference a couple of weeks can make!

Here's a picture of the front of the house, taken a few weeks ago...

 And another taken last week... can you spot the differences?

There are a couple that should be easy, since we've already posted about them...
1- Fence is now green.  See how well it blends on the left side?  It also helps that the bushes now have their leaves.
2- Mailbox post is also green.  Minor, but looks much cleaner now.

The next few we hadn't mentioned yet...
3- The azaleas in front are now blooming (we can't take any credit for that one!
Just want to say "Yay, Spring!")
4- The Flag!

This is a 13-star flag, which would have flown at our house in it's early years!
(The house was built in either 1760 or 1790, we're still researching that!)

On June 14th, 1777, this design became the first official US Flag. It remained the official flag until 1795, when the 15 star flag was adopted (after Vermont & Kentucky became states).

My parents gave it to us as an anniversary gift this year.