The Big Shift

Definition: Shift (Oxford English Dictionary) Only appropriate definitions shown.

1. A movement to do something, a beginning 7a. Hist. A woman’s loose-fitting undergarment, orig. worn also by men; a slip, a chamise b. A woman’s loose straight unwaisted dress 9. A group of people working for a specific period of time, usu. One equivalent to a days work; a period worked by such a group of people 11. The action or an instance of shifting; a transfer, a transition; (a) change, a move. And the definitions go on and on and on and on…………

It's time to catch all of you up on what has been happening with our house project for the last couple of weeks. As you can tell from the title of this post, there has been a lot of moving going on and some of it while wearing a dress :o) Lets just clear all of that up right now.

Here are photos of us shifting our things for storage:

The guest room is now the storage room

The dining room gate-leg table has now been moved into Rowan's office as our temporary eating space. You can see we have also moved many of our plants here too. We think it makes a nice cozy little eating spot where we can look out over the backyard and try to forget about the chaos taking place just outside this room.

We have also moved all of the irises and lillies from the front beds of the house. We are storing them in big containers in the backyard during the construction.

Now that shifting should not be confused with this shifting:

I know you must be laughing right now :o) but I do wear my grandmother's old shift sometimes while I am packing (I have even been seen wearing it out front when I am grilling which makes Rowan run and hide). It has been so bloody hot here the last 2 weeks (mid 90's to over 100) that it is the coolest thing I can wear. Gram would be so proud of me!

Here are some photos of what some of the remodel will look like. We have taken masking tape and drawn out on the walls where the entry for the new dining room will be, and where the french doors to the new porch will be. You just need to visualize.

Part of the dining room entry is shown below (that whole wall will be knocked out). Shelves will be added in the rectangle on the left. The window will go away and that wall knocked out too.

The blue tape is the new french doors that will open out to the new stone porch. The existing front door will go away and be moved to the far right end of the orange room in the previous photo. The ceilings will also be removed and we will have new vaulted ceilings with skylights.

And of course the cats have been a tremendous help!

We are not only shifting the contents of our house, but also food and all the ingredients that go along with making it. We have packed away most of the kitchen utensils and cooking pots, etc. except for the basics. We will spend this last week of having our kitchen appliances (stove/oven) by cooking up a storm and filling the freezer with staples to get us through the next few months until we have our kitchen back. We will be cooking by microwave, toaster oven and a camp stove starting Sept. 7 in our temporary kitchen in the basement. We have also moved the gas grill to the back garage so we can do the grilling in the back yard. So, here are a few photos of what is being cooked up for storage in the freezer.

Goolash. A fall and winter staple in our house. My mom's delicious recipe.

Grandmas shift is also frequently found at the butchers block in the kitchen. Still witnessing delicious things being made in the kitchen.

The mince ingredients for shepherd's pie.

And, you just must see the most FABULOUS brandy wine tomato from our garden. A gift from the heavens. Nothing like a fresh sliced tomato to make our hearts go a-pitter-patter. DELICIOUS! Most of our garden was sacrificed last weekend due to construction preparation, so we have pickled all of the beets, pulled all of the sweet candy onions and yanked most of the tomato plants.

Look for update from the stone removal on the front of the house tomorrow :o)