Auntie Em! Auntie Em! The Big Feeze

Feb. 1, 2011

WHAT A WINTER!

It seems like winter will never end. We woke up this morning to everything outside covered in ice. The mother of all winter storms seems to be headed straight for us. This has halted all work outside the house, unless of course we like to work in our ice skates. Here are a few photos of what it looked like outside the house this morning.

We were notified this afternoon that Indiana University has been closed and will remain so through tomorrow. Nearly the whole state of Indiana has come to a halt. Rowan was supposed to leave for a trip to Southern California for a conference tomorrow, but the Indy airport and Chicago O'Hare are already closed and most likely won't reopen for two days. They are expecting 20 inches of snow in Northern Indiana and the Chicago area. Our ice will turn to snow later tonight. I must say that as I sit here in the house blogging, there is an erie feeling every time we can hear the trees cracking when a gust of wind comes up. There are little pieces of tree that fall on the house. Lets hope the 60 mile an hour gusts that are expected later tonight leave us with our new roof intact! Good thing is we have a full fridge and freezer and plenty of fire wood on the porch.

Once we realized we may be stuck at home for a few days, I went out yesterday and got more paint samples for the interior walls of the house. We are still working away like little elves on the interior. Here are some photos of the interior work we have been doing the last couple of weeks.

I have put Rowan in charge of painting all of the high spots now. Just too much for my old bones to be going up 15 feet to paint the high bits. Here she is painting one of the kitchen walls for the second time (we ended up doing it 3x's!). Women have a right to change their minds, so that's what we keep doing :o)

Our dear friend Sally has also been helping us paint. Here she is painting the entry hall in its first trial color.

.....and Rowan again on the high bit in the living room for the 3rd and last time!

As I continue to cruz the internet to find more interesting stuff, new boxes keep arriving at the front door. Since Rowan is our fixture electrician, she has also changed the light fixtures more than once. What a dear! :o)

So, call us CRAZY, but we decided about 10 days ago to have a 60th birthday dinner party on Jan 29th for our friend Sally and had 14 people in our very not finished house for a sit-down dinner. Yes, I was about to have a nervous breakdown about this since I will also need to cook Thai food for 14 in my very not finished kitchen. Oh, and not to mention we have no new dining table to seat that many, oh yeah, and our dishes are packed away in boxes. Hmmmmmm, this is when I should have had a menopausal tantrum :o)....scare everyone into just going out to eat! But, NOOOOOO, we love Sally too much not to do this for her, so we borrow a table and chairs and soup bowls from our neighbor, I get the nicest Chinet I can find for plates and we are almost set. We borrow a truck to go get our couches (we suddenly realize we have nowhere for that many people to sit). We worked very hard to get some pictures on the walls, rugs down, etc. to make our new spaces look like a home.

We had lots of help from the cats to get ready. Lulu is always in the middle of everything and right under your feet or hands to help. Here she is helping put up the bookcase that will act as a pantry for the serving dishes.

Of course, Fergus, being the lump that he is, continued to use his mouse as a pillow while he napped!

Here are a few photos of

the house as ready as we could get it. Including paint samples on the walls.

And, just a few photos from our camera from the party(more will be posted later from other folks cameras).

Here is the royal Thai couple. There just can't be a Thai dinner without having them there (Seriously. Have you ever been in a Thai restaurant where you haven't seen their photo?). Our friends Marj and Jeri brought this to the party. Hilarious!

Rowan, Sally and Jenni. Sally doesn't look a day over 50 (isn't 50 the new 60?)

Amanda, Marj and Jeri trying not to pee themselves from laughing.

More photos of the others at the party - Suze, Mike, Bob, Kris, Nowana, Sandy, Charlie coming in the next post.

Now, here is how we will get through the impending winter storm warning.....

Stay tuned for more very soon from the frozen midwest......especially if we are confined to our house for the next few days. Brrrrrrrrrr.......

The Fun Starts Now

Weeks 16 & 17

It was really great to be able to move out of the basement and back upstairs to our beautiful new space at the start of the new year (well, almost). Our eyes are getting adjusted to all of the new light in the house where there used to be none. Our work on the inside really started once our cave dweller eyes adjusted to all of this new light.

I know. It's really silly :o) Our dear friend Sally also helped us through this process. Poor thing.

Since our stomachs are very important to us, we started on the kitchen first. Most of our food is still in the basement and we need to get it back up to the kitchen, where we can now cook inside on a real stove. The existing cabinets needed fresh paint so Rowan got all of the drawers and doors painted while I worked on stripping the upper cabinets of many layers of old paint.

We also had some patching to do on the kitchen floor where we removed a cabinet and where a few tiles got damaged during construction. The floor is laid with vinyl composition tile (VCT). We had extra tiles left over from when we originally laid the floor so Rowan, the master cutter, and I, the master layer, made easy work of the task.

Our cat Lulu supervised the work.

Rowan the master cutter

Meanwhile, the boys were busy outside in the FREEZING cold continuing their work on the siding and the beautiful arch on the front of the porch. How their hands can function in the cold is a mystery.

I took this photo of Pat's shadow outside the living room window. Even his shadow looks cold. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Mike and Rob were the only ones who stayed for the our last beer Friday for the winter.

Actually, the beer Friday was a shot of Johnnie Walker Friday. After working in 20 degrees all day, it was the only thing we had to REALLY warm them up. :o)

And, this is how I warmed up and soothed my aching bones after this very cold week. Rowan calls it my swamp water bath. It is actually mugwort. A herb especially good for the aches and pains of women.

Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I feel just like a swamp thing! :o)

There were a couple of other great things that happened in the last two weeks. Josh finished hanging and venting the new kitchen exhaust hood and the guys got all of their tools and equipment removed from the porch. They carried the new grill to it's new place in the grill chimney.

WOW! I can't wait to cook out here! :o)

Pork chops. YUM!

Winter just continues to come. The snow hasn't gone away since it started falling on Dec. 3rd.

We are giving the work crew a break from the freezing cold for a few weeks. There are only two things left to do outside, the siding for the back side of the house and the outside steps to build for the side washroom door.

Rowan and I, with help from our good friend Sally, will continue painting, cabinet work, etc. on the inside of the house for the next few weeks. Now, what colors to use is the next big hurdle. Stay tuned.............

Happy New Year!

Weeks 14 & 15

Here is a photo of us and our crew having a little bubbly at the end of their work day on New Year's Eve. We made a toast to them and a job well done in 2010. They are (from left) Rob, Steve, Patrick and Jim (Josh and Mike are absent). We soooooo appreciate the beautiful job they have done turning our early 1950's home into a stunning bungalow.

It is an understatement to say that we are REALLY excited to be moving some things back into the new parts of the house and to finally have the dust under control (well, almost!). And.... our new front porch has been unveiled to the neighborhood.... and we can actually come and go from the front door instead of the garage in the back yard.

Here is what has been going on for the last 2 weeks:

Week 14:

The guys worked through very cold temperatures the week before Christmas to get as much of the siding finished as possible. With winter in full swing, we will have to wait until spring to paint the house.

Our builder, Jim, promised he would do everything he could to get their inside work completely done so we could have the inside of the house back for Christmas. By Dec. 22 he had his boys bring our stove and refrigerator from the garage back into the kitchen. This was a very good sign :o)

Next, he said the boys were ready to bring the new front door around from the garage for installation. As the VERY heavy solid cherry door was brought around the side of the house, I was holding my breath. This has been a highly anticipated event as we just can't wait to see how it looks on the front of the house. WOW!

It was a very short ceremony as Rob took his circular saw and cut up the old front door for its trip to the dumpster. Not even worth recycling it to the Habitat ReStore. R.I.P. :o)

Look at the happiness on these faces! Josh, Jenni and Jim are excited about the coming holiday and the promise of giving us the inside of our house back for Christmas. THANK YOU JIM AND CREW!!!!

We had a beer with the crew on Thursday to celebrate their accomplishments and the coming Holiday.

The guys had Christmas eve off, so Rowan and I got right to the task of bringing some basic things back into the house, like chairs and a TV so we could start to come out of our cavedweller stage. We also removed the ply wood from the doorways that sealed us off from the construction so we can now go directly to the kitchen and living room from the back of the house instead of walking around the outside of the house. YAY!!!!

We had only two Christmas decorations for the house. The old Santa light in the dining room window, and the wreath on the front of the house. We are excited that next year we will be able to have our first Christmas tree since we moved here. The house was always too small for a tree, so we just decorated our ficus tree instead.

We spent Christmas day stripping and painting trim. We were able to have a fire in the fireplace too. Our cat Lulu was just in cat HEAVEN!

Food Alert!!!!!!

I haven't included a food item in quite some time, so here is a photo of our first meal cooked back in our kitchen. Not glamorous or complicated, but tasty. Believe me, we will be eating this kind of thing for quite some time until we get this house paid for. :o)

Week 15:

The week after Christmas the guys continued with the siding work and took the tarps down from around the porch. The transformation of the house is really amazing.

Jim made one trip back into the house this week to start the installation of the exhaust hood over the stove. Rowan assisted with what I call 'a holding call'. Penalty, 10 yards. For some reason Jim was having a hard time getting those screws in the wall. Hmmmmmmmm. :o)

The guys also brought the chopping block up from the basement so we could do some serious cooking for New Year's Eve. Rowan and I decided on Thai food for our New Year's meal.

Happy New Year!

Stay tuned..........