Long time coming....

My friends, I have been absent longer than I thought! I have had some major computer issues.  All my pictures are on my laptop, and I'm on Jim's laptop now :(  

We are still trudging right along at Sunnybrook, as a matter-of-fact we were there all last week and a lot of little details that probably wouldn't interest you have gotten done.  We have an outside dining room wall insulated and ready for bead board and trim, as well as the hallway ceiling....which should get accomplished soon...very soon. I will then be able to post pictures of the kitchen, dining room and the hallway. A floor is going down in the dining room, and then sanding the kitchen, sitting room and that big ol' hallway floor comes next.  I'm going to paint ceilings downstairs and one bedroom ceiling upstairs, and the walls of that same bedroom.  I'm having such a horrible time trying to decide on colors.  I really think white walls and ceilings is the way to go in a farmhouse, but maybe too safe.  Jim thinks some pale wall color would be fine for farmhouse walls. I'm going to step out of the box and paint the kitchen, dining room and one upstairs bedroom a creamy beige with vintage looking cream lacy curtains (think of your grandmother/great-grandmother's house....I want something akin to that!) I'd love to find some of the vintage chenille bedspreads, but they're too expensive and the newer ones just don't have the same look. 

I'm so excited to be almost ready for some furnishings!...of course  I'd be more excited if our pockets were a little deeper ;)  I don't really want anything new looking though. I want everything to have some wear and tear...like it's been there for a while....except mattresses.  I don't want yardsale mattresses from someone I don't know; however, as I told some of my friends, I guess that's what we get any time we stay in a hotel! 

I have some beautiful spring pictures at Sunnybrook. I'll try to get those posted.  I hope you're still out there! I promise to try to do better.  Honestly, not too many new pictures since I last posted. No room is furnished yet, or even ready for furnishings....but SO almost ready ;)

Library?

Jim doesn't know it, but I was thinking one of these days when we get the necessities of fixing up Sunnybrook out of the way, I would love to have a library in the middle room upstairs. That sounds so pretentious doesn't it? I do think so. However, I love books and I have a bunch of them....and really a library is only a room with a bunch of shelves for books and a comfy chair...and maybe an ottoman. So, I think it's just the word "library" that makes the whole idea sound pretentious. 

I looked, and this is something that I think could be built fairly cheap......a must, and without major work....probably a must also, as I may have to do it myself. (which is out of the question).

Below are pictures of the upstairs room at Sunnybrook in question.

The doorway from the hallway.  Those are black lights, and before you ask, I don't EVEN know.

This is the right side of the room.  The strip of white you see on the right of the picture is the doorway into the back bedroom.

This is the left side of the room. The bathroom will be on the other side of this wall.

I think it just needs a bunch of shelves built around the room, and a nice chair....and some paint.

This is exactly what you think it is....a big 'ol hole in the floor between the kitchen and dining room.  If you remember, this is where I originally was going to put a pantry with a red screen door. I still love the thought of that, but now it's going to be the spot for my old time buttery. I canNOT find a picture of a buttery to lift off the internet to show you so, as stated in an earlier post, you have to actually click on this link to see for yourself the buttery I (sort of) want. Plus, this is a beautiful blog, so check it out while you're there!

http://www.behindmyreddoor.com/2011/03/kitchen-bathroom-and-life-changes.html

Southern yellow pine flooring will be going down in the dining room.  Hopefully it will look something like this....

....minus the shine. We're not really looking for flooring with this much shine.

This is probably more like what I have in mind.  I like a darker floor; however, they say (the internet!) it is better to just put tung oil on yellow pine and let it age naturally. Jim is going to experiment with one of the boards though, and stain it with different stains to see how the wood accepts the stain and what shade will work. We'll see.

Too old? I say just too out-of-shape!

Jim and I worked at Sunnybrook yesterday.....worked, worked, worked! Jim mowed (push mower) almost all the yard......and it's a huge yard. It look great!  We've never seen Sunnybrook in the summer so we have NO idea what it looks like, but the bushes and flowers are all budding and blooming and we can see that it's going to be a beautiful place.

I used the power washer and washed that big 'ol wrap-around porch in preparation for a new paint job in a couple of weeks.....green it was and green it'll be. It's so nice to know the color choice for at least one thing at that house! (I'm still going from one color choice to the next on what that kitchen will end up with!)  I also swept a couple of the upstairs rooms and washed the inside of the windows, including the sleeping porch with all it's windows. Downstairs I knocked all that old tile off the wall in what will be the sitting room.

What was left under that tile is just a mess...old dried hard tile thinset/mud/cement...whatever it's called...it's packed on there. Any ideas?

At any rate, when we left Sunnybrook last night both of us were moving pretty slow....due to being out of shape, thank you very much!

A Weekend at Sunnybrook

How nice it was to get away for the weekend and do some long overdue work at Sunnybrook. The pump got primed and the water lines got replaced and run to the kitchen and the upstairs bath.  We are completely ready to insulate the kitchen walls and then the beadboard goes up on the walls and ceiling, the floor gets refinished, the cabinets get placed, and the appliances get moved in. Voilà!!! Kitchen!!!

I painted the downstairs hallway, which is a huge 6' x 17'.  It went from dark and red to light and white. I'm sorry that I don't have a picture yet of the new white hallway, but here's a picture of the old red hallway.

I love red, truly it's my favorite color, but I really didn't think this color was approprite for this house. Just FYI, to the left there's a doorway off the hall that leads into a sitting room and to the right there's two doors that lead to a bedroom....Yep, two doors that lead to the same bedroom. It's a big room.  As you can see, the doorway at the end of the hall leads to a bathroom that's in dire need of a remodel. 

This hallway will get refinished, probably when the kitchen is refinished....Maybe? Not sure. At any rate, at some point this hallway floor will get refinished and I'll use an area rug and put furniture in there. It has a deacon's bench now, but I may move that to another room and replace it with a little sitting area...something like this (just the sitting area, not the wall treatment)....



I have chairs that look just like these.


On the opposite side of the hall, I want to put a piece of furniture for storage.  Old houses have a tremendous amount of charm, but hardly any storage space!! I'm thinking something like this....

or this...... 

                                                          with this hung above it..



I LOVE this wall cabinet. I have from the first time I saw one like it in Gate City, VA. I might have it some day...you never know.

Finally, more pictures....

Let's see...to catch you up, Jim went to Sunnybrook today and redid all the plumbing he did last week! He didn't like the pipe he used (Do you remember me saying he hates plumbing?), so he swapped that out for a different type, and now he feels better.

Eventually, this will cumulate into a kitchen with running water and a brand new bathroom upstairs, complete with a shower, clawfoot tub, potty and vanity!!!  Here's a  picture of what was once an upstairs bedroom but will become the new upstairs bathroom, and home to my new (old) clawfoot tub!



We're going to catacorner the tub here. Plumbed in!



 

The picture above is the same room from a different angle.  Right now there are three doors into this room. I don't want three doors going into my bathroom, so this will become a solid wall and these two doors will be gone.  The area to the right is where the shower will be installed.

Here's a picture of my tub. We have the feet off right now, waiting to be painted. We're also going to paint the bottom of the tub. It actually looks pretty good. It has the original coat of paint, and that's it. A lot of these old tubs have layers of paint and/or rust. The inside of the tub looks good, so we won't do anything to it....except give it a good cleaning. The outside will be painted white...in maybe a satin finish (which has only a slight shine), and the feet will be painted white in a gloss finish...for contrast.  What do you think?

OK, now look at these stairs. How difficult do you think it'll be to get that 350+ pound tub up those steep, narrow stairs?  They're 28 inches wide. Uh-huh.

Well, that's where things stand upstairs....for right now.

Downstairs? What a mess. Jim took this picture while standing in the "dining room", with the "kitchen" in the background. I use both terms very loosely....for right now.

More to come.

Another Thursday...

I wanted to add a quick post to the Sunnybrook blog, just to let you know that progress is still being made. More plumbing (which Jim HATES) and electrical wiring got done today. Not to much more to talk about with that folks!

We've ordered a bed!  After that gets picked up (and set up)....and when warm weather decides to present itself in a more consistent manner, I'm going to take a few days off work so we can spend a couple of days and nights at Sunnybrook.  We may actually get some cosmetic stuff done....cleaning and painting...that sort of thing. I want to get some curtains up, pictures on the walls, furniture moved in and get some personal stuff strewn around!  I'm anxious for a homey feel!