Happy 9th Anniversary Little House!

 

Goodness, another year has gone by!

When I was thinking about this post, I didn't think there was any projects to add to this year's Have-Done-List.  But looking through my pictures I discovered I was kind of busy this Spring! 

Backyard view through the apple tree.

The biggest projects was finally patching the heat vents! This one is a shared vent between the bathroom and back bedroom. 

Because the old vent covers actually come out over the floor, the floors also needed to be patched. Thankfully I had leftover tile and leftover flooring. But first patching the wall!

New lath is the first layer,

Then a "scratch" coat of plaster,

And finally the top coat of plaster.

The one tile half tile that needed to come out so I could fill it in with whole tiles.

Can you see the section that has really white grout? That is the new rows!

And since I had the tile cement and grout out and I thought it was finally time to finish the half row of tiles behind the bathroom door. I had originally miscalculated the width the trim would ended up taking and left too large of a gap.  

Gap all gone! And it took about ten minutes! Lol!

Once all the wall vents (there were six) were patched it was time for a little trim rearranging! I had a small amount of old trim left over and one 6' piece of new. It was really close, but we made it! 

The white piece of wall is my new patch, the black on either side is old wall.

This wall actually had four pieces of trim on it! I managed to get it down to two! 

This wall done! One would never know!

I also re-painted my bedroom! I finally found the paint of the color I had upstairs and am so happy with the color now!

Can you see the old color (upper part) and the new color (lower part)? So much better! The old color didn't even look pink compared to the new color.

And then I finished a new quilt for my bed!

Mandy and I had a shelf Saturday and took down the floating shelves I had upstairs, brought them down to my room and then put up a bigger shelf for plants upstairs.

We also hung towel hooks in the bathroom! Should have done this long ago! And I love the old fashioned look it brings to the bathroom.

Mandy's new plant shelf. It has so many more plants now that we have had to bring then all in for the winter.

So that is this year's list! More than I thought, I had kind of forgotten that all happened this year! Working on Sister House is bringing back so many memories. It is fun to see the sister's differences, but I am still glad this little house it mine. 

The two sisters!

On to Sister House!

 Are you ready for a tour of Sister House?!?

It has been so fun (and a lot of work!) discovering all of her features and charm. At times I have felt a bit like an archeologist digging into the past, peeling back layer after layer! On October 1st Mandy and I started cleaning, de-cluttering and peeling back the 1970's layers.

Do you know why I named her Sister House? She is an almost exact duplicate of my little house!

The sisters basking in the autumnal sun!

The living room and dining room is all one great room. Lots of carpet (that already went in the dumpster!) and a drop ceiling that we tore out.

Also a bit of paneling on the back wall!

Oh the kitchen! So much paneling! And another drop ceiling!

And more paneling in the bathroom! 

A nice old 1950's bathtub. The tile surround is actually a more pleasant color than it shows up here. A friend called it pistachio and I think that describes it perfectly! 

The front bedroom. Just a bit of wallpaper removal here!

The back bedroom with more wallpaper!

The upstairs is one big loft with lots of fun ceiling angles! 

I will be removing the closet doors and leaving them as alcoves. 

The stair paint is certainly not helping to brighten things up!

Of course, Sister House doesn't look exactly like this right now. Mandy and I have been ripping out and ripping out! I am so super excited about this project! I have dreaming about it for a long time. Not only is this another cute bungalow that needs love, but I will be furnishing and decorating her to rent out as an Airbnb!!

I have always thought it would be really cool to have a Bed and Breakfast, so when I discovered Airbnb, I knew the dream was getting closer! I think Airbnb is a great way to share my love of old houses. I can't wait to take you all on the journey!

I will be back shortly with pictures after demo and all the fun things we uncovered!

P.S. Sister House has her own Instagram account! Follow along @SisterHouseCottage.

Ah Summer! 2021

 

Hello Friends!

I am still here, happy and healthy.  This summer has been a whirlwind of activity! But it has been filled with all the good things in life!! Family (lots of family visiting!), diy projects, sewing, gardening, crafting, going to the beach, porch sitting, small house projects, berry picking...... 

Last year I had a really hard time finding words..... which is one of the reasons I haven't been posting much. What was there to say about last year, except we survived? 

Last year also had me reevaluating a lot of things in life, just rethinking what direction life was going and what direction I wanted it to go. I am sure a lot of us did that!  I have been a bit on the fence with this blog. Should I let it go? I am on Instagram and really love the inspiration and creativeness of it. 

But, I have good news! 

Do you remember the Sister House I purchased last year? (aka the house next door) The renters are moving out in a few days and boy do I have plans!! I am so excited to start restoring her! So, for the time being, I will keep this blog as a way to share the renovations. So stayed tuned!

Can you believe it is already apple picking time? The little apple tree has produced a bumper crop this year! I had to buy myself an apple picker on a pole to reach them all. I haven't picked all the apples yet, I need a little time to make some pies and apple sauce first!

We haven't spent a lot of time on the front porch this year because of the construction dust! They decided this was the year to replace the road, crosswalks, driveway aprons and sidewalks. Boy, is it a mess! We will be thankful when it is done.

I finished my new quilt this spring. It has been so nice! I love how colorful it is. It was a nice comforting project to work on last year.

I was super excited to finally go blueberry picking! We found a farm that isn't too far away and Mandy and I had a lovely time. It was a beautiful, rather warm, day. Fruit trees and bushes are so beautiful.

This Spring I finished up patching over the old heat vents and rearranging trim, but I will save that for another blog post. I also did a few small projects including hanging hooks in the bathroom and floating shelves in my bedroom. Oh and I also repainted my bedroom walls a slightly darker pink!

So Friends, that has been the summer in a nutshell! 

I can't wait to share the journey of Sister House with you! 

Do you  have any big exciting projects coming up?