I didn't think it had been that long!

My goodness! Where has time gone? I guess I have just been busy. Working outside. Putting in a garden, doing daily outside work like weeding and grass-cutting, and trying to keep the kids busy now that they are out of school.

There has been plenty else going on too. Carrick fractured his arm over Memorial Day. Spent 3 hours in the ER. He fell off the back of the hot tub while goofing off (we told him to stop, but did he listen?). He had to wear a splint for 4 days until we could get in to see a specialist at the new Childern's Hospital in Pittsburgh. He had a bone chip in his elbow and they were not sure where it had come from. He ended up having about 8 x-rays and a CT scan until it was determined they would not have to operate and he could be casted. A whole day spent at the hospital, $20 for parking and I had to have CASH to pay for lunch! Huh? So I had to pay $2.00 to get out $20 from the ATM. #$&(*%. At least everything turned out well. He goes back to see the Dr. on the 26th. At least we don't have to travel downtown for that.

Then we had the last day of school last week. They have been home for an entire week now and I have heard "I don't know what to do." about a million times. They are getting better at keeping themselves busy as the days go by. They only get to watch a little TV in the mornings and then from 2 to 5 they have to share playing Wii. I have also started quiet time from the end of lunch until they play Wii. They have to keep quiet and not bother me for that time --reading, coloring, playing. But they have to be quiet. It worked pretty good today and I got a whole layout done.
Been working on the house outside a lot too. Still grading for the new driveway, putting in the stone steps in the front with walls (we used stone from an old barn foundation here in the property) and planting beds. Have been planting lots of plants (roses, perennials, trees) and cutting lots of grass. I'll post photos of the front when I get a chance. It's raining out right now.

Lastly, we have been watching the awesome Pens. Hope they can come out victorious tomorrow. I know they can, but Joe Lewis seems to have a spell over them. Let's hope it is broken along with the Redwings chances. Go Pens! At least I have that to look forward to since we are not going to the Michigan race this weekend. It's always nice to go and camp out with relatives, but Mark says we have too much work. He always says that...

On to the Second and Third Floors...

Sorry, I tried to fix this photo so it was right, but Blogger wouldn't let me. This was the view going up the stairs. Don't you just love the shag carpet and paneling?

This was the view looking down the landing on the stairs from the second floor. Pretty dark.

Looking down from the landing on the stairs to the first floor.

Wow. Was it really this bad? This was the first bedroom at the top of the stairs to the left. Just look at those pictures on the wall. They always freaked me out when I was a kid because they has such huge eyes. Red yuckky carpeting and stairs that lead to the third (attic) floor. Kinda goofy to have the stairs in a bedroom.

Here are the stairs to the third floor. These stairs gave us fits. We didn't want them to be here anymore, but it was tough to figure out how and where to put them. Eventually I won out and the stairs were relocated to where they must have been originally. This bedroom eventually was remade into the bathroom and laundry (that was another headache fight between DH and I..I won).

The second bedroom . How do you like the curved wall by the door? We reconfigured this room and it became the boys' room. We had 3 boys sleeping here for over a year until be got the attic done were Carrick now has his room.The other side of the room and the closet.

The master bedroom. Not much to look at.
The other side of the room. Look at how little Carrick is in the photo! He must be twice as tall now!

The bathroom at the top of the stairs. This was the only bathroom in the house (with the exception of the toilet in the basement). There had been a leak in the roof and it had caused damage in the house, but a lot of the water went right into the bathtub.This toilet must have been the original.
The hole in the ceiling where the leak was.And the sink. This area became the stair landing between the 2nd and 3rd floors and my scrapbook area. I love it. It has great light now and wide open.

Up on the third floor, was an interesting room. This was a girls' bedroom. See the chimney here. We ripped that out because we no longer needed it (it was the exhaust for the coal furnace).

Looking to the front of the house. When we redid the attic, we cut it into two rooms and made it a lot wider. We also had to install a dormer window so we could incorporate the new staircase. This side is now the kids (and Dad's) playroom. The other side is Carrick's bedroom.

New Projects

I have been going back and scprapping older photos of my kids that I hadn't done before. Here is one of the twins at the Wattsburg Fair in 2003. This photo is just too funny!


This one is a comparison of me and the twins with clothesbaskets. I loved this new paper from Imaginisce. Just so cute! I did a bunch of stiching on this one and a bunch of punching.

Look at My Finds!

I went out shopping for a little while yesterday morning. I usually do laundry on Mondays, but I had finished 2/3 of it on Sunday, so I treated myself. I went to an antique store I hadn't been to in a long time. Look at what I got:Isn't this chair the cutest? I got it for the twins' room since they had no where to sit while they read. Has original paint (black and red). The seat is a little worn, but I thought it was a good purchase at $25.


I was excited to get these buttons for a quarter a card!

I got this jar of buttons for $5. There were tons of great ones in here!

I got these plates at the antique store too. The large plate was $6 and the little bowls were $1, but they were 50% off - so only 50 cents each! The pattern is Virginia Rose. I plan on putting them on my new shelves in my kitchen when I finish them (got the wood last night).
All the other stuff was from The Yorktowne Shoppe. That wooden basket was only $7.48, the green bunny was $4.99, and the fabric carrot was $3.99.

Then last night on my weekly shopping for groceries, I stopped at Marshalls and found 2 of these (wish they had more!) for only $2.99 each! I plan on putting them on the front porch.

I also found this for $6.99. I plan on using it outside on my deck were the wall is pretty bare. I'll put some plants in little terracotta pots in there.
I think I got some awesome bargains. What do you think?

On a parting note, here is a photo of my kids waiting for their favorite snack of the day...

Some Background to the Story

I thought that before I go any further, I would give a little background on how we came to buy the house that we now live in.

We moved out to Chicagoland right after finishing college. While it was a nice place to live, we still wanted to move back to the Pittsburgh area someday. We finally made that move in 2005, after living in the western suburbs of Chicago for 13 years. My dad had found the property for us--almost 23 acres and it was close to where I grew up, close to my parents and my brother. It was definitely a fixer-uper, but we had plans to build a new house on the property and just fix up the old house to be livable while we built it. HA.

After tearing into the house, it needed WAY more work than originally thought. 4 years later we are still working on it.

We have done ALL of the work ourselves. The only paid help we had is with the install of all the heating, plumbing and wiring. Other than that, the only help we have had in this project has been family. Lots of man hours. We did have lots of experience in doing the work ourselves. We did a lot of rehab on the last house we owned in Oswego, IL. It was stuck in the '70s when we bought it and totally updated it.

So that's how we came to where we are. Just so you don't think we haven't gone off our rockers, he is a photo of what the house looks like today:
Still a little rough around the edges, but most of the hard work is done.

Floor One - Before Work

We'll start our tour here. This is the front porch that had been enclosed at some point in time. It was rather dirty and had no heat except for the hole in the wall that lead from the living room. We designated this the area for the kids to play in and stay out of our hair while we worked. On the top photo, you can see the doors on the left that did not open (at least easily) and how much the floor sloped away from the house.


Here we are in the living room looking at the foyer and the stairs that lead upstairs. Just look at all that wood paneling. Yuck. And notice the dirt by the registers. The house was heated by coal. That's right. When we started demolishing, we found coal dust everywhere. Everything was filthy. The door way in the middle (where you can see the door) led to the kitchen and also outside.

Look at this kitchen. Stuck in the 70s. Gold counter tops and bad linoleum on the floor.

A photo of the dining room. Note the all the paneling again. And the brown shag carpet. And that cool light fixture. And the built-in!


In the foyer, looking into the living room. Just look at that fireplace!

We are beginning the deconstruction phase. Removing the paneling. Notice the original wallpaper underneath. The carpet is gone too, but the wood floors underneath were not good enough to salvage.

Removed paneling in the dining room reveals the same wallpaper. And patched wood floors.

See the hole were the stove pipe went through? There was a chimney there that we totally removed. The doorway to the right goes to the kitchen.
Here my dad is getting into the nitty gritty of the tear-out. We tore every bit of wallboard and nasty blown-in insulation out. What a mess. We were black every time we did work there from the coal dust and insulation.

Wall in the living room, bordering the dining room and kitchen.


Wall in the living room along the front of the house. Notice the balloon framing (runs from roof to floor). We did find several of the boards marked from Sears (as in kit house) but I am not sure if it is one or they just used left overs for part of the house. We are close to the railroad (Freedom) so it could be a possiblity.
The fireplace in the living room with all the stuff removed. I tore off the brick too and maybe someday will have a fireplace that looks like a fireplace in this area.

This photo shows the old knob and tube wiring and the gas lines for lighting. We had a gas well on the property at one time, so that must be where the gas came from. We have no gas now. All electric.
This was a disaster area. After we look all the wall materials off, we found out the bump-out was sinking quite a bit. We found out the problem was whoever built it did not install any foundation, just laid stone and block on the ground. We tore the whole thing off, made a new block foundation, and rebuilt it.
This is a view from the kitchen to the dining and living rooms. Note the floral wallpaper.


This was another disaster we had to rip out. The sewage and water to the 2nd floor bathroom. It was leaking and we wanted it out of that wall.

Here is a shot from the kitchen to the foyer. More paneling. We tore this room down to the studs too as we did with all the rooms in the house.

Next time I will tell you about these two disasters.