Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Finally Some Decor!

With all of our concentration being on cleaning, renovating, more cleaning, a little more cleaning and caulking, little thought has been put into what to do with the house once it's done. The options are endless. Do we do modern, traditional, ferderal, colonial, a mix, etc. Currently we are rocking the "post college" chic with a dash of "yep we have kids" so it would be nice to have a few nicely designed and executed rooms.

In an odd twist of events, the other day I actually had some free time! I was seriously sitting in my car thinking "ok I have free time, now what?" I was close to the local thrift store, an hour to kill and off we were! I've never had that great of luck up here with thrift stores but it's the best bet for vintage finds.
This time was so much different!
The haul (Minus the painting of course)

Apparently someone had donated a ton of colonial decor. I'm quite surprised I showed the restraint that I did, haha. I don't want to over do it but this is a large house so a nod to it's age here and there is a nice touch.



Those bad boys are a lot heavier than they look. I'm not sure what they are made out of but they sure as hell can kill any spider they come across...or hold up books, which ever.


No real rhyme or reason to this except it looks cool. I think I have 2 double switches in the entire house so I hope it will work.


This was an interesting hand painted piece. Since we are coastal I'm actually surprised I didn't find more like this. It did have writing on the back but I have no idea what it says.

Shown Above: Illegible chicken scratch

This next piece is a little over the top in my opinion but I suppose the basement may need decor as well? It's made of driftwood so it's an interesting to say the least.

Shown Above: Over the Top in Jen's book

The best find, in my humble opinion, was a well made rocking chair. It's comfy and solidly built. Considering seating is at a minimum currently, I think it's a nice addition although I'm not sure how it will work out in the long term.


Finally a chair! and a rocket.....

Grand total for everything shown was $35. Obviously I need to find more free time and do this a bit more often!









Saturday, February 25, 2012

I Live in Crack House

Or rather a house with a lot of cracks! I guess for a 200+ year old house, it's not that bad but wow. Every single room! Here is a break down of what I'm dealing with:
Oh this cant be good


The above crack is located in the corner of the master bedroom. I don't even understand this one. It appears that the crack has broken the molding on the bottom yet the walls still meet (?). Caulking will fix everything right???

Don't mind Lola, she apparently was also very interested in that crack

This one is under the window in the walk in closet. Seems like a simple enough fix, just Spackle right?




These are in the "Fallon Suite" aka guest bedroom. Another Spackle job.

There are many many more but they are all hairline. I suppose that cracks like these are normal, especially since most of the rooms have the "fun house" effect. Maybe I should just buy stock in Spackle and caulk.


Thursday, February 23, 2012

I Think My Door Is Lying to Me

Oh the basement! Such an....interesting place. I can say that it is growing on me though. I mean, I still wont go down there at night though but I digress.... The basement level has a huge door that opens to the road. It's original to the house and hell if I know how to open the damn thing. So giant red door has the year "1781" on it.

Hi Door! And my shadow! Oh and look, another project! Note to self: do something with those wires!



My original assumption was that 1781 was the date it was built. WRONG! I checked the deed and the National Historical Registry and it turns out the build date is 1775! It's not the address, it's not the build date, so why does my door say 1781?? It does a great job of confusing delivery people but beyond being a pizza guy's worst nightmare, what does it mean??

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Not Bad for a Days Work

I often get asked where I find some of the house "artifacts." Well some are laying around, on high shelves, underneath things, in odd places or, in this case, under floor boards!

Today I finally took the time to clean out the tiny rooms in the master bedroom and vacuum the baseboards. Well 5 hours have gone by and I over did it a little, haha. I did all of the baseboards, chair rails, closets, fireplace, bathroom, radiator, etc... My conclusion is, it's a big damn room.



Although this room is rather tiny...

Since most of today I've been on my knees, I'm seeing things at angles I don't typically see. As I went to enter the tiny room on the left I saw a slight glint of light and glitter from the threshold. I went in for a closer look...


Before I started cleaning, obviously

I couldn't quite tell what it was, but it looked gold. Gold is good enough to go after in my book. So after finding some expert tools, I went to work.

Shown above: Expert Tools

After much finesse and patience....
Lots and lots and lots of patience...and maybe some ripped up wood....

SUCCESS!!!


Shown above: SUCCESS!!

It does have a stamp marking on the inside but I can not tell what it says yet. Of course this is nothing like what awaited me in the fireplace....


Damn you dirty fireplace and my OCD need to clean you....

As I readied my vacuum to suck up a lifetimes worth of dirt, again a little glint caught my eye. I guess it was saying, SAVE ME FROM YOUR POWERFUL VACUUM!!


Can you see it yet?

Look closer....


And Closer....

BAM!


All in all, not a bad job for a day's worth of cleaning!!!

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Another Day, Another Crack

I've decided to make a whole series of posts about all of the cracks, holes and air leaks I've found. It's really simplily amazing. At this rate, I really should just be burning money instead. I've decided to become the caulking queen! All hail!

Take a look at the picture below. It was taken at dusk in my parlour room.

Excuse the quality, I've seemed to have lost my camera in the move...

So what you see here is a moving box that I'd just moved over, the electric heater cord and the floor. Wait...what's that? Is that....LIGHT???? Why yes, yes it is. In several spots through out the parlour, you can see straight through the floor into the basement. I hadnt noticed before because honestly I wasnt looking and there were boxes everywhere. Now we need to make sure we wont fall through and after that....idk rugs maybe?

Sunday, February 12, 2012

House Artifacts #3

Sorry for the lack of posts, we moved in this week officially and it's been NUTS!

But now I digress...

The more we dig around and try to clean, the more we find! Sometimes in the strangest of places, such as under radiators, high shelves or in the dirt. In today's addition lets look at some LOCKS!


Yes I realize I need to do some trim work on the windows as well :)

We are finding them everywhere! Lock and keys alike! Not sure what goes with what yet though. Some are rusted, some aren't. The lock on the left looks like it was originally red and has the SHIELD printed on my. It has a small key attached. The one on the right seems older and says Jerrier. Far right is the skeleton type key that was found with this particular lot.

More to come!

Monday, February 6, 2012

House Artifacts #1 & #2

When we got this house, we also "inherited" quite a few interesting objects. Some of them I'm not even sure what they are or what they would have been used for. Case in point, this giant thing over the main hearth:
WHAT

IS

THIS???

I can only imagine that the house was once plagued by werewhales and it was used to harpoon them.

 It's over 9 feet long!

The next item is also located near/on the hearth. There are a few more through out the house though.

Perhaps it is a yoke for the world's smallest ox? Maybe baby oxen??

I'm all out of ideas...


In other news, we have cable and internet! woohoo! It was a hard 2 days without it. When the installers came out I asked "So on a scale of 1 to 10, how creepy is this house?"
He replied with "Oh it's not that bad but then again I've never been in here at night."

Bingo! 

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Well Here We Go

We spent our first night in the house and it was.... Interesting. The biggest casualties of the move was our poor dressers. It's got a nice lean to it now and the other has a broken bottom.
Ikea's finest right here.

The "Leaning Tower of Dressers" right in my own home!


Our box spring mattress was the other loser. Apparently it won't fit up the stairs no matter how hard we tried. Mattress on the floor time for us!


Ahhh yes, the floor!

There are things you don't notice about a place until you live there. For instance, the floors were built "fun house" style and a level would cry for help and salvation in Jasper's room, as you can see by the epic lean of his dresser.

More and better updates to come once cable is hooked up tomorrow! Roughing it is no fun!