New Red (Collar) SINK!!!

Since my mother was in town in December, our kitchen sink has been leaking.  An investigation of the drain pipes revealed a disaster of rigged-up incompetence beneath our stainless steel monstrosity of a sink.

Look at that horrid mess masquerading as a drain system.

So, I went outside to the garage and pulled out the old, red enamle coated, cast iron sink that was given to us by Jason Kutchma from the Durham rock band Red Collar.  The sink sat in our garage for two years as I hate plumbing more than electrical work.  I know electricity is much more dangerous than plumbing but I have never had much luck with pipes.  Anyway, thanks Jason, the sink looks great!

Replacing the old drain baskets turned out to be the hardest part of the job.  We needed two tools for gripping the drain on either side of the hole in order to dislodge the fittings and remove the basket.  When I finally got them out and my knuckels had been worn down a bit, I put the new sink in the old hole and replaced the drain baskets with new ones.  I spent a little extra to get “professional grade” dain baskets and I’m glad that I did.  These new drains hold the water in the sink until I don’t want it in the sink any longer.  No more do we have to struggle to fill up the sing with water.

So, after the sink was in, the drain baskets replaced, I had to get down undereath the sink and rebuild the drain pipes.  The only problem was that the new drains were not only off center, one basin being larger than the other, but they were not inline with the grey water drain pipe.  This meant getting a drain kit that I had to extend to one end while cutting down drastically on the other.  Then, in order to get the sink drains to flow into the grey water pipe, I needed a drain trap that would swivle toward the back and align the whole contraption with the sink drains.

I know, “boring”.  But whatever, I entered this work worried and nervous and came out of it with the beautiful new sink and a leak free drain system that is one of the few things in the place done to code.

We are super excited to start washing our spring veg (if its even possible to be excited about such tedious labor) in the new sink! 

If you come out to Hurdle Mills, I may even let you do the dishes.

Peace!

Oh yeah, and here's the newest heart beat to stalk our crib, Stripey, AKA Mr. Stripes.

Wood Stove, Fall Colors and Other Random Photos

Since our last post we've had a new front door installed and last weekend we had the wood stove hooked up in the living room. We've been trying to get the house ready for winter, last year was a big shocker with how drafty and cold this house was. Hopefully the changes we've made will help with that. We can already see a huge difference in how much warmer the front of the house feels compared with last year. The living room is now done! Yay.

I got a new camera for my birthday in June and have been slowly learning how to use it. I've been taking a bunch of pictures these last couple of weeks. Although I hate to see the summer end, I do love the autumn colors. I came out yesterday morning to these marigolds covered in frost, I really like that shot.

We had a huge bunch of peppers that had to be picked since it was going to freeze the other night.

Crape myrtle

Acorn Squash

Moonflower

Crazy big mushroom that looks like a space ship.

This spider took up residence in the garden for a couple of months and 

I thought he was pretty cool looking.

1910 Photo

A couple of weeks ago I was out working in the garden and van pulled up and out came about 10 people. They asked if I didn't mind, maybe they could take a picture. Well I dusted off and after a little chat came to find out these folks were all descendants of the Rimmer family, who built our house. They were in the area for a family reunion and they gave me this photo from around 1910. It's pretty cool, if you look close you can see four people on the porch, a dog in foreground and one on the porch that looks like a hound dog. You can also kind of see a side entry in the back. They must have added on the wraparound porch after this.

Since the last post Aaron redid the other bathroom by putting up drywall, taking down this weird stucco-textured ceiling stuff and repainting the beadboard underneath. He also took down the cabinets that were in there and we put in an over-the-toilet rack for the towels and some shelving above the washer and dryer. Oh and we painted it a light creamy yellow color and repainted the vanity and the light fixture above it. It seems a lot lighter and roomier in there. Here are photos of before and after, the before shot is the only one I have of that room and it's from when the old owners were here but you can see the dark cabinet and the weird greenish paneling that was in there.

We also had Sam, the plumber who redid the pipes in our old house, come out and redo the pipes here. This is after we had to call a couple of times to get leaks fixed. So now the pipes are nice and slug up against the house. And no more copper pipes, this should prevent the freezing-pipes problem we had last winter.

Summer Projects

It's been a while since I last posted. We've been super busy this summer, it's flown by so fast. We've been spending a lot of time in the garden and boy, have we been rewarded. A little too much. We had so many tomatoes we didn't know what to do. We canned some, froze some, made sauce, sold some, gave some away and still it didn't seem to make a dent, the counters were covered with a sea of ever-ripening tomatoes. Next year maybe we won't plant so many plants.

In June we had the floors in the living room done and they came out great. It's a really big improvement, here are some photos of the room in all it's stages.

The last couple of weeks Aaron's been working on the bathrooms. The half bath is pretty much done. He put up drywall, installed a new vanity sink, put down new floors and painted. It looks great, like a normal bathroom instead of that crazy room it was before. It's funny how you get used to anything, even though it's only been done for about a week I look at the before photo and think, did it really look like THAT? And the answer is yes, it did.

I'm off to help paint some trim and the medicine cabinet he's gonna install in the other bathroom. I'll post pictures of that when it's done.

Baby Bunnies & Spring Projects

You know what happens when you have rabbits, right? 

You get more rabbits.

Well, here are a couple of photos of the baby bunnies. They're about 4 weeks old and hopping around, they're cute as hell. I've been trying to handle them a lot so they will make good pets. Anybody know anyone who would want an Angora bunny?

Last weekend we finished planting all those plants we got a while back. We also moved a couple of bushes to make access to the porch easier. It looks way better out there and really didn't cost a whole lot of money. The area around the old well has a bunch of huge stones that we used to make a step for the porch and to make the path, we even stood one up. If you look close you can see a chicken in the top photo. Hopefully these plants will grow and fill in nicely.

Here's a photo of the moveable chicken coop...  pretty cool, huh?

What A Week

Last week started horrible.  First the storm swept through our yard and took the greenhouse and all our summer veggie seedlings along with it.  If that wasn't bad enough, on Sunday the drive belt on the riding lawn mower busted. Here's a photo of the greenhouse from last summer and what was left of it after Saturday's storm. We were lucky though, a lot of people lost homes and lives.

Aaron was on Spring break last week so we decided to tackle the kitchen cabinets. His folks were out visiting and we had warned them we would need to be working on house projects over the break. So with their help we got started on what we thought would be a couple of days' work. First we sanded down to the wood, then painted and added new hardware . . . that was the easy part. We then spent two days rehanging and adjusting them to fit back where they came from. All told it took five full days to finish the job and by the end of it we were ready for it to be over! But we're really glad we got it done, it's like having a new kitchen.

Here are the before shots. The first one is from when we came to look at the house before we bought it.

Out in the garden all the spring stuff is growing great, but it's going to be so hot this week we're afraid all the greens will bolt. We've put lattice over the lettuce and spinach to try and keep them cool. On Saturday we headed over to J & B Plants and traded a couple of pieces of pottery for a bunch of plants, both summer veggies as well as lot of flowing herbs for the butterfly garden and a Japanese maple. I had met John, the owner, last fall at a show and he suggested bartering, so glad we took him up on it. Now we need to find the time to plant everything!

On Sunday Aaron fixed the lawn mower and got the grass cut.

The week ended well.

Huge Improvement and New Pots!

The floors upstairs are done... Yay! These floors were never finished at all and were covered with paint splotches and stains. I wasn't so sure they'd come out good but man, they look awesome, they glow. They should be much easier to keep clean too.  Here are before, during and after shots, ignore the duct tape covering on the fireplace!

So I just unloaded the kiln and the blister problem I've been battling and babbling on about to anyone who would listen is almost solved. On the advice of John Britt, I basically slowed down the firing and bisqued a little higher (I reattached the vent to my electric kiln, too). I also tried different clays and may just switch to a different clay altogether. Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the last firing. I was starting to get really bummed about it, almost afraid to put a lot of energy into any one pot just to have it get ruined in the firing.

Here are a couple of shots we took since the last post.