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.

Winter Came Early

It snowed here on Saturday.  My guess is that we got about 2 inches.  The trees were flocked and every surface was coated with the white stuff but the roads are free and clear.  I think the asphalt must have been just a little too warm when it started around 1 PM Saturday afternoon so it did not shut everything down.  So anyway, it is beautiful here.

When we moved into this house we knew that the house needed insulation.  For some reason no one every thought to insulate this house in over a hundred years.  Maybe they ran into the same fiduciary restrains we have been running into of late.  I digress.  Evelyn had her last pottery sale of the year on Saturday morning so I drove here down there and then over to The Big Box Hardware Store to buy enough bats of insulation for the job.

The job started really easy and it looked great.  Over course, I wore a paper mask while I worked but I was not into the second package when I notice it was getting hard to breath.  Finally, I figured out that I had been sweating and the mask was soaked through, essentially suffocating me every time I inhaled.  So I swapped out the water logged mask for Evelyn’s respirator and got back at it.

By the time I finished I was bushed.  My knees hurt from crawling around the attic, and my hands, the same hands that gave me such fits earlier in the year were sore and achy.  Serves me right.  But the job was done and now the house warms up as quick as you can expect a heat pump to warm it up.  And its a good thing too because come Monday we had problems.

But on Sunday, we had a ball.  Evelyn, Gertrude, and I took a walk in the woods in morning.  We bundled up, put plastic bag on our feet (under our boots) and headed out into the snow.  I thought I had seen a stream running through the woods behind our house on the Google Earth photos of the properties around here and I wanted to explore the woods when I knew nobody would be out there with a fire arm.  We did find a big creek back there and Gertie jump right in a little part that was about chest deep.  It must have been freezing.  What a silly dog.  But that’s our McGurk.

When we got back we fixed some eggs, bacon, and potatoes.  Then settled in on the couch to watch the Godfather and maybe take a nap.  I learned that you can not take a nap during the Godfather.

So, the high on Monday was 28 degrees.  Yes, 28 degrees.  IN NORTH CAROLINA!  Or at least that is what Evelyn claims.  But It was chilly.  So then we go to bed.  The next morning I went into the kitchen to make the coffee and what do I find?  The pipes froze over night.  Ugh.  Maybe I will put this in the book I might write one day, “So, You Think You Want To Live In The Country?”  Anyway, I put a space heater under the house and one in the well house before I left for school today and Evelyn said the water started running again around 10 AM.  When I got out of school I ran by The Other Big Box Hardware Store and picked up some rubber wraps for the pipes.  When I got home, I crawled under the house to wrap ‘em up.

Speaking of wrapping it up.  I’m outta here.

It's Getting There

We've spent the last two Sundays painting. Last week we did the screen & side porch floors, and the new siding on the south side of the house. It's pretty much done on that side except for moving plants around and stuff. Here's a before picture from when we first looked at the house and one from yesterday:

The big window that we put in is also pretty much done, finally. It's been about a 3 month project, reglazing the windows and then painting. There were a few broken windows that I replaced, too. Here's a photo, I think it came out pretty good.

Yesterday we painted the studio porch, the back stairs and started on the fence. Here's a before and after of the studio porch:

Strawberries and Carpel Tunnel

We dug up and brought these strawberry plants from the old house, they are full of red berries but they're not quite ripe yet. Mmmm. Oh and now you can see fruit on the cherry, apple and pear trees. I've been reading up on how to keep birds out of fruit trees. I think it would be cool if we actually got some fruit from them.

So Aaron had his appointments with the doctor last week and they confirmed that yes, it's carpal tunnel, no, he doesn't have nerve damage, but yes, he does need surgery. They say with the surgery he will be able to make a full recovery. So he's going to go ahead and do it as soon as school is over so he can use his hands pain-free again. It sucks but at least it can be fixed.

Last weekend we gave the deck away!! Yay! Thanks to Katya for setting that up. Now there's a big empty dirt area on that side of the house that's just screaming for some plants. I never quite started a garden from scratch before, it should be fun. I'd like to put plants in to attract hummingbirds and butterflies since this area is visible from the living room. And herbs. There's lots of room to work with and no hurry.

Last week I started the planning on the kiln. The concrete pad has been laid thanks to Aaron, the bricks have been ordered and new blowers are sitting in the living room ready. I just need to figure out how to replace them on the old burners. This time I'm making some adjustments to the design so the kiln lasts longer and I don't have to fire as often. Hopefully I'll get as good or better results from this one. I spent a bunch of time last week on the phone talking to the brick and burner guys, well worth it, because I had forgotten a bunch of stuff from last time.

Here's a couple more shots, Ted and the barn next door-

Spring Break is Over

Well, we made lots of progress last week. Aaron was able to take off the addition and we started to put the studio together so I can get back to work. Last week I went to a workshop given by Judith Duff and it really made me want to get my hands back into clay.

This week the workmen will start doing the finishing work on the porch, putting siding up where there isn't any and new tin roofing where there used to be shingles. Luckily we're having really dry weather so that tarp is just fine until they put the new tin roofing on. They're also going to install fixed windows in the living room to bring in more light.

Here are some photos of the progress and one of me spreading the adhesive for the flooring in the studio.

Day 2 of Demolition

It's Spring Break and Aaron's off school so we decided it would be a perfect time to take off the addition that was added to the house in the eighties. It's on the south side of the house so it blocks sunlight and makes it REALLLY dark in the rest of the first floor. What they did was enclose a porch to add rooms and we're going to tear off what was added and make it back into a porch and half bath. In order to save money we decided to do the demo work ourselves and hire the contractor to do the finish work.

We started yesterday by tearing up the roofing... that took pretty much all day. By today we had filled a big dumpster with stuff we had torn off. Today it's starting to look more like a porch.

Here are some photos of the progress.

Here are some random shots from the weekend, we've had beautiful weather here, all of the trees are in bloom. The little girl in the photo is Flora, the daughter of our good friends, Eli & Carolyn.

Color

This weekend we painted the kitchen a light robin's egg blue. We also installed one of the light fixtures I bought last month. Both have helped lighten up the kitchen. Now all we have to do is to paint the cabinets and get a new countertop.... but that will have to wait. Here's a photo of the fireplace, I painted the brick.. what a beast.



The trees are starting to bud out and it's been fun to try to figure out what kind of plants we have. So far 2 lilac bushes, a forsythia, a red bud (magenta blossoms in spring), a pear tree, 2 cherries (we think), 2 hydrangea bushes, azaleas, boxwoods, daffodils, hostas and irises. A pretty good start, here's a pic of the forsythia.

bbrrrr....

It's been a little like camping here for the last couple of days. We were hoping to have the heat installed by the time we moved in but it hasn't worked out that way. Luckily we've been able to heat the bedroom with space heaters so it hasn't been too bad at night. But you can see your breath in the morning!

The kitchen floor was installed today, we have to keep space heaters on in there too so the adhesive works. I think it came out pretty good... they still need to do the moldings but here's a photo of the progress.

Work In Progress

Entry before and in progress

Upstairs Bedroom before and in progress

The Neighbors.

Last night after we got the keys we started in right away ripping off paneling and tearing up the old carpet. There were 2 layers of carpet over linoleum and a layer of newspaper from 1979 but underneath are nice plank floors, the sparkly stuff in the photo below is dust.

The walls upstairs are beadboard and downstairs are these really cool wood walls. We're pretty excited by what we found.

Here's a photo of the neighbor cows. I think we're gonna like it here.