Siding - Pretty as a new outfit!

We have sided the house in hardwood (oak-red&white).  Most of the tall straight oaks were taken off the acres here as we had a large grove of them that was left here when we bought the cut over acres.  The previous owner had left 7 acres of hardwoods to make for better hunting grounds.  There were so many there you can hardly tell that they took out a bunch to make our siding.  It was completely "free" if you don't consider sweat, muscles, time and gas to run a chainsaw and the TimberKing for Carpenter and his crew of boys. For this task it was mostly Micah and oh the hours Carpenter and him spent getting the trees, sawing the boards into planks on the sawmill and planing and straightlining them into lap siding boards.  The job was completed in June 2010.

We recently priced a nice solid oak board at the local home lumber store like we put on the house - about 2000 of them wennt into our siding - and they were a mere $23 each!!!!!!!!!!!  So $23 x 2000 give or take a bit = $46,000 we could have put into siding!  With sawmill blades and gas I wager to say we have a bit less in it than that!

Doesn't it look like the house got a new dress!?  We put a semi transparent OLYMPIC stain on it - DESERT SAND which has a few pale grey streaks in it that goes well with the stonework we are doing on the house and looks as natural as possible as that suits Carpenter!

Undressed and waiting for siding:

We stained each board before they went up to keep stain spills and such off the shingled roof.

Micah, Luke, Samuel and Carpenter's Wife did this job. 

The first boards going up looked great!

Sam Asher still faithfully doing his job! Staining those boards!

The house is dressed and ready for the next thing on the list!

Loafing on the Job

The little boys were to be moving boards downstairs while Carpenter worked on the sander / edger on the hardwood floor - It was loud enough that it drowned out all the hanky panky that was going on while they were doing their assigned job!  I'm glad they can make a game out of work!  They got it all done and had fun too!

Kitchenette

Upstairs we have a studio for Marmee and a hobby room for Carpenter and a library

and a full bedroom/full bath/walk in closet and a large open area we will use as a game/play room.

We decided to put a little kitchenette in up here so we can easily make snacks, pop popcorn and make milkshakes.  We put in a little sink and cabinets (no doors on yet) and will put in a microwave, mini fridge and ice machine.  A few bar stools around the counter and I think we will use this area a lot!

Today Carpenter went to rent a edger/sander and is sanding the hardwood floor upstairs.

The floor is red oak from a ballet studio.  We got every piece for free excluding the sweat and time it took for Carpenter and boys to extract it from the dance school that was to undergo demolition and make room for a new one to be built.  We had a plenty to cover the entire floor area upstairs - nearly 2000 sq feet.

After it has been sanded (we are doing minimal sanding to retain the distressed/rustic look) and has a good coating of sealer - it should be beautiful!  That flooring has been hauled around with us from the previous Greene Acres to here with tarps over it - to the barn once it was built - to the upstairs - and is finally in its final resting place.  If "touch = love" that floor has a lot of love in it!

Free Iron Spindles!

We knew we wanted a wrought iron railing around our open area upstairs

and up the stairway but realized at approx. $4.29 per spindle and we only needed

about 300 of them??? eeks! - we are doing this project debt-free and that

wouldn't be feasible! Way too expensive!  So here is what we ended up with...

how do you like it?  We LOVE it!  Carpenter scavenged (with permission) at every

construction site he could find over a period of months and came home with assorted

lengths of rebar - (like is used to reinforce concrete) - one of the boys cleaned it all up on a

grinder and then painted each one flat black. I even spent an afternoon painting them.  The spindles are as sturdy as can be and look just beautiful in our rustic country home. The best part about it - it was free except for the bit of paint and time spent to gather/scavenge for them.

A small bloop with Carpenter drilling the holes where each spindle fits into the beams - he measured the distance wrong and ended up with a large drilled hole in the wrong place.  I LOVE the mistake!

He put in an extra spindle in its place and used the welder and made a shepherd's hook on the end of it.

I found a little LED candle lantern and it is our little nite watch lantern.  The Lantern has a timer and comes on for 5 hours each evening at dark and turns off on its own.  It flickers with just a tiny light.

"Nothing ventured - Nothing Goofed!"

or is that "nothing gained"?  Oh well - our goof was our gain! We have a really nice lantern on our stairway!

If you are interested in getting a lantern like ours - it was purchased at http://www.save-on-crafts.com/

The Facilities

The new house has 4 bathrooms.  We currently are blessed to have 2 in our tiny space.  One bathroom is just NOT enough for a big family and we have "made do" just fine with 2 - at least one is usuable if the other is occupied. I am just thankful for indoor plumbing!  But 4 is going to be luxury as the Master and 2 of large bedrooms have their own private full bathrooms.  The 4th is off the long hallway and will service the other 2 boy bedrooms. I originally intended for it to be a 'guest' facility too - but I am not sure that is going to be such a good idea since it will be used mostly by the 3 younger boys! 

The Master bedroom has an adjoining dressing room with sink and then off that adjoins to small rooms - one accomodates the shower and the other the "facility".   This is the first room I started "playing house" in - way before it was time to do things like this - but I had to get it out of my system and get a feel for the decor I was going to use in this house full of wood. The Facilities room is all cedar from our acres - walls &ceiling.

Carpenter cutom built me this shelf over where the commode will sit. 

 I had the boys install this wrought iron toilet paper hanger  I bought from SticksNStitches.

The tin ROSES sign is from allposters.com and I have recently added a FACILITIES sign I made from scraps of cedar we had laying around (little boy was sweet enough to cut it out for me to my desired shape)  I've painted it with a base coat of green and rubbed over it with some black and creamy paint and then rubbed most of it off with a damp cloth to make it look distressed and then added the

 lettering from none other than the Fruitful Vine Lady. 

I've been collecting little glass bottles for a long while now and this is part of my collection.

This nest adorns one of the cubbies in the cedar shelf.  My little boy found me the nest on our acres

and I wove the nest "a lining" from copper wire we had left over from the wiring.  The eggs were found for me by a sweet son who knew I was looking to fill my nest.

Every bathroom should smell sweet - My jar of dried twigs and paper roses is filled with

homemade potpourri and I freshen it up every now and then with a few more drops of essential oil.

The FINISH LIST for the Master Facilites Room is getting shorter! We have 1-2-3 and one room is completely done! I pay not attention that this is the smallest room in the house - so the list can't be that long! I already have TP in there - I am ready to move in!

1-Install floor
2-Install commode
3-Install baseboard trimwork

Wall Art

I am just in love with the idea of writing on my walls!  I had done a Scripture above the arch on my dining room in our other house and it was my first time to write on my walls and it hooked me!  I did it the hard way:
I printed my verse on regular copy paper (a few words on each page in a very LARGE sized FONT) and taped together my lengths of paper to make a 44” long banner. Then I used the old-fashioned type carbon paper that was used to make duplicates in old-fashioned typewriters. I taped with painter tape the carbon paper then my verse banner I had printed out on top of that. All taped and centered, I used a soft blunt pencil and traced the outline of the letters onto the wall. Then after removing the pattern and carbon (tracing paper) I used a thick black permanent marker and colored in the letters. I can say I used a LOT (many more than just ONE) of black permanent markers to complete the verse I lettered over our dining room archway, but I felt much more in control of the artwork using the marker than a brush and paint.
For the new house - we only have plank wood walls with a KlearKote on them.  Carpenter is very un-fond of paint!  I will have to say the raw wood is very interesting with every piece having different knot formations and streaks and colors.  I am having fun trying to get my decor all wrapped up into this "raw wood" look. 
Trying not to be obsessed with the wall art - sheeesh! - I like it so much I keep thinking of ideas where I can put it next!  Too much of a good thing is too much! I have found the EASY way this time around - The Fruitful Vine Lady - this beautiful easy to install lettering can be custom made for just for you!   So I splurged for my birthday and made it big.  It graces our BIG main room in the house - and can be seen from the front entry and is placed up over the sliding doors that go out the back way.

The Scripture is from Psalm 147:13-14 - This picture (lighting was funny - below pictures is much truer to what our walls look like)  is before the ceiling was installed - I get so antsy to give the house "my touch" I always get the "cart before the horse" - Carpenter says "This house could use a woman's touch" - and I smile and get warm fuzzies inside.  I love making a house a home. The ceiling and lights have been installed since - isn't it beautiful?

I've also used Fruitful Vines lettering - and put it on a few signs for the bathrooms and on glass apothecary jars in my bathroom.  Hopefully some pictures later of where I am sneaking in these letters I love!

Yes! It goes on anything - wood, glass,porcelain, mirrors and more!  Now you know why I have to restrain myself and not put it on everything!  It also has the great advantage of coming off with no damage to the surface - why would I want to remove it though?!?  But that was a good selling point as Carpenter did not want the wood tarnished if we needed to take it down.  There is a lot of work inside those wooden walls! 

“Therefore ye shall lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, . . .and ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou

liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates.”  Deuteronomy 11:18a,19,20