Autumn leaves... to rake.Saturday, October 27, 2007
All of the Living Room Furniture Arrives
Our chairs arrived earlier than expected. Along with our pillows. Here's a few configurations we tried.
Taking Away the Fence
The neighbors were getting their backyard paved over and had to get a lot of their stuff hauled away. They asked if we wanted to have our old fence hauled away with their stuff for a small fee. Rather than break down the fence myself and make several trips to the dump we took the neighbor up on his offer. (Notice in the bottom left corner of the last picture where I cleared out all the old weeds. They'll be flowers there one day.)
Jennifer Arrives (So Does Our Couch) and We Light our First Fire
Our ottomans were scheduled to arrive a few Saturdays ago. They were delivered, and so was our couch -- a nice surprise since we thought it wouldn't arrive until mid-November. Olga's friend Jennifer arrived that same Saturday afternoon and we lit a our first fire in the fireplace. The house smelled great and Dougan loved sitting in front of the wark, crackling fire.
Mending Fences
The long-waited new fence arrived. This is the fence that our former house owner promised the neighbor he'd pitch in for... and then skipped town. Our neighbors ever-so-gently asked us if we'd pitch in. Negative. Especially since they damaged the roots of the tree bordering our properties to put the stone part of the wall. They did put up a nice fence. I had to take down our old wooden fence. First three posts were easy; the posts popped right out. The rest? Weighed down by concrete and rock or small metal drums filled with concrete. Fun. This was a day, uh, I felt full of testerone and no one could challenge my masculinity (rather than, say, the day we picked out pillow fabric).
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Final Product
Helena called it Country English Blue. Not too bright. Classes up the place. Our new media center arrived Helena's last day with us. Detailing
Before showing final product, take a look at this tape job. Our previous owners had never heard of painter's tape. I'm sure of it. And it showed. Careful -- and time consuming -- taping went along way.
Helena Arrives, Painting Begins
Helena (Olga's mother) arrived from Vail to help Olga paint our two front rooms. We picked her up in Tarrytown so that we can have lunch at Blue Hill at Stone Barns before painting began. And paint they did, all by themselves. They found a new and deep appreciation for the craft of house painting. The rooms look great (see next post).More Paint Colors
No, this isn't the first piece of our modern art collection. We couldn't decide on the blue color to go with. So many shades. We eventually ended up with two choices: Windy Sky or Blue Haze. We asked them to mix Windy Sky at 50% shade. Turns out it looked exactly like Blue Haze. We thought that told us something. We we went with the lighter version of the Windy Sky.
Pre-Painting Clean Up (WARNING: Images not safe for the weak-bellied)
Olga decided to do a deep cleaning of the radiators before painting commenced. She knew not what was in store for her. We've cleaned up under the radiators before. Quick sweeps. Nothing, on the surface, was awry. What she found during her deep clean was deeply disturbing -- nightmare inducing. She found half-eaten sandwiches, a pig-in-blanket (a tiny hotdog wrapped in bread, not an actual pig in a fleece blanket -- though if she found that too, it wouldn't have surprised me), balls, dolls, candy wrappers, and Jimmy Hoffa. I can't believe we lived so long in this house with all that stuff at our feet and under our noses.
Another Break: Oswego
We took another break from the house and traveled to the Wincheks in Oswego. The neighbor's dogs had puppy Shih Tzus. This one peed on Olga. We want the puppy's mother, Bridget.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
