Renovations continue

What began as a simple; "let's take down the horrid green paper and put up new embossed paper and paint a colour of our choosing."  As you have seen what has gone on before this is turning into a major renovation.

I am still working on the same wall.  I think I have counted somewhere in the region of 5 different pieces of wallpaper, a vinyl cloth backing which is the first layer over the many coloured plaster.

 I have since read that this was placed over the plaster to keep it from crumbling and breaking anymore than it already was.  I was hoping to keep that layer intact but it is so brittle in places that it is coming away with the paint leaving the exposed dusty crumbling plaster.  Richard has decided that he does not want anything to do with this process of removing the many layers of paper.  We don't want to take all the plaster down as we still have to live in the house and this is the kitchen.

We had a great idea of exposing the brick corner, the chimney stack that exhausted the carbon monoxide from the gas boiler, hot water tank heater and space heater.   As you know from an earlier post those are now all replaced with a modern boiler that is exhausted out the side of the house through a covered over window.  Therefore the stack is not used and will be capped off sometime in the spring.

Richard decided to take a hammer to the corner of the wall to see what the brick was like and broke the brick so damaging the chimney.

I'm not saying this wouldn't have happened once I began exposing the brick from a crack in the plaster in the middle of the chimney area.  The brick is not very good quality and therefore I have decided we will not be exposing it, unless we find someone who knows what they are doing and would do it for 'just the love of exposing brick'.

 I will have to repair the corner that is broken, there will be many areas of the plaster that I will have to chip where the cracks are and remove the loose plaster and repair before we do anything else to the wall.

As you know our ceilings are 10 foot so in order for me to be able to get at all the paper Richard had to find steps that I could stand on with my whole foot, so I would be safe.  Here are my new steps and yes I have used them and they work great.

So far everything that I have managed to pull off has been dry, at least today.  The second picture shows the cloth material that is placed over the plaster to keep it from crumbling.  From these two pictures you can see what I am up against.  I am determined to removed all the old wall paper.  I think I will then skim coat the whole wall once all the damaged plaster has been chipped out and repaired.  Once all that is done I have a feeling we will just paint the walls.  I've just removed more of this grey fabric material and the mixture of compounds that have been used to patch the walls is unbelievable.  Richard believes we might just have to tear down the plaster and lathe and drywall, but I don't want to damage the other side of the wall.

Anyone with ideas please post notes.  If you live in this area and enjoy this type of work, no money to pay anyone, and know what you are doing, and would like to help.  Post a note.  This is not going to be a quick renovation to just make the kitchen look fresh; but it is not a full gut either as we can't accord to replace the cupboards for more age appropriate ones to the house. 

Renovations - No turning back now!

Since Richard and I purchased this house we have been tearing pieces of the ugly green painted embossed wallpaper off the kitchen wall.  On November 24th it became more serious and I came home to find Richard had torn quite a bit more off  the walls.  Needless to say I joined in and when I had had enough for that day this is what we had done to one of the walls.

 So in these pictures you see the horrible green the the walls are painted.  How badly the walls were papered with the paper not being actually stuck to the walls.  The various layers of wall paper from the embossed, a mottled beige and white, panel design and then the vinyl grey stuff.  Over the various layers that have been partially removed over the years, someone has added mud (plaster) to smooth things out.  The lower half of the wall has painted faux tile sheets.  We are still debating whether to remove or just repaint any suggestions?

We love the ceiling which has been added to replicate what is in the living room, but I hate the type of ceiling covering that over the years has become grey with cooking and just general living in the house.  I can't imagine painting it without taping all the wood so we do not get paint on those faux beams, because I really do like the idea of the ceiling just not the sponge stipple stuff.

Today, December 1, 2012 I once more tackled the walls, using a slightly watered down fabric softener solution.  It did work a lot better than using the steamer but is a lot messier and makes the floor very slippery which I had to be careful walking on.  I made sure that I cleaned up the mess every so often and washed the floor down with plain water.  I did not want to track the mess through the house.  So what does it look like today.  Here are today's pictures:

This is a corner I began and found some very interesting DIY attempts. There was chunks of mud in the corner with paper taping on that then more mud on top.  As you see there is patches of newer mud and then grey vinyl paper under that mud.  In one section it looks as if the original plaster wall was painted a blue/grey.  The black stuff I have no idea what that is unless I chip the skim coat off mud that is in patches everywhere.  The panel patterned paper is hard to get off and then that vinyl stuff is loose in areas; I've accidentally dug into parts and pulled it off.  I was hoping to leave the grey vinyl stuff intact so we could either paint or wallpaper over the top, as it is fairly smooth.

So this is the wall I started with and as you see most of the vinyl is intact but not sure anything will really stick to it.  There are more areas of patching as you see.  Still don't know what to do with the bottom portion of the wall.  Richard wants to just paint it and he doesn't want to help with the wall paper stripping other than pulling the easy stuff off.  He said it's my thing all he wanted to do was pull off the green stuff and slap up some more of the same paper and paint it a more pleasing colour.

In the picture above this one you see the various levels of paper, the green, then the mottled beige, the panel patterned and the base vinyl.  In the bottom picture you will see I have reached as high as I can with a one step stool, I'm not very good on steps but will probably have to purchase a three step ladder so I can reach to the ceiling.  10 ft ceilings do have their down falls and that is they are hard to reach to the top to get the rest of the paper off.  I know Richard is 6' 3" but does not want to work on the scraping of the old stuff.

I know this was supposed to be just a quick face lift but I can't leave a job just half done.  I feel you have to do it right or not even start.  So here are my questions:

1. Do I patch where I've pulled parts of the grey vinyl off and then paper?
2. Do I take everything off the walls including the vinyl and patch the damaged plaster and then smooth the walls and paint?
3. Do I allow my hubby to gut the walls pulling all the plaster and lathe off, then have to have all the wiring checked because I know we aren't going to find anything good in that wall, then drywall, tape, mud, sand, remud and sand some more then put a fresh coat of paint?

There you have it folks what would you do if this was your kitchen?

Changes to the Outside of our Home

Even though I have been laid up all summer with my left knee work has been done on the grounds around the house.  Richard has picked up the slack (even though he hates gardening) and pulled out plants, dug gardens, planted new plants etc.  So here are a few pictures of before and after of the outside of our home.

 

The front of the house on the left side had these ceders growing they are now gone.  The window well had been updated and we have added two dogwood shrubs with the wood that turns red in the winter either side of the window well.  The picture of the front of the house partially in the shade but hopefully you can see where these changes have been made.

 This is the north side of the house where there once was a very large spruce tree which we had removed.  Richard is slowly removing as many of the surface roots from that tree as possible in the mean time we have added 18 ground covers; 3 ivy, 4 creeping jenny, 3 black bugle and 4 rainbow bugle, and 4 periwinkle.  We have been told that all these plants like shade and do well in the acidic soil that the spruce trees make.  We still have 3 very large spruce trees on this side so no changing of the soil anytime in the future.

 



This is from last year early in the summer and Richard clearing the over grown white lilac.












 This is the same area in the spring this year.







This is how it looks at the moment.  Michelle and I removed the majority of the stones from around the pond.  Richard dug the whole area and placed ground fabric down ready for the rocks to be placed back around the pond, redesign the waterfall (next years project I would think).  We planted two virginia creepers and will make holes in the fabric so they can spread and cover the area as the years go by.  We also want to place some kind of structure for the virginia creepers to climb to have a height feature here. 

The ornamental cherry that has be designed to weep, I took time to prune the branches that were beginning to grow upwards.  This tree now has about a foot or more of the branches spreading out on the ground so I'll probably cut those back.

Richard plans to make some sort of seat out of this so using the old radiator as a garden feature.  This was the radiator we purchased but found out it leaked so is not usable.  We think it will make a great feature on the back patio.






I was hoping to do before and after pictures but it didn't work out so well.  Things have been done outside even though Richard hates doing this type of work.  Many thanks to him though because I was getting very frustrated with not being allowed to do the work myself.  I have lots of plans as we move ahead with the garden but it will take many years to do all the work.

Richard took the time to clean out all the eaves-trough so hopefully the water will run down the drain pipes now instead of overflowing as it has want to do in the past.  Obviously this is a yearly task because there are a lot of trees in this area besides all the ones in our garden.

Saying good bye to our motor home

The decision has been made to sell our current motor home.  I will be sad to see it go as it has meant freedom to travel and take our two cats with us.  We will be purchasing a new unit, but probably not a Class A, although we both love these units we just can not afford to buy a new enough model to cut down on the costs of repairs.  We have decided to begin looking for a fifth wheel unit and truck, this will mean that we will always have a vehicle with us to go and see the sites where ever we are parked and not have to move a big motor home in the process.  It does make far more sense but I love having a mini home on wheels that I can get up and use the bathroom, go to the fridge for a cold drink or something to eat, without having to stop in our travels to do so.  We can still take our two cats with us not sure about the logistics, whether they will be in the truck with us or in the fifth wheel unit.

Of course it will mean we can't afford a new unit so it will have to be older but they are a fraction of the price of a large Class A motor home, the truck will be the costly part, but this will give us a second vehicle, no more having to decide who gets the car on which days.  It is a shame because it means an additional outlay of funds when we really wanted to use any extra money to start renovations on our lovely home.

So this is what we are selling:

If only everything was working correctly we would keep this vehicle.  Neither of us can justify paying out anymore funds to fix the problems that are now in need of repair.  The layout of this unit has been ideal for me when I don't have my prosthetic leg on I can get to the bathroom and then to the kitchen area by just holding onto items, which has meant no having to put my leg on in the middle of the night.  I love this rig and it has served us well for almost ten years.  It is a shame the previous (original) owners did so many cheap repairs to the point of making it difficult for Richard to be able to fix things.  We put a lot of money into the unit but there comes a time when we have to say no more.

We have been offered the opportunity to purchase another unit in this class but he is asking more than we are willing to pay and would mean yet another loan.  We haven't gone to see the unit because chances are we would fall in love with it and buy it anyway.  Not sure we will have anything to use for next year so we may just stay home and work on the yard and get the things done to finish at least tidying up the gardens and flower beds until I can decide what I want in the way of landscaping... but that is a whole new blog.

No Stress Vacation!!

At least that was the plan.  After deciding that with the rush to the coast to our daughter's graduation a the beginning of June we would not then rush around to make it to our friends son's wedding in Custer, SD at the end of June.  As much as this disappointed me, it really did make sense.  The motor home was not yet out of storage and Richard had another funeral.  One of our long time shut-ins past away so everything else was put on hold.

The week before we were due to leave for South Dakota Richard finally went to collect the motor home.  There would not have been time to clean and pack before Wednesday, so the disappointing decision was final.  Our Vacation would begin once Richard had prepared for his full four weeks of vacation.  Yes, Richard for the first time since becoming a Pastor, would take his full vacation at one time.  He does have more than this banked as he really has not taken any holidays since June 2009, which was the last trip we made to Milwaukee, WI and then to Grand Marais, for a weeks break.  The plan originally was to head to Custer, SD for the wedding and then meander our way back home.

We did not leave until Sunday July 1st, it had taken three days to load the motor home when usually we can do it in a matter of hours.  We were so disorganised, far more so than ever before.  The plan was to get across the boarder and find a place to stay before headlights were required, as ours do not work.  We found a great little camp ground in Plentywood, Montana.  We had 30 amp hook up and water but no sewer, and a great crowd of Canadians from Regina who have been coming to that spot for over 20 years.  They had celebrated Canada Day with one of the locals cooking them a wonderful pork meal and the ladies of the group supplying other foods... we arrived too late for that celebration.  We decided to stay another night there and Richard would head into town to buy supplies but especially cat food.  

No, we did not forget to bring our babies their food but at the boarder crossing when we declared the cats they wanted to know if we had pet food, where was it manufactured, we didn't know as we did not have the bag with us.  They were sorry but they had to remove what we had and dispose of it as only pet food made in USA could be brought across the boarder.  We had nothing to feed Wynakin and Katie until Richard could go into town for supplies.  The next day he got his bike out and headed to the stores to shop.  Now we needed food for us too, and of course Richard required beer besides the large bag of cat food.  There was no way he was going to be able to carry all that on his bike.  He popped into the local Lutheran Church met the Pastor and the Pastor dropped our shopping off at the motor home.

The following day we headed towards Minot... we had been on the road most of the day and about 20 miles out of Minot I happened to look on the floor near the drivers chair.  Oh my goodness, that really looks as if the carpet is burning.  I pointed it out to Richard, he felt the area, it was pretty warm, so he pulled off the road onto the shoulder, sure enough the carpet was smouldering, we poured a ton of water on it and began looking for a camp ground:

 This is the area that was smouldering, Richard believes the engine was so hot that a piece of the carpet was touching it and started to smoulder.  Probably had been on the road for about 6 hours and the weather is really hot.

 The Roughriders Good Sam RV Park's billboard was just up ahead within 5 miles, closer than the KOA one which was about 15 miles.  With a possible major problem we chose the Roughriders and here we are parked until Thursday morning, when we start for home.

This was our second spot as we could only stay in the first one for the one night but we planned to go shopping in Minot's JC Pennys.  We decided to book into this camp ground though for 7 nights so Richard made those arrangements and this is where we have been sitting since we got back from our shopping spree.

Besides shopping I also decided I had had enough of my hair and booked an appointment to have it cut while Richard went off and did his own shopping.

I noticed it isn't quite as even as I would have liked but if I learn how to do that little flip under with the flat iron it should be fine, plus she has cut it to comb to the opposite side.  The hairdresser says my hair lays more evenly that way because my right ear sticks out more than the left so my hair looks even combing it to the left.  Depends if it drives me nuts keep falling into my face.

How Richard is getting through the really hot afternoons... taking a rest and sleeping through the hottest part of the day.  Today was even hotter so the a/c was on the majority of the day. 

Once Richard was up and about Wes came over and between him and Richard they at least got the headlights working.  Not the high beams but at least we don't have to worry about travelling at night.  The water heater and fridge gas problems are probably couplings (at least I think that is what they are called) that need replacing and not something Richard or Wes can do.

It is time to start looking for a new rig and this time I think it will be a fifth wheel and a truck.  Not sure out adventure has ended this year but I do hope so.

60th Birthday

My husband threw me a 'surprise' birthday party, except it wasn't a surprise, at least not the party.  The surprise was having my daughter, Evette, Smiley (Richard) and Zachary show up at the front door just before the party began.  I was so shocked, surprised and emotional that I cried.  Michelle had already arrived for the party so had answered the door.  I can't even now express the delight, happiness and many other emotions that went through me at that time as I cried tears of joy. 

I had teased Evette about insisting she come to celebrate my 60th birthday but not really meaning her too as I know funds are very tight for them and Victoria, BC is a long way from Prince Albert, SK.  They worked out their options for the costs of coming and realized that the cheapest way would be to drive.  Yes, they drove with a three year old to spend this special time with me.  The last time I saw them Zachary, my grandson, was only three months old and now here he was three and a half years old.  Of course we had chatted on Skype so I wasn't a complete stranger to him.  Evette said he was so excited all the way here until they arrived and then he became very shy.  It wasn't long before he was giving me a big hug.  This was a day I will not forget.

When Evette said she had an idea on how to surprise me for my birthday I fleetingly thought she's coming to visit but just as quickly dismissed the notion.  They drove all that way to spend from Friday evening until Tuesday morning with me.  Evette had to be back at work on Thursday.  Needless to say I took Monday off, phoning in to say my daughter and family were here and so I was staying home to spend quality time with them.

Those of you who follow my blog know that I have a big bathroom on the main floor which has a sunken jacuzzi jet tub.  We asked Zachary if he would like to use Nanny's big bath, of course he did.  Evette gave the bath a good clean filling it with water past the jets, adding vinegar, we ran the jets to clean them out.  We got Smiley to pop out to the garage and get my net that I skim the ponds off with and we used that to remove the yucky scum and bugs from the surface of the water.  After running the jets several times we let the water sit in the tub.  After a couple of hours we drained that and put a fresh batch of water and vinegar skimming off the top again anything that was unpleasant,  there wasn't much this second time and after letting it sit we drained the water, rinsed the tub and then Evette used a regular cleaner to give the bath a good scrub using a brush to scrub around the edges of the jets.  Once this was all rinsed off we felt the tub was clean enough for Zachary to use.

The excitement from our little man because he was having a bath in Nanny's big bath was wonderful.  Of course we had to have bubbles, using baby body wash and shampoo in the water we turned on the jets and here are some of the pictures I managed to capture during this bath time.

Before the jets were turned on.

While the jets were on, a very excited grandson. I love this picture as you can see the actual water drops in the air as he splashed excitedly.

Lots and lots of bubbles.

His favourite part was putting his face in the bubbles and then spitting them out.

Blowing into the bubbles

 

One happy little boy.

He had one other time in Nanny's big bath with bubbles but this time we told him to keep the water in the tub.  The first time the floor was swimming in water but Nanny didn't mind because I laughed so hard, it was wonderful to see him having so much fun in a tub that I will never be able to use.  We had quite a bit of water in the basement too.  It wasn't until he had his second bath in this tub that we realized that the bath leaks probably at several of the jet connections.  You know, I did not care.  This little man had so much fun that the water in the basement did not matter.

I was one very happy Nanny with an opportunity to watch my grandson have so much fun in his Nanny's big bath tub.