My House – Page 5 – Gracious Rain

December 11, 2015August 8, 2026

The Scent of New~

One of the advantages of not actually living at the house, while it’s being “made over” is that when someone comes to do something marvelous–like lay brand, NEW carpet–I get to hang out in the kitchen and snap pictures every chance I get.

It was all I could do not to giggle when the carpet guy brought the new–NOT-falling apart into dust–padding in. He had no idea what pad trauma we’d been through. Sheesh.

Ooooh, here it comes. Lovely-ness approaching.

I’ve always wondered how carpet guys cut those huge pieces to fit so perfectly. But the more I thought about it, the more I worried, so I quit watching.

As he pulled back the front room carpet to finish off the entry edge–we discovered that there is pretty little hardwood under that carpet. Oh, yeah. YOUR days are numbered too, funny blue carpet. Heh, heh, heh.

But for now, I’m gonna scrunch up my toes in this soft, fluffy, perfect, new stuff.

I’m a lucky duck.

PS~ Thank you with all my heart to all those who made this post possible. I love you.

December 10, 2015August 8, 2026

How Old is TOO Old?

One, not so happy thing about my cute, little house was that whenever we would walk in to work on it–the first thing we’d notice, coming in the door, was the ancient…ahem…smell. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t like a dead animal in the walls or anything, it was just a nose-twitchy, kind of old, old, OLD smell. Usually, someone would say, “Yeah, gotta do something about that smell.”

But you know me, I’m just happy to be here, so I didn’t care as much as the rest of the gang did.

Then one day, April said, “You know mom, I bet that nasty old smell is coming from that nasty old carpet.”

What carpet? You mean the 150,000 year old green stuff in the family room that’s obviously been here since the pioneers strolled into the valley? THAT carpet? Why would that be a problem?

But, it made sense. So one day, when I was all alone and no one was looking, I started yanking.

And to my surprise, the nasty old green carpet just pulled right up–almost like it was thrilled to be going to it’s final resting place–at last, at last. Happy to oblige, creep.

I shoved it around for a while before I realized that it was waaaay too heavy for me to drag out of the room on my own. So I decided to work on the padding. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?

Till I looked more closely. Was that some kind of powder coming through the back of the pad?

Ummmm….no, that was the pad. Apparently, it had been pounded to dust from 45 generations of people trudging over it since the reign of the Roman Empire. Dang Romans.

Some of it behaved well enough, and even rolled up politely…

until I tried to move the rolls. The stuff just disintegrated in my hands. GAK.

I couldn’t really stop and scream for help, so I just kept going, all the while, thinking–should I even be breathing this junk that has, no doubt, been kicking around since the days of Caesar? But I misplaced my gas mask…so I forged ahead…bravely. You’ve have been proud.

It’d be fair to say that it was a huge mess. Huge.

At least it swept up kindly enough.

Then, good old Rhen came along and carried out the nasty old carpet–like it was a bag of chips. I tell you what–with this guy for a son it’s like having a string of oxen of my very own.

And so much more tidy.

Ahhh, out–OUT, nasty, old carpet! Your house stinking days are over.

Hey, come to think of it…what’s that I smell?

HA! It’s nothing. Just as it should be.

November 28, 2015August 8, 2026

First Snow

Wahooooo! SNOW!!

Not a ton, yet…but I’ll take it.

So, this house is exactly 9 minutes from my daughter’s house and she didn’t get any snow that stuck.

You know what I think?

I think my little house is magical.

November 25, 2015August 7, 2026

Lights!

Just had my first trip to the lighting department of Home Depot EVER–to pick out my very own, new light fixtures! If it was grammatically correct to add 65,000 exclamation points to that–they’d be there…believe me. Happy-happy-HAPpy! I tried my best to be frugal and simple and farm-housey, to the best of my ability.

But this one. THIS one is for my bedroom. (Insert huge grin right here) The guys said it was a “Victorian” light, but I say, if it’s going in my farm house then it’s a FARM house light. Neener-ha. Besides, it’s pretty.

Speaking of pretty….how’d that get in there? Must have been a mistake. Oh, well. I’m keeping it. HA!

The guys worked like mad to get all these lovely things put up–as quickly as possible. You can see that here in the front room, the ceiling still needs a bit more paint–but the light is very pretty. Real simple.

The family room lights are a bit more flat, because, for one thing, they glared less, but mostly because The Bald Guy was nervous that he’d hit his head on some fancy hanging swag-type thing. So, of course we got flat, slightly boring lights. They work fine and look nice–beyond that who really cares? It’s the family room for Heaven’s sake. Haha.

There are three of these in the kitchen–so when I take pictures of all my amazing creations–there will be no shadows anywhere! Wahoooo!

No, no. Of course this is not a light. It’s the oven that my sweet kids got me for my birthday. The one that came with the house had a broken inner window that we couldn’t replace because that model doesn’t exist anymore. Remember, the fellow that lived here built the house in 1944 and was the only owner. He passed away at age 104. Lots of stuff around here is old. It’s ok by me. I LOVE it allll.