So it's December

You know the drill.  Nothing happened but it was interesting anyway.

So we have had a number of concessions while deciding what we want to do in the house, what we have to do in the house, and how we will go about it.

In the Battle of Chandelier, I was victorious.  It was a hard fought battle, but once I had washed the dangly bits, I declared myself the victor and there was really not much any one man could do about that.  He hated the chandelier, but acquiesced  as I was persistent and also enlisted the aid of anyone who visited to help persuade Darwin that we should, indeed, keep the one thing in the house that was not ugly, broken, poorly made or so grubby that it could never be clean enough to use.

My concession, in return, was that a wall, which we called "The Donor Wall"  I thought it would have been good repaired, and left as a partial separation between kitchen and dining room.  He wanted it gone.  One day when I was feeling particularly destructive, I took it down. 

May I say that it was the most well built thing in this house, and it was not an easy job. Nor easy to clean up after.

Mind the mess.  I was going to tidy up and then take out the wall, but knew I would forget to take a pic just before I did that so snapped one right when I thought of it.

Maybe Dar was right.  I do like it without the wall.

I also decided to tackle the canity, thinking that if I could get that piece ready to install, then we would be forced to take out the old, put up the new wainscotting, but first having to put in the new floor and potty.  There always is a "piece" of every project that makes shit get real. haha. This time it was not the toilet.  The vanity was just really pretty and in great shape though the drawers needed some sort of stop, and the varnish on the top was bubbled.  It was just a really beautiful piece and we were very fortunate that Darwin's folks let us have it.  It will be put to good use and enjoyed and I think that making things functional is a nice way to keep our past with us

I sanded it all down, and another concession was made.  I liked this look and had Dar been able to love it, I would have sanded it to make it look worn where it would naturally wear.  He liked the painted look so I just sanded off the rough spots, and the top layer of varnish.  I believe I will do two coats of primer, letting them drying a couple days in between.

For being an older house, and for having only a partial basement with lots of unfinished crawl space, our home is sealed quite tightly.   Dar had a company come in and do spray foam insulation in the crawl space and anywhere else that might let in cold air.  As a result it's quite toasty in here, and incredibly humid.  We did not get to putting in any bathroom fans of kitchen fan yet, so in the winter it's hard to get fresh air in.  It is pretty sweet to be able to breath, not get dry lips and bloody noses, and not be scratching yourself to distraction, I have to say.  The only downfall, I suppose, is that we had to buy a dehumidifier to try and keep the moisture to 50% so that we can actually see out the windows.

The plants absolutely love it here. My orchids barely dropped their flowers and are growing new stems.  The african violet which has never bloomed more than once a year has been profuse since we got here. The peace lily and Christmas cactus are all blooming and the ferns and amaryllis are thriving. 
We got a huge mum from Karen and Tom and family for a house warming gift.  As it was blooming so nice in the fall when the snow hit, I brought it indoors.  It continued to bloom up until a point when it started to look straggly so I was going to pick off some of the blooms for a vase and chuck it.  Look what happened when I cut half of the foliage off!  All the paler green is new growth!  So I finished the job and set it back in the sunshine. Maybe I can keep it alive until spring!

And what would it be without some more pretty crystals?

The birds have been a source of enjoyment as well - we've a rather large contingency of chickadees, the evening grosbeaks which now come every mid-morning, one dumb squirrel, bluejays and nuthatches and lots of woodpeckers

Dar has been fiddling around with some geeky toys, under the pretense of finding ways that we can cut down on electricity.  He invested in a number of Insteon brand electronics that you can turn off and on lights, appliances etc with your phone.  I am not sure that I can always find a practical use for them but it creeps out the dogs and amuses Dar so I guess we have that going for us.

One thing that was quite interesting is that they also make a infra-red camera that can be accessed from your phone, so he installed that in the barn and for our amusement we have taken to spying on the cats.
Hey when you have no TV and it's dark as the inside of a cow, you do what you can for entertainment.

Anyway, so we had 4 Barn Buddies from the SPCA. One of them disappeared within the week after getting her.  The one I really liked disappeared after 3 weeks- I believe something must have caught her :(  We ended up with a pretty buff coloured one who seems to like it here just fine, and Stinky.

Yesterday, with the camera installed, we were not totally amazed to find that we actually had two vagrants coming in to eat and use the facilities.  I had seen them out in the fields in the summer, and now I know why we never have any food and the litter box is always full.


This week Ben and Felicia and coming for a visit, so I am looking forward to that.  I had hoped to do some baking but that didn't happen, so the best I can hope for is that I can tidy up a bit and get into town for some groceries.
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Until next time - stay warm and safe!