A Great Weekend

Had a great weekend.  Visits with longtime friends and the last Tiger game.  Great fun.

Worked today, remember 7^th Grade, I do, it didn’t seem so young at the time.  This week should prove to be an interesting one.  My DS2  begins his job in the Motor City, he will have quite a commute until he finds an apartment closer to work.  I imagine he will leave around 6:30 and return well into the evening. 

The builders begin in one week. This week we will get the remainder of the porch and garage emptied into various areas; storage unit, shed, and in strategic areas of the yard.  We will not have a garage we can park in for quite a few months, so we will have to get accustomed to getting up a bit early and warming the cars.  

Later today, I need to locate the cool weather gear.  I vaguely remember packing up hats and mittens for storage, at the time cold weather seemed so very far away. The cool weather is quickly creaping into our lives.

Arrived home from work, the porch and some large pieces from the now family room/future kitchen have been taken to the storage unit.  My turn now, ceiling fan is down to store until the new sunroom is complete.  Oh no, I thought, we no longer have the directions.  Never fear, my trusty camera took pictures in steps so I won’t forget how the thing goes back together (only have to remember where they are packed away).

stakes and thoughts

Buddy and Holly  surveying the junk.

Earlier this week, we worked on loading the junk trailer with unwanted stuff from the garage and attic.  Buddy and Holly were up in the trailer giving their approval of items in the trailer.

computer generated view of proposed changes (angled garage)

stakes indicating house walls

Today was spent with a Dear Friend at the American Sewing Expo in Novi, MI.  A great time was had by all. When I returned home there was Orange paint and stakes in the driveway and yard, the outline of our new space.  The above visual shows the garage angled back, a nice look, but the reality is probably a clumbsy entry for the left side parker (me) into the garage.  There is talk about making it straight, might be ok, might be long and boring.  Then there is the thought of angling it forward.  Many benefits in that as we may be able to save some of the large pine trees in the back yard.  At this point I am not sure which will be better.  Time to think for a bit.  Outside with RMC chatting about the stakes.  It has been decided to have the garage straight.  It will be great.

Seeing Red

While waiting the beginning of construction, I'll touch on some recent projects.

Red is one of the colors I envisioned for upholstered kitchen chairs.  We will use them in the kitchen when construction is complete.

Chair with original silk fabric.

 Preparing to cut.

Visualizing the matching process.

Back and seat, a good start.

One down, one to go. Note the bag of old fabric etc. I never toss until the project is complete.

My Uncle David was an Interior Decorator in St. Louis, MO., in the 1950's. Some of the furniture pieces I inherited were interesting, but after 50 years, well, the fabric needs replacing.    Home Dec. is one of my favorite things to do, but I keep to smaller projects now.  The chairs are complete now. 

Monday, Monday

Look at the size of that TV, stuff  is ready for delivery.

Current Guest Room, to be thinned in a couple weeks. Yes, there is a bed in there somewhere.

Extra room, filled with an Apt. worth of stuff.

Today, I took advantage of an opportunity.  There was this TV (old technology), it was quite large and weighed a ton.  After living in several rooms, M and I are no longer able to lift and move it again.  Two strong young men moved it to the back of my car and I will deliver it to be sold at the high school rummage sale in the spring.  So I looked into the back of my car.  "A paltry TV", I thought, knowing that I could do better than that, bounded upstairs to my bookshelves and removed a shelf's worth of quilting or food books/magazines, those will go also to be used by the Home Ec students or sold at rummage. 

When I rearrange the upstairs I may divest of more, but will take more time to look and sort.  My family can rest assured that there are still plenty of beds/space for them to visit during our expansion, the glory of a true "extra" room upstairs and  storage unit offsite. Yes, I will still have a kitchen for the holidays, and I will be preparing the usual feasts.

The exciting part, for me is that our old master bedroom will become a guest room, leaving ample room for our grown children and their families to come and stay. I am looking forward to clearing, cleaning, and getting this house back into shape.

Getting ready for a Revamp

garage, the rafters that also contain "treasures"

Revamp:  an addition and a remodel all rolled into one.

Sunday afternoon and I thought I would share a few pics of our house as it currently stands.  In a few short weeks the bulldozers will arrive and dig and tear and begin the create the addition and the remodel of our home.  This will be an adventure to be sure.

just a few of the rocks we have collected over the years

our sun porch, note the plaid furniture for a later post

The south side of the house, where the action will be.

Over the last few weeks we have been sorting moving and storing the garage and the sun porch.  (Keep in mind that our home is the storage unit for our recently graduated son, who isn't scheduled to move until early October.)  The other thing is the yard, any plant life in the area that we want to preserve had to be moved into temporary gardens until later. 

We have done pretty well so far, an hour and a half a day is all we commit to.  We hired a strong young man to move the rocks (boulders) to their temporary home.   We have a rented storage unit that we are filling up with items that we will retrieve in the spring.  The spare bedroom where most of our son's apartment is currently stored will be welcomed space in a few short weeks.

The basketball hoop will be gone as will be the chimney.  This view of the house will show the most changes.