Woman's Perogative!!

I changed my mind about what to get done this morning!!  I was going to work in the Scary Bathroom but it was so beautiful this morning, I decided to work outside.  For those of you who are experiencing a heatwave right now, I am here to tell you that even with the temperature here at 63 degrees, when the humidity is 70% it is hot and muggy!!

But I got a lot done this morning and now I am drinking a ton of water so my calves don't get charley horses tonight!!

If you remember, here is what the front yard looked like before ~

I thought I had a better close-up picture but this is all I can find right now.

This is what it looks like now~

I still have some weeding to do but at least I got all the junk out of the front yard!

And I have this much mowed!

Oh, and I forgot to post this picture in this morning's post but this is the sky I woke up to today!!

Work is Progressing . . .

and the Scary Bathroom is not so scary ~

The big black bag is gone and you will be happy to know there was no body lurking inside!!

Vacuumed all the spiders off all the walls and floors.

Got the nasty sink and counter out.  As you can see there was a bit of mold behind the sink.  I was actually surprised there was not more throughout the entire bathroom.  I sprayed it down with straight bleach and then let it sit.  Now, I just need to be careful as I remove those pieces of drywall today.

And the bird poop medicine cabinet is gone forever!!

Now I just need to work on that tub and get the drywall and flooring OUT!!

This is the Door to the Scary Bathroom!!

Ok, I knew I was going to have to open this door at some point, so I decided this morning was the time!!  I am going to have to have this bathroom all demo'ed before I can get the water heater put in because I have decided to have the plumber complete the plumbing to the bathroom instead of the kitchen so that I will not only have hot water, but I will have a shower!!

The one and only redeeming aspect of this bathroom is the doorknob!  Once it gets all cleaned up it will be beautiful.  A glass knob is on both sides of the door.

Ok, here is the sink.  I know that squatters were living here sometime during the last eight years, but I didn't know that birds had also made it their home until I came in here to take pictures!!  Yikes!!

Oh, goodie - look, more spiders and snakes!!  And of course, this is where the toilet is supposed to go.  Funny thing is that the listing on this house said there bedrooms and ONE bath even though there are really 2 full baths!!  Ha!!  Ha!!  No toilet, no bathroom!!

And the tub!!  How can people live this way?  

Now I am hoping and praying that there is not some kind of dead body in this bag!!

More evidence of birdie residents!!

The little blue thing on the floor is my essential oils diffuser which has been a God-send!!  And man, I put this in the room a good hour before I actually walked in the door.  If you think it looks bad, just imagine it smelling a 100 times worse!!  The diffuser worked!! 

And finally, the incredibly beautiful floor.  I am thinking I should probably keep it.  NOT!!!

Ok, off to work I go!!

First Day on the Mud Room . . .

I got quite a bit done today in the mud room.  First, I got the drywall off of two walls ~

Now this would have driven me crazy knowing that the insulation was sitting under the drywall upside-down!!  It probably would have kept me up at night!!  LOL!!

Just full of creepy crawlies!!

And this nasty stuff was the old insulation that mice had made bedding and a nest out of!!  Luckily the mice were no longer living here!!

Once I got the insulation down and the spiders and snakes all vacuumed out with my trusty shop vac here are how the two walls look ~

And this is that corner that used to look like this ~

Then when I thought I was all done for the day, the guy I had called this morning to find out about moving the water heaters and the stove and taking them to the dump called and said he could come over this afternoon with one of his sons (he has 10 children and 8 of them are boys!!) and remove those three items.  So here is what things look like now ~

Before!!

After!!

Before!!  

I had to drain both heaters.  Never even though about it until I moved this one out of the closet and and it was dang heavy.  That is what the little plastic container was for.  I watered the tall, tall, tall grass with the water I removed!  Waste not want not!!

After!!  

I will have to replace this flooring because the water heater has leaked and I could probably just put my foot right through the flooring at that dark spot.  But I don't think I will!

Before!!

After!!

Wow, that was so great to get those three things out of here!!  And the best part is that Doug (the man who removed them) is going to put them in his scrap pile instead of taking them to the dump to scrap and so instead of $30.00 plus dump fees, he was only going to charge me $20.00!!  Yikes, that is unheard of - I gave them $40.00 and still feel like I was ripping them off.

And here is the work horse that got all the work done today!!  She is tired and ready for bed!!  'Night and see you tomorrow ~

Change in Plans . . .

Since I have gotten a storage unit and moved a lot of the fabric into the unit, there is a lot more room to move around and I do not need the studio right now.

So, I decided to change directions and the next project is to get the laundry/mud room ready so that I can get a water heater.  Not having hot water is really a drag!!

Here is what the laundry/mudroom looks like right now.

I am going to put down a new deck-like floor over the concrete so that the floor will be a bit higher and then I am going to do the walls in bead board with ship lap on the ceiling and a door with a window in the top part.  Something like this ~

Image from Lowes

And then when the water heater is put in, I am going to have the plumber run pipes to the guest bathroom so I can have hot water for showers!!

What that means though is that I am going to have to order a hazmat suit to get into that bathroom and get that cleaned out and ready for plumbing!!  Yikes!!  Pictures to follow as soon as I am not afraid to open that door!!

Ok, I Made an Executive Decision . . .

but I did run it past Kelly to make sure he thought it was a good idea too.

I feel like I am living like a hoarder and it is driving me crazy!!  I don't mind so much when the clutter is MY choice, but when it is forced on me I am not a happy camper!!

So, I decided to rent a storage shed where I can put all my fabric in and set up so that I can open my Etsy shop.  It is taking me much longer to reno the studio, so I thought this would be a good way to get things at Lavender Quilts up and going sooner!!

Hope to have it all set up by this coming Monday.

Week Two Update . . .

There was not a whole lot of hard work going on last week.  I got some cleaning done in the work shed.

BEFORE

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

BEFORE

AFTER

There is still a lot to do out there but I am going to bring in some strength to remove those benches.  In the meantime I am going to get the table saw in there this week so I can get it out of the van.

Mostly I have been cleaning and making room to walk around.  In the kitchen I have made some major temporary changes to make life a little easier.

BEFORE - check out the big holes in the glass.  The one in the left window is broken clear through.

BEFORE

AFTER

AFTER

 The tee-shirt is hanging in the window to keep the cold air out from the big hole in the glass behind it!!  And Kelly sent me the Berkey water filter so I can have some good drinking water.  The water from the wells around here have iron and manganese and the Berkey filters both of them out.  So much better.  Drinking pale reddish brown water is not a happy thing!!

AFTER

This is where that nasty stove and all the the mouse stuff in it sat. And that nasty green bookshelf.  This is where I temporarily put the green bookshelf and the green stove.

This is on the other side of the wall where the shelf was in the kitchen but now it is clean and useable and out in the mud/laundry room.

   

This is outside the mud/laundry room until I get enough stuff to fill a 10-foot dumpster.

I also set up a table in the kitchen so that I can do a bit of sewing here and there.  It is right next to the refrigerator and the "stove."

I also continued work to remove the closet in the Studio.  It is taking forever because whoever built this place used king kong nails and they are soooooo hard to remove!!

The smaller nail is a normal 2" nail and the big nail is what they used to nail 1/2" boards!!  Nuts!!

But here is progress - very, very slow - Granny style!!

And here are the piles I am accumulating!!

Plus all this wonderful lumber that I am going to save and re-purpose.

I also got the huge pile of stuff we removed from inside the house on moving day moved so I can get some mowing done.

This pile will go out a bit by bit with the garage each week until I have enough stuff for that 10-foot dumpster.

The next big project is getting the lawnmower put together and get some of this grass mowed down - a little bit each day until the whole quarter acre is mowed.

This is where that pile of stuff was removed from.

When I was removing the pile of stuff in this area I found a snake all coiled up under the big shelf.  I ran to get my camera but by the time I got back, he had uncoiled and was slithering away.  I checked on the Net to see if the snakes in this area are poisonous and apparently we have only garter snakes.  So I am happy to have him/her here as they eat the mice.  Some parts of Oregon have a rattlesnake but not in this area according to the local natives!!

I THINK THIS IS THE SNAKE I SAW - THE NORTHWESTERN GARTER SNAKE
IMAGE FROM THE INTERNET

This is the little nook that I go to to relax and take a nap when the work gets to me.  Nothing fancy but very functional!!

Happy 4th of July to all of you!!