Sunday, June 9, 2013

Farmhouse Renovation Day Three: The Flooring Saga... Continues...

First, let me say that it is clearly NOT Day Three of our farmhouse renovation. Somehow I have fallen way off track, WAY behind, and have totally lost count of how many days we've been working and what we accomplished when. I think it has to do with juggling a renovation, a job, a husband, a baby, a large extended family, and a blog. Evidently, I'm a tad over-extended at the moment. : )

If you guys will forgive my totally lousy communication over the past month (ten months?), I will make a concerted effort to get my sh--t in gear. What can I say folks? I'VE BEEN REALLY BUSY! I know I make this same confession every two weeks, but seriously, I'm REALLY BUSY!

TO BRING YOU UP-TO-DATE:

The flooring saga continued for three days-- John pulled up huge swathes of linoleum floor that had been maliciously glued to wonderboard (that is not what we called it during this period...) which was then viciously nailed, with zeal no less, directly onto the wood floor of the living room. An actual act of hate, I'm pretty sure.

Julia: Diligent scraper. Incredible friend.
While John periodically hit himself in the shin with a crowbar in the living room, Julia and I scraped like crazy people-- scratching up as much sticky tar residue from the dining room, den, and pantry as we could stand-- and finally the flooring guy deemed it suitable for sanding, and like a true savior, zipped through the house and performed a gen-u-ine miracle.

The house is literally transformed! I'm not sure if that guy also performs seances before or after sandings, but the whole place feels completely different. No amount of sage-burning could have freed our lovely farm house from the confines of its past the way Robert the flooring guy did. So far, he's top ranking in our book.

Now that the floors have been sanded, John's moved upstairs to the demo phase of our project, and I'm settling in for the long-hard-paint. I've got four rooms, four ceilings, and god-only-knows-how-much trim to paint in the next seven days, and then we've got to start preparing for the inevitable. Mummy goes home and we have to face the challenge of child-rearing and home renovation solo. Oy.

Let's not talk about that just yet. Let's just focus on the next seven days. : )

OTHER EXCITING STEPS FORWARD:

  • We have officially secured a neighboring farmer to hay our 40 acres of fields in exchange for an "AG-Exemption" which is apparently going to save us buckets in taxes and make our neighbor happy. CHECK.
  • We finally got Verizon to come in and remove the labyrinth of phone wires that were leading to the house from everywhere, and from the house to everywhere. I'm pretty sure we've just improved the aesthetic assessment of this house by about 25%. CHECK. 
  • We stumbled upon an awesome paint store that happened to be having a bizarro sale on THE CEILING PAINT we wanted, so we came away with five gallons of Benjamin Moore ceiling paint for $100.00. I don't know if you've bought paint recently, but it's clocking in at about $50.00 a gallon in Brooklyn, so this qualified as a PRETTY MAJOR SAVINGS. CHECK. 


Thankfully, there are periodically rewards for scraping the hell out of my floor. Rewards may include, but are not limited to, really good cooking from my mom, wine-fueled strolls through the fields, and the promise that one day, it might actually be fun to come to this house. Just not now. 
  • Last, but not least, we also had a major yard sale victory, and bought a beautiful, near-perfect cast iron pedestal sink for $50.00! Which included delivery to our farm! You can find something almost identical on BIGNYC for almost $300.00, so $50.00 is a RI-DICU-LOUSLY good deal. And I didn't have to deal with the cranky pick-up scheduling people at BIGNYC, who, FYI, take their jobs extremely seriously.

Remind me tomorrow:
  1. To tell you about these totally fantastic exterior doors that we salvaged from a failed-restaurant in Brooklyn... FOR FREE! They're getting installed into our kitchen on Monday morning, so I had better give you the back story pronto. 
  2. To post some photographs of Jules, because believe it or not, in the midst of all of this, we're still somehow managing to spend a reasonable amount of time with our astronaut of a son. He's really the cutest dude around. Good thing he's so amiable, or this would be a heck of a lot trickier. Plus, let's be honest. Some of you are really just reading this blog, hoping for another sighting of that baby. : ) 
The adventure continues... 

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