For those of you blissfully unaware that we haven't been living in our house for the past two months you may be surprised to hear that we are BACK.  That's right!  Home sweet home...

Things have been steadily progressing in our kitchen.  Oh yes.  The KITCHEN.  Remember this beauty?

Loverly isn't she?  What could possibly make us want to change anything about this?  Well...lets just say it was a bit chilly in the winter and I'll leave it at that.

Kyle began demolition over his vacation about two months ago and, with the help of his step-brother, the room was rapidly stripped down to bare studs.  We were a little bummed that we weren't able to salvage the cabinets to use as storage in the workshop but they came down in pieces with one swift stroke of the hammer.  So into the pile of scrap wood they went.

Only a small amount of insulation was discovered behind the old drywall.  This was no surprise.  And after lots of hemming and hawing we decided to rip up the floor too and discovered that not only was there NO insulation, but no vapor barrier from the ground.  We were lucky that there was no rot, and the ground below was perfectly dry despite the rainy weather we had been having.  We breathed a sigh of relief (because when it comes to demo in a house as old as ours you almost always run into something unexpectedly unpleasant) and continued along our merry way.  I say 'we' in the very loose sense- Kyle did the grunt work.  I took care of the baby.  I say we're even, therefor I say 'we'.

The past few years we have lived in our house we have endured freezing cold floors in the kitchen every winter.  Not that it was that much of a big deal.  The kitchen was my least favorite room of the house, with its mint green cabinets and stickers of fruit (?).  So while I didn't spend much more time in there than I needed to for aesthetic reasons, I'd have to go in with my muck boots on just to avoid frost bite on my toes.  Therefor, only did we need to insulate the walls from drafts, but the floors as well.  Kyle laid down a vapor barrier and then filled the crawl space with insulation.  Here it is in progress:



In a single week the boys were able to get the subfloor back down over the joists as well as additional supports to keep the floor from flexing as it used to.  We were left with a skeleton of a room.  A blank slate.  Just the way I like it.  I drew up half a dozen floor plans for our future kitchen, some Kyle liked, some he hated, and vice versa.  We decided what we'd really like is an island to increase the work space, maybe one with the oven built in so you could cook and socialize with people at the same time.  But the reality that ovens take up a lot of space quickly beat down that plan.  Its amazing how something can feel so open and airy on paper but as soon as you draw out the layout on the floor its a totally different monster.  So I went back to the drawing board.



Over the next few weeks Kyle managed to not only install a new, bigger window over where the sink would be, he was able to run all the new wiring, install recessed lights, and after about a week of waiting we had a guy come in to do blown-in insulation.  It wasn't really in our budget (trust me that stuff isn't cheap) but we decided that since the room gets a lot of wind and is surrounded by uninsulated areas (the work shop next to it and above it) we couldn't afford to be cheap about it.



Over the past month there has been amazing progress made.  Enough so that we could move back into our house today, so that must mean something.  Unfortunately we're still washing dishes in our bathroom sink which isn't ideal, but hey, one thing at a time right?  Stick around folks, I'll have some great pictures to share next time!

Can I say 'wow' for just a minute here.  I thought I had published this post months ago but to my horror, when I went to write a post about the recent updates to our hearth, I rediscovered it.  So, please forgive the delay- I will promptly remedy that plus add the most recent updates as well.  Prepare yourself for one bear of a post.

One Sunday morning back in the middle of September, we were heading to the Tunbridge Fair and wanted to be sure and get our hearth pad finished so it would have plenty of time to set before placing the 450 lb wood stove on it come Friday evening.  We mixed the first batch of thinset, approximately the viscosity of clay (with heavy stones you want to be sure not to mix it too thin or it will all just get smooshed out before you can set and level it), and let it sit for 5-10 minutes as instructed by the directions on the bag.  While it was sitting we went out to the barn to feed the girls.

We returned to the thinset, Kyle gave it a final, quick stir and we went inside to get down to business.  As I am the resident tiling expert (having tiled our bathroom floor with the help of my Mom apparently makes me the expert *sarcasm*) I was delegated to applying the thinset to the cement board.  I put it on thick, as I mentioned before, these stones are heavy and we wanted to be sure to have enough thinset below the stones to have "wiggle room" to be sure it was perfectly level.  Once I had it spread out a bit to be sure it would reach all the corners, Kyle laid down the stone.  This is where the painstaking process of leveling the stone came into play.  Kyle literally stood on the stone and jumped up and down until the thinset oozed out the sides and corners and would jump on certain areas depending on which side needed to be lowered to level it out.

*I'm sure most seasoned masons wouldn't recommend this course of action, but as we had no rubber mallets on hand (not sure if that would have even worked really) and no other/better ideas, that is the way we went.*

Once the first stone was set in place and the excess thinset wisked away from the edges (it was a constant battle to keep the floor and the faces of the stones "cleanish" during this process) we moved on to setting the next stone.  Because these stones were a little irregular we had to be sure that they were not only level, but at the same height as well.  It took some finessing, but we ended up with a great finished product.  We were sure to clean out between the stones where we'll be putting grout and we washed the tops of the stones one last time before calling it quits for the day.

After we let the thinset cure for a few days we went back to work.  We filled in the spaces between the stone with dark gray grout and took out the door behind the hearth.  We needed to get some cement board up to support the tile we would eventually put up.

Well, this is probably THE most overdue update as it stands today.  Our guest bedroom has been finished for almost a year now.  You may recall that we had to gut the room over a year ago due to some rotten studs we found in the walls when we replaced the old windows.  While we were at it we decided to move a wall so we'd be able to have a closet in the room instead of at the end of a narrow little hallway, which was detailed in this post if you'd like to re-live the action.  Things progressed slowly but steadily and we were so happy when we were able to finish it up and have a comfortable room for when we had family or friends stay over.

In celebration of our finished room, I'd love to present you with the before and after photos that I've been holding on to for so long.  So, here we go!

Back in February of 2009, we closed on our house and immediately got to work.  I recall that evening very clearly, it had been snowing and the roads were greasy.  We hit a pothole the size of my car and lost a couple hub caps but that couldn't dampen our spirits; we had just bought our first home.  When we arrived at the house we went upstairs and started ripping down wallpaper and tearing up flooring in the largest of the four rooms.  We had intended that this room be our master bedroom but changed our minds after realizing that the back of the house had less noise from the road.

This is what the guest bedroom looked like back when we moved in.  Complete with two low, cracked windows, layers of peeling wallpaper on the walls and ceiling, Congoleum on the floors, and a bare light dangling from a ten foot long cord.

After we got our hands on it we managed to update the wiring (which was done by a professional), re-insulate the walls, replace the windows, refinish the wide pine boards that were painted and hidden below the Congoleum, move a wall to not only create more floor space but provide a small walk-in closet in the room, install a ceiling fan light fixture, and paint.  We're pretty happy with the result.  Take a look.



As you can see, Kyle had created a small built-in shelf/cabinet next to the closet which has added a lot of character to the room.  Also, we found that if we hung the curtains from just below the ceiling we could trick the eye into thinking the windows were taller than they really are.  It also makes the ceiling feel higher.  We could still use some decoration on the walls, some pictures perhaps, but other than that we're pretty happy with the finished product.

So, there you have it folks!  The first room we ever finished in our house!  Still to come is the final before and after of our master bedroom and the nursery.  Stay tuned!

I have to thank you all for sticking around during my almost 2 month absence here on the blog.  I have no good excuse, and I hope to get back into writing regularly again now that I'm "back".  So, in my ridiculous effort to get you all caught up as to whats going on here at the Senesac Family Homestead, I give you this blog post- which will be the first of many long-overdue updates.  Bear with me.

We were all geared up to get some work done on the house this past Saturday.  My Mom was coming down from Montgomery to help me with a bunch of little odds and ends in the rooms on our second floor, while Kyle was ready to really tackle the sheetrock in the dining room.  He had been whittling away at it through the end of the week, and was excited (if anyone can really be excited about hanging sheetrock) to have a full weekend to devote to covering the bare walls.

I was a little bummed to miss out on gathering drops over at Shelburne Orchards, but with time running out before the end of the year and baby getting bigger by the day, I was happy to help finish up some rooms.  Most of the upstairs (except for the hallway/stairwell) was finished for all intents and purposes.  So I hashed out a list of things to do in each room to keep my Mom and I busy.  We started in the guest bedroom, where the room has been mostly finished for the past year or so.  After installing a switch plate cover to the light switch in the closet, a door stop, and the hardware for the doors to the built-in cabinet Kyle made, we were finished.  One room down, three to go.

We moved on to the master bedroom which also needed a door stop as well as a second coat of paint on some of the trim.  We also hung a shelf on one of the walls, where I like to keep a mirror and some candles.  The closet also got a bit of an upgrade with the installation of some simple lights that we got from Ikea last month.  Two rooms down, two to go.

The nursery didn't need much that we could do (Kyle still had to install the new window to replace the broken, single-pane one) but we put on a coat of paint on the trim, attached the changing pad to the top of the refinished dresser, and installed a new light to replace the ugly brown one that had been plaguing the ceiling for the past couple of years.  We still need to get the dimmer switch installed but we weren't ready to cut the power to do that- so we left it for Kyle.

Finally, the bathroom has been sitting unfinished for...well, I honestly don't remember the last time we touched the bathroom.  I guess it was this past spring.  But with an additional coat of paint on the trim and wainscoting it was looking a little closer to being done.  We took the hooks off the back of the door so I could get up the towel bar (the old hooks were not only UGLY, but kind of dangerous if you ask me) and put a fresh coat of white paint on the door as well.

While we were toiling away upstairs Kyle was busy in the dining room, he managed to get the majority of the sheetrock finished, except for a few sheets on the ceiling that he finished hanging last night.  Things are really starting to come together in there.

I'll snap some more photos of the dining room tonight, because there really is such a difference having all the sheetrock up and the place cleaned up a bit.  But you get the general idea.

You may have noticed in the first picture a sneak peak of the kitchen.  We had been commenting earlier in the day about how awful it was going to be looking at the kitchen when the dining room is going to look so nice.  The kitchen, covered in layers of wallpaper, or just bits of primed sheetrock from when we had the new wiring installed, looked absolutely terrible.  It didn't help that the cabinets and the trim were painted some shade of aqua blue/green- not my favorite- with some stenciling in a dark green and even some stickers on the tops of the cabinets!  My darling Mother commented that we could throw a coat of paint on the walls and the trim that you can see through the doorway from the dining room just to get us by for now.

GREAT idea.

We primed the bench, the trim, and the walls before calling it a day.  I tackled the rest on Sunday, excited at the prospect of never having to look at the terrible color on the cabinets again.  I primed all the cabinets and threw a coat of paint on the walls that we had leftover from our bathroom renovation.  The color in these "After" pictures isn't quite true, the paint is actually a lot lighter and even a bit more yellow- but thats what I get for using a cheap point-and-shoot camera with no editing.  So, we'll all just have to make due.  So, without further ado, here is a brief 'before and after' of our kitchen.

Before (when we actually bought the house):

The horrible white appliance you see in this picture is actually a second freezer.  Our house came with two freezers, but no refridgerator.  We purchased a new one after we moved in, and placed it on a different wall, in hopes that someday we will open up the doorway a bit more.




After!






Apologies that the pictures aren't of the exact same views, but you get the idea.  =]  We still need to get a coat or two of paint on the cabinets (primer doesn't wash very well), and I'm going to spraypaint the plastic handles on all the doors/drawers to get us by until we can really renovate this room.  Maybe we'll get to that this weekend (the finishing touches, not the full renovation).  We shall see.

So thats the skinny, folks.  Like I said, I'll try to snap some more pictures tonight, I still have a long way to go in catching you up on all the 'before and after' pictures in the bedrooms and bathroom upstairs.  So stay tuned!!

A couple weeks ago, demolition of our house moved to a whole new level, literally.  We are getting ready to install our woodstove in a couple weeks which means we have to prepare walls and a hearth.  Piggie-backing that project is the renovation of our dining room.  So, after stopping over at Johnson Farm and Garden for some chicken feed and a quick dinner of veggies and beans with spinach gnocchi, Kyle broke out the reciprocating saw and crow bar and got to work on the wall dividing our dining room from our living room.

*This is a picture of our dining room as it was when we bought the house back in February of 2009- we had since torn up the carpet and stained the hardwood flooring that was revealed below.*

I was quarantined to either the yard or our bedroom because who really knows what could be lurking in those walls, and we don't want to risk the health of our baby.  Kyle donned one of our ventilator masks, hung up some plastic in an effort to keep the dust corralled, and within a couple hours he had successfully opened up the space.  We were shocked to find out that the studs within that wall were there purely to aid in the hanging of the lath and plaster.  Thats right, there was no header supporting the floor above.  You really never know what you're going to find in old houses, and this one has really taken the cake so far.

Kyle removed those few studs last week (since they weren't structural there was no need to keep them) so we could get working on our hearth pad and the wall behind where our woodstove will go and moved the outlet and switch to a new wall so we could hook the power back up.  Then the fun began- I watched as my husband gleefully ripped down the drop ceiling that we've hated ever since we moved in.  Who puts a drop ceiling and a flourescent light in a dining room!?  He uncovered the handiwork of our electrician and got a good look at the condition of the plaster and lath ceiling- it looked like crap, but still an improvement if you ask me! 

Saturday was a busy day of home renovating which, luckily, kept us sneaking back outside into the welcoming sunshine that we've missed for what seems like an eternity.  It was the kind of day that leaves you tired and sore where you just feel like huddling under the down comforter with a cup of hot chocolate and a good book by the end of the day.  We had spent the morning buying supplies to build our hearth pad for our wood stove.  The plan is to move it in this Friday evening with the help of a few friends and more than a couple beers followed by a hearty, homemade dinner made by yours truly.  As I am carrying our little bundle of joy I will not be partaking in the moving of the wood stove and the drinking of the beer- a fair tradeoff if I do say so myself.

Once the cement board was down and the stones were dry, Kyle brought them into the house and we began laying them down so we could decide on their placement.  They are approximately two by two foot stones, so the combinations were fairly limited, which was fine with Kyle since they weighed a fair bit.  We decided on placement and I marked each stone on the back with a number and an X in the corner that would be in the center of the pad so we would know where it belonged.  We rested them on a few towels not far from the hearth pad and called it a day.

My dear friends, there are so many home renovation projects I need to post about its not even funny.  Almost the entire second floor of our house is finished and I have neglected to say anything about it!  So, in my efforts to get caught up, here is the lowdown on our renovation of our nursery!

Back in February of 2009, when we bought our house, we were faced with a lovely old farmhouse with not-so-lovely rooms.  There was either floor to floor carpet (even indoor/outdoor carpet in the dining room), or congoleum throughout the house.  On all other surfaces (yes that includes the ceilings) there was layer upon layer of wallpaper, minus the dining room that has a lovely drop ceiling.  The night we closed on our house we began renovations- we ripped down wallpaper and pulled up congoleum flooring and we've been going ever since.

The room seemed dark due to the wall of wood paneling that we left up, so Kyle framed in the wall, added more insulation, and hung sheetrock to cover it.  The result was dramatic, it suddenly felt clean and airy. 
We picked out a light green paint for the walls and enlisted my Mom to help paint a mural on the lower portion of the walls. 

We hung a chair rail to divide the mural from the rest of the wall and put up the rest of the trim.  We were lucky to have been given a crib, as well as some other baby gear, from my cousin Jill and her husband, Tim.

The highchair is a handmade gift from my uncle, Jeff, when he came up for our wedding in June of 2009.

The only thing left to do is refinish the dresser which I will be turning into a changing table, install a new light, and generally get some additional pieces of furniture and art to flesh out the room.  I'll let you in on a little secret, I already refinished the dresser- I'll share that mini-makeover with you soon I promise!

I've said it before, our life is no picnic, we work hard at our jobs and we come home to work hard some more.  We have to work through disagreements and sometimes have our days where we just don't get along.  But things are always worked out.  We're two peas in a pod- two very stubborn peas.  The kind that keep coming back in your garden year after year despite how sure you are that you got them all out at harvest time.  Yeah, we're those peas.

Kyle and I have always shared our goals and our dreams with eachother- so even early on in our relationship we talked about our feelings about money, relationships, marriage, and even children.  We are lucky that we share the same views on all these things, it has made our relationship much smoother.  (As I said before: two peas.)  Instead of arguing about what to do with our money we get to focus on more important things, like how old Meryl Streep is or how long it takes to drive from our house to New York City.  You know, stuff like that.

After giving it lots of thought, we decided to take action on one of the previously mentioned topics of discussion.  We're having a baby.  This was one of the main culprits for our lack of anniversary-celebration this year, I admit, we had all these fun activities for the day planned but as my "morning sickness" lasted throughout the day it made it difficult to want to eat out or take the kayaks for a swim. 

SO!  Now that the cat is officially out of the bag I'm hoping to get back into my regularly scheduled blog posting as I've got tons to update you all on regarding the house and nursery.  Talk about renovation nation going on at casa Senesac- we're pushing to get the entire second floor finished by the end of the year!  Plus the dining room!  OH and getting our chimeny/woodstove installed next month!  Plenty of goings-on and I hope you'll stay tuned for all the long-overdue updates!

So folks, thats the big news that I've been holding on to.  My estimated due date is January 26 (which puts me at almost 5 months right now).  You can see in the picture below I've started "showing" as it is so lovingly called- note the elastic waistband pants and my prepregnancy t-shirt that just isn't long enough anymore.

On Monday, I had my first day back at work after taking a week off to spend with Kyle for our first anniversary.  As always I had a ton of work to catch up on and, before I knew it, the day was over and I was headed home.  I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some items and drop off a handful of movies at the Redbox kiosk that we had rented a couple days earlier.  I pulled into our driveway, herded a few stray chickens back into our yard and greeted Kyle on his way out of the house.  We've been thinking about clipping the chickens' wings and the further they venture into the neighbor's yard the more we think its for the best.  Our original plan had been to let them be, but they have been wandering further and further away and spend too much time on other people's property, or in the road, for our liking.  We shall see.

After feeding everyone out in the barn we returned to the house for some downtime and I got a good look at what my husband had been up to all day.  Apparently, Kyle had just as busy a day as I had.  In my absence he had relocated our bed to the guest room so he could begin working on finishing our master bedroom.  By the time I had returned home he had taken down all the bead-board and trim (carefully enough that we should be able to reuse it all, yippy!) and ripped down the plaster and lathe.  We were not suprised to see a lack of adequate insulation, which is exactly why we wanted to tackle this project in the first place.  But we were pleasantly suprised to see that so far all the studs appear to be in great condition.

He was just about finished putting up sheetrock over the second half of our ceiling.  The room is divided by a long header and one side of the room has a ceiling that is fine, the other side was a little less than lovely.  He had also been sanding and mudding the sheetrock that he put up in the "carpet sample" room over the weekend to cover the horrid, old "wood" paneling.  We're close to being finished with this room and as we move along to the master bedroom I'm beginning to think our goal of finishing the upstairs before the end of the year is a little more feasible.

We're hoping to have the insulation and sheetrock finished in our room by the end of the weekend, and begin the painting of the "carpet sample" room any day now.  Things are really rolling!

Sorry I've been a little sporatic in my blog posts lately, things have just been super hectic at home the past few weeks and my laptop has officially kicked the bucket.  Kyle and I had to finish up our guest room (YES, it really is finished!!) before my father and step-mom came up for the holiday weekend.  We also had to clean up the house (which ended up taking way more time than I really thought it would) and semi-finish the upstairs bathroom.  On top of all this we, of course, have been working on barn stuff.  Kyle made me a milking stand a week ago which I took out for a test run with Chutney a couple days. 

I was planning on starting the bottle-feeding this past weekend, my hope had been that I'd milk a little bit every day up until then just for us to get the hang of it before we really got serious.  But unfortunately, I haven't been feeling well and trudging out to the barn twice a day to fight with a goat and her teats wasn't high on my priority list.  So I'm hoping to give it another go soon because the kids are getting pretty skittish.

Our pigs are growing fast.  Bricktop is definitely still the biggest out of the four boys but the other three really aren't that far behind.  Kyle and I are pretty sure we'll be able to have them all processed before fall, which would be great.  They haven't eaten any other chickens, as far as I have been able to tell, and I hope that our barracade that we created around the dividing gate will continue to be successful.

Speaking of chickens, our second experience of the Cornish crosses is nearing its end.  Our fifty (or so) meat birds are amazing.  Last year when we raised these birds it was too late to put them outside because the weather had turned too cold.  This year they've had free range of the pasture and all the tall grasses.  We started only feeding them for a short time in the morning, forcing them to forage for the rest of the day.  I am always amazed about how healthy they seem compared to our first batch.  These birds are active.  The most common thing you hear about this kind of bird is that they have heart and leg problems, they really can only walk from the feed dish to the water dish, and the rest of the time they have to sit down because of their massive weight.  We experienced exactly this last year and it caused us to think we'd never raise these birds again.  But what a difference a diet can make.  I'll be posting some pictures when I get a chance.

I really do have a bunch to catch you up on- I really would love to show you some before and afters of our guest room and bathroom.  Oh, and we started our garden a few weeks ago, still have a lot to plant, but we've got a beginning at least.  May is due in a few weeks, she started making her udder a week ago.  So much has been going on I can barely remember it all!  Please bear with me, friends, life has really been getting in the way of my blogging but I hope to make a full comeback soon.

Thanks for stopping by!!
Melissa

Not really.  My middle name is Brooks- same as my Grandfather, who is named after a famous clergyman, Phillips Brooks.  Interesting because my Grandfather became an ordained minister and is famous in his own right...but I digress.

I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.  We are so close to finishing our guest bedroom and, while we could have finished this months ago (like I had planned), we're just now getting to a point where we're ready to dig in and finish it up.  Rainy weather can do that to you.

At this point the only things left to do are:

   Paint walls
   Paint ceiling
   Install new light fixture
   Put up trim
   Finish closet (paint, curtain rod, shelves)
   Finish floor (just one little section that used to be hallway)
   Hang the wooden blinds and buy/hang some drapes

I'm pretty sure we could get this all finished in a weekend.  We shall see.  I may get ambitious and start painting tonight which would give us more time to paint/put up all the trim over the next couple of days.  Ooohhhh and I just remembered that I am taking Monday off (so I can pick up our bees first thing in the morning) so there is one more day that we'll be able to work on the room.  Oh man, now I AM excited!  Keep your fingers crossed, folks!  Hoping to have some stunning before and after shots for you soon!!  Yippy!

Hey folks.  Kyle is up shoveling our roof so I thought it would be a good time to hop onto the blog and say 'Hi'. 

This weekend has been a lovely taste of the coming Spring.  I am so ready.  This morning we went out to the barn and I didn't even have to put on a jacket, it is well into the 40s I think.  After feeding the girls we walked around our land for a few minutes, planning where we'd be putting our pigs, and where we want to put the grape vines that have been taking up prime seats next to our picture window this Winter.  I can't wait to get started.

We've decided we're going to get four piglets as soon as we can build them a shelter and get an electric fence set up.  Hopefully in a couple months.

We started back up work on our guest bedroom yesterday.  Kyle has been working on the trim around the windows and I've been patching up old nail holes and other irregularities in the built-in that Kyle made.  It was all recycled wood from some old cabinets we scored from a house down the road.  I'm hoping to be able to get it primed with some BIN primer today- good stuff to keep the stain from seeping through later.

Mom and Anders are stopping over later this morning.  Anders hasn't seen the recent 'updates' to the house as he's been on his ship for the past few months.  After the tour we'll be heading over to the Bees Knees in Morrisville for some tasty local food and perhaps a beer.

Its been a crazy week followed by a relatively lazy weekend.  But the prospect for Spring has my spirits up.  I know we've just hit our January thaw and I'm sure we've got plenty of cold, snowy days ahead, but its nice to have a little taste of mild temperatures to come.

Oh and those grape vines I mentioned before- one has actually started growing its leaves.  I'm not sure if thats really a great thing, since grapes are supposed to be sleeping now, but the new growth is exciting.  Also, Kyle's Christmas Cactus that I almost killed, then nursed back to health, has finally decided to bloom!  We've got some bright pink flowers in the works and I'm pretty sure any day now they'll open.  I love Spring, even when its just in my head.

Last Sunday, after our awesomely-fabulous trip to Lowes that only cost us the price of gas and a couple breakfast sandwiches, we stopped patting ourselves on the back and got to work on the guest bedroom.  My dear friend, Stefania, had been planning on coming up for New Years eve and I really wanted her to have a decent place to pass out after hours of fun.

Kyle got to work creating a new door frame for the closet door while I got to work cutting drywall for the closet.  Luckily, as we still had the old door frame in place I had my own entrance into the closet where I wouldn't be harrassing Kyle during his project.  As I worked my way around the little closet, drywalling, Kyle finished up the door frame and started wiring up the new and improved wall sconce we picked up earlier that morning.  No more bare bulbs for our lovely little closet-to-be, no sir.

It took some time to finish the drywall in the closet, with its little kneewall, outlet, switch, and light, there were alot of calculations to make to be sure everything fit correctly.  But we got it finished, and I think we can officially call it a closet now.  After a quick break for an early dinner and a couple glasses of wine (normally beer is our home-renovation requirement but you work with what you've got, right?) we headed back up to start on the rest of the walls.

On the section of ceiling above where the funky, narrow hallway used to be, we secured a piece of foamboard to help insulate.  I fastened it up with an unnecessary amount of drywall screws before moving on to attach a piece of sheetrock over it (also with a large quantity of drywall screws...this time it was necessary, though, as we were only going into plaster/lath so the more the merrier).

My arms seriously needed a break at this point.  Being just under 5'5" doesn't help reach those places way up high where drywall screws need to go.  So we headed downstairs to feed the impatient dogs before going out to the barn.  The girls were happy to see that their dinner was coming and they all ate happily as Kyle and I looked around for the eggs.  The chickens were getting wise to the fact that we're taking their eggs, and must not be appreciating it because we had to search extra-hard to find more than a few.  All in all we found a dozen eggs, all but four in these new hiding places.

It was a busy, arm-killing day, but were we done?  Heck no!  How do you think I could possible have a mirror for our bathroom and just leave it in its box?!  You know me better than that.  With a level, some screws, and some good eyeballing, it took literally five minutes to secure the new medicine cabinet over our sink.  And 'whoa nellie!' we had a mirror and more storage in our upstairs bathroom!  Not to mention the fact that I finally got a good look at myself and couldn't believe my husband could look at my bed-head without laughing his face off.  After all, the guys at Lowes don't care if I brush my hair on home-renovation day so why should I?

So, there you have it folks.  Over the course of two days we were able to get our washer and dryer hooked up, drywall up in the guest bedroom (all but two small sections), install a light in the closet and a medicine cabinet in our bathroom.  And I was finally able to get some clean clothes, not too soon, too, as we all know what Monday means.

Sunday began with a little well-deserved sleeping in.  I got up around 7-7:30 and plopped myself down next to Kyle on the couch.  Today we were making a run to Lowes with our various gift cards that we had been given for Christmas, birthdays, and a couple that I received for being awesome from my health insurance company.  So we started our list.  We needed to get almost a dozen sheets of drywall to finish the guest room and the closet, some drywall mud, tape, a light for the closet, and I wanted to look for a mirror or medicine cabinet for our bathroom upstairs.

The weather wasn't looking all that promising, with showers in the forecast it was going to be quite a gamble to try to haul drywall from Lowes back to our house (a good 40 minute drive) without getting it soaked.  We loaded up a tarp and some ropes, just in case, and headed out.  First stop was Jana's in Jeffersonville where they make the best donuts in the world, for some breakfast.  I can honestly say we only picked up some breakfast sandwiches, no donuts this time...it was a serious test of will as they were the first thing I could smell when we stepped inside.  But, with breakfast in hand, and a full gas tank in the truck, we departed.

Of course, along the way the rain started up.

We got to Lowes and grabbed a couple of their big carts.  I was so excited to see the lack of cars in their parking lot, I almost always have an anxiety attack at Lowes with the quantity of people that are always there.  But we arrived and we probably only saw half a dozen customers the whole time.  We stopped by the drywall aisle to get that out of the way first.  Yes, it was raining, but if we didn't get the drywall we wouldn't be able to get much work done. 

Loading up drywall is my second least favorite home-improvement activity (first belongs to running drain pipes...serious pain in the butt that one).  While there, we picked up bucket # 1,002 of sheetrock mud (that calculation is a little overexaggerated, by the way), some seam tape, and another box of sheetrock screws.  We stopped over in the lighting department to grab an inexpensive wall sconce (I believe it was $17 or something like that) and then headed over to the vanity area to look for a mirror for our bathroom.  We found a nice big medicine cabinet, a little more than we were expecting to spend at $108 but what the heck.  So we headed back to where we left our cart of sheetrock to check out.

Along the way we just couldn't help but think we were forgetting something.  Trips to Lowes always take no less than an hour, and we hadn't even gotten frustrated yet...so something wasn't quite right here.  We stopped to look at router bits for Kyle's new toy that his lovely wife gave him for Christmas, and tried to find some new cartridges for our ventilators (no luck), but nope, couldn't find anything else we needed.  So we headed over to see what the damage was.  Ten sheets of drywall, mud, tape, screws, a wall sconce, medicine cabinet, oh and a couple switch plates came up to $220.  I did my happy dance a bit as I handed over our gift cards- which brought our grand total up to (drumroll please) ZERO!!  WOO HOO!

Thats right folks.  We walked out of there with our goodies with $18 left on one of our gift cards.  I couldn't help but smile as we started loading the sheetrock into the truck.  Of course, after getting the first pair into the bed, I stopped smiling...but hey, thats ok, at least I didn't spend any money on it.  We tied it all down, swaddled in layers of tarp and plastic provided by Lowes, and headed home.  Of course, by the time we got halfway there we were having some serious plastic malfunctions and had to pull over to resecure, as best we could, the protective barrier between our new wall and the persistent precipitation.  To no avail, another ten minutes down the road the plastic pulled up into all the wrong places, leaving the top sheet of our drywall exposed.  Whatever, another ten minutes to get home, there was just nothing to be done with it- it wasn't really raining all that hard afterall- more of just a heavy sprinkle.

We got home, and unloaded the drywall (yippy) into our workshop and headed into the house for some leftover chicken soup.  I was exhausted and it wasn't even noon yet.  We still had a long day of drywalling ahead of us.  But I'll get into that tomorrow.

My apologies for taking a whole week to update the blog.  With all the last-minute shopping things sort of fell by the wayside.  But I'm back!  And BOY do I have some stuff to update you on!  Ok, so in reality nothing really got done on the house until this weekend, but heck, it WAS a national holiday and you have to admit that even the die-hardiest of home renovators need a break here and there for egg nog, cookies, and such.

Saturday probably would have been saved as a 'recovery' day from all the Christmas festivities that we had participated the past two days, but no, something had to be done.  After a quick breakfast of bacon and eggs, we started off in our guest bedroom putting up more of the drywall.  There were still just a few sections around one of the windows that needed to be covered before we could get started on the wall that creates the closet.  About halfway through those few pieces, my Father-in-law, Guy, arrived to help Kyle with the washer and dryer.

As you may have read in previous posts, we decided it was time we got the dryer out of the kitchen, and the washer out of the dining room.  Now that all the hoses and wiring were in place we were ready for the next step.  I had finished all that I could do on my own in the guest room so I headed downstairs to start lunch and do some dishes.  Kyle and Guy headed into the basement to hook up the water for the washer.  Next thing I knew they were hauling the washer upstairs and then the dryer.  It took less that half an hour and I went upstairs to see the progress.  Miraculously enough we had JUST enough room for the washer and dryer in the nook next to the shower.  Pretty amazing, since this was not in our original plan.

After helping Kyle move the washer and dryer into the bathroom, and fixing a wicked tricky wiring problem with our front porch light, Guy was headed out- no doubt to enjoy a little downtime at home with his wife after the onslaught of company from the day before.

Kyle and I had lunch, some homemade chicken and rice soup from one of our lovingly-home-grown broilers that I had roasted for dinner a few days before.  I'm always excited that I can get at least half a gallon of chicken stock out of those birds on top of enough soup to last us four meals (at the very least).  But anyways, after eating lunch we headed to the local hardware store for a couple things that we needed for the final steps in hooking up the washer and dryer (a gasket or two, a new outlet for the dryer...I can't remember what else).

We got home and went right to the upstairs bathroom.  After Kyle installed the new outlet for the dryer (the one we got before didn't actually work with the plug) and I attached the hoses for the washer.  We secured the dryer vent and slid the dryer in place next to the washer (ok, so it took quite a bit of lifting, pushing, grunting, and probably would have helped if we had some Vaseline on hand...but they're in place).  After a week of not being able to do laundry, we threw some clothes into the washer and started the old girl up.  I did my happy dance as I listened to the sweet sweet sound of the wash being done.  And let me tell you, it is freaking awesome to no longer need to trudge up and down the stairs to do laundry- and its even more awesome to have a proper vent for the dryer again.  Woo hoo!

Before the end of the day my darling husband decided that the current door for the closet in the guest room was in a stupid place and we should move it afterall.  I was too tired to care, so he took his reciprocating saw and cut a new opening for the door.  With that we called it a day and retired to our living room for some cold beverages and a few episodes of The Office.  We had a big day ahead for Sunday, starting off with the best trip to Lowes EVER.  But I'll get into that tomorrow.

Sunday started off at our usual time- typically I like to try to sleep in a little on the weekends just because I can- but not this time.  Kyle and I hit the sack around 8-8:30 the night before after an exhausting day of working on what will be our new laundry room so it was pretty easy getting up around 5:30-6 am.  I wasn't disappointed, though.  Feeling well-rested is all I ask for, and there is nothing like a busy day of physical labor to help with that.

We decided to start work on the bathroom/laundry room right off.  Kyle started wiring the 220 plug for the dryer and the plug for the washer and I installed the new drywall under the windows where we had ripped into the wall the day before to make a little more room for the appliances.  I made a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs (eight of our lovely home-grown ones thankyouverymuch).  Before we knew it the time was 11:00 and we decided it would probably be best to wait to hook up the water pipes on a day where we had more time to deal with disaster- just in case.  So, with a few hours to kill before heading to Plainfield for May's 'date' with a handsome buck we decided it was time to tackle some house cleaning.

I mentioned before that when I arrived home from work on Friday our house was in shambles.  Well, this wasn't entirely due to the work that Guy (my father-in-law) and Kyle did that day.  To be perfectly honest we had about 10 contractor bags of crap that needed to leave the hallway from when we demo'd the guest bedroom.  Also, there was about two or three weeks worth of demolition dust/dirt that had accumulated all over the floor upstairs.  Finally, because of our kitchen plumbing problems (and a little bit of sheer laziness) we hadn't done dishes in a couple days so the kitchen was already a little disasterous.  Kyle and his Dad really only contributed to the mess in the dining room, living room, and kitchen.

But, enough of the inventory of messy-ness.  I just wanted to convey to you exactly what kind of 'mess' we were dealing with when I tell you that it took a good two hours to get the house cleaned up again.  (And we didn't even touch the kitchen.)

Right around 2 pm my Mom arrived to accompany us to Plainfield where we were going to have May bred.  My Mom absolutely loves going to the breeder's farm- although this is probably the first time she's left there without buying a new goat.  So, we piled up into her Jeep (three people and two goats would be a little crammed in my little Scion) and headed out.  Although it was a scheduled breeding for May we decided to bring Chutney along because you never want to leave a goat by itself- they are too social to really go solo. 

The whole way down May stood in the back, calmly looking out the windows.  Chutney on the otherhand was completely bizarre!  As soon as we got her in the Jeep she was shaking and bleating.  I was a little worried about her, she usually handles car rides better than our dogs do, so this was unusual for her.  After a few minutes the shaking stopped, but she continued to cry.  For over an hour our little girl made the funniest noises I have ever heard- she literally 'buzzed'.

We arrived at the breeders and we brought the girls out of the car- I decided to bring Chutney out just so she wouldn't stress out being by herself in the Jeep.  May was walked on a leash over to where the buck, Rosasharns Ukko (who's dam is Rosasharns Uni- wellknown for her milk production in the NDG world), was waiting impatiently with his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth like he was trying to attract her with his sense of humor.  Almost immediately it was clear that May wanted nothing to do with him.  Her tail was glued down to her rear-end and she wouldn't even think about getting friendly with the handsome buck who was wooing her.

As I stood by holding on to Chutney it was becoming increasingly obvious that she was acting a heck of a lot more receptive than May.  I practically had to hold the little thing back as we waited for May to change her mind.  The breeder confirmed our suspicions- Chutney was certainly in heat.  She was eight months old and Sharon, our breeder, let us know that she had grown enough to be bred- so we decided to let nature take its course.  The buck was more than happy to switch does- and it was over in a few scant seconds.  After servicing our little doe twice, Ukko was walked back to his pen with the other boys and we brought our girls back to the Jeep.

We paid Sharon for Ukko's services, admired Chutney's Mom (who is still milking by the way) and some new babies that were being dropped off from another customer to be sold, and then we were off.

Today Chutney was still smelling of the buck she visited yesterday- although I have to admit that it isn't nearly as offensive as many people claim it to be (perhaps the cold weather is helping to tone it down)- and May is still not looking like she is in heat.  Hopefully we can catch her in heat soon as I'd really like to have her bred no later than mid-January, even that is really pushing my preferred kidding date.

So.  It was an exciting day.  Now we're keeping an eye on Chutney to be sure she doesn't go back in to heat, just in case the breeding didn't take.  But hopefully all went well and we'll be seeing our first official Senesac babies here on the farm.  I guess I'd better start getting my kidding and milking supplies in order!  Yippy!!

On a completely seperate note: we are up to 165 eggs collected this month.  We've sold three dozen, given away about four or five dozen, and will be selling another two dozen later this week.