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.

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.

The end of October brought a flurry of activity with the pending baby shower paired with the dining room renovation.  As the party was to be at our house (as we are rather centrally located for our family members) we wanted to be sure we didn't have bare sheet rock welcoming our guests into our house.  So, in the week and a half leading up to the shower Kyle tackled the taping and mudding of the sheet rock.  Instead of our typical technique of hand-sanding the seams, Kyle (in a stroke of brilliance, I swear) decided to pull out his orbital sander.  We were sure to put up plastic in all the doorways to try to keep the drywall dust migration to a minimum which worked relatively well.  The walls and ceilings ended up looking great- much smoother than when we would sand by hand- so we're sold on the new technique.

The weekend before the shower we had my Mom come down to help paint.  We purchased a VOC-free paint from the local hardware store in a dusty yellow-green color (can you tell we're suckers for green?).  We were able to get the entire room primed and painted in a single day.  I was psyched.  The room went from this:

To this:

*the paint is still a little wet in these photos so the walls look a little less than stellar*

Rest assured, nothing ever goes perfectly.  We ran into a little comic relief towards the end of the day when my Mom decided to be a joker and step into the paint can.  She says it was by accident but I'm pretty sure she just liked the color and thought her shoes could use a little update.  But a little bit of water and some uncontrollable laughter solved the problem and we quickly righted her shoe and sock, although I'm fairly sure her pants will never be quite the same again.

The floor still needs to be refinished and we have yet to find the perfect chandelier, but we've been making due with the light we removed from the nursery when we upgraded it a few months ago.  We were able to get the trim up and painted around all the doors and windows, so our dining room was perfectly presentable in time for our first baby shower at the end of October.  We had a lovely time with family and friends and were given many generous gifts in preparation for our little girl.

Speaking of which, our little girl (as it turns out) isn't all that little.  She's a little monster in there and the doctors are telling me that if she doesn't flip over soon (as she is currently head UP instead of head DOWN like she's supposed to be) they'll have to schedule me for a cesarean section.  I'm not terribly pleased, what with my feelings of wanting to keep things as natural and drug-free as absolutely possible, but in the end all that matters is that we are blessed with a healthy baby girl in late January.  Until then, I am blessed by being able to stay home, relax, and prepare for baby.  Almost a month ago, the doctors decided that I should stop working and thanks to my company's short-term disability plan we are able to afford this turn of events.

So, thats my modest update for today.  Please stick around- I hope to get another blog post up tomorrow to continue in my efforts to get you all caught up before the end of the year!