Number 6!

For those of you who are sweet enough to follow our little project, you may remember that we started out saying we’d renovate 4 rooms in the house ourselves. Then we worked so hard on one little closet that we declared it the 5th room!

Well… here we go on room #6! After researching, planning, estimating, (crying) and generally being in denial, we’ve decided to put off a full kitchen renovation. I have to say that even though this will mean WAY more work for us, I’m kind of relieved. Do y’all know how much a full kitchen gut and renovation costs? Don’t even look it up. It’s depressing.

So here we go, #6! We’re about to make this kitchen unrecognizable! Check out the fact that we’ve been using it for storage/staging/junk for the past 6 months…

Some other “before pics” – you see we have our work cut out for us!

Nobody better to get this party started with than Mavinee. Once again proving she’s the best teenager we know, she dove right in with me on prepping cabinet doors.

We are sanding and priming first – and labeling, of course! You must label and keep the hinges with the right door! Thank you, Pinterest, for this piece of advice.

Yeah, that red door. There was a point in time when I thought I would chalk paint and use a section of these cabinets in the dining room. That didn’t pan out. 😦

We’re boiling the metal parts again – this is liquid laundry detergent and water. Crock pot it for 6 hours and you wouldn’t believe the results.

Now, a good blogger would have a pic of the results, wouldn’t she? I truly thought I was going to the house Sunday to take a follow-up picture and didn’t make it back up there. But my friend, Maria, said the people want to see the dirty boiling water – so this pic is for her!

Now for the cabinet paint choices: white or white? Believe it or not, there is a tiny bit of difference between these two. We went with the one on the right – Alabaster.

We’re meeting with our awesome contractor tonight to discuss when the big stuff is going to start (SOON, let it be soon!). Prayers, please! Thanks, Y’all!

 

The Next Cowboy to Work…

Our little town of Coaling, AL put on the first annual rodeo last year, just down the street from our house. (It’s coming up again in October!). Eric, Michael and I went – it was a blast! The rodeo had an announcer that was The Real Deal. Right before a new competitor would take the arena to barrel race or calf rope, the announcer would say, “A’ight Ladies and Gentlemen, tha next Cowboy ta WERK is…” I don’t know if you can hear his accent in my typing, but I’ve been trying to imitate it ever since. Once a week I will find some way to say, “The next Cowboy (or Cowgirl!) ta WERK is…”

Well, at Casablanca in Coaling this weekend, the next Cowboy ta WERK was our own Michael White! Michael has been working for Hoar Construction for a couple of months and the man came prepared to work (WERK!).

He and Eric are still plugging away on sanding down the living room ceiling. Yes, they’re still working on that. Yes, it’s taking forever. Yes, they’d love to have you come over to help and bring your own sander – thanks for asking!

Can you see the progress? (Say yes!)

I worked on sanding down another door. I happened to notice that we are keeping these sanding blocks for some reason. No idea why. Maybe we think they’ll grow back their grit.

In other news, here’s an update on Dad’s tree. I cannot wait to see this thing explode in Fall colors – even though it’s still a baby tree! Top photo is from this weekend, bottom is from when we first planted.

In even more other news… Jonathan and Lynne Friday (from Friday Lumber) turned us on to the idea of painting our porch ceilings “haint blue.” Evidently, this Southern penchant for blue porch ceilings may have originated in South Carolina as a way of repelling haints… and bugs! Supposedly, the blue mimics the sky and bugs don’t want to land there. As soon as I heard about this tradition/superstition I was sold – we are definitely getting blue ceilings for our two porches.

Fast forward… Eric and I just got to spend a couple of days in Franklin, TN – totally worth the short drive. Cutest little town, interesting history, good food. While we were there we went to visit one of the antebellum homes near town, Carnton. This home was used as a hospital right after the Battle of Franklin – reportedly the bloodiest battle of the Civil War.

We walk up on the porch for our tour and guess what…

Haint Blue porch ceiling! Love it! They also have a pink porch floor – now I haven’t heard a word about pink porch floors. Lucky for me, there was a young woman painting the porch the same color of pink. I asked if there were a particular reason. She said only that the Lady of the House liked it and that it was always that color. Sounds good to me! (I swear if she had made up some crazy story about why people painted their porch floors pink, we’d totally be doing it!)

This house also had huge shutters for the entry-way doors. This might be another great idea. Thinking about it…

We are literally just waiting on our contractor to get started on the big stuff, so I hope to have big stuff to share soon! Thank you for being interested in our little farmhouse!

Yep, bought this from Etsy 🙂