The beat goes on…

Hi Friends! We had a glorious Spring Break at Casablanca – and by “glorious” I mean we unpacked an amazing number of boxes! I opened a box, found a place to put the stuff, threw the box on the back porch, and opened another box. Someday, all the boxes will have been opened – but it won’t be today. That process is still ongoing!

Some of my favorite boxes to unpack have been the boxes marked FIESTA!

The newspaper I used to pack up my prized Fiesta dishes are from March 2016 – SIXTEEN! That’s way to long to go without seeing the bright colors of Fiesta on your kitchen shelves. Photo to come of all the gorgeous colors in their new home – it’s still a work in progress.

Just in case you haven’t seen our photo with Ben and Erin Napier from HGTV’s show, Home Town… here it is again:

We went to Laurel on a day-trip to celebrate Eric’s birthday and just lucked out to see Ben and Erin at the Laurel Mercantile!

We have a few new developments at the house – as of tonight, we will have a fully functioning kitchen. Yes… weeks after we moved in. Power problems, what can we do? Call the contractor – that’s what we do.

I’ve been hand-washing dishes. It’s actually kind of therapeutic. I don’t want to do it any more, but there is something pleasingly mind-numbing about soaping and rinsing dishes. You should try it.  🙂

In other fun news we got this SWEET piece of history from our friends, Margaret and Jerry Keith. It’s a family piece that now has a new home in our dogtrot. Check out the detail on the mirror – hand-carved, burled wood, Alabama marble? Yes, ma’am!

Some additions also include the curtains and rug in the reading nook. These curtains are from Lowe’s. We found the rug there one night in a bin for $20. Perfect!

I’m also pretty happy about how the kitchen is coming together (slowly, but surely). We still need to rehab the counter tops, so for now, this is what I can share with only slight embarrassment about the mess in the corner!

We found these chairs in the window at Pier 1. Loved them! We are awaiting our custom built square table to go here – made, of course, from wood collected during the house renovation. The same person is doing a dining room table for us, too. Cannot wait!

My sewing nook in our epic closet needs a lot of organizing, but finding a way to get this thread holder hung under the shelf was a real win – even if it’s not very professionally done (because I did it).

Green thread anyone? (Why so much, you ask? Christmas projects, that’s why!).

So while several corners of the house are coming together, our living room still looks like this:

Bless. The floors are awesome and the fireplace is great (but you can’t see it). You may remember that Eric worked for WEEKS to strip the ceiling boards – well, now he has to caulk, sand, and seal them before we can move forward with this room. We did finally scoot the television into this room, attach an antenna, and now we get 5 whole channels – only 2 of which are worth watching. But it’s ok because nobody has time for TV.

Here’s my next project, Friends:

It’s a Davis sewing machine base with a marble top. I read on the Truthernet that making a paste of peroxide, baking soda and water would do the trick on these stains. That didn’t work for me. I’m going to have to find a solution for this – if you have a fool-proof method for cleaning deep stains on marble, please send it to me! My Plan B is to take the marble off and use reclaimed wood on the top instead.

Let’s wrap this up with some cuties! Lucy had some sweet visitors this week – Kate and Ella gave her all the love one 15-year-old kitty cat could handle!

More updates soon!

Moving!

The move to Coaling has officially happened!

Right now it feels like we are just sleeping there and unpacking boxes, but I guess that makes us official residents, right? Someone said they would miss our updates. Oh no, my friend, there are many more updates to come! We are farrrrr from done. We will have so much more to share! Our living room still needs almost a full renovation, the kitchen is still coming together – much, much more to do!

For the past week, all we’ve done is move boxes and try to get a working kitchen. Mercy. After 3 attempts by the plumber, we still didn’t have a sink that worked. Eric took the whole thing apart, put it back together, and now we are in business – but that took to mid-week! Over the weekend, we put in a wall oven. When we tried to install the cook-top it shattered, so we have another week to wait on a replacement. But we have a microwave, so that’s something! Anyway, kitchen pics… maybe next week?

I know you likely don’t care a thing about seeing pictures of boxes, so here are a few of the things that are starting to feel like home around Casablanca:

The reading nook. I could sit right here and never leave. I’ve tried that a few times, but… work. I sat here Sunday morning and watched a ground hog crawl across the pasture, a bright red cardinal landed in the tree right outside this window, then the Canadian geese flew down and landed in the pond. When Lucy jumped up next to me I declared it the Wild Kingdom! What a blessing!

Speaking of Lucy! So many of you have asked how she is adjusting. I am continually amazed at how easily she has gone from one house to another in the past year or two. The first day is definitely confusing for her, but there are enough familiar things for her to sniff. As long as she can get on the bed with me and Eric at the end of the day, she is at home. AND nothing says “I’m home” more than sitting in the sink! She’s doing great!

A couple of other scenes from around the house: The tulip tree off the yet-to-be-painted front porch, Old Glory, our new porch light, and the stained glass window in my bathroom!

A couple of reminders that Spring is on the way – the orchid my MBAs gave me as a house warming, and the tulip tree blooming over Eric (the Horse Whisperer) and Magic (the horse). Looks like we’ll get another cold snap, per the usual, but I can’t wait for more days to be outside!

We will have so many updates to come! Thank you for sharing this journey with us. It feels great to be home!