Fences and Neighbors

Since Robert Frost said, “Good fences make good neighbors,” Eric and I decided to build one this weekend and see for ourselves! Just a casual weekend at Casablanca.

Lucky for us, we have fantastic neighbors. But a couple of them are of the equine persuasion and we needed a way to keep them off Mom’s construction site. Eric and I (and let’s be clear… mostly Eric) put in a wire fence around Mom’s house site. I gotta say, I’m pretty proud of us. I have certainly never built a fence before – nor wanted to!

Here’s our before pic:

Of course, Mango had to come check on his friends…

Eric manned the post-hole driver and I basically worked the tape measure. I’m super useful like that.

About mid-afternoon, our historian friend, Jim Phillips, dropped by with some metal detectors, so he and Eric surveyed the property. They didn’t find much, but it was a beautiful day for it.

I helped them out by making sure the porch was still worth sitting on. And it totally is.

We got back to fence building and finished up about sundown. A pretty productive day, if I do say so. This pic doesn’t show much detail, but we installed 31 t-posts and seemingly 14 miles of barbless wire.

Duchess came to check out the progress.

And Spring is springing in some beautiful places around the house. Can’t wait for more weekends like this one… only maybe without as many t-posts!

I hate to end on a sad note, but I’ve got to report that our sweet Shadow is no longer with us. I found her in the road last Thursday night. Shadow was the sweetest lap cat and we are missing her very much. If you have a pet, you understand. I want her back so badly!

Front Porch Sunsets

Hi Friends! It’s been SO long since I’ve had an update from Casablanca. Our hero, Prince Eric, had back surgery several weeks ago and we’ve both been focused more on healing than on renovation right now. Some of our last big projects are just waiting on both of us to feel up to the task!

However… we did get some progress on our front porch! I’ve never had a front porch of my own until now, but I have sure been guilty of envying grateful for friends who let me sit on theirs. This porch was pretty solid to begin with, she just needed a trip to the beauty parlor.

Here are some before shots and some comparisons!

 

Front Steps Before:

And After: Yep, totally should have swept the leaves off the porch. We’re just living real life out here. And that’s Mango. We have a lot of cats. We don’t have any varmints!

Before:

After: Anybody an expert on hanging a porch swing? Call us!

Here’s our Shadow – she’s our lap cat!

Before, but after the porch ceiling was started:

After: I can’t even lie, it’s pretty much a dream come true!

We even have a little mini-lettuce garden going on the side steps – ha!

Come see us! This is likely exactly where we’ll be!

 

Step On Up!

I know what you’re thinking… Getting new back porch steps is not that big a-deal. Right? Well, you’d be wrong about these steps. I mean, just look at them:

For two and a half years we’ve been negotiating these steps because they just weren’t the most important thing to address! I mean, they work. So what if the top one is canted down at a 30 degree angle? Who cares about steps if you don’t have a working hot water heater?

So now we have two working bathrooms, paint on the walls, and furniture to sit on. Let’s get those back steps fixed!

The cats have to be right in there – they only run when the saw fires up!

This nail wanted to stay in the porch forever. But Eric won this fight. Eventually.

Honestly, why does Mavinee keep coming back? No teenager ever worked harder! We’re blessed to have her!

Oh, look, there’s a concrete pad under all that dirt! Who knew?

This man. Do y’all understand how awesome Prince Eric is? I bet you don’t, but he can do anything.

TADA!! I’m not usually out there trying to find more steps to climb, but I walked up and down these about 20 times. It’s like a miracle.

The painters come back on Wednesday! I can’t wait to show you the “Afters” of this porch!

Not exactly HGTV…

Approximately once a week someone tells us we need our own HGTV show. I watch the channel all the time and I can tell you we are not nearly slick enough for that life – we do things like attach plastic tubing with duct tape to hand-held sanders, as you’ve seen if you’ve been following us. Yeah, they’re not going to put us on TV. But yesterday, we got to do the next best thing. First a little background…

Several weeks ago, I was having a Crafting Day at Casablanca with a couple of friends. I see from my quilting table in the dining room that a man pulls into the drive and is talking to Eric. The next thing I hear is that they are walking around the house. And then they in my kitchen! What the hay? Turns out this visitor is historian, producer, and coin collector, Jim Phillips. Maybe you know his brother, Doug, from Discovering Alabama. Or maybe you’ve been to one of his MANY talks about historic Alabama – catch one if you haven’t. The man is full-up on interesting information!

Jim told us all kinds of cool things about our house. For example, he explained why there’s an extra door to the front porch in Mavinee’s room. We knew travelers on the carriage road outside must have stayed over or had a meal with the family. But we didn’t realize that this was so common among houses (call Ordinary houses) along the pioneer roads that the extra door was added to the front bedroom. This kept the visitors out of the main living spaces for the family. Genius. We’re keeping the door!

Turns out, Jim is documenting the Old Huntsville Road (or what’s left of it) for UA. The Huntsville Road was the first settlement road in Alabama. It’s where pioneers from South Carolina (like our own house-builder, Daniel Black) or Tennessee came into the state to seek out a home and a farm living of their own. Scroll down on this newsletter for a great article on the Huntsville Road: http://www.jeffcohistory.com/newsletter_Spring_16_pg1.html

Jim has followed the Huntsville Road from North Alabama, through Blount County, down to Birmingham, and now into Tuscaloosa County… where the Old Huntsville Road goes right through our front yard! How cool is that?? We’ve always called it the Carriage Road. It runs right up to the pasture fence – which is why it’s still there. After the carriages were done with it, wagons, trucks and trailers going to and from the pasture have kept it in use. Eventually, a new road was paved right next to it and called Wire Road.

Jim filmed Eric talking about the road and about the house. It’s a documentary for UA and, let’s be honest, may not ever see the light of day. But, maybe it will, and it is fun to be a part of it. It’s a great honor to know Jim and to be a small part of one of his projects. Here are some shots from the filming:

Thanks for following our story, Friends! We appreciate your encouragement so much!

 

 

Let’s talk counter tops!

The Kitchen. I don’t think we’ve spent more time or money on any other room – and I think any contractor or renovation expert would say that’s where your money is going to go. We started out with a grand plan of completely gutting and reworking the entire kitchen. That didn’t quite fit into our budget. So we relied on the next best thing to help with our transformation – Paint!

We have painted (or had professional help painting) the ceiling, walls and cabinets. Eric and I have changed every hinge on every door and replaced all the hardware. The last thing on our list was the counter tops. We’ve mulled over replacing them with everything from granite (too expensive) to concrete to butcher block. After hours of research, we decided to give a good college try at painting them.

I found this product through my endless Google searches for good ideas:

This is different than Rust-oleum’s Countertop Transformations – that is a much more expensive product. With the Countertop Coating you can have it tinted in 16 color options:

We have 3 counter tops to renovate in this kitchen. We decided to start with one and see how we liked it. We chose to go with Gray Mist for the color. A few before pictures…

I can’t overemphasize how important the prep work is for a project like this. If you’re going to try it, go ahead and do the prep work: tape off the walls, cover the cabinets, scrub down the dirt from the counter. I know, I know… you won’t drip a single drop on those newly-painted cabinets. Sure, you won’t.

Here we are, ready for paint:

The paint goes on very thin. It’s almost watery. You must use a foam roller with this paint and I learned by the third coat that it’s a great idea to squeeze the foam roller into the paint and get it really full before applying it to the counter. The fumes are crazy! You need open windows and a fan blowing for full ventilation.

Here’s the first few passes on the first coat of Gray Mist:

The paint takes 24 hours to dry, but it becomes tacky very quickly. Once it’s down, there’s no going back to touch up! We were generally pleased with the first coat, but decided that the color was too light. So we went back to our trusty Lowe’s (where they know us by name, sort of like in Cheers) and decided that the Pewter color was a better fit for us.

I did two more coats of the Pewter, letting each dry for 24 hours, and we ended up with this:

Can’t wait to show you the other two counters when we get them done! 🙂

Haint Blue!

Rain, Rain, Go Away / We have to paint the porch today!

That’s been our refrain for… weeks. It really does seem that if we get a day off to paint, the rain just comes on in. But this weekend, even with Alberto on the way, we did get a couple of days to work on the front porch. We are starting from the top and coming down, so that means we got to dive into our haint blue paint!

In case you’re new to the blog… We have decided to go with tradition and paint the ceilings of both porches haint blue. I’m sure you’ve seen antebellum houses all over the South with blue ceilings. As the legend goes, a blue ceiling would keep away haints… and bugs! Evidently the bugs were supposed to be fooled into thinking the blue was the sky and move along. We haven’t seen any haints, but we have a few bugs who love our porches, so I’ll have to report back later to let you know how it goes! For more on this haint blue story, check out this article: https://www.sherwin-williams.com/architects-specifiers-designers/inspiration/styles-and-techniques/sw-article-pro-thewhysbehind

Of course, the first thing we had to do is get the ceiling coated in Kilz. The word “Kilz’d” is now a normal term in our house, as in, “Has the porch been Kilz’d yet?” or “I’ve got to get this wall Kilz’d before you can paint.” Here are a couple of pics of the Kilz’d porch ceiling:

Then we whipped out the haint blue – Sherwin Williams Atmospheric. Doesn’t that just sound fabulous?

In process:

Pro tip: if you’re working on a porch ceiling and you’re up on a ladder, keep a piece of painter’s tape on your ladder for bug grabbing. You can probably see the dead bug bodies on my tape there at the top of the ladder. Works like a charm! (That’s for Maria who always wants the gory details!)

Ceiling is finished on the front porch:

We’re working from top down, so there’s still much to do. I guess we’ll wait out Alberto and see if we can get a couple of clear days in the near future!

In other news around Casablanca, I finally finished the Starlight Quilt. This quilt is enormous and is a scrappy traditional Log Cabin quilt. Most of the fabrics were chosen because the patterns had meaning for us – there’s an Army print to honor Eric’s service, bicycles to remind us of riding at the beach on our anniversary trip, maple leaves for our camping trips, spools of thread for quilting, turtles as a reminder of the turtle farm we visited in Cayman on our honeymoon. And the star pattern is for Starlight Drive – where I was living when God brought Eric to my doorstep. It’s where we fell in love and started our life together. It’s where we were when we first started dreaming out loud about Casablanca.

The Starlight Quilt has been Lucy approved:

And then I got started right away on a Thank You quilt for Mom. When we moved into her house we said, “I’m sure it will only be for 2 or 3 months.” We finally moved out after 14 months, so bless her heart! She definitely deserves this blue and white log cabin…

More porch pics to come soon, I hope! Thanks, Friends!

 

All you need is Love and the Farmhouse…

Friends… we are finally to the point (in some parts of the house) where it actually looks like someone lives there! We even had a little party this weekend, with guests and all!

I think it’s time for a few more before/after images of where we are right now!

Let’s start with the fireplace in the living room. Bless this room, someday we will paint the walls… it just won’t be today. However, the fireplace is wonderful!

Fireplace before:

And now: (no paint on the walls yet)

The pink magnolia room is also coming along very nicely! Let’s remember where we started with this one…

It makes perfect sense that, when we started, this room was my biggest nightmare. It was horrid. I just could not even with it, as the young people said. And now? It’s one of my favorite places in the house. I truly, truly love it. I want to hug it. Here’s why:

Now for the dining room! I feel like such a grown up with a formal dining room, right? We had a little party here this weekend and it was just fantastic to get to gather around the table and have chairs to sit in! It really feels like a home.

Dining room before:

And today!

Let’s talk about this farm table! We are so happy about this! Our new friend, Johnny, made this for us out of wood from the house. It’s perfection!I may have to keep my butterfly chairs since y’all said I should keep everything I like! I recovered these at least 15 years ago but they are still doing the job. We’ll see – maybe I’ll have a design moment and break out with something new!

Ok, I think you’re up to date. We still have two porches to clean, sand and paint – if the weather EVER cooperates! We still have a living room to paint and lots of touching up to do. We still have counter tops in the kitchen to renovate before I can post photos from that room.

Thank God I have this one to lead me out of the weeds!

Y’all come see us!

Cushy Couches – You just need one!

We’ve been living full-time in the house for more than a month now. And it certainly feels like home – it feels like a dream, actually! But there has been something about not having the living room finished that has made it feel a little incomplete for me. I’m an introvert in an extrovert’s job (Eric, too!) so when I come home after talking and people-ing all day, sometimes I just want to crash on a cushy couch for a minute, maybe flip on the tube to HGTV. But since we’ve moved in, the living room has been a catch-all for boxes, equipment, and … stuff.

You may remember that Eric has been working on renovating the ceiling in this room for months. He’s SO close to being done. I bet he never wants to get on this ladder again – but here he was over the weekend, still working hard at it!

AND, even though the room has not been painted yet, we got to put our cushy couch in place. We are hosting a shower here in a couple of weeks and just wanted a place for people to sit! We’ll worry about finishing out the painting later… and the curtains, and the trim, and…! We found this cushy couch at the Alabama Furniture Market in Calera – definitely worth the trip if you’re looking for furniture. They let Eric test this piece out for napping right in the store. It passed.

Let’s talk about this coffee table.

On one of our most recent trips to Laurel, MS we were window shopping at J Parker Reclaimed.

This business is regularly featured on our fave, Home Town. They create all their pieces out of reclaimed wood – it’s great when a business’ name tells you exactly what they do, right? We’d been in before – there’s LOTS to admire in there! This table was under another one, but I just kept staring at it. At some point it dawned on me… Here’s the top of the coffee table:

And here is a close-up shot of the ceiling in the living room:

Yeah, we couldn’t go home without it. Impulse buy? Not at all – we’ve been waiting for the right thing and we found it! I love this table – it’s not fussy, you can put your feet on it (with socks, preferably!) and it looks right at home in our living room.

One other great find was this rug we lucked up on in Sam’s one day – $99. You just never know when you’re going to find a good deal. This rug feels great AND it’s made out of plastic soda bottles. WHAT?

Here’s a good place for some feedback from our faithful readers:I’ve had these lamps and these rattan, glass and iron end tables for about 20 years – at least, maybe longer. Can I tell you that I absolutely love them? I never ever see end tables and think, “Oh, I love those so much more than mine!” Nope – these are my favorites. Are they dated? Is it ok to use end tables that may or may not be from another era as long as I love them? I mean, I don’t want to be that person who hangs on to their avacado green appliances because she loved them in 1975, you know? But these tables… they just make me happy! 🙂  Please tell me if I should start trying to get over them.

More soon, thanks for following along with us!

 

The Secret to a Happy Marriage…

Actor Michael Caine says the secret to a happy marriage is … separate bathrooms. Maybe this is one reason Eric and I are happy as clams! Our leaving-for-work schedules are different enough that since Day 1 we’ve had separate bathrooms – 2319 days later and I think we’d still recommend it.

Both of our bathrooms are new, not renovations – but we still had a great time working on them. In the new sections of our house, we’ve tried so hard to make them fit with the old. This is an old farmhouse, so we didn’t want to hang crystal chandeliers anywhere. Still, the original house didn’t even have bathrooms, so some upgrades are good. I hope we’ve done a good job of straddling that balance.

Eric’s bathroom is almost completely his own design! He picked the colors, the paint, the rug, the mirror – even the deer-head towel hanger! I think he did a marvelous job, personally.

This bathroom opens off the dogtrot – it’s for guests, too.

Now, on the other side of the color wheel is my bathroom! These rooms are still works in progress – we don’t have a thing on the walls other than the iron hanger (above) in Eric’s bathroom. But, honestly, I am loving the slow-go on how these rooms are developing. It’s fun to find just the right thing – and to wait on it. Probably the only time in my life I’ve been happy to wait on something!

How great is this door???

I’m basically in love with this tile:

Thank you for keeping up with us! We’ll have more updates and marriage advice coming soon!  🙂

 

 

 

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!