Can I Get A Whoot! Whoot!

This is the first title that came into my head, so I went with it.

<Begin scene>
I walk into my living room and sit down.  I look up and am pleasantly startled.  "Am I in my house?", I think starring at the room.  Then I am reminded that I am, in fact, in my house when I get up and step on a razor sharp lego.  "Look at those windows", I say.  "They are quite nice.  Wow, our house is looking quite nice".  I proceed to another room gazing, focused on these new things causing happy chemicals to be released into my brain.  With mom like reflexes I catch stuffed mer-cat (thats part mermaid, part kitty cat) mid air on perfect trajectory towards my head.  I am still focused.  Time seems to be slowing down.  I stop to gaze at another room still entranced.  I smile.  I sit.  I am pocked in the bum by another lego that was in the chair.  Time and reality returns.... but the lovely windows are still there.
<End scene>

That pretty much sums it up.  I am very happy with the windows though they are not fully stained and painted yet.  Here are some early photos of the windows.

Old windows when we moved into the house-

After some progress in living room, back living room window-

Living room in beginning 'years'-

New windows! -

As I have said before the windows themselves will be left natural, only a coat of Polyurethane.  Frames will be white.  Similar to how they already look.

Closeup-

Inside grill is removable for window cleaning-

The upstair windows have a different style trimming.  This is a picture frame type trimming (compare with the previous window pics from the downstairs)-

Outside was sealed and framed in with white composite material.  This reduced the bulkiness of the previous vinyl framed windows.  It was affordable and quick to install as well.  Yes, that's a kid doing a photo bomb from inside-

Now I am struggling thinking about curtains again.  We need something on the front four windows but don't want too much because we like clean lines.  I will save this discussion for another post possibly.
More updates are still in the works, stay tuned...... ;)

Its A Nice Day For Some... White Painting...

It's a nice day to... start again!
80's music fans should be proud of me.  What better way to begin a post about painting stuff white than to begin it with Billy Idol (<insert> sarcasm).

The song would be in my head right now, but I am distracted by little man beating on a mixing bowl drum for no related reason.
I have been house bound and being the extrovert that I am it gets somewhat trying.  Getting small house projects complete have proven to be pick-me-ups.  Finding time for those projects is another issue... but you make time for things you find important (and my sanity is somewhat important :).
So the other day I pulled out the painting supplies in attempt to finish the dining room trim.  I got ONE WHOLE WINDOW painted during the kid's rest time.  There was prep work such as sanding and taping that added time, but the completed project lifted my spirits.
Here is the before dining room, previous black painted frames and unfinished trim.  And yes, I did put baby in the (bottom) corner (I'm on an 80's popular quotes roll today).

And my completed window, woohoo-

It's hard to tell but the wall color IS different from the trim color.  Wall color is slightly gray.

Jonathan's trim looks even lovelier all cleaned up-

Post of him putting up the trim click HERE  (picture at the end of this one is still a favorite) and HERE.

If you remember, we decided to go with all white now because the black wasn't working for multiple reasons.  Mainly because our windows are old, thick framed, unattractive, and small in size and it drew too much attention to them.  Second it was making picking out curtains that we both agree on almost impossible.
I would love to get curtains up sometime soon.  That would be like receiving a dose of happy juices.

A few things that Jonathan completed recently.

Getting the TV wires alittle more under control-

Cut holes in the wall and installed these plastic thingys-

Snaking the chaos in through the wall-

And wallah-

This area obviously needs alot more work, but it is a start-

Little man doing work during the process-

And weather stripping and painting more stuff white.  We actually discussed and looked into new exterior doors.  More happy juices flowing.
Before grossness which was allowing cold air to blow through-

After-

Little lady helping with this one.  It was a cold day to be working with an open door-

Small progress here and there.
Eating the elephant piece by piece.

New Window In !!

Every time I walk in my living room I sing about the window, Isn't She Lovely.  (Side note: I did not know Stevie Wonder wrote this song to celebrate the birth of his daughter.  How sweet!)
So lets quickly recap the long journey (seemed long to me anyway) of this installation-
Old window, drafty and sagging-

New window arrived Jan, 11th and hung out with us in the dining room for close to a month-

Thankfully the windows are only the 'eyes of the house' (so they say) and not the ears because we talked mean about both windows most of the time.

New window installation began Monday.  Thankfully we were able to get out of the house during the morning.  Not kid friendly or winter cold/house warm friendly work (it was snowy).  I snapped some pictures before we left-

They noted that quite a few animals had lived in the window.  I had seen remnants of a hornets nest when we removed the trim.  I didn't get a picture of the full nest before they trashed it.  It covered half the area sandwiched inside the windows base.

We were not surprised to hear the OLD window was NOT installed properly (same old news with each repair we get into).  The carpenter seemed to be slightly annoyed at all the small construction details he had to make up for, trying to get everything square.  He was nice though and from what we can tell has done a nice job.

New window installation mostly complete as of today!  They are supposed to come back and tighten the cables a bit and insulate a little more.  We are going to paint it ourselves-

You see that big roll of pink fiber glass insulation.  Little man used it as a drum, did I mention FIBER GLASS.  Fun times as always.

Before from the outside-

And after (still needs some trim work around the siding, they are going to do this)-

Sing with me, Isn't She Lovely.... :)

Jonathan will have to add some drywall to the sides before he frames the window.  The gaps are wider than our trim.  The top and bottom gaps are small enough to hide under the trim thankfully.

Window already being put to use as a race track-

Hopefully I will have my living room back in order soon, they don't seem to mind.... and I don't mind since this room will stay much warmer now... and look nicer. :)

Filling Trim Holes, Windows and Tape

We are slowly making progress towards our goal of completely finishing the dining room.  This week we are filling those little brad nail holes in the window trim.

You gotta do what you gotta do-

Progress list so far:

Fill and sand holes in trim - in progress

Paint window trim white

Paint window frames black-

Put up baseboard trim

Fill, sand and paint baseboard trim

Sand off stain on walkthrough boards (or are we replacing?)

Put up trim around walkthrough

Fill, sand and paint walkthrough trim

Make and install stair banister

Paint and install heater end plate

Make blinds or curtains - possibly have fabric choice!

It would be nice to have the windows complete and painted before the holidays but house updates will not be a priority in the coming weeks.
Did you notice the fake grills on the window?  Those are made of electrical tape and were helping us visualize what style grill to get on the newly ordered bay window.  What are your all's thoughts on these two styles?  4 pane grill or 6 pane grill?

The 6 pane grill looks better from the outside of the house since its more colonial.  I kind of like the 4 pane because it looks more 'open'.  For the bay window we went with a 4 pane grill on the two small side windows but that would match with any grill we go with on these full size windows.

Where you even able to see the windows through the tree stationed on our table?  This is our Giving Thanks Tree (not near as pretty as the inspiration, thanks Tori for sharing the idea with me).

We started it last night and each of us are adding a leaf each day with something we are thankful for written on it.  Can you guess whose this is?

I'm finding it to be a good activity for our almost 3yo who didn't fully understand thankful when we explained what it meant.  So this has helped him understand and even voice it.  While eating lunch today and looking at the tree he told me he was thankful for me (so sweet, made my day).... but then he threw his scrambled eggs in the floor.  He maybe changed his mind after I disciplined him for doing so.

Last I wanted to share our mad efforts towards cleaning the yard after two high wind storms.  Last Saturday was a great workout and my super human strength mom arms continue to amaze me. :)  Other moms know what I am talking about.  Throwing logs across the yard....  no problem <enter Xena princess warrior scream>.

My 13 mo weighs more than these, and how many hours a day am I carrying her around.

I feel like we racked up enough pine needles, sticks and leaves to build shelters for a small village (MacGyver could totally do it).  Thankful we have an easement area we can dump on instead of having to bag all this mess.

Jonathan likes chopping wood.... and I like watching him :)

He looks mad at that log.

I hope to post more about our farm and winterizing sometime later.  I have herbs that are still surviving out in the garden and hens whose food is getting swiped in the night.  That stuff interests me... maybe I am the only one. :)

The Bay Window, An Easement Road and Some Kid Notes

If that title doesn't scream excitement I don't know what does.
This past week we brought in a couple contractors to look at and quote rebuilding/replacing our bay window.  We were told (and the draftiness in the winter tells us too) that the bay window is sagging and has gaps which I guess happens over time.  I believe you can tighten the rods within the window's structural assembly to help this problem but we are in need of new windows anyway (for most of the house).  We feel like with all the warmth that is escaping we are just throwing money 'out the window'.  The sooner we replace the windows, the sooner we get our money back on them (well, some through savings from efficiency).
This is what it looks like now (don't be jealous of those vinyl or something curtains)-

You can see the proof of the sagging along the bottom of the window here (pay no attention to the strange face reflecting in the window)-

From the outside, again look at the gap along the bottom of the window frame (there's that strange face again)-

The window is a 45 degree bay window and we plan to get the same layout as shown below.  Picture window in the middle with double hung windows with grills and screens on each side.  The windows will be Andersen windows.

We haven't signed any paperwork but will most likely be going with the independent contractor (huge price difference between the independent guy and the one through the local home warehouse store).  I will keep you updated on any progress.

In backyard news, the power company has decided they need access to one of the towers thats on the easement behind our property.  The easiest way to access this tower is driving down our driveway and around and behind our pasture.   They will be building a road to the tower from the corner of our property to the tower.  Thankfully they will not be building a road on our property but just in the easement.  Apparently they will only need to use the easement road (and the access route down our driveway) only if something goes wrong back there.  Wondering if this is spurred on from all the trouble they got into from the service delay after last year's fall storm.
The tree company came Tuesday to do some clearing-

We were hoping they would clear it all so we could extend our pasture all the way back across the easement (as others have done near us).  The response we've gotten on this question is that its probably ok as long as we have gates wide enough for their trucks to get through.  Sweet!  This would maybe give us enough land to get a steer for beef.

Moving onto some kiddo news (for the grandparents), little man Milo has been peeing in the potty regularly!!!!  Woohoo <insert me doing a dance>.   There has been some emotionally trying days for me over the past weeks but this has brought me some encouragement.  He even woke me up at 3am because he needed to pee in the potty instead of going in his diaper.  I will (somewhat) happily get up for something like that.  Other times I have endured having a hair clip yanked out of my head by Millie but not budging on my grip of Milo on the potty so he wouldn't spray all over our bathroom walls.  Oh, the things you are proud of when this is your occupation.
In the end.... less diaper pail emptying and less changing!
Millie has been in cloth diapers since July-

So we are purchasing VERY FEW diapers these days! <insert once again me doing a dance>
Millie's eating has gotten better as of last night, either her teeth stopped hurting (my theory of the reason) or she was starving and finally got hungry.  She is also walking a little more.  Sorry no video, just a picture of her standing with her block kitchen.

Her and brother are constantly learning how to play together.  There was an extended period of lots of bickering and fighting between them (both contribute) over the past few weeks, but sometimes they work together for mischievous too-

Fun times.