#697 A Century of Dirt?

Dirt and grime have been collecting on the outside of our home for quite a long time.

We don't know exactly how long but we know for sure WE haven't cleaned it.

We experiment with a borrowed power washer on the driveway and we're quick to spot a difference! 

Kelly finishes off a section of the driveway and moves on to continue his experiments.

He creates his very first power washer graffiti. 

We're eager to test the washer on the concrete top of our brick wall and guess what - we can spot a difference here too.

We discover the concrete top is not the typical gray concrete but is instead a fancy tan concrete.  The color is not that different from the yellow color we've painted our house trim.  We love the fancy tan concrete!

 And what about that green lichen at the top of the bricks just under the concrete top?

Yup, the green vanishes too!

Finally, here are the before/after photos of the east wall:

 

Yours in cleaning up outside,
Mary

#696 Moving Rocks

Sometimes a friend stops by just when you want to move a pile of rocks.

That's what happened to us.  This haphazard pile of rocks has been sitting for years in front of the small studio building.  Since the rocks border the driveway, I am a little nervous about getting too close to the rocks when backing out. Plus, it just looks sloppy.

So with a spare afternoon during Randall's visit, we decide to turn the rock pile into a rock patio.

Randall is an expert rock selector and leveler, so the project is quickly underway and all of our rock tools are brought to bear. 

 The project takes a few hours and is finished at nightfall.

 The completed project is appreciated again the next day

and the day after that.

Yours in taking advantage of friends,
Mary

#695 Bringing Back the Colonnade

We've always loved arts-and-crafts colonnades.

Some have a short base cabinet.

And some have a tall bookcase cabinet like this one. 

 

We first discovered our Ozarks bungalow originally had a colonnade separating the living room from the dining room when we pulled up the carpet and found this ghost footprint of a colonnade.

We don't know the height of the original base cabinet but we do know it included a bookcase.  We learned this from a conversation with the granddaughter of the owners who lived here at the time the colonnades were removed during a 1950s 'modernization'.

We consider purchasing a salvaged colonnade from Architectural Antiques of Indianapolis and the measurements will even work - if only those columns were square instead of round.

 

Instead, we decide Kelly will build our colonnade with a short cabinet sans bookcase and Kelly goes to work on the base of the cabinet. 

 

Next comes the cabinet itself with two doors that meet in the middle.

The beam across the ceiling comes next.  The structural beam is now covered with pretty oak to match the cabinets.

The tapered columns are the last and trickiest part.  First, we study cardboard mock-ups of the columns in a variety of sizes and finally decide that the perfect dimension is a 7.5" width at the base of the column and a 6" width at the column top (on the right in the photo below.)  The column on the left is 8" wide at the column base instead of 7.5" and obviously, that is much too wide!

Today, we celebrate the return of the colonnade, different than the 1914 original but just to our liking. 

Yours in colonnading,
Mary

#694 Trimming the House

We have a lot of different wood trim in our 102-year-old house.

Here's a selection:

 We started in fall 2014 by removing nearly all the first floor trim.

And lately, we've begun putting it back in.

We prefer a wide trim, about 4 inches around windows and doors and about 6 inches along the baseboard.

 Kelly measures, cuts, stains, and finishes each section of the 2-piece oak trim.

Here the new wide oak trim can be seen around the window and door in the foreground while the older trim in the bedroom wing can be seen in the background.

We believe the house originally had wide oak trim that was replaced in the 1950s with the more modern narrow trim.  The 42-inch front door which is original to the house is now trimmed to our liking.   

Yours in trimming,
Mary

#693 Rebuilding the Fence

The east section of our fence (along the top of a brick wall) is leaning about 20 degrees!  Aye yi yi!

Leaning east fence with 'new' south fence in background

We replaced the south section in April 2015 thinking that we'd replace the east section in April 2016.  Aren't we lucky that winter has passed us by this year?  We can work outside in February and replace this section before it falls down.  

Kelly is standing straight.  It's the fence that leans.

At the corner, the 'new' section is on the left.  The old leaning section is on the right.

Kelly begins by removing the old fence boards to be re-used in the new fence.

The east section on the right will match the three-over-one pattern on the left.

Kelly goes into his magic workshop and builds four new sections, each 5-feet wide.

The first section on the east is up.  The three windows at the top of each fence panel mimic the three-over-one sunroom windows in the background.

Two sections are up.

Four sections are up.  A 5th section is under discussion.  Also, now that the fence looks better, we need to pay some attention to those cracks in that concrete wall.  If it's not one thing...

Yours in fencing,
Mary

#692 Chip Boys on Madison Avenue

Lunch at the Madison Avenue Bistro with my two friends is always entertaining, but today's roast beef sandwich lunch is especially fun. It includes chips! 

Sam is the first to try a chip.

 

Soon, though, he thinks of his friend Kelly and offers him one.

Kelly gladly accepts and the boys share a chip-munching moment.

 

They seem proud of their chip-sharing routine.

And they share some kind of coded chip message between them.

The next step appears to be all arranged.

That's when Sam hands Kelly another chip and it all begins again.

Yours in enjoying the chip boys,
Mary

#691 Shopping at Auctions

We've been shopping at auctions.

During our first month in Missouri, we purchased a bedroom dresser at an Amish auction.

About a year later, we purchased a 1987 Wheel Horse at auction. 

In between, we discovered the items we needed for our home projects could be found for a fair price at auction, such as this cool oscillating multi-tool,

and this RotoZip, so important during our floor work,

the Rockwell jawstand (still not really sure what this does),  
 the carry-everything trailer (which can also be parked in the garage and serve as a workbench),

and this classic gardening tool.

We love the fun of recycling others' tools for a good price and meeting the neighbors.

Yours in scouring the countryside,

Mary