To Do's Done!

I love checking off a to-do list! We have accomplished so many things that aren't even on the list, but here are the big things:

• Install Electric Outlet for Fridge Done!
• Clean Basement Carpet Done!
• Clean Basement Bathroom Done!
• Find Out Why Back Door is Leaking and Repair Hiring this one out!
• Polyurethane Dining Room Ceiling, Walls, and Floor Waiting on the above to be done.
• Pick Up Furniture from Clarkesville and Move It In Done!
• Meet Lowe's Appliance Installers Done!
• Pressure Wash Driveway (Old Part) Half-done. Pressure washer broke. :(
• Pressure Wash Porch Same as above. :(
• Buy Towels, Sheets, and Pillows Done!
• Repair Outside Back Faucet Better, but still leaking a bit...
• Find a Way to Get Our Cell Phones To Work!! (Maybe Transfer Service to Verizon) Done!

There are several new things to add. So here's the new to-do list:

• Meet the guy who will be building a retaining wall, and get an estimate for the total cost.
• Get a gutter guy, and have gutters repaired.
• Have the threshold repaired.
• Polyurethane the Dining Room ceiling, walls, and floor.
• Polyurethane the Temporary Master bump-out.
• Hang curtain panels in the Temporary Master.
• Polyurethane the ironing board cabinet.
• Find a shelf for the Basement Bathroom, and hang it for towel storage.
• Take chest, sofa, end tables, rugs, TVs, and lamps up. Possibly rent a truck next week.
• Measure Master Bedroom and write it all out on graft paper.
• Take Master Bedroom measurements to Lowe's so we can choose our cabinet and fixtures.
• Buy a Towel Storage Cabinet for the main floor bathroom.
• Paint my Granny's bed.
• Decide on light control for the Loft Bedroom. Shades? Or new panels that are room darkening?
• Make curtain for Basement Bedroom.
• Install window (or at least glass) for privacy in Loft Bedroom.
• Check bait stations, and add bait if necessary. Don't want another Mouse War!!

Father's Day

Father's Day. A day to celebrate the dads who do so much for us, with their hard work, love, and continuing help, whether it be a kind word of advice, or swinging a hammer to help you fix something that broke. What would we do without our dads? God bless them!

We celebrated by having our oldest son and daughter-in-law and our youngest son and his girlfriend up to the cabin for the weekend. We are finally fully functional! Yippee! It was quite an ordeal to get the appliances in. Hubby had to call and yell at the people to get someone out and finish the job...it took 2 weeks to get it done. We also had a whole house filter installed for the well (no more mud baths!), and also got the mattresses in. So~~we have 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms that work, as well as all appliances, and clean water. It's so exciting! I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing this cabin come back to life!

Kitchen with ALL the appliances!!

Temporary Master.
 (We will soon start on the half finished one.)

Loft Bedroom

Basement Bedroom

On Sunday afternoon, we all went to Falls Branch Falls. The weather was lovely, and the cool mountain air a delight.

Falls Creek

Falls Branch Falls

Rhododendron blooming along the trail

Purple Coneflower

For Father's Day, our sons took us out to Harvest On Main, a wonderful restaurant in downtown Blue Ridge. It was very yummy. The grounds are planted with herbs and flowers. Quite a nice effect, don't you think?

I want to keep this in mind for the cabin next year. Daisies would be pretty thrown in the mix. White always adds a little sparkle, and what goes better with a cabin than daisies?

Purple Coneflower, Phlox, and Salvia

Sunrise

We were treated to a lovely sunrise! This is the view at 6 a.m. from our deck:

Sunrise from the Deck

I hope you all had a wonderful Father's Day!

First Weekend

Summer is almost here! For our very first weekend at the cabin, we were greeted with the roadside wildflowers blooming all along the way.

These day lilies aka 'ditch lilies' are everywhere! I know they are very common, but I love them. The Queen Anne's Lace is blooming as well, and is one of my favorites. Coreopsis, phlox, and daisies are blooming, and the Joe Pye Weed is getting tall, and should be blooming toward the end of summer. I noticed a few thermopsis blooming as well, and would love to transplant a few into the yard.

We had our first spend-the-night-weekend at the cabin! It was wonderful to be able to stay, and not drive back and forth. It wasn't perfect (LOL) but we were functional. The first day we were there, we had our first cooked meal in our cabin. Bacon wrapped filets on the grill with sweet potatoes, and asparagus. So yummy! Not exactly how we planned it, but delicious! I had planned to have a microwave to cook the potatoes, but there was a little problem. Lowe's delivered our appliances (washer, dryer, fridge, dishwasher, microwave, stove), and installed everything except hooking up the ice maker to the fridge (they didn't bring an adapter), and the dishwasher and microwave were not installed but left in the boxes on the floor. Major disappointment. For whatever reason, the installers said they didn't do those installations, and we should have had a different team to deliver and install those items. Huge fail on Lowe's part, if you ask me. Who gets appliances delivered and not installed? They should have at least told me so I could have planned. Anyway, it was OK, just not very convenient. We were truly roughing it without ice, a dishwasher and microwave! Ha!

Kitchen with the dishwasher still in the box...

Another view of the kitchen

Furnishing the cabin is quite a task! We have been scouring Craigslist, flea markets, and Goodwill for anything that might be acceptable. We were very blessed to find a listing on Craigslist that had lodge furniture for sale. They had lots of nice things! There was a hunting lodge in Albany, Georgia that unfortunately had gone under financially. All the furniture was being sold from a warehouse in Clarkesville, Georgia. The owner told us that the furniture was all handmade by a man in Albany, and is excellent quality. Major score!! It's perfect for our cabin, and looks as tho it were made just for us. And it was cheap! Happiness.

All told, we came away with a dining room table and 10 chairs, a sideboard, a hutch, a gun cabinet, two double beds, four lamps, and two cypress porch swings.

Here is the hutch with my Blue Willow dishes. I have had these dishes for about 20 years,
and I love them with the pine! 

Dining Room Table and Chairs, Gun Cabinet, and Sideboard.
This dining room used to be the screened porch. The previous owners had it enclosed, but it's not completely finished. You can see that the wood needs to be polyurethaned. It's on my list to do, as soon as the back door threshold is fixed. We have a water leak and there is no point in finishing the floors until it's done.

Basement Bedroom with the two double beds. The table is an old one I've had for years. It will eventually live somewhere else, but for now it works here. The antler lamp is from the Lodge sale as well.

Another view of the Basement Bedroom. The window is off-center, but it will look better with some curtains and
some art to balance things out.

Saturday night was our second and last night. We were both pretty exhausted, and I was not sleeping well. As I was dozing in and out, I kept hearing this noise that I couldn't identify. Finally, I woke up enough to realize that it was worth checking out because it sounded like a MOUSE was scurrying about! EEK. Thank God, I had a flashlight on the night table, and when I would hear the sound, I'd shoot the light over and look for any sign of critters. Nothing. Nada. Never saw anything. Finally, in my super-exhausted state, I realized that it was raining a soft, drizzley rain, and that the tin roof made it sound different than how it sounds at home. Relief beyond words washed over me, but I felt a little silly, too. After identifying the sound, it was nice to listen to the rain and drift off to sleep.

This was our treat the next morning as we were leaving. Our first weekend was a delight in so many ways. We will always remember sitting on the back porch listening to the whippoorwills, watching the lightening bugs, and seeing the stars. Oh, those stars!! With no city lights to compete with them, they are truly spectacular.

View from the Dining Room Window

Next on the agenda is getting some mattresses delivered for the Loft Bedroom and the small main floor bedroom, as well as the threshold repair, and the appliances to be finished up. We also ran into an unexpected problem: MUDDY WATER coming out of the tap. Yuk. Maybe it's from the rain? I have no idea, since I've never had a well. So a plumber is installing a filter for us. Not more sludge!! Woop! Then we should be fully functional to have our kids come up for the weekend without it being too harrowing. With so much going on, there is a lot to supervise, and you have to expect a couple of glitches. Thursday, we are going up to meet the plumber and appliance installers. Should be interesting. I'll keep you posted.

Painted Furniture

Goodwill has some amazing deals! There were 2 solid wood end tables in a chunky, rustic style that were only $15 each, so I snatched them up and stored them in the basement for a few months. When we closed, it was finally time to decide how and where to use them. The command decision is that they are going in the loft bedroom, and will be painted a rich, espresso brown. The 1970's brass pulls will be changed out for faux antler pulls that I bought on ebay. My friend from high school sold me a chest of drawers for just a few dollars. It will also get a minor repair and some fresh paint.

Painting is the easy part. The preparation is the hard part, but VERY important. Here are the steps to a successful paint job: 

1. Make any necessary repairs to the surface of the piece, such as filling any holes or cracks with wood filler, or replacing any missing pieces of trim. Notice that the leg on the left was missing it's decorative trim. My son popped off the right trim, traced in on a new piece of wood, cut it out, and I sanded it and attached it with hot glue and a couple of trim nails.

Chest of Drawers with missing trim replaced.

2. Sand the surface of the wood. You don't have to remove all the finish, but make sure that it's nicely roughed up so that the paint will stick and not peel off.  I used a small palm sander, which makes it a much easier and faster job! And don't forget to wear a mask so that you don't breathe in all that dust!

3. Wipe down the surface with a tack cloth to remove all the dust. You don't want gritty paint!  

4. Paint the piece with a good quality primer. 

5. Lightly sand, and wipe down again. 

6. Paint 2 coats of paint, sanding lightly and wiping down in between coats.  

Drawers to the Chest and End Tables with a fresh coat of paint.

Goodwill End Table freshly painted.

7. If you want to distress the paint, lightly sand the edges of the piece, and wipe down again.

8. At this point, it's your choice if you want to take a q-tip and color the distressed places with your choice of stain. I skipped this step, as my paint was nearly black, and I wanted the contrast with the lighter color wood showing through.

9. Finish with a polyurethane coat to protect the paint.

Chest of Drawers Drawer (LOL) with hand pull.

Especially exciting was the hand pulls on the Chest of Drawers. They are shaped like a canoe, and by a stroke of good luck we have canoes on the bedding. Aren't you excited by this? I know you are!