Weekend progress

it’s starting to feel like spring!

What else is new? I think we’ve finished removing all the lath from the kitchen! We had to break it and saw it away from the walls so we can get in there to run electrical wiring and insulate. It’s perfect for use as kindling in the woodstove; I sorted and boxed it up neatly to pack it away til the fall. Did lots of clean-up and organizing that’s made the place feel more civilized and house-like; our work spaces had gotten completely chaotic with all the destruction and debris and activity and no place to store things. I got a cheapo wire shelving unit to help hold some clutter, and we dragged in a work bench from the ell to use for storage and work space in the dining room which has become our de facto workshop room. We dismantled the cabinets from one of the apartments in the ell, we will clean those up and refinish them and use them for our new kitchen. Dragged the counter tops and sink off to the dump. Found a rickety set of four bar stools at the dump and brought them home. It was a good week for free stuff; we also found a cool wooden crate (dated 1905) in the dump, found a sweet little old wooden chair by the side of the road with a “free” sign, and on craigslist we found a free working electric organ! It’s a really kitschy 1970′s looking thing, it’s no piano but it is pretty hilarious to look at and fun to play with- we plugged it in and it really plays!

kindling boxes, our new electric organ!

We also stopped by Pete’s Place salvage yard in Hollis and got a few extra storage crates, they’re beautiful old wooden soda crates, and a vintage wire card rack for me to sell my cards at craft fairs. It’s pretty fun having a pickup truck and a whole empty house to fill up!!

pete’s place salvage in Hollis

Pulled up the carpeting in the area that will become our new bathroom, and knocked out some of the back wall there. Mike mowed the lawn for the first time! And stapled down most of the invisible dog fence line that runs around the property perimeter. Now we need to start the tedious process of training the beasts to understand and respect it. And… I did some more work on the kitchen planning. I’ve been working on some floor plans but I felt like we needed to see a sketch of what the room will actually look like… it’s a hack job but this is what I’ve got so far. Don’t laugh!

And… the rhubarb patch is starting to look pretty impressive! Time for pie, really soon.

rhubarb and blackflies, mike & dogs in the back yard

stuff from Argentina!

our stuff arrives in a big truck!

This is all of it. It doesn’t even look like that much stuff!

We had all our stuff shipped to Maine from Buenos Aires, Argentina, by cargo freight ship! It took a long time and caused lots of stress but it was cheap and … miraculously, here’s our stuff! delivered to our doorstep. Arrived on Wednesday, right on time! (there’s more detail about the harrowing process of arranging the cargo shipment here)