A Three-Kleenex Kind of Day

Poor Bo-Beau. He's had a rough couple of days. His routine has been disrupted and his couch-sleeping has been robbed from him.
Since sometime before Christmas, we've had some black mold growing in our living along the line of the wall and ceiling.

The mold. Adam popped a hole in the wall to find out what size thickness of drywall he needed.

We hemmed and hawed about what to do. We'd had so much work done and redone on the ceiling and roof already. We certainly did NOT want our old contractor to return. But how to find somebody else we could trust? And would someone come to do such a small job? Finally, Adam said he could probably do the work himself as long as I wasn't too picky about the end result.

Picky? Me ... picky? I'm not that kind of picky. I live with three dogs in a house with paint-splattered, scarred floors and walls with wallpaper half-ripped off of them. I'd be happy to have the black mold cut out. Anything after that is just gravy.
So we draped up the living room:

And removed the curtains. He cut out the moldy drywall and fitted in a new piece.

He gave it a first taping and mudding.

At this point, not wanting to be a pesky wife, I quietly went to the back room to weave. After a while, I hear a strange sound. Drip. Drip. Drip. Apparently, there's a leak.

And this is how life generally goes for us:  a bit of good accompanied with a bit of bad. A freak hole appeared in the ceiling (new ceiling, no less!) and began to drip. This after a day of gully-washing rains and 40 mph winds from the south. I do believe this area of living room ceiling will be a bane to our existence as long as we're in this house.

Anna was not dissuaded by the sheets on the furniture. But as I said, Beau was quite disturbed. He came and hid in the back room when I was weaving.
When stressed, Beau tends to daintily remove dirty kleenex from my bedroom waste paper basket, chew them gently, and leave them on the floor. He was very stressed. It was a three-kleenex kind of day.

Adam is now finished with the taping and mudding, and tomorrow he'll sand and paint the spot. The leaky hole in the ceiling remains for the time being. It probably won't leak again until another 40 mph south wind comes along. Meanwhile, you know you live in a construction zone when your kitchen dish-drying rack looks like this:

Beau is hoping life returns to normal tomorrow.

What Adam Did Inside:

We had those horrid shower doors in our bathroom. Adam and I wanted them gone. We feel they make the shower a bit claustrophobic. We prefer a shower curtain. Adam took out the doors and installed a nice rod, and I hung the curtain.

Our bathroom is small, and we have just the one. We like it this way. We want a small house -- easy to heat, cool, clean, and care for.

There are such conveniences to a small house, and a small bathroom too. From a seated position, one can reach everything. One can wash one's hands, straighten the vanity, reach all the drawers and the trash can. One can begin drawing one's bath water, swap out the toilet paper, flip on the light, brush one's teeth, comb one's hair. Ah -- the conveniences of a small bathroom!

This morning I woke at 4:00 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep, having too many troubles rumbling around in my mind. This made for a groggy morning and a long afternoon. I was a bit downcast. When I arrived home after 6:00, Adam and Julia had been busy making me happy. They painted the living room this afternoon!

They moved all the furniture to the center, removed the rug, taped all the doors and windows, cleaned the edges and sills, painted, and returned everything to its place ten minutes before I got home. Whew!

The room looks lovely. And it did make me happy :) At last I have a room with pretty walls ready for pictures. They say Julia's bedroom is next.
Wasn't that a particularly nice thing for them to do? And then Adam made us delicious French toast for supper. I have a very sweet husband.

Cleaning without Water

When Anna and I cleaned that first day, the water wasn't turned on. So I took a couple gallons of water along, plus all manner of cleaning supplies -- anything we might possibly need for a very dirty house. I started with the galley kitchen.

I'm tickled to say that the sellers, who'd come to empty the house, did clean the refrigerator!! I was so thankful -- it was truly, loathesomely disgusting. Now it is clean and fresh-smelling. But I put a box of baking powder in there anyway.

The stove was awful, and I gave it a first cleaning. I think it will require two.

The sink isn't too bad, and I'm thankful there's a large window right there for day-dreaming while doing dishes.
You can see how many cabinets and drawers there are. I'm thrilled. I hate being short on cabinet space. So although it's a small house, the kitchen storage should be quite good.

This may sound silly, but I was so happy to see that the range hood has a real, true exhaust through to the attic. I've had ones before that just blew back into the kitchen!

The sellers cleared out just about everything, but they left a cabinet full of wine glasses of various shapes. I don't need them, so I put them in a basket and took them to the thrift store.

I do not like the kitchen light. It's dim and copper-colored, and kind of '60s, I guess? Not my style at all. It will go away.

All the drawers and cabinets were lined with this ugly green stuff. I pulled it all out. Underneath was this alternate design:

I mostly pulled it all out, down to the wood. Then I wiped out all the drawers and cabinets with a sponge and straight vinegar. Vinegar is a fine cleaner, a good option when you have no water, and it kills germs. And considering this house smells strongly of a camp cabin being opened for the first time in June, the aroma of vinegar was quite welcome.

The fellow who lived and died at this house was a Frenchman, and I left a little note on this particular book of his, asking that it be left for me if possible. Well, they left it :) Brillat Savarin was a gastronome. MFK Fsher, excellent writer, food-lover and chef, and a favorite author of mine, was a fan of Savarin. I'm looking forward to reading this book. Correction: This book is NOT by Brillat-Savarin! I'm very sad. It's written by some 20th century gastronome who assumed the nickname Savarin because his friends in France thought he was almost as good as the original genius from the 18th century. I don't think so! Grrr. I might peruse the cookbook anyway.

The back, smallest bedroom has built-in shelves and drawers against the whole back wall. They left the desk/chair for us too.
I'll tour you through the living and dining rooms, and that will be it for this post. First, here's a simple blueprint of the house:

Here's the front door. Not wild about the oval glass, but I'm glad to have a door that lets in light.

These windows allow lots of light into the living room. The one on the left faces the front porch. I removed all curtains from the house today (also not my style) and donated them to the thrift store.

From the front door, looking through the living, dining, and into the kitchen at the back. We've stripped all carpets from these rooms.

Standing in the dining room, which is in the center of the house, you see the kitchen on the left rear, and the bath, in the rear center. Anna cleaned in there for us today! She's a superb cleaner.

The dining room has the nicest, largest windows. This is on the southwest side of the house. I'll put our dining room table in front of these windows for peaceful views while we eat. I want a ceiling fan in the dining room, so the chandelier will be going bye-bye too.

Next time I'll take you through the bedrooms and bath.