Winter Weather Advisory

Snow, sleet, rain, high winds, hail, lightning and thunder. Even sunshine.
Except for drought and tornadoes, Warren County experienced just about everything Mother Nature could dish out in a 24-hour period between Tuesday and Wednesday, although there was a brief tornado warning issued for nearby Venango County.   (Quote from local newspaper.)

The day started out almost balmy, 45 degrees, then all of the above hit.  The winds did some damage, and it was weird to see rain pushing hail down the street, and unusual to hear thunder and see lightning at this time of year.  Then a half hour later there was a brief showing of blue sky and sunshine.

By dinnertime we were in the teens and getting colder but everything went on as normal.  In Erie they shut down the Interstate to Buffalo for blizzard conditions, and Jamestown was closed at noon time, Sugar Grove got hit fairly hard but we barely got the fringes of this storm system that did so much damage as it raced across the country.

I made a quick trip to Lowe's for a couple rolls of insulation for the boarded up windows and doors but still amazed at how warm the newly insulated and wrapped house feels.

 Zoe's only request from Santa was for a "real" snowman.  She was disappointed that the one I brought home for her was fake.  Not sure how she thought it would survive in the house if it was made of ice.  But she still remembers making those itty bitty snowmen last winter, and using up a bag of mini carrots at the same time.

Scottish Weddings

Angie was in a wedding this weekend up at Old Bedford Village.  It was a wonderful place and wonderful people.  Ben and Colleen had a Scottish wedding, with Ben in the McMillen kilt, the groom's men were in kilts and many of the male attendees wore kilts including our own young man.  Of course I got a kilt made for Zoe too.  I was still working on them two days before the wedding. PHew.

The church at Old Bedford village with it's timbered sides showing

And Mommy up in the wedding party.

Halloween 2009

This year Eddie was Thomas the Tank Engine.  How much he has grown up since last year!  He knows the alphabet, his numbers and can melt your heart with his smile.

Zoe was the prettiest little pixie or fairie you ever saw.

She talks so beautifully, a pretty good cook, and knows everything.  A sweetheart of a little one who loves the whole world.

And our bat cookies were the hit of the toddler time.

October Madness

What a fast month this has been.  Almost over and barely begun.  It didn't help that I sat out several weeks with my first ever case of bronchitis.  I suppose that's still better that than H1N1.

We carved jack o lantern's last weekend.  Zoe insisted that hers be a Happy jack o lantern.  None of this scary stuff

Eddie's we made as a scary spider and mine was just confused.

Eddie took one look inside a pumpkin and had absolutely no interest in the project.  Zoe was ok once I gave her a spoon to get the innerds out  She wasn't going to do what Nana did and pull that stuff out with her bare hands.

No Way.


Guess they wonder why all of Nana's projects are so yuckky.  But they loved the results.

If you look very carefully at the background of the spinning Zoe you can see the wooded over window we removed from the kitchen this summer.  Next year's kitchen remodel will be moving a bunch of things around in this room.

This Old House End of Season

Lenny has pitched his tent, well actually filed his tools into his tool trailer and cleared my driveway for the winter.  The change in my house from spring to fall is incredible, almost as beautiful as the changing leaves.

I love the new side entry porch, and nice deep steps, and new lighting.  (See the $$$s flying away??).  Also the new slider on the back deck and the siding of course.  Can't you just see this house with indigo shutters next year?  And a roof to match the porch roof.

What I have noticed as autumn deepens is how much warmer the house is.  I have two drafty outside doors left but everything else is "green" or in my case wheat. (Golden?)  :)

He left me with all the "owner" tasks to do -- most of which will have to wait for spring.  The pressure treated wood of the new railing is not cured enough for me to paint, stain or whatever I'm going to do.  I can't move the plants back in because, again, we're having frosts. We're having frosts at night!   In fact the high today was 36 degrees.  BrrRR. 

The one thing I HAVE to get done before we close the doors and settle in for winter is the front porch deck.  Angie and I started the sanding,  optimistically I really expected the weather to hold a little longer, and I can't leave that floor bare through the winter.  So, optimistically she says, I plan on finishing the porch deck this weekend.  Along with babysitting the twins while Angie runs down and closes up her camp.

Like the swallows to Capistrano (you can move a California girl to the snowbelt but she still remembers) Lenny will be back in the spring.  Next year's big project is the driveway, garage floor, and some mega drainage issues for the backyard.  For him anyway.  I'll still be playing catch up on the painting and staining.

Shuffle off to Buffalo

My brother and sister-in-law invited me to join them for their leaf-peeping vacation, after I checked finances I decided to join them for the Niagara Falls part of their vacation.  I haven't been to the Falls in maybe 20 years and a lot sure has changed in that time, OK, maybe not the Falls themselves but I know there was no casino there before.
The leaves here had just started changing, and Buffalo was a few days behind but to someone who lives in SoCal it was gorgeous.


In Canada we took the Maid of the Mist, and went down into the Journey Behind the Falls.  It is hard to imagine that much water volume even for me who lives in this rainy region, to someone from desert dry southern California it must have been overwhelming.
We also went to the Butterfly Conservatory and Niagara on the Lake.

Just for giggles, since none of us is a gambler, we went to the Seneca Casino for dinner, ate in the 3 Sisters Cafe.  It was a very nice experience, much nicer than I expected, since I didn't really know what to expect.

The Casino allows smoking and I was concerned we would have to deal with smokers while eating too, but that wasn't the case.

We had time to view the Falls at night since the Falls were maybe 2 minutes walk from our hotel and a quick stop in Lockport to ride a canal boat on the Erie Canal.  I think we managed to put a lot of "tourist-y" stuff in two days.  Along with some shopping!!

First Haircuts

Every sitcom I've ever seen has talked about the traumatic "first hair cut".  Not so here.

Zoe almost jumped up in the chair for her cut and talked a mile a minute until finished.

Eddie, who appeared to be ignoring the whole thing barely allowed her out of the chair before he was hauling himself up the chair.  He may not have been sure what he was missing but he was darned if Zoe was going to get to do it and not him.

what a difference!!

Busti Apple Festival fka the Busti Pioneer Days.

In spite of threats of an autumn rain storm the festival was crowded.  There were definitely apples to be purchased by the peck, and some old favorites; cortland, northern spy, and pippins.
Busti, (pronounced Bust Eye) in NY is a very small crossroads town with a fascinating history.
It was here that several well known abolitionists lived and preached.  This part of PA/NY is famous for its underground railroad, Buffalo and Canada being only 114 miles or so away.  John Brown was said to be friends with the daughter of one of the abolitionists.
The general area, not necessarily Busti itself, was also known for some odd religious groups that tried to set up closed communities similar to Old Economy  or the Shakers.  There is still a spiritualist community up near Fredonia.
In other ways it was also just a country town; sugar maples and apple trees everywhere.  In winter we still celebrate our sugaring and in fall our apples. 

When I mentioned pippin apples at work one of the women remembered a request many, many years ago for a recipe for a pippin pie that involved several whole pippins, cored but left whole with raisins, nuts and sugar in the center than placed all together in a crust and baked.  She said once they found the recipe a couple of them actually made it and taste tested it and said it was delicious.  I just did a quick check of the Internet and can find nothing similar.  Sounds yummy though.

This Old House Siding

What a change I see every day when I come home from work.  My house is changing from well-weathered greens to wheat with ivory and almond trim.  I'm also going to trim out shutters, doors and foundation in indigo blue. I'll post that later.

Here's the beginning photo.
Lenny has started to frame out the windows.
He then applied insulation and texture wrapping.

Here the side of the house is done and Lenny is working on the front,   The change is absolutely amazing. I'm even having the old shake on the 3rd floor shake sided.  He promises I'll like the result.  I'll post it later.


The tree branch showing is part of one of our three 100 year old hickories.

This Old House Exterior 2009 Slider

The kitchen window and door have been enclosed, and kitchen is as dark as I knew it would be.  All I can tell myself is the new kitchen will look great next year.

The Andersen slider is in and looking very spiffy.  The inside is wood and needs to be stained to match the room but the trim out is great.  Door handle is brushed nickel, learned my lesson about brass.

Warren Glass was here and replaced living room glass that had been damaged,  I've lived with that scotch-taped hole too long.  All the old windows in this house have now been replaced with the exception of the living window and sidelights and the two windows on the stairs.

I hated losing the old wavy glass on the living room window but some idiot had shot a bb gun and broken the pane of glass and the cracking shows it was shot from inside. (Don't think I want to know)  Those stained glass classes I took should help me fix the sidelights, they'll need caming and rebar.  I'm going to price beveled glass but what is there is old, single pane glass.
Last weekend I reglazed the window on the stairs landing and primed the frame.  Luckily the old window replaced in the dining room is the same size 32 H by 42 W (nice odd shape) so once I get it cleaned up I'll be able to trim the frame slightly and use it -- wavy glass and all -- as a storm for this window.

This Old House Flanges and Toilets

It is amazing how a small thing you've accomplished can make you feel so good about yourself.  I installed a toilet this week.  I laugh when I say it, but I am proud.
I decided since the blasted thing needed to be replaced NOW I would just have to replace it now and remove it in 3 or 4 months when I remodel this bathroom.  It's weird how things in this house have a way of breaking just prior to me remodeling that room.

I bought one of the new dual flush technology, low flow toilets.  I figure my old toilet was using between 3 and 5 gallons per flush and this one is using .6 gallons on the one flush and 1.2 gallons on the second style flush.  Another step towards greener living.

As with any project in this Old House it didn't go smoothly.  In the list of things I've learned while rehabbing I can now add cast iron plumbing and flanges.  The place on the flange where the closet bolts was to go was broken.  On a side topic do they call them closet bolts because toilets used to be called water closets?  A previous owner, I'm assuming it was the same person who installed the aqua colored toilet, found a workaround.

After pricing a plumber to replace the flange, and finding that the three local hardware stores did not have the one thing that would work with a broken cast iron flange I decided he was pretty clever and I'd use his fix, at least until I remodel this room.

Someone asked me how I figured out how to do this and I said, Well, first I went to YouTube and watched a couple videos of men replacing toilets, then I went to a DIY site and printed out a set of instructions, and THEN I actually read the info that came with the toilet.

What I didn't tell them was that it took two days to do a 2 hour job.  One of the old bolts was so rusted and cruddy that even with PB blaster and some arm breaking work it wouldn't release so I had to use my wonderful little rotozip, with the correct attachment of course, and cut that baby off.

That, in itself took a couple hours what with having to stop, stand up and stretch, and return to the crazy position necessary to reach the bolt.  Talk about head rush!   I think half the time I was working blind, which was a scary thought.  We all like to see our toilets placed in these nice cozy cubbies but man are they hard to work in.

With the workaround the nice shiny new closet bolts had to be installed from underneath the metal opening.  This I actually knew how to do.  In my career I've fished enough computer cable through walls and ceilings to have no problem on this scale.  I found some fishline and a paperclip and it took no time at all to get the closet bolts in.  I secured them with an extra washer and nut since they were slightly below the flange, this also served to hold them in place so I didn't need to fish them through the toilet holes.

The installation of the base of the toilet was a cake walk as my mom would say.  I knew how to do that much, I had to remove and replace the loft toilet when I remodeled that bathroom.

BUT, here's where I added the extra day to my installation.  I had a horrid time with the tank and gasket.  The tank was not level, it was too high, it slanted, and I could hear porcelain rubbing porcelain.  Of course it's a Sunday evening so no support is around.  I had to leave it half installed and deal with it Monday.

Monday the gentleman at the hardware store showed me what I was doing wrong and introduced me to another helper product -- silicone grease.  I will mention that when he disassembled his toilet and tried to reassemble he had exactly the same problem I did the first time he tried to put it together.  That was funny-- and made me feel better.

I went home from work Monday evening, applied silicone grease to the seal, seated the tank in two tries and had the toilet up and running, leak free, in twenty minutes.
You can see how much smaller the new tanks are, and the lovely little space I had to work in.

Well, emergency maintenance accomplished, I need to get back to the outside work.  I need to get some things done before snow flies.  I'll be working this weekend on stripping, re-glazing and painting one of the three old windows I've decided to keep in this house.  I also plan to build an old-fashioned wooden storm to go with it.

This Old House Exterior 2009

Last year I had the garage and porch roofs replaced.  As an interesting note, while Lenny was pulling wood siding to fix the water and ant damage he found some old newspapers that had been used as insulation.  I was able to preserve some and they're in a house scrapbook.  They were Swedish newspapers addressed to a neighbor, Mrs. Dahl, and were dated 1903.  Kind of neat, but not much in the way of insulation.

Later,  insulation had been blown into the walls of the house.  If you looked closely you could see rows of little round plugs evenly spaced up the house.  This year I am having the house wrapped with insulation, then house wrapped and siding put on the house.  I had a lot of qualms about siding the house since it seemed to destroy the tradition of the house, but when I made the decision not to go with wood windows ($$$$) I had already abandoned the tradition.

The house was built in the late 1920's just before the Depression.  It may not be a "Sears Built" in purchase but I'm willing to bet the builder bought plans from Sears and built from them, even the door knobs and clothes hooks are from the Sears catalog.  Each house in my neighborhood is slightly different but each matches a Sears floor plan and exterior with the exception of the little one that was added in the 40's.

What my house looks like right now.  Come back to see the finished product.

Fairies and Hobbits Oh My.

Woodland Fairy and Hobbit Festival.  Keating Summit PA.

Keating Summitt is the type of place you would expect to find fairies and hobbits.  It is a "you can't get there from here" kind of place located somewhere between Port Allegany and Emporium just before a left turn towards the remains of the Austin Dam as in   "second star to the right, and straight on to morning".

Here's the photo quality pic of some of the attendees on their website; http://www.woodlandfairyfestival.org/images/collage%20large09.jpg    If you look hard you can find Zoe and Eddie.

And here are some of the pictures I took.

In the 'it's a small world' category while attending this event, which was 90 minutes drive from Warren we ran into one of the local newspaper reporters and maker of fine Canadian Bacon.  Dean said the locale for the festival was his old Aunt's farm and he remembered visiting there during holidays when he was a kid.

This Old House 2nd floor Guest Room

I'm currently working on the 2nd floor of the house.

The guest room is almost done, though it still needs a quilt and room darkening curtains.  It's hard to remember the room with almost ruined wainscoting and totally gross damaged cranberry walls.  If I can find a before picture, and I must have one somewhere,I'll edit this post.

I'm always amazed that people paint over layers and layers of wall covering.  I wonder why that is?  I have always spent so much time scraping wallpaper and patching walls before I paint.   In this room I could trace the generations on these walls; hippy sunflowers flowers, ladylike little florals, with three different colors of paint between them.  Wonder if anyone ever studies that kind of thing.

I was going to remove the wainscoting, it was so horrid looking.  My daughter, who lives in a very modern condo, loves the wood and asked me to try to save it.  By the time I finished one square I was glad I hadn't torn it off.  It turned out very rich looking.

As a guest room I kept the color scheme neutral.  Also, you can see where the unfinished wood floor of the hallway shows.  I was told by  a rehabber to always do all the wood floors at the same time but in a project that is covering years I didn't see how I could.  If I have to I'll put in the old wooden thresholds between rooms if there is color difference.  The floors are so old and were in such poor shape, some are cupped, some are discolored, some are chipped.  I like the look, they look like they've been there a long time.

I have four favorite wolf pics that I framed for over the headboard.  One is from each season, and for some reason everytime I'm looking at the room that Season of the Witch song plays in my head, only I alter it to Season of the Wolf.  Good old Donovan music.  I had to look up the lyrics -- how absolutely depressing we were when we were young.

This Old House Carpenter Ants and Ground Freeze

In the list of things I didn't know I can now scratch off carpenter ants.  IMHO they are horrid, voracious expensive little so and sos.  For any southerners reading this post we do not have termites up here and I guess it gave me a false sense of security.  Last year (2008) I had the garage and front porch roofs replaced and found out just how expensive these critters can be.Well, their damage continues.


In spite of having had the property sprayed for the ants they managed to come back and were happily dining on the front porch header board.  That metal pipe that is on an angle was all that was supporting this end of the deck, the wooden supports and jacks were added last fall when Lenny found the supports all gone bad.

From the time the contractor called me until I got home with ant spray (highly toxic, and yes I am against the stuff)  they had relocated almost all their future generations. I don't know where to, but it better be far far away.

We are now in "lock down" mode and on a mission.  No large carpenter ant is safe from me now.  The porch was so damaged that it would have collapsed by next year. As it was I had a three inch drop front to back.

We also found that construction in the early 1900's didn't require concrete pilings to protect from ground freeze so the contractor found two metal pipes embedded in the ground that had just about broken through due to ground freeze and wear and tear.

With building permit in hand, Lenny is rebuilding the porch; columns, railings, supports and all to code.  Check back for an update.

New Technologies Tech Conference

I am now linkedin  http://www.linkedin.com and I tweet or is it I twitter and I chat.  I've reactivated my blog.  I am so totally "socially networked" I feel like I'm glued to the chair at this computer.

I attended the New Technologies Conference in State College, and had a blast and it is mainly HSLC instructor John Houser's fault.  I knew and used most of the "web 2.0" technologies that we played with in class but I enjoyed the new slant on usage that I received from the class and the fact that it was now fun.

We were each furnished with a netbook for the class and required to open a twitter account before session started.  One thing I learned quickly from this class is that I am very glad my personal netbook has a six cell battery, only one of ours did and the rest of them died during the first half of the session.  Mine being one of the first because I was using google docs to take notes.

One issue I've always had with the social networking part of the "web experience" is that it seems as if a lot of it was created to justify the "toy" but not to be truly useful, and I'm unfortunately one of those people who feel so busy I need to justify usefulness.  People say, wow I have this great blackberry or iphone and it cost a bundle -- now what do I do with it.

As I find a need for a new product I know I'll start to use it.  The web is an invaluable resource for me; technical manuals, shopping, research;  it's hard to remember being without it.  Email is the same, a fast, paperfree way to keep in touch both at work and at home. Chat also has it's value for project work and quick conversations with my kids.   However, it is difficult to justify "what are you doing now" (twitter) as being of any value.  YET.  Even when I used it in class I found myself treating it as if it were a chat program.  Time will tell.

This Old House 2nd Floor Library/Office

I posted the terracotta color of this room last year.  Decisions and More Decisions April 2008.  I still like the color.  I finished the bookcases, hung curtain rods and some gorgeous curtains at that time. 

The rug for this room finally came in around the time the kids moved in with me so other than to check it was in good condition it stood rolled up in a closet until now.  Since finishing the twins' room I am now able to move them out of their temporary home (my office) and move forward a bit more on this room.

I built the bookcases myself.  They are designed to be removable quickly, I used metal connectors to make sure I could take this set of bookcases down easily. Just me and my trusty cord free screwdriver.  The bookcases are my own design too.  I tried to follow the ones in the Illustrated Cabinetmaking book but I wanted a footed bookcase -- just because I could I guess.  It's one of the privileges of doing it yourself, no one tells you you can't do it your way.   I think part of my decision was also because the baseboards are 7 inches high and matched the feet I found at the wood working store.    Since this is the old master bedroom I wanted bookcases I could take down fast, and stage this room as a bedroom if I decided to sell.

I also love the 1920's style stained glass table lamp I found.  It fits the room so perfectly.  The picture above doesn't do it justice but the colors are orange and cream and green with a touch of purple.  Just like the room.  I can't believe I fell in love with an amber beaded lamp but I did.

I still want to get an electric fireplace for the wall and some artwork then I think the room will be finished.  I'll update later when room is finished.

This Old House 2nd Floor Twins' Room

I finished the mural for the twin's tiny little bedroom.  It was probably the only week this entire summer that was warm so I was constantly dealing with paint that was drying too fast.  At least the glaze helped a little there.

Here's the before picture.  I had been using this small room as what the English call a box room.  It has been a long neglected room by previous owners and has no heat source of its own.  At least in their neglect the wood floors had never been stained but were kept covered by a horrid shag rug.  Angie and I only had to strip off the old finish, sand well and re-seal.  The red oak floors are just gorgeous.  It makes me wish previous owners had left the other floors alone.

Zoe wanted mermaids (and I threw in one little merboy for Eddie) and for some odd reason was insistent on a crab, the things with funny eyes like this -- and she wiggled her fingers on top her head.  Eddie wanted Nemo and Crush and Gil.  Angie said we had to have jelly fish and I had gotten some dolphin stuff from Cobbs.  Surprisingly the room works well together.
Apparently however I failed as a painter of seahorses.  Mine have heads like horses and aren't pregnant enough.  Oh well, there always has to be a humility corner.

The room is still a work in progress, just like the rest of the house.  I still need to hang the stingray and jelly fish (on fishline of course), put up the cupboard doors, replace the electric outlets and install a new ceiling fixture.

At least the floor looks gorgeous.Watch for an update when I get the electrical done and the furniture and mobiles in.

This Old House 2nd Floor Main Bath

 I'm locating the pics, sorry about this, but I didn't mean to publish until I had the pictures.  OOPS.

Here's a picture of how the room looks now.  The wainscoting  is old and damaged, as is the lavatory.  The tub and enclosure are beyond ugly. 

I'm in the planning stages on this room, collecting ideas and samples.  However I did get the new awning style window in place this year.  (PICTURE)

I can't imagine why someone would place a huge double hung window next to the toilet in their bathroom.  There was no privacy at all.  Not to be too indelicate but a person could sit there and talk to someone weeding next door.  My only guess is that maybe the room wasn't originally a bathroom but was the smallest room and so was "modernized". Where the wall is now visible I can see that the old lath and plaster was covered with drywall.  Looks like it was just nailed on over it.  So I get the pleasure of removing both.  Yummy.

This weekend will be Labor Day Weekend and I plan to celebrate by installing a new toilet in this room as well as an emergency back up one in the basement, and replacing the basement utility sink faucet (if I can get it off).

I bought one of the new "green" toilets that has two types of flushes for the bathroom.  One is for solid waste and uses a bit more water and one is for liquid, using a bit less.  What amazes me is that in discussing this with a couple different salesmen we've all kept straight faces and avoided any "bathroom" humor.
http://www.sterlingplumbing.com/onlinecatalog/toiletsandbathroomsinks/toilets/results.strl?filter[BOWL_SHAPE]=Round+Front     for an example of the type I bought.

See  flanges and toilets in blog for pic of new toilet after install.  I really am glad I got this one.

Catchup Post

I attended a tech conference this month and we spent a lot of time on social networking.  We were challenged with re-activating blogs, twitter accounts etc.  So I decided to reactivate the blog.  I didn't realize it had been so long since I had posted.
So to catch up.
Well, too many things have happened since then to go into a lot of details but as a single woman professional working in a non-profit I find myself now supporting my daughter and my "grand twins". She lost most everything in the economic and emotional crisis last year and is slowing putting her life back together.

I love having her and the twins with me. Sometimes we don't realize how lonely we are until we aren't. It's a delight to have them come upstairs every morning to wake me, and their giggles delight me.

On health issues  I'll quote my grandfather. "If I'd known I was going to live this long I woulda taken better care of myself."

I'll try to cover a few of the interesting things of the last half year in the next few posts.

Birthdays and Holidays

It seems my family is very accommodating. We try to have our birthdays near a holiday so everyone get's a "two-fer". My birthday and my brother's are during Lent with Easter Sunday always being very close to one of our birthdays, with one sister just ahead of us.  Several of us have our birthdays in early October around Columbus Day with my mom and dad bracketing Halloween.   Michelle has her birthday a week after Christmas, Zoe and Eddie have their birthday just before Thanksgiving, along with Hank, Miki's S.O.  Angie being our only stand-alone.The following is a quick view of  some holiday pictures from 2008 to catch us up to date. 
Zoe with pumpkin faced pizza.  Most of the vegetables got eaten before they made it to the pizza.
Then November brought the beginning of a long white winter with a guarantee of a white Christmas.