here are some pictures of our bathroom. it's the family bathroom (we'll eventually have our own master bath. can't wait!) this origianally was one of the 4 downstairs rooms off the grand hallway. we split it into 2 bathrooms, since the old bathroom was where the front door belongs. dave replicated our downstairs second bathroom from high street, so walking in gives you a real sense of deja vu!
this is what it looked like before he started working on it- painted white. we found it along the curb in lewisburg one Friday afternoon while doing papers. we brought it home and A, and now B, has been using it ever since.
now he has it stripped, and is working on scraping off the last of the paint. we will coat it with a clear coat of butcher's wax, which will really bring out the grain in the maple and oak.
this is the front living room, and where you walk in the front door, from the porch, looking towards the left. it is the guest entrance. (the family uses the utility room door, which is nowhere near ready to allow people to see a picture of that-it's a huge, jumbled mess!)
standing in the same spot, looking towards the right. this is the back half of the double living room, and the schoolroom area.
if you walk through the front living room, you come to the "grand" hallway. the steps lead to the sitting room, and 4 upstairs bedrooms. the front door is behind me. (or will be, when it is put in.) the master bedroom is immediately to my left. the bathroom is on the left at the end of the hall. (the dresser is our diaper changing dresser. very handy!) the kitchen is at the end of the hallway, on the right.
if you walk down the hall, on your right you go back into the schoolroom.
here is the living room again, as seen from the hallway.
first, you need to sand the drywall, and prep it for painting. no lumps, bumps or ridges, please. a younger, but not necessarily willing helper, makes this job faster. (but A is having a great time here!) we have found that one of the advantages of having many children is always having someone to draft into doing the dirty work.
here is the living room wall, all spackled and sanded.
there must be a name for this particular technique, but i don't know what it's called. dave read about it in a book at lowe's, and came home and told me that's what he wanted me to do. of course i was eager to do whatever he asked, even though it meant traveling around the room one more time. ( i counted, and to do this room from start to finish, i will be going around and around nine times!) anyway, it involves mixing up a very watery solution of slurry- (think chocolate milk) and then painting it on the walls. unfortunately, dave had not read the whole chapter, and gave me rather vague instructions over the phone from work, and then had to abruptly hang up. (pesky customers!) being the impatient person i am, i decided that i would just wing it, and get started on the room, as it was already 2pm. so off i go, painting on this very strange and messy stuff. dave called back a few minutes later to tell me that he had read the rest of the chapter, and wanted to tell me how to do it. too late!
this is what it looks like going on- kind of wet and furry. the whole purpose is to make the whole wall sort of uniformly drywall compoundy bumpy. that way you don't have any flat shiny spots, interspersed with dull papery spots. that's the theory, anyway, and at this point, it was all blind faith on my part.
here is that section of wall after i've painted on the drywall stuff. the paper gets a little wet, and that's how you can tell where you are, and if you've covered the whole wall. like i mentioned before, it was a helpful thing to do, as it disguises some small blemishes. it also dries quickly, and you don't have to be very particular about edges and corners. so there you have it. i will try to get pictures of some of our completed rooms soon. it's starting to look a little more finished around here!
chillin' out in towanda creek
natural rock water slides!
A checks out the tadpoles
it's been very hot here the last several days- very humid and nasty. according to the paper, it's the hottest it's been since 1925! oh brother! thankfully, we have the creek right close by to stay cool. the kids have been going swimming nearly every day- sometimes even twice a day! A loves to go down to the creek and throw stones with daddy. and yesterday i had her down, and she swam around with M, and threw stones and rocks with me. she seemed intrigued with the hundreds of tadpoles, too. it's nice to have the creek so close by- the big kids were all raised right along penn's creek, and spent many afternoons just messing around in the water. i can see that we will be continuing that family tradition for all the children.
staying cool for the younger crowd!
