A fireplace...

My house has no fireplace, which is truly an unusual thing for a house this old. Now, it does have several chimneys and during the living room restore, we did discover that one of them had a stove pipe, but yet no cheery flames warm me today.

This circumstance has its pros and cons - I GET to put in a fireplace and, I HAVE to put in a fireplace. Here's a picture of the style I'm thinking of (courtesy of the Ballard Designs catalogue). Mine would be a dual so I would have the dining room on the one side and the new kitchen/hearth room on the other. This is, of course, when I have a new kitchen and hearth room.

Bathroom redo recalls the past...

Finally posted pictures of our upstairs bathroom redo on the fan page, which made me recall the excitement I had when I purchased this house. Every home I've ever owned has been renovated in part. The first (a rental) needed some curb appeal, paint and a fence to keep the kids safe. My second home was a serious design nightmare with cheap wood paneling, circa 1970, and a dark ugly kitchen...amazing what some paint can do! But, with this house I had more than a reno, I had a little piece of history all to myself.

As we slowly restore room by room, glimpses of the past emerge - a newspaper, an old photograph, a tin, an earring. People reveal themselves with every layer of paint color I scrape off the woodwork. Economy in building becomes evident when we puzzle over the interesting construction methods and materials people used to get the job done.

With my other houses I was anxious to get the projects completed so we could go about the business of living there. With this house, the restoration is part of the joy of living here. There is a discovery to share and discuss each time we tackle something new.

Space heaters aren't so bad...really!

The weather is so cold right now - 25 degrees - that our very ancient furnace cannot keep up and we are blessing the existence of space heaters. We've got 4 so far and mainly use one in the living room (pictured), one in the den, one in the upstairs hall and one in Katie's bedroom, which is the coldest room in the house.

We use these little life savers for target heating - on only when we are in the room - and though I hear they can help you save on your energy bills, I doubt this is the case for me...since I am so sensitive to the cold, one is always running!

The 2010 project list

In 2009 our project list was decided for us by the winter weather that destroyed our roof and mutilated the plaster in our dining room. While the roof has been replaced and the plaster repaired, we still have some lingering projects in these areas on our historic house. So, here my 2010 house restoration resolutions:

put the gutters up - or have them done, rather...

get the plans drawn up for the massive dining room/kitchen/master suite/back-of-house renovation

new insulation in the crawl and basement 

figure out the right heating/cooling solution(s) for this old girl

win the lottery so I can afford all this stuff ;)

I'd like to say that 2010 will be the year to make big changes happen, but it's really dependent on the economy - big surprise.

Sometimes contractors DON'T work out...

The joy of home renovation. You think you've found a great contractor - in our case, carpenter - but no! Alas, while building our new custom bar, he did a fine job in polishing off 1/2 the keg in the process!