Name That House!

I do have pictures from yesterday's adventure. Lots and lots of pictures.

Unfortunately, what I didn't have was time to put them all on my computer and then onto my blog. Don't worry, I won't put all of them on here. I'll pick out the best of the best. Hopefully. Then I'll post those.

Instead, what I want to write about tonight is naming our house.

Every house has a name. The British are well-versed in naming their country homes.

No, we're not British, but it's a cool idea. It's a fun way to invite people over. It was just in a magazine that you should name your house.

In New Jersey our house was called "Dewey", named after the street. We only lived in that house for three years. We've lived here for eight years and have yet to name this house.

In fact, when we were house-hunting here in GR, we looked at and put an offer in on a house on Linden. We have since referred to that house as the "Linden" house. We named a house we don't even live in!

If you haven't seen our house, here's the last photo I took:

Not that I want to remember all of that snow… it was a lot (I do love it), it just so happens to be a decent picture of the house.

Other facts to help pick a name: we live on College Ave. Our last name starts with "U". The house is half red, half beige/tan. I'm not a fan of the spanish "rojo"because that's what we use to describe our fifteen-passenger church van ("Rojo Grande").

As you can see we have no trees in the front yard. We do have a lamppost that is frequently home to wasps.

I've tossed around College U. Not clever or catchy enough.

We have that crazy steeped-pitch roof.

Big House…

Not descriptive enough.

I don't know why this is so difficult. It should be easy, shouldn't it?

This Old House?

Hm, catchy… but it's taken.

Anybody got any ideas?

summer project #2

You'll remember my brief mention of the hallway project in this post? (Neither did I, as I had to search for it. Lucky for you, I linked it so all you have to do is click. Or click here for a different post about the hallway. Oh, and here are the photos that I said I'd add but never did.)

I'm removing the last of the paint.

Can you tell that I didn't think I was actually in the frame of this photo? (These were both from the landing looking up into the hall, in case you didn't figure that out.)

Here's looking at the second landing, from the first, which also happens to be the bathroom wall where the plumbing is located. Looks like there's been a patch here before...

Same wall as the above photo, all scraped and cleaned and ready for sanding.

Looking back down at the upper landing. Bill's home office is through the door just out of frame on the left.

The hallway project has progressed since these photos, but not since Bill took over at the office in St. Joe. We'll get the door hung on his home office soon (it's just waiting in the basement for some hardware). He has patched and will do a quick sand. Then it can be primed and painted. 

I have moved on to summer project #2. Or outdoor window project. Or Emily's-personal-mini-workcamp.

While Bill was with our Sr. High near Gettysburg, PA building a handicap ramp at a nice elderly woman's home, I was busy painting.

First, I drove to St. Joe. (After driving to Indy to visit Mom and Dad, where I promptly succumbed to food poisoning and ended up spending the entire time in bed, thanks for visiting me Alisha!!)

Jenny, her mom Marty, and I painted a few rooms in the office space there for GLC (the company Bill works for). We painted the lobby, the bathroom and Bill's office.

Here's the before of Bill's office:

 His desk before we moved it

 His furniture on the other side of the room, after we moved it...

 And the corner of the room with nothing in it.

And here's after:

 There's the furniture we moved and a "new" (to his office) picture

And here's his desk (I'm really showing off the pictures we hung because the desk had not been moved back and was a slight disaster). It has already changed a little because Jenny went back and hung a clock. She also put the small frames, that you see in the bookcases, on his desk.

When I picked out the paint color, I thought it was pretty similar to the living room color we chose. I found a speck of paint on my shoe and held it up to our walls at home. It's exactly the same color (different company, different paint name, same color)!

Then I came home and finished scraping paint off from around the side door. I also scraped the paint off the kitchen window.

 Here's the door...

 and here's a close-up of the window sill. Note the multiple layers of paint. And the color (three different shades of green). Yikes!

 Here's the primed trim...

 This is an example of the before (because I'm a dolt like that and forgot to take a before of the door and window).

 And these are the windows upstairs. Oh look! They're a different color. This is why the window trim is being repainted.

 Here's the final color. Um, it's difficult to see because of where I was standing to be out of the sun. But the trim is similar to the house color on the vinyl siding. Which means when I get to the second floor, the window trim colors will be similar to what exists but will stand out from the red house color. The difference from existing to new is the sill color. It is now a dark brown (the existing sill are the same as the trim color). 

Bill and I discussed painting the side door the same dark brown. That will likely happen when the weather cools back down. 

You can click here, to see the dining room windows. Since those photos were taken, we changed the trim color itself. The window casement color (the lightest brown) and the sill are still the same. 

Don't you just love historic preservationists and they're multiple color choices/multiple trim pieces?

Only fourteen more sets of windows, and two more doors, to scrape and paint on a ladder that is too heavy for me to lift by myself (no, really, I tried and almost died).

Anybody want to come help me paint??

Anybody?

I finally did it...

 ... I really did. I took the pictures off the camera, loaded them on my computer and have actually posted them on my blog! Try not to fall off your chair.

Here is the before:

well, I had already removed the border, this is the closet and the front window

here's the doorway into the hall (minus the door, it's still in progress)

 here's the interior wall (the bedroom door is behind you)

 same view with the left portion of the wall sanded

 this is where my desk used to sit

the door to the hall is to the left... this is showing the plaster pulling away in the corner

and here's an example of how Bill filled the corners

the above photo and the previous show the walls primed, ready for paint

and here it is with paint

we are both very happy with it

we moved the desk to the opposite wall to allow for more electronic outlet space

the bed has moved from it's original location when we first moved in almost seven years ago

I can access the closet again, which still houses my scrapbook stuff

here's the desk from the opposite side of the room...

and here's where all the furniture was "stored" during this process

here's from the other side of the room, as much as I could fit in the frame anyway

Did you know we own a lot of books?

and there's this pile, don't forget this pile

There you have it. What we did for the month of March and half of April; between working, the stomach flu and whatever else happened.

If you would like to come see it in person, let us know! We're ready for visitors. Just remember to call ahead to make your reservation.