Our Utah Family

Big tears! Actually Adeline wasn't feeling too good but she was cute anyway.
Wonderful Anna in her cute kitchen. We had so much fun just chatting and shopping and being with each other. Once in awhile we were lucky enough to have Stratton too. He is always fun and such a good dad. He has one major flaw though and that is that he just doesn't really know the reason he loves bananas. Because they have no bones!!!!!
A side tack. I had this wonderful wingback chair that we have had forever reupholstered recently so that it will eventually go into our new master bedroom in the Marietta house. Found this yummy yellow/gold fabric and there was a deal on the labor so I went ahead and had it done even though we won't be living there for more then 6 months. It is beautiful if I do say so myself. I am so excited. I can see it all coming together in my minds eye and it is very exciting. The upholsterer did a great job.
This is a close up of the fabric. Don't ya just want to sit here? It is very comfy and will be so nice in our new bedroom.

Utah Fun

I was lucky enough to get a cheap ticket to Utah so I took full advantage so I could get my hands on little Adeline. Good news, bad news, she was a bit under the weather but that made her very snuggly. That was wonderful. My camera was on a weird setting and many pictures came out really blurry but I have a few so here they are. Adeline is climbing everything these days so the kitchen chair gave her a nice perch.
I caught her so cute sitting on the couch and she turned to me just in time for the shutter to click. I could just eat her she is so yummy.
Stratton and Adeline engrossed in something on the computer. She sure is his little buddy when he is home. I don't think he likes it one bit. Haha
A rare moment of eating. More good news, she loves green smoothies which are packed with all sorts of good stuff that Anna puts into them. We loved them all week and were so excited when Adeline did too.

Tour of Homes

Seeing as we are remodeling our own little cottage we decided to take the Marietta tour of homes this December. There were 6 homes on the tour and we got to 5 of them before we ran out of time. These 3 were the cutest little bungalows all built between 1910 and 1940. A lot of the original stuff was left in them but they made some great modern improvements and it was fun to tour them. Got a few ideas and had fun with the Brock's who went along with us.







I loved the cut out vent on the peak of this dark gray house. It was very cute and made something essential look really good.













One of the house had a walkway lined with these mason jars hanging from iron hangers. They were so cute with the candle and fresh cranberries in them. I thought it was a really fun idea. I hope to copy it at our Marietta house some holiday.

For The Birds.

The Great horned owl.

The Barn owl whoooooo!

The Kestril My picture of the screech owl was very blurry so you don't get to see that one. It was a very small owl about 6" tall. Very cute.

2nd Trip to Amicalola Falls

We enjoyed the Kassow Kruise today making another trip to the falls. We were so excited to have 15 cars in our caravan. Many of these people knew Bob Kassow and Jane came to say hi to everyone even though she didn't go with us. Here is Steve Cripps, Me, Jane, Bill and Bill. It was a pretty overcast day and a bit chilly so we kept the top up as did most everyone else. It started sprinkling by the time we were nearly there and then while we were enjoying the lunch buffet the fog set in and it rained pretty good. Never fear, we had towels in the trunk for just such events. Even though it was dreary the mountains still looked pretty and it was fun to see the fog and mist roll in and out.

I took a picture of all of the cars as we stopped after about an hour for a potty break and a leg stretch. We were the lead car which is ok but I prefer the rear so you can watch all the cars in front of you.




And for Sarah and Lee and Mike and Donna. Since it was Saturday we got to see the birds of prey. The 1st one here is a Barred Owl. I liked it the best. It almost looked fake as it rotated its head around. The next photo is of a red tailed hawk. There were two other owls, a great horned owl and a barn owl which were cool too. Also a kestrill, ( a small falcon like bird). It was so interesting that Bill and I stayed to watch the whole thing even though others left. The park lady drove me crazy but it was still neat. Sorry you all missed this. Next week they are bringing snakes. I think I will stay home.

A little treat

I found this cute little original water color painting at a recent craft show and couldn't resist it. It will be a nice addition to our new kitchen. I just love the bright happy colors and it reflects how I would like the kitchen to feel... bright and happy.

Some Fun stuff

My wonderful friend Lena and her son Alex dropped by our little house tonight. We reconnected at a recent wedding and did a little catching up. We gave them both the nickle tour, shucks, I forgot to get the nickle. It was so wonderful to see her again. She is a dear friend and means so much to me. Thanks Lena for stopping by and sharing our fun project with us.
This is the new fabric I bought to redo 2 upholstered side chairs I have. I am going to try and tackle them myself. I just love the print and if I can do them right I think they will look awesome.
This fabric is a light golden yellow that I purchased for a window treatment for our new bedroom. I also am having a chair redone that is in the shop now. It is a solid golden yellow but I don't have a photo of that fabric cause it's at the shop. It should be a nice companion to this one though.
You can see the reverse side of the above fabric. I think I will make a couple pillows with the left overs. That should be a cute look on the bed or on the newly done wingback chair. I will take a picture of the chair when I get it back. I am obviously not in any hurry since we have a bit more work to do on the house.

A Goal nearly met

We had hoped to finish all the walls by the end of November. So it took us 1 extra day! Not bad if I do say so myself. Here's Billy putting the last little pieces in the wall in the master bedroom.
This is a view from the master into the back hallway and out to the back door. The ladder looking area on the left in the foreground is the pocket door frame to the master bedroom. You can see another one as you look down the hallway on the left. This one is for the laundry/pantry area. Boy the first one was a bugger to figure out but once we got that one in the 2nd one was much easier. Course I say that, Bill actually did it alone when I wasn't there. It must have been easy or he would have needed me. HA HA.
The first big beam in the master was removed tonight. The next one you can see is the big white board on the ceiling. One down, 4 more to go. Wasn't too bad other then that the beams we are removing are very long and hard to maneuver. We may be able to reuse them when we build the new garage some day. They are really big and solid beams.
Lastly this is a picture looking into where the master bath will be. You can see the little window in the back that belongs to the bathroom. It is going to be a nice space and we are pretty excited about it. I will be off to Utah on Monday so no updates for awhile. I know you will miss be but next time I post after todays I will have some wonderful gbaby pictures and Anna and Stratton too. It will be worth the wait!

House updates

Ah yes, a nice relaxing bath.... well, we can only dream. This is actually the 2nd tub as the first one we got all in place only to discover it had a big hunk out of the porcelain. We had to take it all back out, rebox it and take it back to Home Depot for a replacement. We were NOT happy. Wasted 2 hours of precious work time but at least it's in.
The hall bath is all framed in now. Urika! It feels good to have something in place. You can now get a sense of the bathroom and kitchen space. Not bad.
We moved on to the master/laundry/pantry/masterbath area. We took down the last remaining old wall. Here it lays on the floor because we are going to reuse it. Saves a bunch of time and lumber and all we have to do is cut it down to size.
We began putting the first of many walls up in this back area. What you see is a frame for a pocket door. It took us forever to figure it out and get the wall that it is in up but we finally succeeded. It was late by then so you will have to wait for more pictures. In the back corner you can see we also got the remaining floor joists in that the master bath sits over. We made good progress this weekend and I think we might come close to making our goal of getting all the walls up by the end of the month. We might need one or two extra days but we are excited for the progress none the less. Til next time. Love to everyone.

Yard Update

Well, they have the pipes all in and spanking new. I can't tell you how thrilled I was that they were able to not bother the trees too much. One of the workers said that River Birch do really well even after they have been messed with a bit. Glad to hear it cause I love those trees. They even put the sprinkler system back the way it was. You can see the pipes laying by the trees in this photo but they are ok now.
This big pipe now replaces the drainage pit that was in the back yard. It now has a top on it and they are bringing more dirt in to level it all out back there and for the water to now run to the pipe and out. All in all it is a much better solution then we did have. And yeah! no more erosion back there.

I love the fall

When we got home from church today as we pulled into the driveway I was struck by the gorgeous red that our Maple tree turned to. The sun was hitting the tree just right and it looked so beautiful that I just had to get the camera and share it. Hope you all are enjoying the colors wherever you are too!
I imagine most of your trees have already turned but we have a few like this still gracing us with the wonder of color.

Whats new?

If you look closely you will see the chimney cap that Bill put up recently. Just a little detail that most folks would miss but it looks good to us and is one more thing accomplished.
Can you guess whats new here? Remember the bricks that stuck out of the chimney on the left side. You will have to look at past pictures if you didn't guess this. Bill used a cement saw. What a mess, there was concrete dust galore. Once he made some slices he chiseled it off and that went quite fast.
No, we are not putting a window in the middle of a wall. You can see the master through the spare bedroom because Bill started demo work on the whole wall where the closet will eventually be. It is all gone now, the entire wall. Ready to build the closet space. Along the floor of this wall the timbers were all rotted and infested with termites. It was good to get that all out.
This was the last bit of demo work that needed doing. Bill is so glad to finally get to really dig into the rebuilding stuff. That's his favorite. He sure has done an amazing job. Until next time....