Tour of Homes -- Check!

It occurred to me, as Dave and I spent hours that we'd normally dedicate to sleep on getting the house ready for the Tour of Homes, that I couldn't think of any other family with a toddler and a preschooler who had volunteered to have their home on display. I thought of it again, at 11:30 on Sunday morning (with guests who'd paid good money to see the house due to arrive at 1 p.m.), when Erik, completely oblivious to my frantic tidying, happily pulled pots and pans out of the kitchen cupboards. (Dave took the kids over to the other house soon after, where they could play for the afternoon without me constantly snatching potential messes out of their hands.)

I was frantic until 12:53 p.m. -- but then I unplugged the vacuum cleaner, looked around, and sighed with satisfaction. The transformation was amazing!! Most of the credit goes to Mari, who brought over her decorations and worked her magic. She has a great flair for decorating, and many of her decorations worked really well with the "rustic" style we were after.

The living room was really stunning -- the tree looks just phenomenal next to the old wood of the north wall. (Thanks to the Mikkonens for giving us the tree! We are delighted -- it looks so Finnish!) We hung our farm art by Laverne Alvestad in the room, along with Laura Schaunaman's "Savo Summer" print. The bench is one my dad made once when he did a workshop at the RVP1875 store (described at this site), which was then in Story City, Iowa -- no power tools were used in making it. The bench fits in well with the rustic look of the room!

Mari set up the lovely display at the end of the hall upstairs ... and doesn't this rug look FANTASTIC in the hall here? The colors work together so well. This is an inheritance from my grandmother -- it was one of her "special occasion" rugs.

We did do a bit of clutter-hiding -- I hung a sheet over the entrance to the storeroom at the end of the hall.

The closet of the west upstairs bedroom is for the moment set up as a kids' space. Erik likes it -- I think kids always enjoy cozy areas like that.

The rest of that room is set up as a project room for now. It's so welcoming! I've already done a bit of weaving, since the loom is now ready to go. (Dave made the loom for me one winter when we were still living in North Carolina, in the tiny house we rented then -- he worked at the dining room table between meals, since we had to clear off his woodworking stuff to have room to eat.) I had a slide show of photos running on the computer during the tour, showing the house in various stages of completion.


Mari hung a garland over the top of the bank of windows, then made the lovely paper heart ornaments to go in the windows. The candles are ours, from our time in Boone -- we had few decorations out there (we always went elsewhere for Christmas), but we did have candles in the windows.

Several people were impressed with the fact that because of the open area by the stairs, you can see the first floor from above -- most homes don't have a way to get a different perspective on your living space that way. I got a few waves from people peeking out the windows of the upstairs bedrooms!

The kids' room looks great! (Mary, note the curtains in the windows!) The floor got many positive comments during the tour. (Erik's playpen was moved to the other house so he could take a nap there during the afternoon -- not that that happened, with cousins to play with.)


Dave's sideboard (which he also made at a workshop at RVP1875, using no power tools -- I gave those workshops as gifts to Dad and Dave one year) fits in beautifully next to my favorite blue wall, and Mari did a lovely job setting up a display here, too, with Swedish straw horses above and baskets of vegetables down below.


And the stockings were hung by the fire with care ... And Joyce, notice the fabric curtain over my linen closet, to the right! (I'll need to add a better picture of it.) It adds such a nice, bright touch to that spot -- bifold doors would make that little transition space feel like a telephone booth, but there has to be something to hide the sheets and towels there -- the fabric curtain is just the thing!

Dave also had the addition cleared out for the tour, which Mom was really impressed by -- it had been Dave's workshop, filled with tools, wood pieces, paint cans, and other assorted detritus until 10 p.m. Saturday, when Dave started cleaning it. (I'd had him working on finishing trim before that.)

The kids were allowed recommence living in the house once the tour was over, as you can see by the rugs askew already in these photos, mere minutes after we all returned! But that's OK. It wasn't perfect even when people were going through -- I had forgotten the breakfast dishes in the sink! Out of sight, out of mind, I guess. Dave did them at some point in the afternoon, along with the dishes we made while serving coffee and cake to the visitors -- Mom made the cake in honor of her birthday and Finland's independence day, both Dec. 6.

In general, the tour went quite well -- though I have a few regrets about it, one of which is that I didn't think to put out a guestbook, so I'm not sure how many people came. (Other regrets: I didn't have the slide show going right away, so a number of people didn't see it; also I didn't have the sign up saying that Mom's studio was also open, and I didn't remember to tell everyone, not everyone stopped over there.) But it was nice to hear all the people say "Wow!" ... Mari said she heard one person mention House Beautiful as they left.

And so ... now what? I've been focused on house stuff so intently and for so long that I've kind of lost my bearings of what else I should be doing! For now, at least, we've got Sofia's birthday and Christmas to plan for. There's still a lot of work on the house to finish, but we've declared a moratorium on house work until after Christmas -- time to relax for a while!

O Kitchen, My Kitchen ...

Yes, I'm singing praises to my kitchen ... well, not quite, though I have spent a good deal of time singing in my kitchen lately! We had a small Thanksgiving dinner, just Dave, me and the kids, and I have to say, I don't think I have ever been so happy cooking as I was Thursday morning. It was just so darn pleasant to have that length of counter space, to have all the ingredients handy, and to do the dishes as I needed to. (Thanks again for putting it all together, Walt and Dave!)

Several things are new in the above photo: We picked up the missing cabinet door from IKEA when we were there last Monday, as well as the toe kicks, which are now in place. The under-cabinet lighting is installed -- I don't think I took a picture of that before, though it's been up a while already. And I put down one of my rugs -- I wove it when Dave and I were in Finland in 2003, staying with my grandmother, and I didn't use it at all in the house in Boone, as the colors didn't go with anything there. But it looks like I made it for this kitchen! The colors are near matches to my color scheme, with the addition of red, which I think adds a nice touch of brightness (as in that dish towel).

... We did Christmas Cookie Baking, Part I today. Mari and I don't get cookie baking done like we used to -- too many children "helping" the process, I think. So we'll have to finish another day. That also went well in the new kitchen, I think!

... We're working frantically to get the house in shape for the Tour of Homes on Dec. 6. The list is long, though nothing on it is terribly hard or time-consuming ... except there are only a few hours in the day when I don't have "helpers." We'll see how much we can get done between now and then -- good thing the new coffee pot works!

At home in a granary!

I can use illness as an excuse for part of my tardiness in blog posting lately – H1N1 (we think, anyway) made its way through the family in the past couple weeks. I wouldn’t say we are completely healthy yet even now – I’m still blowing my nose a lot, and Dave gets a coughing fit every now and again. Erik is much better, though it’s just in the last few days that he’s stopped sounding like Darth Vader when he’s asleep. Sofia’s nose is still running a bit, but she’s otherwise back to normal.

And, when we weren’t sleeping off our sickness, we’ve been busy. We were working late into the night to get the house ready for move-in day, which was Friday. We didn’t get as much done that day as we’d hoped, but ready or not, we bedded down in the new house that night!

I have to say, getting up on Saturday morning and sitting down to our usual pancake breakfast at our dining table in our own house (which, did you know, used to be a granary?!) was an amazing feeling.

I thought I’d give my impressions after living in the house for two full days now. Here are some things I absolutely love:

• The big south-facing windows. Living in this house is living on the farm in a way that living in the old house is not. There you look out the windows sometimes, but you have to purposefully do so, and many of them are covered with plastic and storm windows, so it’s not always easy to see out. Here, the windows draw your attention, whether you are planning to look out them or not. We watch the cars go by (mostly hunters lately, and a few combines and semis). Erik is thrilled with the dog-watching – the big windows are low enough that he can see out easily. And Sofi pointed out a flock of geese flying over while we were eating lunch today. I wonder a little if there are days when we won’t be excited to look outside – some nasty blizzards are bound to come through in January and February – but for the most part, I think those windows are a daily blessing.
• Our well-insulated, passive solar design. The big windows are a part of that as well. On Saturday, it was warm outside, in the 50s, but it was nearly hot inside. We opened the windows to let in a breeze. We rarely have to run the heaters while the sun is shining, and the house stays fairly warm into the evening.
  
  
• The IKEA cabinets. There’s so much room in them! We don’t yet have a well-stocked kitchen, but I’d say the cabinets are still at least a third empty. And eventually we’ll have the pantry space besides, though that’s pretty far down on the list of priorities. My pleasure is in no small part also due to not having to deal with two household’s kitchen needs in one set of cabinets, but the cabinets themselves are pretty nice. (Sofia is blurry in all the pictures I took Saturday -- she says the new house is a "fun house"!)
  
• The bright color choices. The high blue walls and ceiling don’t seem like overkill at all, and the blue wall in the kitchen makes me happy just to look at it!
• My dishwashing aids – the dishwasher and the drying cabinet. I love having both, I have to say! It’s great to be able to put dishes to dry in the cabinet and not have to look at them anymore until they are dry (though this will of course work better when we get that replacement cabinet door), and also to wash a big batch of dishes in the dishwasher. Sofia likes helping with loading and unloading the dishwasher – a bonus I wasn’t expecting! Dave and I haven’t debated once yet about whose turn it is to do the dishes – I’ve hopped right to it. (Dave did say that installing the dishwasher – a complete pain – should excuse him from a year’s worth of dishes. For now, I don’t mind a bit – but a year’s exemption might be a bit much.)
• Erik sleeping in the children’s room instead of ours. Maybe it’s just because it was so tough to sleep with his noisy breathing while he was sick, but I am resting much easier with Erik out of our room. He’s still fussed once each night, but I think soon he will be sleeping better, too – he’ll get better at putting himself to sleep if Mommy or Daddy don’t race to help with every little cry.
• Our improved moods. I have to say that Dave and I are both notably happier – it’s easier to laugh, and little problems are less frustrating. We live in a lovely house that we designed and built ourselves (with generous help from friends, of course) – that in itself is immensely satisfying.

That doesn’t mean that this new house isn’t without its challenges.

• The kids’ bedroom, with all of their necessary dressers, toys and bookshelves, barely has room for their beds. We had been planning on moving Erik into a bigger playpen for a few months, since we were thinking that having bunkbeds wouldn’t be a good idea for a while, as it would be too hard to keep Erik off the ladder to the top bunk. That plan is not going to work, as the playpen he’s in now barely fits. We’re still trying to figure out a way to have a bunkbed that Sofi can get into safely, but with a ladder that Erik can’t climb (for a while, anyway).
• Our bedroom is also very small. We installed a nice closet organizer, which will help, but I don’t think all of our clothes (especially all of mine) will fit in that room. Which is not that big a deal, really, as we have plenty of closet space upstairs – I’ll just have to get used to going upstairs on occasion to get clothes.
• There are spiders in here – left over, I’m sure, from the old wood’s granary days. I don’t have a huge fear of spiders, but it was a bit disconcerting to watch a spider drop down from the ceiling into Erik’s playpen (he wasn’t in it at the time). I’m hoping that’s a problem we can fix, or at least diminish, with some vigilant spider-crushing warfare.
• There’s still a lot to do. When we sit down to eat or relax, we try not to dwell on all the trim that’s left to do, or the doors that are missing, or the shelves, or the bathroom mirror, or the coathooks … as Don would say, when you have a house, you have a task and master for life. And it does sometimes feel that way. Though I have to say, it feels a whole lot better to be reaping the rewards of that work even as we look toward doing some more. The work is much more pleasant than it was just a few short days ago!

It's a costume party!

Halloween was definitely a trick and not a treat for my and my sister's kids this year, since they were all fighting off H1N1 on Oct. 31. We had been planning a trip to Iowa and to the Cities over that weekend -- Nama in St. Paul really had her heart set on having Sofia and Erik in the Cities to see the street festival that is held nearby each year on Halloween -- but all that had to be skipped. So, to make up for that, we planned a costume party for the family a week later, when everyone was healthy (more or less).

The rule was they everyone, grownups included, had to wear a costume. So, we had in the room:

• a giraffe,
• a frog,
• a ladybug,
• a butterfly,
• a witch,
• a genie,
• a Jordanian woman,
• a union suit man,
• a storybook princess,
• a hatted guy,
• a cleaning lady, and
• an old farmer.

Isn't that giraffe cute!

Erik didn't want to wear his costume at first, but pretty soon he really got into being a frog.


We had a fishing pond -- everyone got to fish.

Dad made a big deal of "reeling in" his catch -- looks like he got a big one here! (I think it was a "juice fish.")

The storybook princess and the butterfly enjoy their "juice fish."

Here's that crazy Jordanian woman running the penny toss. (My costume looked better when I had my scarf around my head.)

We had mentioned the day before that we'd have a balloon game, but I was thinking of skipping that game since there seemed to be enough going on. Sofia wouldn't have it! I had no idea how important the balloons were, but to Sofia, it wasn't really a party if we didn't have balloons. And I have to say, they were a big hit! Note to self: Balloons are a bigger deal than you think.

Sofia is just about to had after the balloons in this picture. Erik was pretty happy about the balloons, too, even if he's looking more subdued here.


And a grand time was had by all -- even if the party did go past the butterfly's bedtime!

MOVING IN!

After a day of detail work Saturday, we started taking stuff over to the new house today! We are pretty excited ... though I have to say we'd be more excited if we were all healthy. Erik has been sick, and I'm fighting the same bug ... could well be H1N1. Erik has been rather miserable, which not only is no fun for him, but it puts a damper on how much we can accomplish ... but little by little we're making a home over there!

Here's the new fridge that we got for such a deal! It's a little short, now that we have it in the space -- we could have gotten a taller one. But the space is adequate. We flipped the handles over to the other side this evening.

After we got it into place, we noticed that the doorway to the addition (which is remaining a workspace for some months yet -- we've got a gate to go there so Erik doesn't get into Dave's tools) is more like a hallway. Dave pointed out that as we start to bring stuff into the house we'll realize just how small it really is.

I cleaned the big windows the other day ... it's nicer to admire the view from them now. Though it does remind me that we'll need to figure out window dressing at some point.

We put up the IKEA shelf in the kids room today! A place to store toys and more. I like that the desk part can grow with the kids, since all the shelves are adjustable.


We're using the futon as a couch for the near future. Dave stopped for a little while this evening to admire all the results of all his hard work!

Oh, there's still lots to do. More trimwork, doors, closet organizers, and a whole lot of general organizing ... I'm not sure exactly when we'll start sleeping over there -- probably not till after our trip to Iowa and the Cities this coming weekend. It's nice to be able to work after the kids go to bed, and I'm not sure how we'd do that when the kids are sleeping over there, especially considering there is no door on their room (that's also on the to-do list).

It's just awfully nice to have a LIVING space over there! The kids had a good time for a few hours this afternoon playing with the few toys we've now moved across the yard. (Moving the little chairs around the floor was the most popular -- makes us realize how foolish we were to be proud of protecting the floors so well while we were working in there.) I'm looking forward to having our stove and dishwasher, both of which we pick up this week.

... I heard the geese honking for the first time this fall as I was walking between the old house and the new one. We're not the only ones on the move!

Maybe we can move in this weekend!

I helped at a pancake breakfast last Saturday morning, and told people excitedly that we were going to move in last weekend! We just had a couple little things to finish before we got to moving.

Well, those couple little things still aren't quite finished, so the big "move-in weekend" fizzled. But this is all for the best, really -- we're now getting things done that would be a real pain to try to do once we're already living there.

We need to have the baseboard heaters installed in our bedrooms before we move in, and Dave was working on that and figured out that it would work better to have the wire come in from the bottom than from the back, so we had to cut a slit and then do some drywall repair. It's ready for painting now, once I get some touch up paint.

We're also still waiting for one heater -- Mertz ordered it and send us one with the wrong voltage. Here's hoping the new one arrives this week!


In the meantime, Dave started working on trim -- the particle board in the beams is now hidden on the living room side! Looks much better, I think.

It's not perfectly fitted (it was tough to get the beams trimmed exactly underneath), but I'm not going to stress about it -- it adds to the rustic look. We still have to do this trim on the kitchen side -- I'll need to stain it and varnish it, too. Then perhaps we'll be ready to move in!

Dave also gave in and put up my ridiculous chair rail. Looks lovely! (Even if it did take a whole evening.)

The gate for around the stove arrived -- it's quite nice, I think. Still need to attach it in some way.

Menard's took back the dishwasher, but returning it took a solid 45 minutes. (Very glad I decided to do it without the kids along! That would have been horribly stressful.) The replacement dishwasher should arrive Oct. 28.

We're going to go buy a refrigerator today! I went shopping at Sears and found one that was still in perfect condition but had been returned, so it was $300 cheaper than it had been. And I've got some gift certificates from Sears (I got them points from our credit card), so we're going to buy a refrigerator for $300! I'm pretty excited about that.

Blue, in case you are wondering, is absolutely fine. No sadder, no wiser -- she's still happily chasing cars. But she is a little slower (she walks with a bit of a hitch), so most of the time she doesn't get to the road before the cars have passed by. And I think she's keeping her distance a bit more in general. But taking off when she hears tires on gravel is a pretty strong instinct, I guess!

Gotta run -- it's Sofia's dance class day!

Blue's progress

I know some folks are wondering, so I thought I'd update you on Blue: She's doing much better, all things considered. She spends most of her time in the porch, but she gets up on her own to go outside with Dave. And she's been eating quite well (especially since Dave is feeding her pork hearts and liver -- I think she's eaten more meat than we have lately). Dave does wrap her up on a blanket at night (we call her the Bluedog Burrito when she's all snuggled up), and we always laugh when we see her in the pink blanket, since she is just not a pink-blanket kind of dog. (She has gender identity issues, but we try not to hold it against her.) She is much more subdued -- probably still in a fair amount of pain -- and she walks with a hitch in her step now, looking a little like a cantering horse. But she is a dog who got hit by a truck and lived to tell the tale! (And wag the tail ...)

... House issues were frustrating this evening. Dave went to install the dishwasher, and it was damaged. Looks like it was dropped upside down at some point, which we definitely did not do in transporting it to the farm. It's dented enough that it's tough to open the door, and I'm sure the seals would leak if we tried to run it. I'm taking it back to Menard's tomorrow -- hopefully we won't have trouble returning it, though it has been more than 30 days.

It's frustrating to have such a setback when we're so close to moving in! We need to have the end of the counter supported in some way so we don't accidentally damage it -- Dave's thinking of putting on the end support now, even though it would be easier to get the dishwasher in without it in place, just so we don't have to keep reminding ourselves not to lean on the counter.

... My pre-move-in to-do list is getting quite short -- just a few more beams to varnish, some trim to paint, and then I'll be down to cleaning! Which will take a while -- there's sawdust everywhere. But I think we'll still be able to start moving in this weekend!

White railings, a quirky window -- and snow

We had been planning a trip to visit the Iowa folks over the long weekend, but we've had to call it off. One reason is the weather -- today's weather might not be pleasant once we head south from here, as it's snow here (yes, snow, in October! not unprecedented in South Dakota -- it's not likely to stay) but rain further south, and central South Dakota is supposed to have quite a bit of accumulation on Monday when we're set to drive back.

But we probably could have tackled that. The other reason is that Blue, one of our dogs, was hit by a pickup truck this evening, and although we're pretty sure she'll pull through, we can't leave her to my parents' care like she is now. She let Dave carry her into the porch, but now she won't let him move her. We don't think anything is broken, but we can't really tell -- we're guessing it's internal bruising, which could be quite serious. Animals are tough, though. I think we'll be able to tell quite a bit by morning.

We knew this day was coming, honestly. She's an incorrigible car chaser -- we never could train her not to do it. When we were here in the summer of 2003, we tried everything we could think of -- including spraying her with pepper spray out the car window. That worked the first time; she quit and went to roll in the grass to try to get the pepper spray off. But before long she was back at it, so we tried it again -- and this time, even though it hit her square in the face, she just closed her eyes and kept on running. Dad eventually rigged up a cart for her to pull, as she couldn't chase cars while pulling the cart. (Of course, then we often found her caught up somewhere with her cart snagged up around a pole or in tall grass. But she's a vocal dog -- it was easy to find her.) This time when we came back to South Dakota we just resigned ourselves to the fact that she was a car chaser, and that someday she would no longer be as fast as she thought she was. Now we hope she's learned her lesson -- though we wish she could have learned it another way.

... The dogs were out by the garden with Dave when the truck went by (the driver did stop and apologize -- Dave told him it was as much our fault as his). Temps will get in the teens tonight, so Dave thought he'd better get out and get our potato crop in. This might take a while -- we had a good potato crop!


... This is what Dave was working on last night -- getting in one of my crazy windows, this one between the kids' room and the living room. This is one of the old granary windows. I think it looks darn cute in that wall! ... I do have to had getting a curtain for that window to the to-do list. I got it primed this morning -- hopefully I can get out and get it painted this evening.


... And here is the piece de resistance! I've been working on this staircase every evening this week. It's been sanded, stained, primed, painted (and scraped, sanded and stained again where the paint dripped) and varnished. It's still not completely done, as there is a little bit of trim missing (where the steps and the back wall meet), but I have to say I am pretty pleased with how it's turned out. (Thanks, Walt, for encouraging me to get the white painting done now!)

Wow. The house suddenly looks high-class!

The tiling crew made swift progress this morning -- they were done by the time I got back with the kids at 1:30. I walked into the house and just thought, Wow! That tile makes quite an impression!

I have to say I can't quite believe it all came together as well as it did.

You may notice in the corners of the photos that I started painting the spindles on the staircase! And that makes an amazing difference, too. I'm glad I got all the support from you commenters to do this now and not put it off!

One thing that does stand out now are the posts -- getting going on the faceboard just moved up on the priority list. (I'll try to be patient, Dave.)

Pleasant time in the pumpkin patch

We had a family outing to the pumpkin patch event in Aberdeen on Sunday -- such a very nice event, great fun for the kids and completely free (though donations are welcome, of course). I tried for some lovely pictures of the kids, and I think I got at least one worth framing:

It's still not perfect, but it's tough to compose an ideal picture with two young children. And they're cute enough that it makes up for some lack of compositional perfection!


Sofia had fun decorating her pumpkin. It was a project that required a lot of concentration quite a bit of time to complete -- hmm, I didn't take a picture of the finished pumpkin. Have to get that later. (I had to blur the background because the people walking by ruined the photo otherwise, and this photo had the best smile.)


Erik didn't really warm up to the event until we were almost ready to leave -- we interrupted his nap when we got there. But he had fun with the pumpkins for a little while, anyway.


The little lawn tractor-led train was popular with the kids. That's cousin Eliana in the rear, Sofia next, and cousins Viena and Amara next.

Sofi had to give a big smile to Eliana!

And here's the youngest cousin, Briella. What a little pixie!