Color!

We have finally decided on a color for the house. It took a while since I had a whole list of parameters that needed to be met with this color. First, the color had to help the house look old (like 18th century old.) Second, I felt that one of the best ways to help make the house look old would be having the trim and windows match the color of the walls. Third, that meant I needed good samples of modern window exterior colors. Fourth, we had to decide on a window company to get their colors. Then to make matters more complicated, the Pella window store told me Sherwin Williams paints has the codes to all their colors. But a call to the Sherwin Williams store taught me that they knew nothing about Pella window colors. Ah, but Lowes has the codes. But not in a solid stain, just a paint. I really wanted to treat all the new wood with a solid stain rather than a paint. But Lowes did have a decent sized sample of Pella window trim in the color, Portobello, I was thinking of using. Using their color match system this is what we have come up with:

 And it looks nice on the new garage doors too. I love a color that changes colors in different light. This color can look gray, tan, brown, and greenish. And is a pretty close match to stink bug poop brown!

Eventually the whole front of the house will get new wood clapboard siding painted Portobello. This is my inspiration house from Colonial Williamsburg:

I think we came pretty close with the parameters I was using. We have the garage side door painted the darker color to see how it would look. I think the whole house will look more settled and a part of the land with the new color scheme.

A Glimpse of the Future

Sometimes the hardest part of a renovation project is the waiting. I have become a lot more patient over the years but it's nice, every once in a while, to see some progress and see your vision come to reality. We reached that milestone this weekend on the garage wall. Alan hung the new doors he made using the cool spear strap hinges and the latches. And he hung an onion light fixture we had leftover from the old house. I think it looks pretty nice.

The decision making on paint colors has been rough but I think we have finally decided on something like this house:

But I need to figure out the windows we will be using since I want the clapboard color to match the color of the exterior of the windows. It will be some variation of a taupey/grayish color. Hopefully the stink bug frass will blend in better than on the white.

First Fire of Fall

This morning we had frost in the field that faces north. Luckily, the vegetable garden is across the little creek and faces south and didn't get frost. But the nights are getting colder so Alan wanted a fire in the wood stove tonight.
He spent this morning cleaning the chimney and stove and replacing some of the door gasket. And now he gets to enjoy the fruits of his labors:

Firewood

The last day of summer is a good day to get back to work splitting firewood. A few hours and a smashed finger later this is what we have:

Last winter we just ran out of split and seasoned wood before the winter weather broke. Hopefully this winter will be a little kinder or we have more wood split.

Ringneck Snake

We came home last night to find the cats annoying this little guy (or girl) last night....

It's a baby ringneck snake. According to the internet they grow to two feet in length and eat lots of things we want to be eaten, like slugs and newborn rodents. And they are food for other things as well; like toads (of which we have plenty,) raccoons, birds, etc.
We think we had a full grown ringneck snake try to get in the patio door a couple months ago since the description fits. Ahhh, the joys of living in the country.

House Work

Working on the house is a big puzzle.  So many behind the scenes jobs need to be completed before we can start the fun things, like a new kitchen.  So, before we could make any changes to the lay out upstairs, put in the second bathroom, a new master bedroom and so on; we had to do things like jack up the house to make things level and take out the springiness and big dips in the floors. But before we could jack up the house we needed to get rid of the hot water pipes for the oil heat.  Before we could get rid of the pipes we had to run out of oil.  And so on and so on. 

Well, Alan finally started lifting up the house.

I came home from work one night last week and he asked me if I noticed anything then proceeded to tell me he jacked the house up half an inch.  Gee, and I didn't even notice until he said something!
A lot of the doors are now not latching or have started rubbing, since they were put in when the house was sagging. But our bedroom floor is no longer springy.  Before, if I was in bed and Alan walked around the bedroom the bed would shake.

One of the old supports in the basement was on old porch column.  With the extra lighting downstairs we noticed some writing on the post.

It says "The Rahn Residence 7 Acres." Mr And Mrs Rahn moved the cabin to the current property and added the majority of the additions.  Not sure why they had their name and acreage written on this post. But its a nice note from the past.

Good Bye Oil Burner

Finally, last night we ran out of oil.  The gauge has been below empty all season.  We have begun calling our fuel oil "Hanukkah oil." Alan has been anxious to get rid of the pipes in his way; so this morning he got to work.

With the pipes out of the way, I can now get an outside freezeless faucet! We currently have one faucet in the garage and another in the basement.  Neither of which were useable in the winter.  No more filling up water jugs in the bath tub.

Down in the basement, behind the oil burner, Alan found a date stone as the base of the chimney.

 The date of 1912 predates the chimney by about 20 years.  We know the cabin that the chimney goes up through was moved to this location in the early 1930s.  So where did it come from? Oh those frugal Pennsylvania Germans.

Let the Great Thaw Begin

The air is full of the sounds of dripping water.  Its 40 degrees here and the news is filled with stories of porches and roofs collapsing. If I can think up something to worry about I will, so the thought of our roof collapsing under the weight of 18 or more inches of snow was keeping me up at night.
What's a girl to do? Why, go up on the roof and start shoveling.
The newest addition has a very shallow pitch roof that I could reach from two sets of windows upstairs.  It has a minimum of 18 inches of snow on it.

After climbing out this window I was able to get a good bit of snow off the oldest roof in the house.
The rain this morning also helped to make the snow even heavier.  I became quite warm up on that roof. I feel like I moved a half ton of snow.
Here is the pile of snow that came off the roof.

According to the weather forecast, our highs are supposed to be in the 40s and 50s until Sunday so hopefully the roofs will have a lighter load and no damage.