WE ARE MOVING FORWARD!

O.K. It's just one room at a time but at least it's a forward motion

I won't bore you with a ton of photos of an unfinished outside but it will probably help to have an understanding of how we eventually plan to get to the end result.

The original portion of the house after being stuccoed . . .

From there, we bought a pre-finished cabin.  This building is to be our master bedroom and bath. The idea was to connect the two buildings with a hallway.  Note the front porch . . .

Well, pretty soon the hallway became a hallway and a closet, and then it was no longer a hallway at all.  The space just kept getting larger and soon it just became a room unto its own. A den. And, at that point, the closet moved to the front portion of the master bedroom.  Note there is no longer a front porch on the cabin . . .

Also, the front door onto the porch has been moved to the side of the building . . .

Attached!  The stucco on the addition has been started.  The white is a foam board which gets covered with chicken wire.  Then the actual stucco goes over that (the gray).  That is followed with a synthetic stucco (if you want) with the color added to it.  You don't have to do that, but that means you are painting the actual stucco and over the years you will have to paint it again, and again. The synthetic never needs to be repainted.  Kind of a no brainer, at least for us.

The small squares you see are 8" glass cubes.  We put four along the front of the bedroom so there is always light in the closet. (O.K. not at night smarty pants!)  The 3 on the foam will be more for design than anything else.

The stucco is done! And, there is now another door for me to paint to match the actual front door. :/  The fence needs to be expanded too, so it encompasses the whole front of the house.  But, it now looks like a semi grown up house . . .

So . . . I think this is where we left off the last time.

Not much has changed in this corner . . .

But, the rest of the livingroom is about 90% done now.  (There is still framing around the door to the kitchen to finish.)  This is a VERY small (narrow) room. It's about 9.5 feet wide by 20 feet long.  In other words, a challenge to do something with.  Down here, it will be more of a sitting room than anything else.  Most of life happens outside.  The funky white thing on the wall is our heat/air-conditioner.  It's called a mini-split and we have 3 of them in the house.  Not my first choice as to where to put this one, but if we want evenly dispersed air conditioning and heat this is where it needed to be . . .

 

The hallway to the right goes into the bathroom and laundry room areas.  The next door on the right goes into the guestroom/my office.  Front door needs to be painted but I'm not quite sure how I want to do that yet.  This gives you a good view of the new floors Glen put down.  The little sample to the right was the old floor, which MANY of our friends tried to talk us into keeping!  But, while it was really pretty cool, it was worn threadbare in too many spots, had splatters of several paint colors on it (not ours) and 2 more layers of linoleum still glued to it that we just couldn't get off in several areas . . . 

  

Below, a corner of the guestroom.  That's all you get for now.  :)  As you can see, it still is somewhat of a mess with stuff on the hide-a-bed and lamps on the floor . . .

And then we have the Den with its 3 little windows.  Well, a corner of it . . .

And, just so you don't forget how all this started . . .

Hope to see you soon!

Stay safe everyone.

Glen and Charleen

NEW YEAR . . . NEW KITCHEN!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

I have a friend, whom I have been friends with for about 57 years, give or take a day or two.  :)  (Am I right Lupe?)  She has been bugging me for photos of our house down here in Ajo, and I admit, I have been lax in sharing any, anywhere. Mostly because we have been VERY busy with the renovation and also, things seem to change around here on a daily basis.  Glen will ask me "What are you doing?"  I respond "I'm thinking."  His response is "PLEASE stop thinking!!"  (If I start thinking too much it usually means more work for him!)

But, we are moving ahead, and really a lot has gotten done.  Today I'll concentrate on photos of our 'new' kitchen.  A kitchen designed around a lot of very old parts, pieces and a little Ajo history.

The original house was about 450 sq ft. The livingrm/kitchen was a combination room about 10 x 20'.  At some point an addition was put on (above) in which half was designated to a new kitchen (1950's style) and half to extend one bedroom.  Unfortunately, the addition was not the greatest quality so we tore everything back to the original 450' except for the roof and flooring. We decided to use this space for an open air deck and it provided for many wonderful gatherings with friends last year.  That turquoise cabinet you see was the original kitchen dish cabinet which we kept.  1950's nostalgia.  :)  The rusted dado along the bottom half of the wall is part of the old roof from the house we tore down.  

Here is the second wall completely covered in the old roofing.  Down here it seems to be almost sacrilegious NOT to use what is already here.  When we tore down the other house I can't even begin to tell you how many people stopped and asked if they could have (or buy in some cases) this metal and/or the old wood from the house.  We honestly didn't do a lot of sharing because we had a sense we would use it, we just didn't know what for in the beginning.

The deck was very funky to say the least.  This rounded shelving was built in to a wall in the livingroom.  We took it out to put in a  doorway but I couldn't bear to get rid of it at the time. Thus, it took its spot on the deck.

I think Glen hauled away 25 trailer loads of 'stuff' the first year here, and more the second year, to either the dump, or if usable, then the resale shops here in town.  

I know, not looking entirely glamorous here . . . Electric is in and 

that's some of the old wood from the tear down now gracing the walls.  New flooring in boxes waiting to be installed.  As much as we liked the original wood floors, it was a situation where 'it just wasn't meant to be'. Too much damage.

Two outer walls now in along with 2 nice big windows.  :)

Stuff everywhere!

A real door out to a small landing (next year hopefully, the landing will be part of a new deck).  Tools are everywhere!

French doors in and now awaiting that same deck. (The other door you see now goes into a new pantry).

Walls are finished! Walls and windows are both awaiting new trim.

The start of cabinets, etc.  For those of you that remember our Mullan home, you might recognize the fact that we went with another toolbox in the kitchen.  I LOVE my toolbox.  Perfect for everything from silverware to spices to pot lids, baking pans, etc. We actually should get a kickback from Home Depot.  I know for a fact we have sold several of these for them!

Getting there . . 

Cabinets stained, counters in, shelves up.

Yes, we were going for the industrial look.  It was planned. :)

You probably can't tell, but the black and white photo in the upper left is a photo of the house when we initially rescued it from demolition.  People love seeing the difference between now and then.

Double oven, and for overkill, a microwave/convection oven above it.  In our defense, we bought the micro/conv. before we knew we were going to be doing all this.

The ceiling is also covered with old wood, now varnished.  And yes, both of those prints over in the corner say 'Cafe' Martin'.  :)

A little hard to see against the dark wood, but that is an old Cotton scale friends of ours down here gave us for our new kitchen.  He is originally from Alabama and has carried this around for years.  He asked if we would like it.  He thought we would appreciate it and he was correct.  Hard to see, but that is a 'bell' weight hanging on the right hand side.  He said, when the sharecroppers brought their cotton in to be weighed, it always managed to weigh out in the landowners favor.  Some things never change.

Light over the table.

And for the piece de resistance . . . our table.  This we rescued from a yardsale about 17 years ago when we up visiting friends in Newport, WA.  It was originally the back door to a bar in Post Falls, ID called the Lions Lair.  We know this for 2 reasons. First, carved on the underside of the table is 'Lions Lair 1976'.  The second way I know this is because it was an old haunting ground of my husbands 'back in the 'day as they say. (I actually do not like that saying . . . sooo overused these days and here I am adding to that!)  :/  For the first 16 years or so it was our coffee table.  Glen made legs for it out of twisted steel.  As you will see in a future blog, the livingroom here is way too small for a coffee table this size.  So . . . in another one one of my 'thinking modes' I said "How about making it our kitchen table!  Groans. Sighs.  But, as you can see, it is now our kitchen table with rusted (and varnished) legs to match. :)  I have a great hubby.

A little hard to see, but it now has a tempered glass tabletop over the wood and metal top.  This makes the ends also usable.  You can see from the photo above you really couldn't seat anyone on either end due to the metal bar.

So far the reviews have been good.  'Comfortable' is the word we hear the most and that suits us just fine.

O.K. a teaser . . .

A small part of our very small livingroom.  Not quite done, but the floor is in along with a few pieces of furniture. 

Onward!

Hope to see you soon!

Charleen and Glen

WOW!! WE'RE IN . . . AND IT'S COZY.

I guess that can be taken two ways.  One ... it's just small and the other is ... it's just cozy.  :)  While it is a lot smaller than what we have been use to, I have to say that, overall, I'm not missing all the extra space (and the extra cleaning and maintaining).  At 1000 square feet it seems to fit most all of our needs.  My studio space could be a little bigger but then, in all honesty, no matter how big my studio was, it wouldn't be big enough!  :)  Most people coming in for the first time are surprised at how big the space does feel.  The high ceilings and open concept seem to have done their jobs.  I think we do have a few friends who have been in our past homes and are maybe not quite as enamored as we are, but ...

I would have been back sooner but I needed to get serious about my own work and get my studio organized (somewhat) so I could meet a big deadline that I had coming up.  That deadline is now behind me so I can now think about a few other things.  :)  Since a LOT has been accomplished in the last two and a half months I'm not even sure where to start. Let's see. How about the main Bathroom ...  

We'll start with the bad news.  If you remember, we used Pennies for the shower floor.  Well, when done laying all the pennies I went to the store and SPECIFICALLY told the Hardware 'EXPERT' what I was doing and that I needed a waterproof sealer to put over the pennies.  Long story short ... he sold me the wrong product.  What do I know?!  Within a week after installation the whole floor started turning white.  The finish he sold me was NOT waterproof.   Below is Glen having to scrape off the whole finish . . .

                         

You can see the design from the pennies embedded into the scraped off finish below ...  :(

                           

The shower now has a Resin finish over the pennies which is what should have been on there in the first place.  Major work.  Major aggravation.  Major want to pop someone in the nose.  

                                            

You can see the old, small barn door we cleaned, varnished and used between our sinks and the toilet.  It's fun. It just adds that bit of whimsy you so often look for.  

                                              

We opted for what are called 'Farm Sinks' for our bathroom.  Part of the bowl sits below the sink and the other half rests on the counter.  I had a friend ask if this was to give us more room under the sink in the cabinet.  The answer is no as these are nice sized sinks so nothing is gained under the counter.  I was going for 'the look.'  :)

                         

Toilet in the above photo is just to the left of this door.  This is one of our New Barn Doors.  We left all of our Pine the Natural color and just sealed with a clear varnish.  Over time it will yellow with age.  Just behind this painting is the wall for the Shower.

If you remember from a previous post we attached a reclaimed barn door to the wall for our headboard.  We sold our actual bedroom set before we left Wenatchee.  It was a Craftsman Style set but we knew we were going to want to do something a bit more rustic here.  As I type, my son John is outside working on a footboard for the bed ... also out of a reclaimed door.  I'm anxious to see it completed.  :) 

Glens side of the bed.  :)  Note the old rope handlle on the left used to close the door when it was still being used.  

This is my side.  The round paintings on the right were a Baby gift to my Mother when I was born.  They are prints by Bessie Pease Gutman for those of you that are into Antiques. Hmmm... does that make me an Antique too?  :/ 

These are the doors to our closet ... also a reclaimed door which we cut down the middle.  I love how these came out when I varnished them.  They swing back and forth like the old Saloon doors.  A nice plus when you have your hands full.  

Another one of our Barn doors.  This one goes from our Bedroom into the Bathroom.  Down in the left corner is the edge of a large Pine Dresser we have in our bedroom.  

Voila!! Guess what just got done?!  Our Footboard!

I love it!  I think it finishes the Bed off nicely. 

This is the other side of the door from the Bathroom into the back Hallway.  Note the Special K.  When the door is closed you have full access into a Pantry that is built into the wall between the studs.  When open, (as in photo), it covers 3/4 of the Pantry.  It's right around the corner from the Kitchen so very accessible.  Small means utilizing all available (and sometimes, not so available) space! 

On the very left of the photo above you can see some Trim.  That is the doorway to the 'Library' aka the second bathroom.   We've always had a guestroom and/or hallway in which to display older Family photos and tchotchkes.  Now our Guestroom is our 'RV' so no real place for some of these favorite items in there.  So, I eleceted to utilize some of the space in this bathroom.  I mean, what better place to show off your favorites then where you have a captive audience?!  :)

The Wooden boxes on the Wall we found in the Attic of the Garage that was on this property when we bought it.  The Gentlemean in the photo is Great Uncle Charlie (on Glens side).  The story is he was in a card game, there was gun play, and he wound up running across the Border into Canada for some silly reason.  :/  When you look at the photo full on you can see where Glen got his looks. ESPECIALLY the eyes!

We originally had a White Pedestal sink that was suppose to go in this Bathroom but with all the delays and drama for the first 6 months the sink wound up getting cracked somehow while in storage.  We didn't realize it until we went to install it.  Glen never liked the idea of the Pedestal Sink in there to begin with - he thought it should be a deep sink.  (See where I'm going with this?  The sink just 'happened' to get cracked)  And, as luck would have it, Bob just 'happened' to have this Stainless Steel sink he could put in instead.  So, that's what he did, and he built the Cabinet surround while at it.  He really did a nice job and I guess I have to admit, it probably is a lot more practical than the Pedestal sink in there.  I now have a place to wash my Paint brushes and Glen has a decent sink to use for whatever when he comes in from working outside.  Note the Stainless Steel Towel Bar.  I'll tell you more about that later.

                                        

This is the only door (besides the closet) that is not Barn door Style.  There is no room to the left at all and just that short wall that you can see on the right side.  No place for a barn door track.  This is a Bi-fold that Glen built to fit the space.

Has it ever happened that you have an idea and then someone comes along, takes that idea, runs with it, and then does a better job than you did?!  Well, Gina and Bob took the penny idea, and re-did the steps going up to the second floor in their home and I am so envious.  (Of course, they did learn something from our mistakes!  :)   There was carpeting that desperately needed to be replaced so off it came.  Bob had to put all new kick-plates in and new stair treads.  Gina did all the kick-plates with pennies and then they stained the stair treads to match the bannisters.  Below is the fnished product.  I thought it turned out great!  It certainly lightens the stairwell.  One more set of stairs going down to the lower level to go!

I'm going to end for today.  I have photos for the rest of the house but this will never get out if I try and fit it all in tonight.  I will try and get to the rest sometime within this coming week.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!!

CHARLEEN