Fireplace 101

There's a meme circling around Facebook about "30 days has September, April, June, and November", yadda yadda yadda, "except January which has 937." Naturally January in Ohio is freezing at best. So, whaddaya do when one finds a two inch crack in the back wall of your fireplace? You call the fireplace experts and cross your fingers that it can be welded.

Then they politely snigger at you and inform you that no fireplace company worth their salt would weld that as it would be unsafe and that you need to replace the entire thing. 

Hello, 2019, here is our checkbook...

This is the official Before photo. Stone hearth, brick fireplace, framed photograph Dada took of me while on our honeymoon in Jamaica. Seafoam green walls. Striped curtains and curtain rods already removed because... you guessed it. #FarmhouseProject.

Yeah, all that needed to come down. 

For those of you wondering what #FarmhouseProject means, let me give you a for instance. Once Upon A Time, not quite two decades ago, a certain family had members moving back east from out west. Said movers would be living in the family farmhouse on the old homestead, essentially, and the family up the hill thought the farmhouse could use a screen door. What should have been a straightforward project turned into a humungous mess and way more work than originally thought as it was discovered that the threshold wasn't in the best of shape and, oh dear, the wood under that isn't either, and oh my, neither are the railroad ties under that, and...

"Um, what's with the six foot deep hole outside the back door?"

"We tried to put on a screen door..."

(We did eventually get the darn screen door affixed. And the hole filled. After the last of the coal from the old coal furnace was tossed out of the basement. And after discovering that not all cement blocks are the same size. True story. And a new furnace later. But anyway, back to the fireplace story.)

So the guys set up their tarp to minimize the dust flying everywhere from the fireplace demo. All the brick needed to be removed and the firebox itself had to come out. 

It works! The stone we selected to replace the brick isn't in yet, but the fireplace is functional and we're allowed to use it. Good thing too, as the Deep Freeze set in and the kids had no school for three days. Grandmama noted that the lowest temp we had with windchill was -37F. So glad we had the fireplace fixed and that it could help out the poor furnace! 

Dada saw a slab of stone he felt would be perfect as a mantel. The stone supplier initially balked as the slab was too thick to cut safely, but upon reconsidering and refiguring they managed to slice it just right. It is every bit as heavy as it looks, but unbelievably it cooperated and was placed completely level on the first try. Even the guys doing it couldn't believe it. After examining it from every angle and distance, they proclaimed their amazement and informed me, "if there's ever a tornado, just hold on to the mantel cuz it ain't going anywhere!"

 I'd decided to paint the room while it was torn apart and almost everything was out of it. Of COURSE there would be no school! Good thing Grandmama was here to keep the kids in line while I was on the stepladder...

The stone should be in sometime in the next few weeks. Then a mason and the other guys will come back and install it all. Choosing it was a harder decision than I thought it would be. The floor in the "library" is walnut, taken from the first few trees to be felled on the property originally. It's absolutely gorgeous and I didn't want anything to overshadow it. I felt a lighter stone would be more complimentary while Dada fell in love with dark stones with veins running through them. We settled on an 85/15 compromise and once that all starts up I'll be sure to document that process. I can't wait to see the whole room when it's all finished! Stay tuned.

Status Update

At least, I guess this is a status update, ha. I've had several things happen throughout the move which I'd wanted to blog about, but now that I sit down in relative peace I can't remember any of them. So we'll start with:

Preschool has begun for the Damonator. He loves it. Every day he wants to know when he goes. He likes to be reminded, "after lunch." He knows that he goes Monday through Thursday, and then he takes a break and goes back the next Monday. So far they've done a lot with the Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? The teachers even changed it into "Who Do You See?" and made books for each of the students with photos of classmates taken at orientation. Very cute way to learn names, I might add! He's over the moon about the small yellow trampoline with the handlebar that is in his room, and he loves snack. And the texture table. And the books. And the goodbye song at the end of the day. He loves school.

Liam the Lovebug has made some new friends thanks to Pokemon cards, though I was hoping we'd have skipped that particular fetish. Those were big when my cousin David was little. Who knew they'd endure? So not my thing. At any rate, his third grade teacher is very kind and calm and seems amused with him so far, which is wonderful. There have been a few skirmishes between boys, but I suppose that is to be expected with boys. He likes school and he loves to read, so I am counting my blessings big time.

Carrie is thrilled- thrilled- to be in school though she's not a fan of the early mornings. The first day she rode the bus she had to be on it by 6:45 AM! My heavens! They've since tweaked the route and she is now boarding at about 7:10, which is way better for our anti-earlybird. This morning she was blinking owlishly and mumbling about setting her alarm for 6:20 instead of 6:15. I told her she could set it for 6:30 if she'd move her butt once she got up, but she better keep it at 6:15 for a buffer if she's going to just sit and stare at her cereal bowl. We already do all that night-before stuff like getting out clothes for the next day, lunchbox at the ready if they're going to pack a lunch, backpack loaded, etc. Since she doesn't do hair/makeup/earrings/accessories, you'd think she'd be rolling out of bed at 6:45, but what can you do? You can throw a horse INTO the water trough, but you can't make it drink................

Dada says his commute (hehe) is almost exactly the same as it was from Beaverton to Portland all those many moons ago. I think that's funny! He's glad to be back from England where he spent all last week, and we're getting Stuff accomplished around the new house. Friday night the Richards crew came over and we had a small fire in our fire pit. Nina was spinning around in the yard, blissed out, and saying that perhaps because of this house she won't be afraid of bugs anymore. She had asked previously why we'd had to move, and I'd replied that we'd found our dream house. She toured it excitedly and claimed, "it is totally your dream house! I can see why you moved!" So that was gratifying, hehe. I think they'll be frequent visitors.

Dada cleaned out our gutters one weekend evening, which is going to be an ongoing battle until we can get leaf/ice guards on them. The kids have been collecting bins and buckets of buckeyes, and more buckeyes. We saw our first chipmunk yesterday and have been watching squirrels since we moved in. I've heard blue jays and cardinals and one woodpecker. Muggin needs to come over with her bird books and glasses so we can see who our neighbors are!

After the kids went to bed, we positioned and began filling two bookshelves in the living room. It was exciting to see old friends come out of boxes into their places of honor. I love books and would fill the whole house with them. We have a set of shelves in the "old lady room" (dubbed because of the wine colored carpet with roses on it) for kid books and a set in the "library" for grown ups, which include Stephen King, Max Lucado, Anne Rice, George R.R. Martin, Tolkien, Stieg Larsson, and plenty of others. I was giggling at how we have True Love by Robert Fulghum and the Princess Bride very close to The Road... you can't get much different in tastes or genres! I'm SO excited to see it come together. And yes, I know those are all supposed to be underlined, but I just don't feel like it...

Anyway, must go get some more Stuff accomplished before my dentist appointment and our library trip and lunch and preschool drop off. We're getting swamped with kid paperwork including photo package ordering forms, but I think since we have such a woodsy setting here at the new house that we'll just capture them in their element and have them printed ourselves. Have a wonderful week!