PAINTING PAINTING PAINTING

“Every now and then one paints a picture that seems to have opened a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things.”

---Pablo Picasso


While my painting wasn't of a picture it was painting that opened a door and is served as a stepping stone to other things.  Paint brings renewed life to things, color trends change, color schemes change but when you come right down to it color has meaning to each of us for different reasons.

As we started the paint color selection process, we tried to keep in mind colors that spoke to us for lack of a better word. In life I personally like to wear a bold splash of color, I was even quite surprised at myself when I had pink highlights put in my hair one time and another they were purple, but that is another story.  In the house, Bill and I tend towards earth tones with a little bold here and there.

Here are a few before, in process and after pictures of the house:

Guest Bedroom before

My nephew learning to paint!

Guest Bedroom After a new coat of paint

Guest Bedroom with new flooring

 

Guest Bath

Guest Bathroom...rather interesting I think

Guest Living room in process

Guest Living Room in process

Guest Living Room in process

Our Room in process

Our Room in process

Our room with the floors being scrubbed

Our room with new paint

Office in process

Office almost finished with paint

Office finished with paint

Stairs unfinished

Stairs with a coat of white wash

 Looks like I need to take some more photos of the other rooms but this is a start.  It's been lots of work and lots of paint but the house is starting to have a few touches to make it our home.

How Much Wood Would A Woodchuck Chuck If a Woodchuck Could Chuck Wood?

Before my Mom purchased the house, I didn't have a clue what "shiplap" was.  Now I do!!! 

The true definition:

Shiplap is a type of wooden board used commonly in the construction of barns, sheds, outbuildings and inexpensive or seasonal homes. It is either rough-sawn 1" or milled 3/4" pine or similarly inexpensive wood between 3" and 10" wide with a 3/8" - 1/2" rabbet on opposite sides of each end.^[1] The rabbet allows the boards to overlap in this area. The profile of each board partially overlaps that of the board next to it creating a channel that gives shadow line effects, provides excellent weather protection and allows for dimensional movement.

The living room, dining room and the soon to become family room have "shiplap" on the walls.  That is a lot of wood, and it is dark wood and it hasn't been refinished in 20 years (at least).  There are cracks between each board and each board is approximately 1 x 8.  Let me say that cleaning the walls and all of the cracks was a task and  a half. 

This is what the walls looked like after they were scrubbed down.

After the walls were cleaned, well neither of us thought they were very attractive and we discussed just putting sheetrock over them to cover how bad they actually looked. There was a lot of discussion before we settled on trying to bring the old dingy wood back to life.

This process required several trips to the paint store to try and figure out what would be the best stain to put on the boards.  What turned out to be a perfect match was  Red Mahogany stain.

I'm not sure what was actually worse, the initial cleaning of the wood and the cracks or staining the wood and the cracks. 

I believe that we made a good choice on the color and the wood looks revitalized now.  We finished off the process with a clear satin finish to give it some shine.  While it's a bit dark, I'm hoping that as we go along the process of the remodel that accessories will help brighten things up.

 



 

This was a large project that we have now checked off the list.

Wood walls revitalized!!!

On to the next project!!!

Let The Face Lift Begin

We have embarked on a journey to bring new a new sparkle to my Mom's old home, and in the process turn it into our home.  The house was built in 1900 and has wonderful old cedar siding on it.  It had been many years since it was painted and last fall that was first on the list of to do's. 

I think we had four bids for the painting and ended up with the person that we liked best (we thought) although not the cheapest as cheap isn't always the way to go.  We discussed stains and paints and decided that in keeping with the character of the cedar we would have the house stained as it had been in the past.  After several discussions we decided to just go with a deeper richer color in the same tones as it had been 20 years ago. 

I personally was quite excited to drive up to see how it looked only to pull in the driveway to see it was almost the same color.  It was our mistake to not have put up a fuss at the time, but we let it go since it did look freshly painted even if it wasn't the color we had expected.  On a positive note, it could have been way worse. 

I found out later after going to the paint store where the stain had been purchased that our painter had taken an old vent from the house and had the paint store do an exact match.  Interesting that anyone would try to match 20 years of sun fade....but our paint guy was quite successful.  This should be considered forewarning of our future luck with hiring contractors rather than doing it ourselves.

The house was painted in the Fall but I thought the snow added additional charm.  This will be our new home in the future.

It's been a very long time...

I've recently had the urge to rekindle our blog as there are many projects going on in our lives that I thought worthy of blogging about. As I resurrected the Two In Motion blog I discovered the last time I wrote, it was about the heartbreaking loss of Lacey. It has been four years this month since Lacey crossed the Rainbow Bridge and I still think of her often.

I stopped blogging on a sad note and much has happened over the years. Lacey's daughter Kayla had puppies, we made a whirlwind trip to Spain, Italy, France and Finland, and the most emotional and heartbreaking was the passing of my Mom.

Many people have told me with nonchalance, "well you knew it was coming so it shouldn't be that hard". Yes I knew my Mom was old and yes I knew that her health wasn't what it once was.  I don't understand how anyone can make such a heartless comment. 

Saturday, November 9, 2014, I had been planning to go and visit my Mom.  I had picked out a knitting project that was simple enough that I could knit and visit with my Mom and had been planning to spend the afternoon with her.    It was 8:00 am and I was outside saying good bye to Bill as he was heading off for the day, his phone rang and it was my Mom's caregiver, calling to tell us that my Mom had passed away unexpectedly.

It has been almost four months and there are days when I want to pick up the phone and call and tell my Mom some little thing that I thought would bring a smile to her face and then realization hits that oooohhhhhh, I can't call her anymore.

I miss my Mom more than words can say, she is responsible for helping me grow into the person I am.  One of the gifts from my Mom was her strength and determination, a gift I shall always treasure.  She will always be with me.

In the last year, Bill and I decided that we would purchase my Mom's home and make it ours. It is a journey that will take us a while to complete and I am planning on documenting the transition.

Bzzz, bzzz, bzzzz

Bzzz, bzzz, bzzzz.

Our ears are still humming to the sound of honey bees. What a grand day. Bonnie and I got to spend the day at George Hansen's Foothills Honey, Colton, OR for the Bill Ruhl Memorial Bee Day event.

The Portland-Metro Beekeepers Association (PMBA) sponsors this gathering of multiple local bee clubs. The day started our with a twenty minute talk about equipment and a second presentation by Dr. Ramesh Sagili spoke on the life of the honey bee and current day developments and problems.

Then outside we went to five stations for live instruction varying from bee diseases, queen identification, three stages of bee development, what makes a strong hive, creating a new hive from nukes purchased or taking frames from a strong hive and inserting a new queen, and of course managing diseases.

Some individuals were interested in pollination, while others were desiring to collect honey for their use.

An event you should not miss next year if you have any interest in bee keeping.

Letting go is hard to do….

Every dog that has entered my life is special, but every once in a while there is one that tugs just a bit more at my heart, makes me smile a bit more when I see them wag their tails, comforts me when life seems overwhelming and they seem to know just when you need a bit more love.

Lacey was all that and more for me. When she was just a baby, Lacey (via my Mom) bought me a double chair for the dog shows so that she could sit on one side and me on the other. She was the only Saluki that I have ever shown that acted like a bucking bronco and insisted that I learn how to show her the way she wanted, rather than me training her to show the way I wanted. It took six months for me to be trained, but once that happened, we were a TEAM in the ring. She never let down, always moved beautifully around the ring and had beautiful flowing ears. At home she was the princess and let everyone know it. Lacey knew that I didn't like doggy kisses so we developed the air technique, she would lick both of my cheeks without actually kissing me, she would talk back to me with her mouth opening and closing but not a sound came out. Sounds wasn’t needed anyway as I knew what she was saying.

When we finally decided who to breed her to, she wasn't too thrilled with the process and when the puppies were do, she did everything she could to not go into labor, resulting in a c-section and a rough week for all involved, but when the two little girls were big enough, she loved to rough house and play with them.

Lacey and her two daughters became the three musketeers. There was only a time or two when Lacey had to stay home by herself and she was so sad that we didn't do that anymore, so they went everywhere together.

Two years ago, she wasn't feeling very well. I just knew something was wrong as she had never missed a bit of food in her life. Our vet was closed so we went to a 24 hour clinic and something just didn't feel right about it so we ended up going to an emergency clinic that I had lots of faith in.

That weekend changed a lot of things for the next two years. Lacey had heart problems that we didn't know existed and needed a pacemaker immediately. The clinic kept her over the weekend and bundled us up and sent us down to the OSU Vet School.

It was quite an education learning all that we did about heart problems and pacemakers. Lacey was examined on a Monday, scheduled for surgery on Wednesday and came home on Thursday wrapped in blue vet wrap with a pink heart on it. We were told that was the traditional wrap for a heart patient. Her pink heart is still on the fridge.

30 days after her surgery she was given the OK to go back to her regular life. Lacey was a special gift that I received a second time in life. The air kisses were just a bit sweeter, the tail wags tugged a bit more at my heart and life was a bit more precious.

A year after Lacey's surgery she started to develop more heart issues requiring mediation. Life now revolved around her pill schedule of 5:30 am and 5:30 pm. Everything was adjusted to meet that schedule and it just because a part of life. She knew when pill time was and if I was late, I heard about it. She'd be standing there waiting for me to come around the corner of the house and gave me a "where have you been look". Lacey got extra pets, and every night before going to bed, I'd pet her and ask if she had a good day today. It was our little routine.

We always knew there would come a time in the future when things would change, we just never knew how unexpectedly and quickly it would happen. One Wednesday she was having some problems breathing so we dashed her over to the vet, and the next day she was gone.

Lacey will always be remembered….now with a tear but in the future with a smile.

Ch. Snowynde Winterborne

12/22/1999 – 3/25/2010

How does the garden begin...

Saturday was such a beautiful day that we decided it was time to get busy in the garden, as it was still under all of the fall leaves that had protected it over the winter.

Bill got out the tiller and got it going and did his thing.



In the mean time, I decided the the trellis for the peas would be natural and I had just read an article talking about using apple tree branches for the trellis. We just happened to have an apple tree and a few branches that we cut off last weekend, so off to the burn pile I went. When I was finished, here was my prize:



Without a true plan in mind we began the process of creating "teepee's that we hope will become a trellis for the garden.



the plan is to grow peas on the four legged trellis' and as the peas go away, we are going to try and grow squash on the trellis. The three legged trellis will be used to grow beans.

Who knows if it will work or not, but it will be fun to try. We are even going to try and plant the seeds in stages to spread out the crop. We'll see if any of it will happen, but it will be fun to try.

Happy Gardening!