Done and done.

Ha! If only...

Actually, we are spending this weekend at our rental house packing. We haven't done nearly enough of that and there's 10 years of accumulation (including grime that needs to be taught a lesson) which means we have our work cut out for us.

So no work on the house this weekend, but we have made some decisions. Lights for the bathroom have been ordered:I got them from Target Online, and they cost more than I wanted to spend. But I think they're really the best we've seen so far. I'll also still get my waffle-weave shower curtain, in a hotel crisp white, and we're going to go for a burgundy rug. Target had some lovely ones on clearance a week or two ago, so I'll go see if they're still there. And NO FUZZY THING on the toilet. I'm breaking with tradition, blazing a new path. It's a banner day. I think Adam will be pleased at this decision.

Then for our towel bar to be mounted under the wall cabinet, we like this:
Adam lusted after it, then I managed to find it at the Moen ONLINE OUTLET STORE!!! for $29 (originally $47 or something), and that is the cheapest I've seen it. Who knew nice towel rods were so pricey? I will be checking the stores one more time for a cheaper knock-off before committing.

Drawer and cabinet pulls were bought a while ago, but I'm waiting to slap a fresh coat of paint on the cabinets first:
We may have ended up buying these in brushed nickel (can't remember), but they'll be behind the door, so I'm less concerned with their consistency in the shiny chrome business.

I'd also like to have a nice new shower rod that isn't a tension rod-- if the tension kind aren't in there perfectly, then the first time you pull your towel off, you end up in the tub unconscious and wrapped in your shower curtain. Or so I've heard; no personal experience to back that up...Anyway, I have to admit, the one that was in there was in pretty good, even if it was a tension rod. I started to paint around it, and then caught myself-- "Stupid you! Take that thing down and paint the whole wall!!" That's what I did. And I found a little circle of this wallpaper underneath. Clearly, this thing hadn't been off the wall in many, many years. At any rate, Lowe's had some chrome rods that attach to the wall on clearance for $5, but I'm not sure I want to screw into the window trim, which I think I would have to do. More investigation is necessary.

But we're coming together.

An amazing find!

Or so I thought.

We realized this weekend that neither of us had been up in the loft of our garage yet. There's no ladder or stairs, and there really hasn't been too much urgency to get up there. But I saw the corner of an old-fashioned storm window, so I dragged our short ladder to at least get my head beyond the loft floor.

And I saw this:

How exciting! It looks like it's filled with books!! Since our immediate previous owners were the government, there's not been much left of the real people who lived in the house. This was the first interesting sign of life that we'd seen. But I had to take these pictures holding my arm up and aiming the camera blindly and we didn't really have time to mess with it, so I decided to save it for another time.

An hour or so later, I returned from one of our many trips to the store, and Adam told me he had climbed up and pulled the box down-- it was a set of encyclopedias. Copyright from the 1920s. Useless, but interesting, nonetheless. I ran out to the garage to have a look at our booty, and what I saw looked strangely familiar:

Yep. In his haste, he missed the L in the Roman numeral copyright date. They were the exact same set of 1979 Funk & Wagnall's encyclopedias that my family started collecting not long after I was born. You could get them at the Safeway (we lived across the street from it) with green stamps, or the equivalent, and they sold yearly updates. We got a set of dishes for my first college apartment the same way.

So, although they are 30 years old (yikes!) and might otherwise be interesting for nostalgia, they're the same exact damn books I looked at and did my school reports from before the invasion of the shiny new internets. Not even different encyclopedias.

What are the odds.

*Actually, the odds are pretty good-- that Safeway was only about 6 or 8 blocks from this house. Come to think of it, I sure moved around a lot to end up pretty close to where I started. I'm not too sure what to think of that.

Sadness is a big ass billboard.

Our "new" old house is almost an hour away from where we currently live and the job that I love. People around here aren't really commuters-- after all, the state of Arkansas has only 3 million people, and there are only a few metro areas scattered around the state. They look at me, shocked, and shake their heads that I would be insane enough to move further away from work.

I have several reasons for finding this situation preferable to living within the growing Northwest Arkansas metro sprawl. For one thing, I've said before, houses are about 1/4-1/3 the cost if we move southward. Another major factor is the traffic-- if we'd moved only a few miles north, my commute would have been easily 30-45 minutes in heavy traffic; 50 minutes south is pretty low traffic, therefore low stress. I can listen to NPR, drink my coffee, and have Me Time to unwind at day's end. (I'm not being completely naive, here, I swear-- I did this commute the opposite way when I first moved and before I went back to school. I know what I'm getting into).

But what I always say, and something they always agree with me on, is that at least it's a pretty drive. The highway runs through the Boston Mountains, which are Ozark Mountains foothills. It's one of the most beautiful valleys in this country, certainly in this part of the world. Ozarks are like miniature Appalachians-- soft, rolling, ancient mountains covered in oak, maple, dogwood and redbud trees that turn beautiful shades of red and yellow in the autumn, with humongous expanses of horizon. Acres-- miles-- of sky and hills and dales. Only a handful of small towns along the highway, most of which are literally, one intersection, no traffic light, gas station/grocery/car wash/bill-pay all in one kinds of towns. Place is rural.


And that, my friends, is why I'M SO PISSED about the 3 GIGANTIC BILLBOARDS that went up sometime since Wednesday. They are ugly beyond belief. I hate them. And if that is what is going to happen to my morning commute-- to a stunning piece of the country not overly manhandled by the world at large-- if that is the result of the not yet open lake resort on Lake Fort Smith...well...

do. not. want.

Such a shitty beginning to a Monday morning.

Ace-

-tone. Acetone? Good old nail polish remover for dissolving stupid silicone caulk?

Silicone caulk, you are my sworn enemy

Help! Somebody save me! I'm suffocating under a thin film of silicone residue!

Seriously, I started to panic about the caulk bead we put on the sink and went back to the house to work on it. The problem is this. As we were applying, as I work on it now, no matter what I do, it smears. It smears all over the counter in a thin, hazy film. We had to caulk because a couple of our short tiles dipped below level so there was a very small gap. And the thing is, I don't know what to do.

Here's what I've tried: not much. I tried some mild soap and water on an off chance it might work if the caulk hadn't fully cured. Then I considered turpentine, but it's oil-based, and I don't want to stain the granite. I have some caulk remover solvent stuff, but it takes 3 hours to work, and I'm a little scared to leave anything on granite that long. It says it cleans up with soap and water, so I assume it's not oil based, but who knows.

Then I just started scraping with a razor blade. But I couldn't find my window scraper, so I was just scraping with box cutter blades, and now my fingers hurt and have lost the will to live. And anyway, when I get a little blobby and brush it away, guess what? More smears!

Anybody know what I can do? If you tell me that continuing to scrape until the end of time will work, I will gladly do so. I just want to know if this is a futile effort or if I'm gonna get somewhere. Anyone used the solvent on granite?

help?

We're that much closer...

As I mentioned, lots of little accomplishments this weekend, and a few really big ones.

For one thing, my $70 shower head purchased for $12 was installed:


7 different settings! It's so exciting.

We also put our first housewarming present together. Our realtor gave this to us on the day we closed, but we were afraid we'd ruin it, so we hadn't put it together until now:


This location, beside the pantry, will likely be its long term home, hopefully to house an espresso machine. Eventually. Until then, we're going to use it as an island to try out how we like the size and arrangement before we build a permanent island.

The kiddo got some raking and bagging done...I did a little sunlight scouting in the backyard so we can choose a place for a vegetable garden. And I spied a robin-- I don't care what some groundhog in Penn says; a robin and some 65 degree weather says spring. Period.

Now for the big stuff.

Ta-da!!!
Da-dum!
Woohoo!


And hallelujah. It's about time.


Ok. So full disclosure. Not everything is entirely hooked up. Sink and faucet are in-- it was a many, many hours long fiasco, though we finally got it done. I put a bead of caulk around the edge and I'll deal with shaping it up using my fingernail, a caulk scraper, a razor and some solvent. We cut one little piece of PVC too short, so we'll have to redo that one length. But the garbage disposal is otherwise together. Fridge is in and connected to the icemaker line. Dishwasher is hooked up, though not screwed in yet. And the stove is just sitting there, attached to nothing.

We may have a slight placement issue with the stove and dishwasher. We measured many times, but eh. We still got it wrong. We have a few ideas and solutions up our sleeves and we'll deal with it later.

But it's shaping up!!

Oh yeah! And Adam did most of the gruntwork here, and the kiddo was a huge help on the yard and island. I just pointed out when someone was doing something wrong.

A shout out to the hardware store...

Lots to report from this weekend; a few baby steps and a great big stride in the kitchen department.

But first! I just want to thank Yeager's Ace Hardware. God love 'em, they put with us coming in 5 times today between their limited opening hours of 11-4. By the last trip, they were shamelessly making fun of me.

Yes, they may be an Ace, but they are FAR from big box. They were local for a very, very long time. And everyone in that place knows their shit. The high school kids are learning a ton-- and it shows! And the old-timers never skip a beat.

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah. I need one of these...but bigger."

"We have them right here!"

...

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah. I need some of that...but not so much."

"Well, I sell it by the foot!"

Every damn time. At one point, I had two people coming at me from perpendicular aisles to help and each one thought I was talking to him. And they both actually COULD help me!

I love them. No Big Box, no sir.

They are as good as you get.