Home

It feels so good to be back home in North Carolina! I was glad to be able to help out with my Dad and see that he is improving a little bit each day, but I did miss my home. We hurried and got most things unpacked before Danielle arrived and then I was off to New Hampshire. Today I am finally getting around to sharing photos of the two rooms that we have had their facelifts completed.

The sea foam green bathroom is now painted a light gray. I bought two identical shower curtains from IKEA. I was able to make a window curtain for the shower window and a curtain to cover the "knee hole" under the sink. Eventually we will replace the vanity with a more modern one, but for now I think the curtain is an attractive way to hide the basket of cleaning products that is under there. We are still searching for a light fixture for over the mirror. Luckily there is a ceiling light and it works just fine for the interim.

 The kitchen transformation is amazing for us! All that is left to do is to put up a couple of pieces of trim around the window. I am having a little trouble adjusting to no cabinet doors on a few of the uppers. I keep trying to close them and I am constantly rearranging because I feel it looks a little cluttered. Jeff loves it. We still have the doors, and they are sanded and ready to paint if we change our minds. I painted the backsplash wall aqua to break up the vanilla.

We have temporary knobs on right now. Jeff is making wheel thrown, stoneware knobs. We haven't decided on the color yet. Right now we have one glazed in shino. We are leaning towards our nuka glaze.

We haven't done anything in the dining room aside from a good scrubbing. You may remember from a previous post, that the wall to the right is a Japanese cherry tree, wallpaper mural. I am just happy that our dining table will no longer be the photo shoot set up!

I went right back to work yesterday making pots and getting ready for the next show. We head to New Hampshire in three weeks for the League of NH Craftsmen's Fair. We will be doing the first four days of the show, you'll find us in tent five, booth 521.

Getting Rid of the Yuck Factor

Our kitchen had a formica back splash with aluminum trim. It was dreary looking and very stained behind the cook top. Jeff started to rip it off and as he suspected it was glued to the sheetrock wall. The formica removal took most of the paper from the sheetrock with it. 

In another life, long ago, Jeff hung sheetrock for a few years. He was able to make it all pretty and ready for paint. 

While he played in the mud, I stripped the wallpaper where the fridge goes. Behind it I found an icky, moldy mess. On the other side of this wall is the washer hook up. It must have leaked at one time, creating mold. Jeff cut the wall out on both sides to also find some rotten framing.

The framing is now replaced and last night Jeff hung the sheetrock.

I have started to tackle the pink bathroom. The wallpaper is gone. Now to scrub the glue off of the wall.

We hope to be in the house by this weekend. Everything won't be done, but the icky stuff will be gone!

Getting Primed

It felt more like Labor Day than Memorial Day. Yesterday we got almost all the cabinets primed. Today we will rip off the countertop on the outside wall to make priming the interior of those cabinets easier. We are leaving the interior of the cabinet over the wall oven green! It was the only one that was green, and it looks like the cabinet was never used. We will put the doors back on that cabinet. It will be a good one for storing baking pans. All of the lower cabinets are getting their doors back on. Some of the uppers we will leave off so that we can show off our handmade dishes.

Today we will unload the kiln and ship pots. Then it's back to the house to put a coat of real paint on the cabinets. No funky colors. We are playing it safe with "Churchill Hotel Vanilla". I can't wait for this project to be done so we can move in! Sunday night we slept in the guest bedroom. It's the only room with some furniture right now. It felt so good to wake up in our own home and enjoy coffee on the patio.

I just need to be a little more patient!!!! We are almost there.