Progress on the "Big House" and the "Tiny Cottage"

Both Husband and I have been busy, taking advantage of this wonderful weather we're having.  Yes, we had an early freeze last week, but today it's 70-degrees, with a light wind.  MY kind of weather!
Here's the view from my dining room window, towards the garden at the back.  There's still a LOT of green-goodness out there!

Rudy's been busy with the front door project.  If you want to see it in live action, check out the short video, showing how he tamps down the insulation inside the wall:

http://youtu.be/QWWiSdmSjfA

Here, part of the siding has been filled in, wiring for the cable TV and an electric outlet has been added, and he's adding the cellulose insulation.

This photo shows the placement of the door.  Once all the siding is replaced, it will be sanded, caulked, scraped, caulked some more, sanded some more, primed, and then (WHEW!) painted!  Like I mentioned in a previous post, we saved the siding (antique pine ship-lap in the smaller profile) from the greenhouse lean-to we tore down last year because of a rotted roof.

We still haven't decided what exactly to do with the front porch railings.  I do love the old oak leaf and acorn wrought iron, but would like something a bit more 1930s looking.

And for my building project--I got motivated to work on the backyard cottage (future garden room/studio/guest room/who-knows-what building) after my friend came over and fixed the ceiling that was falling down, patched, textured and painted.  It was a big-ol saggy cracked mess before.  She did a wonderful job, BUT we are on blackland prairie soil, and houses here have a tendency to float back and forth like a ship on the ocean, especially after a rain.  Or after a drought.  Or pretty much anytime. 

It's one of the things we put up with in order to live with this "magic dirt." Cracked ceilings, cracked floors and cracked walls.  Sigh.

So far, so good--no cracks.

 

One big job was to remove all the excess floor trim that a former carpenter had installed.  I swear he was trying to recreate the Great Pyramid of  Giza.  He had three layers of wood trim around the entire (tiny) room.  And in a room that small, every inch counts.  Not to mention all the extra dust it catches. With my trusty hammer, cat's paw and large pry bar, and a few select curse words, I was able to remove all the trim in two days, clean it up and caulk the living daylights out of it.

Can you say, overkill?  Here's before:

And After.  Yes, I know.  It's not beautiful.  Yet.  But, it is starting to look like a real little house instead of a nasty, dirty Roach Palace.  

The floors were previously covered with some horrible 1970's vinyl.  I'll probably clean, patch and paint this floor and use washable rugs.  Even though the Big House is on a pier-and-beam foundation, the garage and cottage are on a concrete slab.

Here are a few "in progress" pics of the rest of the room.  This door leads to a tiny powder room.

There is actually a nice-sized closet to the left of that blue wall.

Two north-side windows make this an excellent place for painting.

And here's another rose bouquet shot I took this morning, just because.   And no, I was NOT drinking wine for breakfast.  The bottle holds some green pepper cuttings I took before the  freeze we had last week.

Happy trails,

bobbi c.