Time for Rehab

Our new home is filled with old things (no, I don't mean Craig) and that makes me happy.  Hand-me-downs that have a history (still not talking about Craig). Pieces that have character and show their age (maybe I am talking about Craig?!)

I hesitate to use the word "antiques" because that makes me think of elaborate Victorian furniture and that is not my style.  My idea of antique is a lot simpler, more rustic and worn. Shabby-chic if you will, although I'll still like it after that descriptor has ceased to be trendy. What I love best is being able to take an old piece and transform it with a coat of paint.

I am fortunate to have plenty of pieces to work with; many from my mother-in-law, who shares my love of all things old, and of course many pieces that came from the original farmhouse and have been in my family for ages.  Here are a few of the pieces that I've rehabbed for the new house.

This lamp hung over the kitchen table at the farm for as long as I can remember.  I suspect it was put in when the new kitchen was added on to the house in the 60's (the original kitchen was a separate building).  I wanted to be able to incorporate it in the new house, but I wasn't really feeling the groovy green-ness of it.  

It might be a stretch to call lotus lights a classic, but they have been around a while and are currently enjoying a resurgence in popularity:

Too gold!

Too Expensive!

  

Too mod!

All I needed to do to update this light was a bit of spray paint and a lot of patience.  Unfortunately I don't have a lot of patience so it took me much longer than it should have, mostly to touch up mistakes from trying to rush the process.  Plus there was an incident with dust kicked up by the lawn mower...but I finally got it finished to my satisfaction.

Here's the paint I used, in case you want to recreate this look with your own
vintage light you just happen to have lying around...

I'm really thrilled with how it turned out - I'd love it even if wasn't a family heirloom.  Can a plastic light really be an heirloom?  I say yes.  Now it has pride of place in our new farmhouse kitchen.

Isn't she lovely?

Another piece I re-used from the old house was this dresser that belonged to my Aunt Wanda long ago.  I knew I wanted to have a vanity made from a dresser, and this one was just the right height to sit a vessel sink on top.  I wanted to give it a pop of color and protect the wood from water, and chalk paint was the easy answer.

I'm too cheap to spring for the "good" chalk paint.
This came from Lowe's and it worked just fine.  

If you haven't heard of it - chalk paint is basically paint with plaster of Paris added to it and you can use it on pretty much anything without much prep.  I'm a lazy painter and so no prep is very appealing. Of course it helps if you like a distressed finish, which I do. A couple of coats of paint, a little sanding, a coat of wax and you're done.  In this case I also added a top coat of polyurethane for water protection.

Tip:  bed lift platforms are great for painting furniture 

We thought we'd just wind up with false-front drawers once the plumbing went in, but our carpenter was kind enough to shorten the upper drawers and cut a notch out of the back of the lower drawer.  It is super easy when someone else does the work!  

The color is "Beaded Reticule" so maybe I do like Victorian stuff?

I'm really, really happy with how it turned out

I'd had my eye on this pie safe for a while, long before we ever thought we'd wind up living in Georgia.  It has been on the back porch since at least the late 60's and it was pretty grungy and grody, but obviously hand-made (probably by a relative) and still in good shape structurally.  I wasn't sure where I was going to use it, but I knew I'd find a place for it once the house was finished.

The biggest challenge with this piece was making it sanitary!  Luckily paint can cover a multitude of sins and grime.  I washed it off first with the aptly named "Krud Kutter", and then turned to my trusty chalk paint.  I watered it down a bit to get thinner coverage and only used one coat on most of the piece, because I wanted it to still look its age.  Finished off with the wax and voila - it fits perfectly and provides storage in the guest bath.

I had a bit of paint left over from the dresser so I rehabbed a thrift store box with it.
I might have a paint obsession.  

So that's a few of the pieces I've done so far - more to come soon!

Settling In for the Holidays

We've been in the house a little over 2 weeks.  So far, we've been able to figure out all of the new noises, though there aren't many.  We've never been in a more quiet house.  Even the heat pump is virtually silent.  The most noticeable sound is snoring dogs.

Neta has done almost all (99.9%) of the unpacking while I've been the mover of heavy boxes and Rubbermaid containers.  I've also been using a pile of dirt to fill in around the foundation and do some grading to make things look a little nicer and also building up a ramp to the carport.  On the inside, however, Neta has been working non-stop to make things beautiful.

Living Room
We paid extra for the sleeping dog option

Kitchen - This is probably as organized as it's going to get...
and I still don't know where everything is yet.

A few rooms aren't done or still have boxes/containers piled in them (so you'll have to wait for those pictures), but for the sake of day to day living, we are settled in.  One room Neta particularly loves is our master bathroom.

From the master bedroom doorway.

Opposite view.  We love our cabinets!

We still haven't taken an official, final picture of the front of the house yet because there is still a gigantic dumpster in front (left, past the car) of it, but we will once it's gone.  Going forward there will be plenty of changes for the front porch as we have hung the green porch swing (right end of the porch) and will put out our vintage gliders after we get them sand-blasted and repainted.  I'm sure we'll include a rocking chair or two, perfect for sipping lemonade (or stronger) on those hot Georgia afternoons.  You'll have to settle for this picture taken just prior to moving in from our last blog entry.

  We still have a lot going on and it seems like every time we start to "finish" things up, something else comes up that distracts us from our main goal of getting everything unpacked.  One huge bright spot is the two PODS that sat across the road from the house are gone.  Those were picked up on Dec. 8th.

They served us well for almost a year, but we're glad to see them go.

As we mentioned in our last blog entry, our dryer died upon move-in.

Talk about killing our momentum. Luckily we only had to make one trip to the laundromat.

This was a mini-nightmare when we called Samsung for warranty repair.  They scheduled us with a "local" repair shop (30 miles away in Pooler) only for that shop to tell us two days later that they did not service our area.  We called Samsung back and they said they had no one else in the area.  Our only choices were get it exchanged or send it back for a refund.  WHAT?!!! That's not inconvenient at all!!!  After a few phone calls back and forth, and begging the original repairman, he told us that there was an authorized service center closer to us in Statesboro.  After calling Samsung back and them verifying this (Samsung:  "Oops!  Our bad!"), they arranged service from a different repair shop and we got our dryer repaired a few days later.  Crisis averted!

So a few minor bumps in the road, but overwhelmingly things have gone well and we're so happy with the house.  It's so quiet, convenient and comfortable, as you can plainly see in the picture below.

They spend most of the work week sleeping in front of my desk in the office.

We'll probably be pretty busy in the week leading up to Christmas.  The day after Christmas I'm driving up to Maryland to pick up my mother and bring her down the next day for a visit through New Years Day.  We'll show her the house, let her enjoy the warmer Georgia weather and probably enjoy a Low Country Boil among other things.  It'll be nice to relax and enjoy her visit.  On that note we wish you a very Merry Christmas and we'll probably see y'all sometime in the new year.

Merry Christmas!!!

Oh...one more thing.  For those of you not on our Christmas card list, here is the "official" picture from us now that we're moved in and truly "farmers".  Enjoy!!!

Merry Christmas from the Bozmans!!!

We're Home!

Yes...we are home!  It feels good, but...it was a very exhausting week and weekend!

We started off the week with everyone finishing up their work on the house on Tuesday, including getting the gas tank hooked up.  The range worked, the dryer and fireplace did not.  The dryer needed a conversion kit for LP gas and the fireplace needed new batteries for the igniter.  Once those were installed (almost) everything worked fine.

The warm glow of the fireplace.

Wednesday, inspection day, arrived tying Neta and me in knots waiting to hear something...anything.  The inspector didn't make it out there until late in the day...and when he did...he FAILED us.  Luckily it was only a couple of minor items, so no need to spiral into depression.  One shower had the hot and cold switched and we needed two GFCI breakers on a couple of the rooms upstairs.  Tracy had the plumber and electrician fix their items the next day (Thursday) and the inspector signed off on our Certificate of Occupancy.  We were cleared to move in!  YAY!  Since this crazy dream began, this was the day we'd been waiting for.

To add more fun and adventure, we waited until that night to start packing.  That's not entirely true.  It's true we did start packing the night before our move, but it was mainly due to the sudden realization that the day was upon us and we wanted to be completely sure we'd pass inspection on the new house and not have to call the movers to postpone.  To Neta's credit, she had almost the entire house packed up in a couple of hours.

The calm before the storm

Friday - Moving Day!  The movers showed up at 9am and I pulled in with the U-Haul at about 9:10am.  To say the movers were efficient was an understatement.  We were pulling away from the rental house and on our way to the new house at 10:15am.  Yeah...those guys were good!

The movers unloaded the truck and the two full, large PODS that have been sitting in front of the house.  One POD had been there since January, the other since June.  Both were filled to capacity and organized like a perfect game of Tetris. Neta coordinated with the movers where all of the furniture and boxes went, while I grabbed lunch for everyone.  When I got back, she had them putting everything else on the carport because there needed to be room to move around in the house.

The dining room was merely a hallway between these boxes and our table.

The movers finished up and left and I coordinated with the cable/internet installers about where all the connections would go.  Once the that was straight and the installers left, it was time to start unpacking and setting up the essentials like beds, stuff to eat with, making sure the dogs were reasonably calm, etc.  By the end of the evening we were exhausted.  A long night of deep sleep would be just the elixir to get us ready for a long Saturday of unpacking.  If only.

Our new kitchen!  Sorry...it's behind those boxes.

A few months back, before we knew when we'd be moving, Neta signed us up, through her company, to attend the Savannah Bridge 5k Run/Walk.  It was something we'd wanted to do, just not on a day when we could be doing...you know...the "Hagan Farm 15K Unpacking and Carrying Boxes Run/Walk" (sponsored by "We'll Never Move Again").  Since her company was footing the bill we didn't want to be a no show, so we got up at 5:30am on Saturday to be in Savannah by 7am.

Uphill...because we weren't tired enough.

All in all, it was worth it as the weather was nice and the walk allowed us to view Savannah at a slower pace from up there rather than in a speeding car.

Looking into the sun with the Savannah River and port in the background.

With the walk over, we grabbed some groceries and a few items for the house (What?  All those boxes didn't contain "everything"?) before heading home.   As if that wasn't enough exercise for the day, we still faced having to clean out the rental house, and then go home and continue unpacking.  Easier said than done.  The clean out of the rental took us longer than we'd planned as we found stuff that we'd overlooked in the packing.  Life...

The entryway and office.

The laundry/mud/dog room.

The two pictures above are from today (Monday morning).  It's chaos as you can see, but less chaos than it was Friday evening.  There's still so much to do.  We've had a couple of "Oh no" moments.  Our dryer stopped spinning and heating in the middle of the first load on Sunday morning, though it still counts down and says it's drying.  We hope to have it fixed soon.  Also, the electrician put our gas range on the same circuit as a GFCI plug, so whenever the convection fan kicks on, it trips the circuit.  Tracy is having him come out and fix that as soon as possible.  A few growing pains but nothing we can't weather.

It's going to be a busy time leading up to Christmas.  I think Neta and I are just going to wrap up a bunch of moving boxes, hand them to family and friends and hope they'll unpack them for us...while we collapse until New Years.

So Close...

We're coming down to those last few steps to completion.  You know...the waiting and that "Oh Crap!" moment when something comes up that was overlooked while planning a thousand other things.  Nothing that can't be overcome, but you still get sinking feeling that your dreams might never be the same.

Originally Tracy told us that we'd be in the house by the middle of September.  Not picking on him, but that was VERY optimistic.  A tropical storm and a hurricane later, Neta said she'd be happy to be in by Halloween.  Hello and goodbye to that!  Maybe by my birthday in November.  Nope!  Thanksgiving?  Maybe...  Well...that's come and gone too, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it's bright...very bright!

First a few things that were done recently.  How about a new (refinished) bathtub?  Don't know if you remember the old one, but this will refresh your memory.

Definitely Before

She sure cleans up nice!

For the guest bathroom, Neta refinished an old chest from the original house, leaving the mirror in its original state and hanging it on the wall.

Neta breathed new life into an old piece.

We had a farmhouse (of course) sink installed in the kitchen.

This is as much of a reveal of the kitchen as you're going to get for now.

Now then...all those plumbing fixtures won't do us much good without water.   Even though the well had been installed about 10 years ago, Tracy wanted to run new plumbing and electrical.  We were fine with that.

So far, so good.

The plumbers were about to start trenching and asked where the tie-in was for the water main into the house.  I wasn't sure, so I asked Tracy.  He and I walked around for a bit before stopping next to the little concrete porch we added off the kitchen.  He turned and gave me a funny look and just shook his head.

A while back, after the main slab was poured, framing was completed and the house was "dried in", we'd asked Tracy to add on a concrete pad outside of the kitchen as an add on to our carport/porch area.  Guess where the water main was?  Oops!

It's about 4 feet in, directly under the spigot at the top of the picture.

Luckily it was deep enough under the pad that the concrete wasn't blocking the pipe.  The poor plumber had to tunnel about 4 feet in to find it and tie in.  But at least we now we have running water!!!  He did fill the hole back in, by the way.

Only one major step left...the propane tank being delivered and hooked up.  The rest are just minor electrical fixtures, some moulding around the kitchen island and the trim carpenter installing some items, including the porch swing.

This is the latest item he installed for us.

Our range hood and backsplash (same bricks as we used on the fireplace).

The painters came back and did touch ups everywhere and put the final coating on the stairs.

They're almost too pretty to step on.

This weekend we moved in the remaining appliances including the refrigerator.  The fridge was nearly an all day project as we had to remove all of the doors to get it into the house, then reassemble it.

With the propane coming either Monday or Wednesday, Tracy told us yesterday that he would get the final inspection for the Certificate of Occupancy as soon as the gas is hooked up.  When asked if we could schedule movers for this coming Friday (Dec 2), he gave us the go ahead to do it.  WOO HOO!!!

Hey everybody...we're moving!  I hope my next blog entry isn't titled "Not So Fast!"

Coming into the Home Stretch

Now that our 15 minutes of "bear" fame and being front-page news has faded away, it's time to get back to the real work at hand and update everyone on the house progress.  I'll warn you now...this isn't going to show everything.  We've got to hold a few things back for the "Big Reveal" at the end.  So this will just be a taste.  And sorry for the terrible colors in the pictures.  It was evening when I took most of these.

When we last left off we had new cabinetry.  The only way to top that is with...new countertops!

Lights!  Cabinets!  Countertops!

It's hard to show in a picture, but we chose white quartz countertops with a hint of green (and sparkles) in them.  Neta and I loved how the stone looked in the showroom when we picked it out.  Seeing it installed against the cabinets - in person - really brings out the highlights in the quartz.  Neta's eye for design and color is even better than she imagined.

There are other countertops to show, but that's for another blog entry.  Around the corner from the kitchen is our walk-in pantry.  It's empty at the moment, but we can show you the doors.

Color balance could use some correction.

Here's a better look at our floors.

A dark hickory (engineered hardwood - works better on concrete slabs)

The fireplace.

We'll show the whole thing, mantel and all, in a future blog post.

And the master bathroom...

New tile (vinyl) floor, ceiling fan and a corner of the quartz (marble look) countertop

The upstairs got carpet.

The smaller of the two upstairs bedrooms.

Finally, here is the front porch with new lights and the "haint blue" ceiling.

We're ready to sit on the glider and sip our lemonade...or sangria.

As you can see, we've had a lot of new stuff going on.  We're just a few weeks away from moving in.  According to our contractor, Tracy, he's shooting for getting our Certificate of Occupancy just before Thanksgiving, which doesn't leave us enough time to put on a holiday spread.  Looks like we'll be enjoying a Turkey sub from Subway and a Pumpkin Pie Latte from Dunkin Donuts.  First world problems.

Once the plumbing fixtures are installed and the few remaining electrical items are taken care of, it'll come down to touch-up painting which can be done after we move in.

One final item... While the workers have been busy getting the house ready, I've been cutting lots and lots of pecan wood from all the downed trees and limbs from the hurricane.  This is the fruit of my chain-sawing labor...all the wood that Neta and I stacked.

Who needs some pecan wood for their BBQ smoker?

Coming up... New plumbing fixtures, appliances and much, much more!!!  Stay tuned!!!