American West Heritage Center

Halloween is our favorite time of year!  This year, thanks to Jonathan's hefty "donation" to his realtor association, we were able to go to American West Heritage Center for free.  It was so FUN.

I don't know how Halloween is done anywhere else.  Where we live, we don't just have corn mazes...we have theme parks.  There are two Halloween-themed destinations right across the highway from each other near where we live. 

The AWHC is a huge park that is dedicated to showing what life was like "back in the day."  Being fanatics of oldness, we were in heaven.  They have live animals cruising around (with live smells to sweeten the deal), replicated pioneer buildings, and plenty of old farm equipment.  They also do Baby Animal Days in the spring, which is super popular.

We started with the train ride, then the pony ride.  After that it was on to the hay mazes, spider net crawly thingy, and the hay jump.  While there, my daughter saw a kid throw a handful of straw in the air and she got so excited.  She looked at me like "We're allowed to do that?"  You know that moment when your otherwise normal child suddenly switches over in CRAZY kid mode?  That was it.  She started kicking up straw and throwing it by the armful.  I immediately saw where this was leading and I got her out of there.  That, and there were kids jumping off the spider net from above and I just knew she was going to get hit. Even with my fast acting I still spent the next few minutes pulling straw out of her hair.  Fun? Yeah.

We threw a tomahawk and launched some gourds.  Then we moved on to Kyla's favorite part: the giant slide.  The AWHC folks put down some huge plastic banners on a steep hill to create a slide.  It's a little bumpy in places, but a lot of fun.  My daughter, who is normally very cautious and picky about the slides she goes down, took off down this on her belly without any hesitation.  You have to take off your shoes though, which made hiking back to the top a little tricky.  It was worth it.

Overall, our experience was fantastic.  We would definitely go back again!

The Straw Maze

Our Closet...

Redoing the closet in our bedroom is by far my favorite project to date.  I still stop to admire the end result and drool over the extra space!

For starters, this is not my closet...but it all began with this photo on Pinterest.  Of course.  I found what became and still is my favorite blog, Simple Organized Living.  The lady that runs this site had posted some pictures of her closet remodel that were so inspiring!

http://www.simpleorganizedliving.com/2011/08/09/how-we-organize-our-master-closet/

Everything was so organized!  Each item had the perfect amount of space required.I began to feel that my own closet had more potential and it was time to make it happen.

Do you see what I mean?  Tons of wasted space. After some discussion with the guy who would actually be doing the work, (always my husband, for future reference) we drew up some plans and got started. 

Being the paupers that we are, we salvaged what wood we could find in the shed and dug up a can or two of old paint. 

 

In the process...

 We got exactly what we wanted in the end.  Two short hang rods (I call the bottom one!), a long hang to share, plenty of shoe racks, an AMAZING, deep, tall shelf, and a tucked-away shelf that stretches across the top. All painted WHITE.

100,000 times better!

 The doors were the main expense.  We had to tap into our fiercely guarded Home Budget to pay for those.  So worth it though!

My grandma made this rug for me.  I love having old things from people I love!

The doorknobs were fun.  Jonathan's boss had a box full of assorted doorknobs and accessories he offered us.  We spent a few hours debating and decided on these.  Not like anything I've seen on Pinterest, but I love them.

Now all we need is a microwave and a soda fountain installed somewhere in there...

What Our House Once Was

Not a huge fan of the orange...or the snow.

Muuuuuch better.

 We never knew what our house looked like before we bought it.  All we knew was what we got on move in day.  Thanks to my husband's realtorness we have gotten our hands on some photos from the good ol' days.  All I can say is THANK YOU to the people who owned the house before us.  I am continually amazed at how much they did to improve this place before we came along.

The fridge sticking out like that would drive me mad.  I don't know what is in the ceiling above the stove--it's filled in now.

Oh my... this is our bathroom.  I think the tub is still the same. Is that green carpet?

What the trees?

Our bedroom before...

...and after

And we're only going to improve from now on...we hope.

The incident of '10

Our pot and my daughter's on the fireplace

My husband got it in his head two years ago that we needed to clean out the chimney to our wood-burning fireplace.  Being the ever-supportive wife that I am, I offered to help...until it got messy... then I was out.  I did help put the pipes back together, a decision that will live in infamy in our home.

The chimney comes apart into several smaller pieces for easy take-apart and put-back-together.  After my husband did all of the dirty work of cleaning the pipes, we attempted to put the chimney back up.  Unfortunately, they wouldn't stay!  In one last effort to get them to stick, Jonathan pushed hard on the side of one pipe.  The whole thing fell apart and came crashing down.  One of them happened to land on my exposed foot (note to self: flip-flops always =injury) and sliced it open.

I screamed, of course.  Jonathan's first instinct was to touch my wound; I quickly and not-so-nicely reminded him that he had fireplace soot all over his hands.  We rushed to Instacare to get stitched up.  We had a bet going of how many stitches I would need.  The grand total was five--I lost.  My punishment: I had to play "SORRY," and boy, was I.  Worst...game...ever.

Now, when I hear Jonathan saying he might want to clean the chimney again, I stay out of the way.

The Leishman Family

Back row left to right: Elizabeth, Andrew, David, James, Robert A.  Middle: John, Thomas, Elizabeth (mother), Thomas (father), Ellen  Front row: Nettie, Daniel, Marvilla, Jennia

  We know very little about this amazing family, the Leishmans.  Wellsville is full of Leishmans, many of whom are direct descendants.  We will always be seeking more information about them.  We had the privilege of meeting their nephew, Lamont Allan.  He happened to have this picture hanging up in his house.  After a little bit of not-so-professional repair work I managed to get it digital and looking good.

If any of you Wellsvillains have any information about this family, we would love to have it!

You know you're in Wellsville when...

I'm afraid Jonathan's next shave is going to have to wait until "as soon as possible."

Our thoughts and prayers are with our beloved "Scissor Wizard." 

Digging a Well...Not By Choice

No matter how amazing a house is, there are always ways to improve it.  Sigh........  My husband and I love working on projects together (by this I mean that we find something to do so I can stand by, watching, and complaining that it's taking too long.)  When we were first married, renting a basement apartment, our projects were limited to rearranging the furniture every Friday and re-stacking the boxes in our Harry Potter Closet under the stairs.  Definitely nothing that would merit a blog post.

When we bought our house, we were overwhelmed by the amount of "stuff" we suddenly needed to do.  I remember making a huge list of projects, estimating their costs, and prioritizing them.  I eventually threw the list away because, well, we didn't have any money.  No funds=no projects. Keep in mind our ridiculous lack of money as you read on.  (We're both teachers...no further explanation needed, I'm sure...)

This project was not fun.  The summer we moved into our perfect home, we noticed a not-so-perfect problem with our lawn.  The grass around the hydrant (our only exterior source of water) was flooding.  We were both unsure what to do about it so we just ignored it for a few weeks.  As is often the case with home improvement projects, we were eventually forced to face the problem.  Our water bill came back so high we knew there had to be some kind of nasty leak going on.  Neither of us had any experience with lawn hydrants, so Jonathan just started digging.

This photo doesn't do justice to how deep this hole really was.

When Jonathan finally got to the bottom where the pipe curved toward the road, he found this.  It turns out the pipe had cracked and was leaking water like crazy.

It took two shovels, a car axle, a wheelbarrow, a post hole digger, and a sanity-saving Shopvac to accomplish the task.  After replacing the pipe Jonathan had to put all the dirt back.  Surprisingly, almost as difficult as digging it our in the first place.  Not that I would know, of course!

I didn't know it at the time, but the home improvement journey was just beginning...

Stay tuned.

For the Love of Flooring

It's an age-old dilemma.  Even the cave-folk of yestercentury struggled with it, I'm sure.  Go with the lush shag carpet or the timeless hardwood flooring?

Before we begin, let's consult an expert.  When I first met my husband he was working as a carpet cleaner.  When he quit, as an inexpensive form of therapy, he wrote this:

Lessons I Learned as a Carpet Cleaner:

• Your dog is more destructive to your house than you will admit.

• Your cat is worse.

• Yes, the offered protector (Scotchguard, etc.) helps- if you clean your carpet at least once a year. 

• Please vacuum before your carpet cleaner shows up.

• A good carpet cleaner can remove food-based red dye, wax, blood, tar, and most rust.  There is nothing he can do about wood stain, bleach, ink, or burns.

• 90% of renters expect their full security deposit to be refunded.

• 30% deserve it.

• 70% will intentionally deceive their landlord to get it.

• Shag carpet with a deep pile is nearly impossible to keep clean, and will wear out faster than others.

• The deeper the pile of the carpet, the more likely it is that I will find coins and goldfish crackers in your carpet.

• The dirtiest, most worn out carpet in your living room is where you put your feet in front of your couch or easy chair.

• Re-arrange your furniture frequently.

•   If you don’t want me to clean a room, that’s fine.  Just don’t say, “No one ever goes in there.”  Yes they do.
•  Carpet does not belong in high traffic areas (halls and entryways.)
•  Kitchens and bathrooms should have carpet....NEVER.  Do you really want what goes on in these two rooms to stick around under your feet forever? 
• If you want me to clean human waste, please just tell me it’s from your pet.

Our floor is one of the few things about our house that is still original.  It's a light-colored pine that tints orange in some lighting.  It gets scratched and dented very easily, as was shown in this post.  It was covered by carpet for decades, probably during the carpet epidemic of the 1950's.  Wall-to-wall carpet throughout, really people?

This is a photo of a different old house that Jonathan visited.  This is what we imagine our floor looked like at one time.  When we moved in, the carpets had already been taken out and the original floor refinished (thank goodness.)  It was one of the first things we loved about the house.

As with many old houses the floor has a lot of curves.  The kitchen cabinets were actually cut to fit the curve of the floor!  When my daughter rolls a ball across the kitchen it goes all different directions before it settles in the same spot every time. 

As our addition gets closer, our anxiety over the flooring is increasing.  We don't know what to do.

Hardwood is beautiful and is all the rage in modern housing.  It is so much easier to keep clean than carpet!  I clean my floors every other day and am always amazed at how much disgusting filth accumulates in two days' time.  I can't imagine how gross it would be if I had carpet everywhere and this nastiness were hidden in the fibers.

Two days worth of floor mess... and do I really lose that much hair?

The downside, however, is not being able to get down and play with our kids on a wooden floor.  Believe me, we tried.  For the first year after we moved in we had nothing but hardwood.  It was so uncomfortable.  We finally broke down and purchased an area rug on clearance at the good ol' Home Depot.  We suddenly felt like we had a living room!  When my daughter walked in for the first time she wouldn't stop sitting on it and rubbing it with her hands.

Before

After

We've concluded that the recipe for a perfect floor is to use both.  We'll put hardwood in our high-traffic or messy rooms such as entryways, hallways, kitchens, and bathrooms.  We are hoping to find wood that matches the original floor, but a little more durable.

Bedrooms will be carpet, but we're considering hardwood with a padded carpet rug in the middle.  Then when the carpet wears out we can just throw it away and buy a newer, more updated style of rug without having to call the install guys.  We love install guys, don't get me wrong.  But every time we call them all we hear is "old house...lead poisoning...death and destruction...pay us more money..."  Thank goodness I have a husband who doesn't mind lead poisoning and can install most things.

And when we're buying padding for carpet, we won't skimp.  It means the difference between walking on pure happiness or torturous misery.  Our feet will thank us.

No matter what type of flooring we put in, we know it will get messy.  Our main goal is to get the mess back out again.  And if we do decide to hire professional carpet cleaners we'll be sure to vacuum before they come.

Pest Control

I've always hated bugs and snakes.  HATED.  My mom was the same way, so naturally I blame her for my fears.  Growing up, I have so many horror stories that only fueled the fire.  A wasp flying up my shirt and getting trapped, spiders in the basement showing up out of nowhere, and ants on the living room carpet. 

I used to check out bug books from the library and pour over every detail so I knew what I was up against.  And of course, one hears such facts as to make one's skin crawl.  For example, did you know there are easily over 10,000 spiders per acre in the US?  That humans swallow more than a cup of spiders each year?  Killer bees are migrating toward us at this very moment?  Recalling them now, I realize that most of these are exaggerations or flat-out lies (I blame my brother for these ones...)  True or not, they still contributed to my negative feelings about pests. 

As an adult, you would expect a little bit of maturity to develop.  A fear of practically harmless creatures is irrational, right?  I don't care.  If it crawls, creeps, stings, or slithers, I don't want to have anything to do with it!  The day I learned that you could actually pay someone to spray for bugs I began to hope for a brighter future.  I vowed to never live with a bug problem again.

Then we bought our lovely little cottage with the pond view.  In a rural town.  Across the street from a picturesque field. 

Seriously, what was I thinking?! 

This "little" guy made himself at home in our backyard.  I made my husband torch him.

I was getting ready for church one morning while my daughter played on the floor.  I turned to check on her only to find a hairy brown monstrosity crawling across her face.  I think I may have scared her just a little bit with my screaming...I did my best to get it off her without hitting her.

I was playing outside with my kids when my daughter kindly informed me I had a spider on my shoulder. 
 
I was putting on my shoes by the back door when a snake slithered out of the wall and across the room. 

And that's just the beginning.  I began to feel like I couldn't handle it!  Money has been tight this summer so we went without spraying for bugs until the end of July.  It was awful!  When we finally broke down and sprayed it was like a spider exodus.  They came out of nooks in the house I didn't even know we had. 

The worst was when I was headed outside and there was a black widow on the glass door.  I killed it immediately, of course!  The problem now is that no one believes me.  I would have taken a picture, if I wasn't sure it was going to GET me.  Although I do have the smudge from its nasty body to prove it!

Doesn't that look like a black widow's guts?  That's what I thought.

Today I nearly died.  I was picking blackberries with my daughter and feeling like a good little mommy.  Quality time, right?  I struggle with the blackberry bushes because they're frequented by the aforementioned critters.  Wasps, dragonflies, bees, spiders, box elder bugs, cats (?)... I was congratulating myself on being brave and picking berries when I happened to look down.  That's right.  I saw this:

That's its head AND body.  Let me know when you see it.

Ummmm...yeah.  I started screaming.  I yelled for my fearless husband to get outside, fast.  I pulled my daughter back from the berries and kept an eye on the offensive beast.  If there's one thing I've learned about scary things, it's that you never take your eyes off them.  If they get away, you won't sleep again...ever.  I can't handle wondering where they went.

My husband donned some gloves (at my insistence) and took the snake over to the duck pond. 

Tell me you wouldn't put your house up for sale after that.  After we bought the house we kept hearing that it was infamous for having a lot of snakes.  We are hoping that our cats help us out with that.  C'mon kitties. 

With all of these miserable stories in only two years of living here, I shudder to think what we have coming.  Needless to say, we'll be spraying for bugs again soon.

Addition Blueprints

East side

West side

North side

The blueprints are done!  This is what our house will look like when we're finished. We couldn't be more thrilled with the plans! 

We had Brent Windley as our architect.  He was amazing.  Jonathan was saying he used to be a professor of architecture at Utah State University but has since retired.  Now he just does extra jobs on the side.  We LOVED working with him.  He surprised us by how fast he got everything done!  He also had a great sense of humor, which really helped when he had to listen to our crazy ideas of what we wanted.

We began our planning with a few goals in mind:

1. We didn't want the addition to stand out from the rest of the house.  When we first started studying additions to old houses we noticed that many of the new sections didn't match the original house.  We could identify the exact decade the addition was, well, added.  While it would be obvious that our addition wasn't original, we wanted to keep the house as period-looking as possible.  Because of this, vinyl siding is out. =(  This also meant that we couldn't build two stories, we had to stick to a story and a half.
2. We want more kids, therefore, we need more bedrooms.  We needed to get as many rooms and bathrooms as we could without going over budget.  
3. We needed STORAGE. Before Walmart was invented, people didn't accumulate stuff. Decorations, clothing, childhood toys, scrapbooks, DVDs, games, etc.  It all begins to take up space.  The pioneers who built our house didn't take our hoarding ways into consideration.  We need a lot of closets and attic space.

With these understandings clarified, we began to plan.  As I said before, our architect was very patient.  He took time to explain why we couldn't have a lot of the things we wanted because structurally, they simply wouldn't work.

After our first meeting with Brent, I broke down and cried to my husband.  The plans we saw were so different from what we wanted!  I felt like we had space in all the wrong places and not enough light and air where we wanted it.  Thank goodness for Plan B.  It was so much better!

It is time to get the metaphorical ball rolling!

Our big purchase

  My husband is a connoisseur of KSL.com.  For all of you out-of-staters, it's Utah's Craigslist.  While it's true that we have found some amazing deals on this website, it's almost annoying how much time he spends searching the classifieds.  Soon after we moved into our fabulous new home he found something while surfing that got us both digging for change out of our pockets: a piano.

  I've played on and off (I wasn't much for doing anything boring like practicing) since second grade.  I enjoy playing now, and have wanted my own piano for a long time.  Sadly, pianos are incredibly expensive!  Just about anything that can be purchased for the same price as a small car is ridiculous.
  The piano we found was very old. What attracted us to it was the price: $50. It belonged to a family that was moving out of a rental one hour away from us and didn't have room for it anymore.  We called and told them we wanted it and were on our way.  As fast as we could, we hooked the trailer up to the truck and took off.  There was a decent drive ahead of us with no guarantee it would still be there when we arrived.
  Just as we feared, we got a call when we were twenty minutes away.  Several people had called with better offers.  My husband was very firm with the sellers and told them we were almost there, we had the cash ready and we WANTED it.  They were hesitant, but agreed to still let us have it for $50 if we hurried.
  A few hours later we were on our way home with our new piano in tow!  I was so excited I could hardly wait to play it.  I kept turning around to make sure it was still there.  This may seem silly, but when we got home and unloaded it we realized that somewhere along the way it hadn't been tied down correctly.  If it hadn't been so heavy it could have fallen out!  Can you imagine a piano smashing to pieces on the freeway?  We're convinced it was a miracle that it didn't.
  Now came the difficult part: getting it into the house.  It had wheels, but they were so old they didn't turn.  My father-in-law came over to help us but the three of us still struggled to make it move.  Once inside, we were horrified to find that the piano was so heavy, it was leaving deep tread marks in the floor.  We quickly put towels underneath it to fix the problem.

  It has to live in the kitchen because extreme temperatures are no bueno for pianos.  Having it in the same room as our fireplace wouldn't work.  Doesn't everyone want a piano in their kitchen?
  Once it was in place, I was finally able to play it.  It sounded...okay.  It was out of tune and the sustaining pedal didn't work.  It couldn't be pushed down at all!  Few things are more annoying than playing the piano pedal-less.
  After I got my fill of playing it, my next task was to find out how old it was.  I searched the piano inside and out for clues and this is what I found:

I'm pretty sure this is the serial number.

   I checked www.esteypiano.com.  If this is accurate, it would date the piano between 1875 and 1880.  Thaaaaat doesn't seem right...that seems too old for the condition it's in, so I'm not sure.  After spending hours fruitlessly researching Hallet & Davis to find a definite year I gave up.  For some reason I'm guessing 1921.  I have no evidence to back it up, however, so don't trust me.  Either way, do you think it's still under warranty?
  Next was to get the pedal to work again.  It seemed jammed so I again spent hours trying to fix it with my bare hands and a flashlight.  It wasn't easy!  I can only tolerate so much of reaching into a dark dusty piano to troubleshoot.  Maybe I'm crazy, but there's something about dark spaces that makes me want to say "walk away, Lori, walk away..."
  Finally I did what I should have done in the first place: went crying to Jonathan.  He took one look at it, knocked a small chunk of wood out of the inside (beneath the inside part of the pedal) and it worked.  I hate these situations.  I'm so relieved that the pedal is working but embarrassed that it was so easy.  Ah well.  And he wonders why I ask him to do everything for me.
  At last the piano was playable.  I have since taught piano lessons and enjoyed countless hours of playing.  Alas, with young kids I don't get a lot of time to play.  Whenever I get a chance to sneak away to play for a minute I always get caught.  The problem with a piano is that by playing it you give away your position and turn into a sitting duck to a little girl begging "please come play with me!"