The title of this post might give you the idea that I'm losing steam and maybe even burning out on this whole restoring a hundred year old farm house thing. Not to worry, quite the opposite as a matter of fact. I titled this post because I do find it ironic that you can work hard all day and then when you
describe
what you've accomplished, it doesn't sound like as much as your body feels it's done that day. Maybe it's age catching up, I don't know. I do know these projects wear me out and I sleep like a baby at night. Except when the cats get hungry early in the morning, then sleep comes to a halt until they have food in their bowls. Their antics could fill up another blog and then some though, so we'll stick to the subject matter at hand.
As you can see, the bathroom is coming along nicely. I know it wasn't that long ago I mused about having it functional by July 1st, but that was before I got help with that delusional part of my personality. Now that has been straightened out, I'm proud to say the hall bathroom is fully functional and we achieved that status by August 15th. It's not anywhere near finished though and I'm not even going to stick my neck out and throw a target out there. I do know the upper three feet of wall above the subway tile and board-and-batten wainscoting will not be painted until November. I gave my word on this and those who know me well know that is about as rock solid as it gets.
The picture of water coming out of the shower head demonstrates just how functional this bathroom is now. It also shows the tank for the toilet mounted six feet up on the wall. The high tank toilet doesn't necessarily make the bathroom more functional but it takes the cool factor way up there. The shower also is pretty cool to use. It's quite a bit different than what most of us grew up with but every time I use it, I can't help but think about how it must have been over a hundred years ago. I'm sure a tub/shower set up like this was not found in every household back then, but those of us using it in this old farmhouse sure do appreciate it.
The last picture is of the French doors leading into what will someday be the kitchen. Before we had these installed, there was a
n
out swinging door leading right into a wall. Because of that, the kitchen was boxed in and dark. After some wall removal and the addition of these doors, the area for the future kitchen is open, naturally well lit and easily accessible from the back part of the property. That's pretty important for us because we plan to grow lots of vegetables in the garden and we don't want to have to navigate complex walkways and entryways to get these veggies to our kitchen.
All in all, we're making good progress on restoring this old place. It just feels like there should be a whole lot more completed for how sore and tired my body feels every weekend. Truth be told though, I wouldn't trade this for anything else.
OK, I guess the title of this post could be a little bit self serving. It would be very unlikely I would pose that question in the title unless the answer was solid "yes". I guess the real reason for showing these two pictures is to reinforce that we are making progress. Sometimes things seem to bog down and it can cause a person to wonder if they really are making progress. Between Lynda and I, the front yard has had a fulltime irrigator working on it since the middle of August. Last weekend, after I ran the lawnmower over things, I paused and noticed the front yard really was looking pretty nice. To shamelessly demonstrate just how much we have greened up the front yard, I dug up the picture from about a year ago when the place was for sale. At that time, it appeared nothing had been watered for a long time and it showed. We still don't have the place even close to where our vision is, but I think this shows we are making things better and we both have bruises, skinned knees and elbows, and sore bodies to prove it. As has been said before, we wouldn't trade it for anything else.
