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It’s Been a While
It has been a while since my last post. From the end of July through the third week in August, we took a road-trip to Omaha, Nebraska; Denver, Colorado; Washington State; Phoenix, Arizona; and then home. When we arrived home, we discovered one of our neighbors would be moving closer to her family. The house she was living in here was one she was renting and going to be sold. I knew the people who owned the home, and they planned on selling it. They had moved out of state and asked if I would be willing to work with their realtor; I said “yes.” That led to also working…
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To Hot To Be Outside
It’s definitely too hot to be outside! I go out only when I need to water my new plants, which means every evening after eight PM. And it’s usually over 90 degrees then, but the sun is not beating on the plants. So the next indoor project was the living room. Of course, that means painting more walls and trim. And I could go into great detail about all we did, but I think I’ll show you so you can see the before and after. I will say one thing, though: we found the original shutters in the attic for a few of the windows and installed them in one…
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Let’s Go Outside!
I’m starting to feel like it’s our home now that I can go outside and get my hands in the dirt. I started by getting a “How To Garden In Texas” book and researching what plants and trees do well here. Texas is so big I needed to find my zone, zone 8b. I also paid attention to what I saw around town. Brown is the color of the fence and the trellises and the accent color on some of the cottage. With the trees providing quite a bit of shade, I think they need to be given a freshening up. With a new style and fresh white stain, they…
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Guest House AKA the Tree House
I didn’t go anywhere; It’s been a very busy season. When we took time off for the Christmas season, it took a bit to get back into the swing of things. We did take time to realize how much we had done and said, ” That was a lot!” We also had several guests, and seeing family and friends was wonderful. And because we knew we had guests coming to stay in the guesthouse, we concentrated on getting it in proper working order. Our great-granddaughter Ava called the guesthouse the tree house; I think trees surround it you can see from every window when you’re inside the guesthouse. Tony started…
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Cottage Christmas!
The best way is to show you! Merry Christmas, Everyone! We had a Neighborhood Christmas Party this past Saturday to meet our neighbors. They were all wonderful; I even got to hold a couple of babies!
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Tale of Three Doors
Mame,” which door is the front door”? It was a question a delivery service asked me who came to the house. When you stand on the corner of Windsor Avenue and 30th in front of our home, you see three identical red doors. I wanted to create a front door that was unmistakably the front door. Make the side door a door to the side entrance to the living room, and make the third door go away. The third door went into a room off the living room we use as our TV room and doubles as another guestroom. We are starting with the side door to the living room…
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Six Weeks
It took six weeks to fix the kitchen floor, but so worth it! The floor was kind of like the elephant in the room. The floor in the kitchen had been added to, but never removed, any of the existing floorings before adding to it; this was now a tripping hazard along with an eye sore. The question became, “what’s under the existing floor”? We could tell it was a floating floor. And we could see the many layers when we took the hall entrance to the kitchen out. There was the first layer of 1920s linoleum, then the 1950’s linoleum square tiles, on top of that was a sub-flooring,…
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Back Together Again
I started with the vanity. While visiting with my daughter Karlee, we went into town where she lives in New Braunfels, looking specifically for a table that would work for a vanity. We found one we thought would work; I didn’t have the measurements for the space, but I thought it looked perfect. When we got it home, it was too wide for the area, and I was a little upset with myself for not having measured the space. Then looking at it as it sat in the back room, I wondered if I turned it in the other direction, if it might just work. It worked perfectly. I started…
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Fixing The Old With The New
On to the main bathroom, but what we thought would be a quick update becomes an, oh no, wait. How do we fix this? The cabinet, as you can see, is up right next to the tub. Because of this, the cabinet has water damage and is too large for the space. Opposite the sink is two large cabinets that also take up to much space. But necessary for storage. The mirror has the issue of being so high on the wall that people that have vertical problems can maybe see their head only. And look at the towel hooks, don’t think I have to tell you the issue there.…
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Still Hot
It has been the second hottest Summer since they have recorded in history. The issue with this year is that Texas usually has a very high Spring rainy season, which didn’t happen this year. And our yard and flower beds have suffered greatly. We have been under water restrictions, and that hasn’t helped either. We have a sprinkler system, so we can program it to come on during the coolest part of the night. By coolest, I mean it may get down to the mid-80s during the July and August months. Lake Waco’s water level is way down, so far down that the water level pole isn’t even in the…