Blizzard Scenes

After a lovely Christmas in Townsend and Boxing Day in Southboro, we had a tremendous storm throughout the northeast for the past 24 hours.  

Ipswich got at least 18 inches and incredible gusts -- topping out around 40 mph on Cape Ann.  I'm still getting used to Ipswich's winter roads... like Vermont and out west, our chosen town lets the snow hard pack on the roads.  Ryan smartly guessed that it might have something to do with the river and not spreading ice melt; he also thinks it's "quaint."  I think it's terrifying.  (No picture as I was white-knuckled in the passenger seat.  Gosh, I rock at shotgun.)

Being along 1A, you can imagine plows had kicked up quite a pile of snow across our empty drive.  Took us a while, but we dug out.

Tela enjoyed a romp and then waited patiently while we shoveled.  

Season of Giving

Ryan and I both feel so lucky this holiday season to have our very own house in a great town that we love so much, but I must admit the kitchen renovation has been a bit of a slog as of late and it’s been a bummer not being able to have a tree up this first year in our house. After seeing a post on Facebook about Kiva and taking a look at the website, I was reminded what it really is all about, and how truly lucky Ryan and I are.

I’ve heard about Kiva for awhile and always meant to check it out, but never got around to it. I encourage all you readers out there to take a look! Kiva’s mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva partners with microfinance institutions around the world, who administer loans to entrepreneurs and individuals. The borrower ultimately repays the loan, which then the lender has the option to re-lend, donate, or be reimbursed for. Here’s a graphic from the Kiva website. Since I’m singing their praises, hopefully their web folk won’t mind me “borrowing” it.

Meet Humberto from El Salvador.

Ryan and I made a very modest donation to Kiva towards the cost of raw materials necessary to renovate Humberto’s home. (We are also familiar with the cash-flow challenges of home renovation.) He jumped out because his goal is to improve his family’s living conditions and to create a home that is “more spacious, orderly, and beautiful,” something we’re trying to do, too.

Anyway, reading Humberto’s profile and other profiles on Kiva put things into perspective for me quite a lot. Here I am, sad about not having a Christmas tree and worrying about if we will be able to afford new kitchen countertops (current answer is no), while there are so many people out there struggling daily, doing their very best to improve their family’s lives, and do good work.

PS - If you want to support Humberto, you can find his Kiva profile here.

Welcome Yule!

With snow in the weekend weather forecast, we scurried around Saturday morning to do a final run of construction debris and yard waste before it was all covered by snow and likely not addressed until the spring thaw.  I nabbed some (what I thought was) evergreen boughs from the top of the yard waste pile (at the town dump) and decorated our window boxes.  Ryan accused me of trash picking and said he was going to tell everyone, so I’m beating him to the punch.  Judge me if you must, the window boxes look fab.  (Turns out the boughs aren’t evergreens.  So, they’ll probably soon go brown and I’ll have to return “borrowed” boughs back to the town dump.  Oh well.)

Mom and Dad arrived at the house around noon, with overnight bags in tow.  Using Ipswich and the handy commuter rail as our jumping off point, we ventured into Boston for an afternoon production of the Revels and then for dinner in the North End, my old ‘hood.  Here’s Tela giving us her best Poor Me face as we left for our Boston Yuletide Adventure.  Girl knows how to work it.

It was great taking the commuter rail in.  I’m a huge fan. I frequently use the train for commuting between Ipswich and Salem, and even bring Tela.  Since it’s an easy walk on both ends, we’ve so far avoided buying a second car and hope keep it up as long as we can.  Salem also got Zip Car recently, which is a big help.  And so ends my public transportation plug of the day. 

Revels and dinner were both fantastic.  We ate at Taranta on Hanover Street; they do Southern Italian – Peruvian fusion.  Sounds weird, tastes delicious. 

After our overnight guests departed on Sunday (with granddog in tow), we addressed some minor drainage issues on the kitchen roof in preparation for snow.  I kept an eye on Ryan’s work through the bedroom window.  Makes me nervous when he’s up on the roof, but someone’s gotta do it.

Tela went home with Mom and Dad because we were headed to the 8:30 Pats game.  Wonderful time had by all!  Our layers upon layers of winter gear (and a propane-heated tailgate complete with a flat screen) kept us cozy and though they had us guessing until the end, Pats pulled out a win.

After collecting Tela from Townsend, we enjoyed a Monday off and the first snow of the season.  Happy Winter Solstice – the days start getting longer after this!

Nook Report Card

I’m giving myself a solid B+, and in parts maybe even an A-, on the nook walls. That said, I’m not sure I’m ready to have a B+ effort on our kitchen walls and the beautiful vaulted ceiling we’ve worked so hard to expose.  I’m glad I now know how to finish drywall, but I think at least for the rest of the first floor, we’ll be calling in the professionals.  

Here's an overall shot of post-round three sanding:

Because it is white-on-white, it’s hard to get a good shot of the walls.  For the most part, this is what all the large walls looked like after the third sanding:

But the corners get sloppy:

 

Oh, this is what Ryan and Tela did over the weekend while I worked on the nook (guitar is obviously a study break – he's been working very, very hard):

Ryan has his final studio presentation tomorrow night and then I know is really looking forward to some downtime between semesters.

On Ryan’s suggestion, I sanded the walls once more before priming them, this time using a 120-grit sand paper.  My tools of the trade:

I also did a couple very small patches of joint compound to clean up a corner and one area where the corner tape was showing.

After sanding the patch jobs, tonight I primed all surfaces.  Forgive me all these pictures that look the same.  White-on-white is tough.  But I'm proud, so here we go:

As for my learn-as-you-go moments of this portion of the project:

#1:  I used the primer I bought way back when over the summer when I thought this would be a 3 month reno job.  Because we have some colorful walls (a purple to make Barney jealous and the red studio), I bought a 2-gallon bucket of latex primer Killz brand.  I think, however, the roller I used was intended for water-based paint because it seems to have left a slight texture on my previously butter-smooth, sanded to perfection walls. 

#2:  The paint seems to make those darn bubbles under the joint tape blossom – even ones that under layers of sanded compound had seemingly disappeared.  There really is only two cases of it, and one will be eventually obscured by the seat cushion, but gosh that is annoying!

Honestly, I’m not losing sleep over it.  It seems silly, but this little nook right now is giving me so much joy.  Lately, the reno has been wearing on me, I’m officially over not having a kitchen, and with Ryan understandably tied up with school, progress on the house has been limping along for the last month.  But right now, I don’t care.  We have [Almost] Finished Walls [in one small corner of the house].  And they don’t look that bad.

Next up, I’ll be painting the ceiling eggshell white and asking Ryan to help hook up a Just Perfect light fixture that I purchased in July (again, wishful thinking...).  Not only does this fab light coordinate with a great walnut brown/black fan for the kitchen, it’s important we get it installed before painting the walls, because after that, we will be testing greys for the nook and the front room.  Artificial and natural light both make a huge impact on how paint looks up on walls.  Never trust a paint chip.  And, after we select a grey and paint the nook, it will be time to work on the Cape Ann accent wall.  I have a plan to borrow a projector I saw Education staff at the museum using to make the process a little easier. Also on the nook docket: finding the right fabric for, and upholstering the bench, and of course flooring installation throughout the first floor.  Here I go, getting ahead of myself again…

I'm Dreaming of a Front Room... *

* to be sung to the tune of "White Christmas"