The old house

I feel like I need to show the old house.  It has been a part of out life for 44 years.  We raise all our children in this house.  Had 10 foster children and 10 foreign exchange students at different times.  We loved this house.  The only reason we moved is the stairs.

We had done many things over the years to it.  In recent years, we had changed to gas, re-piped the water, decommissioned the oil tank, put on a new roof and updated the kitchen.  Things that would have made it perfect for aging in place.  But the laundry was in the basement and one of my knees will likely need to be replaced.

After we moved out week looked at how old it looked.  We had a great kitchen but the whole house needed painted.  Plus the basement stairs had begun to list to one side.  I guess when I am a hundred and 5 I might list to one side also.  Anyway, the work began to spruce it up.

Then the rains came.  This year we had record rainfall.  And that is saying a lot for Oregon.  After the snow and ice melted and the rains continued we had a leak in the basement.  That added to the expense and the work.  We had to attempt to remediate the influx of water.  We think we were successful.  Anyway after the very expensive work was done we did not get anymore water during February and March, which had heavy rain.  Or April or May when it continued to rain.

The stairs got fixed and made to code.  All the electrical was checked and plugs and switches all changed out.  The inside was painted and we waited for the rain to stop to paint the outside.

My husband and I totally disagreed about what should be done with the front of the house.   I won some and lost some battles.   Here is what it looked like after we finished painting the front.

I felt we needed bigger plants he refused.  Ok they have grown a bit since this was taken but I still think we needed taller.  Of course the fact that we had a huge rhoddy on one side before influenced how I thought it should look. 

Front door, we painted the front porch.  I love how it looks.

The below picture was given to us by the young boy in the picture who is now in his seventies.  That rhodendron was small when he was a child.  It was over the roof this last year and the center stump was hollow and full of ants.  We know it had to go but I have to tell you the puny Azalea just did not cut it for me.  I wanted another rhodendron.   I have been looking for an old picture.  But they are all still packed and I could not find one on my phone.  Funny we took a picture of the kids every spring in front of that rhodendron.  But I know you can get an idea of it's size because most of my quilt pictures were taken on the front porch and you could see it next to them.

OK I found an old picture on Google street view.  This is from April of 2016.  Before we moved and started fixing up the outside.  Look at how big that Roddy was.  We had trimmed around the bottom for the walk way. 

We had updated our kitchen several years ago.  I miss it.

The color is all wrong in the picture.  Not sure what is up with that.  I need to go over with a real camera.

We did refinish all the wood floor both upstairs and down.

Two in the living room.  I am now finding that some of the pictures I took are not transferred from my phone I am going to have to take some more.

Dining Room

Entry Way From  the stairs looking toward the Fireplace.

This is getting kind of picture heavy so I will add more pictures of the other rooms in another post.

Starting over

I am finally beginning to pick up habits.  Some are not so good.  The move broke all my routines and habits and it has not been easy to establish new ones.  Part of that is the longer commute.  Part is that I kept to much stuff for the smaller house so I have been a bit over whelmed by what still needs to be put away.  Part is I am always looking for something and I can't remember if I got rid of it or moved it.  However, I am making progress on getting rid of more stuff.  I am also finding creative ways of storing items in a house with little storage.  I just keep telling myself I just need to make a little progress every week.

I have continued to unpack boxes and make hard decisions.  But sometimes you just have to ignore it all and sew.  Although instead of sewing I have been folding fabric and placing it on my racks.  Yes racks.  I have several racks of fabric.  I have discovered many pieces of fabric and projects I had totally forgotten about.  Some I am still loving and would love to start right now and some are a 'what was I thinking moment'.  My biggest frustration is I am still looking for my small rulers (2 1/2, 3 1/2, 4 1/2 and 5 1/2 squares) and my favorite scissors.  Also a USB stick.  I have unpacked the majority of the sewing room and have no idea where they are.  We also lost our BBQ set but they would have been in different boxes.  All things I would not have gotten rid of.

Earlier in the year I had joined a Block of the Month program in the hopes of kick starting my sewing.  Then I got busy trying to work on the old house to get it on the market and missed a couple of meetings.  Which meant I fell behind.  Last weekend I did work on a block.  It is funny I do like these blocks but I am finding the hardest part is picking the fabric.  I limited my choices to a couple of fat quarter bundles.  Because I have so many I need to use them.  But I will pick fabric and look at it awhile and then change something and have to look at it a while.

Anyway I am behind a couple of blocks but I refuse to let this become a UFO.  I already have too many of those, but lets not mention a number here.  I am just trying to make progress on something.

Here is last weeks block. 

I have made a few others also.

This one looks much darker here than it really is since this was taken late in the afternoon.  One of my other frustration is my lack of natural light in my new sewing area.  But the room I am using was never intended to be a sewing room.  On the blue prints it was called the Family Room.

On the list of things to do in the house is add more lighting.

I am hoping to get a chance this weekend to make another block.  I have the fabric selected for another one and if I get that one done I will only be three blocks behind.

I need to not look at it that way.  I have made progress getting the house in order I need to remember that - and keep looking for my scissors.