Building Walls

We finally have walls going up!  We knew it would happen, we have just had to be patient.  We have so much going on around here, but the framing of the walls for the new laundry room is finished.  We need a doorway closed in on the left side of the room that goes to the old living room and we need a wall between the kitchen and the laundry room, this will extend the hallway through the house a bit more.  We will end up closing off the front door in the living room and that room is going to become a bedroom.  We will then have three bedrooms and the former master bedroom will become the dining room in the future.  Right now it is a catch all/storage room.  We plan to move some of the cabinets from the kitchen into the laundry room to give added storage space and then the new cabinets will arrive on the 20th of September.  We are so excited. 

I have lots of memories of the dining room, the room that is becoming the laundry room.  It isn't a really large room, but a good size for a small farm house.  My granny didn't have fancy furniture and I never knew them to buy any furniture for their home.  Most of the furniture in the house is either from one of their parents homes or other family members or from the store that my great grand parents owned on the highway.  There were several pieces of furniture from the store, like the old counter that sat in the family room giving my grandmother much needed cabinet space.  I remember it being covered with sheets when I was young as it didn't have a counter top.  There was also a cabinet full of drawers that I imagine held spools of thread in the store.  It was a beautiful piece of furniture and my grandmother kept pictures and other treasure inside.  I always rummaged through it whenever she would let me.  She also had a scale that was black, it looked cast iron and the needle would go all the way around as it showed the weight of the items on top.  She alway had bananas on there.  Some of my favorite treats at Granny's house were bananas from the scale and V8 juice.  Strange for a kid I know, but I have always liked vegetables.  She always had the small cans and I loved to peel the sticker off the top that covered the opening and stick it to the side of the can and guzzle the whole thing.  I think she must have liked sharing them with me, she always had them when I would come to visit.  I have fond memories of being here as a child.

The furniture in the dining room was from my granny's aunt Kate.  The dining room and living room suite were being left to my granny by her aunt, but she had to go to a nursing home.  The lady who had power of attorney for her aunt was selling all aunt Kate's belongings and granny learned that it was being auctioned off.  She went to the auction and bought every piece of that furniture.  There are several pieces and they were a tight fit in that little dining room, but my granny was always proud to serve us in there.  We usually ate breakfast when we were here (whatever time of day it was).  I don't even remember eating anything else.  She alway made fried eggs and would cook them in grease and splash the grease on the top of the eggs so that they turned white over the entire egg, but didn't harden the yolk.  My mom always made scrambled eggs, not my favorite, so eating eggs with granny and granddaddy was always special for me since I prefer my eggs fried.  She would also always make grits for us.  I found the little metal measuring cup she used when making them and it is staying in the cabinet.  It brings back lots of memories each time I use it.  The dining & living room furniture are going to live at my parents house now, but we have kept many of the antiques in the house or they will move back in after the renovations.

So onward we go with the renovations, we will soon have a new laundry room and a new kitchen.  We will stop renovations at that point for a little while, we need to save up some money for the next project which I hope will be moving the front door, putting up new walls and ceilings in the dining and living rooms and redoing the bathroom in the front of the house.

Stay tuned for more updates and photos as we progress with this project.

This is the dining room with the hallway to the bedrooms on the right side and the new framing to the right is for the former living room.

We are going to use the old swinging door from between the kitchen and dining room for the laundry room door.  It will go on this new wall you see being built.

The swinging door. 

John and my dad, discussing the job.  My dad is leaning on the door frame. 

It is hard to see, but this is the wall on the other side of the room, there is framing in place for the pantry.  The entire length of the wall will be filled with a closet!!!!

Until we meet again.