Welcoming Fall In My Entryway

I bought this (cheap but sturdy) cabinet at Goodwill this summer so we could have a place next to the front door for sitting to pull on boots.  The doors hide grown-up work boots and off-season throw blankets.

For the summer months, I piled my Peruvian bright striped pillows in front.

 We call this the "boot basket", although it holds the kids' tennis shoes too.

I thought the basket looked summery enough on its own, so we left it bare.

The trees are finally starting to change colors around us, and the Fall weather has started,

so we started bringing Fall inside too.

My only rule for decorating as the seasons change:

"Use only what we already have around the house" ...

aka "Spend no money."

I wrapped the boot basket with a textured piece of fabric

and secured it with two pieces of twill tape tied together. 

I moved the bright striped pillows to the back and covered them with another piece of fabric, then piled the brown pillows in front with a green wool one that I borrowed from my bedroom.  Isaak helped me choose some branches off a tree in our front yard, and we stuck them in a bottle that we rescued from the recycle bin.

And my pumpkin pillow?

Why, yes, it is just an old orange cashmere sweater stuffed with a pillow!  

I tied the sleeves together at the top and stuffed the ends inside, then wrapped a brown washcloth around the knot for a stem.  Then I borrowed a scrap of felted green cashmere from my daughters' craft supplies, tucked it in next to the knot, and called it a leaf.

Fall has officially arrived in my entryway!

Almost...But Not Quite...Done!

Not so very long ago (although it sure feels like it!), 

our house looked like this:

It was less "log house" and more of a "brown-house-with-bumpy-walls" kind of look.

Now, after a very busy, labor intensive summer,

it looks more like this:

A lot more of an "Oh look, a log house!" kind of look.

Although it looks done, it's not really, because I'm still spending insane amounts of time doing this:

masking and then sealing the checks in the logs.

But we're almost...just not quite...done!

And Then...

 While Mike sealed around the windows and doors,

and put up trim,

 I went around behind him masking and caulking all the trim,

 and then I stained and sealed it.

Tomorrow I will finish sealing the last of the logs and trim along the front of the house, 

and then I can concentrate on sealing more checks.

(Not to mention all the other big projects that are left on the list...sigh.)

***

Just for fun:

This is what you get when you give Macey a camera and ask her to try to get a picture of the paintbrush in action.

Not exactly what I had in mind, but artistic, nonetheless!

The Last Week

After the borate solution dried, we washed the logs to prep them for staining,

Mike got the staining done on three sides of the house

(he's still working on the front because we had to order more stain),

the log ends were sealed,

we applied sealer over the stain,

I filled in and sealed all of the butt joints,

and for the rest of my life a few more weeks I will be filling in checks (aka cracks) in the logs.

If you don't hear from me for a while, either my fingers are covered in goop and I can't type or I'm curled up in a chair with aching muscles and can't get up...except to go to bed!

The Last Five Weeks

Since July 24 we've been doing a lot of:

trim board removal

(and old nest removal from behind them...birds, bees, yellow jackets, and mice),

paint stripper application,

pressure washing

(aka paint and old finish removal),

sanding,

borating

(application of borate solution using a sprayer...that's borating, right?),

and the never-ending chore of removing old caulking from between the logs.

Wait, did I mention the never-ending chore of removing old caulking from between the logs?

Oh, I did?

Never mind then, I won't mention it again.

What's Changed?

Compare these two pictures:

Can you tell how many changes we have made in the last year?

(Trash cans, junk, and flower pots don't count.)

I count six (oops, seven!  Thanks Dad!) that you can see, and at least three that you can't.

Any guesses?

***

Look fast...there are more changes coming soon!

Lofty Progress

It's not done yet, but remember the loft we were using for storage?

I covered the plywood floor with blankets from Goodwill (a temporary fix until we get around to putting in actual flooring), and we moved the music room/office up into the loft.

With all of the electronics moved upstairs, what was formerly the guest room/office/music room is now just a guest room,

except that we moved the (rarely used) TV in there too, along with all of Stella's paperwork, cleaning supplies, and spare parts.
Now that the TV is no longer taking up space in the living room, there is room for our favorite chair and a lamp!

I'm not sure which is the best part: the newly created favorite reading spot in the living room, or the fact that I now only get on the computer once or twice a day. It's not so convenient to "just check email really quick" when I have to climb two sets of stairs and a ladder to do it!

The Loft

Have I ever shown you the neat little loft we have in our bedroom?

It's small, but it's got great light from the skylight.

It was horribly dirty and dusty when we moved in, and the carpet reeked from a decade of dust and cigarette smoke, so I pulled up the carpet a few months ago and the kids helped me clean the floor and railings thoroughly.

We've been using the loft for storage, partly because it was so dirty, but mostly because the only way to get to it was through the pull-down ladder to the attic at the other end of the house.

See? There's a space for a ladder at one end,

but no ladder.

That's where my oh-so-handy husband came in. I showed him the Jefferson ladder I wanted, and he built it.

Now, thanks to this man and his carpentry skills,

I can start working on transforming the loft from storage space into living space!