Progress ~ Slow but Sure

The Juncos arrived today.  My mother always said that they were the best indicators of winter as they don't show up until it comes and when they leave, it's over.  Sure enough, when I checked the forecast, there is snow expected in a couple of days!  In the meanwhile, I'm enjoying the last of autumn.  My new home is surrounded by aspen trees and the ground is littered with their gold coin like leaves.


There are also many Burning Bush shrubs filled with brilliant color.  But the leaves are falling quickly!


Inside, there is much going on, from the cleaning of the glass and brass doorknobs,


to the arrival of my new table and chairs!  For years I've longed for a table large enough to seat my entire family and this one will seat all of us with room for a few extras!  Right now I have it set up in the living room as the dining room seems to have become the staging area for all the work taking place.


We made the decision to go ahead with the kitchen remodel right away ~ which results in the need for many more decisions, like which cabinet door to choose!  I'm leaning towards the one on the left while my daughter likes the one on the right.


We pulled off part of a broken floor tile to see what was underneath ~ it looks like wood!  Though it may have been painted black or have old blackened varnish or some type of glue from another type of flooring.  Can't wait to get the rest of the tile up to see what kind of shape it's in.  Hoping for something that can be refinished!


Though I've been cleaning and doing lots of little things to the house, it didn't really start to feel like mine until I put some paint on the walls of my bedroom closet!  I'm keeping the vintage wallpaper, but needed to freshen up the dingy dirty paint above it.  The green trim had to go too as it just didn't go with the wallpaper.  One of these days I'll repaint the trim with a better green that goes with the leaves in the design, but for now, I just needed fresh and clean!


Every single furnace vent (and every electrical outlet and switch) is covered in multiple layers of paint.  It was a heck of a job simply to get the screws removed so we could get them off the wall.  This is my attempt at stripping what is at least 4 to 5 layers of paint.  It took me half a day.   The next day I went back to the home improvement store and purchased new ones to replace them!  The vent in my daughter's room had at least 7 layers of paint including a scarlet red layer!


In some rooms, when the vent came off, we found evidence of old wallpaper.  I can't imagine living in a house with wallpaper this color of green!


But the biggest surprise came when we finally got the return air vents off.  This doesn't qualify as a "dust bunny".  I think it's more like a "dust rat"!  YUCK!!!  Good thing the duct cleaners will be here in a couple of days!


I did get to spend a little more time browsing an antique mall one morning while looking for light fixtures.  I fell in love with this beautiful crazy quilt with all sorts of textured velvets in lovely deep colors.  It was well out of my price range, so I had to content myself with some photos of the unusual stitching.


At first glance, it looks like feather stitching, but upon close examination, it turns out to be some other type of wrapped stitch.  This was such a gorgeous quilt and I loved the weight of it.  It was so tactile that it made you want to just curl up in it.  It would have been gorgeous draped over the back of my sofa in the fall and winter!