I Love Popcorn, Except On Ceilings

The drywallers finished yesterday, which means (a) I have to start painting today and (b) I have a few updates from the past few weeks to give you all. Because I know you all want to know about the lovely task of scraping the popcorn from the ceilings. And we have a lot of ceilings.

So before I tell you about my obsession over paint colors (Gentle Pasture or Garden of Paradise? Spiced Vinegar or Prairie Dance?), let's back up a bit.

And first give a wonderful shout out to whomever decided that popcorn ceilings were a good idea. Thank you.

OK. Moving on.

Complaining isn't going to fix those ceilings. A little whining might make us feel better though.

The Farmer forgot his hat (this first time in history) on Day One, so he's wearing my pastry dough cloth and a headband.

I don't think I was supposed to tell you that.

It was slow progress on Day One because I was doing something else.

Peeling wallpaper from the kitchen. Because who doesn't love this wallpaper?

The Farmer was unaware that it existed. Truly. OK, he knew there was wallpaper but didn't think anything of it, and wondered why I declared emphatically it was coming down. When I told him I didn't want pink fans in the kitchen he looked at me funny. "It's not pink fans, is it?" Uhh. Yep. It is.

(Not sure how he missed that one...)

By Day Two I convinced him to wear a mask because I told him I didn't want to have two-headed children.

Do not read anything into that statement above.

We look quite cute, I think!

By Day Two we also got a good system down, though I think the contractor was right that we just should have used a garden hose and skipped the spray bottle. I sprayed the water and he came behind and scraped. This worked well in the dining room, but when we got to the library/bedroom (aka old living room), it proved to still be a chore. Apparently someone decided to put the popcorn ceiling on extra thick in these rooms, as well as paint a portion of it. It took four douses of water in each section before we could even start to scrape it.

If you are thinking about painting your popcorn ceiling...don't.

And the irony...

The next day in the hardware store we found this...

And on the shelf above...

Meet Annalea, the other Swiss Brunette

When The Farmer first suggested naming a calf after me I wasn't so sure. But then I realized it's a compliment, not a rude commentary on you.

So...

Meet Annalea, the Brown Swiss calf. She was born earlier this spring.

All The Farmer's Brown Swiss are named using a naming convention, with one rule being the names all end in "A". They are also named in alphabetical order (the librarian's daughter in me loves this), with a specific number of letters. The first Brown Swiss was 4 letters, starting and ending in an "A". 

Note to self: Ask The Farmer what the name of the first calf was. I just realized I don't know.

When Annalea was born she needed 7 letters in her name, the name needed to start with an "A", and, of course end in an "A".

The next Brown Swiss will be 7 letters starting with the letter "B". Then "C". And so on and so forth.

Suggestions? We have one due in a month or so. But we don't name the boys, so we just need girl names.

The calf born before Annalea is Zahrra. 6 letters, starting with "Z".

Before her? Yolana.

I need to take their pictures, but they are away at Summer Camp. No, really. Summer Camp.

Back to Annalea...

Like her namesake, she's not always the most photogenic.

And yes, when she graduates to a milking cow, The Farmer has promised me she gets chain tag #1. Because who doesn't want to be #1?

Oh, and meet her neighbors.

They don't have names, which drives me crazy. But eventually The Farmer names them, when inspiration hits. Sometimes it's within hours, sometimes days, sometimes years. And sometimes they are just known by their chain tag. Sorta like a social security number. But not.

Fleet Week, Farm Edition

The Farmer-in-Laws live right on the Columbia River; they live a mere 15-ish feet from the river's edge. The Jungle House is across the road, on the other side of the dike, but we still can see the ships, barges, and boats throughout the day. The daily parade of ships on the river speaks to today's global market - barges of logs, container ships flying flags from far afield, huge windmill wings that dwarf the ship they sit on...

The Farmer's mother reads the weekly shipping reports, watches the river like a hawk, and revels in taking photos of the day's sights. The world flows by her windows, and she chronicles it daily.

Last week's Fleet Week - a part of Portland's Rose Festival - brought the rare (but annual) sight along the river: the Naval ships and Coast Guard cutters that serve our country. On the way to Astoria on Monday, from the State Park that provides a direct vantage point of the farm, I saw the ships sail by.

The Penthouse Front (Garage) Entry

The Penthouse's entry is through one of the garage bays. (Reminder: One of the five garage bays) While this was fine, it wasn't ideal. While it obviously is a temporary situation, it just didn't seem very welcoming. And who wants to go into their house through a garage door? Without an automatic opener.

In addition, the third garage bay (on the left in the photo above) is a good entrance for two of the shops (yeah...I haven't shown you those yet), one of which will be The Farmer's Train Room. Yes, model trains. As in 300+ cars. He's been collecting since he was a kid and his set-up is massive. Of course, he reminds me occasionally that he used to work on his train layout before this Brunette showed up and took up all his time. Yeah...she was sorta greedy with his time.

So when we were talking about a house we knew we needed a space for his trains. And while I enjoy the trains, I didn't really need them in the middle of the house. So they needed to be convenient yet out of the way.

Voila! His new train room!

But back to that entrance...

We knew we needed something different, so...

Out comes the garage door.

In comes the wall.

Installing the lock was trickier than The Farmer thought, but we finally got it in.

Upside-down.

The lock to the Penthouse is also upside-down, so perhaps that's the new trend.

And our new entrance to the Penthouse and Train Room!

It needs a little paint.

Sittin' Down On The Job

So The Farmer made fun of the fact that I was "sittin' down on the job" while working on the Penthouse bathroom.

As you can see, it was the most convenient place to sit while taking apart the toilet paper holder.

(Which is a very important job, but the way...)

And I didn't have a lot of room.

But just a week or so later as we took apart the upstairs bathroom...

Ha!

The Penthouse

In case you were wondering, we are not living in the mayhem of the Jungle House - at the moment. Of course, the Jungle House will probably always have a bit of mayhem, but construction mayhem...nope. Didn't want to live in it.

So where do we live?

We live in the garage!

Or above the garage. See the window?

We live there.

We call it the Penthouse.

It's a small Penthouse. Cozy. But we get to live out of the construction mayhem, yet on our property. Perfect.

It has newer laminate floors because it flooded a few years ago and they had to replace and paint everything. Yes, a flood. I know. I know. You are shaking your head.

Fire.

Flood.

Locusts.

No, no locusts...as far as we know.

Of course, we have furniture inside.

The Penthouse really didn't need tons of work, except for a really good cleaning. (And the bathroom...)

So before we moved in we spent a few evenings cleaning. Correction...before we closed we spent a few evenings cleaning.

Yep. We broke in.

Technically there was a broken garage door that we told Fannie Mae about, and since they never came and fixed it we took advantage of the situation.

Though at the end of each evening, I insisted that we hid everything in the closet. Just in case Fannie Mae wanted to confiscate my cleaning supplies.

Of course, one afternoon I made The Farmer go over and get the cleaning supplies because I was so nervous the bank would find out. Then again, now everyone knows because I am blogging about it, but since that was two months ago I hope the bank doesn't care.

And look, The Farmer is using the Swiffer! (and a little brush thingy)

And yes, I was cleaning too. Just to clarify.

But the one room we needed to really fix was the bathroom. Though we couldn't change the teeny tiny size of the room, we could change the teeny tiny sink.

See the space to the right of the cabinet, below the countertop? Yep. It's just a random empty space. The countertop was 38 inches, and yet the cabinet was just 18 inches. And thus the sink basin stuck out into the random space, allowing you to see the bottom of the basin.

It was random.

So we took it out.

We had to cut the back of the new cabinet to accommodate the plumbing pipes, but we didn't have a straight edge.

But I did have a cookie sheet.

Quote of the evening: "Don't ruin my cookie sheet."

(He didn't.)

And our hard work turned into this:

Oh, and if you ever need to repair the bottom of a shower door, weather stripping from a storm door works quite nicely.

Pants On Fire

Now we knew we'd find surprises during renovation.

Such as the original siding behind the wallboard...

Partially scraped cork tile floors under the carpet...

Honeycomb behind the fireplace brick (but thankfully no bees)...

Unused space behind walls...

But the soot and the evidence of the fire was really amazing to see.

behind the sink wall in the upstairs bathroom

behind the toilet wall, also in the upstairs bathroom

The Farmer thought that the fire had been started in a bathroom, so these discoveries confirm this. It was just pretty wild to see the soot (and charred wood...see below) behind the walls.

As the story goes, three owners ago (and when anyone in town asks where we live, they know it as the Sz** house) tried to burn the house down because he thought it would be cheaper to collect the insurance money than try to sell the house. He was devastated that his son had moved away and gone to college, and he wanted to move on too.

He put baggies of gasoline all throughout the upstairs and down the stairs, into the first floor. He set the fire and then left.

The problem?

He was a carpenter and built much of the house as you now see it. He built it well, too well - too air-tight - and he forgot to open a window to let in air. As such, the fire just smoldered.

The owner's brother saw the smoke and called The Farmer's uncle out of the field (apparently the owner and the brother didn't get along and he wanted a witness that he didn't start the fire...the irony...). They went to the house and broke a window. The flood of fresh air ignited the fire into a fire-y blaze, but the firemen arrived quickly by this point and put the fire out.

Unfortunately, the evidence against the owner was all over the house, in small baggies of fuel.

Fortunately, it wasn't much other than smoke.

But as you can see, there was some damage.

Door frame downstairs

The owner? He was deported. He was a legal immigrant but they took this status away from him. He now lives in Britain.