We have been busy doing a lot of little things, and will continue to do so until after the holidays.  We don't want to make a big mess right now.
Got the hallway door refinished and back up.  We had it dipped at the Big Dipper in Portland and then we finished scraping, sanding, staining and varnishing it.  What a difference.
Got everything put away for the winter.  Always a big project!  Glad it is done.
Had to move the big trailer AGAIN!  The hillside behind it started to come down with all the rain, so it is back up the driveway closer to the house.  When we get some dry days Brian will get out with the tractor and clean it up.  I think we will have to do some sort of retaining wall there too!  The other retaining wall is holding but boy is the area behind it filling up.  It is doing it's job, but will have to clean that out too so it doesn't get completely full.
Bought new rugs for the dining room and the front bedroom, they look so nice!   
I have been cleaning and organizing my office.  It looks so much better. Cleaned out my closet and put all of my scrapping stuff in there.  Still have about half a dozen boxes to clean out and then hope to put a hide a bed in there to sleep more family!!
Found an awesome brass headboard and foot board for the front bedroom, and after we bought it discovered it was a king size, so had to start over on that bedroom. Got a king size mattress and box springs and new bedding.  Had to move some of the furniture around as the bed takes up so much room. But it looks good, just have to figure out what I am going to do with the chair that no longer fits...hmmmm.  
Hope to start on the last bedroom in January. As for this month....we will work on the front door and get it up and just take time to enjoy the holidays. 

Summer is at an end....

I cannot believe my last post was April! Boy how this spring and summer have flown by.  We have been super busy, and I will just list all of the things we have gotten done.

Finished the front hallway, painted the walls, put down the flooring and decorated.  We are still working on the front door, sent it out to be rebuilt and now Brian and I are re-finishing it.  In the meantime we found a storm door and have that up, nice to have light in there again.  Just had a piece of plywood up in the doorway.

Sent two doors out to be stripped, the hallway door and the one to the upstairs porch.  So far we have the one upstairs, painted,  stained, the window glazed and back in place.  Still have work to do on the hallway door before it goes back up.

Completed the Hummingbird bedroom. Repainted the walls, refinished the floors, put up the trim, new curtains and decorated.  The room is beautiful!  We even had some guests stay  (family) but it was fun to have them enjoy the room.

Refinished the floors in the hallway, and painted, still have the decorating to do in there. We rented a sander and did all three rooms (bedroom, hallway and bathroom) in a day, wow, what a big task.  There was sawdust everywhere! Got some of the scratches out but the rest are just character!

Refinished the floors in the big bathroom, decorated and that room will be finished when we get the rest of the trim up.  Did the floors in there with heavy duty spar varathane, 3 coats...that was a chore but worth it.   So shiny, and protected from the water too! Put up paintings and other decor, it turned out better than I could of wished.

This summer once the rain stopped we have focused mainly on the outdoors.  We had the back hillside dug out and put up a retaining wall. Cleaned up the area and had it rocked.  Now we have a big back yard and lots of parking area.  Brian dug out the hillside across from the swing set to put the 29 foot trailer in.  The "bunkhouse" for family and friends now has it's own view and is not in view of the back of the house.  Love it!  Colleen and Adam helped to spread rock and create the "RV site". Really appreciated their help. We are just now getting a canopy over the top of it to protect it from the rain. 

We had to reinforce the garden fence this summer as one of the deer figured out how to get in there.  Not happy about that at all!  It is just crudely done at this point, but next spring we will do something permanent. Dahlias are beautiful this year, really enjoying them. Had a bumper crop of potatoes but so far all the tomatoes are still green. Onions and chives and peas did well too.  

The county did some work on the road in front of the house, widening it by cutting away  a little bit of our front lawn.  Glad to see it done.  Now we need to figure out what to plant to keep down the weeds and the blackberries, that will be a project for the fall.  

Other than that it has just been maintenance which always keeps us busy.  Next inside project will be the last room to do. Wow, amazing to even write that...never thought we would get this far...although it has been over 7 years.  We hope to finally open our B&B in the late spring.....again....AMAZING!

For the last few weeks we have been working on the front hallway.  We have scraped, sanded and painted the trim around the doors, and the floor.  Brian took the window out so I could re-glaze the stained glass and paint it.  That is a big project. Just very tedious!  Will be glad to get it done. We ordered the flooring and it just came in a few days ago, so hopefully we can start getting it down tomorrow.  Today we finish painting the walls and then will be all ready for the flooring. Brian had to do a lot of work on the old floor to get it ready, it had to be reinforced, repaired and leveled before we could even think about putting the floor down. 

And the kitchen floor is done and it looks great!  We installed the kick board and the transitions yesterday and today we will get the rest of the baseboard up, after it dries.  I stained it and now it has the last coat of varathane on it.  I think that might be the last item in the kitchen to do other than finish decorating...wow...that has been a long time coming.  We moved in 7 years ago this month, who would have thought it would have taken this long to have finished the kitchen. So what project should we start on tomorrow???

We did finish the stairs in January!  They look so nice!  We still have a few more of the spindles to do on the top landing, but we are so pleased with how the stairs turned out.


Monday we started putting the floor down in the kitchen.  We are using the same flooring that we used in the upstairs bathroom.  It goes down pretty easy and looks good.  The one we chose for the kitchen looks like an old wide plank pine floor.  I like it.  As we started on the next section this morning Brian cut the first two cuts wrong.....he is SO pissed at himself, so we are taking a break.....back to it soon!!!