Green Lawn, Green Mower

First, let me acknowledge… It’s been a while. I make no promises about the future, but I’m going to try.

Second… Over time I’ll probably fill in things that we’ve done since my last post… but to trying to catch up at this point will be crazy.

So… On with the new blog update!

For the last two growing seasons I’ve been using a lawn mower that was graciously given to us by Nancy’s Dad. It has done a good job, but we needed to replace it. I’ve been fighting that mower for some time and I wasn’t going to wrench my arm again trying to start it. Whatever mower we ended up with, was going to have an easy start feature.

Since last year, we’ve been doing a lot of research. There are some good, if not great electric mowers out there and thats the way that I was starting to lean because it would mean, easy start, no gas or oil to deal with and it could easily be stored inside. But the things are so darned heavy, with the battery carrying pretty much half the weight, so I wasn’t quite sold.

So, we looked at manual, or reel, mowers. These are the old kind that don’t have an engine in them. At first, what I read made me think that this was not the way to go… Harder to push, takes longer to cut everything, etc. But there There are some really nice features too which kept me thinking that I should continue to think about it. Like, wouldn’t it be nice to not buy gas OR have to plug something in? and… It’s healthier for the grass, because it’s an actual cut, not a tear from a quick spinning blade… You know I’m all about the great looking yard!

Doesn't it just look easier to push around?

I’ve been looking all winter long and finally the time came this last week where I either had to buy a new mower or just pull out old “Bessie”. I really didn’t want to pull out Bessie… I figured it was time to put her out to pasture… A decision had to be made. So, another quick check and low and behold a miracle! I happened across a mower that I hadn’t seen before while looking though some reviews with Nancy. It was the Fiskars StaySharp Max Reel Mower. This thing had everything… A reel mower, which is supposed to be easier to push with a fly wheel to keep energy when going through tall grass, super sharp cutting blade designed to not go dull, no maintenance, wide blade, and it cost much less than any other mower I had looked at.

We picked it up and I put it together this last weekend… So, what do I think about it?

I have used it, but first let me say something about this spring that needs to be mentioned when mowing the lawn… I HATE BUGS! I don’t know if it was the lack of gas or noise from a mower, or there are just a bunch more bugs this year, but they were out in full force. It’s going to be a bad year for bugs. I couldn’t open my mouth for fear of swallowing a large quantity of them. Thank goodness I was wearing my in-ear headphones, because many headed straight for my ears! The little buggers! They were everywhere and on me like white on rice. I will be using bug spray or the little clip-on devices they have now to see if that will help keep them away, because I do not need that kind of protein in my diet.

You can almost see the grass tremble with anticipation of it's first "haircut"!

Anyway, enough about that… back to the mower… I really like this mower. I’m glad I took the time to go through the adjustment process to make sure that the blades were set right because I think it made a difference and it was easy enough to do.

It was super quiet… I mean, I could actually listen to music without having my phone set to a devastatingly loud volume. I could hear what was going on in the neighborhood! Can you imagine mowing your lawn and still being able to hear? It was crazy good!

Before the exciting first mow of the year!

The grass cutting went great. There are a lot of websites that state that with a reel mower you should start with the setting tall and then make multiple passes with the mower getting progressively lower. Not with this mower! It cut like a champ! Grass flew out the front of it (it has a discharge out the front of it, which is really nice).

I will say it was a lot of work… One, I’m not in the best shape, while it was hard, and I was a bit sore the next day, I do think it was easier than Bessie. Not to mention I didn’t feel like I had been shaken out of my shoes from the vibration of a gas engine. I also think it was faster than Bessie, I could do a section of the lawn in about 10 minutes, it was also easier to take rest breaks because I knew I didn’t have to restart the mower. I could take a quick break, and then startup where I left off.

See! It's just too long, we've just got to get it under control!

So far, the only real downside I can see is that it’s not a “mulching” lawnmower. There were a few leaves from fall still on the ground and this just ran over them and didn’t touch them. Which means that I’ll have to do a good job in the fall to take care of the leaves. We did a pretty good job with the raking last year and I don’t think it’ll be a problem.

See, doesn't that look so much better!

A big plus is that it can be stored inside. We don’t have a garage, so Bessie, being a gas engine mower, has to stay outside. Since we can’t even put up a shed without approval from the Historic Society, Bessie has just been covered with a tarp, which isn’t the best, but it’s what we’ve got. Our new mower doesn’t have a gas engine, so it can be stored inside without worry. It’s small enough that it can be put out of the way in the back staircase and I don’t worry about it wandering off or blowing up the house or even just plain stinking of gas fumes.

Looks like a great fresh crop of grass!

My Brother suggested on Facebook that I’d be back to using a gas engine mower in no time after trying this. I don’t think so. I think this will work out just fine. I’ll post something if it just doesn’t work out, but so far I really like it.

Nancy has named it Martha, after Martha Stewart, who does wonders with a good pair of scissors. Hopefully Martha will be a good addition to our little family of gardening tools.

I know, it doesn't look different at this angle, but It's better over all... I promise!

Let There Be Light… and Fans!

It is pretty, that's why we're keeping it, but it needs to move.

Lighting a room is always interesting… Lots of considerations to think about. The size of the room, the color choices, the purpose of the room, all things need to be considered…

Well, when we first started thinking about three rooms we started with, we looked at the ceiling fans and lighting in each of the rooms and started to make a plan. The ceiling fan in the “living room” that will become Nancys Art room doesn’t have a light on it. The ceiling fan in the yellow room that will be the library doesn’t have a light either and is ugly (and I do mean ugly). The light in the dining room that will be the studio is plenty bright (with 9 bulbs it had better be), but it did not have a fan and with Nancy planning on painting in there, it really should have something to move the light around.

So, we made a plan. To save some costs, the ceiling fan in the art room would get just a light kit upgrade. Easy to install and adds a bunch of light to the room. The chandelier in the studio would be moved to the hallway to provide a dramatic light there and really brighten up that space and a new, more fitting ceiling fan would be installed in the studio. Then in the library, well lets just say we tried a couple of things before we got it right.

Just a light kit upgrade here, that's all it really needs.

Installing the light kit in the Art Room was easy. The kit went up without any problems at all. The metal work doesn’t quite match the fan, but most people aren’t going to be looking at that with all the art on the walls and in the room, so we think it was a good trade off to save some money.

As usual, changing the light in Studio was an interesting challenge. Taking down the old light, we discovered a couple of things. One was that the entire chandelier was held up by just two screws in the lath, not a joist or using special bolts, just two screws barely holding on to lath to support 6 heavy glass globes, 1 glass plate and all the metal. So, that needed to be fixed. Fortunately the wiring hadn’t gotten to the point where it was crumbling, but it certainly wasn’t the best either. The fun discovery was the pipe that ended where the light was installed. Just an open ended pipe that disappeared into the ceiling. The thing to remember here is that the house is old. Like, before electricity old. Homes were lit using gas lights. The gas had to be piped in to the chandeliers, so we had discovered an old gas light pipe… Fortunately, the gas had been turned off since the end was just left open.

This is what what holding up the chandelier in the Studio, not very much.

This did present a new problem… The pipe terminated below the ceiling line and there was no easy way to remove it from it’s location. It was in a spot that made it just in the way for installing a ceiling fan brace. I did think briefly about trying to cut it, but if you’ve worked with plaster, you know that would probably be asking for trouble. All those vibrations just ready to knock the plaster loose. So, I ended up making a bigger hole to accommodate the brace and fan. Now we had a big hole in the ceiling that the cover of the fan base wasn’t about to handle. Nancy came up with the idea of using a ceiling medallion. These are round decorative molding that are used to put around fan bases for cases like this. Easy to install, just a bit of an adhesive. The only “hard” part was cutting out the center to fit the base of the fan and really that was easy, more messy than anything. I think it turned out nice and actually adds a bit to the room.  Installing and hanging the fan from there was easy.

That left the Library. At first we thought about doing the same thing we did in the front room. Just install a light kit. It would be cheaper than a new fan and would tide us over till we could save up a bit more. The first kit I got, had a broken globe, but I didn’t realize that until I tried to install the kit. By the time I realized the globe was broken, I figured I would at least try out the lights. Hooked everything up… No lights came on… Rechecked the wiring, no lights. So, with the globe broken and no lights, I figured it was a bad kit and returned it and got a new one. Hooked that one all up, no lights. It seems that fan just didn’t want to have a light kit installed. At this point, I tested the wires that the light kit was supposed connect to (yes should have done this first) and there was no power, so that wasn’t going to work no matter what light kit I installed.

Isn't it pretty... no, not really, it had to go!

So, we decided to bite the bullet and get a new fan. We didn’t like the one that was in there anyway and a new one would freshen up the room a bit more and would finish things off in there. So, Nancy went shopping. She found one she liked at Home Depot and just had to make a quick stop at Menard’s on her way home, where she found another one which she liked better… So the first one she bought had to go back. I really like the one she finally choose better. It really fits with the style of the room and library. Always an excellent decision from Nancy.

Then came the time to install it. Not too surprisingly we found another gas pipe. This room would have originally been a parlor (we think) so it makes sense to me that it would have had some type of light hanging from the ceiling. The way this room worked out, there was a joist that was easily available for me to hang a fan on. Did the people who hung the existing fan take full advantage of the joist to make sure that the fan wouldn’t come crashing down? Nope, two screws, one in the joist (fortunately), the other pulled straight out of the plaster and lath. You read that right it pulled straight out of the lath, it wasn’t holding anything. The whole fan was basically hanging from one screw. Somehow it managed to stay up there, how I don’t know.

You can see the holes for the old Library ceiling fan, one in the stud the other not...

I did a little research about hanging fans off a joist and found a “Safe-T-Pan”, I checked with my Brother-In-Law, who has helped out a few times before, who stated that it should work just fine. So, we proceeded with that plan. In theory, with long enough screws I could have installed the Safe-T-Pan right on the plaster. I decided that I wanted it closer to the joist, if only to reduce the fan vibrations on the plaster. So, used an ax and broke out a circle of plaster to fit the pan right next to the gas pipe and installed it there. The plaster was thick enough that the pan was flush with it , which coincidentally is how it is supposed to fit with drywall.

The rest was “easy”. For some reason, this fan had more un-installed parts than any other fan I’ve ever seen. Most just have the pole, motor, blades and lights. This one had covers, decorative pieces, wires and all sorts of things that were just waiting for the home owner to install themselves. I guess I shouldn’t complain too much, the fan looks perfect in the room. I love the stained glass globes. I really think it adds something to the Library. You’ll also notice that we used a ceiling medallion again. While the hole wasn’t nearly as large and the fan base almost covered the hole, we thought it looked better than trying to do a patch job on the little bit that stuck out from under the base. I think it was a good choice.

The Library Ceiling Fan, much improved!

The interesting thing with the new fans was how they each handled light differently. What bulbs do you install? There is a plethora of bulb types out there now. If you haven’t dealt with bulbs recently, there are some interesting issues around them. Some ceiling fans are designed to work with only certain types of bulbs. If it comes with CFL bulbs, it probably should only have CFL or maybe LED bulbs. If it came with Incandescent bulbs, you might get an interesting effect when you try to use CFL bulbs in it.

In the Studio, we’re trying to stay with as close to daylight as we can and as bright as we can. Incandescent bulbs can be bright, but they tend to be too warm, too yellow. Also, in a ceiling fan, most of your power is going to the motor, so they usually have lower wattage bulbs, so less light. CFL bulbs have the advantage of having “daylight” bulbs (which if you’ve never seen them before, feel blue when you first see them or come from a traditionally lit room) and you can install a brighter bulb in a traditional lamp because the wattage usage is so much lower. So, bright, daylight bulbs, that use less electricity… sounds like a perfect fit!

Well, the fan in the studio was designed for incandescent bulbs. Installing the lower wattage, but brighter CFL bulbs work, but they have an odd slow strobing effect. They go bright, then dim, then bright again, just switching back and forth about twice a second, just enough to be annoying. Rumor has it that a dimmable CFL won’t have that problem, but I haven’t been able to find bright enough dimmable  CFL bulb in a “daylight” color temperature. The solution until I can find some to see if that works, is to install a single incandescent bulb. Apparently, there is a wattage inhibitor or something that doesn’t like the low wattage or CFL bulbs for some reason. Adding a traditional bulb equalizes everything electrically to make it work. The only problem is that the lamp looks a little weird with the single warm bulb… Oh well, can’t have everything… Apparently…

The rest of the lamps have CFL bulbs, though are usually using a warmer light, which is what people typically expect in a home lighting situation. Most fans that are bought now are designed with CFL’s in mind and state that the max wattage bulb allowed is 9 – 13 watts apposed to the traditional 40 – 60 watts. Also, since these are CFL’s they will last longer than traditional bulbs, but only if you use them properly. Once they are turned on, they should stay on for at least 30 minutes to let them warm up completely. Something to keep in mind when installing lights, don’t put CFL’s in places where the lights go on and off in just a few minutes. They will burn out faster than an incandescent bulb, so you don’t get full advantage of the savings.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Anyway… That’s it for the lighting… next up is the a new lock and thermostat!… So very exciting!

Prep’ing and Painting

Faith supervised the whole process and made sure that we covered everything properly.

Paint! It can do so much to change a room… It adds color for one thing, it can update a room and make it feel clean and new.

It’s no secret to us that the rooms in this house have several coats of paint. If there was some way to strip it all back to the plaster, I’m pretty sure we would get more living space due to all the layers of paint. I’m sure it adds insulation to the house, you’d think it would anyway…

The problem here is that the colors were outdated. The “colors” were off whites, beiges, and even a dingy yellow. Very much not our style. We have painted every livings space we have lived in. If the rental agreement allowed for paint, we have painted. Nothing, however, prepared us for painting in a house with old plaster walls with 10 foot ceilings with crown molding. There’s just so much more work involved.

I just love the strips of blue, its funny to me for some reason...

Before we even had the paint color selected, there were several days work. Nancy worked so hard to get every hole  patched. There were a lot of them, it was rented before us, so there were several un-patched holes. She even borrowed a sander from her Dad to make that process easier. The other “patching” job that Nancy took on was filling all the cracks. Old plaster in a house as old as ours is going to have lots of cracks. You can’t just patch that with Spackle either. If you do, as the house expands and contracts as the seasons change, the crack will just reappear. The trick is paintable caulk.

At first, Nancy was just going to get a single tube of caulk that you can just squeeze out by hand. When she went to the store, she saw that they had the caulk gun style on sale and ended up getting a package of 4, thinking that with the size of the house, we’d use it eventually… Between the cracks in the walls and ceiling and the places where the molding where the joins were no longer together due to settling, she had used 2 tubes of caulk per room and had to get another pack for the third room. She has become quite the expert at smoothing out a crack in the wall or making molding look like it was just installed. She even closed up an old phone outlet box that we weren’t going to use and wasn’t functional. Very much worth the effort that she put in.

I just dont understand why the frame wasnt finished... Oh well, its all uniform now.

She also decided to take down the chair rail in the old dining room. it was in disrepair and didn’t really fit the feeling for the room. So, Nancy found her crowbar and hammer and down it came. We did find samples of older wall paper again, so that was a fun little find. If only to get an idea of what the room might have looked like at one point. (It was pink wall paper… I just can’t imagine eating in a pink dinning room…)

Then came the time for us (and by us I mean Nancy) to select the colors. These are going to be rooms primarily used by Nancy for her to work on art. These are walls that she will be looking at every day, so she was going to select the colors. I don’t think she could have done a better job. They look wonderful.

We decided on doing white for the molding in all the rooms. This would tie all the rooms together and white crown molding would make each room look more open.

For the walls in the room she would be using for a painting/photography studio, she selected white for a couple of reasons. One, when working either with paint or photography, a color on the walls would create color cast, which would change the look of what she was working on. She also decided to paint one of the corner walls with chalk board paint. This created a dramatic focus in the room and changed it from a stark white to a black and white room. I kind of feel like it’s a  ballroom with the angled corners and white paint. I’m surprised at just how much I like the all white look in there.

All different options for paint colors.

For her art room, she went with a bold orange, with a red accent wall and blue features. The different colors are vivid and exciting too look at. The blue color on the inset, archway and fireplace really help to make the other colors pop without overwhelming the room. I think it’s going to be a very inspiring place for her to work.

As for the library, it was already yellow, and we kind of liked yellow, just not that yellow. We went though several different yellows before getting the right one. We wanted it to be deep and vibrant, but not a primary color or “school bus” yellow. We settled on sunflower yellow and the room looks warm and sunny. I think that curling up in the bay window with a book will be very natural in there.

Youd be surprised how many little nooks there are in old molding!

Now that we had our colors, we had to put them up on the wall. As I’ve said, we’ve painted everywhere. We’ve tried everything, paint sticks, special brushes, electric power rollers, everything. Now, I think the easiest is just a roller, a brush and tape.

There was a lot of tape. We taped both sides of the crown molding and the floor molding, then painted that, then we removed that tape and taped the inside of the molding so that we could paint the ceiling and the walls. My fingers got calluses from sticking down all that tape. I’m a software engineer, my fingers aren’t supposed to have calluses!

That ceiling is due for a coat of paint!

The only other complaint is those high ceilings. To get to the molding and edging work required an 8 foot ladder and a lot of going up and down to get to those areas that needed paint. It seemed like for days I was just going to be going up and down on that ladder, I got quite the work out. I can honestly say I now know which way I like to face when using a ladder for painting… I didn’t realize that I would develop a preference.

When all was said and done and we were finally though all the touch up work, I think the rooms turned out beautifully. No more dull paint that looked like it had been there for years, just clean beautiful color (or not if you were in the “White room”) that was all our style.

Next was handling the lighting in the rooms…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Lots of work…

We never could figure out why there was a hole there...

I love this house! It’s beautiful and full of character! After taking a year to do the things that needed to be done to make it livable (don’t worry, there’s still more to do there). We’re finally taking the time to update some of the rooms with paint, new lighting, and some other repairs.

Over the next few blog posts, I’ll go over some of the fun that we’ve experienced getting these rooms up to our design… to make them ours.

We’ve been very busy with all the work, so busy in fact that I haven’t been able to keep up with the blogging of the process. So, for the next few posts, I’ve decided to change things up a bit. Each post for the next few days will about the type of work done, instead of going by time.  I’ll be covering, prep’ing the rooms, painting, hanging ceiling fans, updating the electrical outlets and switches, and other finishing touches.

Just to give an overview. We’ve been focusing on the three main rooms in the downstairs. Traditionally, they would have been a parlor, a living room and a dining room. As our functional kitchen is still upstairs, it doesn’t make sense to have the dining room down stairs as carrying food up and down doesn’t really work (we’ve tried, it’s no fun carrying a load of hot food, plates and glasses up and down the stairs, if you don’t spill something, it’s cold by the time you get there.) So, we aren’t going to use the spaces for their traditional purposes, and instead, they will be a Library, Art/Workshop, and Painting/Photography studio.

Just one of the many discoveries, pink walpaper and paint under the chair rail

Already the house feels better, more complete and “ours”. We received a lot of advice when we first moved in, much of it centering on the idea of live there for a while and get a feel for how the spaces want to be used. I’m glad that we did that. The spaces now feel like they are going to be used for their intended purposes and that they will be the better for it.

The transformation in the rooms, to me, is amazing. Gone is the old dull paint that felt dirty and was never our style.  We’re more for vibrant, bold colors that pop. They feel more finished and complete.

We had several attempts to find just the right color... I think we finally got it right!

Now that these rooms are almost done, we’re a little tired of painting, I think it’s getting to the point in the weather that we can move outside and start preparing the yard. This year, I’m determined to have a beautiful lush lawn of green grass… We’ll see how I do there…

So, over the next few posts I’ll cover what we did and the changes that we made and how they transformed the rooms. Hopefully it will make for good reading!

Our Niece put that there, made me happy every time I saw it.