Gotta Start Someplace

 Hey Blogland! As you all know I am now in this uhm...thing....hunk of.....uhhh.....pile of.....house that needs a demolition crew tons of TLC. So I thought I would start with the built in china cupboard & at least be able to display my antique tea set that I inherited from my mother. Sadly, as I was unpacking the box of china I had casualties. Two cups & tree saucers did not survive the trip up from Florida. There were so many pieces I could not attempt to put them back together. I will admit I had a tear in my eye when I found the broken ones. These suckers had been packed to survive just about anything. I guess this move was not one of the anythings. Ok to start I had this built in cupboard & it needed cleaning badly. So cleaning was the first thing on my list.

This is the top section. My husband's uncle does not want the original wood painted or this would be bright & cheerful looking. It had been through some rough crap over the years & I did not want this as a background for anything I had to display.

First swipe with the sponge along the back wall of the cupboard......yuck. Antique dust is NOT my favorite. It even smells different than newer dust. 

 Here I am lining the bottom of the cupboard with paper my mother-in-law picked up. At least it was purple!  I did not get a shot of it close up but as I am now the owner of 4 more rolls of this stuff, I promise you will see it again. I folded the lining paper to fit the back of the cupboard in top section & started off with the surviving pieces of antique china.

Here is a shot with the doors open.

And here is a horribly funky night time shot with the doors closed. The bottom shelves are not arranged as of yet. You see with only having 2 cupboards in the kitchen ( you read that right, only 2) I have limited storage space. Everyday dinnerware will be living in the bottom part of this. More to come as I figure out what to do with this.....house.

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Getting Rid Of The Orchid Farm

 Hello Blogland! Today I will show you what we had to demolish in our basement so we could have some decent storage space for , you know....storage. Okay, now to even begin to understand this house, I will give you a brief history. When this house was built years ago a man & is new young wife bought the place. They had one child who went on to become a Dentist & went by the nickname Doc. Now Doc moved away for a bit but when his parents died, he moved back into his childhood home. He lived here until he had a bad fall & was taken to the hospital & then to a rehab center. Sadly, Doc never made it out of rehab. He passed away. Doc was here, living by himself (he n ever married) for over 30yrs. Somewhere in that time the houses were sold all together. (Doc sold his part as well but continued to live here) They were sold to my husband's uncle & he just let who ever was living here stay. He bought it for the investment. After Doc passed away, a distant relative in New York asked my husband's uncle to have the place cleared out & the furniture to be donated to a church. I heard from neighbors that the antiques leaving the house were beautiful. (wish they could have stayed here). Doc in his declining years became a pack rat. An orchid growing pack rat. In the basement he constructed tables he filled with gravel & placed lighting for his plants. Before the fall, he stopped with the orchids but their growing place remained. Here is what they looked like:

 The top most tray with the bucket on it was stacked on top of two other growing trays. These trays were all filled with gravel. The aluminum pans were starting to rust pretty badly. Not sure just how long Doc was using these things. (or had stopped using them) We had to get that out of the basement. We used buckets. I filled & the Hubs went outside to dump them in their new home, covering the dirt walkway in the back of the house. There were six trays in all. Three were on a wooden table constructed in the basement & the other were on a metal shelf that was so old it was trying to collapse onto itself.

I did not get a pic of the metal shelf (thought I did) by itself. Here it is under some boxes the Hubs moved off of the trays that were on the table so we could start on them. It was mega dusty my Blogland friends so we had to cover our faces. I had a dust mask (little good it did in the end......I was blowing rust from my nose for quite a while) & the Hubs went at it bandit style.

Here is the Hubs in all his glory, ready to get to work.

Here is a shot of me digging in the mess with a garden trowel. I scooped & dug & scooped & dug for a very freakin' long time. 

 The Hubs suggested I use a shovel but that was killing my shoulders in no time flat so back to the trowel I went.

 Here is a shot of the Hubs prying some of the tray section away from where it was badly rusted. You can see on the bottom of the tray that is was pretty rusty

 Another shot of that & our handy dandy buckets

 The gravel & rusty trays are gone & it's time to break up the table cause it would not fit through the doorway to get it outside.

While moving the table from the wall we uncovered these guys:

 Not sure how old they are but they do have some age to them. They are on old caster wheels. I cannot wait to fix these bad boys up! As we have no storage closets, (& I mean none) these will be great for blankets & towels. One just might become a living room table, used for storage too of course!

 The insides need a total redo also. I wish it would stop raining cause I would love to take these guys outside to clean them up & dry in the sun.

Clean em up, new insides & some paint....you will not even recognize these babies!

Onto the new gravel walkway outback:

As you can see, we ended up with quite a bit of gravel. The holly bush you see to the right looks like this:

All wild & over grown. This is the next thing I have on the Hub's list of punishment duties he has to preform for not giving me the true lowdown on this house. It is now his job to trim this baby & get it looking good. (oh believe me, the list grows & grows!)

Stay tuned by Blogland Buddies. This house in the heart of Uniontown is going to keep me very, very busy or drive me nuts either one!

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Why I Moved From Florida To PA. reason # 19

 Hey Blogland! I wanted to fill you in on some of the finer things here in PA. When I lived in warm & sunny Florida, I did not have my own personal trainer. Now I do! He is a hard taskmaster but that is just the way he is. Let me introduce you to my very own personal trainer:

 Yes the steps. I was very spoiled in Florida with everything being on one floor. Now if I have to pee, I must go up these steps, take a left & go up three more steps. I told the Hubs the other night that I thought I would have to pee in an hour so I had better get started now going up the steps. Today I was in the basement (more steps) & had to go up to my office to get my cell phone. After the basement steps & the steps to the upstairs, I was like, wow, quite the workout! Not that I asked for one mind you. So, I have renamed them my personal trainer. Makes you do a workout even when you don't feel like it. lol

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My Trip To The Frozen Tundra

 Hey Blogland! It is I, your favorite Witch, back on the interwebz. Wow, what a trip we had. I thought it would never end. We encountered traffic jams & snow coming into West Virginia. The snow was not expected ( of course the traffic back up was not either) We pulled over to a rest stop for more gas for all three vehicles & it was snowing to beat all hell. I was wearing sandals & capri pants. It was a cold time for me. All (maybe 3 pieces) of my winter clothing was packed in the moving truck somewhere in the middle, so they were not available to me. This is supposed to be Spring! Okay, to start we ran into a traffic jam because of an accident on the way out of Florida.

This was my view for over an hour. Lets just say we did not make any headway in that hour.

 (again...please pay no attention to the date on the pictures. I always forget to adjust that)

We ran into storms in Georgia. The moving truck had a leak we did not know about so when we finally got to Uniontown, PA., our mattress & box spring were soaked.

(not to mention, our house did not have a functioning toilet when we got here & I was offered a bucket to pee in.....I went to the K.F.C. here & used their little girl's room)

We had to stay another night in a hotel because my husband's uncle did not have the toilet fixed when we got in. It is the original toilet & I guess some of the parts are no longer available for purchase.

I have seen the sun only two days since we have been here. We pulled into Uniontown on April 6th. It has rained everyday except for the two days the sun peaked through the clouds. (sigh) At least it was not raining when we unloaded the truck. The hubs had quite the time maneuvering the moving truck (26 ft long) on the small street that the house is on. I must admit that I did not feel sorry for him then because the house was not at all like he said it was. (oh yea....I wanted to kill him when I first saw it.)  The "huge, huge living room that was supposed to be twice the size of our living room in Florida, is actually smaller than the one in Florida. The steps are narrow & yes, I could put a table at the first landing like the Hubs said....only if we decided we never want to go up & down the steps! Our queen size box spring would not fit up the landing to the second floor. I have to build a frame for the mattress so we can eventually not sleep on the floor. Also, I have to fix the marks on the wall going up the steps where they tried to make the box spring fit. The older man who lived here was a hoarder & the place had so much dust (& still does, we are fighting it everyday. Great for my allergies...not)

The beautiful hardwood floors actually look like this:

 You have to wear shoes for sure so you do not get a splinter in your foot. The walls in the dining room were once all covered in wall paper. Someone decided to peel it off without prepping it first & then just painted over the large areas of what I can only describe as gouges. I have a long road ahead of me my friends. I am just happy that I have all of my cool Blogland friends to share my trials with. Thanks for being there for me! Stay tuned for more gripes & moans from me here in PA. Cause believe me...there is more to come!

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See you all up North!

 Packing up my link to all of my Blogland friends. See you all when I get to the frozen tundra!

Me & The Broom & That Big Freakin' Truck

Hello Blogland. Me & the Broom did not get to travel around Blogland today & visit with our wickedly awesome Blogland friends. We got this monster this morning:

 

 It is darned near full right now. I won the argument with my son on breaking down my computer & loading my desk on the truck. That can happen tomorrow (late). As it stands my desk chair & one kitchen chair are the only places to sit in the house right now. Everything else is loaded in the monster of a truck. Our two cats, D'Artagnon & Ramses are freaking out big time. Its been a lovely day here in sunny Florida. 82 degrees & sunny. It would have been a great day to do anything than load a flippin' truck with all of our worldly possessions. I found a fire ant mound in the front yard & my ankle is screaming at me from where I got bit. My son & I went to Nette's house early this afternoon & got the Moroccan furniture. That is on the truck now also. Hats off to the Hubs cause while we were getting that stuff, he almost packed everything from the garage into the truck. (tons of crap there)  Our side by side refrigerator almost landed on its side into a large bush as it was being taken out of the house. My son caught it. All I could do was stand in the doorway saying "Oh...there it goes". How the Hubs got that into the house by himself I have no idea but he did. Then it took 3 men to get it out of the house & it almost crash landed. I so hate moving............

Last Friday In Florida

 This is my last Friday post from Florida my Blogland friends. Tomorrow we pick up the rental truck & start loading. By Monday, we will be on the road. I will so miss my friends & the lizards & warm winters.  Not too many Palm Trees swaying in the wind up in PA. I bet. In fact.....no Palm Trees would be the best thing to say. Gonna miss any chance of meeting Sunny from Life In Rehab when she comes to the area to visit her dad. I know I will adjust to the weather up there in PA......eventually....maybe.........never.  Anyway, this has been going through my head:

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