Office and bedrooms are primed

 We are almost ready to paint. All of the downstairs is primed. We only have the two bedrooms upstairs to finish mudding and priming. I say "we" but I really mean Martin. 

Soon we will be discussing color schemes. Wish me luck!

Heat and hot water systems have been installed

Having the wood stove installed was a great improvement over no heat, but it worked like a tether. Martin couldn't be gone long from Cornish, not with the season fast approaching winter and winter temperatures. We have had several frosts and snow flakes have been reported.

Waltz and Sons Propane

came and installed our on demand hot water heater and our propane wall furnace.

Now Martin doesn't have to worry about how long he may be gone from an tigin.

Snug as a bug in a rug

Martin has been working hard at getting an tigin ready for winter. He has foamed insulation in around all of the windows and doors.

The basement slabs and retaining walls were insulated when they were put in, but the foundation walls didn't have any insulation.

So Martin has been insulating around the sill, the door to the bulkhead stairs, and the foundation walls. He is almost done.

more firewood

Martin took some time to split firewood from the trees we cut down when we first bought an tigin. I've tried to convince him that this side of the barn would be perfect for our firewood pile, but I haven't succeeded yet.

living room is primed

The living room is primed. 

We have a good idea of paint colors for the bathrooms and kitchen. Still working on color choices for the living room and bedrooms.

wood stove is hooked up

Last year we purchased an EPA efficient wood stove. We used it in our house through last winter. However we just rehooked up our old wood stove and Martin brought the "new" wood stove to an tigin. Since the mudding, sanding, and priming are done in the living room, he was able to hook it up.

We are looking forward to seeing how much (or preferably how little) firewood we burn with an tigin being well insulated and the wood stove being more efficient than the old-fashioned style.

Dust collection system

Martin was getting frustrated with how quickly the filter and bag in his shop vac were clogging up with sheetrock dust. 

He ordered a "Cyclone" for a dust collection system through e-bay, only to find out that it would be months before it would arrive. 

He needs to vacuum up the sheetrock dust after he sands a room before he primes.

So after many YouTube videos on DIY dust collection systems, he decided to throw one together.

It took about an hour and works like a charm. The dust goes into the 5 gallon bucket sideways and the suction from below creates a cyclone effect. Nearly all of the dust stays inside the bucket and doesn't go into the vacuum to clog up the filter and bag.

To improve the entire enterprise, he added a portable light.

Driveway widened

We have some difficulty with drainage in our driveway. The run off from the road went straight into the driveway. Martin added drainage to the driveway. The he widened it and raised the level of the driveway. Now we have a place for company to park and hopefully we won't have an ice rink in the winter.

brick work done

 Martin used the old bricks from the original chimney for the brick wall and hearth for the wood stove. It was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. The bricks were different lengths, widths, and thicknesses. 

 Now to put the finishing touches on, he needs to clean it and seal it. Once it is well cured, the wood stove gets moved in and hooked up. This will be the first winter that Martin will have lots of interior work to do and an tigin will be heated.

Vintage sink

My mom has a sink that I love. Two basins with built in drain boards on each side. Enameled cast iron. How can you go wrong? When we bought an tigin 3+ years ago, I knew that I wanted a sink similar to my mom's in the kitchen.

 We have been searching for the right sink ever since. We had an opportunity to get our hands on one shortly after we bought the house, but that would have meant storing it until the kitchen was far enough along to install it. Since that was so far in the future, we decided to wait.

 Now that the kitchen cabinets are stored in the basement of the house we are living in and we have a vintage gas cook range, (and the sheetrock is done and the kitchen will go in soon) we decided it was time to get the perfect kitchen sink.

The place where we found one 3 years ago, didn't have any. We looked on Craigslist and found two that would have been okay, but then came across this beauty. The only catch....travel to Ashby, Massachusetts to look at it (2 and 1/2 hours one way). If we didn't like it....or if it wasn't in decent shape....

As you can see, we got it. It came with the cabinet, which we will not be using in the kitchen.

Martin has plans for it though. Refurbish the cabinet, add to it, and, presto, turn it into a dining room hutch for the dinnerware.

He can do whatever he wants, I have my sink.

Bricks for the hearth

 When we were cleaning out and removing the unwanted and unusable items from an tigin during our first year of renovation, Martin saved the old bricks from the chimney. The chimney was only held together by the creosote! Then he chipped off as much of the old mortar as he could and stacked them in the yard.

 This summer, I was volunteered to clean off the bricks a bit better and bring them into the house and to sort them into piles. A lot of the bricks were obviously seconds; they were different lengths, widths and thicknesses. Some had holes and hollows in them.

While I was pulling them out of the pile in the yard and moving them to the house, I discovered one garter snake, seven snake skins, a vole nest, and a cache of acorns (not counting the various cocoons, spiders, dead bugs, live bugs, etc.)

After cleaning them off, I tried my best to organize them in stacks of good, okay, and doubtful in terms of usability. 

We are going to build a half brick wall in the corner and a brick hearth for the wood stove in the above picture, 

Hibiscus plants are amazing

Before my friends put in the perennial flower bed at an tigin, I had visited their extensive and gorgeous gardens. One of the plants they had was hibiscus. 

Thank goodness they were willing to share with me!

Obviously I need to support them next year so they can stand up, tall and proud.

visitors

 The only dill I had at home was self-seeded and had bolted before I could harvest and dry enough to last through the winter. I do love dill weed! So I planted some at an tigin. After having been gone for a couple of weeks (visiting family), I came back to 6 swallowtail caterpillars thoroughly enjoying themselves and my dill. I had enough dill that I certainly didn't mind sharing and was glad that there were only 6 and not more.

 Eastern black swallowtail      Swallowtail know hows