Town and Country Willy Nilly.

We've had some beautiful days and I've gotten outside to enjoy the scenery and take pictures. I have a surplus of images for Willy Nilly Friday and other linkups, plus of course some that I just want to post so they don't languish unseen.
  

1. Fences: Along a peaceful lane at Blandy Experimental Farm.

2. Also at Blandy, an arbor shown in black and white. 

3. Work on the new state park in Woodstock is progressing. I dropped by one day to take a look at the Lupton Road entrance and chatted with Ranger Tom, who happened to be there keeping an eye on things. Part of the park property is still being used by a farmer, and the corn has grown tall.

The park is closed during the week while construction crews are working, but on weekends you can walk in and explore. 

4. A local photo group has "Purple" as a topic this week. I noticed the color in a shop window and caught a reflection of clouds at the same time.

5. Floral Friday, Friday Bliss: I found plenty of purple flowers to photograph in various parks and public gardens. The pretty lavender trumpet was displayed on what looks like a huge weed at the edge of the cornfield shown above.

6. Skywatch: The paths in Shenandoah County Park were recently paved, making them accessible to wheelchairs and strollers.

7. The historic Sonner House in Strasburg has been repaired and the new owners are holding it open tomorrow afternoon (9/7/19).  I'm glad they were able to save this house from further deterioration. When I reported on it in 2017, a wall was badly bowed. A contractor and his wife purchased it and fixed it up.

8. The final picture is from our brief visit to the Bahamas back in 2010.  The islands were hit hard this week by Hurricane Dorian. From what we've seen so far, the devastation has been horrific. I know this is on the minds of caring people everywhere.

Organizations like Mercy Corps are doing what they can to help.

Roof Repair on Keystone Drive

A Lighter Oak Floor

We had the hardwood floors refinished at the Lake House. The old floors were quite worn, as you can see in the second photo, taken two years ago. They were also dark, and since we were having them redone we switched to a light color.

The newly finished floors are beautiful!

An Addition for Our Little Library

The Basye-Orkney Springs Community Library is getting an addition! It's a small library but fairly busy. We serve local residents and many visitors to the resort who are happy to find a place to use the internet.

Article: Fundraising Pays for Library Room

My Investment Townhouse is Ready

My townhome in Woodstock is ready for the tenants who are moving in tomorrow. Today we got the downstairs floors looking spiffy, and just about everything else was done last week.
It's the first time since last spring that we've felt we can relax as far as our properties being fixed up. A year ago my tenant in Northern Virginia lost his job and stopped paying his rent. When he moved out, I decided to sell that house and buy one closer to where we live now. Unfortunately there was a lot of work to do on that house, and even though we found good contractors, we had to make several trips down there to arrange things. By the time that was ready to sell, Frank had a house come vacant near mine and decided to sell it too. His did not need as much work as mine, but it took time because it was also two hours from home. Eventually both houses sold.

We bought the lake house as a replacement for his and it needed repairs and remodeling. Before we finished it, I closed on the townhouse (a foreclosure) and started getting repairs done. Finally both are ready for renters, and as some sort of grand finale, both have tenants moving in tomorrow.

Walls Plain and Fancy

We faced a number of decorating decisions with the lake house. Painted walls were simple once I decided to go along with Frank's preference and repaint them white. (This was a no-brainer with the pink walls, but I didn't mind the deep rose, yellow, blue and brown walls and would have left them alone. White, of course, is less likely to prove objectionable to potential tenants.)

However, wallpaper turned out to be tough to remove and time-consuming to paint over. So some of them are still papered.

The master bath has a couple of walls papered in a bright rose pattern. One potential tenant inquired if we would paint over it, but they never filled out an application so we have not bothered to paint it yet. It's an option.

Kitchen Before and After

When we purchased the house in Waterlick, the kitchen was decorated in black and white and the range and fridge were missing. We still have a black and white color scheme, but got rid of the busy diamond and checkerboard patterns. (Actually, I didn't mind the floor but my husband didn't care for it. The pattern was painted on.) Frank installed black vinyl floor tiles, and we purchased a range and fridge with silver and black finishes.

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Getting the Lake House ready to rent

I couldn't get Craigslist to work for me tonight but I was able to enter our new investment property in Postlets.

Work is ongoing at the house. The painters (Sonny and Billy) should be done on Tuesday. The yard is cleaned up and Dwayne will powerwash the siding any day now. The family room will get carpet by next weekend.

Sears has delivered the range and fridge; both have a silvery finish that looks like stainless steel. A plumber is getting replacement parts for the Kohler toilets, which don't work with "universal" parts. And Frank and I did a lot of spiffing up in the house and yard.

I walked around the lake today. It was amusing hearing the ducks quack - they sound like they're laughing!

Under Contract!

After eight days on the market, my investment house is under contract. It took a lot of work to get it ready to show though.

Here are some before and after photos. I did not shoot them at the same angles because I was recording the scenes for different purposes. The first time I was documenting the fact that the tenant did not leave the house in good condition, to say the least. The second time I was taking pictures for advertising the house on Postlets and other websites.

Living Room as we found it	Same LR window and wall
Hall closet door	Hall Closet is at the left
Door from kitchen to porch	Same Door is on the right
Middle Bedroom	Same Bedroom Now

Hanging a Door

Our handyman in Dale City cut a window in the new door for the furnace room. After he and Frank hung it, he added a vent panel.

The door has to be ventilated because the gas furnace is in a little room that opens to the outside.

My To Do List Not Checked Off

I have a mental checklist of things I wanted to do to prepare for the rotator cuff surgery. Some are going better than others.

1. Get an opinion from someone who knows the surgeon. Done. Turns out my chiropractor knows her, and his wife had her perform carpal tunnel surgery. He said positive things about her, like "She does quality work" and "You will be pleased."
2. Get my digestive problems solved so I am only dealing with one health challenge. Not done. I tried, did everything the gastroenterologist said, but I'm still suffering discomforts, although not as badly as two months ago. I'm back on an anti-yeast program in case antibiotic-caused candida is contributing.
3. Make adjustments in the kitchen so that I don't have to strain my arm reaching at the kitchen sink. Not done. I looked at a catalog of sinks and faucets but saw nothing that would make enough difference to be worth the expense. We did put a wire rack in the bottom of the sink which helps a little, but reaching the faucet is still a stretch. Putting a large sink in a corner location was just a mistake. Well, Frank can do the dishes but I'd like to be able to get a glass of water on my own. By the way, I purchased a Reaching Tool which helps with some tasks, since I can't stretch my right arm, and my left arm is so clumsy.
   
4. Buy more clothing that is easy to put on using just one arm. Done. This includes shirts that button in the front and cardigan-style sweatshirts. I gave up on pullover styles early this winter because they are painful to pull on over my sore arm (which won't lift all the way up anyway). So gradually I've been finding items that will be wearable while my shoulder is healing.
5. Teach Benny to stop pulling on the leash. Not totally done but progress was made. I was instructed to turn in another direction when he pulls and he will follow, which helps but is not completely effective. Also we practice key movements like walking calmly in the door. Frank read in a cocker spaniel book to practice slowly walking "step - stop - step - stop" and this seems to be helping.
6. Get small pillows for propping up my arm. Done. A baby pillow turns out to be the right size. I've already bought some so that I can sleep without too much pain. (If the shoulder falls forward or backward too far, it hurts.) Also, I bought a Knee Pillow which I cut to be thinner, and I strap it around my arm to support it every night .
7. Change medicine over to easy-open bottles. Not done yet. I will be ordering a refill on Thyrolar soon and I must remember to tell the pharmacy "no child-proof lid." Those things are not really child-proof, yet some of us adults have trouble with them. And when one arm is in a sling, forget it!
8. Get some things that are convenient to eat while I'm recuperating. Not done. Not really practical. Convenience foods are not made for people with multiple food allergies. Hopefully I won't be very hungry. Frank will help but cooking from scratch is not his forté.
   

I'll bet there are things I haven't even thought of. This could be rough.

Driveway Repair

Our driveway is on a fairly steep hill so eventually it gets ruts. We got a new load of gravel today from Macanie Trucking, the same company that does our snow removal.

The driver dumped and spread the gravel, then ran over it with the truck to pack it down. It looks much improved.

Painting the Great Room

We've had a messy house this week because Frank has been painting the walls of the great room. They are paneled with old barn wood that was a faded brown. I kind of liked the effect but he was tired of it.

He had already painted one wall in July (the west wall with the glass doors). We had selected a gray color called Garden Stone after trying and rejecting various shades of beige. He wanted to paint the other walls the same color but I objected strenuously. I don't care for the prison-gray tone that it has on cloudy days. I talked him into leaving the fireplace wall brown. He refreshed it by covering it with a water-based stain by Minwax called American Walnut.

It wasn't easy buying the stain. We had tested a sample that we bought at Lowe's, but when I went back to buy 3 quarts, they did not have it in quarts. I had to drive to Home Depot to buy it (an extra hour's trip).

Next we tackled the east wall. We picked up a gallon of an off-white paint, Valspar's low-odor water-based premium paint with the odd name, Woodrow Wilson Putty. (Low-odor is important to me; the smell of paint can give me a severe headache.)

On the wall, however, it was too yellow. I suggested mixing it with the gray paint. This gave us a gray that was lighter and slighter warmer than the Garden Stone, an acceptable compromise.

Frank said we needed three gallons of it. He painted an art board with the mixture and I took it to Lowe's yesterday to get them to match the color. A young woman scanned it into the computer and presented me with a sample that did not match. It had a touch of mauve in it and I know from experience that Frank has a strong dislike of paint with any trace of pink. The clerk said that was the closest she could get.

I found sample cards of Garden Stone and Woodrow Wilson Putty and had her look up the formulas. She said that she could not match our color that way because the base colors were different. Getting a bit frustrated, I asked if a "real paint store could match our sample." She did not think so.

I said to mix equal parts of each paint and it would work. I had to argue with her a bit and wound up buying a quart of each and having her mix them in a plastic bucket (which I had to promise to pay for). The color was a perfect match, of course. (Let's call it Woodrow's Putty Garden.) So then I asked her to mix a gallon of each, which would give me a total of 2 and a half gallons. I figured adding that to the paint we already had would be enough. (It was.) The clerk mixed up the gray and the putty separately and presented me with the cans.

"Please mix it together." I had to pay for another plastic bucket and she mixed the paint while talking on a cell phone.

Another clerk gave me the paint and cautioned me that the lid might not hold securely so to be sure to keep the cans upright in the car. Then she went through the checkout with me so that I would be charged correctly for the now-empty cans plus the buckets and lids. By this time I had spent an hour in the store. (Did I mention that I don't like shopping in home improvement stores because of the chemical smells? And I don't like house painting projects because of the hassle and the mess.)

All went well after that. Frank painted the wall and the hallway today while I was at a physical therapy appointment. The paint looks fine and he even got the mess cleaned up.

Color for the Clerestory

When our remodelers were here the other day, we asked them to mount this decorative window inside the middle clerestory window. I've had this item since my birthday but we didn't have a ladder tall enough to reach the top of that window.

Clerestory Maintenance

We had the carpenter duo who did our kitchen work come back this week to replace the trim around our clerestory windows. That woodwork takes a beating from sunshine all morning and water every time it rains.

Here we see Ken and Helmut applying primer.

The Painted Wall

Here's a close look at the newly-painted wall in our great room.  And on the right are new vertical blinds. They replaced insulating shades which got old and hard to use.
This wall is now a grayish-tan color. We had a hard time choosing it. We tried a tiresome number of paint samples. Off-white was too bright when sunlight floods into the room (which is all day long). A beige that looked good on a paint chip turned out to look like a flesh-colored crayon on the wall. (Yuck!) Other beiges were disappointing too. ("That's funny, it didn't look lavender in the store.") On the fourth (fifth?) trip to Lowe's we selected this color, which Frank says is light brown but I see as a warm gray. It looks good in warm light but depressingly gray on a cloudy day (to me). 

We used a low-odor paint and even a low-odor primer. They covered very well considering how porous and dry the old barn wood is.

Saturday the new blinds came and they make the paint color look better. A young lady installed them but discovered that the headrail on one is damaged so it will have to be replaced. For now they work with a little extra effort. The blinds are textured off-white, not the bright white that you see in the picture, in which they are reflecting the sunlight.

We bought them from Budget Blinds this time, after an unsuccessful attempt to buy them from Penneys. I've learned that hiring people to do remodeling projects is just as likely to involve problems as doing it yourself, and more likely to involve extensive delays.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

While we were on vacation, our replacement cabinets arrived and were installed. So I'm going to tell you about them and let the remaining Assateague photos wait for a while.

When we got home, we saw how gorgeous the cabinets look. They replace the ones that were too wide for the new space between the windows. Unfortunately, there's a problem with them. The trim around the doors is not identical to the trim around the other cabinets in the room.

So our designer has arranged for the cabinet doors to go back to Hagerstown Kitchens to be fixed or replaced. In the meantime, here's a look at the view into the kitchen from the dining area. Looks nice, if I do say so myself!


And here's the view as you come through the entry. The dark paneled wall has been replaced with a half-wall.

You may also notice that the brown paneling on the far wall has been painted a light color. Frank painted that wall before we went away. So far we are leaving the other walls in the great room a dark brown.