Like Father Like Son

In this case it is "Like Grandpa, like Grandson". Wyatt asked me what we were going to do with the large dog house the previous owners had left. They had a Great Dane so it is extra large. I told him that my plan was to paint it and let the girls use it as a playhouse but it was a project way down on the list.

This is what I saw about 15 minutes later. He had gone out to the dog house saw what needed to be done. Went to Bill's workshop; got eye protection, headphones for music, and a hammer. He repaired the roof. This nine year old is amazing. Knows what needs to be done and takes care of it. Doesn't need to ask for directions just goes for it.

Isn't this the ugliest thing ever? I am a University of Oklahoma football fan which makes me a Bob Stoops fan. But I don't want his name plastered on the granddaughters play house.  It had a sheet metal porch roof on the front that was an accident waiting to happen, we removed that. The door needs to be cut taller before I can easily get in and out of it. It is roomy enough inside that I can stand up. Of course, I am pretty short but the girls will never outgrow the space.

 He made sure his little sisters got to sit on the roof also. He even let them use the hammer.

 
Time to paint. I wasn't planning on this happening so they hadn't brought paint clothes for the weekend. Tee shirts for the boys and underwear for the girls. We are using up some old white paint as the primer. The girls want a pink house with purple. Hopefully, Lowe's will have some paint that will work in their return section. The paint we used in our last house in the girls bathroom and Tiffany's bedroom would be perfect but I didn't move it with us.

 This tractor tire is from my Daddy's tractor. He made this into a sandbox 25 years ago for us.

Beautiful

The front entryway ceiling is almost finished. It is as finished as it will be for a while. No one else will know what still needs to be added except us.

Bill sealed it with the Matte Poly urethane and then hung the light while I was at work holding down the fort.

 Can't get over how beautiful it is. All the colors, the grains, the uniqueness. The sealer brought out all the warmness of the Red Oak. The nail holes my family put into that wood just adds wonderful flavor and history to the wood.

 We were having trouble finding what we considered the perfect light for this area. I wanted simple clean lines so it was easy to clean. Being in the country means more dust and stuff than in town. When you come in the front door you will see this light and the Dining Room chandelier. Needed something that wouldn't fight with the Dining Room light but would hold its own against it.  We brought one light home and our daughter, Christel, loved it. It was the exact one she and Dustin had put into their new house. Took it back real quick. We kept looking and looking for inspiration.

 My parents have just moved from the family farm to Edmond to be closer to family. As we were packing and moving them Bill went into the front room and said what about your parent's light? Mom looked at us a little funny when we asked if we could take her light down; luckily she said yes. We took it down and put up a flush mount light that we had in storage and now we have the cool light. The renters have no idea that this light was at the house so they don't know they are missing a vintage piece. Many many family meals have been eaten under this light.

Our house will resound with family history. We keep finding ways to add more of it to our home.

Decision time

Decisions, decisions. What type of finish do we want on the ceiling wood. The paint experts were saying to use a dead flat finish but I don't know if that's what I want. I am a little glitzier than that.

Tried the finishes out to see which one we like.

Did not do a dead flat one at all.

The one on the left is stain,we knew we didn't want that but you should look at everything just in case. The middle is Satin and the right is a Matte finish. Bill and I almost always agree on what we like without even discussing things. Guess that comes from being together for 40 years. But, we did not agree on this one. He liked the Satin and I liked the Matte. My thoughts were that it added more warmth to the wood and brought the grain out a little more. He didn't know why; he just liked the Satin finish. I quickly texted the options to our girls and lo and behold they agreed with me, must be a girl thing. Bill is at home putting on the Matte finish right now.

Another DIY Tip

Here's a little DIY tip is for sealing the ceiling wood. If the wood was going on the floor or even walls you would be up close and personal with we would spray the sealant. But since it is way above eye level and we would spend a good hour and a half sealing the area off with plastic to spray, then the lengthy cleaning of the spraying apparatus we opted to brush on the poly urethane. Spraying gives the smoothest finish but this wood is not smooth to begin with so this way will do just fine.

Since we will be brushing above our heads I cut down a paper cup and slipped it onto the handle of the brush then taped it into place. This way the sealant will drip down the brush and into the cup not down our arm. Plastic gloves will be worn also but this will save us from a big mess.

A 2 inch brush is being used because it fits in the can and can easily be worked into all the joints of the boards.

Red Neck or Not

Little things happen when you are in the building process. With the right tools they are easy to fix. The first fix of the day was done with a real tool and the second one is definitely red neck.

The missing wood from the entry way ceiling wood had to be shaped by my ever amazing husband. He used a stationary sander to get just the right shape for each of the filler pieces of wood we needed.

 The trim boards for the entry ceiling need to be bent along the curve. So we measured what the curve needed to be and built an apparatus to bend the wood just right. We measured the height of the wall at the corners and the middle of the curve and that gives  the degree of bend we need. We used the grandkids trike that has a flatbed trailer and added a booster seat for one end. On the other end we used a game box then our girl's 30 year old Play Doh picnic basket with wood stacked on it to get the height we needed.  Then we added a packing box filled with liquor bottles and a diesel can to add weight to the middle to slowly get the bend we need. The wood  bends nice and slow because the weight isn't so much that it forces it into an immediate bend, easy does it. It just takes time. No rush .

Do It Again

We love the wood ceiling in the back hallway so much that we decided to do it again in the entry way. In the back hall we left the wood from the old grainery natural, just power washed it. Added an old timey light and it is gorgeous. The entry way needed to be a little more formal. The hall table we will have in there is a very ornate antique reproduction. So we planed the boards 3-4 times leaving some of the worn wood and all of the varmit holes.

First order of business is to put the drywall up to put the wood against. Need to form the curve for the drywall. We started by shaving the drywall sheet down so it would fit close to the curve.

 Then Bill used a piece of wood with a notch cut out of it to follow the curve. The notch was for the pencil to rest in. Then you simply run the piece of wood or ruler along the curve and the cut line is drawn.

The Dremel cuts along the line to give us a perfect curve.

 Time to start putting the pieces up. This is tongue and groove wood so we used rubber mallets to tap the groove over the tongue on each piece. That is what the black marks are on the backing wood. This wood is 100 years old so the pieces are warped in places; they don't just snap into place like new wood would. Plus we are building on a curve. Several things make this a little more difficult than usual, not the least was that we had to have the scissor lift so high for me to reach the boards to hold them in place that poor Bill kept knocking his head. The perils of having a 9 inch difference in height.

 We figured out a pattern of 6 long pieces and then 2 short pieces to keep a random look. But, we would line up the nail holes from the original building so it would be pleasing to the eye.

After each fifth board we would get the circular saw out and trim the boards. Anything longer would have been difficult to reach across. Bill was having to cut the boards above his head while I grabbed them as they were cut to avoid him getting hit.

 You can see a couple of holes probably eaten into the wood by mice to get to the wheat in the garinery bins. We stained the backer board darker than the pretty wood so it will look like they are still real.

 What we we do without our faithful scissor lift? Best purchase for the building process ever.

 Oops, there are two boards that do not fit tight together. Age had caused some of the wood to break off or when we dismantled the grainery we broke little pieces off, something happened so they were not flush against the adjoining boards. We wanted to use them because they had beautiful grain we wanted to show.

 A little wood glue and painter tape to hold the little pieces in place. You can't tell that we added wood at all.

Little Jobs

We have had a huge slow down in the building process because my parents have moved from the family farm to town. That has taken all of our weekends.

Bill has just been doing little jobs he can do by himself.  One of those jobs was to hang a holder for all of our hats, scarves and gloves. Have to have enough for us and the grand kids for when they come sledding. This is an over the door hanger we may have a storage area for them when the building is finished so we didn't want to do anything permanent right now. I didn't want to see the metal hanging over the door; I can be such a bratty snob at times. Bill does everything he can to make me happy, he learned this from my Daddy who is that way with my Mom. He cut the metal part off that would have be seen on the front of the door and then screwed the metal into the top of the door. Now we have a place for what we need but it isn't obtrusive.

Another job was to actually wire the front column lights. We had put the fixtures up last fall. But not having made the decision on what type of porch lights we would be using, pendant or sconces, he couldn't run the wires. That decision has been made so he can now run the wiring. Came home from our annual Girls Weekend and he had been busy. We have switches and we have wire. The boxes came from my Daddy's workshop. We found all kinds of little building things in his 62 year accumulation of stuff.

 We have power!!!

So excited that we had to take a drive to see what it looked like from the road. Very blurry picture because it was very dark out except for our interior truck lights and our working front column lights.