On into December! Ho, Ho, Ho! However, before I get ahead of myself I realized I forgot to mention Thanksgiving... On Thanksgiving Day we had a dual celebration, my sister Brooke's 40th.. yes I said 40th.. did you hear me say 40th? birthday as well as the annual Thanksgiving Day feast. Brooke got to open her presents alongside the turkey carcass, and pumpkin and apple pie crumbs. We had a very good time... as usual.
My grandson Donovan ran around like a wild chicken and we all visited and ate a delicious meal. Mom and Dad had worked on the turkey... and the sides. Brooke, Jeff, Ella, and Ave brought some fantastic appetizers (prosciutto wrapped, mozzarella, basil, olive oil, balsamic jobbers) sort of like these but bigger with rich and tasty olive oil and balsamic vinegar in a dipping bowl:
and of course we broke into one (or two) of Dad's home cured/canned jars of green olives. Near the end of the visit we pick names for Christmas presents... except for Donovan we all put our names into a hat and draw the name of the intended victim.. er.. recipient of our gift. We started doing this several years ago... and it really cuts down on the holiday shopping madness and makes it all so much more enjoyable.
We made a couple of big strides at the house since I last posted... we are 3/4 of the way through our bathroom! Yayyy for the toilet! Yayyy for the shower! and as soon as David finishes fine tuning the plumbing in the sink... Yayyy for the sink!
You may remember the before shots of the bathroom:
Well, we both jumped in the shower (relax folks... this is not that kinda blog!) and with hammers, pry bars, and some colorful language we smashed out the old tile, and knocked down that weird upper box tiled thing. (Which was empty by the way.. there were no bodies stuffed up in there, or old treasure maps, or buckets filled with gold doubloons.) That box thing merely covered up more of the scary painted redwood tongue an groove beadboard. Dang.
Anyway, David dropped in the shower floor, fixed the drain pipe under the house, and then we started tiling. I say we... it was mostly David I just got in the way and wiped off the grout once in awhile when he told me to. But we tiled the floor, the shower, and then tossed up some greenboard... er.. sheetrock/drywall. I HATE drywall already. We almost had an international incident as we put up our first sheet of greenboard on the ceiling. David was at one end working his way up the ladder while I was on the other end already on the ladder trying to hold it in place... and my ladder slipped. Just a touch but enough for a flash picture of me crashing down from the ladder, drywall dust everywhere, and David and I being found days later under the shards of broken greenboard. It was just a little slip though and we ended up doing just fine. 
Greenboard / drywall is a necessary evil however, and once it was all up and primed the bathroom renovation moved quickly. The toilet was returned, as was the sink, and shower. David also rewired and added in a new spiffy light.
We still have to paint, trim, get a pretty new shower curtain and rug... oh yeah and replace that wonky window.... but we are getting there. Here are the 3/4 of the way done shots:
Another big step was getting the Regency wood stove installed. David and I had previously cleared a spot in the living room, drywalled, and then David built a hearth all in anticipation for the stove's imminent arrival. Here is another shot of David building the hearth... (We will be trimming out the edges after the floor is stripped, sanded, and stained so keep your eyes peeled for that near the end of the project.)
Well, the stove appeared after Thanksgiving and it truly is a great little stove! We are very happy with it! The stove came with a fan that turns on and off automatically. It helps to blow the heat up behind and over the top of the stove into the room. The black thing behind the stove is a heat shield. It allows the stove to be closer to the wall which was very attractive to us in such a small living space and protects the wall from heat. You can put your hand down between the stove and that shield while the fire is rockin' and there is nothing but cool air there. It really does the job well!
This little stove heats our whole little house with very little effort. David and I enjoy woodstoves and this one works well enough to heat the entire house and keep it heated throughout the day. It seems to just make the bones of the house warmer as well our our bones! Delta has moved her sleeping spot from behind our chairs on her bed... to right in front of the stove with her head up near the hearth!
Our kitchen cabinets might not be done until January so we are shifting our order of jobs around. We have lately been eyeballing the living room, and the dining/office area, as well as some more of the finish work in the areas we have already been working on. One job that might get moved up much quicker is sanding, stripping, staining the floors. It is a house size job and it is going to be a messy one but some of our finish work can not get done until the floors are finished.
