Pages

Except for the two spouses taking this picture and my dad and step-mom (away due to an impromptu illness), The Pages gathered on the annual First Sunday in May. The old house was habitable and Grandmother’s table was once again full.

During the weeks leading up to this day, we had worked to install additional fans to keep air circulating and keep the house cool, but none were needed as we experienced record breaking maximum high cool temps (not lows). Instead of fans, we had to plug in and turn on heaters!

The kids didn’t seem to care about the sprinkles and cool temps. They played outside, grabbed hot wire fences and slipped and fell in the mud, much like we did when we played at Gramps and Grandmothers.

The youngest Page, Allie Vee, got kissed and juggled …

Carolyn (Bunk) Page and Allie Vee

and rocked and held.

Descendents of William H. (Bunk) Page

and cousins reunited and reminisced.

Descendents of James Ray Page

Let There Be Light

“In the beginning there was nothing.
God said, ‘Let there be light!’ And there was light.
There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better.”
― Ellen DeGeneres

Pictorial progress:

Prepped

Primed

Prepped

Primed

We lack priming the ceiling, and then paint; but, isn’t it amazing how a lighter color can totally open up a room!

The Dream

Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you.
~Marsha Norman

Grandmother and Me

Dreams are surreal vehicles, if one can only remember the message upon waking.

My Grandmother Page visited me in a dream a few mornings ago.  In the dream, Handi-man and I were building a house.  (Hmm.)  In the dream, there was a truck coming down the drive. (Company? The Pages will soon gather on the first Sunday in May…)  In the dream, there was a space in the dining room, in need of a table. (Handi-man and Daddy recently retrieved Grandmother’s table from storage.)  In the dream, I walked into a hall (we lack and are now working on the “center hall”) and Grandmother was sitting in a chair.  She looked at me and said, “Deb, you’ve got to get us some of those [ ] dishes.”  Dishes?  She distinctly said a brand or a pattern.  I even repeated it back to her in the form of a question.   But, then I awoke.  And the dream, and the name of the dishes evaporated.

Bizzare? Yes, a bit.  It may be that in spending so much time in the old house and in touching its memories, that my dreams and reality have meshed.  In the picture above, I still have the chair on the left, the rocker on the right and the child’s rocker in the background.  I have many of my grandparents’ relics, and the memories they tell are strong.

At times, during the restoration of The Farmhouse, I have been unable to sleep as I “build” the old house into the wee hours of the night.  Handi-man and I have both suffered from this “working” insomnia over the past two and a half years.

Many years ago, long before we ever took on this project, I would have a reoccurring dream of building a house.  In that dream we would walk from our house to that house, the house we were building.  It was on an opposite hill and down the road.  We would walk through its rooms which were always the same in the dream.  The dream was a bit disconcerting in that, upon waking I couldn’t understand why we were building a house when we already had a house.  I haven’t had that dream in a while. Was that dream a foreshadowing? Illustrations from a book my soul would someday write?

A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.
~Colin Powell

Motivation Lacking Enthusiasm

Motivation [n.] the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action.
motivation >noun  1 the reason or reasons behind one’s actions or behavior.  2 enthusiasm.

The Farmhouse is gearing up to host its next family gathering.  As I have previously penned, the Pages have gathered for years on the First Sunday in May to remember those who have passed on, and in particular those who are interned at Rutledge Salem Cemetery.  In the years before Grandmother’s passing, the Pages always gathered at The Farmhouse (then, termed “Grandmother’s”) on this Memorial / Homecoming Sunday.  It has been my dream, since we first entered the old house in October of 2010, that we once again gather there.

So it is to be this year, some two and a half years after the dream was birthed.  The only room left untouched, where no repairs have been made, is what I now call, the Center Hall.  It is in the center of the house, and all rooms but a couple can be accessed through it. During our restoration / preservation efforts over the last two plus years, we have stored our tools and supplies and some furniture in this room.  We have worked all around this room, working our way out the back door.

This room was one of the ugliest of all the rooms when we entered the house in the Fall of 2010.  It had been painted a dark red, followed by coat of dark, hunter green. Neither color reached the top of the 10-foot ceiling.  With its one window off the side porch, it was (is) dark and, well – just ugly!

Two weekends ago, Handi-man and I cleared the room of all stored furniture, tools and supplies, making it accessible to cleaning and prepping for it’s much needed rehabilitation.

This past weekend, however, as Handi-man worked at this and that, I could not garner the enthusiasm to turn my hand at much of anything.  I am so eager to move forward with the completion of this final room, yet I wasted the day. The motivation, the need to make use of the time allotted was present, but my enthusiasm was very much lacking.

Hopefully this upcoming weekend will cooperate with sun and warmth, and my enthusiasm will be renewed.  Although we will not complete the Center Hall in time for the Page Homecoming, my goal is to at least clean and prep the walls and ceiling for a coat or two (maybe more) of Primer.  Anything to dispel the gloom, and offer a glimpse of what the room will be.

Prelude to Spring

After a long winter’s nap, the old homestead awoke with renewed vigor this past week.  With the return of Daylight Savings Time,  I took the week off from my day job for “Spring Break”.  Handi-man and I concentrated on flooring the dining room – The Eddie as I have deemed her.

For the dining room floor we purchased and had Lowe’s cut seven 4′x8′ sheets of 19/32 plywood into 6″ strips.  We then sanded each of the 56 boards.

Handi-man then installed the boards in a staggered pattern with adhesive (my job) and screws.

A custom stain (two tints) was mixed and applied. Look how the wood grain POPS!

A satin polyurethane was then applied and baseboards were installed.

We also began restoration of the old, chippy front door.  Handi-man sanded all the loose, chippy paint and I primed both sides and painted one side before we re-hung this original-to-the-house treasure.  I will paint the outside with an exterior grade semi-gloss on the next warm, Spring day.

Don’t you just love old, wavy glass!

Roost Rules

Okay readers, we need your help.  Eldest daughter is in the process of compiling a collection of “rules” that every Farm Chick (that’s how we females refer to ourselves at Page Farms) should follow; i.e., axioms to live by — A Farm Chick Rule Book.  We’ve gather a few rules, but we want your input.  And yes, you Rooster’s may chime crow in.  But be careful, you know who rules the roost!

Your submissions can be serious or funny, and may include old wives’ tales or advice that your mom, grand-mom or great-grand-mom may have handed down to you about life on the farm and/or “making do”.  You may submit more than one “rule”, tale or advice – as many as you want, really.  Just leave a comment on this post or on the Facebook link.

Any submission by you will be deemed as permission to use your “rule”.  We reserve the right to reject, delete and will monitor all comments.  If we use your submission in the compilation, we would like to give you credit by using your name, your location (if known/given) and/or origin.

Look forward to reading your submissions.

Winter’s Curtain Call

As we wait out a very wet and cold Winter, I have attempted to complete start some “homemade” projects in anticipation of the return of warmth and the opportunity to return to our preservation efforts at The Farmhouse.

On a recent, particularly cold and rainy Saturday, eldest daughter and I whipped together some homemade “draft dodgers” from scrap drop cloth canvas for the farmhouse windows.  The windows, even after repair and with never-before weather stripping, still allowed cold to seep around the edges of the meeting rail and up through the holes where the non-existent pulley system was intended.  After making a tube the width of the two meeting rails and slightly longer than the width of the window, we loosely filled the tubes with non-clumping kitty litter so as to allow the draft dodgers to be flexible, but have weight and density.

Here is one of the “installed” draft dodgers:

This past weekend, Handi-man and I installed “window treatments” (curtains) in the Bunkhouse.  As I’m trying to achieve a farmhouse cottage look on the cheap, my choices were white table clothes or painters drop clothes, both are which are hemmed and ready to hang.  I had purchased both, but the white table clothes were a bit too stark and “tailored.”  The drop clothes achieved the look I wanted with their rumpled, natural appearance.

We hung the curtains high, using the full length of the 6×9 panels, which helps break up the 10 foot walls and will also help keep the draftiness out of the room when closed.

The thing with painters drop clothes is that you never know when you buy them if the panel will be one solid piece or if there will be a seam right in the middle, as is the panel on the right.  But, I like the pieced together look.  It reminds me of what my grandmother might have done when piecing together a quilt, using scraps to make something useful; using pieces to make a whole.

use it up, wear it out,
make it do or do without!

2012 in Review

WordPress.com prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

In 2012, there were 40 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 92 posts. The busiest day of the year was January 2nd with 171 views. The most popular post that day was Floored.

These are the posts that got the most views in 2012.

1. Anniversaries  October 2011
2. Weekly Workout April 2012
3. Red, White and Buttercup Yellow May 2012
4. Floored January 2012
5. Rusty Treasure  May 2012

Stay tuned for more preservation / restoration efforts of This Old Farmhouse in 2013.

Make Do

Due to preparations for the holidays, extended holiday gatherings and nasty wet and/or cold weather, very little progress was made at The Farmhouse during the month of December.

Early in the month we caulked and finished the baseboards in The Bunkhouse (bedroom), added (some) furniture, and refinished and installed a peculiarity – a swinging door.

We’ve pondered how the swinging door, with its heavy duty spring-locking system, came to be installed in the old house.  It is unique to all the other doors with their traditional hinges and knobs.  It could be that my grandfather (Gramps) was a bit of a barterer and he traded something for the door (one time taking an old table – still in the family today – for egg money, much to my grandmother’s dismay). Or maybe he was today’s equivalent of a DIY architectural salvage-repurposer.

No doubt that the old house is full of “make-do” construction – then and now – and is one of the many reasons to preserve This Old Farmhouse.  In 2013 may we all take a lesson from my grandparents frugality: Make Do.

Peace

The shortest day / longest night of the year has passed and the earth continues to rotate on her axis, in her orbit despite someone’s interpretation of the Mayan calendar.  I’ve made all the lists and checked them twice, bought the groceries and begun the cycles of meal preparations.  The eldest is home with one grand-puppy, and the youngest and her hubby and pups will arrive after Christmas, rounding out the number of canines equal to the number of humans in the Daniel Home. Somewhere in the midst I plan to rest, take a few days from smiling and nodding pleasantries at the public.

Today, I stole away to the farmhouse and sat for a moment in the sunshine streaming through old wavy glass of recently restored windows, savoring the warmth on a winter chilled day.  Dust motes twinkled in the sunlight as silence prevailed.  Peace.

Over the next few days, I encourage you to find a time or more to steal away to a place of quiet and reflect on Peace.

The LORD your God is with you,
    he is mighty to save.
Zeph 3:17