Free stuff!

I've always had trouble accepting free things. Most fundamentally it is a pride issue. But here's a few free things that you can get without any one ever knowing.
First Energy is offering a number of incentive programs, two of which I recently took advantage of. If you go to www.energysavePA.com you can fill out a home energy survey and they will send you a box of high efficiency light bulbs and a very nice power saving power-strip. I would guess the value of what they send you is over $50. The survey took about 5 minutes and now I can begin replacing all of the hot and in-efficient light bulbs in our old house.
The second incentive is that they will pick up your old refrigerator and pay you $50 for it. The idea is that they are getting an older and less efficient refrigerator off the grid. Since scrap prices for fridges are around $20, they are undercutting the market! I've got my pickup scheduled, which means I won't have to be the one to carry the fridge down my front stairs, out the front door, down the porch stairs and the sidewalk stairs and then all the way back to the alley, where admittedly, a scrapper would grab it in 30 minutes or less. You can sign up for the fridge pick up at the same web address, www.energysavePA.com

Mortise Lock Repair 101

Now the the big renovation is complete, I've been able to find some time to get to the finer details of owning a 92 year old home. A few weeks ago we installed a rice paper window film to the bathroom door off our kitchen. The previous owners had used a curtain to provide the necessary privacy but we wanted something a bit more modern. It looks great! One problem: the heavy solid wood and glass door naturally hangs about halfway open. Since it took about an hour of shimming, adjusting, and cursing to get the door to close at all, I wasn't about to try anything fancy. Another problem: the latch on the door was not working and I haven't yet been able to find the correct Corbin key for the mortise lock. If you haven't seen an antique mortise lock up close, see below. They are truly amazing little gadgets:

They just don't make stuff like this anymore. The lock that I am holding is close to 5 lbs. of probably brass. But something is missing... Can you find it?

The spring, which causes the latch to rebound after the door knob is released had broken. In the picture, you can see most of the spring attached to the stationary peg while a small part is still attached to the hook and lever controlling the  lock. Where could I find a replacement? Lowes had a few springs, the smallest of which was the correct diameter but more than twice the needed length.

The picture is fuzzy, but what you're looking at is the spring from Lowes, snipped in half and re-bent on the end to make a loop.

I slid the mortise lock back into the door, re-installed the door knobs and face plates, and...

Voila! The Bathroom door stays shut! You can see the privacy film clearly in this picture, although not really the rice paper pattern.

Jericho is One!

Jericho wears her hat proudly as she reads a book. Books are one of her favorite toys now, besides the necklace beads from Grandmother (Christmas present) and her Melissa and Doug standard size blocks from Mama and Papa (Happy Birthday coconut!).

Jericho looks up to her friend Jonny. They bonded last Spring when Jericho spent each weekday at Jonny's house. "Jericha," as he lovingly calls her, seems perfectly at home there, even now!

A mother-daughter moment.

Cynthia and Jericho get along great. Jericho watches Cynthia very closely and is always curious.

Lorelei can fly! Also wearing the B-day hat loud and proud.

Craft time!

Jericho's first-birthday cupcake: applesauce cinnamon with buttercream frosting! Jericho didn't know how to blow out the candle, but Jonny did, and was happy to oblige. What a pal!

The David Akers Story

Sometimes you don't know what you've really got until its gone. Great story from Rick Reilly at ESPN.
http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/7446366/rick-reilly-david-akers-amazing-year

Finishing the Kitchen

Sharpening a stick, on both ends...

Let the haters show their true colors. Here in Steeler country, I can already feel the rumbling in the woods. If Tim Tebow was slightly annoying with his smug Jesus stuff, he is positively unbearable now. Jesus himself is unbearable in many homes tonight!

I haven't looked on Twitter, or talked to a single Pittsburg fan yet this Sunday evening, but I'll be a monkey's uncle if I'm not right. Go Pats! Right?

 

 

Fun With Jericho

Jericho thinks, "Once Mamma and Papa are finished builidng a new kitchen and bathroom, maybe they will have more time to go outside with me!"

Fun with big cousin Erin at Thanksgiving!

FOOD!

Jericho picks a Christmas Tree.

Jericho loves to share her food. Just ask!

Putting It All Together

Our contractor Nick was faced with a serious challenge piecing new flooring together with the old. This area of the floor is where the basement stairs used to be.

Here is the finished work, with some heavy sanding completed as Steve and I prepare to finish the floor.

A useful trick my father taught me was to number everything that you take apart. When I took out the flooring from this closet turned stairway I did just that, making the process of piecing a portion of it back together a lot easier.

The stained glass windows are in! Pictures of the final product are to come, but here Laura and I took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather we had in November to paint outside.

I can't remember if I posted pictures of our two new trees. Thanks to the City of York, York Country Rotary, our neighbors, and the State Conservation.

More Fun at Madison

Here's another picture of the new shower. As you can see, there is a large window on one side of the shower. There are two panes of stained glass that go in that window. Rather than sacrifice the historical character, our contractor buit this all weather window which can be wet on a regular basis but will seal the stained glass.

 Fun in the closet!

The time... is now.

The place... your whole house.

The problem... DUST!

An Overdue Update: The "Almost Finished" Bathroom

Thanks for following along as we continue this long and tortured re-model of the our new old house! The bathroom is fully functioning and almost complete, save some caulking, a switch plate, and the re-installation of the stained glass windows behind the all-weather plexiglass.
It's hard to imagine that the work shown in the pictures below happened in September!

Laura was the sous-chef for the tiling project

while I did the mounting and cutting with the wet saw.

We have successfully fooled almost every new guest

to the bathroom with our vinyl flooring.

A good picture of the tiling going up. These hard plastic spacers were easier to use than the spongy x-shaped type. They had a tendency to fall out repeatedly with the tiniest shift, but were so easy to put back and remove at the end.