Fickle Farmhouse: June 2015

The Atlantic, Sharks and Children

A perk to living on the East Coast is surely the East Coast and the warm Atlantic, which is only a short drive from our farmhouse.

You know who else loves the warm waters of the Atlantic?

Yeah, this year there have been an unusual number of shark attacks here, go figure. I was trying to tell my brother, who was visiting from Utah and was avoiding the water, that the chances of shark attacks are still so low, like one in a million. "Right," he said. "But my chances of getting attacked if I stay on the shore are zero".

Can't argue with that.

My sister in law, Liz, looking so posh (it's a girlllll!)

Two weekends at the beach, and we STILL can't persuade this girl to pee in the ocean!

5:13 AM
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Popcorn and We Can Do It

All online tutorials told me to NOT diy popcorn ceilings.

But, as Shane always says, I have more work in me than money.

And it wasn't that bad (if wet, white, chalky dust covering your hair, last year's yoga pants, baseboards and floor isn't bad).

Shane did the scraping, I followed him with the painting. We tried to finish the whole house before our truck of stuff arrived and we were only a few rooms short. Which also means we were sleeping on the floor, most likely covered in wet, chalky invisible dust for 3 days. The time of our lives.

Anyway, to remove popcorn ceilings:
1. buy a round-up sprayer because they're cheapest
2. put water in it (no chemicals)
3. spray your ceilings liberally
4. wait 30 seconds
5. line your scraper with a trash bag
6. scrape
7. paint with flat, white paint (the only paint one should use for a ceiling, I'm convinced)
8. paint again, use Kilz primer for any old water spots or stains the paint isn't covering
9. get a massage

We didn't even cover our floor because we know we're replacing it and the plastic trash bag caught most of the junk.

If you're attempting this, please buy this tool.

Before. In every square inch of our house.

1970s, I'm not letting you get a pass for this bad decision.

My cute husband in our cute kitchen (minus the wallpaper and linoleum)

Taken just five minutes after getting 3 children to sleep way after 10pm. Jet lag.

This box of wet ceiling texture weighed, I don't know, enough that I couldn't carry it.

Using a putty knife to scrape the edges and corners.

After(ish). Look, mom, no annoying cottage cheese shadows!

9:14 PM
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Pinecones In The Pool

Pinecones have this silly habit here of rehoming their little woody needles in all sorts of directions, therefore lending all outdoor surfaces beneath them unwalkable in bare feet.

Emmie learned this the hard way, when, moments after we official moved in, she dashed outside to see the pool and encountered a whole family of rehomed pine needles, perfectly homed in her feet.

Rehomed really isn't a word, but out here people on Craigslist call selling a dog they want to get rid of "rehoming," which to me is stupid and sounds like "deplane," which flight attendants love to say. Deplane. Aka get off the plane. (Can you tell we've started the search for the perfect farm puppy? It's going to take a while to find one we can all agree on because I love big, hairy dogs and Shane despises dog hairy houses).

We swept up the cone droppings and then fished out the pine needles from the pool. Then when we came out the next day, the deck and pool looked the same as it had the day before.

So we hired some tree guy to cut down our 100-ft tall pine trees that lived directly over our pool.

Or, that's what responsible people do. But we actually called up a favorite Uncle Troy to come and cut them down for us. Because Whittiers can do everything #truth.

The trees were right next to the house, and right over the pool, so they really only had a three foot window to land perfectly or we'd be rehomed.

If you're still reading, congratulations because I've never talked this much about cutting down trees. In fact I've never had trees to cut down before. In Heber three THREE trees I planted either died or the wind blew them down. And here we probably have 45 100-ft trees in our backyard.

Anyway the first tree feel gorgeously. Troy spent all day cutting limbs and sweating a lot (#humidity). The second tree was a bit more stubborn, and after the boys jumped in the truck to buy more straps at walmart, after the tree had already been halfway chopped, I was too nervous to watch anymore. But, as is the custom with Whittier boys, it fell in the same fashion as the first and our house is still standing today.

I'll talk about the bonfire that was the pine tree limbs and needles another day, though, because who knew I'd like to write so much about trees?

This is manly, hairy Troy. We love him (and his wife and baby, who came to keep me company)

Troy's dog Daisy, who loved drinking our pool water.

Emmie's favorite toy of all time. A wipe.

9:05 PM
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We've Arrived

It's fascinating to think that only six weeks ago we were swinging our girls and eating a hot 'n ready at a park in Provo, Utah when an unidentified number from North Carolina popped up on Shane's phone.

He answered.

Now we live here.

We live in this house on this property we fell in love with over the internet.

When we flew out to see it, we knew it was ours.

Acreage! Pastures! Barn! Bridge! Lightning bugs!

Aaaaaand a 1970's home with carpet in the bathrooms and smelly wallpaper errwhere. This blog is to document it's transformation, though years it will surely take.

So, as Sarah Koenig says, stay with us.

The 1970's house