We need a special doormat for the months of November - January, a warning of the complete and utter chaos of what lay inside. Mount Holland, the mound of unwashed laundry, covers the bathroom floor in drifts. A myriad of dirty dishes cascade out of our sink, while the dishwasher is full of clean dishes after running its cycle from a few days ago. Our two young boys' toys lay aimlessly around the house, and our one-year-old enjoys scattering our everyday objects in unordinary places. Is the cat dish under the bathtub again?
While this sounds miserable, every year is so worth it. Why? Because every November brings me close to the people I love, and I love being able to share these experiences with my students. Many of my favorite memories have happened during these late fall and winter months. Last week before opening weekend, I read my 4th and 5th grade students a hunting journal I wrote when I was in college for a project. It describes the stories of how I got my first few deer. I share it every year, and the kids are so excited to hear the stories. One of my favorite things about teaching 5th grade is that they're almost to the age to shoot their first deer. Hunting traditions run deep here in rural Nebraska, and I love that I get to share my experiences with them. I show them my permit, and we talk about conservation of resources and relate it to our science standards. We talk about how to tell the differences between a Whitetail and Mule deer - they're surprised to know there's so many. We talk about hunter ethics and being respectful to wildlife. Sure, if they're from hunting families, they'll learn this at home too, but all students can benefit from learning about Nebraska wildlife. In my first story of this hunting journal, I describe my first hunting season, now ten years ago. It describes the deafening sound of the alarm clock that first opening morning, and Tyler and Trenton giddy with excitement and anticipation at 5:00am. I thought they were absolutely nuts. What's better than sleep? Now, ten years later, I'm the one springing out of bed at 5:00am. When we get to the pasture, nothing beats watching the sun come up in complete serenity. I'm one with nature, and it's the closest to God that I'll ever be on this Earth. Just me, my rifle, and my thoughts sitting on the hillside, listening to the squirrels chase one another up and down the oak trees, hoping its really that monster buck everyone longs to see. It makes my heart happy to be sitting in Trenton's pickup, listening to the banter between brothers, and the inside jokes from years prior. Any mention of dirty coverall straps, stranded Suburbans, or an early morning surprise owl will make us break into laughter, because we lived those moments together. Tyler and I give Trenton grief, because the older he gets, the more he turns into his father. This year, we added a pretty significant memory for the future: Trenton and I got a tinge of buck fever opening day, and we wrecked his side-by-side. We're relatively ok, although I ended up with a broken wrist in the ordeal, and will go to a specialist tomorrow to see if surgery is in order. I'm sure by this time next year, it'll be on our list of things to banter about, although I still think it's only fair that I should get to shoot Trenton in the foot to level the score. When we return home in the dark each evening after the hunt, we're greeted with an amazing homemade supper on the table from Tricia, Tyler's mom. She's such an amazing cook, there's nothing better than her comfort food after a chilly day outside. Our boys run to us, Easton eager to know if there's a deer in the back of our pickup. I love this. I love our dinner conversations, and being so close to this family that has welcomed me into it. The laundry can wait. The dishes can wait. It's deer season, y'all.
0 Comments
It all started with a dream - a claw foot tub. How can you have an old house without one? Since we made the decision to add on to our house and take it back to the 20s time period, I had been looking for a claw foot tub at a decent price. I figured we could swap out our cheap steel builder-grade tub and put in the claw foot. While we were at it, we might as well finish the floor, too. Ok, so this wasn't the first time we remodeled this bathroom. A month after we got married, we moved some walls around, expanded our bathroom, and moved the laundry upstairs. That was 7 years ago, and I had lived with the cheap stick-on vinyl tile long enough. We knew it wasn't going to be the final solution - it was more of a band-aid fix. I don't have any true "before" photos from when we moved in. You could touch all of the walls of the bathroom - AT THE SAME TIME. Teeny. Tiny. It wasn't going to cut it. When they added the 10ft. addition in the 70s, there was an awkward room next door, so we expanded the bathroom into it. After living with our band-aid fix long enough, I made the executive decision to start working on a claw foot tub. Our tub came from Hastings, and was removed from it's original location by an older couple looking to put in a walk-in tub. It's a bit modern for our 1920 house - it was stamped 1922 on the bottom. For being nearly 100 years old, it is in amazing condition. We took the power washer to it, and a rainbow of colors had appeared. It astounded me as to how many times this thing had been painted! Tyler finished by smoothing out the flaked paint with a metal sanding disc. I visited my local hardware store, and picked up my paint. I'm a fan of Valspar paint, but I find that they don't offer many colors. A trick I learned is to find your color at another store, and have them color match. It turns out perfect every time. A quart of Valspar Pristine brought the old tub back to life. Meanwhile, the old builder-grade tub needed to come out, as did the vinyl tile. Underneath the tile was the original oak flooring in the original part of the house, and simple plywood subfloor on the new part. We were so nervous of the same problem happening in the bathroom as we encountered in our bedroom - that the original oak floor and the subfloor would be the same height, with no room to lay the oak flooring in the new part. Thank goodness that wasn't an issue here, and there were two layers of sub floor. After getting all of the prep work, we installed our oak flooring. We bought it second hand from a house near Sargent that was removing it to put in laminate flooring. I'm not so sure they knew that you could refinish it! Tyler put the boards through a planer to remove the finish. We thought this was the best option at the time, but we've learned that just simply sanding will be a better option for the future. After the floor was installed, it was time to finish the drywall. The glued-on tub surround had completely ruined the drywall, and we replaced a lot of the other drywall with a mold-resistant type instead. I had also wanted to move the location of the ceiling light, as that was something that had driven me nuts since the first time we remodeled. There was a pretty significant amount of finishing to do. Since we're always on a budget and enjoy doing things ourselves, I was put in charge of the drywall finishing. This is something I've NEVER done before, and definitely didn't feel confident doing. The best thing to do is jump right in, right?! It turns out that it came pretty natural to me. I enjoy meticulous, time-consuming tasks, so it was right up my alley. Since this is our only bathroom, we had to get creative when we were without a shower. Of course, remodeling always takes longer than you anticipate. Fortunately for us, we have a camper, and relied on that as our second bathroom throughout the remodel. We used our camper for showers for nearly a month! Next, it was time to finish the floor. We rented an orbital floor sander from Menards. I was surprised that it didn't cost much to rent; the primary cost was the sandpaper, and it took a lot since oak is such a hard species of wood. This is where we realized our planing mistake - the finish came off easily; leveling all of the planing marks was not. After a good solid 2.5 hours of sanding, it was good enough for us. Pressure. So much pressure. I had a hard time choosing the flooring color. I wanted something dark, but not too dark, and I needed something that would go with our red-colored original trim. After MANY trials on scrap pieces, I finally came up with a recipe of mixing two colors half and half. We used equal parts Minwax Mahogany and Red Oak. With two coats of poly and a weekend camping trip for it to cure, the floor was beautiful and complete. Now, for some reason, when your project gets close to the finish line, why is it so hard to finish it?! Going to the lake was just the break we needed - it doesn't take long to get burned out on a home project. However, that break encouraged another one, and another one, and pretty soon, you're completely comfortable taking a shower next to a Sawzall and stepping over the air compressor hose every time you need to use the bathroom. We began the project in July. Then here came the busy beginning of school in August, beautiful camping weather in September, and completely exhausted and stressed out in October. This weekend, I told Tyler we HAVE to finish this for my sanity. We had it basically all put together: we just needed to finish a small amount of trim work and fix the shower curtain bar so it would stick out further. (The shower curtain clung to you when you showered - nobody likes that.) After working Friday evening and most of Saturday, we are DONE! FINISHED! COMPLETE! And it feels so good - the first room completed on the main floor. My design inspiration was classic - what would've gone well when it was first built. I chose a bright green beadboard trim, because neutrals and white get so boring, and I wanted a lively color. The color was very similar to some beadboard my father had salvaged out of his turn-of-the-century one-room schoolhouse. I used a washed-out blue color for the top of the walls and ceiling to keep it light. For the bathtub, I wanted a dark color to contrast the white enamel on the inside. We had to use salvaged yellow pine trim, as the only original elements were one piece of trim on the side of the door, and the door itself. We kept the same vanity and countertop as our previous remodel, and it fit in perfectly. After months in the making, here it is! After Photos |
Kathryn HollandWife. Mother. Teacher. Lifelong student. Archives
March 2022
Categories |