Summer Fun and Winter Prep

Summer is Here
The heat has gotten to me and I’m delusional with projects in both houses, summer trips, and a new found addiction to auctions and estate sales. We’ve been in the house in the village for about two months now and we absolutely love it. The location is perfect, the layout is wonderful and I’m deeply invested in its rehab.

Before a recent yard sale at the village house

The current project in the village house is the closet in our bedroom. I took some shiplap from the school house and experimented with repurposing it for baseboard. I really like how it turned out. Here’s the closet progress so far.

I pulled all the nails out and then clear coated the boards with poly

Gramp helped with the installation, I’m still working up to power tools

I used chalked paint on the floor and really like it, just waiting for shelving from IKEA

Winter Is Coming
I’ve always been one to be very concerned about timelines and deadlines. Don’t laugh at me when I quote Game of Thrones and say “WINTER IS COMING!!” There’s a hit list at both houses of things to do before cold weather. Here’s the immediate to do list for the school house:

School House 
-Complete awning restoration (95% done)
-Choose paint colors for awning, door, trim, soffits, fascia, and exterior of addition
-Paint
-Submit septic permit
-Complete demo in addition – remove ceiling/attic floor
-Remove hanger boards from main room
-Complete reglazing windows (we’re about 50% there)
-Continue with yard maintenance
-Roof repair
-Gable brick wall repair

Realistically we probably won’t get the roof repair and the brick wall repair done before winter. Both of them come with a hefty price tag. The rest of the work is for the most part sweat equity. I’m planning on getting pretty sweaty.

Work Site Update
The awning rebuild is very close to completion, just a few more pieces of slate, then we have to paint it…so never mind….we’re not done yet! Gramp’s going to go into a bit more detail on this project in the next blog. I sourced the slate for the awning roof but other than that I didn’t have much to do with this one.

Gramp is still going with his awning rebuild, thanks everyone for the slate donations!

Gramp has replaced much of the broken slate on the awing roof, it’s looking good

Go Paint or Go Home
The funny thing about making a paint color decision is that once you make one color choice it kind of dictates all the rest of the color choices. Gramp is super eager to get some exterior paint on. I’ve done a few experiments with color and gotten mixed reviews. The other funny thing is that once you paint one thing you say “that looks so good now I want to paint this and this and that.” The third not so funny thing is that paint is expensive. One fellow DIYer called it liquid gold. I see his point.

I tried out a few paint colors on the door 

Here are the two colors, New London Burgundy and Hadley Red

Sissy Sarah and her BF Colin got in on the paint color decision making process

Fair Week
Next week is one of my favorite weeks of summer the WASHINGTON COUNTY FAIR!!! Yours truly will be manning the Perkins Hollow Schoolhouse on Wednesday and Thursday nights starting at 6pm. Stop by and keep me company!

My hang out spot next week, the Perkins Hollow Schoolhouse

Summer Fun
When it’s sunny and warm I get easily distracted by non-schoolhouse related fun. Since moving back two years ago we haven’t had much time to experience what Washington County and the surrounding area has to offer. Our county is making a renewed investment in marketing tourism and recently launched a new website. You can check it out here. We’re trying to hit up as many of these hidden gems as we can this summer.

Here’s a few highlights!
The Georgi on the Battenkill
Shushan Covered Bridge Museum and SCHOOL HOUSE!!
Salem Art Works (SAW)

Ben and I also managed to sneak away to the Saratoga Race Track for a day (no winners though!)

Salem Art Works (SAW) outdoor sculpture park adventure with our play group

Trying to pick a winner at the track

Can’t Get Enough School House?
I’ve been a little spotty with blog updates…again all the sunshine is getting to me. I’m going to shoot for one blog every two weeks. If you need more of a fix check out blogger and fellow school house owner Janelle and her project, the Bass Lake School House.