Barn Charm # 79

I'm featuring the Ohio State Barn west of my small town

in full summer dress.

This is my favorite barn around here.

Check out Barn Charm.

Explanation and Monday's Prayer

I have been absent from blogging.

Sometimes, I have read some of your blogs,

but did not comment.

At other times, I didn't read any.

I have not posted for almost two weeks.

Explanation: A switch of medications.

Something I researched and agreed to do.

I have a good doctor and I believe I am in good hands.

The body has not liked the change

and I have felt anti-social 

and/or too tired to think of something to write.

I am rounding a major bend and in three weeks

I will be completely switched.

My body is finally adapting

and thus, my brain is beginning to want to function.

I don't know how much I will blog or comment,

but know that I care for all of you -- my blogger friends.

My silence only means my body is adjusting.

A HUGE moment occurred yesterday:

I joined a local church.

It is where my dad pastored when I was in high school.

It is the church God has been instructing me to join.

I've always been a bit rebellious,

but the rebellion often manifests as passive aggression.

I don't 'do' as much as I 'do not do'.

So I did not join though I've lived here nine years.

Well, yesterday I became a conscious (not simply on paper)

 member of a church.

Below are some pics of the house.

We have possession 

and my husband has started on the living room ceiling.

He and a friend tore out the ceiling in the living room.

He is wiring places for lights.

Then he will put dry wall up and do the finishing touch.

We've got a guy lined up to paint it then.

MONDAY'S PRAYER:

Lord,

I commend my day to You 

and ask You to be in charge of it

from beginning to end.

Enable me to do all

I need to do successfully and well.

Help me to do it 

carefully and not carelessly.

Help me to do it all diligently 

and not lazily.

Help me to do everything skillfully 

and not shabbily.

I know I cannot do all I need to do in my day

without Your help.

I don't want to ever take for granted that,

just because I have done some of these things before,

they are always going to turn out right

each time.

I know that sometimes

even the simplest things

can become a problem or a challenge,

so I don't want to assume that 

everything will automatically go smoothly.

That's why I submit 

my entire day to You

and ask You to be in charge of all I am doing.

Specifically, what I need the most help

with today is:

(fill in).

The ways I want You to guide me today are:

(fill in).

What I am most concerned about today is:

(fill in).

The things I want to accomplish today are:

(fill in).

The people I need to see and talk to are:

(fill in).

What I hope will happen today is:

(fill in).

What I don't want to happen today is:

(fill in).

Lord, I thank You that You are in charge

of my day and all that happens.

Be in charge of the surprises,

the unexpected,

and the things that turn out differently

than I planned.

Enable me to hear Your voice

speaking to my heart,

telling me the way I should go

and what I should do.

In Jesus' name I pray.

WORD POWER:

This is the day the Lord has made;

we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:24

Blessing to you all as you go about your week.

More News about our 'new' house

We closed on the house this past Tuesday.

They will be out by evening the 23rd

or if moving truck is behind time,

then the morning of the 24th.

We have some work that needs done 

to the living room ceiling---

well actually a whole new ceiling----

smooth plaster instead of the  squares 

that are there now.

I want some rooms painted.

I cannot do it myself because:

a) I'm very MESSY.

b) I do a lousy job. 

c) I get more of the paint on me than the walls.

d) It's tough to do with the fibromyalgia.

Since I am thinking about some aspects 

of this house buy,

I thought I would share some of my thoughts.

This is a great picture of how two rooms flank the dining room.

The camera is being shot from the door to the living room.

I love the character that the arch doorways add.

To the right is the kitchen.

There is a coat closet there.

To the left is a large hallway-type room

where they have their washer and dryer.

We do not want it there,

so will hopefully be able to move it upstairs 

to the long walk-in closet/storage room.

The room will most likely become Mike's office

 and we want to look into installing doors to shut it off.

(Neatness in not part of his office style.)

The main reason we are considering it for Mike's office

is that his close friend/like a brother Rusty's desk

will not lift well or go through a bedroom window,

and we both want to keep it.

Rusty died in a freak diving accident at a coal strip pit 

when we were all 23.

(We went to school and graduated together---

Rusty was a good friend of mine also.)

When his mother died several years ago, his sisters sold the house

(their dad was already deceased).

They gave Rusty's desk to Mike 

and it and two file cabinets have made up his corner office

in the basement (literally a corner of the basement--not a room).

This will be a huge step up for Mike!

Here is the ceiling that will be replaced.

Some trim work needs done also.

They have wonderful stained glass transoms

that they had installed.

I would like to do this to the ones upstairs--

two are shown below.)

This is my least favorite room. 

The folks who sold this house to us are Quakers

and their quiet, gentleness is shown in the low-key decoration

of the house.

Sheer curtains and soft tones are found in all the rooms but here.

The curtains are a much heavier material 

(there are blinds in all the windows

except the kitchen) and a 'loud' floral.

The wall color is a version of clay perhaps.

The room is not awful by a long shot,

 but I would rather not keep it this way.

Also---

We, being use to much more crowded conditions,

would have squeezed the toilet closer to the sink

and the sink right up against the wall.

That would have allowed for a shower--maybe custom-made

to fit.

Since this is the only bathroom upstairs,

a shower feature would be welcome.

However, it is nice to have all that space there.

It was originally a walk-in closet.

[Actually, we like the idea of getting ready downstairs,

because Mike and I do not get up at the same time

especially during school.  I get up at 4:30 and the soonest

he has to be up is 6 and often 7.]

Anyhow, a paint job and new curtains are needed.

The floors are navy in two bedrooms and the hallway connecting them.

I am not a navy person.

Any suggestions for paint color?

Restoring them to natural would mean going through layers of paint

to not so great wood underneath (according to them),

so that is not an option for us.

Below is a better picture of the floor color.

This is one of the kitchen windows.

A window flanks each side of the old chimney (not visible inside).

There are trees and bushes blocking those windows.

She has sheer curtains with a lace pattern drawn across each of them.

The curtains have a special meaning to her pertaining to her mom,

so they go with her.

Now, should we cut back the trees and such to let light in

or keep it private

 and thus not have to worry much about covering the windows?

The inside of this portion of the house is shown below.

There is presently no heat in the kitchen except for this black stove.

There is a place ready for heat to be installed,

bit we will use the stove for the first year. 

Well, that's it for now.

Nothing I have mentioned is a big deal.

We could move in this week and live contentedly in it as is,

except for the living room ceiling---that bugs both of us.

This redo is more a matter of making it ours

than having to do it.

Any ideas are welcome.

If you missed the original post about the house,

click here for lots of pictures and info.

Barn Charm # 78

Different angles of the same barn.

I've shown this once before,

but it was not summer

and I didn't 'shoot' all the angles well.

I took a side road off the main drag out west of town.

I decided to follow it indefinitely

and found myself weaving back to the main road.

Please check out Tricia's place.

Corner View: Home

As some of you know,

we have been searching for the right house

in which to make our last home.

There are 5 houses on the market here in this lovely small town 

for every 25 that come on the market in a near-by town,

where my son lives.

However, C. is not our home;

B. is.

So for 3 years now,

we have been examining houses,

wondering if 'this one could be the one'.

Although, I don't have photos of all of them,

here are some.

This was to go up for auction, but there was a problem with the title

being free and clear,

so we did not bid on it.

I never got inside it.

This is a landmark home in our  historical register town.

They bought it at the peak of the U.S.'s real estate market

and were selling it at the low point.

It was quite expensive and needed many updates,

the two greatest of which were a remodeled kitchen and bathroom.

 A friend of ours grew up in this
home.  She and her sisters were considering selling it after their mother died.  They knew we were interested,
so with much hope in all our hearts,
we looked.
The bedrooms were tiny and strangely located and the upstairs bedroom and storage room needed a lot of structural
work. There was no air conditioning.
The kitchen would need major updating.

 I have only inside rooms and the side yard photos of this house.
It was a lovely, fairly new home on one acre in one of three nicest neighborhoods in town.   However,
the rooms were incredibly smaller than  I expected considering the price tag.  This is the kitchen, dining area,
and main living space.  There is no separate dining room.  We could not get 13 around that table in that small space and would have to move furniture to set up a table in the living/family room.
We can get all 13 in the dining room of our 600 sq. ft. home now--a feat not to be taken lightly!
Below is a picture of a side yard to this house.

This one was far out of town, but off
of Interstate towards where my son lives.  It was on 14 acres, so we decided to check it out.  The realtor had told us to look at the outside first and then if we were still interested, he would set up a time to show us the inside.
We knew the house would require a lot of work, but the price was very low for that reason. The land and outbuildings were great.
However, our thoughts were drowned out by the sound of the Interstate 70 traffic---not the peace and quiet we were seeking.

 This home was a 20 minute drive from town,
but there were 3 decent ways to get to
my school from it, so it actually would have been the same driving time to my work.  It once belonged to a close friend of mine--a long time ago--and before the additions and big building were built.

It sat on five acres with a pond.  Part of the pond can be seen here.  The house you see is separate and not close to the house we were looking at.

Here is the big building that was built for multi-purposes: the main one was for the guy's successful gun shop.

However, the building was specifically set up inside and Mike would have had to tear down walls.

There is an apartment upstairs that would have been good for my daughter and her family when they visited.

But the house itself needed work inside and out. The young widow (he was much older and each wife was younger than the previous one until he was almost 'robbing the cradle'; my friend was the first wife) had let it deteriorate.  She just couldn't maintain it. 

However, the kitchen and main bathroom did not need remodeling. The kitchen was in a new addition 

and the bathroom had been enlarged and redone.

In the end, it was just too far out of town.

Also, if anything happened to Mike, I'd be isolated and would struggle with upkeep.

 This one was my dream  home.
I grew up across from it.  I wrote all about it here.  I featured the incredible stained glass windows in another post
This is the only one I cried over.
To say "It needed everything redone and brought up to code and time period (like heat upstairs) is not exaggerating.  Though lower than the others, the price was still ridiculous considering  we would have to put a lot of  money it.
Mike told my son that if we were 20 years younger, we might take it on, because then we would have been able to do a lot of the work ourselves.

But now, it was too much, too late in our lives and with a little yard.

This will be our home soon.

We close on it July 8th, but they won't be moved out yet,

so it will be Aug. before we are in.

Check out more of it here

As Goldilocks said, "This one is just right."

For more views on 'home' from around the world,

check out Francesca's Fuoriborgo.

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Barn Charm # 77

I have been taking photos of several barns out west of town
and showing the seasonal changes through them.
The smaller photos of each barn is from April of last year
before that terrible storm in June that wreaked havoc throughout
the US and other places.
The larger ones were taken this past Saturday.
As you can see, the differences in the seasons are obvious.
So is the storm damage.

This is the Ohio State barn, but I wasn't able to get a photo of the other side--the side that has
the Buckeye painted on it.  The smaller one is an April shot with the larger one being a June one.

As for the other two barns,

seeing them was difficult.

You really would have had to strain your eyes and use your imagination 

looking at a photo

to see the one through the leaves.

The other one was invisible to me,

although I knew it was there behind all that foliage.

For more barn views, check out Tricia's place

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