UPDATE ! Plan A: New Kitchen Door Replaces Window/Screen Door, Winter Wood, Screen Room in Front Porch, Wallpaper in Bathroom, Guitar, Ceiling Above Bay Window

I reckon it's about time for an update on how my Plan A is progressing in an orderly fashion. 

It's weak and limping but still orderly and progressing. 

The new kitchen door is in place, which is a relief since the Long Dark Cold is right around the corner and a simple screen door would mean things would be a mite breezy in my house. 

 

Amazingly, the opening was exactly right for this pre-hung door once I got the two by fours in place on the sides and top, with about half an inch on each side.  The door assembly slid right into place.  If you look, you'll see that it's put in inside out.  That's because if I had put it in 'right', so that it opened to the inside, you'd be stuck in the corner and running smack into the stove as you came in the door.  So I put it in to open out.  And YES I know I was not supposed to do that, but I did it anyway.  If someone wants to take the hinges off the door to get in, so be it.  Now that I think of it, if you know me at all you'll be laughing because most likely it will be ME who locks herself out, loses the 'keys' to the other doors, and has to break in.  So it's just as well.  Besides, it seems to me that there might be codes that require an exterior door to open toward the outside (don't quote me but I think I read that somewhere).  AND it was just TOO EASY to slide it directly into place rather than pushing and pulling it outside and fighting to get it lifted and straightened without dropping and breaking it.  So there you have it. 

 

Onward with my update. 

 

I've been organizing my winter wood.  I've got that antique wood range in my old kitchen, remember, and have been experimenting with different combinations of wood to see what effect I get with what combinations. 

 

Since one of my goals for this winter is to learn to cook with that stove (if my ancestors could do it I ought to be able to figure it out) I need to have a bunch of accessible wood to burn in it. 

 

Since I have no idea what this winter will bring in terms of snow, I threw the wood pile from the north side of the house down the basement steps through the side door that opens right at the head of those steps.  It was halfway organized before I threw it all down the steps, a mix of kindles, small pieces, long pieces, split oak, and a few biggish logs. 

 

I didn't take a photo of the result of my throwing spree, but it's taken me a couple of days to work my way down the steps, sorting it all out again as I went. 

 

To be cut to length.

Mess of kindles and small stuff.  This I just shoved over to the side at the bottom of the steps.

My sadly small stack of split oak and a few other little pieces.

 

Those are the stacks that are in the basement.  In the old kitchen itself I have some other stuff. 

 



An old wash tub of split oak.

A few miscellaneous pieces on top of some other stuff by the cold cupboard.

 

Some cedar and a couple of sticks between the stove and the back door.  Duke wants to go outside.

 

Part of my Plan A is to move all of this down to the basement, leaving just enough for one fire.  I'll get on that in a bit here. 

 

On other fronts, I got the screen wall in the front porch done so the north end of the porch is now a room unto itself - sort of.  Remember this? 

 

 

Here's the screening.

 

What with one thing and another my time, energy, and money have been needed elsewhere besides getting and putting up plexi to seal the little room on the north end of the front porch.  This great big quilt is my temporary solution.  It provides more privacy and keeps the heat generated by the little heater in the room IN the room when it's chilly outside.  It actually works pretty darned well!

 

The rest of the Plan is to get plexi on both the insides and outsides of the screen door and windows, as well as the insides of the seven porch windows the room encompasses; the morning sunshine warms the front porch even on the coldest of days and a space heater in that little room ought to keep it plenty snug and warm for when I want to enjoy the sunny benefits of all those windows!  The plexi will be simply screwed or latched into place, easily removable come next spring when I'm going to want the screens letting in the breezes. 

 

Let's see ... what else have I gotten done around here?  Hmm ...

 

Oh yes, I wall-paperd the bathroom. 

 

 

 

Now I have to get new shower curtains.

 

And I bought a guitar.

 







 



No, the guitar doesn't really exactly have anything much to do with Plan A except possibly as a survival tool to maybe help get me through this coming Long Dark so I'll be able to continue on my way with Plan A.  I haven't played at ALL in many years, and was never any good to begin with, but I got it for my sister to play, not me.  Now she's back halfway across the country and I've got this guitar sitting here. 

 

Personally, I'd rather have a harmonica.  Or a wooden flute. 

 

Otherwise, it's been mostly rearranging so that everything has a home, including a bunch more stuff that I got from my folks. 

 

I'm working my way toward having only antiques or vintage items in my old kitchen. 

 

One of my next projects is going to be fixing the ceiling above the bay window in the work room where it leaked and made a huge mess.  Remember I switched from tearing off my back porch to working on the roof above the bay window?  I didn't get to it fast enough. 

 

It's awful, posting such ugly pictures, but I figure unless someone sees the 'before' they aren't going to be able to appreciate the 'after'!

 

That yellow thing you see is my little scaffolding.  I finally got it into place so I'll be able to get up there and see if I can figure out what can be done to fix that god-awful mess. 

 

This is going to be a challenge, no doubt about it. 

 

And I think that's just about enough of an update for the moment.  No doubt I'll find a dozen more things that I've forgotten to mention, but this will do for now.