Where I've Been This Summer

Recently I was looking back at the number of posts from last summer, and man, have I gotten slack!  But there's a good reason for it...actually, several good reasons.  And it's not because I don't love to write/blog and hear from you.  Simply put, life took over.

Many of you know that amongst all the farming and gardening activity, we've also been trying to renovate the house.  When we moved in last year, we found major termite damage and had to rip up both drywall and the floors in two rooms and the front hall.  Though we reinstalled floors and drywall this winter, this summer we've had much of the plumbing redone (hence more drywall to replace) and also closed off a doorway and reinstalled most of the trim we'd salvaged.  It may not sound like much, but it's time-consuming and meticulous work.  And we're not even close to being finished.

As the summer comes to a close and I need to start thinking about school and canning food for winter (and hopefully weeding the garden one last time), we're left with much yet to accomplish indoors.  Right now our number one priority is to organize and move our "stuff" to another room so that Byron can install the rest of the hardwood floors downstairs. 

Here's the hall now:

And the parlor (please excuse both the photo quality and the upholstery; these second-hand sofa and chairs will be getting a facelift this winter!):

These are still works in progress, but if you'd like to see what the parlor and hall looked like a year ago, click here.

And after much deliberation, we decided that the room that was previously the dining room would not, after all, become the study.  Because it doesn't get much natural light, we decided to make it our bedroom.  We've had to go old school with wardrobes, but it has a fireplace and loads of character, so it works well for us.

Thanks for sticking with me, everyone!  This has been a busy season.