Back to School

Well, I'd bet it's hard to change window sizes. By x-bro-in-law bought and remodelled a house well made out of concrete blocks with rebar and all the cells filled...

The big windows are only on the west side of the building, osso. (Or the left hand side of the building when facing the blackboards.) Someone suggested that that was done so students would be discouraged from writing left handed as their hands would shadow their work. Our concern if we ever want to "cut" into the concrete is rubble like granite in the middle -- although we did have the hydro upgraded and the electrician had no problem with using his diamond tip drill.

(A picture! Really cool. What do you plan to use it for?)

We're looking at a 10 year plan, Sozobe. For now it's a getaway that needs a fair amount of work (it's a 5 hour drive away). If technological change catches up with my husband sooner, it may be where we retire to after cashing in our house. This season we concentrated on essentials like building an outhouse and solar shower (passive solar as in the barrel holding the water is black...in September it's downright passive aggressive ). There's a drilled well with a hand pump so we have potable water year round but there's no heat inside at the moment -- saving up for a good wood stove. We've cleared the overgrown cedars around the building, dragged 8+ garbage bags full of squirrel nests out of the attic, patched holes in the soffits and facia that let the squirrels in, painted facia and window frames that soaked it up like a sponge. The ceiling is 12 feet high so just getting into the attic was a challenge -- I can't wait to paint given my fear of heights... We upgraded the hydro from 40 amp (40 amp!) to 200 so we can put in baseboards to keep the insurance company happy. There's an acre of land and lots of trees (cedar, white pine, birch, some oak) and lots of wildflowers where the old ball diamond used to be. We are so grateful to the former owners who used it as a hunt camp because they didn't destroy anything. The put up partitions for cell-sized bedrooms but those came down easily. Two of the original hanging lights are still working. It's like a time capsule!

Wow!

I bet it'll be fabulous when you're finished with it -- as always, I'll abjectly beg for before/after/during photos (I love this stuff, especially when it's old cool places being treated well by thoughtful people).

Thanks for the encouraging words, Sozobe. The photo I posted was from an historical site so I still have to figure out how to post our own. One of these days I'm going to get my very own teenager to show me how (we're both visual learners ).

Me too, Tai Chi. It's not so bad - you load your photos however you do it on your computer, and add selected ones from your computer to a site like Imageshack or Photobucket or many others. That will give you an URL ending, usually, in the letters jpg. You can then add that to a2k by clicking on that URL and fitting it into the window that comes up on the a2k posting page when you click on the IMG button. Once you get used to it, it usually goes smoothly.

Finally got a film developed from (ahem ) last December...We head back to "school" this weekend; hopefully the snow will all be gone and the blackflies won't have arrived yet.





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Unfortunately a couple of trees have to come down (interfering with the foundation) and we have to do more rodent proofing (I like red squirrels but I don't like them sleeping under my bed!).

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This is the front right corner showing the blackboards, one of two original hanging lamps, the globe on a pulley that can be lowered with a counterweight, and of course, a picture of the Queen (Prince Philip is hanging in the left-hand corner). You can also see the one old school desk we rescued from an old outhouse on the property.

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A close up of the metal ceiling panels.

<clapping delightedly>

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An outhouse in December is an unforgiving place. Now I know why it's recommended to replace the traditional toilet seat with a styrofoam life ring. Did you know that the heat from "composting" causes condensation and then icicles* on the underside of the lid?

* half-marble-shaped icicles -- very weird.

ah, Tai. You just made me smile. What a wonderful thing for you and your husband. My sister bought a one room school house from the county that my grandmother and my mother had taught in. They renovated it themselves. It is still wonderful, and is replete with a stile.

I love stories like that Letty. We once ran into a couple renovating an old church. Turned out the wife's parents had been married there and they were fixing it up for her widowed mother to retire to.

How completely fabulous is this!

I'm rolling on the floor with envy.

Fantastic!



(now I know what to do with that portrait of the Queen that my next door neighbour keeps threatening to give me)

um...er...thanks...(wondering how to politely decline more school memorabilia)...maybe once the painting's done...

and I have that lovely school clock in the basement ... just happened to be part of an auction job lot


<mulling>