Adventures at The Bunny Manse

Yesterday we woke up to the pouring rain and decided to go to the Pottery Barn outlet in Gafney. We had some free money to spend there and wanted to use it toward a rug.  We looked through rugs for what seemed like hours, almost rationalizing ourselves into a huge purchase of a gorgeous rug that was WAY TOO EXPENSIVE. We ended up selecting this one in a 8x10 version, paying about $200 for it after our discount.  The other very beautiful rug would have cost more than 3 of these.  So this now lives in our living room and is being positioned, vaccumed, and adored by Harris and the cats. On the way back, we took a bunch of remnants back to Ikea. Life lesson - do not buy handles or knobs at Ikea...we never use them/always take them back. There we picked up a scrap piece of wood from the As-Is section that Harris will turn into at least two floating shelves for the kitchen. We also got pot holders because, well, we had zero pot holders and some candles for the house. A...

In 2013 we.... Bought the Bunny Manse Cleaned out the house Finished 95% of the interior demolition Completed the plans for what the inside will look like one day (Thank you Madam Sara! for getting us on the same page about so many small details that will make our house a home) Repaired the plaster in two rooms and two hallways Replaced the floor in one room, sanded & sealed the floor in two other rooms and a hallway Installed our dream kitchen (to 95%) which one day will be even more amazing with a butler, laundry, and sunroom all accessible right there too. Paid off the loan to my parents - THANK YOU! They loaned us the cash to purchase the vacant lot next door - our South Lawn - and we finish paying off that loan this week. So far we're at 190k spent on the house, the lot, and the repairs.  We're halfway there! In 2014 we hope we will... finish the downstairs  (bulter, bathroom, laundry, living room, hall/entry, closets) finish the upstairs (4 b...

Harris is putting knobs on the cabinets today and organizing pots, pans, cups, plates and all that in our amazingly huge space. We picked these out from Anthropologie this weekend. They work perfectly with the cabinets and counters and really pull everything together. Harris also made a huge rack to hold spices, tea, and other small things using the doorway that will go away one day and the remnants of the header boards from downstairs. What's that, yeah, Harris installed headers in almost all of the places they are needed downstairs. This weekend I both went to the dump and metal yard to get the yard cleaned up a bit. Harris and Madeline will most likely to going to the metal yard today to get rid of some more appliances that are taking up space in the house. I've been cleaning and buying presents for Christmas. Just finished Madeline's stocking - she'll be getting lippies and nail polish in her stocking as well as some candy. If I could find blood o...

Harris installed a ceiling fan in the bedroom this weekend which is amazing awesome.  The upstairs is hot - we have only indirect heat up there and you can walk around in short sleves. We're going to have the HVAC people come back out and experience this so they can modify their HVAC quote.  What they were proposing before was incredibly oversized considering the heat retention in the house. Anyway, heat rises, so our lovely warm morning heater was pushing all this lovely air up to the ceiling. The fan pulls it back down making the room feel centrally heated. It's amazing.     This morning our kitchen looked like this     And now, it looks like this....     Remaining for the kitchen   1. Tile or otherwise fix the chimney so it's pretty. 2. Install kitchen sink faucet 3. Install knobs and pulls for doors and drawers. 4. Install trim around windows 5. backsplash? Back...

Because Sunday was glorious for December I got Bill and Davie to come help in the yard. They raked up 20 bags of leaves while I dug up the plot of Tuberoses. Very happy to report that so far, the tuberoses are fine and should store fine for the winter! I was afraid I'd waited too long to get them out of the ground. In their place I put in 200 tulips. Come March we should have a lovely little garden bed of flowers greeting us just beyond the fence line. And so being outside I started thinking again of colors. Like Purple. with red and white accents. Maybe some green too. We have three buildings to paint so was thinking of inversing the colors on the smaller ones. Will keep playing with these ideas until we get the right color scheme.  Our Bunny Manse is huge, but from the outside doesn't immediately appear large. I like being able to choose a really dark color for the exterior to have you walk in and feel open and huge. It's like Willie Wonka's hallway. The ...

  This is the slab before the templates were laid out.      This is alternative A and Alternative B for the square on top of the dishwasher. Depending on the cuts of the larger pieces, we'll either get more white or more alabaster veining.   This is the run on the right side of the range. The top piece there is the corner by the dryer.   This is the run on the left side of the dryer. The edge at the top runs along the wall. This is the slab we have reserved for the laundry room butler and the backsplashes.

We now have internet at home! Huzzah! Also, the template for the counters has been made! We'll have countertops in 10 days! WOOTS!

 Madeline got to cut the branches off of the bottom of the tree this year, then Harris and I planted it in the front room.  

The beginning of exterior christmas decorations.    We found my grand champion spades tournament chain... so now it must grace the wreath on the front door.  Madeline as kid holding picture of Madeline as baby.

3CM EXODUS WHITE GRANITE Kitchen w/ Back Splash - L-Shaped Section Left of FSStove 69x25 and 37x25, Right of FSStove 37x25 and 70x25, Farm Sink Area 140x25, (1) Farm Sink Treatment, CPSink, 4" Splash, Half Bullnose Edge... Template & Install Incl. Deposit paid to Custom Stone & Marble! Template scheduled and installation on the calendar. We're going to have countertops by Christmas!

The house is really dirty. I expect that for the next year I will find new areas that have layers of untouched dust. The house is also really big so I honestly think it would take 24 hours of labor to actually get rid of the dust that is currently there. I wish there was a way to have everything finished right now and clean, but that's just not our reality. Will deal with it and continue to scrub, vaccum, mop, and dust. At least we're happy :)

One of the most fun aspects of working on any house... Some finds from the Pottery Barn outlet in Gafney yesterday.

We are still unpacking, organizing, and getting things in order. This weekend saw Harris put the polishing touches on the kitchen (still no countertops, need to make a material decision there this week) while I created an art and painting area for Madeline.  Our temporary pantry set up next to the microwave and fridge. I'm really really glad I insisted on the compact counter-depth model, otherwise this area would have been overpowered by the fridge. We added a couple of shelving things to the pantry and it functions as a food storage area now.     The area by the stove. We decided this weekend that we're going to tile the fireplace. It will take care of the weird surface and provide an accent of an accent. We're thinking painted glass tiles right now, but haven't started shopping yet. We only need about 40 square feet so we have a lot more options available to us.   Madeline's art area. This used to be a window that's totally gone and boar...

We have a mix of beveled leaded/zinc glass, true size vinyl replacement, and original windows at The Bunny Manse. In the original windows a lot of the panes have been painted over or replaced with plexiglass. I ordered glass a month or so ago and finally got around to repairing one window.  This job was to reglaze two sashes and then rehang both windows with weights so that the window functioned. I messed up in the following ways 1. The tempered glass I ordered was 1/16th of an inch too large. 2. I assumed the sashes were true/square The view from the window I was working on.   So I took the leading bead out, removed the sashes and started to clean everything up. This required me to clean through the weight well, get the pulleys operating again, and figure out where the missing pieces were.   Most old windows have this little compartment you can find the weights through. Ours already had the trim off, so I had more space to work. The right side...

The kitchen a week after moving in... Harris has been putting the IKEA cabinets together at night and whenever he has free time.   Our new fridge is awesome and fits the space nicely! I even used the fancy ikea microwave with it's non-standard control system. Ikea cabinets GE, Kenmore, Bosch, IKEA appliances Countertops TBD Obvious things we need to do 1. Get counters. 2. Close those holes in the chimney. 3. Replace the glass in the windows- the panes are currently paitned. 4. Add trim to the top of the windows 5. Figure out what we're doing with that door into the laundry room. Me thinks... a spice rack? 6. Put handles on the cabinet doors and drawers Not so obvious stuff left to do 1. Find a way to insulate 2. Install the range hood 3. Add a place to eat for the duration that is not the couch.

Jazz on the Freedom is not Free blanket by the warm morning.  He spends most of his day here. Jazz was born in the current living room, one day dining room, about 13-14 years ago. When his companion died, Wallace, who lived upstairs from '93-'13, agreed to take care of him for his friend. Wallace is allergic to cats.  Don who lived upstairs off and on over the years loves Jazz (J-Beau), he still comes by and gives him scratches and feeds him special gushy foods. However, if we mentioned that we knew he loved Jazz, he'd probably stop. When we were looking at the house all of the men insisted that Jazz was not their cat. They didn't like cats, he just sort of hung around the place, nothing they could do about it. Except make him special beds around the house right next to heaters, scratch his ears, and make sure he was going to be taken care of by telling us exactly the temperature of food he liked to eat and the merits of different varieties of cat food. Also,...