Adventures at The Bunny Manse

We planned for months to work on the kitchen in March. Welp. We went ahead and did it. Nights, weekends, after I finished my paid work, while the girls were napping, while they watched their 4pm tv, while they played in the yard, stolen hours to create a whole.   For the past 6-7 years of living in the house, this is what our kitchen wall looked like. Not bad, not amazing.  And wait until you open the door to the other side.  March I say WE but Harris did all of this. He took what was a messy and dangerous and dark/cluttered cramped section of the house that used to be a porch and utility room and turned it into our breakfast nook/solarium/kitchen annex/glorybeautiful light filled space. We don't even have to turn the lights on most days. The first part of the project focused on deconstructing the pieces/rooms and salvaging almost all of the wood to be used in portions of the project or in other on-going projects. If I had let him demo it he woul...

  Get you a man who, when he gets home from rehab and sees the ice cream parlour chairs you bought off an artist downsizing her studio while he was in rehab and says, huh, I guess chairs make you happy.  They DO make me happy. Madeline and I washed and scrubbed and primed and painted them while Harris was away in '16. They...lasted a season before the painted started peeling off in sheets. Harris insisted for all of 2017 that he would have nothing to do with those chairs thankyouverymuch.  Around 2017-2018 I bought vinyl and cushioning when Hancoks was liquidated by vultures. It sat in the closet and the chairs sat outside, still peeling paint for another year. We have a big house and lots of stuff going on.  Until, one day driving back from the thrift store, I saw them. The most beautiful chairs you've ever seen just sitting covered in 40 years of rust and plant life on the side of the road. I told Harris over dinner about them. He counted to ...

We knew the house had 'help' from the census records and because the service stair exits into the plainest bedroom upstairs. The was also the tangle of wires right by the kitchen that at one point held the call system. In each room, there is also a protruding wire in the wall that is not a light switch. These are the call buttons, or at least, what is left of them   Also, in the center of the dining room floor that was :sob: there was this lovely gadget.   You use it to call for the next course or for whenever you needed the kitchen help to reappear.   It would have been connected to a button or level under the table. When they pull up the flooring, this will be salvaged. Maybe we'll reinstall it so I can ask Harris to bring me glasses of milk.