Home Work: Worker bees make progress

Grandmama and Grandpa J worked like bees during their visit last week.  They zipped through my to-do list. The biggest project was replacing all the door knobs.

When we moved in there were a variety of handle types. Here are couple examples of before pics from the listing and A's phone:

Every one of the 6 keyed exterior doors required a different key.  The previous owners had spray painted dark bronze over the original gold color on most of interior door knobs.  It's a cool idea (spray painting hardware) - saves a lot of money, looks nice for  selling the house, but terrible for long term items that get a lot of use. After 2 months in the house, the spray paint had rubbed away and the gold was showing under the spray paint on almost every knob.

 We ordered new knobs for all exterior and interior doors. Now all the exterior doors can be opened with the same key. And all the interior knobs are the same. The unified look of all the interior knobs is gorgeous. I absolutely love it. Hardware is a small thing that makes a huge difference to the feel of the space.

Kudos to Grandpa J for the hard work (2 full days!) of removing all the old hardware, fixing weird things that had been done previously, including realigning the hinges on the door to the master bedroom so that it actually closes, and installing all those new knobs.

 Side note: Hubby put up these bamboo shades in the master bathroom and guest room just before Grandmama and Grandpa J arrived.

 Grandpa J also fixed the dimmer switch in the dining room- used to look like this one in the den:

Now it actually dims - and it looks nicer:

Grandmama and Grandpa J also replaced all the old incandescent (aka energy hog) light bulbs throughout the house with nice LED bulbs.  We also took the square shades off the dining room chandelier, bringing it much closer to my style. 

 Here it was in the listing picture

Here is the after. Sorry about the horrid photo quality. Apparently even A's smartphone has a better camera in it than my 5 year old digital camera! I cannot believe how fast things get out of date.

Grandpa J also took apart our central vacuum to try to see whether he could improve the suction. He cleaned out the very dirty filters and collection bucket and taught us about keeping all the wall vents closed.  Works much better now.

 We took advantage of Grandpa J's military discount to buy Hubby a serious new chainsaw.

 

They got to work on the 3 pine trees after that. Now they look like this:

 We are probably going to buy a wood chipper for the brush since the cost of renting one for the amount of time that this project is going to take would be about the same. And we will probably need one for all the falling branches/tree cutting in the future.

Not to be outdone, Grandmama used her new AccuQuilt machine to cut all my scrap fabrics and fat quarters into enough squares and triangles to make 2 Ohio Star quilts - one for each of the girls' beds! One will be dark blue background and light colored stars and the other will be light background with medium and dark fabric stars.

What a great week! I am so grateful to have such hardworking helpful family members.

Farm Fresh: Rabbits

  We picked up our new baby bunnies this week. They are all of the Silver Fox variety. Brother M has claimed the buck and named him Dieter, or Dee for short.  Dee is about 8 weeks old.

 Big sister A is holding the 6 week old doe, Alice.

 She is a beautiful brown gray color.

Big sister A claimed the younger doe. She is black and only 5 weeks old.  A has been calling her Scarlett Clover. 

Here are the cages with poop trays and water bottles in place.

Springtime Fun

 After keeping them busy working hard all day, we took Grandmama and Grandpa J out to our favorite ice cream store for Family Home Evening.

 Baby L got the free baby cone:

 I think she liked it.

Brother S also got a free baby size cone - What flavor? light blue, of course.

 

 Another fun Spring activity is making mud pies. These are some pics that Daddy took of what he saw when he arrived home from work that day:

 

All good messy fun. And then on to bath time.

Family Schooling Summary: Port Discovery Museum

Shirts from Science class at co-op school:

Grandmama and Grandpa Jim stayed with us for one long lovely week.  We loved having them and all their energetic help on our many projects.  We did not get to do as much formal school work as usual, but did a lot of other fun things.

We went with cousin L to Port Discovery in Baltimore one day.

This car was fun - with all the working parts of a normal car. It was stopped at a gas station and the kids filled the tires up with a real air pump.

And also used a gas pump that allowed them to select grade, squeeze the handle, and watch the numbers roll at the pump.

 They spent a lot of time playing in the Supermarket, buying and also restocking the shelves.

 Reading books at the store with Grandmama:

 There was a giant music studio. 

 Big brother showing Baby L how it is done.

 And then all together, with maracas for variety:

One of the other exhibits was an Egyptian explorer adventure. It was cool, but then brother S got a little scared from the eerie lighting.

The older kids worked on solving the mysteries and even found the sarcophagus with the mummy inside!

 There was a huge waterworks room complete with full body dryer.  We played there while the girls "worked" in the cafe next door as waitresses.

Farm Fresh: A Home for Rabbits

Based on the recommendations of our rabbit breeder, we ordered our cages, feeders, and water bottles from Bass Equipment Company.   They require some assembly, but are relatively inexpensive and nicely made. 

According the Storey's Guide to Raising Rabbits, they are best kept in welded wire cages with good aeration and no droppings collecting in the bottom. Mr Bennet also suggests that the enclosure be made of mostly of metal, with the cages suspended from the framework so that the rabbit urine does not rot or infect the wood with bacteria.  The hutch should also be located in a shady spot, not a problem on our wooded property.

 Hubby built this hoop house and finished it up with help from Grandpa J last week.  We bought a metal shelving unit from Costco to hang the cages on. It was just the right size for the 2 does 36"x24" cages to fit side by side and the 3 buck/growout 24"x24" cages on the bottom.

I am really pleased with how neatly it turned out. Ready for rabbits.