I wanted to live on a farm by the time I was thirty.
Well, perhaps a farm isn't the right word. I don't have any aspirations towards growing anything besides, perhaps, a small vegetable garden. They call them "hobby farms" around here, old farm houses that still have a bit of acreage attached to them. Enough to stretch your legs; enough to let the dogs run.
I moved into this place a year ago, just after I turned 29. I hadn't planned on moving that year, but I saw this place for sale, and I decided to buy it. It was old, you see - a fieldstone farmhouse build around 1860. The same family had owned it since it had been built, handed it down through the generations, leaving it much as it had been.
I, like many other people, have a love of old things. From a young age I wanted to be an archaeologist, and pored over books on history and antiquities. However, when I got to university I realised that I was competing for one of a very few possible positions as an archaeologist, and that I was not among the smartest people in my class. I decided that I was not intelligent enough to become an archaeologist, so I switched to science. These days I make a living as a researcher. So it goes.
Now I have my own little piece of history. Not that it's all that old in the scheme of things. My uncle's house in Bristol is almost twice as old, and they think that my idea of an "old" house is laughable. It is old enough to need lots of work though. Science not being the road to riches these days, I was in no position to buy a previously restored house. My house needs work done, work that shall be done by me.
This weekend I am stripping down the woodwork in the old summer kitchen so that I can repaint. Wainscoting, and the massive trim around the window and the doors all have to be done. The paint in there is fairly new, but it has been placed on top of almost 150 years of other paints, some of which have must have started peeling or chipping as the surface of the paint is mottled and uneven.
I bought the silent paint remover to do this job with (and the many other stripping jobs around the house). It's a contraption that heats up the paint and allows you to scrape it off. It is supposed to be lead safe, which I'm hoping is true, as I am most definitely dealing with many layers of lead based paint. I managed to get about 20 feet of wainscoting done today, but it took about 8 hours to do. The silent paint remover gidget works fairly easily, but the wainscoting is a pain to strip, with lots of grooves to clean out, and round trim at the top. It's easy to mar the wood with the sharp scrapers if you're not careful.
Well, perhaps a farm isn't the right word. I don't have any aspirations towards growing anything besides, perhaps, a small vegetable garden. They call them "hobby farms" around here, old farm houses that still have a bit of acreage attached to them. Enough to stretch your legs; enough to let the dogs run.
I moved into this place a year ago, just after I turned 29. I hadn't planned on moving that year, but I saw this place for sale, and I decided to buy it. It was old, you see - a fieldstone farmhouse build around 1860. The same family had owned it since it had been built, handed it down through the generations, leaving it much as it had been.
I, like many other people, have a love of old things. From a young age I wanted to be an archaeologist, and pored over books on history and antiquities. However, when I got to university I realised that I was competing for one of a very few possible positions as an archaeologist, and that I was not among the smartest people in my class. I decided that I was not intelligent enough to become an archaeologist, so I switched to science. These days I make a living as a researcher. So it goes.
Now I have my own little piece of history. Not that it's all that old in the scheme of things. My uncle's house in Bristol is almost twice as old, and they think that my idea of an "old" house is laughable. It is old enough to need lots of work though. Science not being the road to riches these days, I was in no position to buy a previously restored house. My house needs work done, work that shall be done by me.
This weekend I am stripping down the woodwork in the old summer kitchen so that I can repaint. Wainscoting, and the massive trim around the window and the doors all have to be done. The paint in there is fairly new, but it has been placed on top of almost 150 years of other paints, some of which have must have started peeling or chipping as the surface of the paint is mottled and uneven.
I bought the silent paint remover to do this job with (and the many other stripping jobs around the house). It's a contraption that heats up the paint and allows you to scrape it off. It is supposed to be lead safe, which I'm hoping is true, as I am most definitely dealing with many layers of lead based paint. I managed to get about 20 feet of wainscoting done today, but it took about 8 hours to do. The silent paint remover gidget works fairly easily, but the wainscoting is a pain to strip, with lots of grooves to clean out, and round trim at the top. It's easy to mar the wood with the sharp scrapers if you're not careful.
posted by Sarah at 9:56 PM
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