The Somerset Farmhouse

Kind of Overdue Happy Sunday!! This update is about a week overdue but better late than never! I'm going to kick off this post with one thing that just made me inexplicably happy: hanging up lights! Armed with a ladder, a gripper, and whichever unlucky family member that crossed my path, I managed to string this set of lights along the bottom of the railing.  And it just looks so homey! Now, onto the main topic! The '80s called... Pulling up carpet is an adventure... And you're about to see why... Underlayment yet again sticking to the floor! This wasn't just underlayment; it was the adhesive! Thankfully it all came up pretty easy with some scraping and my little rotating sander cut all of that and the varnish out. I'd say about a good 3/4 of that wood floor was unfinished, with worn varnish around the edges.  Yikes! Armed with my little device, as I didn't have the belt sander handy, I tackled the floor - which turns out to be red oak!  I finally got it done af...

Day 2 of the siege! Oh my gosh, my golly! Admit it, you sang that in your head! I know it's not Christmas, but I've been saying that phrase so much dealing with the kitchen floor.  From dirty, stained carpet to dusty underlayment to grimy newspapers and aged linoleum, I felt like a general leading the charge against a mortal enemy!  This second part of the kitchen makeover wasn't as bad as the first day - unless you count the exception of the neck gaiter and dust causing endless issues with allergies.  I had to stop so many times just to clear my sinuses - which means, with all the allergens trapped in the house, I will be purchasing air purifiers in the near future. Destroying sandpaper essentially... Sanding wood floors is a pretty big task, especially since there was a considerable amount of dirt in the wood grain.  See how pretty the sandpaper looks in this photo? It didn't last long... :( You think it would be an easy job right? Wrong! The sander picked up quite...

Plans, but... Today may not have gone as planned, but I couldn't have asked for better results! What do I mean? My original intent was to spend half the day pulling up kitchen carpet - yeah, there was carpet in the kitchen - and the rest of the day in my new bedroom fixing up.  But I spent all day in the kitchen ! Now, that's not as bad as it seems when you consider how the room looked upon our arrival:  Carpet underneath where you cook or bake? Hard pass.  It probably looked okay when it was first installed, but of course, wear and tear got the better of it. I can't tell you how much that dark green minimized the room.  Forget "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" - it felt like, "Honey, the Carpet Shrunk the Kitchen!" All that was about to change.  No sooner had I finished breakfast and drunk at least half my coffee, I set to work tearing up the tripping hazard.  Some of it by the entrance was already loose and certainly would have tripped one of us, and another ...

Intro Allow me to introduce myself! My name is Gigi - I am a longtime musician, artist, and writer with a passion for country living.  I grew up in a small house - a VERY small house - in Northern NJ.  It had always been my mother's dream to raise me and my sisters on a homestead, with the ultimate goal of knowing how to grow our own food and live self-sufficiently.  Since the youngest moved out, that left me and the middle child still living at home.  Let's not forget the lousy economy leaving young people unable to afford solo living, much less basic necessities.  It was a struggle to make it in NJ due to the high cost of living.  But now, 29 years later, my parents bought a farmhouse built in 1911, sitting on approximately 26 acres of land! This was the only house out of all the ones visited that suited the needs of 4 family members.  Imagine, going from a 1,200 sq-ft home to now over 2,600 sq-ft of space! The first night here, we could barely navig...