Door knobs!

Anyone who has been to our house thinks it is strange because there are no door knobs. We have had them; they have just been in a box. We took them off to paint the doors and clean them. They knobs are original to the house and solid brass. The previous owners weren't the best painters and there is a bit of paint on them as well.

Well Gina read that we could boil them in vinegar to loosen the paint and clean them. We just needed an old pot that we didn't want to use for food because the paint on the knobs may have lead in it.

Gina making door knob soup!

After and before!!

MMMmmmmm,,, door knob soup.

The boiling vinegar did a great job. It was really quick. But...the smell is a bit much. It wasn't too bad if your feet were on the floor...but not so great to up on a ladder cleaning a chandelier!! Maybe next week the doorknobs will get back on the doors. 

The crystal chandelier

Well, every time we sat down to eat at the dining room table I couldn't help but look up at the chandelier which was dingy, dusty and dirty. Who knows the last time it was cleaned.

I first just tried to dust it and then a crystal fell off....so I had to take all the crystals off.

I cleaned it with vinegar and a little steel wool.  I didn't want to make it too clean, as it is very old and it would probably take a week of polishing to really clean it perfect. I draped a cloth with warm vinegar on an area covered with paint. It softened it up great. I wiped everything down with a mixture of vinegar, rubbing alcohol and water.

I then washed all the crystals in warm soapy water....all 51 one of them!

After everything was clean..the long process of drying and putting each crystal back on began.

Was it ever shiny when I was done. If feels so much cleaner and shines so much brighter!

All sparkly. The crystal didn't reflect much before.

the grunge before...this is before we painted too and the wood floor guy added another layer of dust.

The Fence, YAY!

We finally got the neighbors to remove their sheds from our property. We hired a guy, Ruben Colonia with Colony fence (found on Angie's list), to install a fence and they did a great job. The fence is solid cedar along the rear and side property lines and triple diamond rail with black wire along the front. They also carted away all the piping and chainlink fencing leftover from the previous owners. They used pipe for everything...the grape trellis, the rose trellis, anything that needed "support"...

We are happy. The dogs are happy!

The gate... 

Rear yard.

the alley behind the garage

Huge rock and the slab from the neighbor's shed

big rock

 

Lodi checking out the new yard...and our new slab sans neighbor's sheds

the yard...and rose trellis gone

Gina relocating the climbing roses

Roses planted along the fence

Pups enjoying their expanded playpen

The green north side...

The north side of the garage was just green. No sun. I was sitting in the back yard and couldn't look at it any longer. It just felt so grungy to sit there...though the dogs didn't seem to mind it.

The sides of the garage are some sort of cement parging with flecks of shiny things...it isn't painted. 

We had gotten the power washer to work on the radiators. I could have sat there and read a book in the sun....and it was really warm day -- not today. I couldn't look at it any longer so I decided to try and wash the green crud off.

It came off pretty well without any chemicals. And I brought in the helper.

Much better... 

Timberrrrrrrrrrrr!

We had a couple of ornamental trees that really didn't look like they were going to live much longer --  the two in the middle.

So we got a new chain saw.

And down came the trees. 

The city took away all the little branches. 

And we got a pile of wood which we piled behind the pipe rose trellis that is now gone as well (see fence post).

Getting cold...turning on the heat.

But first we had to paint the radiators. The floor guy (see June - yes it took awhile to get to this step) uninstalled 4 of the radiators so that we could paint the walls behind them. We cleaned them up with a power washer and then spray painted them with high end metal rustoleum. At first we were going to do the ones for the living room in more of a silver color...but ended up painting them all the same color.

We have steam heat fired by an oil furnace and had Frank the heating guy come check it out and tune up the furnace for winter. Frank said it isn't the most efficient furnace, but it should last us until we are ready to get something more efficient -- maybe even up to 10 years. 

After turning on the heat the smell from the paint was pretty horrendous. We had to keep the windows open for a bit (too bad we waited until it actually got cold). We are still working on adjusting the system. It seems to have manual air vents. We might need to call Frank again to make sure things are working right. 

Back inside....and sitting pretty

And what used to be.....

the radiator sat under the window with very old wallpaper behind it

the awful and huge covers we removed