Time Well Wasted

The clock is ticking. The clock that's counting down the arrival of our company, that is... not that other clock. We worked on painting the trim in the living room yesterday, but we still have a lot to go (baseboard, chair rail, crown molding and then the second coat of color on the walls)! So we should have gone home after church and spent the afternoon doing more painting.

But we didn't.

After church David and I got on the motorcycle and took an afternoon drive out to Lancaster County in Pennsylvania. It was 75 degrees and sunny. We couldn't have asked for better weather!

David had surprised me yesterday with a Harley-Davidson leather jacket. It stays cool on the bike, even during warm weather, so I was happy to try it out on the ride today.


I had done some research of the area we were driving through, and I found a route that lead us to 4 covered bridges. The first bridge we came to was Mercer's Mill Covered Bridge, built in 1880.
Driving around on the country rounds provided us with views of many animals - sheep, cows, chickens, goats and horses. Also, due to the warm weather we've experienced lately, flowers and trees are in bloom all over the place! (Does anybody know what kind of flowers are on that hillside?)

The second bridge we came to was Pine Grove Covered Bridge. It's the only double-span, double-arch bridge in use in Lancaster County.

5 miles down the road was another bridge, White Rock Forge Covered Bridge. Here we were able to walk underneath the bridge and next to the river.

There were many Amish buggies on the roads today.

The last bridge we came to was Jackson's Sawmill Covered Bridge. The original bridge was washed away by a flood in the 1980's, so it's replacement is younger than me!

We walked across this bridge and looked at the view of the river from the window.

After our bridge tour, we headed into the quaint town of Strasburg, PA for a stromboli dinner.

At the end of the day I was reminded of the Brad Paisley song, Time Well Wasted. Verse 2 says
"It was time well wasted and there's no way I'd trade a few more things that I could've crossed off my list for a day I'll never forget. No, I didn't get a thing done but I sure soaked up every minute of the memory we were makin' and I count it all as time well wasted."

That's how I feel about today. It was a perfect 31st birthday!

Looking Back, Looking Forward

I took a picture of the back of the house today to compare it to a picture from the summer of 2007.
(As you can see, the capping above the back porch isn't complete and we still need a light to be connected to the wires above the back door...)

Bryan has been working on another job for the last 3 weeks, so there hasn't been much progress around our house. But looking at old pictures tonight reminded me of how far we've come!

Another Girl's Weekend

All the construction on our house has kept us too busy for the every-other-month visits that we usually make to NY to visit Alenna and her family. Also, the current limited space in the house has made it mostly impossible for any visitors over the past month and there is no way Alenna, Dan and 3 young children could stay with us. So I invited just Alenna and Cora for a Girl's Weekend! I know Alenna missed being with Dan, Aiden and Seth... and I appreciate them letting Alenna come visit. The weather was terrible most of Friday and Saturday (lots of rain and some flooding), so it gave us the perfect excuse to stay inside playing card games, watching a movie and of course, talking!


Alenna and Cora on Saturday evening.

Cora got a bath in my kitchen sink. She was fascinated by the water!

Cora with her Uncle David and Aunt Alvana... both whom love her very much!

Thank you, Alenna and Cora, for driving to NJ to visit us!

Weekend Work

We just had another work weekend at our house! Here's some pictures of the work that was accomplished.

The first layer of tape and spackle in the living room.

The last of the Tyvek was put on the house. (Ok, be honest... who else is annoyed looking at Tyvek put on upside down?! Good thing that will be covered up soon!)

Bryan and David worked on installing the frame of the front porch roof.

Living Room Changes

Progress to the outside of the house has been delayed because of all the snow we had on the 6th and the 10th. However, there was plenty of work to do in the living room so Bryan and David have stayed busy (and warm!) over the last three weeks by working inside. First the walls and ceiling was completely gutted. We decided to take out the build-in bookshelf because it wasn't very attractive and we didn't like where it was positioned in the room.


This is the progress that was made as of this afternoon... the recessed lights and wall insulation are complete and the sub-flooring has been installed. Bryan will be putting up the drywall at the beginning of next week!

God's Humor

Well, I didn't like seeing the pile of old aluminum siding in our back yard, so God covered it up with almost 2 feet of snow on Saturday, February 6th!




Today, only 4 days after the first storm, we got another 11 inches of snow... and it's still snowing as I write this. It looks like it will be a while before I see that ugly pile of aluminum siding!

Attitude Adjustment

Renovating a house is overwhelming... even if you're not the one doing the manual labor. It is a weekly (sometimes daily!) exercise in optimism to focus on the progress instead of on what still needs to be done or the mess created by the progress.

Let's take today for example... when I got home from work I was hungry (never a good time for me!) and feeling a bit overwhelmed by some future challenges my boss had just talked to me about. Yes, slightly bad attitude already. And with that pessimism I find myself focusing on the ugly pile of aluminum siding in our back yard (waiting to be taken to the Iron & Metal Recyclers), the dirt that was tracked into my house (even though I just cleaned the floors 2 days ago) and the DUST (which seems to conspiratorially hang in the air until while I clean the house... only the settle moments after I finish). Also, I had thought our new front door was being installed today, but it wasn't, and I was discouraged about that. I know there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but without the light anywhere in view it's easy to be overwhelmed.

However, in an effort to remain positive, here are the good things that happened this week. The clapboard siding has been removed from the front of the house on the 1st level... only a small triangle of clapboard remains! Our living room has been gutted, except for the final layer of ceiling. (I believe we had 3 layers of ceiling in that room.) The wooden frames for our windows in the front of the house are complete, and both were installed today. And after the two front windows were installed today, ALL of the windows in our house are new and energy efficient!

God, help me focus on the blessings!

January 30 and 31

Another busy weekend of work at the Cundey household! It was 19 degrees on Saturday, but David, Bryan and I stayed warm with layers of clothes and lots of hard work. Here's David tearing off the many layers of siding on the front of the house. (This is the final wall to have old siding on it.)

Bryan worked on getting all the plywood on another wall, then started putting up Tyvek.

It started to snow around 3pm, but the guys kept working! We even got more help from a neighbor.

This is how the front of our house looked as of this afternoon. Yikes! But with renovations things have to look bad before they can look good.

This afternoon David and Bryan moved everything out of the living room and we started tearing down walls. We closed off this room with a wall of plastic to try to keep the dust out of the rest of the house.

January 23

Bryan fixed the roof so that you can't even tell that a chimney was on this wall only a week ago!

David's sister, Marney, and her son, Julian, came to visit for dinner tonight. Julian asked "Why dey have stickers on deir house?" I guess the Tyvek looks similar to stickers when you're 3 1/2!

How to Destroy a Chimney

David is blessed with many good friends, 2 of whom helped us all day on Saturday with tearing down our chimney. (Why are we tearing down our chimney and fireplace? Because it's old, poor quality, brings cold drafts in the winter, and the fireplace takes up a lot of space in our living room.)


Bryan and David used a hammer chisel drill to break the chimney apart.



Noah and Haley, the neighbor kids, watched the work for over an hour (while their mom and I were able to visit).



By late afternoon on Saturday, a lot of progress had been made! (We discovered that when the chimney was put in it had covered over an original window.)


David started working on the chimney as soon as he got home from work today. Thankfully it was much easier work than the top of the chimney. By 8pm the chimney was completely gone and he had nailed plywood to the outside of the house to keep out the drafts. What a huge change in just 2 days of work!