Time for a good ol' fashioned barn raising!

Remember when in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" the Pontipee brothers go to the barn raising and fight over the girls and sing all about it? Remember that?  Well, I'm willing to let anyone interested reenacting that very moment in musical history to come to our house to raise our metaphorical barn. Seriously though, I've had a lot of time to think about it, as I've been painting for a week straight, and I think it is very sad that we live in a world where we no longer rally around our neighbors to help them, just because they are our neighbors.  I'm certainly not suggesting that I am any better than the next person in this regard.  I've complained plenty of times about people who ask for help when I think they could very easily pay for the work.  But why not help out. Why not give an afternoon to help paint, an hour to shovel, a day to garden.  Who cares if they could afford to pay someone else, where did our ability to do good things just for the sake of doing good things go?  Since neither of my neighbors are building any barns this week, and since this has been on my mind, I am going to make a fresh batch of my granola tomorrow and bring it to them in a symbolic attempt at raising their barns.  Why not, eh?

If you didn't catch it through my preaching, we are renovating again!  This time we are ripping up the upstairs of our old house in Ranchlands.  The tenants that were in it last happened to be the filthiest people on earth and the flooring throughout the entire house needed to be replaced.  So absolutely disgusting! However, we are taking advantage of the opportunity and giving the place a well deserved face-lift!

No reno project would be complete with out some before and after pictures, so I've dug through my archives and found a few pictures to share of the house as we lived in it pre-Michigan (you seriously would be so grossed out if I put the pictures of it after the tenants destroyed it - except for that you wouldn't have been able to smell them, so maybe it wouldn't do justice to just how disgusting it was.)

Action shot.  That's right, we had a drum kit in our house. 

Ikea Christmas tree. This was the only room with new carpet. We put it in after we moved in.

This one is to show the cuteness of the late Napoleon the dog, but also to note the colour of the carpet, 20 years old, at least.

Our kitchen, this week, many years ago.

The front of the house.

Visions of Candlemas' Past

More Candlemas shots.

Our front door: yes, it's purple.

Wish we still had those beautiful couches. 

Guess what, I don't have a shelf like that anymore.  The bull in the room (Silas) would make very short order of it. 

I loved the colour of our master room.  It was very warm.

This was the day we found out we were preggers with Eli.  This room was yellow.

Our double bed.  Cozy.

On my way to the Stampede, on the scooter. 

 So, give me a week and I will have the AFTER shots.  You will be so impressed, I promise.  The painting is done, but if anyone wants to come "raise the floor" you are more than welcome.  I'll bring lunch, although it may be raw.