Last year, I put in a beautiful little propane stove (fireplace) in my living room and it was WONDERFUL. A great investment. It heats most of our downstairs and last year it probably saved us about $500 in heating bills (or there about).

The layout of my house doesn’t allow us to close off any rooms in order to save on heating bills, other than my beloved porch which gets REALLY cold in the winter and fortunately has two access doors to the rest of the house and I can keep them closed for the winter.

Last year I tossed around the idea of adding additional insulation on the windows/patio door by hanging some of my beautiful quilts (that my Mom has made me over the years). I gave it a try and I just didn’t like the look. It just made the room too dark and closed in. I decided that the cost savings just wasn’t worth it to me at this point in time.

This morning, I did hang a plastic drop cloth over the doorway to the basement. Oh my goodness. What a difference!!! The temperature change from one side of the plastic was unbelievable… and the plastic still allowed light to pass through the area so this was good! Win/win.

With the success of the plastic I am now back in the living room with renewed interest in putting up a barrier between the living room and the hallway that leads to our back door and our patio door.

I scrounged around and found a second drop cloth (used but still in good shape) and thought I’d give it a try to see what the effect would be.

The cloth fits in the room opening perfectly (a plus) and the plastic allows the light to shine through the room (a plus). I can still see outside, although it is, of course, blurry. (a half-plus).

The drawback is 1) it’s a hunk of plastic hanging in my living room and 2) it’s hard to navigate through the house.

Option:
So I’m thinking that perhaps I’ll hang a large curtain rod (it’s a big area) across the opening and put two pieces of plastic up, with the opening in the middle. this will be easier to get through than trying to find the edge.
Hmm maybe I can put one wooden rod and staple one plastic sheet to one side and the other sheet to the opposite side. This will allow me to overlap the sheets in the middle, increasing the effectiveness. A strip of duct tape along the edge will mark the “opening” making it easier to pass through it.

I also think I’ll make a little door covering for the doorway between my living room and my dining room. I can keep it open when everyone is home and when it’s just me I’ll close it off and keep the heat in this single room as much as possible.

I feel like Red Green… the room will be “handy” not “handsome” :)

A couple of months ago I brought an antique china cabinet upstairs from my basement. It was old, rickety, and definitely musty. The china cabinet had been my Mom & Dad’s and is around 50 years old. My Mom says that it was just a cheap thing that they had purchased long ago. I’ve carried it with me from home to home for the past 25 years and it had ended up “tossed” in the basement. Today, it is a wonderful piece that I am proud to have in my home.

For the past month, as people have walked through the dining room, we’d get a whiff of something not so pleasant. It definitely smelled like “cat”. At first I assumed that it was just musty odours that the cabinet had acquired after years of basement living. And then I thought.. .hmmm.. could it be cat?

So I re-washed the cabinet and gave it a spray or two of smelly stuff, but the cat smell remained.

On the weekend, we had a Thanksgiving family event and I pulled out my camera bag and lenses from the lower storage area in the cabinet. I had put the camera equipment in there about a month ago (hmmm timing..) and prior to that the camera bag had been sitting on the floor, in the corner of the room. (My camera is stored elsewhere for easy access). I’m sure you’ve guessed it: my daughter’s cat peed on the camera bag. Oh yes, what a joy!

I took out the equipment (fortunately the batteries and flash cards had been inside a ziploc bag) and I tossed the camera bag outside to air out.

Today, I went to do some macro photography and changed the lenses on my camera. Oh my goodness.. .gag me. The macro lens smelled horrible, especially as I held the camera up to my face. oh yes, what a joy.

Current status: the camera bag is in the washing machine to see if that will clear up the smell and then I have to see if the zippers will work.
The lens has been wiped down with a slightly damp cloth. I am not sure what to do with it to clean it—I don’t want to put liquids on my lens.

Good news: it’s not the china cabinet
Even better news: my camera was not involved

Here is an aerial view of my property from ).
Somewhere in the house I have a picture of the house prior to our renovations.

Originally the house was “one room” deep. We pretty much doubled the size by adding a living room and bathroom downstairs, 2 bedrooms upstairs and the basement area which is now our woodworking shop.

For the past few months I have been slowly changing the look of my home. My original goal was to create a rustic look for my home filled with antiques from my family and with things that I had made myself.

Since that time, I’ve started going on monthly road trips with my sister-in-law hitting local antique stores. I have also grabbed some paint and made some changes here and there. The paint doesn’t quite fit the rustic antique look and so my “style” is a little mixture of “old” and “bright”.

For example, here’s a picture of a little area in my living room: