House Photos
Posted on August 13, 2007

All the rooms in the house had drop ceilings. This one had some sheetrock up
there as well. A roof leak caused part of the ceiling to fall down. As I
removed the damaged tiles we discovered a viga. Then the hunt was on!

We ripped all of the drop ceilings out. Vigas behind all. Unfortunately the vigas
were damaged by making room for the firring strips the ceiling was attached to. We'll
patch and clean the vigas, then we'll plaster in between them. When we get 'round to
raising the roof and putting in a second story we may replace the old boards and our
plaster with latillas.

Here's the front room that will be the gallery. This is standing by the kitchen door and
looking toward the road. In the corner to the left (not shown) we'll put a kiva fireplace.

Here's the opening from the gallery into the kitchen. We're going to open it a bit lower,
round the top corners, and get rid of the woodwork.

Speaking of the kitchen, here are the lovely cabinets. They are, of course, coming out and
going for free to the first interested party.

Turning to the right, stove & reefer. I made the mistake of opening the refrigerator.
There is food in there. Anywhere from one to five years old. I went outside and barfed
it smelled so bad. We're going to duct-tape this baby shut and haul it to the dump.
The stove is going to because, as you may remember, I have an antique gas stove and an
antique wood cookstove that will be going in the kitchen.

Here's that opening in the kithen/gallery wall looking from the kitchen through the gallery and out to
the front window.

Sun room just off the kitchen. Door is between the lovely cabinets and the barfy reefer.
The only room that really doesn't need any work just now. It'll serve as my studio until we
get to that point. The 2 doors will be used as double-doors into our master-suite. The
roses go out in front of the office window.

Remember standing in the kitchen door looking out at the gallery? If you stand right there
and turn right this is what you see. These are 2 of the 3 bedrooms, towards the back of the house.
The wall right in the middle of the photo is coming out completely and we will make these 2 rooms
into our master suite. We're putting a kiva fireplace in here too. TV will go in here--we'll figure
out some sort of separation 'tween bed & kick-back room, but this allows us to keep the gallery
a gallery so I don't have to get up and hide our lives everyday. Of course ALL the paneling will
come out.

Our offices will be the front bedroom which looks just about like the gallery room, but with only
one big window.

Now if you turn to the right even more there's the bathroom. Since we're taking that wall out
and moving the doors to the left we'll extend the bathroom out another 4 or 5 feet. All the
fixtures are coming out. We're putting in a claw-foot tub, pedestal sink, new toilet.

Now for the outside improvements...Leonardo is building a new set of garage--oops! I mean WORKSHOP
doors. The centers will be painted then overlaid with barn wood or some such--so they look artistic
and southwesty. These aren't even on the hinges yet.

One of the junk piles.

Another view of the junk pile. There are two more this big on other areas of the property.

This is our peach tree in the back! We'll have ripe peaches in a few days more! There are lots of
peaches!! We're using parts of this old fence (there's a section already down) for our decorative
barn-wood needs. We're putting up horse fence to keep the cattle out and to keep the horse in once
we are ready for a horse, probably in a couple years.

Here I am at my self-appointed task. I just could not wait to make a visible difference to the
outside. Still working out trim colors. This is our second trim color try and we are going back.
My husband agrees--not enough "Zing!"

Looking a lot more attractive than in the original state. Plus this color will help heat up the
adobe walls during the 9 cold months. We've got a great wooden front door waiting for us in Santa Fe.
A woman is renovating her house and when her new door comes in November we get ours.

Thanks St. Joe! This is the guy who lived in the flower pot for so long!