Oliver’s Bungalow Blog

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Newest Addition

Christine

curiously listening to Roomba’s beeps

We welcomed the newest addition to our household this weekend. Say hello to Roomba 770. We love her already. Not only does she clean, but she provides golden retriever entertainment!



not so sure about this thing… gonna bark!

  
 


Roomba chasing Oliver

    


attack stance!

  

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1940 Census

Christine

So, if any of you family tree climbers out there have been paying attention, we are just days away from the release of the long-awaited 1940 census.

For my generation, this means I’ll get to see a little more about my grandparents and maybe their parents. I’m lucky because I’ve had the opportunity to know all of my grandparents in my lifetime. Some better than others, but still. But it’s funny, you know, because I seem to get the same stories out of my grandparents every time I ask, tell me about your childhood, your family when you were young.

For me, going back through the 1930 and 1920 census have given me little tidbits to take back to my grandparents. Prompts, if you will. I can ask them about this certain thing I found, do they remember that. It seems to open the floodgates. Then I get new stories. This is one of the things I love most about genealogy.

So for myself, I know right where to go to find my grandparents when the 1940 census pages for Pennsylvania are made available on ancestry.com. Hopefully sooner, rather than later!
The deal is, that Ancestry.com will be seeing these pages they day they are released – April 2nd – for the first time. So, don’t expect to be able to log onto Ancestry on Monday and snap! find your ancestors. It just isn’t possible. Ancestry is going to have to scan all the pages. They will make them available as they are finished. But we still won’t have searching capabilities. But it isn’t the end of the world, we’ll just have to treat it like the microfilm versions of previous census, before the days of Ancestry.com. We’ll have to use Enumeration District maps.
This will make things pretty easy for people with small town families, and help narrow things down for families from large cities.
So, while things will be very busy at work, with the end of semester, and busy at home with all the construction, I’m still planning to keep up on the latest with Ancestry’s 1940 census offerings.
Stay tuned, and feel free to ask me questions! I love to help fellow genealogists!
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Siding Mock-Up

Christine
You may recall that I mentioned before that we are going to be getting new siding this spring. Yes, it is finally happening! My mom’s cousin Bill is our wonderful carpenter and he says siding is his favourite job. We’ll see if he still feels that way after he is done with the bungalow!
Anyway, right now we are just waiting for the siding to come in. Bill ordered it and we expect it in about another two weeks. I think Bill is planning to start deconstruction next week, weather permitting of course. We will be recycling the heavy-gauge aluminum siding, not only because it is the right thing to do, but we may get a bit of money back. That would be a nice bonus.
We will be getting brand new James Hardie siding. I know it is more expensive than vinyl, but I’m against adding anything plastic to my house if I can help it. I also think it will pay for itself in the long run. See yesterday’s post regarding the hail damage!
The bottom half of the bungalow will be getting lap siding in Mountain Sage. I honestly don’t know what we settled on. Beaded, not beaded, smooth or wood grain. Doesn’t really matter. I like them all. That may surprise you that I don’t haven’t agonized over every detail. It surprises me. Maybe I’m growing, letting go of control. Maybe I trust that it’ll turn out beautifully no matter what. Maybe I’m just too tired. Probably a bit of all those!
The top half will get the straight edge shingles in Heathered Moss. Normally I like a randomized look, but after living with my first mock up for a while, I decided I would prefer the straight edge over the staggered shingles for the bungalow.
All trim that will be replaced, or newly created, will be in Artic White. There will be a “belly band” around the middle of the bungalow, dividing the shingles from the lap siding.
We are also going to add knee braces. Yup. I don’t really know if my house originally had them or not, but I like the way they look. Some houses in my area have them, some don’t. We already have some supporting the little roof overhang over the side basement door, and supporting the kitchen window. Just for my piece of mind, Bill is going to install real, structural knee braces under the dining room window overhang. It does sort of dip down there, and while I suspect that happened a long time ago and the house is now stable, I’d still feel better with some support there. Plus they will look cool.
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Last Year’s Hail Damage

Christine
Last spring we had a wicked, nasty storm. Lewis was at home, but I stayed put at work because we weren’t sure it was really safe to travel. Better to stay in safe shelter than risk getting caught in a bad storm in the little VW, blowing all over the highway.
Anyway, when Lewis first called to tell me how bad it was at home, I couldn’t really understand him. I thought he was going through the automatic car wash!
When things subsided a bit he went outside with the camera.
big hail
hail-littered lawn
poor posies
garden recovered, but zucchini leaves took a beating
When the skies cleared, Lewis realized that we were very lucky. No broken windows, only some broken tree branches, no downed trees. But the siding, oh the siding…
that arc to the left of Oliver isn’t dirt

those streaks aren’t dirt, either

 


The hail actually struck the house so hard that the paint has been scraped away, right down to the bare metal. When you run your hands over the siding, you can feel all the pits and dents caused by the hail.
pits, dents and no paint

So, a project we though we were going to put off for several more years got bumped to the top of the list. And, you know, it isn’t such a bad thing. While we have the siding off, we can remove all the old, unknown layers and we will be insulating from the outside in. While we have all the walls open, we are getting air conditioning (yay!), and replacing a few damaged windows. Also we are going to be getting the roof scraped and re-painted and we are getting new gutters. Gee, is that all… it seems like there is something else…

All you old house owners out there know what it is like. One task leads to another and another. This spring’s project is turning out to be a big tangled mess of things that overlap. We’re in for a fun ride!

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Bathroom Knobs – Vote Now!

Christine
3 drawers on the left, 2 doors and a bottom drawer on the right

Remember our downstairs bathroom? You know, the one where Oliver hangs out in the cool shower during the hot summer?

Well, it has been finished for, oh, about five years now, and I’ve decided it is about time we get some knobs on those cabinets!

I’ve been eyeing the knobs from Van Dyke’s for some time, and I’ve narrowed it down to an old favourite and something new that might fit the bill. Trouble is, I can’t decide… what do you all think?



topaz glass knob, $9.99 each



satin nickle knob, $3.79 each