Open House and more home repair.

Wow what a crazy couple days. We had our open house last night, and Steph and I were frantically getting ready for it. Actually, I was probably a bit more frantic than Stephanie because I was desperately scraping wallpaper, trying to finish with enough time left over to clean the room and take care of a few other things before guests began to arrive. Well, I set my deadline for 2:00, and lo and behold, I finish at 1:51. Yep, I was mighty proud of myself. So, I stood there for a moment, still standing ankle deep in wallpaper scrapings, pausing to silently pat myself on a back for finally finishing that...well, words can't even describe what a tedious pain that job was. As I stood there for that brief moment, mere seconds after finishing (literally), a car pulls into our driveway. It is Grandma and Grandpa Anderson, and Aunt Jo. Crap is all I can think. Steph is still bustling away in the kitchen, and I'm standing in what looks an Origami holocaust, covered in wallpaper glue drippings which looks, to an outsider, suspiciously like snot.

Well, it ended up working out all right, Aunt Jo helped shovel the driveway of all things, Grandma helped Stephanie in the kitchen, and Grandpa....
Well, I think it's fairly clear what he helped with.
Just kidding, actually, Grandpa helped a lot with cleaning up the parlor while I got out of the glue-snot clothes and took a shower.

After they had seen the house, and Grandma had admonished me for the lightly stocked wet bar in the basement, they left, well before any other guests arrived.

Overall, we had a good turn out. We were pleasantly surprised by some of the people that we invited that actually came, like Ron and Elane DeYoung, Steph's old paster at Oakland. They were the first guests to arrive during regulation time. (We were also surprised at some of the people who didn't *cough*derekandgrandmaandgrandpadeboer*cough*.


After the DeYoungs left, there was another brief respite before Grandma and Grandpa Johnson came, along with Aunt Diane. I heard that Chad was going to come until he found out 'refreshments' didn't mean caviar and Fillet Mignon.

After that, things started to pick up considerably, with much of the VerMerris clan attending.








Another pleasant surprise was that our Realtor, Patti, and our loan broker, Jamie, accepted the invitation. Apparently we were the first people they worked for to even invite them. We promised to have them back in a few months to see the finished Library/Parlor and the baby.
That pretty much wraps it up for the Open house. Tracie and Nate said they were leaving, and then all the sudden it was a stampede for the door (Thanks Mr. and Mrs. Killjoy!).

Now, to be perfectly honest, the post kinda ends there. "But Kevin," You say, "There are yet more pictures!" Yes, it is true. There are several pictures. Well, I might as well tell you this now. A blog/forum I have begun to regularly participate on is the Old House Forum, a place were old house owners talk about old house stuff, including how to fix the old houses. My next step in the Library/Parlor is going to be repairing the plaster walls, which unfortunately were significantly worse under the wallpaper than I had anticipated. But, for whatever reason, you can't post pictures from your computer to the website, they already have to be online. So this is my 'online' place to link pictures to. So if there are ever random pictures posted on here, with no text and no explanation, that's probably why.

But just to satisfy your curiosity, here's what I'm facing now.

Top of the North wall - you can't see it well, but there's a board there that is essentially flush with the skim coat. I don't know what to do with that (although I suppose really it doesn't matter since that will be covered by bookcases).
The ceiling by the South wall - cracked and sags. Not sure how to repair it as to eliminate the sag.
On the East wall near the floor - the plaster is crumbling underneath the skim coat. Again, not sure how to proceed with repairs.
The East/North corner. Photo says it all. ALL jacked up.
East Wall - an approx. 8x6 ft patch job. Not at all flush. I think I just need to sand it down, but want to make sure.

I have no idea what that board is there for, but I'm guessing I need to repair that too. (Again...East wall...grrr).
South Wall - Heck, forget the complicated stuff, how do you repair just a good ol' fashioned crack?
And another HORRIBLE patch job.
And this has been perplexing us for a while. This random duck head, on a swivel, is in the kitchen. Any ideas what it is for? Our only guess is towel rack, but it's several steps away from the sink, where there are other towel racks. Heck, even if you have no idea, deliver your best (or most hysterical) guess.