Dirty Jobs

 So when we started working on the house, it had zero usable electricity or plumbing. We had to use the gas station bathroom across the street. We could only work while the sun was out, because we didn't have any lighting. A lot of the work we did was pretty nasty, dirty work. And, that first summer was pretty hot outside, so we were sweating also, which made us smell as bad as the house! There must have been several animals in the house when the people lived here, as well as all of the squirrels that took over when the house was full of stuff but empty of people. 

One of those stories that you say "some day I will look back on this and laugh" happened when we were working on the kitchen. 

The floor had 2 layers of peel and stick vinyl squares that I had to scrape up, there wasn't really any usable appliances or cabinets, so we started from scratch. To the right of this picture was a chimney for the servants to do the summer cooking in the basement, and it was between two windows. You can see one of them in this photo with the green and white curtain. The squirrels had chewed up a lot of the window framing, and the other window was boarded up because the glass had fallen out. We decided to close up those windows, remove the chimney and put a big window in the center of the wall. I can distinctly remember framing in that window so we could cover it back up. As I leaned into the window frame with my pneumatic nailer, I lined up my 2x4 and pulled the trigger. The impact of the nail shook the wall and years of.... lets call it dust... fell down from inside the wall and landed on me. A big portion of which fell down the back of my t-shirt. Oh, and it was like 90 degrees outside and I was sweaty. It was disgusting. And remember, we had no running water there, and it would be the evening before I was able to go back to mom's house to get a shower. 100+ years of dust, grime, dead bugs, squirrel droppings and who knows what else was now "glued" to my scalp, neck and back. Good times.... sigh..

We closed up that window, closed the right butler pantry door, and that became the corner for the stove and cabinets. When we took out the chimney, we wanted a big window over the sink. I had priced out what we wanted, and it was about $1700 for what I was looking for. Feeling kind of bummed because that wasn't in our budget, I started searching Craigslist. I just happened to find someone selling this window complete with the leaded glass on the top. 

Pete! It's our window!! I practically yelled. He said Get the details and we can see if it will work. It turned out to be a perfect fit for that space. It was part of an old house in another town over, that was being torn down. The city had the fire department take everything usable in the house and sell it. So it was a 100+ year old window with leaded glass, just like the other windows in our house. I bought it for $200.  Another example of God and the Universe finding us what we needed. We have so many of these stories that I try not to forget all of them, and express gratitude whenever we seem to "get lucky" with a find. It's more than luck!