A lotta photos..........

It is evening and the sun is shining through the trees.  We warmed up to 18 degrees F. and will be down to 6 below F.  again tonight.

The city has done a good job cleaning the streets but everyone's driveway is blocked with ice chunks and snow.  Our neighbor lady came home from work and couldn't drive into her driveway.  She parked in our drive, which was cleared by two hearty boys, who were paid very well for their work.  I went over to help her out when another neighbor came by with his tractor and blade and finished the job for us.

They have had large amounts of snow all the way to the east coast.  It was a large, easy to measure, snow fall.

Rubble is starting to be cleared away and I actually only worked half the day in here.  I need to buy some special moulding pieces to finish the baseboard, but we can't travel too far yet.

Plastic crown moulding was easy to work with and actually did a better job conforming to the wall than wood would have done.  Click on the picture and see the neat little decoration detail.  They are using this material outside on houses for decorative trim around windows and doors.

Here is a sneak peak of our new dining room set.  It is really a nice set and it was made in America.  We had a hard time finding anything that we liked.  The wood is a very strong hardwood, not pine, like most that we saw out there.  The chair styles coming from our overseas makers are really proportioned huge and lacking of any traditional style.  When we put the leaf in it is one very big, long table.  The room is still big enough to handle it.  Someday maybe both our kids and their wives and maybe some grandchildren will be back all at the same time and we can use the whole thing.

In my youth a woman explained to me how to professionally refinish antique furniture.  After three coats of finish, the final process is to take steel wool and apply wood polish to the wood.  It doesn't scratch the finish as most finish material is very strong, so what it actually does is create a mirror-like, shiny, smooth finish.  Because of all the dust and dirt that we have finally put behind us, I chose not to use the power sander to do the final buff, so I am hand finishing the floor one square yard at a time.  I am on the floor like Cinderella.  The problem that one faces though is the floor is very slick for awhile.  Our little poodle walks across it like Bambi on ice.  His little feet slip and slide in all sorts of directions.  I chose not to sand the whole thing down to an even color and left wear and tear scratches in it as it is a 104 year old house.  On of my neighbor guys was really bothered by that, but it has a distressed look.
A long blog today but I had two major themes going on here.  I have many more snow pictures for you.   Thanks for reading.......