New Furnace Time! Part I

I need to have a blogging marathon and since I am holed up in my room due to chilliness and contractors wandering around downstairs, today might be the day! (pending baby nap time) I think I will have to go backwards on my time line though because I didn't even post my b-day giftings or my last garage sale weekend find. Gesh! Is there a "most disorganized blogger" award out there? I think I would win it.

Back to why I am hanging out in the bedroom today. Last week the pilot light went out in the furnace. I grew up with a father who was (is) an electrical engineer and decided electric was the way to go so he installed electric everything and even had the gas lines removed. This idea of a pilot light freaks me out, Mark is also a weanie when it comes to this so I had my brother check it out. We opened the furnace up to discover gas was still spewing out which is supposed to stop when the pilot goes out, isn't it?? We turned off the gas to the furnace, examined it further to find one of the little safety buttons was not popping closed. I called the heating place to see if it was worth fixing. The guy came over to check out the problem along with a general check over and found the heat exchange (er, something like that) was cracked. Whew, not that I wanted to put money into a new furnace BUT we did buy the house knowing this day would come so I was kind of scared the repair would be only moderately expensive and I really didn't want to put money into the old furnace.

The huge old furnace. I'm just glad the original asbestos octopus was long gone.

Adding on the central AC in 1981 involved sticking a bunch of random wires all over the outside of the furnace.

 

Here is the above mentioned central air from 1981. It was still plugging along last summer but we decided we may as well get it replaced too since at 31 years of age, with little to no maintenance from the previous owner, it has to be on its last legs.

 

I thought they had all of the furnace out when I shot this but I saw them loading another big chunk onto the truck later. It seriously looked like a rusty plane part fell out of the sky and landed in our yard.

 

I snuck downstairs during their lunch break hoping to find a huge empty spot to photograph though I was also pleased to see they had already set up the new furnace!

 

So far so good. Hopefully everything will be 100% set up tomorrow with everyone gone because I get so antsy when strange people are wandering around my house. Not that I like to walk around naked or anything (especially with no heat) but I just feel awkward and uncomfortable!  

Free Friday

Once a month our salvage store has a "Free Friday" at the beginning of the month. It's been sparse the past couple of months but this month I did come home with some cra...er, useful treasures.

A very awkward shot on the porch but it works.

 

I've been looking for a "new" coffee table, preferably a Lane Acclaim to match my side tables but this blends with my Lane Perception dining room so it works. It has a model stamp but no brand name. I believe the legs and decorative middle would all be one piece if it was from any of the major furniture makers so it is probably just from a random furniture company. It is much sturdier than my current table (I believe it could hold up to a small dance party on top) and hey, it was free so it will do and I can hold out until I find that Acclaim table at a decent price - remember my $20 limit, though I may splurge and pay $50 for one if it is in good shape...

 

The old time-y light will replace the broken 1980's fixture above the garage door and I have no clue what to do with the pendant light in my 100 yr old house but I thought it was pretty cool for free so it will be added to my collection of possible future basement lighting.  

Happy Halloween!

Growing up it seems like all of the holiday decor had its own place so when we pulled it out of the box we knew exactly where it went. I haven't gotten to that point with my decorations yet but it seems to get closer every year.

My mantle is still a work in progress but I do like how my bats turned out so they will be coming out again next year. They are a result of my Pinterest browsing and the pattern is here from Country Living.

My goal is to someday have enough kooky Halloween records to fill my frames but alas some tacky dollar store pictures will have to do for now.

Obviously I have a Halloween black cat obsession and this was a new acquisition which I actually won last weekend at a luncheon my mom brings me to every fall (I am bribed with the promise of country club food).

Another birthday gift this year was this witchy owl who may stay out a little past Halloween. I'm sure Mark will inform me I forgot to take down a decoration though he may be too distracted by my Christmas reindeer who will be making an appearance shortly.

I also had the grand idea of framing some of my vintage paper decor. I started painting some ugly frames but that is about all the further I got! This candy bag fit perfectly in this frame which was already somewhat beat up and Halloween looking so I did get one done!