The bathroom remodeling has begun.

The original bathroom had lovely salmon floor tiles. The walls were covered to a height of 48 inches with cute white 4×4 tiles with delicate little blue and pink flowers. A built-in Medicine cabinet with fluorescent tube lights helped to illuminate the brilliant sunflower-yellow sink and tiny white toilet. The cabinet on which the sink set was shiny white with small applied filigree baroque carvings enameled with gold paint. The handles were little lacy brass pulls. Above the tile, elegant white wall paper with blue and white pinstripes and little blue and pink flowers graced the walls. A graceful lime green vine connected the flowers bunching them into little bouquets of sheer delight which somehow seemed to complement the colonial blue painted woodwork.

All of this wonderment and charm of the previous owner was jammed into a small 3 feet by 9 feet space of a rustic and rugged log lodge setting. Lovely.

To keep myself from vomiting something had to be done quickly even if it was only a temporary fix. The images here show only the temporary fix.

Read more about the bathroom remodeling

Over the years I have had the great privilege of acquiring carvings of astounding detail.

Currently here at Bearfort Lodge hidden in plain sight amongst the logs for the joy of discovery are numerous songbirds carved by Dave and Pam Berari. So far here at the Lodge you will find wrens, chickadees, nuthatches, warblers, blue birds, titmouse, cardinals, robins and a few others.

Meandering through the lodge you may suddenly spy a marsh wren perched or a nuthatch clinging to a log. Many a visitor have taken delight in the discovery.

Read more about songbird carvings

I had been given this little refrigerator magnet of a twig deer head and thought it would look good life-sized and figured it would serve well as a rather whimsical way to greet guests to the lodge.

The charming but goofy looking little deer was of simple twig construction.

Read more about making a twig animal

It has come to the end of a long and productive week. Although I usually relax with a cup of coffee, this evening I’ll be enjoying conversation with good friends around the tap at the bar here at the Lodge where an inviting and refreshing glass of ice cold beer awaits.

The past several days of fine tuning designs and drafting new blue prints late into the evening and meeting with contractors for an upcoming renovation project of rather massive scale has left me numb. Yet I sit in calm. Soothed by the knowledge that my client that has fallen in love with the designs and progress.

Read more about plans for the workshop

Having worked from a home office for the past several years has been a pleasure. The office behind the bar provides comfortable surroundings and an enjoyable place to work, yet storage for files and office equipment has been difficult.

One situation is that I’ve never really had decent storage space for files besides a single standard two-drawer metal file cabinet from Staples. I’d end up with stacks of files all over the floor. I needed a number of file cabinets for personal and business documents but never ventured out to get any and hated the ugly metal drawers.

Read more on the home office

I come across these great photos of homeowners that have beautiful kitchens. Some of the old four square homes and Victorians among others boast large pantries. No doubt I wish I had a large pantry. I came across this old photograph — thought Id share it with you.

In an old log home you do what you can with what you have.

The pantry here at the lodge, just off the kitchen, is actually the stairwell to the basement. Using a stairwell as a pantry is not an uncommon thing mind you but it does make reaching for things a bit of a balancing act at times.

Today being a rainy day - was the perfect time to clean and reorganize the pantry and as much as I hate to disclose it mice do leave their ‘presents’ (pun intended) known.

With winter approaching they seem to race into the house from all directions. The cats, whose sole purpose is to catch mice as far as I’m concerned, will bat one around every now and then and on the rare occasion catch and kill one. So the traps have come out. To tell you the truth as much as I hate taking a dead mouse out of a trap I do get a twisted pleasure hearing that familiar snap of the trap.

Read on about the painted steps in the pantry

There has been a flood of hits on the site with regard to antique or vintage appliances. I failed to mention any sources (sorry about that - I had not anticipated the interest) so here goes. eBay of course — Nothing wrong with checking and scanning eBay for antique appliances.

Some of my favorite sites that have good information on restoration as well as vintage and gas stoves for sale include Antique Appliances.com. Antique Stoves is another great site — their inventory is divided historically- for those looking for choices of stoves within certain periods. Both of these sites also have parlor stoves, wood, gas and dual fuel stoves not to mention other appliances.

Read more for additional antique stove sources