Winter Blast!

Howdy readers.  Winter has hit Shangri La BIG TIME, and we're getting snow and frigid temps earlier than we've seen it before.  That's not a complaint...just an observation.  Our take on northern Michigan winters is that you can either choose to embrace it, or choose to hide from it (and complain about it).  We're definitely more in the former camp than in the latter.  For me, I'm a bit of a claustrophobic and if I'm inside for too long I can get pretty darn annoying to those around me.  I think Shelly will vouch for me on that fact.  Since waiting until spring to play outside is not an option, around here we gear up and go play.  We've been getting quite a bit of snow, and last weekend Shelly, Peanut, and I went out and had some fun.  We actually went out with the intention of hiking to the deer blinds to check on them, but we wound up staying out long after that was done.  :)  

I thought y'all might like to see what things look like around here in the winter time.  I know we typically post project pics, but we don't do a whole lot of outside work this time of year...other than plowing snow.  You're not likely to see an outdoor project pic until spring, so please enjoy this slight deviation from our standard fare.  ;)

Picnic Table Snow Gauge

Peanut, scouting ahead in one of the deer blind clearing.

"You're getting too far ahead, pup.  Get on back here!"

Shelly, looking stylish in her winter attire.

The mandatory selfie, with Peanut's dog butt in the background.

The power line easement at the front of our property.
Yeah...we're getting some snow.

The Shangri La homestead, decked out in its winter finery.

Hopefully you've enjoyed this little winter sightseeing tour of Shangri La.  I may wind up doing another one of these at some point.  Winters are long around here.  :)

Thanks for visiting.  Until next time.  

Changing Plans and Tackling A New Room

We really thought we had nailed down our main winter project, but we've decided now to put the basement project on hold for a little longer.  With our son Michael leaving soon I no longer need to build a home office.  Instead we're going to use the second upstairs bedroom as my office, with a queen sized futon also in there for whenever we need a room for guests.  For those that might not know, our house (not counting the basement) is only 700 square feet.  We truly can't afford to have any unused or barely used rooms, so the spare bedroom as a dual-use space makes great sense.  We're still noodling around with how we want to reconfigure our basement plan, but it's looking like it'll be significantly simplified.

So, with no set plans for the basement, what room should we tackle now?  If you said master bedroom...DING, DING, DING...we have a winner!  I knocked two things off the project list this weekend...painting the ceiling, and removing and replacing the old ceiling fan.  The previous owner was a HUGE fan (no pun intended) of gloss paint...everywhere...including the ceiling.  Here are a few "before" pics.

We're not overly fond of the 80's vintage ceiling fan.  It's got to GO!

Check out the shine on that ceiling!

As you can see from the above pic, the ceiling had one heckuva shine to it with that gloss paint.  It also had a gray cast to it.  We're fairly certain this is the original paint from when the house was built in the 80's.  That gray cast is about thirty years of wood stove soot that we couldn't scrub out, even using TSP.  You can also see where I removed the old fan, then removed the light fixture from it and wired it back in to give myself some light while painting.  We went with a flat white paint for the ceiling.  Clean and simple.  We've picked out the color for the walls, but we're going to make y'all wait to see it until after we're done.  Neener. ;)  One thing is certain.  It won't be anything remotely like the pink walls you see in the pics.  :)

Here is the finished product, after some minor sanding, two coats of flat white paint, and a new fan/light installed.

Harbor Breeze, Lansing model, purchased at  Lowes

No more shiny!

We chose this ceiling fan because it matched up real well with the night stands and bedside lamps we already have.  It should also go very nicely with the cork flooring we'll eventually be laying down.

I know that it's nothing earth shattering as projects go, but its impact will be felt daily.  Perhaps starting off with a smaller project is the best way to ease back into this.  That might be the right of it, because it feels very good to be back.  :)

Thanks for reading.  Until next time.  :)

For those following, may we humbly request...

May we humbly request your forgiveness for the lack of updates, and your indulgence for the reading of why we've been absent.  I know that it may seem that we've abandoned the blog, and I guess it's partially true.  This year has been one to remember.  Unfortunately it's one that we, in our darker moments, would prefer to forget.

Some of you may know, but for those that don't...before we took ownership and named this property Shangri La it was owned by Shelly's folks.  If you have read the blog update Life Intervenes, you'll know that we lost Shelly's mom in March.  We've found that the loss of Shelly's mom is inextricably tied to the things we do up here to the old family property.  Before her passing, with every project we completed, whether big or small, Mom would get a full report.  She was very supportive of everything we were doing, and was always expressing her happiness that we were up here.  The bottom line is, without being able to update Mom we couldn't bring ourselves to update y'all.  We're sincerely sorry about that, but there it is.

You may be wondering, as I might if I was reading this...  What has been going on for the eight months since?  Unfortunately, more upheaval followed.  The loss of Mom would have been enough for us to contend with for one year, but 2013 wasn't done with this family.  Just two short months after we lost Mom, an aunt who Shelly was close to died very suddenly.  Then, nearly two months to the day after that, Shelly's dad had a stroke.  Thankfully he is recovering and doing well, but it was another sucker punch to the jaw when we were already reeling.

Only until recently were we beginning to feel like ourselves again, with Shelly scratching and clawing her way out of an understandably serious case of depression.  We thought, hoped, and prayed we might make it out of 2013 with all family members unscathed, but it just wasn't meant to be.  Just last week our nine year old nephew, who was up here with his dad for his very first hunt, had to be life-flighted from Gaylord to Detroit Children's hospital.  They found that he had a ruptured brain aneurysm, and he has spent the last week clinging to life and enduring no less than four cranial surgeries. As of this writing he has miraculously stabilized, and the sedation which has held him in a coma-like state has been removed.  We don't know to what extent he will be affected by the trauma to his brain, and won't know until the sedation wears off and he begins to respond.  No matter how positive the outcome, he will have a long and arduous recovery.  If you're someone inclined to prayer, we humbly ask that you send one up for our nephew Collin.  If you're not inclined to prayer, we ask that you please keep him in your thoughts.

So, where does all this leave us?  That is still to be decided, but I suspect that when the dust settles we'll dust ourselves off and get back to doing what we do around here.  If you've been following the blog for a while, you've likely figured out from my writing that I'm not a doom-and-gloom kind of guy.  I believe that in the overall balance of a life, if someone is open to looking for the good, they'll find that the good outweighs the bad.  That being said, I have never felt this belief as sorely tested as it has been this year.  I don't know how soon we'll get back to regularly updating things here, but we will get back to it.  We have found great enjoyment in chronicling our progress up here, and we want to and will feel that again.

Thank you for reading.