Random Work and Play

Fortunately we took a few road trips over the last week.  I took the babies and Eleanor to the beautiful hills of Mineral Springs just outside of Cassville, MO.  This is the old Mineral Springs school house {circa late 1800s}. My grandpa went to school there as a young boy and he bought it went it up for auction in the 70's.  A place to escape the city life {and sometimes chaotic life of 10 children}.  It's been also been a great family gathering place ever since.  My uncle David hosts the family reunions every Memorial and Labor Day.  Favorite part is listening to my uncles play and sing blue grass tunes on their banjos and mandolins.

We always take a trek down the gravel country road to the largest un-commercialized cave in the Midwest.   Rock House Cave.  The property owner always mows a nice path for our clan to come visit so we can cool off and let the kids spelunk.   This land and these parts of the Ozark Mountains are virtually abandoned, but I love, love that they are still somewhat pure in a lot of ways.

Here's the mountain of kids.  Don't worry, we didn't let the babies ride loose in there.  Just the big kids.  That was a treat for us to ride with cousins growing up.  This is a little less than half of the Arnold grand kiddos.

Back at home, Will slaved away while we road tripped.  This is just a glimpse of the nastiness he's shoveled out of the house.  The kitchen had old asbestos linoleum adhered to the hard woods.  The muck you see in the bucket was the under side of the linoleum.  The underside of that linoleum floor took a lot of soaking, scraping, shoveling, and scrubbing down with bleach, then pine sol, then wet vacuuming.   They are in really good shape underneath all of that:) The floors in the rest of the house are a somewhat different story.  Dog pee stains everywhere. Refinishing is on the long list of things that cost $$.  Will is going to try to tackle it himself.  

Ever get so excited about something new, that you don't know where to begin?  Well, we can hardly wait to transform the whole inside and outside of the house.  Will decided to slap some paint on the outside, even though we should probably tackle the inside first.  You can see the new house color in the far left corner.  It's almost a chocolate brown.  I think it will set the white trim off nicely.  We're thinking no shutters, What do you think?

Will chose the aged looking urns and pedestals and I chose the new light fixtures.  What do you think?  The over grown ewes will be going, and gone soon.

Bubs is sitting so calmly in his lawn chair.  I think he's in complete shock that we decided to paint the whole entire family room black.  Even the ceiling.

I really want these antique Louis xv dining chairs for the house, but will try to sell a client on these instead.  How perfect would a pair of tall antique wing-backs look as the head chairs to accompany eight of these beauties?

Happy Monday ya'll!

xx

sharon