River Rock Removal Day at the Hardy Smith House

A beautiful, sunny day in Dublin.  The high temperature reached 60 degrees, maybe slightly warmer than that. Did laundry, put together my new shop dry/vet vac, cleaned out my car and upstairs guest bedroom, swept the front porch, the breezeway, checked emails and of course this blog entry :)

The main event of the day was helping John remove the largest of the river rocks out of the back part of the house. They have been under mud, dirt, sand and other sediment for well over 100 years. John put a chain around each rock and tied the other end to the truck and we pulled each out one by one.  I drove the truck and John made sure the rocks did not fall off our makeshift ramp. We got out about 8 huge rocks weighing no less than 30-40 lbs. John has spent the past two months digging and removing river rocks and finding interesting objects that would look great in a shadow box. There is one last section John has to dig out that no doubt contain a few more river rocks and bricks.

We have enjoyed our day, one day after returning from the hustle and bustle of metro Atlanta. It is tax season and John is busy with preparing tax returns for clients and teaching at the technical school. So, in his down time, he has been playing 'Dr. Jones'. Excavating rocks, bricks and whatever else in the back part of the house. He loves to play in the mud!

Not much else to report. Just mainly a quiet, peaceful day at the house.

Spring cleaning has begun at the Hardy Smith House

Sunny, cool, windy day at the Hardy Smith House. The northeast coast is about to get socked with another round of punishing snowstorms. I read in the news they just finished cleaning up from the monster storms two weeks ago.  Philadelphia is about to add another foot or two to the 70" inches they got so far this February! I had to mention that weather tidbit because it is such an amazing statistic.

Last night, I did some painting in the bathroom. The perfecting continues.  I even added some greenery at the top of the linen closet. I will add some spring color to that soon :) The full length mirror leaning on the side of the closet will be hung on that side. Just have to get the right hanging hardware for it. The greenery with a touch of spring color adds a nice accent to the top of the closet.

Tonight, a few church members from next door came over take away an old sofa left in the house when John bought it and a queen sized mattress-box-spring set for a 'garage-yard sale' tomorrow.  My patience finally paid off, that sofa and mattress set is GONE! Spring cleaning has started at the Hardy Smith House!  In the picture with the chandelier, you see the back window is boarded up. The other two windows out of view of the photograph are boarded up also. All three windows were blown out from the strong winds recently. I plan to paint the outside of the boarded up windows with a cute, floral design of some sort. I am no artist. Once the warm weather comes and stays, I will be out there painting :)

I look forward to seeing the formal dining room clean again. John plans to build a 'trap door' in the corner of the room that will lead to the downstairs area that John plans to utilize as additional storage space or possibility a recreation room once the area has been cleared of flint rocks, bricks, access dirt and sealed to prevent and or minimize water runoff damage from flooding rains.  So far John has excavated about 50 or so large flint rocks.  There are a few rocks he could not get out of the area due to their size. So we will have to put a chain around them and pull them out with the truck.

Yard work will begin soon. First, John plans to take down a dead water oak tree in the back yard with a chain saw, cut up and store the wood for burning in our beautiful fireplaces. We plan to use some of the bricks and flint rocks to build a walkway and short driveway in the front yard. Then tilling and reseeding the front and side yards with new grass will start. I am excited about getting outside to play in the dirt for awhile!

That is all to report today. Keep checking my blog for updates on the non stop improvements at the Hardy Smith House.

HSH Renovation Update: Bathroom 95% completed

A sunny, cool day in Dublin today. The bathroom linen closet has been painted, trim perfected and the shelving papered. That project is completely done! John has been playing in the mud again. He found a few more buried flint rocks. The elusive Confederate gold has not been located yet. It is probably in the bottom of the well.  I have no plans to repel down a 35 foot well then dive under 5-6 feet of water to dig for something that may not be there. We will leave that to the experts.

It has been a quiet day here at the Hardy Smith house. Time for bed. Pictures of a lived in bathroom.

Evening at SajeWinds Plantation and dinner at Fritters

Today, I painted the inside of the linen closet. Yesterday, I painted the outside, with the exception of the blue trim, which I will complete tomorrow. John will correct/perfect the 'boo boo's' and the paint the tan rope trim. I am anxious to complete the bathroom.  Most of the accessorizing is done with the exception of the area near the claw bathroom. Pictures are forthcoming.

On sunday, Feb 14th, Valentines Day, John and I visited SajeWinds Plantation, an equestrian bed and breakfast located in Montrose, GA, about 20 miles NE of Dublin. We dined inside the house at 'Fritters', a southern style comfort foods eatery for dinner. Before dinner, we took a short horse drawn carriage ride. The house was built in 1842 and is home to the Gypsy Vanner Horses. 'Jackson', the grey gypsey vanner horse pulled the carriage. He was very laid back and personable. His buddy, 'Adrian', the beautiful black gypsey vanner, was out in the pasture, enjoying his 'time off' and came to me when I called him. He had a beautiful mane and flowing long black tail. The plantation had a miniature horse and donkey.

Not much else has happened at the Capt Hardy Smith house since the snowstorm Friday. Keep checking back for any new developments. Some pictures for your enjoyment.

Blizzard of 2010 in Dublin, GA

Hello, everyone!  I did not drop off the face of the earth.  I am back with a new entry to my blog! With the major interior renovation (electric, heat/air, plumbing upgrades) complete at the Hardy Smith house, not much has gone on except John's excavating activities in the rear part of the house. Check out his blog for his narrative on some unique and interesting finds. I took a few pictures of him in action. He is like a little boy, playing in the mud looking for that elusive Confederate gold! Those huge white rocks you see in the top left picture are flint rocks from the Oconee River. Apparently, upon discovering piles of these large rocks after being buried for a little over a 100 years, John is removing them and plans to use them in his split rail fence project. Looks as if Capt Smith brought these rocks up from the river, piled them up and built the house around them so he did not have to move them again. I won't tell you what John has found. Go visit his blog and view the pictures there. Scroll to the bottom of the main page of my blog til you find the Capt Hardy Smith house link.

Today, here in Dublin, GA, it snowed, it stuck, it was heavy, wet and the flakes big and beautiful!  It came down at a pretty good clip for about an hour and half or so.  I believe the snow started around 4 or 430pm and continued to about 7:30pm.  The forecast called for 2-4 inches. Even Savannah is forecast to get 3-6 inches of snow! The last measurable snow in Dublin I believe was back in 2002. It is very rare for snow to fall much less stick and accumulate this far south. This is my first February living in Dublin, GA. I thought I would NEVER see another significant snow event unless I went home to Indiana in the winter. Wrong!!

I was working at the computer when I heard a pecking on the window. What?! I opened the curtains, it was John alerting me to the snow coming down! He was walking Max. Excited, I jumped out of my chair, I could barely get my gloves, hat, camera, thinking I was going to miss something rare and unique..oh..and I grabbed my dog, Lady. She loves to play in snow. At first she was not sure what to do but then it came back to her. The last snow event she experienced was back in 2004, when the Midwest had that paralyzing snowstorm that left my hometown of Columbus, Indiana with 2 feet of the white stuff on the ground. Lady was out frolicking in the snow! She loved it! She did a repeat of that today! It was so cute.  I made a snowman in the front yard. Max made a few attempts of trying to knock it over! I had to throw a few snowballs at John. He did not return the favor. I wanted to make a snow angel but I thought..nah..ground too wet and muddy...John went around downtown and took a few rare pictures which no doubt he will post to his blog shortly.  

Snow has been in the national news a lot these past few days, so I guess Dublin had to get in on the East Coast action too! My sister lives in the Baltimore, MD area. She has not been able to get to work or the kids to school for about a week because of the 4 FEET OF SNOW they received last weekend and about 10 inches received on Wednesday of this week.

I just came back from being in Atlanta for the over night yesterday. I got back just in time before the weather got bad here. It was very windy driving up Wednesday. I am still working on the bathroom painting/trim work. The ceiling needs to be painted and the crown molding trim work completed. The last month, we have been doing a little bit of painting here and there. We have a few pictures and towel holders up to make it look done. We are close to completion.

So....time for a nice relaxing, WARM shower in MY new bathroom! Enjoy the pictures of today!