We just finished watching Monuments Men.

Good movie, but it's late and we've  come up short 

on sleep every day this week and have GOT to 

get to bed before 11:00 tonight.

I'm giving myself 10 minutes for this post.

Here goes.

I made a big batch of chili, some corn muffins and 

Aubrey made a batch of Uncle Rich's peanut butter-milk chocolate chip cookies

and ALL our children showed up.

It was noisy, messy and chaotic and we LOVED every minute of it.

It is WONDERFUL to have a place that we can all gather together again.

I can't even begin to tell you how happy this makes us.

Before, during and after chili and muffins, all our kids went "shopping" at our 

"garage sale" where everything was FREE.

We've been tackling the daunting task of clearing out our storage container

and bringing it all into the bungalow.

I've had anxiety issues over how much stuff we have.

Seriously, I've nearly had a nervous breakdown over this. 

Dean is the calming factor in my life.

He suggested I sort through all the boxes and we have a 

"garage sale" for our kids where everything is free.

They all took home a lot of nice things

and the rest is going to DI in the next few days.

WHEW.

And I've decided to adopt a more minimalist lifestyle.

I suppose living in a 23' trailer for 15 months with the bare essentials

may have something to do with this.

I've always had an aversion to clutter and thought we had little in that regard,

however our Casa Di Mossi was heavily appointed 

in the way of accessories and we packed it all and stored it

and now dealing with it is/was a monster of a job.

There's just not nearly that kind of room in Retro Bungalow.

Monday we moved our bed and dresser from the basement to our 

master bedroom upstairs.

We still have to use the basement bathroom, as the master bath has a ways to go.

We needed to move upstairs due to Ally's surgery.

She will not sleep anywhere other than next to our bed

and won't be able to navigate stairs without help for a few weeks.

The things we do for our dogs.

Our cabinets haven't been touched this week,

as in our guys never showed up,

but for good reason...

Raymond, Matt's right-hand-man has been diagnosed with Lymphoma.

We are so sad to hear this.

He's recovering from the biopsy he had late last week

and has not been given a prognosis yet.

We pray he is able to beat this.

He is the husband and father of a young family

Matt is absolutely drowning without Raymond.

We feel bad for Matt too.

I've been putting all our dishes, etc away as best I can

in the cabinets that are usable at this point, which is proving 

to be difficult,

but nothing compared to what Raymond, his family and Matt 

are dealing with right now.

We're holding on and keeping busy with the seemingly endless

list of tasks that need our attention.

And keeping Raymond in our prayers.

That's nearly 12 minutes.

Thanks for stoppin'.

Over-n-Out.

Retro Bungalow's First Thanksgiving

WE DID IT!

By the skin of our teeth.

Thanksgiving 2014 happened here at

Our Retro Bungalow.

We were originally scheduled for granite installation on Friday the 21st,

but there was a small detail on the base cabinets that bothered me.

On the Saturday before that install date, I texted our granite gal 

and told her there was a chance we may need to re-template that section.

On Monday, Raymond, our installer, told me he could change that little detail for me 

without changing the dimensions of the counter tops. 

I let Sherrie, our granite gal, know as soon as Raymond assured me of this.

That little detail bumped us all the way to Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving.

I expected the crew to show up early and I was ready for them.

They didn't arrive until about 3:30.

I was anxious and, admittedly, irritated.

As it turned out, it was a very good thing they showed up late.

 Dean got home from his 9-5 early and if he hadn't been here to 

make some modifications on the master bath vanity for them

and give them strict guidance on the placement of the kitchen faucet,

I'd be one very unhappy woman with the way things would have turned out.

It is a blessing that they showed up so late.

The three man (young men) team worked hard and didn't leave until 10:30!

I felt bad that all I had to offer them were Keebler chocolate chip cookies and milk.

I really should have done a burger run for them and I still feel bad that I didn't.

Anyway...

here are a few highlights in the form of photos and captions of

Thanksgiving.

We have SO MUCH to be thankful for.

I was so overcome with gratitude as I rolled out the traditional 

crescent rolls on our lovely island that a lump swelled in my throat

and I got weepy - a very happy kind of weepy.

Before the table setting was complete, Emmy put herself 

right in the middle of the action. Thanksgiving holiday decor was sparse due to so much 

still being packed and in storage, so I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume 

she thought she was contributing. She was, however, quickly shooed off the table.

Despite a lot of help from Larissa in the way of traversing mountains of boxes 

in the storage container, we could not locate any of our glasses and 

had to resort to using plastic. 

Bleh.

Our feast before the feasting began.

This year we had Jo-Tan, Mr & Mrs Brunty and Aubrey join us.

We'd hoped for the entire Mossi family, but when you have married children

you just accept that you have to share them.

Kimberly's dad is single and lives alone, so 

Mr & Mrs Mossi The Younger had Thanksgiving with him.

The Sadlers' enjoyed their holiday meal with Jay's family, 

as is their custom on every even year. 

We get them on odd years because, I'm told, in-laws are odd. 

I can't argue with that.

Mr and Mrs Mossi The Youngest

(that'll be made official in 13 days)

enjoyed their Thanksgiving meal with Abigail's family.

I certainly can understand that as Zac, Abigail's brother and only sibling,

just barely returned home from serving his mission in Germany.

Shortly after clearing the table, Aubrey went into a tryptophan induced coma.

Haha, not really.

She had worked her 9 hour shift at the hospital, arriving home around midnight

after which she stayed up til 1:00 watching Jim Gaffigan on Netflix with her dad

AND THEN

got up three hours later to run a 5k with Larissa in Draper.

Lars on the left, Aubs on the right after the race.

Mrs Brunty, aka "Lars", servin' up Thanksgiving pie.

YUM..

On t'ward evening, our holiday absentee children trickled in.

It's always so much fun when we're all together...

especially with grandchildren running wild.

Thanks to Poppo and me, Madi is well versed in the proper usage of squirty cream.

Gotta learn 'em when their young, ya know.

Cowboy and Cupcake spent quite a bit of time sitting at the island with the desserts.

In a hushed voice with her nose nearly touching mine, Ellie confessed, 

"I love sugar."

Here she is cutting herself another piece of Aunt Aubrey's amazing fudge.

The cabinet installation is not quite complete, so the pantry does not have

its pull-outs and shelves yet. I hope he doesn't think this is just a fun place made for 

playing and hiding in because he'll sure be disappointed when those are installed.

Cowboy, Kitten and Cupcake on Thanksgiving night.

We are so very thankful to be their  Poppo and Nonna.

And then there's 

THIS...

These two kooks playin' with my iPad again.

They will be welcoming our fourth grandchild, Oliver, in January. 

Poor kid.

There are some things we're gonna have a hard time explaining to that boy.

(but we love them anyway ;-})

We are deeply grateful for our blessings.

It's wonderful to be so close to living normally in 

Our Retro Bungalow,

but mostly we're thankful for our Savior and His restored gospel.

We are thankful for each other, for family and abundance.

And thank you for stoppin' by again.

Hopefully I'll have photos of a completed kitchen and other details 

for next week.

Good night and God bless.

Sweet Return of The Dining Table

THIS...

happened tonight!

And it was a joyful occasion.

Tannon and Ryan helped bring some of our furniture out 

of the storage container this evening. 

It's like Christmas has already come!

I've missed our things. 

They even dragged out the box with our Fiestaware.

The cabinets aren't completely done and the granite is still a few days away,
but tomorrow I'm gonna put those dishes in their new home regardless.

This week we put down as much wood flooring as we could.

We had to climb out our bedroom window and down the ladder the night we 

floored it because we continued from the bedroom hallway where we'd
left off and you're not supposed to walk on it for 24 hours.

That was actually kind of fun and memorable.

We aren't able to put down the wood in the garage entrance/exit and 

service porch hallway because the bull-nose pieces that are to be installed around 

the stairwell opening haven't come from the mill yet.

We are anxious for it to get here. 

Waiting for the bull-nose is holding up the sink and commode install in the little half-privy, 

the balustrade, and the baseboard. 

We actually haven't started installing baseboard yet, but still...

They've told us to expect the bull-nose by or before December 1st.

We are hoping it shows up soon.

Dean got more light fixtures installed and this one

is my FAVORITE.
It hangs in the little hallway to our master bedroom.
*the photo is crooked, not the fixture, btw*

The light fixtures for the back hall arrived and I sent them back.

They were way out of scale (too big).

I ordered some similar, smaller ones that should arrive just before Thanksgiving.

Dean also got all the switches and outlets wired.

That's about it for tonight.
If you're interested,
here's what was going on last year at this time.
We've come a long way, baby!
Thank you, as always, for stoppin' by.
Good night and God bless.

Sheri

NOW We're Cookin'

The past few weeks have been particularly exciting as we've 

watched the personality of Retro Bungalow emerge.

I've been spending lots and lots of time online purchasing the 

aesthetic elements. They're slowly finding their way to our front porch

and my favorite contractor has been installing them one by one.

We've also been working and working and working on

getting the wood flooring down;

it's not a difficult job,

but it is a very messy job

and that gets frustrating.

THIS

is the messy part.

Because we have radiant floor heating under gypcrete,

we can't nail our flooring down. We have to glue it down 

with urethane. It has the consistency of honey and is applied with a trowel.

Yeah. Just try picturing that for a moment.

But we're making progress...

Our cabinet makers showed up to begin installation last week.

And there were complications.

Serious complications.

When Raymond explained that they'd exhausted every possibility they 

could think of to make our GORGEOUS custom island work,
 I felt panic welling up inside me.

And then he proceeded to itemize the cost of rebuilding it.

It was all I could do to hold back the tears that were desperate for escape.

All I could say was, "Dean will be home soon. He'll figure something out."

Raymond reminded me once more that they'd thought of everything already.

I kindly explained to Raymond that he didn't know my husband and

left to run a couple of errands, calling Dean  as I pulled onto Fruitland
to let him know what was going on.

Calmly, he reminded me that problems like this arise all the time in construction 

and that there's always a way to fix things.

By the time I returned home Dean had been here with Raymond and Devin 

for about 15 minutes and had come up with a solution.

Problem solved.
I should know better.

I panicked for naught.

Here are a few photos of some other little things we've done besides flooring...

The light fixture over where the kitchen sink will be is installed.

And the chandelier where the dining table will go is installed.

And several more canned lights are in, like the one in the vestibule
that illuminates our "vanity window".

AAANNND...
OUR RANGE IS IN!
Oh, HAPPY, HAPPY DAY.
We actually had a devil of a time getting it hooked up as there was a loose
connection at the breaker.
It took us about an hour to figure it out.
The next day I went out and bought some of that Nestle
pre-made cookie dough just to try it out.
The oven works great, but has a kind of burning oil smell.
I haven't read up on it yet, but I'm assuming it's just because it's new
and the smell will burn off and go away.

Dean had Veterans day off from his 9-5, so he and Joe and I got the concrete slabs
for the front porch and back deck steps poured.
I don't have any photos of those slabs, but really...
it's wonderful to have that done, but they're not much to look at.

Tannon and Joe came over Saturday and helped Dean install several outlets and switches
while all the Mossi women were over at Jo-Tan's for Abigail's bridal shower.

It's late -
the hour and getting this posted.
So, if it comes across as convoluted that's because I'm tired
and spiraling into shutdown mode.

Thanks for stoppin' by.
Good night and God bless.

SO CLOSE!

Lots of things are happening and they're happening fast.

These's at least a zillion things to report,

but I'll just highlight some of the bigger items.

We're still cozy and comfortable in the basement.

I have to mention that our sweet friends, Wayne and Jane,

made basement dwelling a little bit easier for us.

Yep.

They had three large, rooms size pieces of carpeting rolled up

in their garage that they gave us to use while we waited to have our carpet installed.
We are very grateful to them.

We put off having our carpet installed until the painting was done.

Last Saturday was one of those long, exhausting days we've become accustomed to - 

we put nine gallons of paint on the walls upstairs.

And so...

we had the carpet installed on Thursday!

It's been nearly two years since we've felt carpet beneath our bare feet

and it is nothing less that DELICIOUS.

Our order for basement window coverings took about two weeks to get here,

but Lloyd's delivered and installed our 2 1/2 inch route-less

blinds without a hitch and we are pleased.

As much as possible, we like to go with small, local, family owned businesses

and that's exactly what Lloyd's is.

Don't have a picture, but...ya know...they're blinds.

And here's a sampling of the finished wall and trim paint...

Dean installed our upstairs doorknobs...

I LOVE 'EM.

The door above is the little half privy off the kitchen and "service porch".

The "service porch" is what Grandma Zarucchi used to call the back entrance

of their little home in Cloverdale. 

It's where the washer and dryer were.

And that's where our little laundry room is here at 

Retro Bungalow...

 We laid the tile in this little laundry room on Friday night

and grouted it last night.

We put the same tile in our master bath on Tuesday night, 

grouting it Wednesday night.

I thought I had a picture of that too, but looks like I don't.

And I'm not up to fixing that at the moment,

because I've got an appointment with my pillow for

one of those Sunday afternoon naps and I'd really like to 

wrap this up real quick-like.

We got a good start on putting down the wood flooring.

We've got the kitchen done enough so Matt can install cabinets tomorrow.

WAH-HOOOOO!

The gypcrete has to be primed twice before putting flooring down

and I've got to finish doing the rest of the priming for the other rooms tomorrow.

We narrowed our wood flooring choices down to three, 

which was hard, and ended up choosing a darker Acacia wood.

I was perfectly fine with that choice until Dean

took a plank from one of the boxes and set it out

in the middle of the gypcrete by itself.

I freaked out a little because it looked so much darker

than the sample board I'd brought home.

We pressed forward with faith and hope and once

we got a good portion of it down,

I fell in love with it.

Dean was visibly relieved.

We'll get the rest of the wood down this week.

Have I shown you our porch lights yet?

I don't think so.

They've been installed about a month now.

One of these days I'm gonna remember to get the proper bulbs for them.

I thought I'd posted pictures of the basement bath,

but I can't seem to find any evidence of that, so here are a few.

The vanity turned out just how I'd envisioned it would.

Matt does fantastic work.

The granite is "Steel Grey"; same as our little basement kitchenette.

The back splash is a glass and granite mosaic that I loved at first sight.

When I told Matt (tile store Matt) that's what I wanted for the accent

in our basement tub surround and back splash, he apologized and 

informed me it'd been discontinued.

I asked him to look a little harder and he actually was able to scrounge up

just enough for what we needed. 

He called me tenacious.

He called it right.

One insignificant detail that's hardly noteworthy -

I do not, do not, do not like those little towel rings for hand towels,

thus the regular towel bar that's been cut down to size for hand towels.

I had Matt (cabinet maker Matt) create an old-time medicine cabinet

for the basement bath.

He'd never had a customer ask him to make one before, so this is his first.

My friend and neighbor, Karen, was over just a couple of evenings ago

and I was showing her around.

When she saw this little gem she said,

"That looks just like the medicine cabinet in my grandma's old house."

I was SO happy to hear that!

That's exactly the look I wanted.

After showering in our teeny, tiny trailer shower for 15 months,

THIS is FIVE STAR!

We ended up hiring a couple of guys,

a father-in-law, son-in-law duo,

to do our tile.

I got their business card from the tile store we've purchased 

materials from.

They did an ok job.

Just ok.

And sometimes, if I let myself, I get a little steamed about it if I

focus on the details of their work.

It's just gonna have to be what it is.

For good.

They were nice men, but if I could go back for a re-do,

I would.

It's just like the old saying goes...

If ya want somethin' done right, ya gotta do it yourself.

But, we were desperate to

1) move into the basement

2) keep up with everything else we needed to get done

Doing the tile for this tub surround would have likely set us back

almost two weeks.

Oh, well.

That's it.

Now...

about that nap.

Thanks for stoppin' by Our Retro Bungalow.

We are grateful for your encouragement and support.

More Reasons We Love Fruitland Drive - BIG Things

PUMPKINS!

Max and Marianne Barker's BIG pumpkins, to be exact.

They are absolutely GORGEOUS!
I like Marianne too...
she's the kind of gal I could chat with for a long, long while.
I have really enjoyed my visits with her.

Also ...
frequently getting caught behind BIG farm equipment,
like this wheel rake, just-uh putterin' on down the road.

No, seriously...
I truly do like to be slowed down by these wonderful contraptions.

***I totally filched this photo from my sisterfriend, Tami, but I'm claiming half ownership because we were in my Mini, I was driving and I complied with her request to turn and pursue this rig up Fish Farm Road***

Light in the Tunnel Getting Brighter!

We have every intention of baking our

2014 Thanksgiving turkey

in our brand-spanking-new

duel-fuel range

that has been sitting out in the garage for the last few weeks.

Yep.

But it'll be a lot like sliding into home base on our hips and
touching home plate with the tips of our toenails.

Foreman Dean has us scheduled down to the hour on the tasks

that must be done in order for that to happen.

For example: 12 allotted hours for laying and grouting

the tile in the master bath.

Yep.

And there's absolutely no time for recess.
NONE.

We can and we will do this.

I can smell that bird cookin' already!

Here are a few highlights of what we've been up to 

and a few pics of our cozy basement home.

An amusing side note before I get started...

we have been so happy and feel like we are living like

normal folks now since we moved into the basement.

We've joked with our friends and neighbors that we 

went from living in the Telestial kingdom and, despite moving down
("down" as in from our trailer parked on the backyard grade to the basement),
 we feel like we moved up to the Terrestrial kingdom.
Moving upstairs to the main level will definitely be a Celestial move.
Oh, if only attaining the highest kingdom were that easy to achieve...
you know...
as easy as tearing down a house by hand and
then building it again with our own hands.
Yeah. If only.

So, here we go with those few things.

On General Conference Saturday
Dean spent the entire day cutting, routing and grouping all the pieces
for the custom door and window headers.
There are four components for each.
There were 39 sets to be made.
39 x 4 = 156 pieces
As he cut, I sanded all the cut and routed edges.
I was still sanding when he left for Priesthood session.
We had all those groups of header components laid out on the driveway
and I'd mentioned to him earlier that I wanted to get a photo of all of them
 (it was an impressive sight, taking up most of the driveway),
so please just leave them there til I stopped to get that photo.
Well, I found myself sanding on into the dark and was so tired
that I never did take that photo.
I knew he was tired too and didn't want him to have to deal with
hauling them all inside when he got home, so went ahead and did it myself.
MAN, was I beat after that.
But his pleasant surprise and gratitude upon arriving home to find it was
all taken care of made it worth the effort.
Assembling and putting up all those headers took a while.
Spakling, sanding, spakling, sanding, caulking, brushing, wiping
and final inspection before priming and painting...
well, that took much longer.
But prime and paint, we did...
yesterday!

Unlike when we painted all the trim in the basement by hand,
we used an airless sprayer for upstairs.
It's an awesome way to go.
And let me just say that the folks at
Weber Paint, Glass & Flooring
have been FANTASTIC to work with.
They've been SO GOOD to us.
It might sound silly to say, but
I love 'em.

Dean had never prepped a shower floor and walls for tile before,
but he meticulously planned and executed that job and
did it like a pro in our master bathroom.
He's awesome like that -
always has been.

All I did was admire his work and slap on two coats of
Dragon Skin, which is an extra moisture barrier.

He also got the metal roofing material up on the gable brows
over the front porch and garage pop-out.

He'd never done that before either, but it turned out great too.

Now,
let me take you inside our little basement habitat.
I don't have photos of our awesome bathroom yet,
but I'll try to remember for the next post.
This post needs to end so I can move on to other things this evening.

This is a fun detail...
I chose EMTEK's Winchester knobs in medium bronze
on a simple rectangular plate for our basement door hardware.
I adore them!

And check this out...

I nailed the first picture hook into our lovely, virgin walls
to hang this framed 8 x 8 print of the original stairs
at the bottom of the new stairs.
Perfect tribute, if you ask me.
Gotta love it.

Welcome to our utility/storage/second laundry room.
Golly it's been a sweet deal to have our machines hooked up
again after 15 months without them.
And the freezer too!

Here's the other end of that room...

Oh, did I mention that Aubrey and Ryan
have moved "back home"?
Honestly, we love having them here.
It's good to have Ry around up until he and Abigail are married in December
and we are finally seeing more of our girl, Aubrey, too;
"more", being the key word here.
She's a full time student in a demanding program at the University
where she also teaches a lab in the cadaver lab.
She also works 42 hrs on/42 hrs off
in the lab at Ogden Regional Hospital.
So, having her live here, we actually do get to see her,
but usually when she's dragging herself in and on her way
to the shower and/or bed.

And finally, the piece de resistance...

our Bungalow basement kitchenette!
We've got everything but a dishwasher and range.
Dean ordered a hotplate that we're using for cooking and
we've got the microwave and crockpot too.
I've gone out to the trailer a few times and fired up its oven
to bake if I need to.
I chose a simple, shaker design in natural walnut for our cabinets.
The counter tops are "steel gray" granite.
The sink is a small, but very deep, single basin stainless steel.
For the floors I chose natural slate.
We are so pleased with how it all turned out.

That's all folks...
time to clean up after our Sunday pot roast with home grown potatoes supper
and then spend some quality time withe a book or two.

Thanks, as always, for stoppin' by.
Good night and God bless.

Sheri

Warmth and Vintage Charm

I've got photos for a good, long blog post all about

 our cozy bungalow basement, but I can't seem to 

get to that the last couple of weeks.

We've been BUSY with all the ticky, ticky finish work

details on the main level.

It is SO time consuming.

Throw in preparing my Relief Society lesson

(or rather, stressing because I hadn't prepared as thoroughly as I usually do) 

and every other thing we have going on from day to day, 

so when Sunday afternoon rolled around 

I pretty much went into shutdown mode.

Can't blog or do much else in shutdown mode.

Right now I should be slappin' another coat of Dragon Skin 

on the master shower and masking windows so we can 

get the paint sprayed on the window trim upstairs,

BUT...

I wanted to share a little something with you real quick-like.

It's VERY awesome.

Do you recall how we removed part of the original 

basement slab to replace the 60 year old rough plumbing?

Before we re poured those sections of basement floor,

we installed radiant floor heat.

Those sections of heated slab ended up being the floors in 

the south-west bedroom and the bathroom.

The "great room" in the basement is heated with an awesome 

Napoleon  gas fireplace we had installed.

Code does not require the utility room/basement laundry/storage room

to have any type of heating.

The north-east bedroom, however, took some creativity

to figure our how we were going to heat it.

Remember that we don't have a traditional furnace with ducting.

We'd considered ducting heat through a common wall into that bedroom

from the gas fireplace, but couldn't quite make it work.

There were a couple of other options we discussed, but

I came up with an idea and presented it to Dean,

who thought it was pretty great.

Here it is...

Acquire an antique radiator and hook it up to our boiler system.

So, we did just that.

Well, it hasn't been hooked up to the boiler system yet;

that's gonna take some engineering by Mr, himself when 

he has a chance to get to it.

Anyway,

I just picked this beauty up at the shop where they 

sand blasted and powder coated her and may I just say that

she looks radiant!

We got her from a pre-statehood building 

(Utah became a state in 1896) 

on 5th East and 24th Street in Ogden

that has been undergoing some renovations for a veterans housing project.

She came with, oh, maybe a dozen coats of various paints that

had been applied over many decades.

But, my goodness, she's GORGEOUS now.

Gotta git ta work now on that second coat of Dragon Skin

and masking those windows.

Hopefully we'll see you back here again Sunday afternoon.

Thanks for stoppin' by.

Dean had a photo of the building we got the radiator from.
He emailed it earlier and I just found it.

Blast From the Bungalow's Past

A couple of weeks ago Scott Randall, the man whose father

built the original Retro Bungalow back in 1955,

emailed some old photos to us.

They're pretty cool and we've enjoyed viewing them over and over again.

So, appropriately, I'm posting them here on 

The Bungalow's blog.

This photograph was apparently taken shortly after the house was completed 

as there is no landscaping or driveway.

Other than the growth of trees, shrubs, retaining wall out front and lawn,

the house looked EXACTLY like this, right down to the original power lines,

 when we bought it in late 2012!

Percy Randall passed away about 10 years after the home was completed.

His wife, Ada, put it up for sale shortly thereafter because, if I remember correctly, 

Scott was leaving to serve a mission for the church 

and the property was just too much for her to handle alone.

Don and MaryBeth Chadwick purchased the home and

 changed or updated very little in the 45 years they lived here.

That, my friends, is why we call it

"Our Retro Bungalow".

The first time we walked into and through this little place

it was like being in a time capsule.

This photo was taken looking east, from the pastures across Fruitland Drive.

Look closely and you can see Our Retro Bungalow in the background between

Percy and Scott who are standing in the bed of the truck.

In the foreground is the milking barn that has since been torn down. 

On the other side of the barn, to the north, you can see reddish-brown roof 

and south end-gable of the original farmhouse where Scott was born.

Our wonderful neighbors, Bill and Sharon Brechbill, have lived there 

for about the last 16 or 17 years now.

Our Retro Bungalow was built next door, to the north, of the original farmhouse.

Beautiful Ben Lomond mountain hasn't changed a bit.

This is the view from the top of what is now the Brechbill's property.

This is across Fruitland Drive and slightly south of us.

That white barn still stands - barely. 

It is no longer painted white, but is weathered, antiquated, bare wood and 

owned by Ray Ward. 

Ray grows a pumpkin crop next to it every year.

The original barn hoist is still attached at the top of the south gable.

Also of note, the cow corral  is where Doug and Laura Hunt's home is now.

This photo of the original home shows landscaping, so it's been
an established home for some time at this point.

It's obviously a Spring snow because there are blossoms on that young tree.

This photograph testifies of the stories we've heard about

the Randall's and how they went all out with Christmas decor every year.

People from the surrounding area back in the day 

would drive by just to see their Christmas display.

He didn't say so, but I'm assuming this is Scott. 

He is Ada and Percy's youngest child.

Is that a pigeon on his shoulder?

Out of all the photos that Scott sent to us,

this is one of my very favorite.

Ada and Percy Randall.

I know I'm going to regret making this such a hasty post,

but I've really been wanting to get it done since we got these photos.

I'll come back in a day or two, look it over and groan with disappointment
because of its shoddiness,

but there is so much to be working on right now...

the upstairs finish work is calling.

Thanks, as always, for stopping by.

Hopefully I'll get to posting pictures on Sunday

afternoon or evening of our mostly finished basement!