::meet Larry::

We have lived in this house for 8 years.  To learn about my journey to love this house or to take a farm house tour click away.  One of the QUIRKY (favorite word) things about this place is that it has electric radiant heat in the C E I L I N G.  


Yes, ceiling.  


That makes sense - with that whole heat rises stuff.  Josh and I argue gently debate the effectiveness of this heating method, but since this is my blog I will only give my point of view because I can.  HA!  This system has obvious issues.  Your head is hot and your feet of freezing.  The babies playing on the ground are dressed to go outside but you are sweating on the couch.  You lay in bed and it feels like you are under a heat lamp.  The one good part of it is that you can adjust the heat in each room.  So I keep the baby room warm and the rest of us can just freeze.  Even with freezing in mind our electric bill is $700-900 EVERY MONTH during the winter.  (It runs about $250 when the heat isn't on.)  Every time I tell people that they try to figure out what is "wrong" with the house.  Please STOP!  There is nothing wrong with the house.  Except for a very outdated 1960's heating system that needs to be put out of its misery.  

Vintage = fun

Crappy, not functional, and old = no fun

With all that said lets discuss the fixes we are finally going to make this year.  

The family room

Due to its former life as a garage, our family room is pretty disconnected from the rest of the house.  The central air does not run in there.  It mooches air off the rest of the house and it has its own baseboard heaters.  But that is all about to change.  Because we got the coolest little pot belly stove in the land!  His name is Larry - because he was given to us by MY friend Larry.  (Notice that you are my friend this time, Larry).  Larry-the-person works with Josh and had this handsome little stove sitting around and we were happy to snatch it up.  Larry-the-stove is so cute!! 

 Josh and Max went to Lowes to get supplies to build the surround that Larry-the-stove needs to not burn down the house.  He has to have 36 inches of space between him and a wall, which equals a huge little dance stage for Lily till Larry gets installed.  This is a ton of real estate for me to give up - so it means rearranging the family room.  No problem.  I love doing stuff like that.  I have been at work playing with different furniture arrangements and once I find the winner (and the stove is in) I will do a before-and-after post.  Josh is hard at work on this project, and I love how it is turning out. 

I wish I could have gotten my slate tile, but the super-duper-on-sale-88-cent-tile is going to work out ok.  (For the record I heard a rumor that when finding out I named the stove Larry there was some discussion about the fact that "Larry would be keeping me warm all winter", which made Josh try to get me to change the stoves name.  Sorry - stoves name is already Larry, we'll just have to deal with it.)

The play room

The rest of the house needs some heat too.  Once the wood stove project is done - and it is coming along - we will be installing a corn stove in the playroom.  I have been working hard for a bonus check that   This once stove should heat the entire main house.  Josh first brought this idea up and I thought it sounded crazy.  But after more research I learned that the corn stove should have no problem heating the main house.  It has a thermostat on it and is extremely cost effective.  It is also super environmentally friendly.  And it does not get hot to the touch so it should be safe for the shorties.  Love it.  Once we actually get it I will do a post and we will see if it lives up to the hype.  Our goal is to not turn on the crazy electric heat at all this year.