This Old American Foursquare

Our renovation project is not on hold, but we're certainly not in any rush (according to my husband). I'd like to stop cooking on a hot plate at some point, but I'll stay patient and enjoy my Velveeta mac and cheese because it truly is liquid gold.  The cabin was chock full of stuff. There were about 50+ James Patterson books that I organized with other crime and war fiction books to donate. I saved ones that were of most interest to me and others that were damaged and likely not wanted by the local library. While Matt and I could dump everything in the dumpster, I want us to be mindful of items that could be reused, repurposed, or donated. Through a local Facebook group, I answered a post from a woman looking for book donations for a nonprofit. All of the appliances (2 stoves, one washer, one dryer) were picked up by our neighbor...who also took a dumpster dive or two for other treasure.  There was also a lot of plates, glasses, and other kitchenware. A few are Currier &am

Last week we rented a dumpster; the mountain of contractor bags filled with drywall and insulation was started to take up too much space in the garage. So it felt satisfying to throw in over 30 fifty-give gallon bags into that dumpster. I also took the opportunity to clean out the cabin at the top of hill next to the house. The previous owners used to rent out the cabin, which is a one-bedroom with a bathroom and kitchen, a few weeks out of the year to visitors who wanted to hunt and fish in the area. Since then, it has accumulated odds and ends including tons of James Patterson books, two mildew covered beds, carpet from the 1970s, mouse droppings, and kitchenware. It took me two days to get through everything. I saved the most interesting knick knacks that I'll dive deeper into in a future post. It was a productive weekend and the only drawback was the mouse that scared the life out of me when I was going through dresser drawers full of old linens.  We were worried we wouldn'