Farnsworth House Bed & Breakfast

Our day of being at the voting station helping people understand the importance of the Home Rule charter !

We did it ! Grant township adopts a Home Rule Charter ! We've told the huge energy companies, "we do not want your waste dumped here!!" Read the press release: http://celdf.org//press-release-despite-court-ruling-gran/

A Gala event at Fransworth House on October 3rd ! Showing our support of Sherene Hess as a way to say THANK YOU to Sherene, for her support of Community Rights and for her future in Indiana County Government. With 30 people in attendance, there was plenty of lively conversation and delicious hors d'oeuvres being prepared by Roxanne and Kim. Entertainment for the evening was a dueling piano concert with the talented Daniel Perlongo at the 1893 Steinway, and Susan Wheatly at... the 1925 Chickering. To start with, the room was filled with beautiful parlor music, reminiscent of the 1920's. Then sounds of an original composition called "Biking the Ghost Town trail" hearkened the Halloween season. Bach Classics gave us a feeling of high brow music history, and then a rousing finale' of JAZZ tunes from the 1930's and 1940's. If you were invited to this event and didn't make it, you missed a delightful evening of wine, food, music and lively conversations . Thank you to everyone who helped bring this event together ! See more

Remember those bulbs I planted last fall? Well, they came up this spring and delivered a riot of color ! YEAH !!!! SPRING !!!!!!!

Good Morning, I made my first cup of coffee and looked out the breakfast room window, at the Thermometer. I had to look twice, to be sure I was reading it correctly. It was registering -24 degrees at 7 am !!!! I'm going back to bed !

O.K...time for the final finish to go on the floor, and I was nervous about how it would go on, and how I would get the edges to blend in at I worked my way across the floor. The directions said keep working back into your already applied finish before it dries. But with such a huge space to work in and only 27% humidity in the room, I figured there would be no way to work quickly enough to keep up with the "wet edge" before it dried. The directions also said a second coat... could be applied within 2 to 8 hours, but after 8 hours a light sanding would be required... NO WAY... I'm NOT sanding this floor one more time !!! I started at one end of the room, working my way towards the front door, and it took two hours to get to the other end of the room .... So, I picked up my supplies and ran around the house, in through the back door and started all over again, working my way across the room with fresh supplies... WOW... 4 hours later, I had two coats of finish on the floor, and it was looking GREAT ! Do I dare go for the third coat !?!? Heck Yeah !!!! Ran around the house and started the third coat of finish !!! Things were looking terrific, and I was getting used to the process of blending in the edges.... I had three coats of finish down in 7 hours ! I cleaned up my tools and put away my supplies... Stood back and looked over the results of my labors.... I have to say... DANG, This floor looks GREAT ! REALLY GREAT! Now I do not want to put anything back on the floor, or into the room... I just want to stand back and enjoy to beautiful fresh clean shiny floors.... Is there a lesson to be learned here... Sure is ! Do not attempt to do a huge home improvement project like this on your own, while your spouse is out of town. I thought the only thing I would need to do was... Give the floor a good cleaning, a light buffing and a fresh layer of clear finish. WAS I WRONG !?!?!? I'm happy I did it... I conquered my project... it was a test of my skills... I'll never do that again. Not even a small floor !

Last Saturday I knew I had to get this project moving along, or I would run out of time before JP and Kirby returned home... So, I spent 11 hours sanding the rest of the floor... Only to discover, it needed to be stained back to the original color !!! Duh.....Slap the forehead !!! I got into JP's stash of staining equipment in his Piano Shop, and mixed up a batch of warm walnut with a touch of red mahogany to bring out the depth of color, Thinned all this with alcohol... both in the vat of stain, and a nice manhatten on the rocks for me !!!... and at 7 pm started the process of staining the entire 1,250 Sq. Ft. of flooring ! I finished at midnight.....

An update to my Floor re-finishing "project".... I stayed up until midnight, and sometimes even 1 or 2 in the morning, after getting home from work... SANDING the floor by hand because the sanding machine had trouble getting into the "low" spots in the parquet flooring. I would block out an area, and get as much done before I felt it was time to pack it in for the night. Here are some pictures

This is what happens when you take the furniture out of the music room.... You get a hair brained idea to refinish the floors. WHAT WAS I THINKING !?!?!?

To all our friends.... Wishing you a Merry Christmas, and a Bright New Year ! Cheers, Jon & Bill and Kirby too

Holiday Cheer !!! Our friends, Stacy & Mark came from the other side of the mountain for dinner this evening. After Dinner, we all went into the library for an after dinner night cap by the fire. After awhile, we went up to the attic and found my Grandmother's silver aluminum "Ever Gleam" Christmas Tree, and put it up for the season. * Mark tried to make heads or tails of the instructions. * Then we did our best to make it look natural (yeah, right ! it is aluminium... after all !) * Even Kirby helps with decorations. Here are pictures of it, with the color wheel light, and the spinning tree stand that has a music box in it. This is the third or forth year Stacy and Mark have helped us with the silver tree... SO RETRO ! SO Mid Century ! SO Nostalgic !