Yesterday we headed about an hour up North to Mansfield, Ohio to visit The Ohio State Reformatory.

I didn’t really know what to expect but I did have a few ideas of what I thought a jail would be like. Let me tell you–it was nothing like this!

Somebody with us described it as Hogwarts! The building was absolutely beautiful!

I never did take a picture of the whole building–what was I thinking? It was huge. The grounds were beautiful and did I mention the place was huge? Even with part of the building demolished it was huge. Apparently the back section was torn down before The Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society stepped in to preserve the it. It was really hard for me to listen because I was taking so many pictures but I tried. It was SO very interesting and informative. The kids and I really enjoyed this tour. We plan to go back again sometime soon…after watching The Shawshank Redemption ( filmed there.) Several other movies, videos and photo shoots have also taken place at The Reformatory.

The first two floors were administrative quarters and offices.

Third floor was a chapel.

The rest of the floors were filled with cells—rows and rows of cells.

Little Wayne even filmed a video in this cell!

These are the showers.

This is a really bad picture of the tunnel used in The Shawshank—good thing I took a picture of this-everyone asked if we got to see “the tunnel.”

I just can’t say enough great things about this field trip. If you are anywhere near Richland County and can get to The Ohio State Reformatory you really should try to visit. Help preserve this rich piece of Ohio history by taking a tour.

Just down the road is The Historical Carrousel District in downtown Mansfield. A perfect place to stop for lunch and a ride at The Richland Carrousel Park

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Post tags: Carrousel District, cells, field trip, Mansfield, mansfield ohio, mansfield reformatory, Ohio, ohio history, ohio state reformatory, Preservation, preservation society, Reformatory, Richland, richland carrousel park, richland county, Shawshank, shawshank redemption, Shawshank---good

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He told us the two things he loves about the weather “It’s never boring and it’s always changing.” So very true! Just as we were there a tornado watch appeared in Indianapolis. We were able to see the storm up close on radar.

He is showing them to look for the hook on the radar screen because that could be a tornado.  Jym then showed us the tornado machine he built in college to show the things you need to have for a tornado happen.

warm, moist air, tall clouds, heat and a chimney effect.

Look—it worked!!!

We also learned about volcanoes.

and ash!!

We were told not to look directly at the light—but I think we all did!! shhhh

The kids got to see just what it’s like to report the weather–backwards sort of. You look at the tv screen in front of you and point to the green wall behind you. The viewers see you pointing at the map–so it is sort of a mirrored effect.

Ginger tried her hand at reporting “breaking news!”

We had a great time and learned so much! Thanks again Jym and NBC4i!!

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Post tags: chimney effect, class, field trip, Ganahl, jym ganahl, meteorologist, radar screen, tornado, tornado watch, warm moist air, weather, weather station

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When sorting through our puzzle drawer I found a few puzzles my kids have outgrown. I remembered seeing a puzzle diy on alisaburke’s blog

First Ginger painted the whole puzzle

Be sure to spread paint out the paint so there are no globs and it’s not too thick. Then we removed all the pieces to dry.

Draw your pattern, design, picture or whatever you decide with pencil if you are like me or you can go straight to the sharpie if you are bold and brave!

After you outline your work in sharpie you can start painting.

After everything is dry — give this fancy new puzzle to a friend!!

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Post tags: art, DIY, Draw, Paint, Painting, puzzle, puzzles, Upcycle

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Today the baseboards in Molly’s room are being installed. All she needs is her rod in her closet and remove the tape from her ceiling and she is good start moving in!

Our bedroom is just about finished too. That carpet is like a terry cloth towel under my bare feet!! Apparently carpet on trucks involved in a wreck are super cheap—-awesome!! Really expensive, really soft carpet for super cheap–I like!!!

Here is my closet/dressing room. I am excited to make this my girly spot! ( Note the rosewater colored walls with the green carpet. Makes me think 70′s girls room!) I ordered a clothes rack and my Mom has a vanity for me too. My mind is spinning with possibilities for my very own space!

Teetery construction steps are gone and replaced with safe and sturdy stairway!

Here are the heartpine floors we ordered off of ebay! Another great deal!! I love them! So much grain!!

We have been painting our arms off! Here is a shot of the appliance wall just waiting for the cupboards that will be arriving this week–finally!!!

The painting has really sucked! It is so hard to pick out paint in a totally new, wide open space that has nothing in it!! Some walls have been painted several times because of last minute color changes (sorry honey!) I am still not totally satisfied but don’t think I will be able  to really choose the right colors until we are actually living and using this space. It was just way easier to paint pre floors and trim.

I do still love this color–but it needs a third coat—ughhhh

This weekend Joe and Jake tore out the walls between the kitchen and the family room.

It was a huge, dusty mess!! Now that it is all cleaned up and the plastic has been removed…Helloooooo long, open house!!!

Here is were the walls used to be–steps and electric to be removed next.

We were really hoping taking that wall out was going to make our family room bigger–but right now it just seems longer! I am hoping to find a lower sitting couch to put under the window seat wall. When we have some money to buy furniture that is!

So as you can see things are moving along. So many details take so much time!!

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Post tags: back door, bedroom, ceiling, closet, color, colored walls, construction, construction steps, dressing room, entryway, family, floor, furniture, girls room, girly, hallway, heartpine, house, Kitchen, Paint, Painting, soft carpet, stairway, wide open space

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I thought the play was phenomenal. Totally worth the trip! And as always– it’s so nice to travel back home to Cleveland!

After the play we headed to The West Side Market  and Ohio City for lunch.

Then we were off to The Great Lakes Science Center

Apparently there are people with a fear of knees. huh–who knew???!!

We did all of this in about 13 hours-including about 5 hrs in the car- start to finish. I’m going to bed now!!!

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Post tags: art, Artist, artist mark, broadway play, Cleveland, cleveland ohio, field trip, great lakes science, great lakes science center, homeschool, mark rothko, Market, Ohio, Play, Playhouse, playhouse theater, science, Theater, tony award, West Side, west side market

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Well the first coat of paint is up and let me tell you I am IN LOVE with the color on the dinning room walls!!! It was so hard to pick colors for this open space with nothing in it! I have so many paint chips and samples. In the end I ended up picking some colors that I never even tested on the walls.

This was taken in the morning and the second photo was taken at night. It’s warm and bright and almost coral like. I think it will just get better with the second and possibly/probably third coat.

Joe left to get pizza on Saturday night and came back with this table! He found it in the trash. We are planning on painting it and using it on the screen porch.

This is a shot from the old kitchen looking into the new dinning room.

Tons of light and fresh air pouring in.

Here you can see the mess that is my current kitchen.

This is taken standing in the new dinning room, looking into the old kitchen and past that wall O’ Crap is our family room.

Soon the wall that holds those counters full of crap will come down and the whole house will be open from the family room all the way to the new dinning room.

This is the back wall of that cupboard/counter top wall that will be coming down (along with the stairs in between). I will be sad to lose that pretty arch but not this awkward door way or dark stairwell!! We may recreate that arch and leave a header but I am afraid it will make a sort of room boundary in the same place so that the family room won’t really be any larger just open.  I think I will have to keep the couch at the arch or after it. Does that make sense? Will it seem like the couch is in another room if it’s on the other side of the arch?

See how the door blocks the whole entrance when you open it? Your choice is to go down the steps or step on the person opening the door or talk through the window to our guests–I can’t wait to open this up!

We are really looking forward to a larger family room too.  I am envisioning a huge sectional couch someday when we have money to buy new furniture! Just need to decide about that arch!

The old kitchen will become our art studio. I have so many ideas for that creative space. It will be really nice to be able to work on projects and still be part of what is going on–TV, food etc… We won’t have to clean stuff up everyday nor will I have to be away in another part of the house if I want to work on something. We will be leaving the sink but I think I am going to get rid of most of the cupboards and use other pieces of furniture for supply storage. Plus we will still have our old pantry for storage too. I don’t want it to look like a converted kitchen.

OK–back to the new space!!

So all along the window wall will be the same red color as the dinning room. I had picked out a darker red for the opposite long wall and let’s just describe the color as Victorian death. It was so dark and blood like once I saw it on the walls. Luckily Joe had only done part of the cutting in before I had a change of heart. It was hard to pick a color that was not going to compete with the red. We used a yellowish tan color on the ceiling in the den that I really liked so we decided to stick with that color. (Instead of introducing color #312 to this open space!)

You can see here where the two colors will meet and I think that look ok together.

This half wall is the peninsula wall that faces the yellowish tan wall of the room we have yet to name–sitting room? long room? sun room?  The area behind it -where my new, huge,” fridge in the box” taunts me daily, is the kitchen.  The orange wall is our new stair way. Do I love this color as much as I love the red? Not so much. Joe does–or does he? I think he likes that the first coat is up and the paint is paid for.  I want a green that is as bold, bright and warm as the red. We will be discussing this more!! Plus I am not too crazy about the orange and blue stairway walls looking at each other!

You can see the ceiling color that matches the walls–I really like it. White looked too stark next to the wood ceiling. And how about those wood ceilings? Gorgeous or what???? Our builders did such a great job on them! Today they are filling the nail holes and putting the final coat of poly on them. That way we can get the final coats of paint on all the walls soon.

The kitchen–which has yet to be installed–will be smack dab in the middle of the action and yellow. Our island will be an anjou pear yellow and you can see a similar yellow around the pantry doorway. The other cabinets are wood–so not all yellow. So far I really like the yellow on the walls. yeah!! I love when I pick the right color!!

Hard to tell from this fuzzy picture but the inside of the pantry is a brighter, buttery yellow. We haven’t decided what color to paint the peek wall. It will depend if there is too much yellow in the room or too much red. It will be one of those 2 colors I think. I don’t think I should introduce another color into the room.

Ok now we are going down stairs. This is our entry way. This door took sooooo long to come in but I think it was worth the wait!!

And I do love this color too!! Win! Not sure what color to paint that white door into the garage–possibly the same as the walls although I am not really sure yet. I don’t really want to accent it or have it compete with the main entry door either.

I also love, love, love our bedroom walls!!

The walls are green and the accent wall and soffet are a bluish green. The ceiling has a blue tint to it also. It is very serene and botanical. We also lucked out and found some beautiful, soft, green carpet at a great price!

This is Molly’s ceiling she is working on. Rainbow!

We had our new garage doors installed also.

We are so excited to “move in” to this space!! The cabinets should arrive in early April -then floors. We still have the deck and porch to finish and the other walls to take down, siding, the yard….sigh still so much to do!! It is getting harder and harder to wait!!

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The show was great. We have been to the Lincoln Theater several times. It was closed for thirty years before being restored to it’s current beautiful state of Egyptian Revival Decor.

The scarabs on the seats at the ends of the aisles are just beautiful. (forgot my camera so these are all phone photos!)

We also toured The American Whistle Factory.

When I think about a factory I picture a big place that Mr Rogers may have featured on his show. This place is small but very interesting!  I wasn’t allowed to take photos of the machines or the making of the whistles but we were told that The American Whistle Factory was featured on The Discovery Channels, How It’s Made but I wasn’t able to find it to link here.

They are the ONLY producers of American made whistles. Pretty cool for being just few miles away from our house! They make whistles for all kinds of important events such as The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, The Superbowl, and the NYPD.

Even closer to our house is The Flag Lady Store.

They are the official flag makers for Ohio State as well as many local communities that hang flags along their main streets.

Mary, (the flag lady), is well versed in everything American flag and loves to share her patriotism with everyone! Unfortunately, she has also been in the news for other reasons as well.

They sell flags from all over the world!

They showed us  how they make flags. They were also in the process of tea dying flags for a group in California.

The kids enjoyed a spur of the moment parade!

If you are local or close to Columbus, Ohio, these are just a few of the great field trip opportunities near by. We have a couple of trips to The Wexner Center and trash dump to look forward to in the near future.— Now the dump is a destination I can visit over and over again. I find it fascinating!!

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Post tags: american flag, blagg, Columbus, discovery channels, egyptian revival, field trip, field trip opportunities, field trips, flag makers, lincoln theater, Ohio, scarabs, wexner center, whistles

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We went to a Valentine’s Day party today with some other homeschoolers and I was so impressed with all the craftiness!!

I  mustache you to be my Valentine!!!

Hearts!

Oragami hearts

Fortune cookie Valentines—cut out a felt circle, glue a pipe cleaner down the center, insert fortune and fold up and sqeeze into fourtune cookie shape! Genius!!

Look how cute these pins are!!!!

Molly made these. Hershey kisses, cellophane, flower petals, floral wire and tape. So cute!!

I LOVE these!!!! We used a die cut machine to cut the word love out of cardboard and then wrapped it in yarn. I first saw these here. We also used pipe cleaners to make the word LOVE and then wrapped those in yarn also.

Aren’t these so cute???? You still have a few days to get your Valentine craft on! Hope something here inspires you!

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Post tags: craft, Crafts, floral wire, flower petals, fortune, fortune cookie, fourtune, hershey, hershey kisses, homeschool, homeschoolers, mustache, Oragami, pipe cleaners, project, Valentine, valentine craft, valentine hearts, valentine s day, valentines, Valentines---cut, yarn

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I have been ooohing and aaahhing over Artsyvilles  drunken tiles for a while now. We finally bought some alcohol based inks (adirondack inks) and some 10 cent tiles from Lowe’s and went to town!

We started with  the alocohol blending solution squirted onto the tiles and spread it  around with a toothbrush.

Then we gently dripped small amounts of the colored dyes on to the tiles. As long as the alcohol is wet the dye spreads and runs.

We used straws to blow around some of the colors and q-tips to draw into the colors. If  you add alcohol on top of the dyes it takes the color away.

This was so fun. No two tiles turned out alike. We also learned that you can’t really control the outcome. You think you have it just the way you want it to look and then the dyes just keep spreading and combining into something else. But they all looked really great!

This is the same tile from the first photo–look how it changed.

These dyes are permanent and will stain so prepare accordingly!

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Post tags: adirondack, adirondack inks, alcohol, alocohol, art, class, color, colored dyes, colors, dye, Dyed, tile, Tiles

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We now have insulation and drywall!!

And we have dust–holy cow do we have dust! My lungs can attest to that too cough, cough, cough!! Even with plastic up the dust is everywhere! They don’t show that on TV either!!

Ginger’s room (the diagonal flooring) really looks small with it opened up!

I love the wood we picked out for the ceiling! With all it’s grain and knots it looks even better than we thought!

Here is a bedroom shot.

The metal roof on the screen porch has also been installed. It’s hard to tell from the photos but it is a copper color and looks so pretty in the sun. That is, when the sun actually shines around here!

Slowly but surely we are moving along. Hopefully sometime this Spring we will be able to “move in”!!

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Post tags: Building, ceiling, copper, copper color, drywall, flooring, Holmes, holmes on homes, insulation, metal roof, photo, screen porch, wood

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