Marlinton Road Kill Festival September 27th!

The end of September is here already and that means it's time for the infamous Marlinton Road Kill Festival. Every year on a Saturday at the end of September the town of Marlinton closes down main street and in addition to hosting an annual harvest festival the town also hosts it's famous Road Kill Festival. I've got to tell you that the first time we heard about this festival we weren't really sure we were hearing things correctly - the details sounded too crazy to be true. The Road Kill Festival is actually a cooking contest where contestants enter recipies cooked with meats that would commonly be found as roadkill. There've been all kinds of creative entries such as "The Buck Stopped Here Pepper Steak" and "Turtle A1-A Road Soup". For a few hours during the day you can actually walk around and sample the Road Kill fare. My husband loves this festival and samples everything - I'm not as bold. I actually found a video on the internet that captures highlights from one festival a few years ago - check it out here:

http://www.lonelyplanet.tv/Clip.aspx?key=8704109A22D9FE25

This year's festival will be held on September 27th and is sure to be a hit!

Main House listed in time for ski season!

Renovations for the main house are 90% complete with just a few more things to do before we deem it officially done (though I am never quite sure if working on a house is ever done...). Since we'll be finishing up those odds and ends in a couple weeks I've decided to jumpstart with advertising and list the main house as a rental on VRBO. The current plan is to rent the guest house through November and then rent out only the main house during ski season. Check out our listing at http://www.vrbo.com/204158

We're getting close!

Back to blogging - I've been missing in action for a few weeks dealing with family issues but that is past now and and it's time to get back into the swing of things again. Part of getting back to normal means completing the projects on our house in WV. We were fortunate enough to spend Labor Day weekend at the house getting things together and taking inventory of tasks that are still left to complete. Happily the "to-do" list is getting shorter with only a few things left. Main things left to complete include finishing the spiral staircase and putting down the hardwood floors on the upper level. Pretty much except for a bit of trimwork the lower level is complete. I took some pictures of the first floor of the main house that I wanted to share - we actually put a contract down on our house Labor Day Weekend three years ago and it's quite amazing the transformation that has taken place over that time.

The first two pictures are of our family room. Main things that we have done with that room have been to replace the carpet with hardwood floors and to fix the hearth that holds the stove.

The next picture is of our kitchen - we've done alot in that room including painting the walls a warm yellow and the kitchen cabinets white. We also replaced the kitchen floor, countertops, kitchen stove and sink. In addition we added new kitchen cabinets below the countertops for additional storage space.

Probably the biggest transformation of all has been the bathroom. My husband totally gutted the previous bathroom all the way down to the floor and rebuilt it into what it is today. Our new bathroom now has beautiful tiled floors that are heated and are most enjoyable on cold winter mornings. The old bathtub has been replaced with a wonderful tiled shower and for the first time we now have a linen closet in the bathroom. I didn't know how to act this weekend when it came time to fill the closet with towels and bed linens that were stacking up in various closets throughout the house. The picture below doesn't do the room justice so I will have to take more pictures of the bathroom the next time we go out to the house for a visit.

The last two pictures are of the bedrooms. There are two bedrooms on the first floor - one bedroom has a queen bed and the other a double bed. The main things we've done in those rooms have included replacing the carpet with updated berber and replacing the light fixtures.