Walled in!

Sheet Rock’s Fun!

Pritz-Made saw horses

Lots of fun corners

Thomas insulating an outside wall

The Pink Panther Was Here

A beautiful sight

Soffit, soffit, who’s got a soffit?

A little spackle here, a little spackle there

Brian

Thomas and Brian

Thomas with mud

Brian the Giant

Who’s Brian?

We met Brian through our friends Greg and Palmer at the beginning of the year. (you might remember me mentioning my christmas wish coming true? Turns out my christmas wish is about 6′2″ with dreads, a love of travel, countless stories, some bold body art, and a love of hobo music.
He stayed with us for two weeks, working with us putting up all of the sheet rock downstairs.

He’s since moved on, but we’ll never forget him. . .oh dang!

(was that enough of a Ta-dow! Brian?)

Keepin’ it Clean

 

One of our Field of Despair finds

 

Around the time we were having Dead Tree taken down, we built our laundry room.
My mom and dad gave me a wonderful washer and dryer for christmas, and we had our work cut out for us before they could be anything but art!
They’re quite lovely – front loading, stacked and, well, awesome!  I can’t say thank you to them enough (mom and dad – I’m not sure the machines are sentient. They do sing though. Nothing too complex, but they’re young)

Have I mentioned that part of the reason I’ve not been updating this often is that I’ve been working. . .a lot? I think it’s made me even more giddy than normal.

Ok, so. . .Easterwood and Thomas put in the plumbing for our washer and a utility sink. Thomas and his dad moved a pole that was in the middle of the room, put in a tile floor and scooted our water heater further into the corner.
Then we put up sheetrock on one wall and painted the entire room.
Then it was time to put in the washer and dryer!

oh, wait. Then we moved the water heater back in place and found that it didn’t care for that and died. So off to Home Depot for a new one.

Then it’s time to put in the washer and dryer.

Oh, wait – I forgot about putting in the plug for the dryer. More Home Depot trips for that.

Now! Putting in the washer and dryer. I think that was it.
We’ll, except that the dryer didn’t work. But eventually we got Sears to bring us a new one and take away the defective one. After many, many phone calls, a few visits, and a bunch of parts. But they did bring that new one at 8am on a Sunday morning. . .And it works like a dream.

It’s getting nicer and nicer to do the laundry too, the further we get with the work downstairs. The warmer weather helps too. We got the new(er) dryer about a week after the new year. 

I threw in some shots of the wood chipper the tree guys brought with them – it’s still there now. Thomas spoke to a couple who are supposed to be closing on the house next door, but we’ll see. I wonder if they’ve noticed the big red monster in the back yard. . .

One of our Field of Despair finds

Our New Neighbor

Mr. Chipper

just, wow.

Happy Wall and Plumbing

Mud, Mud, Mud

Our Utility Sink

Faucet!

Merry Christmas!

Doing our first load of laundry

Small space, tons of cleaning potential!

Catching Up with Butter

 

Our First Christmas Tree with Dead Tree in the back

 

 

I know, I know. I said I’d update this literally months ago. So, let’s take a whirlwind tour of the past few months (yikes!)

Just before Christmas, we awoke to the sound of chainsaws next door. Thomas went to chat with the guys and was able to talk them into taking down our dead tree for less than half the estimate they’d given us a couple months earlier.
They were already out there with their equipment, that sort of thing.

So, Merry Christmas! We don’t have to worry about a tree taking out our house (or the neighbor’s) every time the wind blows!!!!
It was really bothering us – if we were in the front yard or on the porch there would inevitably come a silence when we were both playing a sort of horror movie in our heads, staring Dead Tree.

THe guys that took it down were definite pros – scary to watch, but totally in tune with the way of trees – dead or not. They took down four or five that Friday. Had a chipper with them and took care of all the little bits for us. Then they segmented the trunk and large limbs and piled them in our front yard.
All of our friends with fireplaces got seasoned firewood for Christmas this year!

We had a little casualty, however. The unidentified bush at the base of Dead Tree got smooshed. Well, half-smooshed.
It’s growing back nicely though – if  a little harsh edged. 

And now – Pictures!

Our First Christmas Tree with Dead Tree in the back

Our Cat! (plus two dead trees)

It Made a Really Big Boom

Halved Shrubbery

Crack!

Hollow?

Path of Destruction

Sawdust

Seasoned Fire Wood, Anyone?

Treescape

Happy New Year!

My christmas wish was answered!
We have ceilings and walls. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am about this. Dance around the room, howl at the moon happy.
(way happier than some tiny cup of yogurt could make me – but, still a good ad campaign)

did you get that?

WE HAVE CEILINGS AND WALLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have pictures of everything and stories to tell, but my cameras downstairs at Butters and I’m at Kelli’s house about to go to bed. But it’s been so long since I’ve posted anything that I just couldn’t hold it in any longer.

WALLS!!!!

There’s still a lot of work to do – little bits of sheetrock here and there and ever more mudding and sanding – but we’re getting there.
We even bought our paint today – Lemon Soufflé for the kitchen walls (see my post about our test kitchen) and Parmesan for the walls in our living room and dining room.
Is it really that surprising that we picked food colors? And we weren’t even hungry!
We almost went all desserts, with crème brulée, but that was a bit dark, and, not illogically, didn’t go well with the soufflé.

See why it’s time for me to go to bed?
I’m a bit giddy. That, and it’s time for me to take some more Emergen-C and slather on more and more lotion on my hands. Sheet rock dust is turning my hands into corn husks. ick.

I promise I’ll post more this week – pictures and pictures and stories. We have a new friend that’s made this all possible and I don’t think I can give him a proper introduction without a photo. Not to worry – I have the perfect one already.

Unearthing a Wood Floor

 

Last weekend we sanded our little hearts out, refinishing the floors on the second floor.

On Monday, we had sanded the guest bedroom floor, using only a belt sander and an orbital sander. Who knew that would suck so much? Ok, anyone who’s ever sanded down a floor, or a door for that matter.

Thomas and the orbital sander in the guest bedroom (to be)

Half and Half Floor – with a bit of sanding disk

Taking a break from the guest bedroom sanding

Thomas cutting out the bad wood

Putting in the new boards – see the shims?!

Before

Little Buddy – our drum sander for the day

working away at the glue – grrr.

Dave, the shop vac and the drum sander (Little Buddy)

Thomas and the belt sander

My friend the orbital sander

knot of power

A well-deserved break on our front porch

Pretty, huh?

My homemade kneepads

Look what we did! I can’t believe what we did!!!

But, once we’d done that room, and saw how pretty the floor was, we talked about it and decided to go ahead and do the rest of the wood. Thomas has been fairly set on having hard wood up there anyway, and this was a good bit cheaper than getting a new one and laying it atop the existing floor.

And what a time that old floor’s had.
The house was built in 1940, and since then, this floor has had two coats of gray-ish blue paint (well, two kinds – about four coats) and some green shag carpet.
The kicker was that someone decided that gluing carpet to a wood floor was a fine idea. Ok, I still can’t figure why anyone would paint a wood floor either, but it may have had something to do with the aforementioned glue.

We had to replace some boards that had had some previous water damage (really, I helped! Mostly by vacuuming and then placing shims beneath the new planks, but still. . .)

So, Friday our awesome friend Dave came over and helped us sand away. We rented a drum sander (which looked like a cousin of the old Electrolux that my best friend Sus had in college) and got really, really dirty.

We almost finished Friday, but decided to call it a night rather than hurt ourselves. The next morning (and afternoon) Thomas and I finished up the corners, Thomas went over the entire floor with a really fine grade of sandpaper, we cleaned and cleaned (and cleaned) and then put a coat of polyurethane on the floor. Stinky, but that part went pretty fast – much faster than wiping down walls, then floors, then floors again. ..
But look what we did!!

Thomas’ mom came over the next morning and helped him put another coat of poly on the floor (I was at work). I can’t wait to see it close up now that it’s dry.
Kelli and I peeked in this afternoon, but it’s still curing.