Thanksgiving Week

More work, we had to clean/prepare the floor for tile. This was tough... We had to put hot soapy water over the entire floor and scrub it. Then, we had to use hot water to scrape and scrub it followed by water & dirt removal by the wet vac. In the end, we had to rent a sander for the floor and after 3.5 hrs of that after we had cleaned it, the floor was good. Then we had to put more water on the floor and vacuum it up. Eventually, we got the floor cleaned and marked off the grid so we can start laying tiles. We also purchased all of our tiles and by doing so, the store is out of those tiles completely.

Thanksgiving Week

Thanksgiving:

Hanging some lights & Painting

Enjoying re-heated turkey dinner by the glow of halogen lights in our new living room : )

Thanksgiving Week

Thanksgiving Week

Wednesday we went to Home Depot to pick up our cabinets that had been ordered. It was pouring rain so we needed a large van to carry them. Unfortunately, we had to get a van at one HD, drive to another HD to pick them up, load them and take them to our house 45 minutes away and then return the van because we were paying by the hour. We had so many cabinets, that we exceeded the weight limit of the cargo van and the alarm went off. In order to make it work, we put 5 pieces in the car and had to lift up on the bumper until the alarm went off. It took 2 hrs for them (HD) to get all of our cabinets, mark them off and for us to load them up. It should have never taken that long. However, we should have expected it so close to the holidays and with such a big order. At least we got them at the house so I can start thinking about assembling them.

Thanksgiving Day was spent at the house working away. We had re-heated leftover turkey dinner and turkey sandwiches which were fantastic. One of Jennifer's friends came over with her son and helped out.

Nov 25th (Some help arrives)

So this is the first post of the week. It has been very, very busy and photo updates will come but may be a little brief or slightly out of order, maybe... Jennifer's mother & sister arrived on Tuesday and we cooked Thanksgiving dinner that day. Wednesday morning we made our way over to the house and got to work. Primarily, we were painting, taping off trim and painting some more.

Nov 22nd

We spent some time running around getting supplies and we found our tile! We are going to go with a 20 x 20 beige with dark variegations running through it. Nothing like walking around Home Depot with a big tile making sure it will match our cabinets. Anyways, at the house we cut a new hole in the kitchen for an electrical outlet. Then we pigtailed off an existing outlet and snaked the wire behind the wall, around a pipe and out. Fortunately, Jennifer's arm was small enough to reach into the hole so she could grab the wire. We got the box installed and basically Jennifer did the rest of the wiring. We covered the old receptacle with a blank cover, since it will be behind our new stove (once we get it). This way, we can have a microwave over our stove. When the house was built, they weren't designed for microwaves over the stoves. Actually, 1975 was the first year that microwaves out-sold ovens. I'm sure the stats are skewed since microwaves were new and ovens are not replaced that often. There's a useless fact for you : ) After that, Jennifer did some more taping and I got to re-mudding the entry-way wall, which I will sand and hopefully paint today.

Nov 21st

More photos of the great room.

Nov 21st

Today we got some help from one of my colleagues and her husband. Ronda and Chad were nice enough to jump right in and they finished off the second spare bedroom! This completes the painting of our $5 room because that's the price of the paint. We really like the color the way it turned out and figure it is perfectly gender neutral. Then we were able to focus on the main great room. I realized after starting to paint the entry way that I need to redo the tape job on one of the entryway walls (you can see it visible in the picture). You live and learn... I found out you can't get everything perfect but there is an acceptable level of imperfection and this wall was not it.

Nov 21st (Day 44) with Old Post

Here are some photos from this weeks progress. I fell behind posting a bit because there wasn't much to see. We put on one coat of paint, then the second, then took the tape off, re-taped, then repeated. At least for our one of the spare bedrooms. We didn't paint right up to the ceiling because we are going to put up crown molding. We also don't know exactly what this room is will become but we are calling it the eclectic room for the colors or the $10 room for the cost of the paint we used. I also finished (kinda) all the taping of the drywall. Jennifer taped the master bathroom.

Nov 20th

So, every Friday for the past 5 weeks has be spent busted our tails getting stuff done at the house. So, today we said "No"! We enjoyed our time together, sleeping in, going grocery shopping (tired of eating out), ran some errands, I did get some work done up at school and Jennifer did get some supplies at Home Depot. But we didn't go to the house : ) Instead, we spent the evening eating some homemade tacos (Better than Chipotle) and then watched a movie together and fell asleep at a decent hour. I guess sometimes, we need to give ourselves a break. Sometimes, it's good to step back and enjoy the company of your best friend and know that the work will get done. Saturday and Sunday will be spent painting, painting, painting and did I mention painting. I'll post some pictures this weekend.

Nov 14th

Nov 14th (Day 36)

Don't waste you're money on a tape dispenser, when you have a wife as talented as mine. The dispenser is designed to tape off parts of the room for painting and seemed like it would work wonders but turns out it is no better than Jennifer free-handing it. Susan (Our realtor) stopped by and saw the mess we have created but apparently wasn't phased by the mess : ) This morning we were greeted by hundreds of people on bikes as though they were welcoming us into the neighborhood with a parade. Then we were sad because it was wasn't for us... However, it was the championship 1/2 ironman and we snapped a few photos as the went by. We painted all the ceilings today, primed a room and its closet and painted 3 out of the 4 walls (the 4th will be an accent wall. I think we decided the color was Choco Crow Loco in honor of a restaurant we visited with Jackie in Japan. The room we painted is the one that had the I Love You painted on it at one time. The closet was a nasty brown and now it's ready for a nice rose color. Tomorrow, hopefully we'll get to painted the second coat and start the master bedroom paint.