Laura's Renovation Adventure

Found the cord and the resume. Todd has a job interview tomorrow at a different school in the same district.

We have bead board paneling in half of the closet. Which I have painted. And painted. No exaggeration; I have painted four coats of the same color on parts of it. And after I painted the dark green paint on, I decided there was too much green, so I repainted the part above the trim white again (hard to explain without a picture...)

The Vintage is done and as we speak being printed to be mailed out. That was more work that I thought it would be. And I have signed myself up to do it again, next fall. Aarg.

I am sewing this week when I am not painting. I made myself a wrap top and a pair of capris. I made Olivia a dress and a doll dress to match. I like sewing. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment. I should, however, have been cleaning out my office. That activity, on the other hand, fills me with dread.

Well, it is about time to go pick up my children, so I am off.

I need to find the cord for my external hard drive. Then I need to go to Home Depot and get some paint so I can paint the inside of my closet and my bedroom. I have a scrap of wall paper that Walker excavated from the wall during the demolition that is has a beautiful dusky green background that I love.

This weekend, Dad came down and helped us with our project to finish the second bathroom. In the meantime, I worked on getting the closet ready. We removed everything from our closet. All the clothes, shelves, everything. Now what was in my closet has exploded all over my house. It kind of looks like I am having a garage sale in my living room. This will get better soon, I am sure. Todd has promised tonight to get the sheetrock and paneling that we need to finish out the closet so we can get hanging bars back up and have a closet again. And I may have a garage sale as well, next week.

I think I am going to go eat lunch now. Maybe better blood sugar will help my outlook on life.

Speaking of home improvement... http://www.raisetheranch.com/blog.html

I have been to Lowe's or Home Depot four times today. I have bought and returned and bought and returned.

Long day.

Love the three day weekend.

I started tiling the kitchen counter-top. Twelve inch tiles with one inch accents. Lovely. Now if I could only get the dishwasher installed so I could finish installing the tile and grout and so forth. Cutting the cement board was honestly the hardest part. Stumbling on the John Bridge tile forum was a godsend. There I learned about carbide blades and learned that no one really can cut cement backer board with a utility knife. If you see it done on television, it is evidently a special knife or a camera trick.

I really should be reading for my assignment tomorrow. At least I have the class I am teaching tomorrow planned out.

I have almost finished adding the affiliate ads to the website that I have been building. I did the style sheet, the graphics and everything.

Today has been a catch up day. Yesterday we were without water. Not because I forgot to pay the bill this time, either. We were installing the new cabinet and nicked the water line and it was the next day before our plumber could get here. That was fun (not). All three kids and no water. And it was a wasted day because we couldn't do any more work on the cabinets. And I could not do laundry.

I did, however, work on my web portfolio. It looks kind of nice now, and needs to be translated to a brochure. A guy at one of the computer shops in town was asking me if I had one...

My cousin Joshua gave me the address of his Myspace where he has a couple of awesome songs that he has been working on. It always shocks me when someone I have known forever does something so cool...

I did get the Christmas tree taken down before we ripped up the kitchen. I guess that is something. And I did get Olivia's defective FurReal pet returned. She spent the money on a bike helmet and elbow and knee pads. She is a happy as she can be. She *loves* riding her bike. And Todd loves riding with her. He has so much fun with that.

We are not going to get the house renovated in time for school to start. There. I said it. We aren't getting done. We are going to have to refinish hardwood floors while we live there. I can just imagine the grit everywhere.

Our friend came and finished wiring the water heater and the stove. At some point, we are going to have to get him to come and rewire the outlets to 3 prong grounded outlets. But first things first. We have a giant hole in our living room floor right now, and pieces of subfloor in a stack beside it. I am not sure how much of it can be salvaged and reused (if any).

It amuses me, as I paint & drip paint on the chipboard, to think that someday wood may be scarce enough that some, in years to come, will fuss over the chipboard the way I fuss over the stained hardwood that we found under the carpets after we took them up. Or possibly the vinyl tile will be treasured.

Whoever would have guessed what a problem 30 year old termite damage could be.

We knew the floor in the living room was uneven, but, hey, it's an old house. Not until we started taking out the patched bits did we find what was (not) underneath. The header was rotten away. Where it should have been, someone had stacked two-by-fours on top of concrete blocks to hold the house up. It looked like something my child could have done. So that set us back on our timeline.

The kids have picked up a new show Who Wants to be a Superhero? The best part of that show is Stan Lee, who is judge and jury. It is funny to hear him teaching these people (who evidently never read X-Men) what being a super-hero is all about. In many ways, Stan Lee's superhero requirements and the Sermon on the Mount have many similar characteristics...

Why do I only discover shows after they are cancelled? Today I found LA Dragnet. Only lasted two seasons. Stars Ed O'Neill (formerlly Al Bundy) and Eva Longoria. Don't know how I missed it.