THE CEILING

So, on Saturday a very exciting thing happened.  

FINALLY, the dining room was going to get started!  The dining room is at the center of our home.  Not figuratively, but physically.  It used to be a dark, dramatic red:

With a lot of ceiling tiles falling down, thanks to what USED to be a hole in the roof.  Now, of course, there is no hole in the roof...but we were missing portions of a couple of ceiling jousts due to rotting.  Anyway, this is what the ceiling looked like:

Then I started working on it, with my little step ladder and some kind of tool with a flat hook on it.  I know I sound very airheady at the moment, but I can't remember what that thing is called.  Anyway, then the ceiling looked like this:

Then this:

Well, on a Saturday at 5:45 in the morning (yes, that was before the sun was up), all that started to change.  Josh showed up before the restaurant making our breakfast burritos was open and he and Andy started REALLY tearing things down.  I'd like to say WE did this, but after 5 minutes in the kitchen with a plastic wall separating me from the dust (supposedly), I knew this was not my scene.  Pablo and I went for a walk, I delivered the breakfast burritos, and then I hi-tailed it out of there.

This is what went on while I was gone:

All of that USED to be above the ceiling! Pretty hard to imagine, isn't it.  I can't believe they climbed over all of this stuff.

Josh, the destroyer!

A small idea of how much dust was in the air!

I apologize for the quality of pictures, but I haven't been able to find the battery charger for my camera, so we are using I-Phones and I-Pods for the photography right now.

Well, they started at 5:45 a.m., and were eventually joined by Tyler, Brett, and Chris.  When I came back by the house at 3:30, the ceiling was finished.  The dry wall was up and "mudded".  Robyn and I left to shop at Good Company.  When I came back at 6:00, the ceiling was LESS done then when I stopped by at 3:30!

I was confused, and then I was laughing...hard.

Andy was putting insulation up in the attic above the new ceiling and he stepped THROUGH the ceiling.  No, he didn't fall through, but he did knock out 2 panels of drywall.  Also, he fell butt first onto a nail.  He literally nailed his pocket shut and had to pull a nail out of his backside in order to get something out of his pants pocket!  Believe me, the jokes and puns have been NUMEROUS.  Feel free to add yours in the comment section :).

So, anyway, he and Tyler quickly put up 2 new panels of dry wall, and this is what the ceiling looks like now:

No hole, no falling tiles, no popcorn ceiling.  Yay!  We have sanding and some more mudding to do before we can texturize the ceiling, and mudding and priming to do on the walls before we can paint it.  However, a HUGE step forward has been made!

Those men worked HARD, and I am so thankful for them. 

KTV

For the man of the house

I can finally say that Andy's room is done!  I know that there will be things we want to tweak, buy, change (new laundry hamper and some curtains), but it is a room that he can study, relax and live in now.

You'll remember, it started off like this:

Let's get a close up of those flowers and butterflies.  VK spent hours sanding each individual glossy white stencil.

And let's not forget the carpet, that covered up

beautiful hardwood floors.

Here she is, sanding away.  Pablo is fascinated.

 And then, the color went on.  Andy chose Glidden's French Gray (purchased at Home Depot), you can't tell in this picture but it has a lovely blue undertone to it.

Honestly, the color has been on for a couple of weeks now, the furniture has been moved in for at least a week. Yesterday, we finally got around to really making it HIS room.

Above the door.

Can you guess his favorite sport's team?

The picture is a Batik from our time in Africa that I had framed at JoAnn's for Andy last Christmas.  The sculpture is handcrafted (also from Africa) - she traveled with our dear friend, Anke, to us as part of my thank you for taking her wedding pictures.  The Handcrafted glass blowing of the Flame of the Holy Spirit was designed and created by an extremely talented mentor and friend, Devin Bader.

I think this looks like a place to deliver a "State of the Union" address.  The flag behind the chair is the New Mexico flag. Mama and Pete bought it and waved it in 3 different places along the marathon that Andy ran last month.  It's full size.  I wish I could have seen my 5'3" mother waving it with all her might.  And yes, he is a Bronco fan.  I made that blanket for him several Christmases ago.

There is the hamper that I hope to replace, and the printer shelf is in line for a coat of paint...the line is long :)

The picture that you can't see is of Andy running his first ever marathon, and the medals are of all of his full and half marathons.  I love the rack for his medals.  Pete bought it for him last Christmas, it' says "I run these towns".

That's it!  Andy woke up and tidied his room this morning so you could all see pictures.  He's pretty happy with it.

KTV

Little Pleasures

In the midst of all of the "busy-ness" and checklists and hard labor, I want to take the time to thank God for some of the pleasures in our life.

On Saturday, in the middle of our work day we received some visitors.  Now, you may not know this about me, but I LOVE drop by guests.  If you are okay finding me and my house however you may find me, I am okay with you dropping by.  I love knowing that I'm being thought of.

So, I was thrilled when Mama and Pete stopped by with our friend Jack.  I love Jack, I always have.  He was my childhood hero.  So many little girls' stories involve heroes, and so many fairy tales have a knight on a white horse...I always pictured Jack in those stories (of course, he rode a motorcycle).  It has been a wonderful treat to spend a little time with him as an adult and see him with my adult eyes.  Can't wait for his next visit!

About the same time my friend Robyn stopped by with her boys and the boys christened the tree house!

Robyn is that wonderful kind of person who really listens when you talk.  She remembers details, and follows up on them.  I spent 17 years in Covenant Players, staying in other people's homes.  We had classes on how to be the kind of listener that Robyn is.  So any visit with her brightens my day. 

 Needless to say, Saturday was a great day :)

KTV

Some progress by the guys

I am so thankful for our friends.  There is no way we would have been able to accomplish what we have so far without them.  No, our fence isn't completed yet, but it is really close!

Okay, time to brag on the guys a little.  On Saturday, while the woman were workin' it on the inside, the men were working like madmen to put up our fence.

Just a pile of lumber and some tools.

Andy started off the morning getting Home Depot to get the lumber to us, as requested.  That task was finally completed somewhere 8:30-9:00, and then those boys got to work! Tyler and Josh worked with us until close to noon, and at that time they had completed all of the horizontal parts done.  From 1-4 p.m. my amazing husband put on ALL of the planks by himself (with the help of Tyler's "bad A" nail gun).  I was very impressed.  Pablo has a lot more freedom to run around, and we are eagerly awaiting the gates so that we can just let him go for it!

KTV

This is them before they knew I was lurking around with a camera...

...and AFTER they saw the camera.

Some progress

First things first, let's start with a COMPLETED project.  You'll remember (or maybe not) that we had no refrigerator when we bought the house.  Fortunately, we were able to buy the refrigerator from the house we had rented for the past 2 years ( we knew it worked ).  UNfortunately, it was a dingy white and didn't match my wonderful new stove at all.  Now, I was willing to live with that, it isn't the end of the world, afterall.  

However, I saw something on Pinterest (I LOVE Pinterest) that made my inner child smile.  So, I visited here and found out how easy it was to paint your refrigerator with chalkboard paint!  Yay!  

By the way, that was my first link, feeling pretty "chuffed" as my South African friends would say.  

She didn't use Rustoleum Chalkboard Paint, but I did - 2 coats of paint, and it's still magnetic.  Awesome! AND I get to move another Pin to my "Done" board.

Believe it or not, I still haven't bought chalk to write on this.

  The bonus of this picture is that you get a sneak peek of the painting I did yesterday.  And another quick peek,

Pablo tried to help with the painting, check out his tail.

 Now on to the SOME progress...

This is the dining room when we moved in.  

So, my friend Sasha and I worked until our bodies were REALLY feeling it.  A whole lot of progress has been made.  And now?  It looks even worse :)...

The ceiling tiles that used to be up here,

are now stacked in the corner.  That pile is only 1/2 a head shorter than I am.

And this is the result of my 3 nights of peeling paint (actually there are 3 other walls that look a lot like it).  Sasha "mudded" about 3/4 of it before she went off to cook her mom's birthday dinner.  This wall is almost ready for primer (2 coats of primer in certain places).

So, a lot of "some progress" happened yesterday.  But still not ready to check it off THE LIST.  

Come back tomorrow and I'll show you what "some progress" the guys did outside.

KTV

The checklist

So, the First State Bank (Mortgage) handled our loan - which covers our mortgage and renovations.  We had to submit a list of all that we planned to do with that money.  Here it is:

• Buy the house
• replace the entire roof
• build a fence around the perimeter of the property in the backyard
• tear down and rebuild existing "patio" over the 2 car garage
• install "up to code" railing on patio
• 3 hydraulically driven steel supports to the NE corner of the house
• paint exterior of house
• install new stove
• install refrigerator
• replace missing faucet on kitchen sink
• replace missing shower head in shower
• paint patio bedroom (AKA Andy's Study)
• paint kitchen
• remove cupboard over kitchen sink
• tear out ceiling tile in dining room
• drywall dining room ceiling
• new drywall on wall between dining room and porch room (AKA Art studio)
• paint dining room
• patch and paint living room wall
• tear out paneling in Art Studio
• tear out Art Studio ceiling to expose bead board ceiling
• paint Art Studio

It's quite a list for us to complete in 3 months, but that is our goal.  

Of course, the obvious next question is, "What have you completed?"  Thank you for asking!

Our Roof is completed!  I never knew that you could pick the color of your roof!  We chose "Hickory" to echo the darker color in the brick at the front of the house.

A new faucet from Home Depot (Glacier Bay Keelia Pull-out Kitchen Faucet in brushed nickel)!  Due to the depth of our kitchen sink (which is wonderful), this took a lot longer than expected.  However, it's working great and dishes are actually getting done.

Behind this $5 shower curtain (thanks to Marshal's)...

...is a new shower head.  Like the faucet, we purchased this at Home Depot.

Everything up to this point was completed by my wonderful husband, who is learning a lot of new skills.  Neither of us were completely prepared for all of the learning we are doing.

The final picture for tonight's post is courtesy of Mama and Pete.  For our house warming present, they bought us a new stove!  

Isn't it beautiful?  It's a gas range, and there are 5 burners, including an "accusimmer".  You can see the banana bread baking through the huge glass window.  It is, of course, self cleaning.  However, it has the hydrocleaning feature.  Basically, I pour a little water in the bottom of the stove and press the self cleaning button, then the stove steams itself and I wipe it all away.  No toxic fumes!

I was very impressed with the delivery guys from Nebraska Furniture Mart.  Not only were they polite and fast, they were friendly and thorough. 

That's all for tonight, I'm off to scrape away at my dining room wall.

KTV

On the outside looking in

Alright!  As promised, here are the exterior shots of the house...

This is taken from the sidewalk in front.  Don't you love the red door?  We do.  

From the driveway.  Above the 2 car garage (that, no, does not have an automatic garage door opener...yet), is our soon to be wonderful patio.  There is a patio there, but it is certainly not a safe one :)

From the backyard looking in.  You'll notice an entry to the basement as well as an entry to the mudroom.

The side view, the kitchen door.  This picture taken from...

...the swing under the treehouse! :)

It would be wrong to take pictures of the outside of the house without mentioning the hard manual labor of these three amazing men (one of which is my wonderful husband).  Between the three of them, they tore down and out the existing fallen down fence and dug holes with that huge machine (I think it's an auger), and put up fence posts around the perimeter of the property!  Pablo (he's the adorable dog previously mentioned) is very exited for that particular project to be completed so he can run around without his leash.  Me too.

Strike a pose, boys.

Did you notice Mr. MacGregor's garden?

That is the end of the before shots.  From here on out you will be seeing some completed projects!  Yay!  I need to write about them, because tonight I started scraping the red dining room and that feels like the neverending project.  Thanks for sharing my journey, everyone.       KTV

What I don't love so much

In my last post I talked a lot about what I love in our new house.  Now for a little full disclosure, the things I don't love as much

The fact that we had no refrigerator or stove wasn't great.  On the other hand, my puppy is adorable.

This massive cabinet over the sink.  Great for cupboard space...

but it totally made our kitchen feel claustrophobic and killed sight lines for conversation...and I LOVE conversation :)!

 Also, we are definitely not fans of those shades of green and red so close together.

The linoleum and paneling in my art room.

some water damage in the living room

The next ones are pretty random.  When the former owners left, they took the faucet and shower head with them!  So, no faucet or shower head for Andy and Karlie!

This is the big one.  There was a hole in our roof, a serious one.  We had to have the entire roof replaced.  It is!  And, just one night before a very rainy day :)  However, the hole in the roof translated to some work in the dining room.

I'm very happy to say that many of these things have been checked off of our to do list (I really love checking things off of my to do list).  But all of that is for another post.  Next post, exterior shots!