The little pieces...and a giant one

I know that my updates are jumping you all around the house, in very little order.  Believe me, that's how the whole renovation process has seemed to me.  Because we are learning as we go, we can only progress to a certain point before we have to stop and ask someone what to do next.  So that means several projects have been on hold, and we've started new projects that can only progress to a certain point...you get the picture.

So, with that disclaimer in mind, let me show you some of the little pieces that have gotten finished.  I told you about the start to my art room here.  Somehow we cut the drywall VERY wrong.

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The process of fixing it was such a comedy of errors (actually this whole room really has been).  I'm not sure Andy would have called it a comedy, maybe a piece from the Theater of the Absurd?

Anyway, it required cutting drywall and shaping it by painstakingly shaving sliver by sliver off the piece.  This is not Andy's comfort zone.  BUT, he did it!  I mudded over the patch, primed and painted.  Now, unless you know what you're looking for, you don't even notice it.

You can see it here, but I don't expect any of you to have your noses this close to my outlets :)

We put trim up in the room - at the ceiling and the window (that story is another piece for Theater of the Absurd), and I have hung pictures and mounted a wall shelf.  The room is ready to be worked in...but I have to finish the ceiling first :).  You'll get pictures later.

Also, we finally finished the crown molding in the dining room.  We thought this job was going to be fairly easy.  After all, it was the same molding we took down from this room.  It was obviously going to fit.

I know those of you with experience at this sort of thing are already shaking your heads and smiling at me.  No, it was not that easy.  We finished 3 of the four walls in a few hours.  Of course those hours included taking the molding down multiple times, calling our contractor friend multiple times, and me facing my fear of heights multiple times.  

Why didn't we finish the 4th wall?  The piece of crown molding simply would not fit.  The dining room sat with one unfinished wall for several weeks.  We kept thinking we would ask one of our handy friends to come over and help us with that one piece of trim.  We didn't.  One night Andy just decided it was going to get done.  And he manhandled that piece of crown molding.  I wish I had pictures for you, it was awesome.  He attacked it foot by foot - just his forearm and a nail gun.  Me?  Oh, I was holding on to the ladder, because I was afraid he was going to push it out from underneath himself!

Here is our lovely dining room (soon to come, custom made benches and re-purposed cupboard):

And the "Giant Piece" of this post?  Our deck is finally done, at least structurally!  We plan to stain the concrete when the weather allows.  This was an important tool for prepping the deck.

We had to break up loose concrete and get rid of every bit of concrete dust that we could.

It was looking pretty shabby.

These are the men that completed that stage,

and these are their dogs.

No, the dogs weren't much help...except as a half-time show.  But they're cute.

Anyway, our friend Fred came to show the men what to do, give some advice and do an example section.

 Notice how beautifully smooth Fred's section is?

And then Josh and Andy continued, without Fred.

That didn't go as well.  Then I attempted to help with the process.  That didn't go well at all.  I have no pictures, but to say there was a marked difference between what we did and what Fred did is to really underplay the situation.  And we hadn't even done 1/8 of the surface!  At this point, Andy and I called Fred and hired him to do the whole patio.  

So, weeks later our patio is finished!  I don't have pictures of the completed concrete, because it is currently under 9 inches of snow.  But you should get the idea.

Pablo is showing off the underlayer of concrete.  Fred had to make the mess of concrete even before he could put on the "pretty layer" - my words, not Fred's!

The new railing.

Andy's brilliant idea, a gate to keep dogs out of the way during outside parties.

The stack of black things in the background is our old, wrought iron fence.  I'll be repurposing  it elsewhere.

One last picture of the dog - unable to get to the busy street we live on.  Success!

Thanks for stopping by.  For those of you who live in the area, an Open House is on the way.  We just need to schedule the appraiser and have some sun for a few days so the exterior can get painted.

KTV

A Couple of Steps Forward.

We are doing it!  Slowly but surely, this project of a house is coming together.  It's all very exciting...and very exhausting.  For me, the most exhausting thing is the looming cloud of an Assessor.  I don't think of myself as a perfectionist, but I really hate for someone to tell me, "It's not good enough".  Believe me when I tell you, a lot of prayer has gone into overcoming this.  But a prayer battle is still a battle, and battles are exhausting.

I'm at a pretty good place with it right now.  I love and live in this house.  I'm not going to let fear of failure darken the joy of the process.

With that in mind, there is a lot to show you...none of it "done", but a whole lot more livable.

First, a few pictures of a portion of the "mess":

But the mess is worth it, because it means that we are finally turning the porch room into my art room! We've revealed the bead board ceilings, and all of the cheap paneling has come down.  We discovered some art work from the previous owners on the single dry wall:

Kind of cool to know the date of it all

This particular drawing caused me a LOT of difficulty later on.  Be careful what kind of markers you let your kids draw with!

This is the picture we found in the wall!  Kind of a cool time capsule we discovered, don't you think?

So, after the tearing out, Andy put up dry wall on the remaining 3 walls, and Josh and I "mudded".

I worked mostly on the corners.

This was Josh's first attempt at mudding, and he was great.  Andy and I left for a party, and Josh STAYED and worked a little on the room.  Isn't that wonderful?!

After this day, Andy left for New Mexico for several days (conveniently missing our massive "Winter Weather Storm").  I had plenty of warning that the storm was coming, so I stocked up on what I would need to work more on the room.

Now, I have to tell you we are not professionals, and there are A LOT of flaws in this little room.  Even so, it took me 4 days of hard work to get to this point.  I sanded the mud, re-mudded, sanded, re-mudded...that's pretty much what I did for the first 2 days.  Finally, I could prime it.  Everything was fine until I primed the "Time Capsule Art Work".  This is after 2 coats:

After 3:

Alright.  So, the art work helped me decide on the color for the room.  This is after 2 coats of THAT paint:

After the 3rd coat of paint (with primer included), I was finally  rid of the cute grinning dog and bunny!  The color is Behr Ultra Glass Sapphire.  It definitely sets my art room apart from the main traffic areas of the house.  Andy says it turns my "spice palette" into more of a sunset.

I bet you're wondering why there is a big, blank spot on the wall...well, we forgot to cut the drywall for the electrical outlet that is hiding behind this wall.  In the words of Charlie Brown, "Good Grief!"

This outlet hole was obviously a little off.  More on that later.

I'm off to the grocery store and work.  More later!

KTV

Isolation

I have been feeling pretty isolated lately, and pretty dry creatively.  These are not good feelings for anyone, and certainly not for me.  I know much of the reason is that the house takes up all of my free time, and most of my creativity right now.  And, we have had 2 snowstorms in the last week - everyone is probably feeling a little isolated.  Also, disarray calls out to the opposite of my better self - it calls out to the lazy slug in me...and sometimes I answer.

So, how do I stop feeling isolated?  I was given 4 opportunities this weekend...and I took all of them.

1.  I went to my yoga class.  I really love the way I feel after yoga, but it was hard for me to stop working on the house and drive to class.  I'm glad I did, because I came back in a great mood and REALLY able to stretch and bend and work on my art room.

2. I went to my first baby shower.  My friend Sasha is having her 2nd baby, and I celebrated with her and her friends and family.  Because I have lived such a different life style, I've never been around my friends when they were having showers, and it was fun to watch Sasha be the center of attention and receive so much love from people.

3.  I went to church, early, and talked to people.  I seldom miss Sunday morning service, but I usually show up in time for worship to start.  Today I was 30 minutes early, and got to really talk to 2 people I seldom have time to talk with.

4.  I welcomed someone into my mess.  I got a text on Saturday from a friend who hadn't seen our house yet.  Now, I always say that I love people to drop by and surprise me.  This was definitely a test for that, because our house was a MESS!   Not just a mess because my art room was emptied out into our dining room and living room, but dishes were unwashed, counters uncleaned, bed unmade, clothes on the floor.  I looked around, knew I wasn't going to have time to pick up a single thing, and welcomed her to come into our mess.  You know what, she THANKED me.  She didn't just thank me for showing her the house, she thanked me for letting her drop by and walk into the mess.

So, I'm feeling better today.  I'm excited about the work that's gotten done on the house, I feel like I'm part of the community, and I'm going away to a 3 day conference on Wednesday.  It'll be a 5 hour road trip with someone I'm looking forward to knowing a little better, and 3 days talking about Creative Arts Ministry.

Sometimes the answer is just a 2 degree shift away.

KTV