Room and Board

Do you know what this is?

Let me show you another picture...

That's right!  It's my dining room table!  I can't tell you how wonderful it was to sit down to dinner with my husband.  I've been trying to think of the last time we sat down to a meal in our home...I'm pretty sure it was mid-October.  It is now mid-January!  

For the past 3 months we have been switching out who sits on the low counter in the kitchen and who gets the one stool at the counter (when we didn't just take our dinner into the living room and sit on the couch)...2 chairs at the table are a much better option.

Do you like our $20 table?  Isn't it great.  This is the first time it's been set up since we bought it at a garage sale in October.  Mama knocked on the door of our rental house one Saturday morning and asked what we were doing.  She had seen this table and was pretty sure it was for us.  So we jumped into the truck and drove to check it out.  She was right, and we had about an hour of Keystone Cops as she and I drove around town trying to withdraw the $20 we needed and Andy took the table apart with the garage sale gentleman, loaded it into the truck, and then waited, waited and waited for us to get back.  He had a meeting to go to, so he drove there with the table in the back of his truck.  It was worth the hassle, though!

And,  I have to smile as I look at this picture.  Andy dusted the legs before he put the table together, and we went through the house dusting A LOT of things (including the tabletop) afterwards, but somehow neither of us thought to dust the side of the table.  

Now, I'm not surprised that I didn't think of it, but this picture sure shouts it out to you.  

Oh, and did you notice the walls?  Yes, the dining room is painted!  Yippee.  We still have to put up some trim, hang 2 cupboards and some pictures, and re-install a ceiling fan/light before I'm ready to do a big before and after blog.  But I wanted to let you see the color, Behr Ultra's Saffron Strands. I must admit I was very nervous as I painted.  I did this little wall first:

 Sidenote: I love my calendar this year.

The first coat left me thinking I was going to prime over it, head back to Home Depot and start the whole process over again (as it was, we made 5 trips to Home Depot that day).  But the second coat brought the richness and depth I was looking for. It works really well with their Moroccan Orange, which is in our kitchen. 

That's it.  We're working hard over here, and seeing progress.  Yay!  I love progress!

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

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.

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