Progress! Progress! Progress!

As many of you know, home improvement schedules must be flexible and tasks are often completed more slowly than one hopes. The good news is that our floors are being installed on time!! Ryan Williams, the man installing the floors, said he would begin today, and he did. Feel free to jump around in your chair and cheer. I am.

(Yes, I am responsible for the deforestation of a small forest.)

This is one of the piles of flooring that was delivered on Friday. The piles of flooring got me excited, and I can hardly wait to go over and see the floors this evening. Hopefully, they will get most of the installation done today. They will come back tomorrow to sand and put on the first layer of stain. 

While Ryan Williams stuck to his schedule, the rest of us have fallen slightly behind. We were hoping that before the floors were installed, we would get the walls and ceilings painted. As you can tell from the strip of wall that is visible above the pile of wood, this plan was a little overly ambitious. The walls did not get sprayed. BUT, the ceilings did! (For sanity and morale, it is important to focus on the positive)

This is the ceiling in the dinning room. This is the only room that had crown molding, and we were able to prime it while we sprayed the ceilings. I wish we had a picture of the ceiling pre-paint so you could see the comparison. Just use your imagination and picture a swatch of ceiling that is slightly yellow (or if you have not painted your ceilings in the past 10 years, just look up). 

With the ceilings painted and the floors going down, things are really beginning to move. Hopefully, we will make our June 1st move-in date. Fingers crossed.

Tune in tomorrow for more flooring progress and to see the project I will be tackling this week.

Happy Monday!

Figs-Strawberries?

A couple of months ago, Michael and I purged our tiny house of a lot of unnecessary clutter. We got rid of boxes and boxes of stuff that we do not use and do not need. There is a real sense of triumph when you are able to cart off a good mountain of clutter. I instantly felt less encumbered.

One item that did not get carted off was this recipe box.

I do not know how old the box is, but it is metal and has been used enough that the paint is coming off some of the edges. Also the box was made in the United States so… obviously it is from a different era. Getting back to the point though, the box is full of hand written recipes cards, and ones clipped from newspapers or torn out of magazines. NOT A SINGLE CARD IS BLANK!

I love the box, and I am amazed at the amount of time someone put into collecting and writing out these various cards. I was shocked when I found it at a flea market. 

As my husband and the helpers at Goodwill can attest to, I am not a pack rat or a hoarder of things. I will happily throw away pictures (my father almost has a coronary at the mention of this) and give away gifts that I do not use (sorry family), but I could never part with something like this. This is a family's history. 

One of the cards has a recipe titled "Figs- Strawberries". This is obviously in a shorthand that only the writer and those close to her would get (I think it is also fairly obvious she has exceedingly different taste than me. I take my figs in a newton and no other way.)

In case you can not read it, the recipe calls for 2 cups of figs, 2 cups of sugar, and 4 boxes of wild strawberry jello.

Somewhere someone is talking about the weird fig jello recipe so-and-so used to make; much the way my parents talk about the corn cakes my grandmother used to make. They can't replicate them and other recipes are not the same and my grandmother is no longer around to ask. 

For me, these recipes are traditions that should be passed down. So while I will never make "Figs-Strawerries", I will keep this person's box, simply because to me it deserves the respect of not being at the flea market. 

I hope everybody has a great weekend, and now I think maybe I will make this just to see what it is. 

Snow!? No.

All of those who have sanded sheetrock mud, please raise your hand. Those with your hands raised can sympathize with me, and those of you with your hands down (for reasons other than you were too self conscious to participate) are lucky -- this is a job you should continue to avoid at all costs.

Sanding is nice in one way because you instantly can feel improvement in the wall's surface. In all other ways this is a pretty awful job. Here is why…

Can you see that fine white powder that is sitting on top of the chair rail? Good. Now, imagine it coated all over you. Not good. That is sanding sheetrock mud in a nutshell.

On Tuesday, I went around mudding the gauges and nail holes and nicks that were marring the sheetrock. I then let the mud dry overnight, and I sanded all of these spots on Wednesday. Sheetrock mud was also my solution to all of those lines of glue that were causing me such aggravation last week (you can read about that here).

I enhanced the picture a little to make the glue more yellow and visible. This glue was stuck at every place where there had been a seam in the wall paper. When sanding the glue off did not work, my dad suggested mudding over the glue and then sanding. The wet mud would either loosen the glue, making it easier to sand off, or would cover up the glue and allow me to make the surface smooth.  The Old Man was right. 

These walls were pretty easy as far as mudding goes. Find a gauge, hole, or nick. Sand rough edges off. Put mud on your knife. Smooth mud onto gauge, hole, or nick. Scrape off excess mud. Dry. Sand until smooth. For those visual learners among us, you can scroll through the next few pictures. 

I have never felt a baby's bottom, but I would wager these walls are as smooth as one. 

(every line of white mud is where a seam of wallpaper glue was and represents about a gallon of white dust that was left behind)

Overall, a job well done. Now I can devote some time to clearing out my nasal passages (the dust does not only get all over you, but it also gets all in your nose).

Have a great Thursday!

" Is Inches

Now that I am a homeowner, I spend a significant amount of my time looking at things I want to buy for my house. When I am not looking at things I want to buy, I am sleeping. I am not one of those pregnant women who are full of energy. I sleep A LOT!

I think this light fixture would be great in the dinning room or it would look really dinky.

I really love this sofa, this rug and this pouf.

While I spend a good amount of time picking these things out (and even research the quality of the materials used), no one should expect to see them in my house any time soon. This has to happen first.

Yesterday, I was picking out countertops. I knew exactly what I wanted. Butcher block countertops in cherry with a varnique finish. I found them too! FOR ONLY $102!!! Finally, something I could afford.

I was ready to order. I just wanted to check with my dad to make sure 12 feet would be enough. When he got home, I was telling him all about them and the lengths they were available in: 6 feet, 12 feet, 18 feet…

I am sure you can tell where this is going. He was doubtful from the beginning and disbelieving after 6 feet. That is when the light bulb went off for me… " is inches, not feet. My countertops cost $102 per foot. So, I am back to praying for this.

In the meantime though, I am still going to pick out everything that I want. Hmm… I haven't looked at chairs for the living room!

Happy Monday! (or it will be once you watch the video at the end of the post)

Running a tad later than normal today. I have quickly learned, when you do not have a regular job, Mondays become your catch-up day. Monday is now when I do all of my errands that I used to do on the weekends. Now, I can savor having accomplished so much all in one morning.

We had a very busy weekend in our household. As I mentioned on Friday, my sister and dad were working a booth together at the Indie South Fair.

This is Mary Frances in the booth. She and her friend made all of the pottery and my dad made the red cabinet behind her. Michael and I went over Saturday afternoon, after all the work had been done, and had dinner with everyone. Athens is really quite the charming town. 

We also worked over at The House. MORE round-upping had to be done. Some of those weeds are persistent critters. I also worked on more of the wall-paper. I will have a full post on the new developments in that department tomorrow. Of course, we took our trusty helpers to the house with us to work. 

Cooper likes for him and Macy to sit on the same side of the backseat. She would rather not. 

And on a side note, I read this on Friday. 

And my mother-in-law shared this on Facebook over the weekend.  Super cute. 

Hope everyone is having a great Monday!!

"Funny thing about weekends…"

"… when you're unemployed. They don't quite mean so much, except you get to hang out with all your working friends."     -- Today's musical quote is courtesy of Primus.

I hope all of you working folks are looking forward to the upcoming weekend. I am looking forward to spending time with the Hubbie and also the rest of my family, including that sister that lives in Athens! The Indie South Fair is taking place in Athens, GA this weekend, and my talented sister and dad will be selling some of their wares. All those available should come by. I will of course be supporting them with my presence, and I also hope to knock out some more work at The House (I believe our undertaking is big enough that it now warrants capital letters).

As an update, we are continuing to work on preparations for painting (you may read about how that is progressing, here) and hardwood floor installation. -- I hope to complete the rest of the sheet rock work this weekend!

One task that is complete is the removal of the trim. ALL of the baseboards and door jams had to be taken down because with the layer of particle board gone, and the disparate heights of hardwood and carpet, the trim would have been at the wrong level once things were all said and done.We also decided to go ahead and take it up before floor installation so that the floor installers could easily get the hardwood in place and would have one less thing to work around.

This pile is one of two cased openings. In addition there are, ten door jams, three bedrooms, the living room, dinning room and hall worth of baseboards to be removed. In order to keep this from being a 1000 piece puzzle at the end, I have bundled each rooms trim and marked it with an appropriately clever title. 

(by 'appropriately clever', I meant clear and predictable)

For any readers out there who may be faced with such a chore, stay tuned. For those who will never face this task or are already familiar with it, you may skip to the cute picture and anecdote at the end.

For trim removal all we needed was a pry bar, a hammer and a pair of blue snips (a the more technical name -- pliers, but I don't use this). If we had been removing painted trim, we also would have needed a box knife to cut the caulk. Alas, we caught a break on that one. Below is an action shot…

Next you just use the snips to pull the nails through the trim in the same direction they were shot into the trim -- this keeps you from making further marks on the face of the trim. Below is a picture of me pulling nails out the wrong way, notice the craters I have made on the face of the trim at the base of the nail (I had already completed a whole room's worth before I realized this was the wrong way).

So, don't do it the pictured way. You also want to remember to only use the pry bar where the nails are at in the trim. This means that you will be using the stud behind the sheetrock for leverage, instead of just sheetrock, and you will avoid putting huge holes in your sheetrock as you pry the trim loose. 

In conclusion… isn't Macy cute. She likes to climb up behind me and stand in the chair I am sitting in so she can be close and look out the window. This was taken with the laptop camera while I wrote this. 

Have a great weekend!!! 

"You've got to know when to hold'em, Know when to fold'em, Know when to walk away…"

(Imagine Kenny Rogers singing the title to you for an instant mood lifter.)

For me, some DIY home projects are more emotionally grueling than physically taxing. I like projects that push me physically. I always feel a great sense of accomplishment from pushing myself to complete something that was not easy and enjoy the muscle fatigue that comes afterwards. These provide their own high. Today though, I am not working on such a project. There is no muscle fatigue, or sense of 'WOW! Look what I did'. Today, there is just monotony and dust and minuscule progress. Today, I am working on paint prep and after an hour, I was ready to boo-boo.

As I have already shared with y'all, I have been working on removing the wallpaper. Removing wallpaper was not bad. I could immediately see my progress as I went around the room and when I was done, the room looked dramatically different. Task Complete. The walls were paper free! Many 'Excellent job. Well done, Emily.' were handed out from me to myself. BUT… then came the next step. The sheet rock was pretty banged up. This originally did not bother me because I was on wallpaper-removal, and I was not concerned about all the gauges and glue residue that were left behind. Now I am crying (usage is more literal than figurative) a different tune. The picture below shows some of the sorry shape of the sheet rock.

Every gauge has to be smoothed out and all the glue residue, which is the darker yellow lines, has to be sanded so that it texturally does not stand out. This is all in preparation for the painting that will come next. I do not have all of the pictures to show you the vast quantity of sanding that needs to be done. I was to over whelmed to take pictures. Below is the tool I was using to sand. I spent an hour sanding this morning and am not even half way through with the dinning room. 

After the hour mark, I had to sit down to regroup. Regrouping did not go so well, and I ended up leaving. These tedious and seemingly never ending projects are the ones I struggle with the most. In my head I know that I just have to stick with it, and my hard work will pay off. I will finish and when we paint, I will be glad that I put in the time to do a good job. I know all of this. But today… I just can't believe those things. 

Sometimes, the best way to handle a project is to walk away. So for today, I am not worried about all of the sanding. It will be there tomorrow, and I will tackle it then, more motivated to do the job needed. And until then… I will do other things.

 I hope everyone has a great Thursday.