Monday update on the remodel....

Almost finished with the living room and sitting room today....he'll definitely finish tomorrow.  We may do some of the floor trim, too.

  I spent the morning painting the trim wood.  We're getting there!

Happy Birthday, Addie Wren!

We had a little celebration at our house on Sunday for Addie's first birthday!  So glad we got to see the whole family, including her grandparents, her mom and dad, and her aunt Katie! Jeff, Colleen and KT came out to help us celebrate.

She's starting to pull herself up on things and standing, walking along the furniture.  I predict she'll be walking before we know it.

Ella and KT had a great time, running all over the place! Those two girls have so much energy...whew!

Molly's Wedding Shower

We all got together on Saturday for a shower for niece, Molly, who is getting married in November.  I was so glad to get to see everyone, all the nieces and aunts, and meet some of her fiancee's family.  And Molly got some really great gifts - - she may have her kitchen all decked out!

 Sarah, Emily, Molly and Colleen

 Molly and three of her bridesmaids

 Molly and her mama!

 Sausage balls (what's a Texas shower without sausage balls?)

 Sarah made the best cheeseball with smoked turkey...I need this recipe!

 Colleen created this sign out front using KT's chalkboard! Very cute!

 Sarah made the little treat bags for all of the attendees...as in she sewed them all!

 Very pretty cake...Colleen ordered it from Cupcake Couture

Funny story!  Marshall's mom couldn't find her keys, but when Molly was opening her gifts, she opened the one from her and these keys were in the bottom of the bag! Molly said, "What!! You're giving us a car?!!!" What a good laugh we all had about that!

We all had such a good time. Looking forward to the wedding!

Fish guts....

My favorite son-in-law, Jeff, brought me THE BEST GIFT this past weekend!!  I got a small cooler full of fish heads and guts from their trip to the coast!!

I've been wanting them for my compost barrel, so they got added right away.  Okay, I'll admit...it smelled to high heaven for a couple of days, but we turned the composter every day and I added some new dirt, and the smell has totally gone now.
Yesterday I gathered some compost tea from the barrel and put it in the pepper plants.  Let's see how they like it.
If any of you go fishing, I'd like to ask for your trash fish and guts, please. See how easy I am to please!

We have a floor in the hallway!!!

Today I painted trim in the kitchen and John started installing the wooden floor in the hallway and part of the kitchen.

 He started at the entry way by the stairs.

 After the wood was laid down.

 The hallway!

Tomorrow we work into the kitchen and in the food pantry so we can put all this food away that's been in my laundry baskets for the past week and a half.  John has to make new shelves, I'll paint them, and then we can clear all of that out of the living room.  I cannot wait!

And in the garden....

I stole an hour from the day to plant a couple of the raised beds today....my sweet husband had added the new soil and sand for me earlier this week and had it all ready for me.  Whew! But it has to go in soon if I hope to see anything from this garden this fall.  I'm making it simple...one full bed of only one item each.  A simple plan this year.

Four more beds to go, so I'll have to make some time somewhere!

Remodel update....

The wood for the floors came in yesterday!  We're starting to lay them on Thursday.

Meanwhile, John had stained the stair railing, so we put that back up.

I love it.  Can you believe we've had that thing up since John had his heart surgery? Jeff and JR put it up for us while he was in the hospital, and it's been unstained ever since.

John has also begun prepping the floor and the stairs for the wood, there are a few places that needed some leveling. He also painted most of the doors white today while I was in town.
Tomorrow we're tackling the kitchen!

Mom on Tuesday, September 17th

Mom is not having a good week.  She's very sleepy and hard to rouse.  We're all keeping an eye on her.

Painting the stairwell....

Here's why I can't help with this....

Remodel Project Update....

Sorry I've been absent from the blog for a few days...we've been so busy!
First up, the floors all came up.  John took all that laminate to the county dump last weekend. And since we were having to do it anyway, we decided to go ahead and do the living room and sitting room, since we had planned on doing that anyway someday.  Looks like someday is here!
So this week, we started by moving everything out of the living room and painted the ceilings. They really needed freshening up.

Then we started on the walls, and the trim around the doorways and the crown molding which will all be white.

Next we painted the walls (the bead board) "Antique White".  It was fairly close to the color we already had in there, but a bit creamier then the other color.  Next came the fireplace.
I went with a bold color this time. Aren't I daring! ha!  I'm not sure about it right now. Sometimes and I like it, and sometimes I'm wondering what I was thinking.  The color is called "Royal Liquor", and it's a cross between brown and maroon.  We'll see...it's an easy thing to change if I get sick of it.

Then on Wednesday, John put up new white blinds in the living room while I was in town visiting mom, and he put the television back up (must have TV!)  We started moving everything out of the sitting room and got it ready for painting on Thursday.
Same colors in there -- same sequence: ceilings, walls and then trim.  It took us all day.  Exhausted! I'm thinking of putting the bookcase and chairs in there, along with the love seat, and making this a reading room/library area.

Today we worked on the hallway and the stairs.  John rolled the ceiling then started working on removing the old laminate from the stairs.  Oh my! It was glued on with liquid nails way back when, so getting it up was a chore! He had to run to town and buy a new tool to help get it up, but once he got back he made short work of it. Meanwhile, I spent the day finishing the ceiling, and painting the walls in the hallway.  Mostly "Antique White", but one wall is a contrasting color, "Stone Wall".  It's a soft green, sort of sagey olivey. It's not a good picture, but maybe you can get an idea of the color.

The house is a real mess, we have stuff stacked everywhere.  The flooring that we ordered is being delivered on Monday, so we can begin to put things back together a bit after its down.

More tomorrow.  I'm painting trim in the hallway and then the walls in the stairwell.  I'll have to have help there, there's a very tall ceiling in there and I'm absolutely no good on a tall ladder.  Shudder!

Supper Club, September 2013

We had a great time last evening having Thanksgiving in September!  The Hoyt's made a delicious turkey and we all brought the sides.  Some really delicious food, wine and some great conversation. We talked so much it was almost 11pm before we left...which is late for us!

 Mari is so creative! She took some turkey photos at their home in Wyoming recently, had them printed up and laminated for our placemats! So creative (not to mention some great photos!)

 Yeah, we killed all of these bottles....that sweet red from Llano was very good!

 Kathy and John L

 John and Mari H, our hosts

 John and I...sadly we were matchy matchy in our choice of shirts...not intentional, I assure you.

 The table was complete with a little turkey!

Garlic chives are blooming....

The house is in chaos....must remain calm.....

Water damage demands a complete overhaul of the downstairs.....I predict a couple of weeks of intense remodeling ahead.

 Removing carpeting....

 Removing laminate flooring....

Pulling up tacks and staples everywhere.....

What a hell of a week....

So this happened....

Doesn't this always happen....just when peace and calm is returning to your kingdom, and you think you have everything in hand, several projects planned, and the anticipation of fall in the air.....
I walked into the food pantry on Monday afternoon and splashed right through a puddle of water.

Double damn it!

"John, where in the heck did this water come from?"

He began tracking it down and discovered that our a/c unit was not draining properly, was completely full of condensation and was plugged up...and I mean totally! We found water under the laminate flooring all through the kitchen area and through the pantry, into the flooring under the stairwell.

"Eeeeuweeuuuuuuuuu!"

Once the cover was off the a/c unit, the smell came through loud and clear. Musty, mustiness!  I had to completely move everything out of the pantry, we had to move the fridge and everything we had in that corner of the kitchen so that we could vac up the water and begin drying the floors out. 

Of course, it was a holiday, so none of the companies that we had to reach were working.  Tuesday morning it was a call in to the insurance company ("The earliest we could have an adjuster out will be Thursday.") Well okay, then.  We'll be living with this mess for a bit longer, I guess.

The a/c company came out late Tuesday, around 7 pm, and gave us an estimate for repairs, etc. Yikes!!! But, what can you do, we have to have a/c in Texas.  So they came back today and we now have blessed cool air again.

Meanwhile....

John had already made several calls last week to siding companies because we desperately need to re-side the house.  The original siding is cedar and it's done the best it could over the past 27 years and several repaintings, but its time to go.  We've had a different siding company out on Tuesday, today, and one more tomorrow.  Estimates are running in the high $30Ks to the low $40Ks....a tad more then we had expected, but as I said, desperately needed.  So we're going to have one more estimate tomorrow, and the siding shall commence.  This is a big step for John...I want to commend him on actually letting someone else do work on his house.  

Meanwhile....

One of my tooth caps flipped out on Tuesday afternoon (was I grinding my teeth???) So this morning I found myself at the dental office getting that cap glued back in.  A bit of bright news in a gloomy week -- it only cost me $15.  Whooop!