Friday, July 20, 2012
Pretty Darn Lucky!
Monday was my last day on active duty. Now all I have to do is go to the nearest military base and get my ID changed to IRR. Tuesday Jake GOT A JOB!!!! He was out job hunting when he got a call from a placement agency saying they had a position open up and wanted to know when he could start. He went in to their offices, watched all the mandatory safety videos and filled out their paperwork and stared work on Wednesday. He is the materials handler for Saega Industries. They fabricate machines at this factory but Jake isn't working on the assembly line. Instead he receives all the materials and organizes where they go so when a particular department is out of a part they come to Jake and he gets it for them. They have not had anyone in this position for around 6 months so it was a rough first day getting all the inventory off the floor where it was in random piles. He is working on shelving it all and getting it in some sort of order. Its hot work (especially this week) since the factory is not air conditioned and there are a limited amount of fans. If everything goes well after his probationary period he will get a raise and be on a permanent status. We are so blessed to have found something this quickly and that it is something that he really enjoys doing. Now getting the house finished is up to me. : )
Monday, July 9, 2012
My To Do List
Just for fun I thought I would show my little reader world what my to do list looks like after 5 weeks of working on Peggy Sue. We have this list on a dry erase board in the living room at the moment so we can feel a sense of accomplishment when we have completed a task. At the end of the day we flop down on the couch exhausted and mark things off our list.
To Do List as of July 9, 2012
1. Paint Master Bedroom closet
2. Install underground dog fence (purchased and J.U.L.I.E. has been called - waiting for underground wires to be identified)
3. Paint Baleigh's toy box and puzzle shelf to match her room
4. Finish painting mail box (need more spray paint)
5. Clean out tool shed/spray hornets nests that have been established there
6. Instal post for my clothes line (this too will wait until underground wires are identified)
7. Finish skim coating kitchen walls after range hood is hung (will be completed this week)
8. Finish painting kitchen walls (after they are skim coated/patched/ after the range hood is hung) : )
9. Hang remaining cupboard doors (waiting for floors to be layed so they don't bang up my labor of love that are those cabinet doors.)
10. Level Floor in fireplace room
11. Lay floor (after it is leveled) in kitchen, dining room, frunch and fireplace rooms
12. Fix bathroom ceiling - need to find a good tutorial on how to do this
13. Instal Dog door in the back door
14. Make curtains for every room but the bedrooms (after I pick out fabric and room colors)
15. Hang family photos in the family tree
16. Hang trim around kitchen window (after the walls are skim coated, painted and my range hood is installed.
17. Paint inside of front door (decide on a color)
18. Paint outside of back door (after I get more paint)
19. Frame my grocery list chalk board (after i choose a trim)
20. Finish last coat of stain/sealer on coffee table
21. New trim for around AC unit
22. Paint trim white in master bath
23. Skim coat dry wall on header in kitchen
24. Scrub all ceiling fans in house
25. Paint ceiling in fireside room white
26. Scrape caulk off of shower walls.
That's what it looks like today. Who knows what will be on it tomorrow. I see new projects every day and they get added to the list. I could not be happier with what we are doing right now. This is what I love doing. If I had just a little more knowledge and a few more tools I think I could do this for a living.
To Do List as of July 9, 2012
1. Paint Master Bedroom closet
2. Install underground dog fence (purchased and J.U.L.I.E. has been called - waiting for underground wires to be identified)
3. Paint Baleigh's toy box and puzzle shelf to match her room
4. Finish painting mail box (need more spray paint)
5. Clean out tool shed/spray hornets nests that have been established there
6. Instal post for my clothes line (this too will wait until underground wires are identified)
7. Finish skim coating kitchen walls after range hood is hung (will be completed this week)
8. Finish painting kitchen walls (after they are skim coated/patched/ after the range hood is hung) : )
9. Hang remaining cupboard doors (waiting for floors to be layed so they don't bang up my labor of love that are those cabinet doors.)
10. Level Floor in fireplace room
11. Lay floor (after it is leveled) in kitchen, dining room, frunch and fireplace rooms
12. Fix bathroom ceiling - need to find a good tutorial on how to do this
13. Instal Dog door in the back door
14. Make curtains for every room but the bedrooms (after I pick out fabric and room colors)
15. Hang family photos in the family tree
16. Hang trim around kitchen window (after the walls are skim coated, painted and my range hood is installed.
17. Paint inside of front door (decide on a color)
18. Paint outside of back door (after I get more paint)
19. Frame my grocery list chalk board (after i choose a trim)
20. Finish last coat of stain/sealer on coffee table
21. New trim for around AC unit
22. Paint trim white in master bath
23. Skim coat dry wall on header in kitchen
24. Scrub all ceiling fans in house
25. Paint ceiling in fireside room white
26. Scrape caulk off of shower walls.
That's what it looks like today. Who knows what will be on it tomorrow. I see new projects every day and they get added to the list. I could not be happier with what we are doing right now. This is what I love doing. If I had just a little more knowledge and a few more tools I think I could do this for a living.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
More Updates To Peggy Sue
I am going to work backwards on this post and try to remember all the things we have done since my last post.
1. Today I got up at 4:30 AM because I couldn't sleep for some reason. I ended up watching YouTube videos for about and hour and a half. What type of videos you might wonder? How to skim coat walls. That's what kind. Our kitchen is ready to be skim coated and I didn't want to have to pay someone or wait for my dad to come over and do it for me. So At 7 AM Bean and I were in the car on the way to Grandpa and Grandma's to pick up some required tools. Grandpa hooked us up with everything we needed to get started and we were home by 8AM. I wanted to practice in an area that wouldn't see much of the light of day- Behind the fridge ( or where the fridge will go when we move it out of the dining room) was the area we settled on.
According to YouTube you can coat over wallpaper- WRONG!!! I got about a 1' x 2' area done when it started to bubble- 20 minutes later I had sponged down the rest of the wall and scraped off the offending bubbles along with all the other bits of wallpaper. It went fairly smoothly after that. I completed that area and then I did behind the stove. Both came out very well but I want to sand them down after they are dry to make sure I did it right - prior to completing the rest of the kitchen that people will actually see.
2. Removing drywall 101. Let Jake do it. : ) Jake measured out what parts of the drywall needed to be removed and took it all out yesterday. He scored it with a razor knife and it came off in large hunks. I took the pieces out to our refuse pile (all the things we are removing from the house that can not be re-used.) behind the garage. By the time he was done removing the drywall all we had to do was sweep up and run the vacuum. It really opened up the area only having exposed studs blocking the view- giving us a new perspective of what our house will look like in about 4-6 weeks.
My brother Caleb came by today to look at the wiring as he is going to be our resident electrician here next week. All my other electrically inclined brothers are far to busy to come and take time off work / away from family to re-wire our house. Its pretty impressive what my baby brother can do.
3. Painted a mural. Sort of. I got up early one morning last week and painted a giant tree on our dining room wall. The plan is to place photos of our families in the branches of the tree and it will be our "family tree". I know its bragging to talk up my own skills but even I was impressed at how well the whole thing turned out. it really looks pretty professional. I guess I still have a little artist in me.
4. Painted the "frunch room". We are calling it a frunch room because years ago Jake read me a piece about how you know you are from Chicago if... and one example was if your mom ever told you to go sit down in the "frunch" room (Front room). For some reason that really resonated with us and now we have a front room. For my birthday I wanted to paint the frunch. We went in to Farm and Fleet and picked out the paint for that and the dining room and we picked Sulpher Green. I like to think of it more as a warm country green. Its very soothing and looks so amazingly nice with our "new" furniture. We inherited some furniture from Jake's mom because she was moving to a smaller place this month. We had to drive to Chicago to get it and help her disassemble all her other furniture but then it was ours. The "new" couch looks so lovely in our green frunch and we finally started hanging some wall art. Jake's favorite paining "The Singing Butler" looks so nice hanging there as well. The eventual plan is to put the TV in the fireplace room but until then we have it in the frunch.
5. Jake assembled my grill. That was my birthday present this year. I wanted a grill the entire time we were in TX and for my birthday this year Menards had a great sale combined with a rebate so we walked away with a great grill for an even better price. Jake and I agreed that the reason it was so cheap was because it was so dang difficult to put together. But he is amazing and it is so shiny and pretty. My birthday present from my dad was a tank(full) to go with my grill. AWESOME!
We went over to my parents the day after my birthday to celebrate. We had BLTs and Angle Strawberry Dessert ( way better than just cake) for dinner and then just hung out for a while. My bestie Katie came up the following Friday to take me out to the movies. It was a great weekend!
6. We painted the laundry room and decided to see what was under the nasty carpet- tile! Once again, who does that? We ended up tearing up the carpet in both bathrooms as an encore to the laundry room. Same tile under it all. At least I feel like I can get the floors "clean" now and there was so much mold on those rugs. Lots of bleach water was used to kill it all and it looks amazing now. We will be recovering these rooms in the near future but until then this will be an adequate fix.
7. Jake has cut firewood to his heart's content. He chopped down several trees and bushes we didnt' want and took the brush and separated it from the real wood and it is all cut and stacked on the back part of our property ready for a campfire once the weather breaks and we get some rain. We are under a no burn order right now.
8. Jake tore off the ugly facade that was on the fireplace and we are debating whether to keep it or not. I like the idea of a fireplace but the practicality of it as well as the placement are not ideal. We will see on this project.
9. Painted Thor's Orange Stripe around his room. This was a major undertaking and one that I think came out so well due to Jake and my amazing teamwork. He applied the painters tape while I held the level - then while he painted I smoothed out the tape against the wall about 6-10 inches in front of him so that it stuck in all the little textured areas. This way we got the cleanest line possible on a textured surface. My dad who has painted all his life even said we did a really good job. That felt good. : ) It also helped that Thor thinks its awesome.
That is all I can think of right now but we are busy every day from the time we get up until the time we put the kids down for the night. We seem to be getting the earwig situation under control- I only kill about 4-5 a day in the house now and that is a HUGE improvement to the dozens we were killing every day when we moved in. I realize now why my dad said I had bitten off more than I could chew when I said I wanted to be done with the house in a month. Now my goal is 2 months. I am a firm believer in doing most things myself and when the big part (taking down the walls and leveling the floor) are done I think Jake and I can do the rest ourselves. I am thankful every day for a talented family who is able to assist us in this major undertaking. We couldn't do it without them.
1. Today I got up at 4:30 AM because I couldn't sleep for some reason. I ended up watching YouTube videos for about and hour and a half. What type of videos you might wonder? How to skim coat walls. That's what kind. Our kitchen is ready to be skim coated and I didn't want to have to pay someone or wait for my dad to come over and do it for me. So At 7 AM Bean and I were in the car on the way to Grandpa and Grandma's to pick up some required tools. Grandpa hooked us up with everything we needed to get started and we were home by 8AM. I wanted to practice in an area that wouldn't see much of the light of day- Behind the fridge ( or where the fridge will go when we move it out of the dining room) was the area we settled on.
 |
| before wallpaper removal and skim coating |
 |
| After skim coat completed- needs to be sanded yet |
According to YouTube you can coat over wallpaper- WRONG!!! I got about a 1' x 2' area done when it started to bubble- 20 minutes later I had sponged down the rest of the wall and scraped off the offending bubbles along with all the other bits of wallpaper. It went fairly smoothly after that. I completed that area and then I did behind the stove. Both came out very well but I want to sand them down after they are dry to make sure I did it right - prior to completing the rest of the kitchen that people will actually see.
2. Removing drywall 101. Let Jake do it. : ) Jake measured out what parts of the drywall needed to be removed and took it all out yesterday. He scored it with a razor knife and it came off in large hunks. I took the pieces out to our refuse pile (all the things we are removing from the house that can not be re-used.) behind the garage. By the time he was done removing the drywall all we had to do was sweep up and run the vacuum. It really opened up the area only having exposed studs blocking the view- giving us a new perspective of what our house will look like in about 4-6 weeks.
My brother Caleb came by today to look at the wiring as he is going to be our resident electrician here next week. All my other electrically inclined brothers are far to busy to come and take time off work / away from family to re-wire our house. Its pretty impressive what my baby brother can do.
3. Painted a mural. Sort of. I got up early one morning last week and painted a giant tree on our dining room wall. The plan is to place photos of our families in the branches of the tree and it will be our "family tree". I know its bragging to talk up my own skills but even I was impressed at how well the whole thing turned out. it really looks pretty professional. I guess I still have a little artist in me.
4. Painted the "frunch room". We are calling it a frunch room because years ago Jake read me a piece about how you know you are from Chicago if... and one example was if your mom ever told you to go sit down in the "frunch" room (Front room). For some reason that really resonated with us and now we have a front room. For my birthday I wanted to paint the frunch. We went in to Farm and Fleet and picked out the paint for that and the dining room and we picked Sulpher Green. I like to think of it more as a warm country green. Its very soothing and looks so amazingly nice with our "new" furniture. We inherited some furniture from Jake's mom because she was moving to a smaller place this month. We had to drive to Chicago to get it and help her disassemble all her other furniture but then it was ours. The "new" couch looks so lovely in our green frunch and we finally started hanging some wall art. Jake's favorite paining "The Singing Butler" looks so nice hanging there as well. The eventual plan is to put the TV in the fireplace room but until then we have it in the frunch.
5. Jake assembled my grill. That was my birthday present this year. I wanted a grill the entire time we were in TX and for my birthday this year Menards had a great sale combined with a rebate so we walked away with a great grill for an even better price. Jake and I agreed that the reason it was so cheap was because it was so dang difficult to put together. But he is amazing and it is so shiny and pretty. My birthday present from my dad was a tank(full) to go with my grill. AWESOME!
We went over to my parents the day after my birthday to celebrate. We had BLTs and Angle Strawberry Dessert ( way better than just cake) for dinner and then just hung out for a while. My bestie Katie came up the following Friday to take me out to the movies. It was a great weekend!
6. We painted the laundry room and decided to see what was under the nasty carpet- tile! Once again, who does that? We ended up tearing up the carpet in both bathrooms as an encore to the laundry room. Same tile under it all. At least I feel like I can get the floors "clean" now and there was so much mold on those rugs. Lots of bleach water was used to kill it all and it looks amazing now. We will be recovering these rooms in the near future but until then this will be an adequate fix.
7. Jake has cut firewood to his heart's content. He chopped down several trees and bushes we didnt' want and took the brush and separated it from the real wood and it is all cut and stacked on the back part of our property ready for a campfire once the weather breaks and we get some rain. We are under a no burn order right now.
8. Jake tore off the ugly facade that was on the fireplace and we are debating whether to keep it or not. I like the idea of a fireplace but the practicality of it as well as the placement are not ideal. We will see on this project.
9. Painted Thor's Orange Stripe around his room. This was a major undertaking and one that I think came out so well due to Jake and my amazing teamwork. He applied the painters tape while I held the level - then while he painted I smoothed out the tape against the wall about 6-10 inches in front of him so that it stuck in all the little textured areas. This way we got the cleanest line possible on a textured surface. My dad who has painted all his life even said we did a really good job. That felt good. : ) It also helped that Thor thinks its awesome.
That is all I can think of right now but we are busy every day from the time we get up until the time we put the kids down for the night. We seem to be getting the earwig situation under control- I only kill about 4-5 a day in the house now and that is a HUGE improvement to the dozens we were killing every day when we moved in. I realize now why my dad said I had bitten off more than I could chew when I said I wanted to be done with the house in a month. Now my goal is 2 months. I am a firm believer in doing most things myself and when the big part (taking down the walls and leveling the floor) are done I think Jake and I can do the rest ourselves. I am thankful every day for a talented family who is able to assist us in this major undertaking. We couldn't do it without them.
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