UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Harrison's Room

2009-11-07T12:54:00.001-08:00

We got Harrison a new toddler bed, which he actually sleeps in now (for a while he was falling asleep in the rocking chair in his room) and I finally finished his bedding in August.

I looked everywhere for Robot fabric. But since my local options are very limited I found nothing and had to look on line. And still most of the stuff I found was the wrong color scheme. So when I stumbled across this rocket fabric series (called "Rocket Scientist") in the color I was looking for, I snatched it up. I "quilted" it on my sewing machine, using the only fancy stitch my machine has - which is a big zig-zag - And did horizontal lines strait across every couple of inches. Good Enough. Finished it with black binding, made a pillowcase and voila!

And I know. I am probably committing some huge designing faux pas by mixing my decor like this. His room now has robots AND rockets. I like to walk on the wild side!

Oh, let's see. I also better tell about this little picture I made, since it tickles me so much.

I wanted to do something to picture all the most famous robots through history, and a time-line seemed like the best way to go. I bought this frame with a time-line in mind, found pictures of all these robots online and traced them. I had it matted at Michael's to finish it off, but next time I think we can find a cheaper alternative, like THIS.

And, that's all.

Ode to a Bed.

2009-11-01T12:56:00.000-08:00

Well, my two year old figured out how to climb out of his crib sometime in August. I actually thought this day might not ever come. He is very little. The crib walls still come up to his armpits. I thought we were safe. But one night we put him to bed, grabbed the baby monitor and went to work in the yard. And when we came back in the house an hour later he was wandering around the living room! He had not only figured out how to escape, but he had also done it without making any noise at all.

So, obviously, it was time. I wanted to go out and get him a bed, but Richard said he wants to build one. That is fine. It will no doubt be very awesome. Whenever he actually gets around to it. Someday.

We put his little mattress on the floor, but I thought the whole GOING TO BED thing might be more effective if it looked more like a bed, so I convinced Richard to let me get a little something, just until he has time to do his building. So I found a cheap little metal thing on KSL and made it mine!! Then I bought a can of spray paint at the local 5 and dime, and got to work. And I learned things about painting a bed that I didn't know before. And I want you to know them too. So HERE:

Obtain a bed. You might think that this step goes without saying, but let's stay on the safe side, and say it anyway. Just in case. And don't spray paint the mattress. We're talking about the bed frame here. Again, this should be a given, but I find it is safest to cover all our bases. And despite how this bed looks, it definitely needed a paint job. It is the sun, and not the bed's intrinsic beauty making it glow like that.
Sand away any rough patches and imperfections on the bed frame. Lightly sand any existing paint so that new paint will stick to it. This only took me about 30 minutes to do. It would have been even faster, but I sanded for about 15 minutes using the wrong side of the sand paper, so I had to do it over again.
Use the right side of the sand paper.

As much as possible, work out on your front porch or in the front yard so that your neighbors and passersby will think you are a hard worker. Dramatically wipe your brow from time to time so that they will take pity on you and offer you a cold glass of lemonade.
Protect those surfaces you DON'T want painted. I laid a sheet of plywood down so that I wouldn't get paint all over the ground. Our "Lawn" is pretty (see fig. 1), and must be protected at all cost.
Just Go For It: This was really my first time spray painting. (Not counting back in the day, when I used to spray paint things under the overpass, like "Modest is the Hottest" and "Have you see my Cat?" and things like that.) But I figured I really couldn't mess it up. What could be easier? All I had to do was press a button and wave my hand around. And I've been doing that with the TV remote for years!
Do 2 or more LIGHT coats: About 3 minutes into it I realized that I COULD mess it up and I probably already had. That stuff coats fast and it will start dripping down the sides before you know it. That is when you thank your lucky stars that you only paid $15.00 for this silly bed and it really doesn't matter that much!!!
Overestimate. I figured it would take me about a half a can of spray paint to do the bed, and planned to have enough left over to paint a little set of table and chairs as well. I was wrong of course. It took me a little less than 4 cans of spray paint. And because I kept figuring that SURELY this can would do it, I had to go back to the store 3 times. Argh!

But now it is done! The little boy is thrilled which is worth every minute spent. And if we stay a nice comfortable distance away it really looks pretty good. And with the white sheet and pillow on it it reminds me of a bed in a mental institution. Which is rather fitting.

Welcome home, Bed.

The New Shed: So Far

2009-10-19T22:34:00.000-07:00

You might be surprised to learn that not only did we plan to build a new shed, but we actually started building it. I think Richard started on September 19th.

Leveled the ground. Placed cinder blocks and gravel as supports. Leveled some more. Built floor. Built trusses for roof. Built walls. Put the walls up.

I'm pretty sure Harrison liked it better without any walls. I know the local cats did. Every time I looked outside there was a different cat sitting right in the middle of the floor, like it was sitting on a throne.

On Saturday, 10/17/09, Faralee and Charlie came and helped us put the trusses up. And thank goodness they did, because we never could have done it by ourselves! Only a few things left to do!

Won't be too long now! It is supposed to snow this week which is going to put a cramp in things.

9/13/09

2009-10-19T22:32:00.000-07:00

For a while now we have been talking about building a new shed. The one we have right now is an aluminum shed that came out of a box. It has served us for 5 years. We put it up at night, in the pouring rain. I guess we were pretty desperate for a little storage space.
But we have out grown it. I wish I had taken a picture of it before. It was full to bursting. Holding the two mantles we pulled out of the house, a few huge bags of insulation, and a million other odd items.

Saturday, we decided it was time to clean the Shed out. And, in doing so, decide once and for all if we needed a new one. So we pulled everything out of it and separated it into categories:
Boy, this picture just doesn't do it justice. There was so much crap in there! And we got rid of quite a bit, but there was still all of this left.

Like this pile of gas-cans for instance. They say you can never have too many.

I'm not sure it is true though. They seem to be multiplying!

Here we have a pile of automotive bric-a-brac. Can I use that word when I'm talking about car stuff? I think the car lovers of the world might object. But too bad. I'm not even sure what most of this stuff is.

Then we have this:

Gee, do you think I have enough pots there?

And finally, some camping stuff. The one pile of crap that we actually use. Good for us!

Of course, that isn't everything, but you more than get the idea. We pulled all the stuff out of the shed and spread it all over the yard, grateful that it was such a sunny, cloudless day, so that we could leave it all out there for a while.

Then Richard hoisted the tin shed up on his massive forearms, and carried it across the yard. We want to build the new shed right where the old one was. The new one is going to be twice as big, and tall enough to stand up in. I'm pretty excited.

Elesa's Remodeling

2009-10-19T22:31:00.000-07:00

So, it may not be considered "remodeling" or "work", but I did it all by myself. First thing in the morning I hung up my broom rack. It is made to attach to drywall, but I really wanted it attached to the fridge. I wasn't sure how to do so, but finally thought of using these spiffy hooks that attach with double-sided tape.

And Voila!

Good Times.

Yeah, it has been a year

2009-10-19T20:10:00.000-07:00

I know.I would apologize, but that is sort of like apologizing to my diary for not writing often enough, so let's just move on.

OK, let's take stock of the house and just see where we are?

Last October, General Conference time, Richard put the last window in the Kitchen. Harrison helped.

Then we finally got back to the crawl space. We got it all dug out the summer of 2007, but didn't get back to it until the fall of '08. Richard had to do so much stuff down there. I couldn't even begin to tell you what. Cuz I don't really know. All I know is he spent every Saturday crawling around under the house and having himself a real swell time/hating life.

When it was ready for cement, Richard wheeled the gravel in by the wheel barrel full, pushed it up a ramp and dumped it through the window. So here it is, all gravel-covered:

Then we covered it with plastic and on Dec. 23rd we rented a cement mixer and poured cement in the crawl space by the shovel full. Good times. So here it is. Richard sealed the walls and then cemented them too. In this picture the floor has been put down in the room above and everything.

Laundry Closet - Sep. 08

2008-10-21T13:46:00.001-07:00

We have been so close to having all the plumbing done for a long time now. And then while I was at the General Relief Society Broadcast a few weeks ago Richard surprised me by getting everything hooked up and moving the washer and dryer upstairs. Hallelujah!! They have been in the Dining Room for years. And now they are in this little closet right outside my bedroom door. Could I ask for anything more?
This picture was taken right after they were installed. Notice we wasted no time in washing some clothes!

Basement - Summer '07

2008-10-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

The heater all this time was in the dining room. So we planned to move it under the house. The plan was to create a space for the heater and for some food storage. So we undertook the daunting task of digging out a little basement. Richard's dad, and my bro in law Charlie came and helped a Lot. It was so not fun. We pulled up all the floor boards, and then stood between the floor joists to dig. When Faralee was there she would help by watching Harrison. And we would have two diggers, putting their dirt in buckets, and then a bucket guy, who would empty the buckets into a wheel barrel and then dump it in a designated spot. For lack of a better place, that spot became some random location in the backyard, where we still have a huge dirt pile.

We dug and dug and dug. We were going to lay a cement floor for the heater/food storage space, and when we were almost done digging we ordered the necessary gravel and had it dumped in our front yard. Just before we were to get started on our concrete floor, it turned really cold - it must have been late August or Early September - and we knew we couldn't wait any longer to get our heater hooked up. So Richard hooked it up - We also replaced the parlor floor at this time - and we never got back to the basement.

Nursery - early 2007

2008-10-15T12:58:00.000-07:00

Harrison was due in December, so we started working to get his room ready. I don't know the dates on this. Harrison has sapped my documenting abilities. Probably started in Nov 06. Harrison came Dec 21, so when we had a little more energy we got back to it. Only thing I know for sure is that we painted in May 07. The blue was not what we wanted. It was a lot darker than we planned, so eventually Richard picked out a new color online, and went back to the store and bought some more. We tested a bit on the wall, and wouldn't you know, it was exactly the same color! I'm sure that says something about us subconsciously. I just resorted to mixing some white into it and that is the color on the walls now.

So this is before:

I know the picture hardly shows any of the room. But that is pretty much how it looked all the way around. We shortened the room some to put in a closet, and also have space to run the chimney from the fireplace, the vents for the heater, and all the pipes and electrical work.

And here is the room now. The robots have taken over, but hey! It comes complete with one very cute little boy!

The robot on the wall came from here. It was a download from a Creating Keepsakes magazine. I blew it up with an overhead projector, then traced it on the wall and painted it.

That dresser is the one Richard had in his bedroom growing up. Something about that just makes me happy. I sanded it, painted it, and put new knobs on it. And, since this is the Me show, I also put all the shelves in that wall nook all by myself. Hooray!

TOILET TIME - Sep '08

2008-09-10T15:29:00.001-07:00

The upstairs toilet is functional! Yippee! And we got one of them real fancy toilet seats that doesn't slam shut, but closes real slow. Ah, luxury. I should make it clear at this point, that the rest of the room is being used for storage for tools and such. But in that little corner, it's all bathroom to me.

When I am sitting at my computer, I can see it through my bedroom door. Sometimes I find myself just gazing at it. I is so beautiful.

9/4/08 - An Average Day

2008-09-04T23:00:00.000-07:00

Harrison woke up at 6:00 this morning and I tried to use The Force to get him to go back to sleep. It didn't work for me, so I had to go get him some water. Then he slept until 8:00 Yahoo! And then sweet, sweet Richard got up with him and let me sleep until 9:00. Wow. What did I do to deserve that? When I woke up Harrison was helping Richard make scrambled eggs. Which means Richard was holding Harrison and letting him sort of swing a wooden spoon around in the frying pan. He looked very pleased with himself. (Harrison, not Richard). We ate breakfast, and then I got Harrison and myself dressed so I could take him to his Grandma's house. She agreed to watch him so that I could run some errands and Richard could get some stuff done on the house.

Richard started gluing all the pipes he spent all day yesterday running, which means we can't use any water for 24 hours. Ah, just like the good ole days. Course, as soon as he told me that, I immediately had to go to pee. Darn!

Patched the new pants we bought for Richard. Don't really know why brand new pants need to come equipped with holes, but I guess that is the price you pay for fashion.

At 5:00 I had to go to the Stake Youth Swimming activity. The kids ate hotdogs and swam (after waiting a half hour, of course!) As leaders we didn't have to do anything. Just be there. At 8:00 the activity finally ended. It wasn't a waste though, because I was able to use the bathroom at the pool!

Got home about 8:15. Got to cuddle my cute sweet Harrison for a little while. It is a long day when I don't get to see him. Then I put him to bed. Somehow he knows exactly how to make it nearly impossible for me to change his clothes. He goes all limp and twisty so that it is impossible to take anything off or put anything on. Then I read him a story "That's not my monster" and put him to sleep. Or rather, in his crib with a couple of books. I still hear him in there making noise. I am going to have to make a trip to Macey's tonight to use the bathroom, and I am trying to talk myself out of getting a treat. Now Richard and I are going to watch some Dr. Who and go to bed. I can't wait to have a toilet up stairs!!

Plumbing and other invisible things - Summer '08

2008-08-29T13:13:00.000-07:00

Doing the Heat Ducts ourselves was no quick thing. I think he finished in the Spring. I don't help much anymore because of Harrison, so Richard just does everything alone.
So lately, and still, he's worked on plumbing and electrical. Everything has to be run through the walls around the fireplace, And lots of stuff has to be done under the house to be ready for such things. Just a couple weeks ago we got power run to Harrison's room. He had been on extension cords all this time. That was exciting. So, soon we will have all the electricity and all of the plumbing for the upstairs run. Hooray!

Heater - Fall '07

2008-08-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

The heater was hooked up under the house - after some unpleasant crawling around in the dirt by Richard - but there was never any heat upstairs. Everyone says (You've heard them say it, I'm sure) that duct work is an art, and wanting to have it done with, we got a quote to have a pro come in and build us the necessary heater ducts. They wanted $7000. We are cheap skate. I are bad write. So we decided that, science though it may be, Richard the Nerd would attempt it on his own. So he built the ducts himself. He is so clever!

He finished in Spring? '08

These pictures really don't do it justice. The stuff he spent the most time on is all under the house. But really, he did a great job, and became quite skilled at the art of Sheet Metal Craft! (Is that a thing? That could be a thing.)

Fireplace - First Week in Oct 06

2008-08-26T12:54:00.000-07:00

We had bought the fireplace at least a year before, and we were determined to have it working by Christmas. We thought the pipes could run through the existing chimney, but they didn't fit, so Richard had to build a new one. Well, not by himself. My dad, and brother in law Brad helped out quite a bit. Thanks!

Landing - May 06

2008-08-25T12:20:00.000-07:00

We tore out the wall upstairs and then framed in some walls. We'll have a laundry closet, a bathroom, and Bedroom in this space.

Stairs - Mar '06

2008-08-25T12:18:00.000-07:00

Richard took a week off work and we conquered the stairs. The original stairs were narrow and steep, and we tried for quite a while to figure out how would be best to lengthen them. We needed to be sure we would still have enough of a landing upstairs. Richard is very clever, so it is always nice when I come up with an idea that solves our problem. I suggested we knock out a doorway in the parlor, and extend the stairs through there. So that is what we did.

Dining Room - Jan '06

2008-08-25T12:16:00.000-07:00

Or something closely resembling a dining room. Sort of. We took out the wall dividing the room, put up a big ol' header, and then replaced half of the floor. We'll need to replace all the floors at some point.

Siding - Fall '04

2008-08-24T12:14:00.000-07:00

Sep - Oct 2004
I forgot something else. Fall of 2004 we put new siding up on the addition. We tore off the old ugly outside wall and replaced it with a newer ugly outside wall. The whole addition will have to be replaced someday, so it is all temporary.

Dining Room - 1

2008-08-23T13:29:00.000-07:00

7/31/04

I'm out of order. I know. Summer '04 we did a little work in the dining room. Faralee and Jessie helped a lot at this time. Oh, I just remembered that we gave them the dining room to decorate and design. I had forgotten about that. I don't even remember what some of the plans were. Originally, the dining room was shorter. There was a small doorway into the kitchen, and from the kitchen, a doorway into a little back room that was used as a laundry room; complete with super old Washing machine. which we got $50 bucks for at an antique store.

This right here is the spot where the addition was attached to the original brick house. Because the addition wasn't put on a foundation, at some point it started to sink a bit. As it fell, it tore the wallpaper, so the sweet lady living here decided to do some home improvement of her own.

In July '04 we tore the lathe and plaster off that dividing wall.

After the Master Bedroom

2008-08-04T22:22:00.000-07:00

Once we finished the Master Bedroom, progress became a lot less noticeable. I don't even remember what we did next. Perhaps I should ask the master. Ha! He doesn't know either. Bless me, I'm going to have to look it up. Hang on.

The Other Room

2008-08-03T22:57:00.001-07:00

I left out a whole room in my hurry. Right after we finished the bathroom, like right after we finished tiling the shower, we got a room ready for Faralee who would be staying with us when she got home from a mission in Taiwan. We got lots of help for that project. ( You can see it here with a few of the various and sundry items found around the house. I think they were all eventually deemed "Worthless Trash").

In a couple of weekends (from 3/27/04 to 4/4/04) we tore out the ceiling, scraped off all the old wallpaper, ran some quick wiring, and prepped and painted the walls. We needed to leave the ceiling unfinished, so they had a super neat exposed beam thing going on.

Boydell suffers from an irrational fear of paint, as you can see, so it was real nice of him to come out and give us a hand.

The Master Bedroom

2008-02-28T22:10:00.000-08:00

We were really so very fortunate to get so much furniture along with the house. The Realtor told us that the family had already come through the house and taken everything that they wanted, and then just left the rest behind. We kept hoping to find treasures, but it was almost all junk.

We had to rip out the ceiling in this room as well (we had to in every room) to put in insulation and run electricity. Tore off that wonderful wallpaper. No carpeting in here, just this linoleum area rug thing. The rug had been laid, and then the wood floor had been painted around the edges of the rug. And it is a plastic rug, there is no doubt about that.

You can see in the top photo that there is a chimney that ran between the windows, which we tore out and bricked up. We also had to brick up the doorway into the other upstairs bedroom (see photo at left). Originally, the only way into the other room was through this room, but we tore out another wall, and bricked this one up.
Also notice in this picture the light switch next to the door. There were no outlets or light switches, so channels had to be dug in the the walls (which are brick, remember), a conduit run for the wire, and then the whole thing mortared over. While the room was a construction zone we slept in a camper trailer in our back yard - for about 6 weeks. It is very windy here.

Richard did this cool little cathedral type effect to the ceiling, because he is awesome. We're planning to do all the trim work for the whole house when everything else is done.
And there you have it. Another room crammed full of stuff.
(June 2005 - September 2005)

The Living Room

2008-02-22T13:12:00.000-08:00

Then we decided it was time to work on the Living Room. We wanted somewhere to, um, live, and we wanted to soften the scare factor when people first walked into the house. Not that the wallpaper and the carpet you see here aren't lovely, but, you know.

First we tore out the ceiling so that we could run the wiring. Horrible messy business that is. Then we ripped off the wallpaper and pulled up the carpet. The walls are all brick covered with plaster, and we had quite a bit of plaster patching to do.

Then, of course, we ran all electrical wiring, drywalled the ceiling, painted the walls and ceiling and refinished the hardwood floor. As you can see we need to get some matching trim made, but for now I have cleverly arranged my furniture so the gaps in the trim don't show. Brilliant, right?

Finally we filled the room up with junk and started using it! Wow, there really is alotta stuff in there. In my defense though, this is just about the only room we have available for putting stuff, so.....11/13/04 - 2/8/05

More Kitchen Pictures

2007-11-13T08:06:00.000-08:00

The kitchen is in the addition that was built at the back of the house. So we knocked off the plaster on the walls to reveal the brick of the original back wall and used that for the backsplash as shown here.

Then I did a little mosaic thing behind the stove and bobs your uncle and there you go.

KITCHEN: Day 2

2007-11-12T10:06:00.000-08:00

When I just go straight to the finished product like this, you really don't feel the weight of the work that was involved. We had to rip everything out and start from scratch. Found the cabinets in the want ads for $100 dollars; Painted them and put new hardware on them. And we tiled the countertop for $1.00/sq. foot. Wow, we sound pretty awesome if I leave it at that! So I think I will.
(May 2004 - August 2004)

Coming Soon: The Kitchen!

2007-11-08T22:00:00.000-08:00

This picture was taken before we moved into the house. The kitchen was bad, but look! Free Cheese Grater!

We Started with the Bathroom

2007-11-05T21:43:00.000-08:00

That's not a curtain on the right wall. That's the wallpaper. Yeah. It was that awesome. All the pipes were completely rusted, so everything had to be torn out. When we pulled up the linoleum (is that what it was? I don't really remember anymore, and I'm sure not going to get up off the couch to go look it up in the album) we found a bath mat nailed to the floor underneath it. The floor boards were rotted - that old lady must have had some pretty wild baths in there! - and when we tore them up we found the joists were rotted too. So for a while the bathroom was just a hole in the ground. Well, we did all the stuff you do to a bathroom: ran plumbing, electricity, put in a floor, etc. (January 2004 - March 2004). It was a very exciting day when we got the shower in. It was our first tiling job, and as such looks ok. The bathroom is unfinished at this time, because as soon as it was functional we decided it was time to move on to more urgent projects (Painted May 2004).

2007-10-19T10:53:00.001-07:00

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