Heaps of Blessings

I wasn't sure whether to title this post 'Heaps of Blessings' or 'be careful what you wish for.' Since the day I hooked up the scanner and got the program running, I've been pestering my sisters for the pictures from the house, not because I'm particularly interested in keeping all the family photos, but because I want to scan and save them to CDs so they can be easily distributed to as many family members as want copies.

I just came home from a week-long vacation to discover two overly-large boxes of jumbled photos, no rhyme or reason to any of it, not by dates, places or people. In fact, there's also a box of lasagna noodles and a basket lid in one of them. It's a wonderful treasure, but...O, gosh, the mess!

Here's one jewel before editing (Estal, Dale and Danny):

Another Phase Complete

They're just plain, white walls, but that was the goal! They're clean and crisp, and the foyer/stairwell area looks 10x brighter. I'm pleased and feel like I can open my front door to guests and family without cringing. Now I want to turn my thoughts to the ceiling.

In the meantime, I began dismantling my laundry room in an attempt to create a functional and comfortable workspace, so I have household cleaning equipment and supplies strung all over the downstairs hallways. It's quite a mess.

In there, I'm planning on stripping the damaged, linoleum floor, repairing the holes in the ceiling, removing the popcorn, reorganizing the storage shelves, adding a laundry-folding table (which can double as a sewing table), stripping the remainder of the wallpaper (in various states of adhesion), replacing missing trim and painting the walls. Pictures will ensue, I'm sure. *grins*

Catwalk

With gross disregard for life and limb, I constructed this catwalk to reach the top middle of the wall. Here are a few pics of the first coat of primer. The final color is white, too, just not as stark. It's slightly more buttery, Behr "toasted marshmallow" to be exact.

I finished the first coat of primer today, but I'm not sure what I'll be doing the rest of this week because the MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN THE WHOLE WORLD is flying in from NY tomorrow. I haven't seen him in so long, and I'm so happy he's coming.

Purchasing Doors and Windows

Remember the door Al broke? Well, I've been doing the research to buy three new ones.

Immediately, I eliminated Home Depot or any other independent source of doors, because I didn't want to deal with an assortment of retail people in trying to match doors with installers and warranties and financing. I had three companies into the house, Mid-America Exteriors, Renewal by Anderson and Pella.

Mid-America only had vinyl doors and windows, wanted me to put a mortgage on the house to finance it and tried to convince me that wood doors were crap.

Renewal had awesome, wooden doors, all kinds of options, warranties and service to die for, but they wouldn't tell me the price. Even when I had Al call them, they wouldn't provide an estimate. I was almost ready to go with them, but I wasn't about to give them carte blanche! How can you sell windows without telling people the price first?

Pella had great, wooden doors, warranties and service just as good as Renewal, although fewer options in styles. They do have, however, an attractive finance plan and--this was the kicker--they gave me an estimate.

I'll never know if the price is less or more than Renewal, because Renewal isn't telling!

So...Pella windows it is. Now I'm just taking some time to be sure I'm happy with my choices before I send the rep the exact details.

Pictures to come in a couple months!

Summer Home Repairs

Project today: Home Depot for paint for the foyer.






Yea, it's a 14 ft ceiling, and I have to paint around these doors, cutouts, trim, angles and 2 textured walls. My ladder is visible in one picture, the ladder with which I plan to make a catwalk and, most likely, break my leg.

I'm not doing a drastic color change, but after 12 years, 4 teenagers (with various cutting and projectile weapons labeled as "toys"), a walking cane and more than 8 dogs, all of them puppies at one point, it's past time for a refresher of this central artery of the house. I do NOT look forward to it.

The new paint job is only one of many projects we're looking at now that we're empty-nesters again. I already began ripping carpet out of the basement, harder than it seems, because the carpet tacks are nailed into concrete. Eventually, the upstairs carpet will have to go, and we'll need all new flooring. For now, we're enjoying the cool concrete in the basement while we get through a hot, Kansas summer.

Upstairs in the living/dining room, Alan tried to save money by replacing the worn, sliding door with the one that we never use. These doors, I should preface, have been the source of great annoyance for, at least, the past five years--that's how long the sliders have been worn to the point that I have to perform a Herculean feat every time I want to open it. And yet, I have to open it several times a day as ingress/egress for the dogs to the back yard.

To picture this properly, one should also know that one of these double pane doors is VERY heavy, heavy enough that I cannot lift one or--if you can imagine this--walk it corner by corner across a floor. Imagine if you can, Alan trying to lift these heavy doors out of the sliders (top and bottom), transport to the other opening and then try to fit them into the other set of sliders WHILE lifting.

Much to my delight, the inevitable occurred! Finally, after five years of door HELL, I'm getting new doors for the decks!



Hiding guiltily with his dog after breaking the door. Al often breaks things by trying to brute-force them to work, which is a long-standing joke around here. This time I was thrilled!