Month: June 2014 (Page 1 of 2)

I’ll create a you tube account later, but for now, some photos.

This is walking in the front door into the entryway, looking into the dining room, past which is the living room.

This is the kitchen, taken from just inside the door of the previous picture, and looking to the right.

Another of the kitchen

This is the bedroom straight ahead from the kitchen. Notice how nice the hardwood floors in the bedrooms cleaned up.

This is the other bedroom, just south of this one.

This is the bathroom.

This is the upstairs room. This was taken before the trim was put down, so it looks even better now!

Back downstairs, here is the living room, on the south side of the house.

Here is a slightly different angle of the living room. The dining room is through the window. It was still quite messy with tools and such when I took the pictures.

Here are some interesting pictures of things that turned out well, in my opinion:

The old window that we cleaned up and put between the main rooms.

The steps between the dining room and living room:

The little box that hides a heat run to the living room:

I’m very glad we are done and we are pleased as punch with the family that is living in it. They appreciate it SO MUCH! They even invited us to dinner last night as we were finishing up – grilled burgers, salads, etc. Very nice. We hardly ever get invited to dinner!

And I’ll finish with a “before picture” of the kitchen!

The robin’s eggs hatched. There seem to be four baby birds. Is that how many eggs there were? I thought there were more. Anyway, a couple of pictures for you.  (For everyone else – the nest was on the upper level of the play set in the back yard of 117)

We worked like fiends today and got quite a lot accomplished. Everything seems to take so long when you are trying to hurry, though. We got most of the trim in. There is still one side of two different doors that needs to be trimmed and a couple of pieces of mop board to put in. Then we need to do some more trim upstairs in the big room. I have the three biggest pieces cut and in place, but the end of the room with the door needs to be finished. We also need to finish the ugly stairway and put the replacement door at the bottom of the stairs. And the toe boards in the kitchen. And that is about it.

The renters – their names are Josh and Amber – moved a few pieces of furniture and all the stuff for the kitchen cupboards today. Tomorrow they have help, so they are moving the big furniture. It looks like we will be out of their way just in time!

They are excited to be moving in and we are equally excited to be almost finished.

Pictures tomorrow. I also took a video walking through, but I’m not sure how to post it on you tube.  Any advice, anyone?

The Rug Doctor, that is. The renters are moving in beginning Sunday, so I thought I’d better do the carpets today so they’d be dry by Sunday. That probably is confusing, since we are redoing everything. But Gary gave us a carpet he pulled out of somewhere and we used it for the upstairs room that is not a bedroom. When we finally unrolled it, we were disappointed how dirty it was. Plus, there was a big stained area. Anyway, it really needed cleaning, so I did that, then the little bit of carpet between the kitchen and bedrooms that we put there because of the discrepancy in floor heights. It had taken quite a beating during the remodeling, so I did that, too.

Then I brought it up to Chetek and began work on the carpets in the new building. It is a big place, so I didn’t do them all. But I did the office, the main exercise studio, the waiting room, the music studio and the main living area. Basically I did every room that isn’t going to have any work done on it, so I skipped the bedroom and the room that will be connected to it and the recording studio and the room we are going to use for storage, because what is the point of cleaning that?

Now I’m off to measure all the used cabinets we’ve collected and see if I can fashion a kitchen that will fit our space and the appliances we have. Fun!

Here’s a flash from the past – remember the black tub surround that was in there? We sold the black monstrosity on Craig’s List! Of course the bathroom is reconfigured, too, with the door on the opposite side.The interesting thing is that the toilet and cabinet behind it are still in the same place.  The tub is now where the sink was. And the sink is kind of where the tub was, except there is a door into the bathroom beyond where the tub was because we put the entrance through what was the closet in the bedroom beyond it. And where the photographer was standing is now a wall with the hallway on the other side of it.

If we thought life was ever busy, we didn’t actually know how busy it could get! We are frantically working on 117 every free moment. Officially we have 5 days to finish, but the people that are moving in have help this weekend, so want to start then. We won’t be done, yet, and we told them that, but also told them they are welcome to start moving in this weekend. Which means we must get the bedrooms, closets, cupboards and other places they will want to put stuff ready. We are bogged down on trim. It just takes so long to measure, fit, re-trim, re-fit, re-trim and put it in, especially with the saw out in the garage. I’m frustrated, because we are about out of things I can do. I finished the piece of vinyl in the laundry room last night by cutting pieces to fit and glueing them in. Today I’ll be cleaning our things out of the kitchen, cleaning up the appliances (again) and emptying all the paint out of the pantry. Dad is hoping to get off early today and we’ll work like crazy on trim in the bedrooms and living room. I’m also going to work more on emptying the garage today.  Anyway, as you can tell, there is a lot to do and not a lot of time to get it done.

Plus, we bought the commercial property yesterday, so that is ours to start working on. Yesterday we just took a good look at it again (since we’d only seen it once) and made some decisions on what will happen first, second, etc. and how exactly we will configure the bathroom/laundry/walk in closet. And by bathroom, I literally mean “bath” room, because the toilet and sink are in another 1/2 bath, so this will only have the tub/shower, as well as our hanger clothes and the laundry. Anyway, there is a lot we could do on that place, but we need to keep focused on the other until it is done.

Also, for those of you who care, we finally wrote out our wills, had them notarized, rented a safety deposit box at First National Bank, and put them in it. We’ll be putting other things in there, too, as time goes on, and when you are around, we’ll update the paperwork so a couple of you also can have access to it when you eventually need the papers.

When I made my list of all the jobs I could think of that needed to still be done at 117 before the renters moved in on July 1, I had 53. As of this evening we are down to 35.

The transformation this weekend has been nothing short of amazing. We went from the house looking like a construction zone to looking like a house, almost. The main things done included carpeting the living room and dining room and putting most of the trim up in those two rooms, as well as putting the vinyl flooring down in the entry and the door trim up from the entry to the dining room. This all involved a lot of cutting, routing, sanding, priming and painting of trim boards, as well. I also got the hardwood floors cleaned really well and a new coat of sealer put on them, so they look as good as they can for their age and abuse. At least I know they are clean and can be kept clean. And the basement is as finished as it is going to be.

Thanks much to Erica and Chloe and Josiah for their great help yesterday and today. Maybe Erica will post pictures! I was too busy to take any yet (or even to remember to bring my camera!)

This was my first weekly weigh-in that I didn’t lose. I wasn’t really surprised, because I ate terrible all weekend and by Monday had three pounds to lose in order to be on track by Wednesday. So I’m a pound behind my goal pace, but happy to say I lost 9 pounds in the first month of my effort. Of course, 3 or 4 of them came off right away. But the rest of them have taken concerted effort.

Dad is doing somewhat better, but as he reminds me, he has more to lose. I think he was at about 12 pounds lost last I heard, but probably more by now. I’m thrilled with how seriously he is watching his eating, although I wish he’d get more exercise. He bought a nice used bike, but it has either been rainy or we’ve had to work on the house, so he hasn’t been out on it much. I think it is harder work than he remembered. The times he did go out, he couldn’t go far before having to turn around and head home. But he hasn’t exercised those biking muscles for quite a while.  And having a bike is a big step in the right direction!

We’ve got a closing date for our business property – next Wednesday (June 25). I’m really excited. I had five new people in tai chi yesterday after I ran an article in the paper!

I don’t remember a month with this much rain. And it isn’t like it is gloomy and wet all the time. Most of the time it is sunny and nice. Then will get another couple inches of rain maybe overnight or in the evening. Then another couple nice days and more rain. So what is unusual is that every time it rains, it is a significant amount, like an inch or two. Former fields are now lakes and show no signs of ever becoming fields again. The water is over the road some places and stays that way day after day. It is just weird.

But the one thing it is good for is a garden perched atop a hill. I wasn’t planning to water my new vegetable garden, but I know I would have relented if the weather had been really dry. But I haven’t needed to even think about watering it. Almost every time we go out there, we have to empty the rain gauge again.  And the plants are growing well, although a little hotter weather would help that and I hear it is on the way.

I know all this water is a problem for many, but for us, the only issue is the water in basements and that is being controlled with sump pumps. And we discovered last night that the remaining water in the basement of 117 New Auburn is from the hot water heater overflow valve. We’re not sure why, but it seems to be spitting out water when we aren’t looking.

I listed 117 for rent July 1 on Craigslist day before yesterday. We got a lot of calls, so we told them to come and see it last night at 7:00. Yesterday morning there were still tools all over, the floors were covered with sheet rock dust and dried mud, the kitchen was a disaster, and the yard was a mess. By 6:30, the place shone. I’d mowed and clipped around things with the hand clipper and picked up the clippings, I’d polished up the kitchen, from cabinet fronts to the inside of the microwave, I’d scrubbed all the sheet rock mud from the inside of the shower/tub, I’d washed floors by hand. Oh, and first of all, I hauled all the tools and building supplies to the garage, which we’d straightened and emptied a bit the night before. I was exhausted, but everything looked great.

Then only two couples showed up…..

But we know we have a couple coming on the weekend, and they sound most like the ones we want. She works in Chippewa Falls and he works in Rice Lake and they want to be more centrally located.

We still have all the carpet to lay and the trim to put up all over the house. (Anyone want to help!!). July 1 is 2 1/2 weeks away. I think we can do it!

Here are some pictures. Can you tell what the plants are?

Your choices are peas, corn, beans, and chard. Here is a picture of a sweet potato plant. First time we’ve tried these.  We planted it as a plant, not a seed (which is probably obvious.)