Dig photos

electric is 2 feet deep

No more wires!

at purchase

today 

Well it took 4 months,  and $800 but I finally got rid of the awful electric wires that attached to the peak of the roof from the electric pole.  Man was that an eyesore.   You can't tell now that it's gone, but that shanty town vibe has lifted.
I don't know why removing those overhead wires make me so happy, but it does.   Now we have 2 feet deep electric cable.   We can FINALLY paint the top of the house and add the shutters on the new top window!

It is definitely fall now.  Peak temps mid 70's.  Cool into low 50's.  Very different from last home where it was always 80 degrees except for two very short months of a little bit cold.  I wonder what winter will be like.
I talked with an architect yesterday. We need to start a plan for a garage build. She explained we can do a two bay and then another two bay later to staged funding.  SWEET!!

I liked her. She has cats, is thin, my age, and knows about the not so big house. Even heard the author speak at a conference.

New window, start of the pantry!

Yeah! After waiting 5 weeks our new window w tempered glass is installed. It took them under 1 hr to replace it and trim it out.  Tomorrow I can prime it, after the caulk dries!
And the final city inspector is scheduled tomorrow as well!
Then the upstairs is DONE!
Except of course for the new stairway, but that's a 2015 project!

finished the back spalsh! 

cut out for eventual walk-in pantry, it WAS the closet in the bedroom. 

new window with required tempered glass.  J reused the old closet rod and made it into the stair hand rail. 

Cold today!

Wow.  52 degrees.  Should warm up again tho.  
Last night I painted the bathroom.  Home Depot had a quart of good paint w primer.  Only $2.  Already tinted a peach color.   Great deal on returned paint.  Also got a gallon of white returned for $17.  Plan on painting living room just to clean it up a bit.


So I painted till about 1 am. (The bathroom)
Can't say it's the best color, but it looks much cleaner.  Did the ceiling too.  It was gross before.
Ordered a coordinating shower curtain too.  That will help a lot.

Will need to change the window covering. But that's just a quick trip to fabric store.  And w an iron.  I'll be done in 20 minutes.

Also last nite I did the setting of the marble on the rest of the backsplash.   There is this problem area where the makeshift plaster is not sticking to drywall.  So a few of my stones are not sticking.  I plan to cut those out and add a bit of calk to make them stick before I grout.


Thursday the gutters were replaced.  I still need to buy two rain barrels.  These guys also said the roof will need replacing in about 5 yrs.  plan on $7000 for that.

Monday (tomorrow) getting window installed.  Then hopefully, Tuesday,  I can get final inspection and close out all city permits.

We r getting more pseudo closets from The Container store this week for all our clothes.  Then maybe we can get rid of more boxes.

Fall, wonderful fall!

Doing bits and parts!

I was trying to make a crock pot of chili, but that needs beans and canned tomatoes and lots on CANNED things!  I was partly compete with tossing all the ingredients into the crock pot, browned the beef, etc-BUT ALAS, no can opener!   I searched thru 5 ( FIVE)  big dish packs --- NO can opener and missing quite a few other kitchen basic tools, so I KNOW there is another kit box unpacked somewhere!

My mom saved the day and brought over her can opener!  But,  finally this morning we went to the container (still have one of the Pack Rat 16 ft containers on the lot) and found 3 more LARGE dish packs of kitchen stuff!

Yeah!
But that just means I have to find
 places for all this stuff!  

sink upstairs, drywall and plaster to fix the 

hole in the wall for the plumbing.

J added a receptacle in wall specific for USB charging

this is the new mailbox! 

I'm having the DAV truck stop by next week to collect a lot of stuff that did not sell at the yard sale, plus more stuff we JUST DONT need.  

Electric modification from above ground to underground will be about $350 per electric company. Is scheduled now to mid october! 

I can't type that without the song from the childhood PBS show playing in my head: "ELECTRIC COMAPNEEEEEYYYYYY!"

Now that the rain has stopped, I can get back to painting!  I need to paint the trim around the door upstairs, all the calking is dry now.  I'm also considering paining the bathroom, I know it would be silly since it will get torn out, but it will be awhile and it is so gross in there! 

J is doing the extensions on the electric receptacles now, so I can finish the back splash this week, hopefully. 

He plans on doing the pantry next, but this will be a major project. 

I'm still on unpack and cull duty for the kitchen. 

I sorta took off this weekend and watched the ENTIRE season one and TWO of SCANDAL on netflix, it was pretty addicting! 

Mid September

The hectic pace of reno has slowed a bit.
Two reasons, a lot of the major stuff to make it passably livable is done.
And secondly, we need more money.

We did get the electric meter changed $450, now we wait for the city to add a transformer to a pole and run the line underground. I was told three weeks about 2 weeks ago.
We will see.

Yesterday I finished the first part of the back splash.
I tried to follow a youtube video about making your own grout and how easy it is vs. premixed grout.

LIE LIE LIE LIE!

I started off with too much water and had to use the entire bag just to get to a slightly p-nut butter consistency.
So I HAD A LOT OF GROUT.   I ended up tossing 75% of it.

So when I continue, I am buying the premixed stuff!

This is the door I worked on and stained over Labor day.  J hung it and installed the door knob.  I got it at a great deal, brand new, for $4 (door knob and receptor piece) as it was the last one. 

here are the before and after of the back splash 

we needed to get an extension box to make the outlet flush with the new marble backsplash, but I like the results.

the name of the granite is Fantasy Brown.

Now I have to keep working on the kitchen. It is hard to fit in dishes and stuff from a 4000 sq foot home into a 1200 sq ft home.  I even left major things in the old house for the renters.  I left a set of dishes, pots, pants, glasses, toaster.

I am working with a kitchen cabinet guy. We used them before to do my Mom's kitchen and another time for a less old home. They do nice work. But our size limitations are causing some design snafus.
So now we have to plan on moving the microwave to a different location.  I'm just glad I didn't buy all those appliances at the Labor Day sale.  That would have been a disaster had they not fit.

Labor day, indeed!

Today was supposed to be a day off, right?   Well not for us, J is flying,  JFK to FLL and FLL back.  Then home.  I'm here supervising (ha) the fella doing the drywall repair in the kitchen.

Very nice fella, has been here since 830 this morning.   Works alone.  I can appreciate that!  He says no A/c because the mud will not adhere if it dries too fast w AC. So I have the windows open even though it is 93 degrees, it is "cloudy" which only helps a bit.


I have been taking turns staining the new door and painting kitchen cabinets.  Nothing sexy about either of theses jobs. Lots of sanding and sanding and MORE sanding.

The new door is interior, base of the stairs, I got it at a discount import store, not a big box store. $130. It's actually very nice, with beveled glass in each of the 12 panes.  I'm using a combo product of stain and poly in one can.  Each of the 12 panes have a very detailed step-down groove that you have to be very precise or risk getting stain on the glass itself.  This I am trying to avoid.  My index finger has had cramps from the detail staining.  I need a hand massage!

The cats are lounging, not much different here.

I'm sorta feeling sorry for myself…not being a traditional family that has holidays off.  But we have NEVER had holidays off!
But it would be nice, once, to have a traditional holiday with the requisite outdoor BBQ with friends.  But most of our friends have traditional work schedules.  And now they live several states away.

So I started planning out next cruise as I was hiding in my office while the crafts guy worked on my kitchen.
Basically we can vacation in Jan or Feb and possibly SEPT OCT.

I found a transatlantic repositioning cruise.  We use Silversea line for cruises, having worked our way up from Carnival back in 2001. Silversea is MORE expensive, but worth every penny.   I would rather go one one silversea cruise ever 2 yrs vs another cruise line once a year.

We went to Antarctica in Jan Feb this year---it was amazing!  It seems like such a long time ago but it was only 7 months ago, less than a pregnancy.

I was just looking up an Aggie local club as I was feeling a bit homesick.  There is one, of course.
Odd how we only lived there 6 years but I feel that that was home!
Lots happened there!

ok  well back to 1950's reno,   Happy Labor day to all!