You Can All Sleep Tight Now!

I know everyone who reads this blog was losing sleep over our shortage of cabinet pulls.  You can all rest well now knowing that I was able to find them at another Lowe's!  I was also able to find clearance winter coats for Ben and Tom for next year.  Why?  Because this other Lowe's is next to an Old Navy!  Yeah!

WooHoo! James Had a Day Off!

James had today off!  It felt like a 2 week vacation!  Now that the hustle and bustle of the holidays are over, we are ready to take charge of our home again!  We can get this done!

Ben is helping Daddy wire up some electrical switches!

You can't tell in this picture, but half of this wall is in perfect condition and ready for primer and paint.  The other half is not.  I've been slaving away trying to get the walls in as perfect condition as possible.  It's time consuming and there isn't much to show for it!

This was our surprise home improvement of the day!  I had a $10 off $50 purchase coupon for Lowe's that expired today.  I honestly think of these coupons as cash, because we actually need things at Lowe's.  Lots of things.  So we dashed on over because I knew I was going to buy a gallon of paint, but what to spend $30 on?  Well we found great cabinet pulls on clearance!  So we snatched those up.  Unfortunately, we both calculated a total of 16 pulls needed, but after installing about 10 at home, we realized we are 2 short.  And since there were only 16 left of this particular kind, we can't go back to our Lowe's.  So I'll be searching area Lowe's the next few days.  If I can't find them, I'll be recruiting friends and family in other parts of the country to look for this particular pull for us!  Sometimes it's hard for us to do basic things like count, but James got all the pulls installed in about 20 minutes!  Way to go James!

Patching Away!

James has been working. A lot. Actually, the only day off since the last post (Dec. 4th) was Christmas! The poor guy! The last thing on his mind is fixing the house. So I've been patching and repairing the kitchen walls so I can paint. I'm almost there. I've been stuck up to my elbows in Joint Compound. I kind of understand why there has been panelling and wallpaper on these walls now! But I'm determined to make them look half way decent. I think I'm doing an okay job. I'm hoping to finish the last of the repair work today and prime away the next day or two. Then I can throw up some paint. And take pictures.

More Kitchen Stuff!

We're putting Wainscoating in the kitchen as a backsplash and also using it to cover up the beadboard. We're just too lazy to try to clean up the beadboard that was original to the house.

Tom getting into mischief.

James working away!

He looks so professional sometimes.

Christmas Time!

Not Home Improvement stuff really, but it's very time consuming setting up these little Chirstmas houses!

Boring Stuff - but Time Consuming

I spent a lot of today repairing holes and cracks in the kitchen. Which means tomorrow, I will be sanding away.

James finished putting up all the drywall going into the downstairs bathroom. Now we have to prep that for paint. We're getting there...slowly.

A Microwave Is In!

Today, James and I installed the microwave in our state of the art kitchen! James also installed the last of the countertop. Tomorrow's mission is to try to get the backsplash in.

Before microwave and countertop...

After!

Hopefully the backsplash will make this area look a little better!

Starting To Look Like A Kitchen!

The stove and dishwasher don't work quite yet, but they are where they are suppose to be!

Tom asks "What's this Mommy?" I respond, "It's an oven Thomas. Someday, I might use it."

A Light in the Boys Room!

We spent Veteran's Day in the boys room. James wired up all the outlets and installed this beautiful light fan. The same one will be in the spare room and our room someday.

Finished Cabinet Installation - Finally!

After about 3 months of starting to install our cabinets, we finally put the last 2 in. The problem with these two were that there were no studs behind them. They are each only 9 inches wide. The studs are 18 inches apart and it was just our luck that these cabinets did not fall in front of a stud. So we had to knock holes in the wall to build supports.

James lining up the cabinet and screwing it to the other one.

Taking off the wall so we can nail in a wooden support.



Ta Da! James did it! We still have to install the countertop but we can do that another time! It's nice to have these finally up and our upstairs hallway cabinet free!

Since James was on a roll, he hooked up the back kitchen light. He drank a lot of coffee today.

Back To Electrical

We got back to electrical...or I should say James did. I cooked and cleaned and tended to the children.

Here's James wiring up the outdoor light.

We have a hallway light again! Too bad it doesn't work yet.

I'm Like Martha Stewart's Twin

This has nothing to do with Home Improvement, but I tried to get all Martha Stewart like with my fall decorations. I had to share it with the world.

We Finally Got To Work!

After a couple weeks of being "lazy" - we got the Columbus Day urge to get stuff done again! Many thanks to all the people who yelled at us the past couple of days to get stuff done. It helped tremendously.

James installed the kitchen recessed lights! They don't work since our electrical service still needs to be updated, but that's okay! It looks prettier now!

He also installed our pennant light that will hopefully be over a small dinette table. It's a little more modern than what we usually go for, but it was the only one we both liked.

Getting ready to grout the floor! This is probably the most clean this floor will ever be!

Get to work James! Mixing the grout and getting to work!

This was what it looked like this morning. We're suppose to wait 24 hours to walk on it. We went with a gray grout for obvious reasons - it hides the dirt.

Hopefully there will be more updates this week!

Please Get On Our Case!

I have to admit, we've been rather lazy the past couple weeks. Granted, James did finish laying the rest of the kitchen tiles (though we haven't grouted yet) and I did paint the living room, the mouldings and 2 of the radiators - it still seems we've been very lazy.

The next time you see or talk to us, please belittle us and tell us to get cracking. Don't worry - we were both in the Marines so we respond best by people yelling at us. The problem is, no one is and we desperately need people to. Thank you in advance.

Living Room Mouldings

I finally got off my lazy butt and painted the living room mouldings shortly after Tom's party. I also gave the living room another coat of yellow paint and I think it looks like it has a little more umph. I like it still.

Tiling Away on a Sunday Night!

All weekend has gone to trying to get this floor done. As always, it has gone slower than we anticipated, but that's okay. Last time I checked, we're in no rush to move out of this place. There's always tomorrow to do more stuff.

James is laying tile. He has never laid tile. He is doing a great job.

James puts his little slave boy, Paul, to work. Paul has been nice enough to help us out with a bunch of our projects. He's shipping off to the good old USMC in a few weeks. We're currently taking applications for our next little slave boy. If you are interested in doing home improvement projects with James without getting compensated, please call him. I provide necessary food.

Our Appliances Got Delivered!

Like everything else in this Home Improvement life of ours, we had expectations of having our floor done before the 5th. So when we purchased our appliances 3 weeks ago, we thought the 5th would be a grand day to have them delivered. Of course, the floor is not done. So our appliances are hanging out in our dining room for a while.

Our stove got delivered with a dent in the side. It's not a big deal because it will be up against a cabinet. I called Lowe's and they took an extra $50 off for me. That made me happy. We also got a new washer - which washes HOT! I'm very happy about this one. I did not take any pictures of our new washer because it's nothing fancy. And because really, who gets excited over a washer? Who gets excited over any of this stuff?

Good bye plywood floor! We are going to tile over you! First we have to lay Cement Board!

Ben enjoys hanging out in the dishwasher nook. Too bad there will be a dishwasher there soon.

Building a Patio

I've mentioned before that we are attempting to build a patio. Last weekend, since the weather was so nice, we figured we would try to get it done. We didn't get it done but we got a lot accomplished. I dug dirt. A lot of dirt. About 2 weeks ago. I think I had about 20 wheelbarrels full. So this week, James leveled it all and did the "smart" work.

We laid crushed stone and sand!

Trying to figure out the pattern to do. Everything looks weathered because James is "borrowing" bricks from a job he is working. They're only going to throw them away so we might as well "borrow" them for a while. Who knows how this will turn out. Neither one of us has ever attempted to build a patio before so we're kind of just winging it.

James has been busy running electrical wire. I forgot to put this one up a while ago - but he wired up an outdoor flood light for the back yard. There's a sensor on this one too so the raccoons will get startled at night when they go to eat all the food our kids drop out back.

Oh So Exciting - Light Fixtures

We put a light fixture in the dining room! I also painted it - even though we didn't re-build the built in yet. We probably won't get to that for another year or 2. I just did like like living in white. It's too boring.

The living room has an overhead light now! Counting down the days until we get our new electrical service!

James is so proud of his $10 clearance outdoor light fixture. He took down the old one before I had time to snap a picture. It was pretty much a piece of rusty old metal with a jelly jar attached. Oh, and a yellow light bulb.

James is always extremely safe when doing home improvements. He's installing flood lights for the driveway. We stepped it up and got sensors so we can catch hooligans trying to break into our cars. He also put a light outback so we can be outside at night without the fear of a rabid raccoon attacking us.

Ceilings, Yard Waste & Paint, Oh My!

This picture kind of makes our ceiling look disgusting, but believe me, they are all very nice!

I've been busy "pruning" the trees outside. I have acquired a mini addiction to the Sawsall. I love to saw things with it - especially trees! I have a mini forest on the curb because apparently there is some confusion on when Yard Waste actually gets picked up. Half of this has been here since Friday (when garbage gets picked up). Then I added more over the weekend - because a neighbor told me Mondays were yard waste days. Here I am, Tuesday night with all this yard waste still outside. My neighbors must love me.

Do you see it? It's yellow paint! In our living room! I did it today. I think it's perfect. At least for us. We've gone and done good on this color. At least I think so. I hope the other 5 rooms turn out to our liking as well.

Grrr! We Did The Unspeakable!

We hired someone! Ahhhh!!! We decided we cannot finish off the ceilings. Too hard. I'm sure we could, but it's cheap enough that we can just have someone come in and do it. Tomorrow, John will come to fix our downstairs ceilings! Yey! That means we just have to throw on some paint, have the new electrical service come up (the 30th!) and then we can paint and lay tile! I'm procrastinating on the tile because once the tile is in, the appliances come. I do not want a stove. Too much hassle. I also decided I do not want a dishwasher. I think I'm better at keeping house without one. Before and After Pictures to come!

Iron Away!

Installing laminate countertop is woman's work - or at least that is what James thought when the directions called for a household iron. I told him I don't even iron my clothes - I'm not going to iron his or the countertop. So poor James was stuck ironing the end caps of this piece of laminate. Great job James!

For Those Of You Stalking Our Kitchen...

We got the rest of the cabinets in this past weekend. Pappy and James were hard at work. We didn't hit any glitches this time, so it was pretty smooth sailing. We did take a pretty long break to eat lunch and prune the trees outside though.

The men lining up the cabinets.

Leveling something or other.

Ben loves his new cabinets! We have a new naughty corner!

Voila! A refridgerator will be thrown into that space there, but we don't have any power over there right now so we'll have to wait until our new electrical service is up and running - which is scheduled for August 30th!

A friendly reminder of what the kitchen looked like before we destroyed it! I kind of miss the wood paneling.