Author Archives: Kellie W

I know what type of title is that? Plus, I’m 3 days late to the normal posting. First, I’m late because Chad didn’t send me the pictures, how dare he?! Like he is busy? LOL! I’m calling this post Angela’s Room as she is my sister and comes faithfully every Thanksgiving, so we have gotten into the habit of calling the extra bedroom ‘Angela’s Room’. I know she will be very happy to know that her room is done. We just have to get the construction stuff out, clean the floors, change out the outlets, and the bed can get moved in and all the room is ready for her. 🙂 Meaning that is the easy-peasy stuff! We also measured and ordered all of the landscape lighting which arrived today. I’m excited! There will not be a post over the 4th of July weekend as we are making our annual trip back home to Nebraska. I will “see” everyone again on July 10th. Have a safe holiday weekend!

This weekend we worked both outside and inside. We rented a stump grinder to speed up the whole “get rid of the stumps and roots from the tons of bushes in the front and side of the house” (I’d like to say I was exaggerating). Chad naturally ran the stump grinder, and I took to pulling up the roots. I did find that some of the roots grew between and around the sprinkler hoses, so that was interesting and then a frog jumped on my foot, not my best moment. It was quite toasty, so moved back inside for the rest of the time to prime and paint the extra bedroom. The room is all painted so now we just have the floor trim and crown molding, and that room will be complete!!!

We did take some down time to find landscape lighting, blinds and shutters. Yahoo! Those are the exciting things!

This weekend was productive, but at the same time one of those weekends where you just didn’t think anything got accomplished. Chad was solo for all of the tasks at hand as I procrastinated with completing my continuing education credits for my insurance license and needs to be done by the end of the month. I worked on my CEs all weekend (ugh), but they are completed, and I can procrastinate for 2 more years. That being said, this meant Chad had to do things that he didn’t need my help or advice for. He spent the weekend installing the new doors in the extra bedroom and scraping the popcorn ceiling. We did take a break to go pick out the paint for the room, so that did make me feel like I contributed something to the weekend. We will work on the texture this week (that is what he says) so we can prime and paint next weekend and then believe we have the demolition of the tub/shower as the next task (that will make me very happy as I love to break things – fabulous stress reliever).

Writers block on a good title for this week so left it up to Ciera and well….I promise to be back next week with something better. 🙂 We spent a couple days after work starting to remove all of the stumps along the side and front of the house. We still have a A LOT to remove and I’m not exaggerating! In the front of the garage side of the house they had 3 rows along the whole length of various shrubs, needless to say, lots of stumps and the root system to get pulled out. When it got a little toasty, we worked on getting the extra bedroom flooring torn out and the new wood floor installed. Next week, it will be a continuation of the stumps/roots and plan on getting the popcorn ceiling in the extra bedroom removed. I know this all takes time and the end result will be great, but I feel I’m in Groundhog Day, wake, work to get paid, work on the house (same task) and repeat!

On a fun note, we did go see the Bob’s Burgers movie. I highly recommend!

Last Sunday, I was traveling for work, so didn’t post anything. Chad got the siding put back up (remember, termites) and the siding repainted. This Sunday the work continued outside as the cedar shaker shingles got stained and it looks good, but the pictures do not do it justice. The house will be a different color, but priority was getting those shaker shingles sealed before we had more damage. Progress – that is what I’m calling it.

Ok, now I did not expect a day off on the remodeling but was hoping the house would cooperate. No such luck! Once again, the house has other plans for us. The plan for the weekend was to put together some items I bought for the house, install the microwave above the ovens (so it was off the counter) just those little odds and ends that needed done, but not a whole weekend project. Supposed to be an easy weekend. Well, with the easy weekend, we did purchase the stain for the cedar shake shingles that are on the side of the house (no one has ever stained them) and knew that we had a few to be replaced. The intent was we would start to stain these throughout the week in the evenings. Well, as this house would have it, problems would arise. We have spent the weekend replacing some shingles, but the best part was tearing down part of one wall to find TERMITES!!! Initially thought that it was just a rotten cedar board, no problem, we will replace and stain. No joke – TERMITES! I saw these little bugs for myself. Chad thinks he knows how much damage we are looking at (as in how much we will have to replace) but we have an appointment with the pros on Tuesday to come and take a look. I guess the house wanted to give me a gift that will keep on giving beyond Sunday!

This weekend we should have been a little more productive, and I’ll get to that. However, we needed to also stop and celebrate that Ciera was chosen to be the 7th grade STEM teacher next year, go her! Chad also received a new job offer which will put him back to mechanicing full-time again, only about 5 minutes from home and no more having to drive the coastline every day. We took the time to celebrate both achievements (which suits me fine as then I don’t have to cook). A win-win for all! Ciera and I also took in Stroman Middle School’s One-Act Play. They did Anne of Green Gables and I think they did a great job. Lord knows I never did anything like that and still have zero desire to be on stage.

Now for the work – we went into the weekend knowing we were going to take out one of the hall railings and install the new. This is for the shorter side that overlooks the entryway. Well, we did that, but while we were tearing out the old, we both had the idea to extend the floor over the entryway making it a 10×11 usable area. This is going to become the “exercise” area (when we are done) and what I have as the current temporary exercise area will once again become a walk-in closet. This caused us some delay in the work project as a lot of discussion, measuring and visualization. We did put the handrail up, but it is now temporary. More because Mr. Binx and I are klutzes and well, we don’t need to go crashing down (although it would make for a funny story). Believe it or not, we did actually get some of the flooring done upstairs too.

Well, this weekend no real indoor projects happened as Chad got his cortisone shot in his hand on Friday and I insisted that he could only supervise. This means, he doesn’t trust me to do a whole lot. I get it, he is a perfectionist when it comes to this work so I’m not going to take it personally. I did install a new sprinkler system and replaced a couple sprinkler heads (believe it or not). I think the last time I had this much mud on my hands was when I was little making mud pies in the alley.

We did look at the planters I want to line the house with as well as started to discuss whitewashing/limewashing the bricks (thanks Jesse for the idea)! The other success was to get the outdoor cameras charged and set up. Papa will be able to see Ciera’s garden grow and see all of our hummingbirds! They are pretty cool. If he is lucky, he’ll get to see the squirrels torment Rodney (that is a hoot, not for Rodney, but I get a good laugh at it). Not a big weekend, but Chad’s hand comes first or there will be a massive halt on all projects and that would not be good.

We are still at it – we will be for a while as you all know. I didn’t get anything posted last week as I was in Corpus Christi with Ciera on Sunday and I’m sure if I tried to have posted something, it would have been an epic failure, so here is our last 2 weekends of work. It doesn’t seem like a lot and probably a true statement as we are on hold for some of it as we are waiting for materials to get in.

We have ordered all of the new banister parts and the wood stair pieces that are needed so we can finish the upstairs hall flooring. It is all supposed to be in this week, so fingers crossed by the end of next weekend it will be done. Most likely wishful thinking as Chad gets his cortisone shot in his hand on Friday, so it may end up being a TV weekend. I cannot complain as I definitely would not want to go through those shots/pain.

One of our setbacks was with the hallway outside of my office. Chad needed to put a second coat of paint on the wall so we could hang my office door. There are two windows on the one side of the hall and we knew we would be replacing the trim, so why try to tape and paint it, just remove the trim, paint and then we could put up the new. Well….take a look at the window now, it is broke. We thought we would replace these windows as they have a weird boarder on them, but not right away. Guess the house had different plans (or rather Chad).

We then decided we better start getting some quotes on windows, ugh. I knew windows were expensive and I know not everyone has seen every room in this house, but we do have A LOT of windows. We think we know who we are going to go with and waiting for the final quote to land in the inbox. They anticipate 3 days of work, ummmm that is going to be fun. Rodney will be happy as he’ll get to go have his play days, but the kitties, well that is going to be a nightmare, from them being scared to then probably figuring out that they could escape, thinking it might get a little crazy.

Speaking of the kitties, their cat hall is almost completed. We have to do the caulking yet and once we get the banister stuff in, then we can finish up the floor. Getting there!

The final thing we accomplished is my office door did get hung. Yahoo!

This weekend we did a lot of “things”, let me explain. 🙂 Saturday was spent tilling up the backyard for Ciera’s garden. Now, we all know I cannot grow a thing and all things I try to grow die…hence Ciera’s garden. However, picture this garden area as my new pool. That is EXACTLY what this area will become once Ciera finds her perfect home away from home. As Ciera grows veggies, I’ll just keep dreaming of my pool! The plus, I’m not ready for the pool yet so I guess free veggies for a season is a good thing. If I were to opt for the pool, then nothing on the inside of the house would get done, so I’ll just keep dreaming of my perfect backyard. A win-win situation (for now).

We did get the second vanity installed in Ciera’s bathroom, so the vanity area is 100% completed. We will start on the shower area next weekend, not a big fan, but it has to be done. Since we had a few extra hours on Sunday, why in the world would be just sit idle? Ok – can you tell I would have been fine with being lazy? Nope, we started on what I’m calling the “cat hall”. This will be an area where we will hide the cat boxes but will have some storage above so I can put all of Rodney’s towels (he does love his baths), all of his bling (collars) and all that miscellaneous stuff that comes when you treat your fur-babies like kids. Oh, how I need to get a life. 🙂 until then, well, a cat hall it is.