Author Archives: Kellie W

This weekend we did a little bit of work and a lot of Christmas goodie baking. We worked on Saturday and spent Sunday baking. Chad had to work on Sunday, so that left Ciera and I time to bake. We love this time together and each year try something new. We did try 2 new cookies one is a peanut butter caramel cookie, and the other was a cream cheese cinnamon cookie. I like the peanut butter one, but not quite sure about the cream cheese one.

Saturday was spent with prepping to scrape the ceilings (popcorn ceiling must go), installing new wiring, and getting some new hall lights upstairs as well. All is going good and planning to get the walls up next weekend. We also FINALLY decided on the flooring for upstairs and got that ordered. That will be in first of the year, so we have a lot to get done. I’m hoping Chad won’t have to work on the 24th as that will give us a 3-day weekend. Ok, not 2 as we will stop and celebrate Christmas, I’m not that mean!

Merry Christmas to all!

Finally! I think I keep saying we are going to start destroying things and then the house always dictates something else. Well, not this time, we won the battle. We actually tore up carpet in one room, got new flooring down, and then started to really destroy things upstairs.

The first project was the little room off of the master bedroom. Originally, I thought I would change this into my walk-in closet, but after some time, decided to make this a small exercise room. We tore out the carpet and put down the exercise foam floor along with a new ceiling fan. We still need to paint it and put down new trim, but that will happen when we do the master bedroom (as I have no idea what color I want).

The next project was to tear down the built-in cabinets, desk, and start to remove the carpet in the upstairs open area. I finally decided that the open area will be my office. I think Chad is tired of hearing me complain that I am not working at 100% as I still have things in boxes (hence get that project done). That is fine with me, as I’m super ready to get my office back to how it should be.

This weekend, we should have been taking out Ciera’s vanities and getting the new flooring put down. Well, I’m done trying to plan or think what I’m going to do next on this house. This house decides what and when we do the next project. We put in the new soft water system in last weekend, and about mid-week Chad noticed water in the garage.

Disclamer: usually I will read any manuals and Chad does the work, with the water softner, we have done these so many times, I figured I could do something else as this is not rocket science. Long story short, they now have 2 valves when the system regenerates (I wasn’t there to read the manual, so being a guy – naturally, he didn’t bother to see why there was another valve. Now we know why there was water in the garage).

The previous owners put up paneling which we knew would be coming down, but one of the last projects to tackle. By the end of the week there was mold growing. EEK! We thought, no big deal, take the paneling down, we would put up sheet rock and one little portion of the garage would be done (silly thought). We took down the paneling and found they NEVER sealed the outside shingles so there was mold all over the plywood and studs. Well, change of plans, we had to fix the issue and replace the plywood and shingles.

We also had a portion on the back patio that we knew we needed to fix so while we were re-shingling, time to take down the ledge that was there and fix it.

Chad also made the garage critter proof since it is getting a little cooler at nights now. The point of a garage is that you SHOULD NOT see any light coming through around the door – if you do, well a critter could get in. I’m happy to say, the garage is pitch dark now. Yahoo! Little things make me so happy.

All of us received our COVID-19 booster shots this weekend. None of us had any adverse reactions to the first rounds, but we didn’t want to push our luck with digging into too much. We opted to put up our Christmas decorations this weekend instead. We also purchased the new tub for Ciera’s bathroom. We tested out the furnaces (we will be calling the warranty folks, are we surprised? Nope).

Here are some of our Christmas charm.

I apologize for no post last week, we spent time doing a temporary wall in the living room. We also did some clean up in the garage to get rid of the garbage and make room for more. The vanities came in, so had to pick those up as well. They are fabulous and cannot wait to share that project. It will start after Thanksgiving.

The living room has two doorways that are maybe separated by a foot, makes no sense, so one of them needed to be closed. Naturally, I need to make sure I know which one I want closed, hence another temporary wall.

Only 1 project this weekend as my sister came to town for the week/holiday! We replaced the whole home water softener with a new one. When we turned on the old, we went from normal water pressure to something that is more like a trickle, that was unacceptable! The new water softener is in and we still have water pressure, YAHOO! We will get back at it after Thanksgiving. Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

This weekend we did a small project but a lot of shopping! We put up the fireplace mantle and it will look A LOT better once we take down some of the brick and paint it. I did not know if the mantle would really work on brick – the website said it would, but come on, with this house you can’t follow any rules. Luckily, the mantle does work on brick and will allow me to decorate for the holidays while we continue the other projects. We started to price out the fireplace inserts. I’m thinking they made this one on their own when they built the house as these sizes do not exist anywhere I have looked yet. That may mean all of the brick will come down and I’ll come up with something else, we will see.

We found the new front door we want, but in doing the measurements came to realize the previous owners lifted the floor and cut the front door to fit. Ugh! We will do it right, so front door is picked out but will take 28 days to arrive, so will use some cheesy flooring on the landing so that the door fits properly (rather the right way). We also picked out the new soft water system so that will be next weekends project. Home Depot started their Black Friday sales and I was able to order 2 vanities for upstairs for the price of one. Now that is a DEAL! They are supposed to be in by Nov 19, so Ciera has until then to figure out her new bathroom color and shower tile as after Thanksgiving that will be the main project.

Ciera and I also managed to make some marmalade sweet rolls, didn’t turn out too bad and it is always a mystery when we try something new due to the gluten-free flour. Sometimes things are just too gritty or taste like too much flour when trying to get the right consistency, these turned out alright.

We did get the closet off the Harry Potter closet done (new light and paint) so it is all ready for the various holiday decorations to go back in, Yahoo! Chad unfortunately still gets service calls on Saturdays, leaving us only Sunday to really work. However, we were able to put in my new stove. I’m SUPER excited about this as there is only one meal a year I really like to cook and that is Thanksgiving. The old stove only had 1 burner that would work and 1 that if it was in a good mood, I guess would work. Well that IS NOT acceptable for a Thanksgiving meal. Now, don’t judge the kitchen as we have not started the remodel. This is a temporary fix to get the new stove in and the good thing – the burners all work! I’m new to the whole induction cooking so Thanksgiving could end up with Dominos pizza, but I’m excited all the same!

Well, I know it has been slow going as of late and the destruction is about to happen, but sometimes you have to do some little things so that you can destroy. We put together an armoire to store things that are currently in the open area (which eventually will find a permanent home) and storage for all things “pets”. This will allow us to really start to dig into the upstairs remodel without having to constantly move things from room to room.

We did also put new floor in the closet that is off of the Harry Potter closet….yes, there are 2 closets hiding there! We also took some time to go to the local corn maze and take in the new Addams Family movie – still need to have a little fun!

Earlier in the week due to Hurricane Pamela, we received a lot of rain. Normally not an issue, but this week, it sounded like something was leaking during one of the rainstorms. Naturally, yes, something was, the chimney! Ok, now normally I would not be happy (still wasn’t) but this was something we knew we would be “fixing”. We knew the current fireplace definitely has not been taken care of and honestly in the month of October, would not be shocked if something scary came out of it. However, fixing a leaking chimney was not on the top of the priority list, suddenly this became priority #1. When Chad got to the top of the chimney to scope out the damage, come to find out that there was only chicken wire as a “cap” to the chimney. Well no wonder we had rain coming in. We were planning to change the wood-burning fireplace to electric. The fix is getting a new cap, flexed tapped the thing (like no other), installed and then repaired the cracked concrete on top of the chimney. Fingers crossed, no more rain coming down the chimney.

We had a lot of other things planned for the weekend, but only had Sunday to work as Saturday we were just getting started, Chad got called out for a service call to Corpus Christi – Ciera and I joined him for the ride, but as you can see – there was no way I would be getting on the roof to fix this problem. 🙂

Ok, so really the deal this weekend was that Chad had to work all day on Saturday (which always is a bummer) AND we have the AC people coming on Monday. This meant we didn’t want to start the upstairs destruction until the new AC is in. I cannot wait, and Ciera is super excited as her bedroom is upstairs. We decided to spend Sunday getting the outside Halloween decorations up and we went shopping for our next project – Ciera’s bathroom. Next weekend we will be back at it and ready to DESTROY the upstairs. So much fun! Happy 31-days of HALLOWEEN!