Nov 19, 2008

The tools are in the shop (where they belong)!

I tried to post last Friday, but Blogger was being annoying and sporadic as was my dial-up ISP. I had been tagged with the "Six Random Things About You" list and was attempting to pass on the fun. Doing this with dial-up is a pain so it ain't happening. So if you got a weird comment on one of your blog posts from me regarding being tagged, ignore it.
And here are six random things about me: 1) I was thought to be twins. Twins run very heavily in my family, especially with firstborn children. My Mom and my Dad's mom are twins. Luckily for the world, I was a single birth. They determined this back in the early 60's by x-raying my mom with me in the womb(!), 2) My great great grandfather invented the horse-hay rake and he's mentioned in an old eighth grade Texas history book, 3) I graduated from Texas A&M's original sister school, Texas Woman's University in '83, 4) I am the only short, blue-eyed blonde in my family. However, I look just like my dad (in a short, blue-eyed blondy kind of way), so that negates speculation regarding my Mom having illicit liaisons with the postman, 5) My shoe size is 6.5EE which is why I own few pairs of shoes and go barefoot most of the year, 6) I do not have a palmaris longus in either forearm. This is a genetic trait; my Dad doesn't have them either. Bummer if I need a tendon transfer as this is the first one a surgeon will grab. The palmaris longus doesn't really do much anyway so not having one is no problem (unless you need a tendon transfer).
I have come to the conclusion that I will rarely have time to post on the weekends. In our new house, the computer is in a corner of the bedroom. DH likes to sleep in a bit later on the weekends, so I can't get on the computer while eating breakfast to post. And once he rolls out of bed, we start working on the house.
Speaking of which, BOY! did we get a lot done this weekend! No, the furniture is still out in the P.O.D.S., but I have an empty den! All the tools are out in DH's shop where they belong! Yippee skippy!
The long-range plan is to start on the new bathroom (currently a bare-stud room) after we get the furniture moved into the den. After the bathroom is finished, we will install the HVAC; the inside unit will go in the old bathroom where the tub is. We will move the water heater indoors at this point also. Once the HVAC is installed, we will gut the rear den wall, replacing windows and adding a back door. Then we will gut the front den wall, replacing windows and the front door. At that point, we will have all new sheetrock in the den and can mud, texture, and paint it. Then we will replace the den floor.
Next, after saving up the cash to do it, in about two to three years, we will rip the kitchen and utility room off the end of the house and completely rebuild it. It isn't as structurally sound as the other part of the house (we think it was originally a porch) and it will be easier to rebuild it from scratch than to try and make right what's really bad. We thought it was okay enough to fix before we bought it, but as the sellers really frown on potential buyers ripping out walls or floors for a look-see, we weren't sure. Once we owned it and were able to rip out walls/floors for a closer look, we realized it wasn't too great. Oh well.
We thought we were going to move in furniture, but we have to stop and caulk the den floor. The floor is made of plain ol' 1" x 6" unfinished pine boards. Over half of them have 1/4" to 1/2" cracks between them. Besides being unsightly, the cracks get really disgusting stuff down in them. I know this because I spent an entire morning vacuuming out the cracks and using a 5-in-1 tool to dig out the disgusting stuff before I scrubbed the floor clean with soapy water and a stiff brush. I ain't doing this every week when I clean the den. So DH called a flooring company to ask if there was a solution. The installer gave DH very detailed instructions on how to caulk the gaps. It will be labor intensive but cheap. And I will be a much happier homemaker. That will get done this weekend.
The den walls consist of thin inside paneling, wall space with no insulation, an outer sheathing of miscellaneous boards with shingles over that. Much of our weekend was spent trying to make the walls somewhat winter-proof on a temporary basis as we anticipate having them renovated by next summer. The results are workable but not very aesthetic. We used duct tape to cover gaps in the paneling, strips of OSB to cover gaps at the ceiling and floor, and a bazillion tubes of caulk to seal the leaky windows. Here are a couple of pictures:
At the ceiling by a window:
At the floor by the front door:
We call this cheesy cheapskate decorating (not to be confused with the honorable method of tightwad decorating). And no, I haven't stitched in over two weeks. Bummer.

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