The Wheel Wreath

So long ago in a galaxy far far oasis I promised you guys I'd show you a picture of the steering wheel wreath, made from the old steering wheel we found while digging up the yard. Oh, and you probably want to see that too - the excavation sensation that's gripping the nation... or at least I thought it was pretty cool the way we took down that annoying and ugly hill next to the garage.

So in this pic you can see the remnants of the hill to the right. Imagine that hill stretching up to the wall of the garage and all the way back... even beyond where that trailer is in the middle of the picture. That's what it used to look like. Now it's nearly flat. And there's my truck and my boat and way in the back is our John Deere skid steer.

Ok, on to the wreath. I forgot to take a before picture, so you'll just have to imagine what the rusty crusty steering wheel looks like underneath all the pretty stuff. I think it turned out pretty cool.
It looks better than this in real life. In the pic it just looks like a pile of leaves and flowers and the color's kinda off. Sorry everyone, all the pics on this site are taken with my Palm and the resolution isn't fantastic.

Middle - Middle

The upstairs office in the beginning of the middle of finish work. This was after the bad drywallers, before the good drywallers came to fix it. Notice the crappy cutting around the windows.

The office in its current, middle of the middle state. See the lovely color block between the windows? That art peice is a decorator fabric, found on Ebay that I stretched on an artists canvas. I call it Symmetic Ladies... no I don't, I just made that up.

The living room - beginning of the middle. Would you believe most of this junk is my friend Kylene's? Well it is, or it was. She lived with us briefly, but sadly, she began work nearly an hour away, so had to leave us.

The living room in its current state. Sans couch of course, that will take another 40 days to arrive, but the room is coming together nonetheless.

The downstairs bedroom when Mike and I had to live in it because the upstairs drywall wasn't good enough to live in yet and it was the middle of winter and there was no heat up there. (And all our crap was disorganized and all over the place.)

The downstairs, now a guest bedroom, but still containing a couple junky items that we don't have any other place for... plus all my girlie decor from college.

You've seen this before - the laundry room when we first moved in. Look, Kamikazee is sitting on a pile of kitchen tile, still yet uninstalled at this point.

The current laundry/mudroom. Notice the pile of carpet samples I have yet to cut into a cool carpet-tile-like pattern. Hmmm, if Kamikazee had just been sitting on them, the circle would be complete...

The kitchen - notice my computer on the kitchen table. This was again, because the upstairs wasn't done and we were still sanding drywall in the rest of the house. See that coat on the chair? I threw that over the CPU whenever we sanded.

The kitchen now. It's hard to see the details. Those three art peices on the wall are all paintings of martinis. I'm a big appletini girl.

My Bidding...

Last weekend Mike hit the trails in New Hampshire for a little off-road R&R on the Kawi with his guy pals. Meanwhile I was stuck at home, dealthy ill with some sort of nasty stomach bug/food poisoning/migrane/hormones/you know. Very first time I stuck my head in my toilet... quite a momentus occassion. That aweful green color did not help the nausea, I tell you.

Since returning to 99% efficiency, leaving the customary 1% procrastination, I feel the need to be productive on the house this upcoming weekend. I mean really, when was the last time something got done? A project completed? I know we're waiting on the house lifter, and we're hesitant to spend excess dinero, but come on. There's so much to do that can be done.

I'm working on Saturday, so I'm going to tell Mike, we're working on the house on Sunday - no ifs, no ands, no skuttlebutts about it. We should at least finish the damn stairway. We put the first coat of stain/varnish on the steps what, a month ago?! We could at least give them a quick rub down with steal wool and hit 'em up with a second coat, if nothing else. The coats take 6 hours to dry, so ideally, we should do that Saturday night after work so they'd be ready for either a third coat or an install on Sunday.

Warm days are going to run short here on Cape Cod. We've already entered into what they call the Cat Nights.... you know, dog days of summer, cat nights? Anyhoo - if we're going to be sanding plaster and priming the hallway/stairway, I'd really love to have the doors and windows open with the fans-a-flyin' without freezing to death.

I don't think its too much to ask Mike to do my bidding for a day. And when did it become MY bidding anyway? It's our house, jeezus! You would think he'd want it done too. I know deep down he does, but he doesn't like sanding and carpentry's not his forte' either. Don't think we're fighting or anything, cause I've been lazy too and I admit it. I just have to take the initiative and stop being lazy first. Then I'll just feed him an Amp or two and we'll both have at it and have a wonderful time like we always do.

Good News

On the decorating side - I got an email from Fay from China with pictures of my sofa. My ACTUAL sofa that they just finished building. I ok-ed the pictures and hopefully it will be in the next shipment to LA and then to me! Here's one of the pictures Fay sent me.

Stagnant - Like Puddle Water

Doo bee doo, la la, na na, - OH, it's my audience. Hi everybody. Don't mind my quiet singing to myself, it's just a sign of my complete transition into boredom. Thousands of thousands of dollars are sitting in my savings account, just waiting to help lift up my house. And if not lift up my house, re-do my bathroom, build a fireplace - who knows what else! But, as happens very often in the wide world of contractors and homeowners, I have lost track of all my bargaining chips and am at the will of the contractor.

I talked to our house lifter last week... I hadn't heard from him for over a month, and so I called to say, "Hey what's going on? I thought you were going to do this job over the summer - SUMMER"S OVER!" Good news was, a mutal friend of ours mentioned us to him. Never hurts to have a connection, no matter how small... keeps things human.... or so I keep telling myself.

Anyway, he said he was finishing up a few jobs. Again confirmed that our house would be easy and he wasn't going anywhere. He said he'd get a letter/contract with a start date in the mail ASAP.

That was a week ago. *sigh* So here I am, back to twiddling my thumbs. I have a feeling it will be another month before I hear from him. And I'll have to call him. It's depressing. I know he's a good guy - he is the undisputed source for house lifting on Cape Cod and I'd never go anywhere else. I just wish we could be first on his list.