Boxed, Fixed, Ordered, Delivered

Yes, I finally got my box!!! And now the soft top is packed up, taped up, and ready for weighing at my local postal office. I cannot wait to get it back up on Ebay tonight.


Also ready for posting - 4Runner #1!! I detailed it on Saturday, Mike completed all the final repair touches on Sunday, and just this morning I took all the photos I need to sell. Posting will commence tonight. Another weight soon to be off my shoulders and out of my driveway.


But the biggest and best news of all came late Sunday afternoon. Mike and I were on the porch, discussing all things electric, when our neighbor Rich pulled into the driveway. Apparently, Timmy (who did our garage roof) was asking about the porch - if we had wired it, if we had ordered the materials, if we were ready to go on it... because he was available and ready to work.


I didn't hesitate. "Mike can get all the materials tomorrow," I told Rich. 

Mama don't mess around when it comes to availability. Timmy made us a shopping list a while ago, plus, we now knew what we wanted in wiring. "Just go down to Morse Lumber tomorrow and order it all," I told Mike after Rich left. And he did.


The unfortunate news is that we couldn't get exactly what I wanted for the ceiling. The traditional thing to get is that bead board stuff - you know, like wainscott, 2 1/2 inch wide wainscott bead board, whatever you want to call it. But I really wanted something a little meatier - like a 4 inch or even 6 inch wide bead board. Something different, you know? Well, Mike investigated all the options this morning and discovered that there is a HUGE price difference between the normal 2 1/2 inch vs wide board. We just couldn't go wide. For all that we needed, the 2 1/2 inch was about $680. The next level up jumped to $1300.... and the next after that.... around $2500. Ouch. For just the ceiling!!!! Ouch ouch!


So, traditional it will be. And, in case you didn't know, it's also traditional to paint your farmer's porch ceiling blue - like the sky. I'm not sure if Mike got the pre-primed white stuff or the true-wood stuff or the fake-wood stuff. If it's pre-primed white stuff, I'll definitely go with the lightest tint of blue. If it's true-wood or fake-wood, I may go with the rustic, wood look. I'll find out tonight since Mike's order will be delivered today.


And at this very moment, Mike's on his way to the DeepHo to pick up all the electrical. We decided on one fan to go over the fat section of the porch and 10 outlets, to be distributed evenly, about one every 10 feet, across the perimeter of the porch. No additional lighting. Why? The outlets will be so much more versatile. I can string holiday lights, (which normally come in 10' sections, hence the 10' spacing between the outlets) rope lights, pendent lights, and so much more depending on the season, holiday, event, or occasion.


That, and I want to purchase these nifty railing cap lights.  (PS - This dekor website, linked to the left, has all sorts of nifty lighting. I like the "deck dots" too.) They'll be great for stairways, especially (Speaking of which, I am SO looking forward to having proper porch stairways.)

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Living In It

FedEx redeemed themselves yesterday, delivering the new rug one full day in advance. And to the correct address to boot! I'm much relieved on that one. Now the challenge is to replace the old rug by the end of Friday.

I hope to accomplish this task tonight, although you know how that goes. It's a maybe at best.

The good news is, after the rug is in, we can bring back the last piece of furniture - the bar - and get all the misc glasses and beverages out of the kitchen at long last. Other odds and ends include the curtain rods and curtains, pictures and mirrors, and the last two outlets. Then, call it done!

And dare I say, move on?
Oooo, I said it.

But what's next? I say it's only natural to finish up the hallway/stairway next. Plus, portions of it will be relatively easy. We could probably cut, stain, and install the baseboard trim this weekend if we get rained out as they're predicting. The front door trim shouldn't be much of a problem either - and I'd really like that done since one of our cats continues to munch on (and get sick on) the exposed drywall. The door needs to get painted too, as it's only primed. No biggie.

The stairway, however, will prove to be much more challenging. First off, thanks to me, all the treads need to be removed, sanded and re-stained. Even water based paint by the way, once it has cured for about a month is on there for life.

Once that laborious task has been completed, the stairway needs to be trimmed, the balusters and railing need to be installed, and the balcony overhang drywall needs to be trimmed and painted.

As usual... one step at a time. I'll see if I can push the momentum forward with some weekend trimmings.

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A Late Start to a Long Day

Saturday - the final frontier.

And Mike and I totally slept in after holding a little going away party for one of our friends on the previous night. We didn't even get moving until around noon, believe it or not. And even then we were still moving around pretty sluggishly.

Nevertheless, it was with a heavy heart that we took the old side door and mudroom windows to the dump... NAH, just kidding. That was awesome. Goodbye seashell door knocker. Goodbye energy deficient windows. Goodbye to that stupid awning thing over the old door. And good riddance to all.

We got home, feeling a little more motivated, and measured and cut the exterior trim for the new windows. Then we gave them a coat of paint.



While waiting for the paint to dry, we quickly installed the doorbell and exterior light that we had moved the wiring for when we moved the door. (Read that sentence at least three times to fully understand.) That didn't take too long, so, while all the electrical tools were handy, we installed a new light in the basement stairway and wired it to the switch.

We had at first wanted the stair light and the basement lights to come on at the same time with the same switchs. But, finding the wiring very very very confusing, (two switches, two sets of lights, two feeds, and a partridge in a pear tree) we just decided to make one switch turn on the stair light and one turn on the rest of the lights. It seemed to make more sense for future anyway. So we did that.


But once the light was on in that basement stairway, it illuminated a big problem. The drywall looked like crap. Having previously been a closet, the now stairway had not received very much care and attention from the drywallers. And now lit up for all the world to see - it was rather pathetic looking.

Plus - remember that big 'ol hole in the hallway where the under-stair closet used to be?
(Here's a pic from last summer - notice, that space under the stairs is still a closet.)

Well - that was now a giant hole, as you can see from this more recent pic.

I pondered a lot of your suggestions while thinking of what to do with such a hole and finally decided to make shelves on the inside - ie, the basement stairs side. Thus providing a secret space for secret nick nacks or tools or whatever. It just made more sense than shelves on the other side, which would be at your feet. That just seemed silly to have to bend down to look at whatever was on them. Plus, we'd have to create a cat door in the same hole so our two cats could get downstairs.

Wow, tangent. Anyhoo - those were the problems at hand. Also, at this point it was late in the day - maybe around 5pm. But nevertheless (can you believed I've used the word 'nevertheless" twice in here? Unbelievable.) NEVERTHELESS (3, had to do it.) Mike wanted to go down to the DeepHo for drywall.

Again, I was not one to stop the motivation train. Plus, I had about $9 on a gift card leftover from a return. So I figured, what the heck. We went down, picked up some stuffx, and started working as soon as we got home. Mike started in on the drywall while I gave those window trim pieces another coat of pain... I mean, paint. Hahaha.



Mike was still working when I finished the painting.

"You know what," he said, "We should really paint that bathroom ceiling."

Hmmm, I thought. He was right. It was brown in spots and disgusting. So I took the exterior paint I had been working with, grabbed a roller, and started painting the bathroom ceiling. But once I had most of the ceiling done, I was frustrated. Now the stark white bathroom walls looked mismatched against the cream colored ceiling. So I took everything out of the bathroom and started painting everything - the walls, the trim, the door - everything that looked dirty or gross or white, I painted.


Then I unscrewed and took down the old metal shower curtain rod that we didn't use. (It was too short for Mike, so we had a spring loaded one up.) And while I was painting the window trim I noticed a piece of tape under the window. Of course I thought, I'm going to take this tape off. Little did I know it was holding a couple of tiles on... which came off with it. I showed Mike and he laughed and came in to the bathroom and ripped off one of the stupid towel bars that I hated.



After that, Mike continued on the drywall - hanging all of the oddly shaped pieces. He also made my shelves and the cat door hole.



By the time we both realized we were hungry, it was around 10:30pm. Luckily, I had some leftovers, which we heated up. After that, the paint in the bathroom was pretty much dry and I was able to put everything back. Mike was done hanging and ready to sand, but didn't want to fire up his loud palm sander at 11:00 at night. So we went to bed.

And that was Saturday.