Where Were We??

.....The part where the author reaches the end of her wits in the remodeling project due to grey ceiling paint.


First, before I get to the grey ceiling paint I want to take a moment and thank all of my great readers for being so loyal, patient and supportive. My goodness, I've received e-mails (the abilitie to read/retrieve severely limited), postcards (Lyda and Kat - thanks) and my surfer girlfriend Leslie even took me to the beach in California. It was a cyber trip but refreshing nonetheless.

I thought you might like to see a few photos of the work in progress.

Here's the wood laid out for installation. When the worker is arranging the pieces it sounds like someone is playing a very enthusiastic game of Jenga.



The wood is unstained red oak. That's our office/library and yes, the walls are painted red.

Here's the floor in the family room. The border was original. We had carpet in the center but after 10 years it was looking pathetic so we yanked it out and filled in with red oak. In order to accent we added a one plank insert of walnut. This is it's unfinished state.



Another view.



After 10 years the original border was looking orange.



So we had them sand it down, restain and finish so everything matched and wasn't orange.



Another view - anotated.



But, since we have new furniture coming we needed to also paint the walls a different color. This is the Farmer up on an 8 or 10 foot ladder painting the trim. The earthquake last year left a crack in this corner so he also fixed that. You will note that he's wearing his Arkansas Razorback pajama bottoms as his painting wardrobe. Go Hogs!!!



The Farmer and I have always done our own painting and did this room the last time. We've decided, however, that we are getting too old for this.

The mess..... I'm weary of the mess involved.



New paint color.



Clean up continues.



As I mentioned in my last post we realized that we'd to have the orginal floors (that extend into the other part of the family room and the hall) resanded, restained and finished so that everything matches. We thought we could avoid that. What were we thinking?

So anyway, that's our vacation. Instead of a vacation we opted to do these upgrades.

Just thought you might want to take a peek.

OOOPS... I forgot to tell you about the grey ceiling paint. Come back tomorrow for that tale.

The Neverending Story - Our Version

Remember the movie with the title, The Neverending Story? It feels like we are living that title here at home.

I cannot imagine how people survive a major house renovation. A cousin and his wife added on to their house instead of moving and they had to rent a house for a year during construction. There would be no way to live in the chaos.

Our hardwood floor project has grown. You know, like a stone gathering moss, or a runaway snowball barreling downhill.

We are merely extending some hardwood floors that we'd had installed about 10 years ago. I anticipated the problem that arose but hoped not to face it. The problem is that the new flooring does not match the older. It's just a matter of sanding down the old floor and re-coating it with a matching finish. It's a problem that's easily solved by the flooring crew but one that I'd rather not address, moneywise or timewise.

The older floor has aged but the main problem is that the Other Mother has applied coat after coat of a cheap floor wax product from the grocery store. We tried to discourage this but she is, after all, a product of the 1950's advertising culture. She believed the ads by DuPont and others, stating the we'd have a better life through chemistry! More about that another day.

Instead of being finished we are now patching a crack in the ceiling and waiting for more floor work.

Oh....... and it snowed overnight.

So much for spring.