Can You Hear the Creaking? That's Just Me ~

Peeps, I am too dang old to be doing this kind of work.  On Sunday, instead of taking Miss Diva swimming, Walker and I finished taking down all the paneled walls.  We removed all the nails and hauled the paneling outside.  Then Walker removed the nails from the trim, sanded each piece, and filled the nail holes with putty.  When the putty dried he sanded them again, then he brought all the trim pieces down to the basement for me to prime and paint. 


Meanwhile, Bro and the boys stopped by to pick up the weight bench and weights that we've been storing for them, also in the basement.  I helped them bring up the weights and bars.  Then I moved all the furniture to one side of the basement and cleaned the floor.  While the floor was drying, I took up each of the carpet tiles from the living room and brought them down to the basement.  While Walker slept, I laid the carpet squares in his man-cave downstairs.  Honestly, I would have loved nothing more than to haul that icky carpet out to the curb, but we have cement floors with peeling paint down there right now, so even icky carpet is an improvement. 

Walker's man cave in the basement, after I moved the carpet squares.  We took the far wall down after one of the many floods two years ago ~ Walker wants more drywall but I think that will be money down the drain, as we flood on a regular basis.  We're in negotiations.  =)

Walker had to go to work Sunday night, so I had the house to myself while I primed and painted all that trim.  While the first coat dried, I moved all the furniture back:  sofa, loveseat, china hutch, end tables, entertainment center, TV, dining table, four chairs, and four bar stools.  Did you know that if you put cardboard under the legs, even the heaviest furniture slides over carpet like sled runners on snow?  Walker didn't.  He still doesn't believe I moved all that furniture myself.  I am woman, hear me roar!  Yeah, right.  My legs are bruised and every muscle in my body hurts.  I know I will pay for this tomorrow ~

Two - thirds done ~ well, with the first coat, anyway!

Progress, Sort Of ~

My foyer coat closet, in transition

My foyer coat closet now, three coats of paint later and ready to be enclosed in new walls ~

My dining room, one week ago ~

My dining room right now.

Paint swatches - Walker wanted "some kind of beige" but I wanted color.  Then I realized the blue / green shade I chose is the same color as our bathroom, and the "green" shade I chose looks like baby poo brown on the wall.  Beige it is, the one on the lower right ~

Under Construction, and a Visitor

My bunny friend is still MIA.  I have a feeling I won't be seeing him again. I'm choosing to believe he's in bunny rehab, courtesy of one of the neighbors.  Yep, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Our living room is no longer much good for living.  Walker is still helping his sister get settled in her new condo, so every night after work I come home and dive into our project on my own.  I have been painting inside the closets, pulling up carpet and vinyl floor tile, and tearing out trim and the old, wood paneled walls.  I carefully remove all the nails from the wood and haul it outside, stacking it against the garage.  When Walker comes home he breaks the wood into smaller lengths, so the garbage guys will take it.  They won't pick up anything more than four feet long.  If we weren't in a drought, we could burn it all in our fire pit.  But no rain equals a burn ban these days, so the garbage guys get it all.

It's mid morning before I get to bed.  That part doesn't bother me, though, because it is still SO. Stinkin'.  HOT!  I've been sleeping through the bad part of the day.  It's so hot here, the swimming pools aren't even crowded.  People just do not want to leave their nice air conditioned homes.  Even Diva and I, who normally visit the pool every day, have only been going once or twice a week. 

Last night I got to work right on time and was just hitting the time clock when I noticed someone pulling into our parking lot.  There isn't a lot of activity in my office at that time of day, so I took notice.  I was absolutely thrilled to see my friend Cherie, whom I have not seen since last December, when she was diagnosed with cancer.  We've kept in contact on Facebook and through email, but it's not the same.  Cherie lives in a tiny town up north, but she was in town for a chemo treatment and she made a point of stopping by my office to give me a hug.  I was so, so happy to see her.  Cherie is such a beautiful person.  She has the most amazing attitude, and I truly believe it is helping her to fight her cancer.  And she's winning, Peeps!  Her tumors are shrinking, there are no new hot spots, and she has suffered so few side effects she gets to keep taking the chemo for a couple more months.  I hope and pray that she will be cancer free soon.  Truly, she is a walking miracle, a testament to her faith.  It was the very best gift of all to see her.

Rabbit Tales

I was wrong about Friday’s dental visit being the last one.  For some reason, every so often, the Novocaine doesn’t “take”.  Yesterday was one of those days.  My mouth got tingly, but as soon as the dentist started drilling I could feel it, and it did not feel good.  He had to stop working to give me more shots, then wait for them to work, so I only got one of the two remaining cavities filled before the next patient arrived.  His next open appointment isn’t for two more weeks.  I’m on the cancellation list, but at the moment, I’ve got a wait ahead of me.   Oh, and I had to skip the iced coffee.  After the second round of Novocaine, I knew I wouldn’t be able to drink anything without it dribbling all over my shirt.

Yesterday, I noticed a bunny hopping around my side yard.  We have a lot, and I mean, a LOT of bunnies in my neighborhood.  There are four that make my yard a regular play area. Diva calls them all “Thumper”, but I can tell them apart.   Anyway:  One of my favorites, the skinny bunny with the really long ears, showed up  yesterday with a long, wide gash in his right leg.  He’s not a big guy, and this gash looked to be about an inch wide and four or five inches long.  It looked like the skin was torn, and just hanging loose.  The flesh of his leg muscle was clearly visible.   I immediately called Animal Control, hoping they would be able to trap him and stitch him up.  At the very least, if they don’t do bunny rehab, maybe they could euthanize him.  I can’t imagine anything surviving an injury like that without intervention.  I would hate for him to get some wicked infection and die a slow, miserable death.  Well, the good news is, they do bunny rehab.  The bad news is, I have to catch him first.  Yep, ME.

What Animal Control told me to do is, get a laundry basket, a long string, and a stick.  And just like those old cartoons, make a trap with the stick propping up the laundry basket.  The trap should be baited with apple slices, and the string tied to the stick can be really long, so we don’t have to sit right there.  When the bunny goes for the apple slices, I am to pull the string, which drops the laundry basket, and traps the bunny.  Hopefully.  

So after I got off the phone and assembled all the necessary components for my bunny trap, I went out to the patio and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  I haven't seen my furry friend since I made the phone call.  Not sure if he's hiding in his bunny den or if one of the other neighbors got him or if he's succumbed to his injuries.  Wherever he is, I hope he isn't suffering. 

Knee Deep

I have my last in this series of dental appointments today. At least, I hope I do.  If things do not go well, I could still be looking at a root canal.  I have my fingers crossed.  I’ve promised myself an iced mocha from Mc Donald’s when the appointment is over.  I can count on one finger the number of times I have indulged in that little cup of deliciousness.  Dr Phil calls drinks like that melted milkshake, and I can see why.  The nutrition content is atrocious.  But I do not care.  It’s a once a year treat to reward myself after going  through all the scary stuff at the dentist office, and I will enjoy every frosty, sugar-and-caffeine filled sip.

We decided to go ahead  and replace our front door, budget be damned, sort of.  We are supposed to get a depreciation check from my homeowner’s insurance for the storm damage we incurred last year.  We completed the repairs, submitted our receipts, and are now waiting for the check to arrive.  Normally, I would not order the door until the check is in hand, but the current door is darn hard to close, and I’m sure we’re losing money with its draftiness.  A new door takes six to eight weeks to get here, because, of course, our doorframe is not standard and the new door must be custom built.  So I ordered it.  And if, for some reason, the insurance check doesn’t come, I’ll take the payment for the door from my savings.  It’s all good. 

Since I didn’t know the door would take so long to get here, I already started some of the other steps in this process:  I emptied the linen closet and painted it, then I got to work on the rest of the trim in the hallway.  This weekend, I hope to get the coat closet in the foyer painted.  I also want to get all the carpet taken up.  It’s a lot easier to paint the trim when the carpet is gone.  I don’t even have to tape it off, since the floor will have new covering and the walls are getting new color.  Gotta love that – taping is so tedious.  Of course, I’ll have to tape over the trim when I do the wall color, but I’ll worry about that when I get that far.

A Slow Start

We've officially started our living room remodeling project.  Walker and I make a great team in a lot of areas, but home improvement is not one of those areas.  Walker's approach involves removing the old stuff in calculated sections, neatly rolling strips of flooring in perfectly proportioned strips that he will secure with three - always three - strips of duct tape, also spaced at perfect intervals.  He likes the trash to look nice sitting on the curb.  And it's all trash to Walker.  "Out with the old", in his mind, is "to the dump with the old".

Now, I grew up in a household where a lot of things were passed down, recycled, or repurposed.  My mom taught me to shorten ruffled curtains from the top, making a loop of fabric instead of cutting them off, so they could be let back out an moved to another window, or another house, later on.  She cut down an old bedspread my aunt gave her, removing the faded streak from the top, and refitted it for my twin bed.  Old closet bifold doors got repainted and hinged together to make privacy screens.  When my uncle changed the carpet in his living room, he removed it in one large piece, so we could relocate it to the play area of our basement.   Et cetera.

So when I look at a project, I look for things that can be reused.  Just because something no longer fits our needs doesn't mean it's garbage, right?  The louvered closet doors that I want to replace because I hate how dusty they get might be just the ticket for someone else.  Our old copper colored door knobs might give someone's home just the right finishing touch.  So I have a "save" pile, which will be offered first to Habitat for Humanity, then, H4H doesn't want them, listed on Free Cycle.  Drives my sweetie nuts.  All he sees is a big pile of trash.

Right now, it's slow going.  We have to move out all of our furniture.  I do not know where it's going to go.  First choice was the garage, but it's so hot out there, I'm sure it would be bad for our wooden pieces.  We have to demo the paneled walls, saving the trim to be repainted and reinstalled on the finished drywall.  We have to paint inside the closets, because they have not been painted since the house was built in 1953.  I have to make another attempt at fixing the hole in the dining room ceiling, because the current patch is not exactly a seamless fit.  We have to remove the old carpet tiles.  Then we have to repaint all the trim on the walls, repaint the doors, repaint the ceiling, and, when the contractor is finished with the drywall, paint the new walls.  Then we get our new flooring, after which all the furniture will have to be moved back into the room.  I get worn out just thinking about it. 

Miss Communication ~

Diva left me a voice mail yesterday, asking if I could take her swimming today at 12:30 pm.  I called her house, but her mom said she wasn't there - she was sleeping over at  my mom's house.  So I called over there to let Diva know that I was not available at 12:30, since I had a dentist appointment at two o'clock, but if I got done on time we could go swimming afterwards.

Today, I was getting out of the shower when I heard my front door open.  I wasn't dressed, so I hollered out, "Hello!" and my mom answered.  I tossed on a robe and went to see what they wanted - but my mom was alone.  She had already taken Diva back home, because Diva told her the first part of my message - I can't go swimming at 12:30 - but not the last part, about going after my appointment instead. Guess we need to work on Diva's communication skills.

On the plus side, I do not need a root canal, at least at the moment.  The two cavities on my right side have been filled.  Next week I get the left side done, and hopefully, that will be it for the year.  I hope, anyway.