Our Home Renovations
No Longer UNDER CONSTRUCTION! 🙂
The Money Pit
New Entries are Down Below
I Do Have A Very LOOOOOOOONG Introduction Until You Get There.
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Welcome to Our Home Renovations
Ahh, Home Crap Home!
Said by Tom Hanks character, Walter Fielding in the movie The Money Pit when he came home from work after a long day only to discover all the renovation work that still needed to be done which they were originally told would only take 2 weeks.
The Money Pit was made in 1986 and starred Tom Hanks, Shelley Long, and a cast of excellent characters. I pretty much watched my copy of this VHS movie on a loop in 1986 when we were living in an apartment in Pearl City, Hawaii.
(Me, 1987 in our apartment in Pearl City, Hawaii and pregnant with Veronica.
I can also guarantee to you that I am watching The Money Pit.)
Every thing imaginable that is terrible happened to us our first year there. For some reason this movie just made me feel better about our own circumstances.
Which is why when I decided to blog about our home renovations I couldn’t possibly do that without referencing this very funny movie.
This couple could very well be a young Julie and Gordon.
Steven Spielberg Presents…..
The Money Pit
Tom Hank and Shelley Long as Walter Fielding and Anna Crowley
(The potential home buyer’s.)
Maureen Stapleton as Estelle, the Con Artist
(The home owner.)
Walter Fielding with his new home and his new car that came with the new home.
The House is Falling Apart, Literally
Plaster Falling From the Ceiling
(That is real plaster hitting her on the head. That has to hurt!)
You know, I have to wonder if these two excellent actors and comedians would even be hired to play leading roles in this day and age? Although they are both very attractive people I don’t know that if by today’s standards they would even be considered good looking enough? Which if that were the case a lot of talented people would never make the cut and that would be our loss. I’m just glad this movie was made in 1986 and that both actors were cast here.
Walter Trying to Fix a Few of the Stair Steps
While the Whole Staircase Falls Down
This is just one of my favorite scenes in the movie.
Although our Home Renovation Journey is not nearly as extreme as theirs, we can relate to all the inconveniences that they go through. Which is why we wanted to share our experience with you.
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Here Walter is Gathering Water From any Available Source
Seeing as how they lost their stairs they have to climb a ladder carrying water to their upstairs. While Walter is being Walter. 🙂
Gordon and Julie carrying empty beach buckets, and with a thermos tied around my neck.
Julie and Gordon, as Anna and Walter
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Thanksgiving
(That is the only reason they would be cooking such a large bird, however they do live in New York and normally it would be very cold so I doubt the time period is actually November as they are running around wearing shorts. But, we run around wearing shorts in November so we’re just assuming it’s their Thanksgiving.)
This is what we can relate to the most.
They are determined to go through with their ‘Thanksgiving’ in spite of all the renovations.
Anna Placing the Turkey in their Oven
Walter Turning on the Light Switch in the Kitchen Started the Fire
Julia Child Even Made An Appearance
The Fire Quickly Spread Throughout the Kitchen
Causing the Oven to Explode and launch the Turkey out of the Kitchen Window…
(If you look closely you can see the turkey sailing through the air in the photo top left.)
…and into the Window of the Bathroom Where Anna was Planning on Taking a Bath.
Walter Rushing to the Rescue only to be Told,
“Well, The Turkey’s Done”
Their Turkey Ended up in a Bucket
So, we put our turkey in a bucket. 🙂
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Anna and Walter
Walter Looking Through All the Bills
Because their turkey ended up in a bucket, Anna decides to make Peanut Butter Sandwiches for her and Walter for dinner.
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Here I am Making Peanut Butter Sandwiches for Gordon and I For Dinner,
While Gordon Goes Over All the Bills
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I Do Love That Peanut Butter
In Spite of all the Renovation Crap……
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Hi! How do ya like our set?
We Did Manage To Have….
Our Home Renovation Thanksgiving
Does it really matter where you have Thanksgiving?
Or just that you are able to have Thanksgiving?
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When we think the camera has stopped shooting. 🙂
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We also created a new post depicting our Thanksgiving Turkey called:
If You Would Like To Take A Look
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We Also Recreated the Dining Room Dinner on the Ping Pong Table
This is such a cute dinner between the two of them. Anna is used to having champagne with dinner every night so she always totes around this galvanized steel bucket with a bottle of booze in it.
Seeing as how she doesn’t have a champagne bucket, she uses this one.
Anna, Bringing in the Salad
I could very clearly see that this was a very simple salad of lettuce leaves, some tomatoes and cucumber.
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Anna, tossing that salad for what seems like forever.
We are guessing that these are Brussel Sprouts?
Here come the Cornish Hens with all the Curly Parsley.
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And Now For The Bread
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Dinner on the Ping Pong Table, Love it!
(I grew up with a ping pong table in our game room. I was actually pretty good at it too.) 🙂
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Our Recreation Dinner
The Hostess With The Leastest
(Ya know, all we have to do is to buy a few paddles and some ping pong balls and then we’ve got us a game table.)
This is our recreation dinner.
Me, tossing that salad as much as Anna did.
Placing those Cornish Hens (Rotisserie Chickens) on the table.
We noticed that all the food in the movie seemed to be green. The Tossed Salad, the Brussel Sprouts, all the Parsley around the Cornish Hens….. We decided to just go ahead and make everything green ourselves. How about using up that broccoli that we have in the refrigerator? And why not add to it the cauliflower too? Let’s steam it. Oh, and let’s add a green pesto dressing to the salad too! In addition to our roasted Brussel Sprouts.
Me, doing my best to be domestic.
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The Dinner Was Delicious!
Gordon/Walter Enjoying His Meal
The Picture of Domestic Bliss 🙂
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Julie’s Money Pit Salad
(Do you see a resemblance here?)
We’ll give you the dressing recipe. It just needs a good toss.
I’ll Take Some Chicken Gordon.
I suppose that the longer our renovations go on, the more scenes from the movie we will re-enact. 🙂 I want to do the mattress on the floor scene but Gordon doesn’t want to drag the twin beds out of the attic. Can’t imagine why?
If I were to try and explain our website to someone that didn’t know us I would probably coin the phrase, It’s our life in movies.
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Our Story Starts October 2, 2020 with our dishwasher leaking water, and then with Renovation Prep Starting October 27, 2020, and our professional Renovations Starting November 16, 2020.
I’ll let you know when we’re through……
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Gordon and Julie Present………………
Our Home Renovations
Gordon Installing New Hurricane Proof Windows in Brodie’s Old Bedroom
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This part of reno is all ours to do.
We are doing quite a bit of work before our actual renovations begin.
As in turning our son’s old bedroom into a den for us.
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Our Professional Home Renovations are only to last 3 Weeks…
or so we are told by our contractor.
(We’ll See, Right?)
(That would be Gordon doing who knows what?)
But until that day starts when the workers arrive we have our own renovations and work to do around here ourselves.
Lots and lots of Prep! Some of what I blog about may be informative, some of it may be entertaining, and some of it may be boring. Either way, this is our life.
Julie and Gordon
(Written by Julie)
Our Kitchen 🙁
The story begins with our dishwasher that leaked water underneath our kitchen cabinets and island and into our living room……
If you would like to read our story from the beginning, then start at the very bottom of this post.
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Also Check Out Our:
AND,
Gordon and Julie Renovations and Apps For Dinner
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Great News!!! Julie’s Got a Mini-Fridge!!!
(And in the bathroom too.)
I’ve got it all set up. Can’t wait to show you. It fits right there where you see it, except underneath that drawer. It’s perfect! As Mackenzie say’s, “You’ve got a cute Studio Apartment now.” Oh yes we do! This mini-Fridge and everything you see in the bathtub will get us through our upcoming renovations. 🙂
Drinks, Juices, Saran Wrap, Aluminum Foil, Cutting Boards
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We are sequestered to our bedroom and bathroom while all the work goes on.
HENCE…..
Our Coffee and Tea Station
(In our bathroom. BUT, just so you know, we do have a separate toilet room so the coffee station isn’t exactly in our “bathroom.)”
Found my Splenda Packets
AND,
We are making the best of it, all 4 of us!
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BLOG ENTRIES START HERE
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1 Year Later
It looks like it’s time to close this Home Renovations page out.
It pretty much took us 1 year from start to finish, to get all this done. Oh sure, the initial work was only a few months, but our part in putting our home back together and doing a bit of redecorating took much longer. The pandemic also took it’s toll on us not being in any hurry. So, we took our time. Perhaps longer than we should have but, who was around to see it? No one but us.
We do have a few more home improvement projects to do but we will place those on another page.
We are enjoying our home and every single day that we get to live here in it. You see, we are homebodies. The world is becoming a very scary and dangerous place, and for the last decade we have been upgrading our home on the inside and outside in order to make it our sanctuary. For some, their home is just base camp. A place to house their possessions and a place to sleep while they live their lives outside their home. But for us, our house is our HOME. Our Home is our Life. This is where we choose to live until we no longer can.
Home, Sweet, Home
Julie and Gordon 🙂
P.S. I will probably post a few photos of our finished living room, kitchen, and dining room, and den when I think they look good enough to photograph.
Thank you very much for your interest in us.
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Week 38
August 3, 2021
Replacing Old Glass Knobs with New Beach Glass Knobs
In the Kitchen
Just a Nice Little Beachy Glass Upgrade..
on Every Kitchen Cabinet and Drawer.
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WEEK 37
July 27, 2021
Yet More Stuff!
Just When I Thought It Was Under Control
Our Dining Room
(You can see that we have really made progress since our renovations and ALL THOSE BOXES!)
About a month ago Gordon flew up to Chesapeake, Virginia to visit with his parents and brother, and to help them move into a very nice Independent Living Apartment.
Sarajane and Milton Whann
(We don’t know how old they are in this photo but they are around our age here.)
His parents are selling their home and getting rid of quite of bit of their possessions. Gordon’s sister and niece were also there for a few days to help and to take some things back home with them to North Carolina. The plan was for Gordon to fly up, stay a week, and then rent a truck bringing back with him quite a few things that they were giving him. HOWEVER, when he called the usual businesses about renting a truck they all said NO! They don’t want their trucks leaving the state. (He would be driving the truck from Chesapeake, Virginia to our home in Florida, and then turning it into a branch of the business down here.) He then looked into renting a truck from one business, with a hitch to hook up a trailer to and drive down bringing the items with him. While renting the trailer from another place. Again, No! They don’t want their trucks or trailers leaving the state.
So, Gordon had no choice but to fly back home. He did look into renting a truck down here and driving it up to Virginia but they all said NO! They don’t want their trucks leaving the state of Florida. Gordon was able to find a place that would rent him a trailer to hook up to the back of my car but I said NO! My car is 15 years old and I’m not sure it can make it up there and back hauling such a large load. What happens if you break down? You will be at the mercy of some mechanic and how much they charge? And you know how I don’t trust mechanics. Mechanics and dentists can do whatever they want to our cars and our mouths and we don’t know if they are crooks or decent human beings. It won’t be like you can shop around. You’ll be broken down and will have to pay whatever they say you will have to pay. Also, who knows how long it will take to get it fixed? Can you just stay off from work for an extra week or so not only having to pay to get my car fixed but also some cheap motel room while it’s being done? Not the mention all the extra money we will be pouring into some trailer until we can return it to where you rented it from? Our cars are old and I don’t think we have one that can make that kind of distance and be o.k.
(Do you see how I can go through very realistic scenarios from beginning to end? People really do hate that about me.) 🙁
So, Gordon had to leave the items that he wanted up there and fly back here to find a way to get them down here. We did look at companies to pick the items up and ship them down here. Some told us they would get back to us with a price, and never did. It was when Gordon was at work and talking to a few co-workers about his situation that one guy told him that his best friend has a trucking company and he will pick the items up and bring them down to us. Gordon then got in touch with this guy and he took the job. $3,000.00 round trip. Because it would be something of a complicated pick up at Gordon’s parents house, Gordon asked if he could ride up with him? He did.
So, this past Saturday they picked Gordon up at around 9:00 a.m. and off they went.
They didn’t return until Sunday night at around 12:30 a.m.
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With the dogs howling as loudly as they were with Gordon and the man that he had hired for the job, I’m sure we woke up the entire neighborhood!
Meet Our New Coffee Table and Gordon’s New Bar
These are hatch covered from the U.S.S. Diamond Head, 1945.
Gordon is thrilled, beyond thrilled, to have these things. They are very valuable to his family and to Gordon to thus pass down to our children. Gordon being a Navy Veteran and these items being on a Navy vessel means a lot.
Gordon’s Parents Canoe Which is Now Ours
(Meet the Julie A., or the Barefoot something another, or the Sea Monkey… Still deciding.)
Our New Picnic Table
(I always wanted one and the fact that this one belonged to Gordon’s parents makes it very special.)
Plus About 13 Boxes Just Like This One
So, what is so special about this box? I will happily share that with you on another page of mine when I write about it. 🙂
Still finding room for all of this. What I do love about my In-Laws is that they are hoarders. Hoarders preserve history. They keep things forever. The family history is preserved. And we get to relive it every day. 🙂
Julie
P.S. What we have discovered with the whole trying to rent a truck or trailer is that there is more to the pandemic damage than the average person realizes. In the past it was no big deal to rent a truck or car or trailer but now it is impossible. What else don’t we know about the damage this pandemic has done? Most car dealerships and rental companies had to sell a lot of their cars and trucks during the pandemic in order to stay afloat.
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July 12, 2021
How It’s Going
Week 35
Top: Before
Bottom: Now
I am ashamed to say that we are just now starting to tackle all of these boxes that have been in our dining room since our renovations ended many months ago. We did quite a few this past weekend being able to put things away as we opened them, not having opened boxes just laying around everywhere. We pretty much dealt with it all as we went. It felt really good to start to deal with this mess. I think that we are finally mentally coming out of our hybernation from Covid. I also think that because Gordon is helping me that it is giving me the incentive to tackle the boxes.
It dawned on me just yesterday why I have avoided this mess. When I was growing up I moved around quite a bit with my family. I was the new kid in school 9 times in 12 years. I counted that I moved 12 times by the time I graduated from high school. And then I moved around a bit myself as a young adult, about 5 times. Then I married Gordon and we moved a few times before he even joined the Navy. An additional 2 times. We then moved an additional 5 times during his career, up until we bought our current home.
When we bought this house and settled in I told Gordon that I am not leaving and going anywhere for a very long time. And I didn’t! 🙂
I thought back on all those moves prior to these renovations which were basically a move in itself. It was then that I realized that it was always me unpacking all those boxes, all those years. I pretty much just told Gordon where to hammer a nail to hang a photo or painting. And he pretty much just let me do it all by myself, and sadly, I did it.
I believe that subconsciously I just looked at all those boxes and pretty much decided to ignore them until they go away. It’s only been recently that Gordon has shown interest in unpacking them. This past weekend we both worked very hard in opening them and putting the contents away. It went really fast and very efficient. We have put a dent in it all. Yeah!
I just counted and we have 36 boxes left to unpack. We are planning on tackling a few this weekend. Other than that we are really coming together as a home. I’ll take photos when it all comes together.
Thank you very much for your interest in our very long and arduous project.
Julie
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April 18, 2021
Week 23
So, how are our home renovations going?
You tell me? 🙂
I do have some progress to report. I will when I am finished.
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March 13, 2021
Week 18
Hanging The Mermaid Tail
Here Gordon used fishing line to hand the cutting board fish that you see above.
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It’s been a while since I’ve written. We’ve been busy doing other things. But now we are finally getting our 100 plus pound mermaid tail into place. I will leave the write up to Gordon. So, here goes:
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I first took many measurements of the tail and the space it would be placed into. I noted the flat part of the body and the curve of the tail were a little over 2 inches from being level with each other with the body being higher. This was important as it meant the body would be able to rest on the openings base, leaving the tail room to rest on the wall. I made a template of the opening and drilled two wood screws into the tail base as shown.
I taped the board to the tail so it wouldn’t move and angled the tale to ensure it wouldn’t hit our wall below the opening.
As stated before, I drilled two wood screws into the template and base to ensure the template wouldn’t move. I then drilled two holes which would hold the 5 inch bolts I purchased. I then barely screwed a bolt into the drilled holes then removed the wood screws and drilled two more holes where the screws were.
I used my work table to hold the tail when I drilled the holes. It really is a beautiful piece of wood.
Here you can see the holes in the tail base. You can also see the hanger provided in the center of the base, which would never hold the 80-120 lb. tail.
Here, Brodie is helping me set the heavy tail into the space above our bar area. I also placed a 2 inch by 5 inch piece of gasket material under the base so the wood wouldn’t be marred.
Here, Brodie and I are taking turns ratcheting the bolts into the tail base. I am also securing the 1/8 inch X 2 inch X 36 inch metal bars into the sides of the wall holding the tail in place.
Here you can see how I secured the tail base to the inside walls of the space. My neighbor has a friend who was able to bend the bars at an exact 90 degree angle. Eight bolts are holding it onto the wall. It is overkill I know, but the bars are securely fastened to the wall.
Here you can see Julie underneath the large mermaid tail.
With a few great ideas by Julie to cover the holes, our vanishing mermaid is complete!
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February 15 – 19, 2021
Week 14
We actually took almost 2 weeks off in order to await the arrival of some furniture that we had ordered. And to just enjoy my birthday and the food and activities that came with it.
Turning 60
I turned 60 on February 13th. and I wanted to really mark the occasion with some good food, a nice birthday cake, and we did take a canoe trip down Hillsborough River in Thonotosassa, Florida in alligator infested waters.
Julie The Photographer
I loved just sitting back and taking photos of such a lovely and peaceful birthday.
And yes, we saw about 35 alligators.
It was awesome!
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The furniture that we have been waiting for finally arrived! 🙂
The only problem is that the movers couldn’t get the couch into our “den” which is located in the back of the house, a.k.a. Brodie’s old bedroom. So, I told them to just leave it in the middle of our living room and I will have Gordon deal with it when he gets home.
Gordon Dealing With It
We originally ordered this pull out sleeper sofa for our den so that it could provide extra sleeping when we have guests, and if one of us gets sick from Covid we can isolate to that side of the house and be comfortable while the other one of us brings the food and drink while we are sick. BUT, it won’t fit back there because it is just so big!
We did think about returning it but the thing is, we really do like this sleeper sofa. It’s nice and big and sturdy. It fits great in our beachy Hawaiian decor. So…… we decided to rearrange our living room so that we now have 2 couches. Yes!
The Matching Chair
All the Pillows Everywhere!
Gordon Putting The New Sleeper Sofa Together
I look forward to bringing you the finished photos of our new living room.
Although a bit hard to tell here, it looks great! We’ve arranged it so that we have 2 couches and the new chair and believe it or not even though we have more furniture in this room, we have managed to have more room in this room.
You’ll see when it’s all done. Can’t wait to show it to you!
Julie
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February 1 – 5, 2021
Week 12
Before and After
Before and After
The Furniture that we had picked up to be upholstered on November 16, 2020 is FINALLY finished and has been delivered!
They did a wonderful job! We are so very pleased with everything!
The chair above, and the couch below.
The fabric that you see above placed on top of the couch is the actual front of the fabric. I knew that it was just too bold for this room so I asked them to order the fabric for us except to turn it inside out so that we have a nice hint of the fabric without throwing up Hawaii everywhere. We love it! it looks great!
It is now a much more comfy couch for our living room.
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This is me, age 2, sitting in that yellow chair from above except that here it is a lovely green.
That chair belonged to my grandparents.
Here I am holding our daughter Veronica in 1988 sitting in that yellow chair.
In the photo right is my grandmother, my mother, me, and Veronica. 4 generations.
And here I am sitting in the same chair, recovered, at age 60.
Well, I’m 60. The chair is probably around 65.
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The History of a Couch
These are photos of my mother when she was young and lived at home with her parents. In the photo at right she is on her way to to prom with my biological father. The couch she is sitting on in the photo at left, and you can also see the same couch in the photo at right, is the one I just had recovered. AGAIN.
This is me, probably age 2 laying on that couch. I’ve always been a bit lazy. 🙂
Fast forward to 1985 and you can see me and Gordon with my little brother’s Frank and Ben, sitting on that same couch with a different fabric. My grandmother had it recovered.
Same couch, more brothers, 1988 at my grandmother’s house.
L to R: Ben, John, Mary Keith, Baby Veronica, Me, Johnny
Frank in Front
Same couch in green. When I inherited the couch I decided to have it recovered in the pretty green above. That was almost 20 years ago.
But, it was time to recover it again so……
Julie and Sparky
This is the fabric I chose. And I love it! I also told them to make it a bit more comfortable than it was before. They did such a wonderful job on it.
I’ve known this couch and that chair my entire life. This couch has been a part of my family for around 65 years or so. Same with the chair. It would be where I would sit when I would visit with my grandparents and great-grandparents, and then it belonged only to my grandmother. When she died I asked if I could have it.
No work has ever been done to this couch other than to have it recovered. It is strong and sturdy. This couch has been with us all through good times and bad. Happiness and sadness. Death, and new life. It has known 5 generations of my family. I just hope that when I die that my children will recognize it’s value as an important family member and don’t just donate it to Goodwill when I’m gone. I will so haunt them if they do!!
People say that we aren’t supposed to love material things.
I disagree. Especially when those material things are family.
Julie
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January 30 – 31, 2021
The Weekend
SPECIAL DELIVERY!
It was too big to bring through the front door so Gordon had to open it up outside.
Cannot wait to show you what we have planned for this! 🙂
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January 25 – 29, 2021
Week 11
Kitchen Drawers and Cabinets
When we started putting our kitchen back together we literally had to do everything from scratch. New shelf paper, etc. But, I Julie, literally had to clean every single item before placing it back into each drawer and cabinet. THAT was A LOT of WORK! As you can see judging just by our silverware drawer alone in the photo above. So, you can imagine how much time it has taken me to tackle this big project.
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Reinstalling Shades and New Blinds to Den
The bamboo shades you see have hung in this room since we bought the house. I chose them and am very happy with them and I didn’t want anything new where they are concerned. However, our fabric blinds were filthy, so we needed to buy new ones.
Here Gordon is installing our new fabric blinds and reinstalling our old shades.
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Before we ordered the new fabric blinds, we needed to measure the full opening. Once they arrived, read the directions they provide. I then space the brackets in the opening and screwed holes into the window opening.
I then inserted plastic anchors into the holes, then drilled the screws into the bracket and anchors for a nice tight fit.
I inserted the shades into the brackets….
and made sure they worked properly. When I removed the shades from the bracket, I accidentally broke one of the brackets. The directions didn’t tell you how to remove the shades if needed, so I didn’t really feel bad about it. We had another shade, so I borrowed the bracket and continued on with the installation. If you ever break a bracket you can always call the manufacturer, tell them what happened and request another one. It took about two weeks for them to send it to me. They ended up sending me two at no charge.
I then had to install the bamboo shades, so I drilled holes for its brackets which went into wood, so there was no need for the plastic anchors.
When trying to install the bamboo shades they wouldn’t go into the bracket due to the assembly holding the string for the cloth shades was slightly larger. I didn’t account for this when I installed them. To fix this, I removed the right side bracket, filled the holes with drywall spackling, and let it dry. I then moved the bracket out to its furthest point and drilled it back in place.
Moving the shade out 1/8 of an inch is barely noticeable as you can see.
I drilled all the holes for both shades around the other window, making sure to leave room for the string mechanism before installing the bamboo shade, as we waited for the bracket to be delivered.
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January 18 – 22, 2021
Week 10
Creating Space
I will let Gordon do the write-up of what he did to create more usable space underneath our sink, but I wanted to point something out to you in the photo above. See the space between where our dishwasher goes and the cabinet underneath where our kitchen sink goes? Well, it was when our cabinets were returned from being renovated that I noticed it, and I pointed out to Gordon, it is a shame we can’t utilize the space to give us more room underneath our sink, where we pretty much store quite a bit of stuff.
Gordon then called the people doing our renovations to see if they can extend the cabinet to encompass that space? They said they could, but it would cost just over $1,000.00. Gordon was onboard but I said, NO! We are not paying that much money for an additional foot of space. We will just do without.
It was then that Gordon, the creative genius that he is, started using that noggin of his and came up with two ideas to give us more space and he didn’t buy anything in order to do it. He used what we already had in our garage.
I will let him take it from here…….
Here to the left, we stored our cleansers, sponges, scrubbing pads, gloves, etc… Those latter smaller items always seemed to get lost or fell between the cleansers making them hard to find and keep organized.
Here to the right of the sink, we stored all of our cooking oils, bottled sauces, vinegar, as well as our plastic wrap, baggies, aluminum foil, paper towels, etc… that couldn’t fit inside our drawer where we keep them in our kitchen. Those were the extras because we like to stock up. You can see how disorganized it became.
On the left side I decided to mount a basket where we could easily store our sponges, scrubbing pads, gloves, etc. The wire basket wasn’t fully square all the way around and fell to a taper at the base. I needed to create a way to get into the basket as well, so I removed some of the wires at the short end of the basket so that all we had to do was to reach our hand through the basket to get what we needed. To do that, I simply used wire cutters to remove them. I then used a file to remove the sharp points so that we wouldn’t scratch our hand or arm as we reached into it.
The tools for this job minus the canned spray oil are: a pencil, a drill, a wood drill bit, 2 wood screws 2″ long, measuring tape, level, wire metal basket 10″ x 13 1/2″ x 6″, wire cutters, file, 11″ length of 1″x 2″ wood, 2 wire shelving hanger clips, four 1″ screws, and a flashlight.
I first set the basket in where I thought would be a good spot to place it where we could access it easily and it didn’t interfere with the other things under the sink. I then found the taper of the basket could be corrected and kept straight by using a 1″ thick piece of wood. I then marked where the front and top of the basket should be and then where the piece of wood should be. I drilled two holes in the wood, then a hole in the side of the cabinet. I then drilled a 2″ screw into the closest hole joining them together. I placed the level on the wood and drilled through the cabinet using the existing hole in the wood as a guide. Now, drill the screw through both pieces of wood. Using my pencil marks where the basket should go, I then placed the clips where they would lie between the wires of the basket near the front and end of the basket. Use your pencil and mark the holes and then drill the four holes. Place the basket and clips in place and secure them all with the screws.
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Here is my finished results.
You can see the wide opening we have to access the previously loose items. This was an easy project to do and I hope you are inspired to do the same with your unused space.
Now, to work on the right side storage space.
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Here, I removed the items to go on top of the shelf… baggies, foil, plastic wrap, etc… You can also see the empty space not being used.
Now, I had to place many of the items in a box, so I would have room to work. I kept some of the taller items to use as a guide for the height of the shelf.
The shelf base is a thin piece of plywood 2′ x 3′. I used a large piece of wax paper and with my fingernail, I traced the base section of my cabinet by making an impression into the paper. This then gave me the exact angles and area of the space.
I used my circular saw to cut the thin plywood.
Once I put the corner section in place, I could figure out the angle of the curve for the front section.
On the picture to the left, you can see the faint wax paper template I used. On the right, you can see the angle I used in the front.
Now With Everything Out of the Way….
I used three shelf brackets to secure the wood shelf to the cabinet.
I used a pencil to mark the optimum height of the shelf. I then screwed 1/2″ screws to hang the brackets on the cabinet wall, being especially careful on the wall leading to the outside showing wall.
I spray painted the wood shelf white so it would blend in well with the cabinet.
I used a hot glue gun to glue the thin wood shelf to the top of the brackets.
I then placed the foil, wax paper, plastic wrap, etc… on top of the shelf.
Again, I hope you are inspired to complete this easy worthwhile project.
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Week 9, January 11-15, 2021
On The Treadmill In Our New Den
Our new den is awaiting it’s pull out sofa to be delivered mid February. Until then it really is pointless to put this room together until that happens. Granted, I did order some white fabric blinds to be installed. And we will once they arrive. But it is pointless to stock the many shelves we have in this room until that couch is delivered because we will need to clear a path for that couch and we will just need to undo, whatever it is that we do. So, therefore we mostly wait.
We really didn’t do that much this week.
We are slowly putting our home back in order. We did do a lot of cooking this week. But as far as putting our house back in order, that is taking some time. We did call about our antique couch and chair that we are having recovered but once again they have put us off until the end of the month. They say it is because of Covid. Well, Covid has been a part of our lives for almost a year now so they should have factored in Covid when they originally told us it would only take 3 weeks to recover our furniture. It’s been 2 months now and we are to believe they will both be ready in two weeks? I am starting to doubt that. But, we will see. In the meantime, we are getting to things here and there as we can and as we feel like it.
My priorities are small goals and walking on my treadmill.
I just figure that everything else will fall into place as we go.
TTYL….
Julie
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January 9 – 10, 2021
The Weekend
Backsplash on the Right of the Kitchen
We already had this backsplash in a few places in our kitchen and seeing as how we had a lot more of it in our garage, we decided to place it on this side of our kitchen. It really was the perfect place to put it. Gordon installed it and I will leave him to tell you how he did it.
Julie
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Don’t be afraid of trying this as most of the DIY shows are able to teach home owners this in about 5 min. The first step in installing a backsplash is getting the tile ready. To do this, carefully measure out the space you want to tile. Since we had tile right on the other side of the wall next to the tiled area I was about to install, I started there.
Gordon had already tiled this area above our breakfast bar.
In keeping with the brick look where the tile pieces are staggered, I kept the pattern going making sure the tiles were even with each other both horizontally and vertically. When needing to cut the tiles, I used a grinding tool with a tile blade attached. I taped the tile down on my wooden work bench and turned the grinder on its head to make these very precise straight cuts as seen above. I also had to make some other half tile cuts, so I made them as well cutting them off of a full sheet.
You can see the half tiles to the left of the cut sheet in the photo above, which I will place in by hand within the gaps.
These tiles come in sheets which are held together by a netted cloth which is glued to the back of the sheet. The glued on mesh net keeps the tiles evenly spaced out. Tiles can be easily pulled off if needed to fit your pattern. In the picture to the right above, you can see the straight edge on the left I made when I cut off the half tiles. After making all my needed cuts, I placed all the tiles in my pattern which would then go on the wall. I then took some packing tape and foam packing sheets and covered the areas of my countertops as I didn’t want any excess grout to adhere to our new counter tops. I used a putty knife to remove some grout from the container and placed it on the edges of my wall. Using a finely notched trowel where the notches are very small, trowel some grout on the wall. The thicker the tiles you have, the thicker the notched trowel you will use. Generally, the notches should be as deep as the thickness of your tiles. I also used white grout for this project but it does comes in different colors.
(Although hard to see, Gordon does have clear tape on the ledge of our countertops so that the grout won’t touch the granite.)
As you move the grout with the trowel over the wall, the notches allow a small amount of grout through. Trowel the grout over the entire surface of your wall, then place the tile on top of the grout. Use a grout float to gently push the tiles in place as well as flattening down the tiles across the surface of your wall. Continue to trowel some grout on the wall and place more of your tile sheets within the pattern.
Here is the finely notched trowel I used and the tile float is down on the protective foam packing sheet protecting our counter tops.
Here I am placing my last piece of tile sheet on the wall. Be sure to keep the spacing of the tile as you place them next to each other.
I had a small section to complete the pattern which I put in by hand along the top.
Use your float to press the tile to the wall. You can also use this tool to move the tile sheet closer to each other as the grout will be wet for about 20 min.
Here, I am ensuring I have some tile under my electrical cover. Using a moistened grout sponge, remove any excess grout off your tiles being careful not to move the tile. Use a bucket of clean water to clean off your sponge after wiping. Let the tiles dry for about 30 min. to allow the grout to dry and adhere the tiles to the wall. The thicker the tiles you have, the thicker the notched trowel you will use which will then mean you have more grout. With this said, the thicker the grout, the longer time it will need to dry.
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24 Hours Later…..
Once the tiles were adhered to the wall and are dry, it was now time to push grout between the individual tiles. I again used a putty knife to place some grout on the tiles.
I then used a small float to push the grout between the tiles. I used a larger float for the larger sheets. Use a criss-cross pattern to push the grout evenly into the crevices between the tiles. The float will almost clean the surface of the tiles of the grout as you move it.
Let the grout dry for about 5 min. before wiping it off with the dampened grout sponge. You can see here that the tiles look a bit dull because they haven’t been wiped clean.
Use a bucket of water to clean the sponge. Ensure the tiles are mostly clean from the grout.
Use a buffing cloth to fully clean and shine the tile once the main grout has been mostly removed.
I then remove the tape and protective foam sheet and screwed in my socket cover. What a simple project to do which makes the entire kitchen look great. I can’t wait to do the other side with beach glass tile.
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This is the Left Side of our Kitchen
We want to place some sort of sea glass backsplash on this side.
We just haven’t found the right pattern yet.
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Gordon Hanging Up Our Mermaid
Call us Cornball, but we do love mermaids, especially those that have been hand carved by skilled craftsman.
We actually found these from a business in Texas that does hand carving. Very impressive!
We are planning on ordering some more items from them soon.
We Think She Looks Beautiful
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This second mermaid we are saving for something special. 🙂
As you can see we had a busy weekend. 🙂
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Week 8
January 4-8, 2021
On Monday carpet was installed in our new den. It’s wonderful too!
A cashmere that your feet just sink into it with comfort. I can very easily lay down on this carpet and be comfortable.
The perfect carpet for a barefoot lifestyle. 🙂
Gordon Installing the New Den Door
We also bought matching doors for the guest bath and the other bedroom that will have to wait for another time. Right now we are just focused on all that we have to do that is right in front of us.
The Den is Coming Together
(This Will Be Our Nautical Room.)
We moved my treadmill in. It fits along that wall very nicely.
I’ve also ordered a pull out sofa and a matching chair.
From the Cindy Crawford Collection
The sofa is a pull out sleeper queen sized bed. That will be great for extra sleeping when we have guests, or in case one of us is sick. In the case of Covid, it would be a nice room to retreat to so as not to infect the other person. Unfortunately, it won’t be delivered until mid February.
I also ordered the matching chair for our living room.
I love it! It will fit so well into our home.
This actually reminds me of a funny story of when my mother was looking for furniture for her condo out in Indian Shores years ago. We visited a few furniture stores in Tampa but found nothing that appealed to either of us. That is when she spotted that Scan Design store. Scandinavian furniture. There were NO cars in their parking lot. I even suggested to my mother that I don’t even know if they are open? So, we parked and walked up to the front entrance. The door was open. We entered their massive store. Not a customer in sight. All of a sudden a blonde man in his early 30’s emerged to greet us with a Scandinavian accent and asked if he could help us? We told him that we were looking for furniture for a rental condo. He immediately looked down his nose at us and said, “We don’t have any bam-buh.” I immediately informed him that we are not looking for Bam-Buh! He then looked at us with skepticism. We did look around but saw nothing that appealed to us so we then turned around and left.
And now I have bought some furniture from the Cindy Crawford Collection that has Bam-Buh in it. 🙂
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This is What We Are Dealing With
Everything is still in disorder.
Lots of things are still in boxes.
We are trying to build up our den while putting things away in the rest of the house.
And because our sofa bed won’t be delivered until mid-February we need to keep a clear path to the den so that it can fit in. That means putting a hold on placing curio cabinet’s and baker’s rack’s where they need to go. Putting the nook back together will have to wait until after the sofa bed delivery.
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Gordon’s 56th. Birthday
Dinner is Lebanese Take Out
Dessert is Pecan Pie with Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream 🙂
We played it down because we have so much going on right now.
Stay Tuned For More,
Julie
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January 2-3, 2021
The Weekend
A Project
This is a seashell picture frame that Gordon saw at a yard sale years ago and brought home one day. It was wrapped in shrink wrap with a $119.00 price tag on the back of it, but he only paid $5.00 for it. Great find!
We didn’t know what to do with it but we liked the fact that it matched our seashell accent and backsplash in our kitchen. So, therefore we stashed it in the attic believing that some day we would do something with it. Well, we pretty much forgot all about it until we started our renovations and were plowing through the attic looking for Brodie’s things so that he could haul them off to his storage room, when we came across this frame once more.
I told Gordon to bring it down from the attic and let’s see if we can find somewhere to place it in our new kitchen.
The Project Taking Form
This is a space in our kitchen above our breakfast bar. I have always kept pretty baskets up there, usually Easter in nature. And although they looked really nice, they did kind of detract from all the other season’s of decorating that I would do. For example, lovely spring baskets at the top while Christmas or Thanksgiving or Halloween decorations were all over the kitchen, didn’t look too great.
You can see our seashell accent above our breakfast bar there, and the space above it.
I have always thought about somehow using fabric to make some kind of curtain to hide the baskets during the holiday season, but when we brought the frame out I realized that we could hang it there when we don’t want basket’s exposed, and remove it in the spring when we do want to display our pretty Easter baskets.
So, we have the frame, but what can we place inside of the frame? That’s when I told Gordon to put some of our leftover seashell tiles in the middle and tie it all together that way.
Hence, The Project
You can see the heavy cardboard frame backing in the photo top left. Gordon has spread that putty goo on it that will act as a glue so that he can attach some of our seashell backsplash. There is some cutting involved and some squishing it flat with that yellow handled thingy, photo top right.
(If you are impressed with my knowledge of such tools and putty goo then you should see me at Home Depot. I’ve been known to pantomine what I am trying to find to store employee’s because I don’t know the names of things. Much to their embarrassment.) 🙂
You can see that the project is coming together.
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Now the board has been completely covered with the seashell backsplash and it has dried. Although I don’t have a photo of it, Gordon did spread that goo over top of the tile to fill in the edges around the shells. It is then wiped clean so that none of the goo dries on any of the tile.
Now it was just a matter of framing the tile and then hanging it all up.
I like it! I think it looks great and it can be removed when we want that area exposed. The other area that is open to the right of the frame we are still debating what to do there. We have some ideas that we are pondering. We’ll let you know.
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Painting Over The BLUE with PLATEAU
The BLUE just no longer worked in our kitchen against our beautiful sandy beach countertops. That is when I got the idea for us to choose a color that is embedded into the countertops and paint over the blue accents with a nice light beigy color. And we chose Plateau. I prefer a lot of natural light and our house just always seems so dark so we turn to lighter paint colors to brighten things up.
We do like the color plateau! I’ll bring the finished results to you when we have put our entire kitchen back together. But, as I see it we have plenty of time. It’s January and I’m so tired of being so disorganized that once all of the professional renovations are completed I just want to take a break from boxes, and unpacking for at least a few days, or longer. This is our winter so why can’t we hibernate a bit? I would like to just work on things on my own time schedule. I’m tired of jumping through hoops for all of these workers and their time schedules.
Gordon did finish the painting this weekend. He did white underneath to cover that blue. And he did the plateau to cover all the rest of the blue.
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January 1, 2021
New Year’s Day
In the south we celebrate New Year’s Day with a Linner, my word for Lunch and Dinner combined, which consists of any version of Black Eyed Peas to bring us luck, and any version of Collard Greens to bring us money, Cornbread (Duh!), and any kind of meat such as Keilbasa in a Hoppin’ John, leftover Christmas Ham, or in our case, fried SPAM! 🙂
Cornbread with Onions, Cottage Cheese, and Broccoli
Oh, and everything is usually eaten in a few bowls.
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Week 7
December 28, 2020 – January 1, 2021
This has been something of a slow week. We were able to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s Eve/Day. We did do a lot of cooking, which was very nice. And our work with Graystone is finished. They are the one’s that have been doing our professional renovations. We did sign the last of the paperwork and have completed our association with them.
We have been moving all those things that we packed into our new “Den” out, and we have boxes and containers strewn all over our house in a very unorganized manner. I’ll get to that in a little bit.
New Year’s Eve
Frozen Margarita’s and Nacho’s With The WORKS!
With all that we have going on inside our home the last thing that we wanted was to do a lot of cooking, so we made things fairly easy.
Great taste and not a whole lotta work.
Happy New Year! (Finger’s crossed!)
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Week 6
December 21-25, 2020
Christmas Week
I really don’t have any construction related photos for this week.
The electrician arrived late on Tuesday and gave us electricity in our kitchen island. Once he did that, it meant that our professional renovations were almost finished. It was then that a man came and finished up our plaster and trim for underneath our breakfast bar.
You can see here how nice it looks underneath!
The contract coordinator did arrive on Christmas Eve to have Gordon to sign over a check.
Our Christmas Kitchen
Oh, we still have boxes everywhere. And the den is full of things that we need to get out of there and put back into our kitchen/nook/living room/dining room, but we are getting there. Gordon put the dog gate back up. Except this time he had the workers to reinforce the island from the inside construction so that it would have a strong supportive backing instead of him just screwing it into some drywall.
On Christmas Day we were literally laying shelf paper down as we were cooking our Christmas dinner.
(Check out that space between Gordon’s shirt and jeans.) 🙂
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It was really nice making Christmas dinner in our new kitchen.
We veered from tradition, as usual, and created our own Christmas Dinner based on what we wanted to eat.
All Asian and Hawaiian inspired.
An Asian Inspired Pasta Salad, Steamed Muscles….
Baked Ham….
Our Tropical Hawaiian Cranberries….
Sweet Hawaiian Bread and Snow Peas.
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And,
Pineapple, Mango, Papaya, Coconut and Cherry Upside Down Cake
With Spooky and Sparky
We do so hope that everyone had a nice Christmas.
Julie and Gordon
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December 19-20, 2020
Our weekend was spent decorating for Christmas
We did have easy access to a few Christmas touches but other than that the last thing in the world that I wanted was to drag out boxes of Christmas from the attic, just to add to all of our boxes of household goods stacked throughout our house as it was. So……
It was my idea to just create a Christmas Tree ourselves out of what we had at hand…..
BOXES!!!!!
There are some of our household items packed in those boxes and we have no clue what is in them. 🙂
I think that we have proven that you can have a nice Christmas simply by wrapping boxes with old wrapping paper and just being a bit creative.
My cute little pride and joy for the holidays, the gingerbread house mold and the spoons. I bought one for me, Veronica and Mackenzie for Christmas this year. May we all have one for our Christmas kitchen.
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As you know the plumber came on Friday and spend a few hours installing all of our plumping.
We FINALLY have a working kitchen sink!
We Kept Our Old Kitchen Sink
(I love it as it is a nice porcelain.)
Gordon and I actually purchased this kitchen faucet a few years ago but never got around to installing it. We love it! It not only looks really nice in our new kitchen, but it is also very efficient in our working kitchen. What the contractor’s did was to add the nice drains and stoppers.
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We also purchased a new garbage disposal. The plumber installed that as well.
You can see the button in the photo top.
All of this still has to be textured and then a trim added.
You can see underneath the breakfast bar that there are supports in place.
And we did extend it so that it was longer that it used to be.
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Sunday was Spent Making Peanut Brittle and Sausage Balls
We made several kinds of brittle’s to give as edible gifts.
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And of course, our daughter always requests our Sausage Balls every year.
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Week 5
December 14-18, 2020
This has been the fun week.
On Monday some mover’s came over to our house and unloaded the POD that had been sitting in our driveway for weeks now, housing quite a few of our household goods.
Now we have boxes on boxes on boxes….. Great. 🙁
I have to say that Spooky and Sparky have fared very well through all of this, so far.
And there is our kitchen sink!
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I’m sure our HOA is just giddy over the fact that our POD is now gone.
They picked our POD up on Wednesday.
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Thursday was Funday!
Our Kitchen Counter Tops Arrived!
Granite’s Here!
Brown Fantasy
The Granite is Here and it is Beautiful!
It was so heavy that Gordon had to help them carry it in to our house.
Our Kitchen BEFORE
Our Kitchen During…..
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Dot, Dot, Dot, Dot, Dot………
It is coming together beautifully!
You can see in the photo left that when they pulled up the old backsplash it left behind some damage. That is o.k. as we are going to plaster that in and cover it with a nice backsplash.
Everything is looking so nice! 🙂
We love how much taller our counter around the sink and our breakfast bar is.
About 2 inches taller. Washing dishes will be so much nicer on our lower backs now.
Such a beautiful pattern.
The sink is in but there is no running water, YET.
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Friday: The Plumber Arrived
He must have been here 4 hours.
Because we built up our counters and island by 2 extra inches he had to build up the dishwasher as well in order for it to fit.
He installed our new dishwasher that we bought.
It looks great!
He also installed our new sink faucet, and our new garbage disposal.
It’s all coming together.
We’ve also been going over paint swatches for our kitchen.
I think we’ve decided.
Plateau it is!
These will be the touches in our kitchen.
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The Weekend
December 12-13, 2020
A Project of Gordon’s
With our new carpet down we wanted to get rid of this brown plastic outlet that sits in the middle of our floor, and upgrade it with a nice brass one seeing as how we have lots of brass outlet and light switch covers in our home.
This project took Gordon a lot longer than he thought it would.
He had to dig out the cheap plastic gray ring inside of it and do a bunch of other technical stuff that I just don’t know or care about.
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With the power being shut off in our living room and in our bedroom, I didn’t have power to run my computer so it shut down.
As the hours went by and Gordon was still working on this outlet thingy, I started to get a bit stir crazy. That’s when he said that he had to run to Home Depot to buy something to make this thing work. Well, it was then that I decided to turn the power back on while he was gone so that I could have the internet and get my computer charging up. So, I left Gordon a nice note: I TURNED THE POWER ON! You can see it above.
When he got home he saw the note and I got the chewing out of my life!!!
Apparently there were live wires….. something like that? Boy! Was he ever mad at me!
Hey, I’m intellectual but I never said I was smart.
(Our second fight during renovations.)
Gordon did get the fixture installed correctly.
You can tell by those green lights that are on.
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I did spend the weekend putting together packages to get in the mail for our out of towner’s, and I wrapped all the gifts for underneath the tree for Veronica, Brian, and our Grand-dog Chewie. Then Gordon ran those over to their house. Veronica is in lockdown because someone at her job tested positive for Covid 19 but, she is on holiday from her job until January so no one at her job is missing work because of it. They are shut down as it is until after the new year.
We do have edible goodies to run over to their home soon but we wanted them to have our gifts underneath their tree for them to enjoy. My kids always did like it when the gifts would arrive from everywhere and we would place them underneath the tree. 🙂
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Mail Has Arrived!
These lovely carved wood mermaids will go somewhere around our breakfast bar. Whether they be swimming from on top, or nestled underneath where you see them in the photo below. That we don’t know yet but we are very excited they have arrived.
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Week 4
December 7-11, 2020
This has been a fairly slow week as far as renovations go. Gordon has been doing a 4 hours in the office on base and then 4 hours at home, work schedule. On Tuesday we had our Renovation Coordinator over to inspect the installation of our kitchen island that took place last week. And then we also had our countertop guy come and create a template of how long and wide we want our countertops and breakfast bar to be.
On Thursday we had our new carpet installed:
BEFORE and AFTER
Sweet Basil it is! Although the photo top right, doesn’t do it justice. It is a beautiful color carpet. Gordon had been vacuuming it which is why you see all the lawn mowing rows in it. I feel like I am walking barefoot in freshly mowed grass. Which is what I wanted in the carpet to begin with. I was so sick of beigey carpet. Although I do love a white beige in the bedrooms and dining room.
It’s been a fairly cold week for us which is why we have had lots of snuggling in blankets with the dogs. 🙂
Last Night’s Dinner of Potsticker’s on a Paper Plate
They were delicious, and Gordon can make anything look good.
Even on a paper plate.
As far as I know there is nothing going on tomorrow, Friday, except some projects of mine.
Monday, they move our things back inside our house from our POD in our driveway.
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Renovations and Relationship
I felt it was important for me to give you an idea of how our relationship has fared through these renovations just to give you an idea of perhaps what to expect if you are to go through something similar in the future. First of all, every couple that we have ever known in our life that have gone through home renovations and lived in the house through those renovations have all said the same thing…. that they almost divorced.
I believe that they were kidding but I also believe their joke was based on probably a lot of stress and arguing that went on between the two of them during their home renovations. So, when we were going to be going through these I had a talk with Gordon about how I hope that we will fare well through all of this and not be at each other’s throats all the time. We both agreed that we would do our best to get along with each other and not let things get to us. Also this movie, The Money Pit, is about how the renovations of a house almost ruined the relationship between a young couple that were planning their lives together.
Well…….
Two weeks prior to our official renovations started Gordon and I had a lot to do in prep work to prepare for those renovations. It was a lot of hard work. I have never slept so soundly in years than I did during that time frame. Once my head hit that pillow I did not awaken until the morning hours. I go to bed at night with a glass of water beside me and when I wake up it is usually gone because I sip it throughout the night. However, every morning that I would wake up that glass was still full from the night before. I got some great sleep during those 2 weeks. Gordon did too.
It was 4 days prior to our official renovations starting that Gordon was feeling a bit stressed. In the past when Gordon is stressed he will pick a fight with me. Now, whether he does this consciously or subconsciously, that I do not know. But, he does start a fight with me when he is stressed because he knows I will fight back. I am a fighter. So, while we argue, he gets it all out of his system and then starts to feel better, I, on the other hand, feel worse. Being an Empath I absorb all his bad feelings so he feels better but I feel worse. It is also exhausting to me. Which is why in the past I had dubbed him The Human Vacuum Cleaner, (because he can suck the life out of me.) 🙂
That is when I grabbed the T.V. remote and a little throw pillow and blanket and camped out on the Lazy Boy Chair and I told Gordon that I am done for the day and that he can do the rest of the work himself. He then tried to plead with me that he needed my help. That’s when I told him that if he is nice tomorrow then I will gladly help but right now I am exhausted and that I am going to care for myself. And that perhaps in the days to come if he needs my help then he needs to reign in his stress and not take it out on me. Otherwise, I will not lift a finger to help him prepare.
And that was the last fight we had. Actually, I’m sure it won’t be our last fight ever. But, it was the last fight we’ve had, and we’ve started week 6 of our prep work and home renovations. 🙂
I think that because people see us all smiles and happiness in our website that people assume we have some perfect marriage. We don’t. It’s just that we tend to photograph all the good times and not the bad times. What do your family photo albums record? All the stress and arguments? Or, all the happy times of family, and holidays, and trips, and foods, etc. We’re no different than you. But, we have been together for 38 years, and married for 35, so we have learned a thing or two along the way and every marriage does require work. If you don’t work on it then it will end. Any relationship that you have that is important to you then it does require some work. That’s just life.
I can’t help but think had we be going through these renovations in the summer months when it feels like 100 degrees outside would we be as calm as we have been? This being December it is much cooler and we can open the sliders into the back and let the cooler air in, in order to air the place out and for the workers to bring all that they need to into our house from the front door. Had we had small children through all of this how would that have affected us? We would probably be under a great amount of pressure to hurry up the renovations just so that we can put up a tree for the kids because they are sad that everyone they know has their tree up but us. The fact that Gordon has been able to work from home and not going into the base has made our home renovations better. He is here to sit out there and supervise while he works online.
There are always factors that either contribute to your situation or detract from it. We have fared very well so far with these renovations because of our circumstances. Other’s may not fare as well as we have because their circumstances may be different. Just because we have had an easier time than you and have not had a bunch of arguing doesn’t make us better than you, it just makes us different than you because perhaps our situation was easier than yours? Just realize that when you encounter your own challenges it is up to you to rise to the occasion and figure things out along the way. And recognize that. Good luck!
See You In The Money Pit,
Julie
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The Weekend
December 5-6, 2020
More NEW Faucets in our Bathroom
It wasn’t that long ago that Gordon had installed new bathroom sink faucets. We were very happy with them until mine started leaking a few weeks ago. Because we were going through renovations in our kitchen and living room we just sort of ignored it until we could no longer. I do write about it below. However, when the leaking became too much Gordon shut the water off to my sink and then purchased us two more faucets to replace the one’s he just installed a few months ago.
Here is my New Sink Faucet
Gordon Installing My New Faucet
It looks good and it works, but I am not going to place all my toiletries back underneath my sink until I am sure that this new faucet is secure and won’t leak. I’ll post a picture when I get things more in order.
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Paint Swatches
With our new kitchen countertops being a granite with colors that look like the beach, I thought that our kitchen blue just wouldn’t look very good anymore.
Everything that you see here, and the photos below, are the blue touches that we have in our kitchen.
A lot of our kitchen is white, we just have borders of blue.
Gordon Holding up Color Swatches
Thinking About Painting the Blue a Tan/Beige Color
Seeing as how our countertops will be this……
And, the kitchen accent wall is this……
I think we need to remove that blue that is in our kitchen and paint it a beigy color to match one of the colors that ties the two together.
We will still keep our kitchen nook the blue and white though.
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We also did our recreation Money Pit dinner. It was fun! We did our best to make it simple too. We purchased the rotisserie chickens from the grocery store so that we didn’t have to cook them, I made this very simple garden salad, Gordon roasted some Brussel Sprouts and steamed some Broccoli and Cauliflower, and I warmed up some store bought bread. Easy!
Me, tossing that salad as much as Anna did.
The most complicated thing that we made was the Basil and Curly Parsley Pesto Salad Dressing.
Our Money Pit Salad and Dressing
(We even waited a while for it to turn a bit brown to resemble the dirt and rubble in the photo left.) 🙂
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What’s left of our Purple and Green Basil from our Herb Garden
We pretty much just threw this together without much thought.
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Roasted Brussel Sprouts
Brussel Sprouts with a drizzling of Olive Oil and a Coastal Seasoning, tossed, and then placed on a baking sheet to be put in a 350F oven for about 20 minutes. I forgot to take a photo of the finished results.
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Our Pesto consisted of Fresh Purple and Green Basil, Curly Parsley, Hot Chili Oil, Garlic Clove, Sea Salt, Key Lime Lemon Juice, Lime Juice, Freshly Ground Black Pepper, and that’s it.
We just eyeballed this recipe.
Place all of your green and garlic clove into a blender and then add some oil.
Here we used a hot chili oil to give the pesto some heat.
Adding the Lemon and Lime Juice.
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Sea Salt and Freshly Ground Black Pepper
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And then grind until nice and perfect. OH! I almost forgot.
We did throw in a few of our Tabasco Peppers from our garden.
We did let it sit to turn a bit brown until we were ready to dress the salad. It was a prettier green initially. But the color does not detract from the taste at all.
Delicious Salad
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While all the renovations go on Gordon sits at his little table and works from home.
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Reno Week 3
November 30th. – December 4, 2020
We were originally told that the entire renovations would be 3 weeks but obviously they will go into a 4th. week and maybe even beyond. They didn’t do that much last week because it was Thanksgiving week, which is fine, we understand, it has actually been something of an adventure for us. And we have played around with it a bit.
Monday
We woke up early, as usual, to a huge thunderstorm!
Ahh… Loved it! Loud thunder, forked lightening, torrential rain! Julie’s perfect day. 🙂
While Gordon was in the shower I started opening up the shutters and turning off our outside lights when I noticed a white van parked in our driveway with a man asleep at the wheel. I immediately launched into my, “Gordon. There’s a man asleep in our driveway in a white van. You wanna hurry up out of the shower?”
Turns out it was one of the workers that prefers to beat the rush hour traffic to get to a job site and while he waits for everyone else to arrive, he takes a nap. Well, can’t fault efficiency.
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Over the weekend I had restocked our little mini-fridge in the bathroom with some new foods because I knew things were to get really busy in our living room and the dogs and I were going to stay put in the bedroom all day.
Breakfast of Eggo Waffles, I’ve eaten every morning this week.
(The breakfast of Stranger Things fan’s everywhere.)
And Lunch was a nice Salad
I do have to tolerate the whining from Sparky as he longs for his man Gordon.
So, while the dogs and I are in the bedroom, work was going on right outside our door.
Drywall Being Installed
(Although we had to wait until the storm passed before they could bring the drywall into the house. It getting wet would have put us back to square one with mold.)
Drywall On Both Sides
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Electrician Did Some Rewiring
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Gordon’s Measurements
We always attach our ‘walk through dog gate’ to this island and Gordon wanted the area where he attaches it to be a strong connection instead of it just being screwed into dry wall, so he has taken measurements and will tell the guys where he would like a 2×4 placed inside the island so that he can do that.
And Yahoo! Our New Dishwasher Has Arrived!!!
Although it really doesn’t matter as we can’t hook it up yet. 🙁
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Tuesday
The drywall people came back to spray the texture on our walls today.
And if you notice we had our countertops and breakfast bar raised by a few inches.
We are tall people and we wanted this area raised so that washing dishes and chopping food would be a more comfortable activity on our lower backs.
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Meanwhile……
My bathroom sink faucet has been leaking water all around it now for a week or so. We have sort of ignored it as we are just so preoccupied with all that is going on in our kitchen and living room. However, when I reached for my hairspray it was sitting in water underneath my sink, I knew things were bad!
Everything from underneath my sink went into a box and now sits on the edge of our bathtub.
Hey, it’s not like our tub isn’t full enough.
Luckily, there is no damage underneath my bathroom sink. Gordon did buy us some new faucets and hopefully that will solve the problem. The last thing I want to hear right now is that we need a new bathroom. 🙁 I know that we do, but I am not ready for it right now. I want the rest of my house back in order first.
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Wednesday
I am not quite sure what is going on here,
but I know painting is going on here.
Also new baseboard trim.
Things are coming together.
I decided that I no longer wanted the gold walls here. After all, we are getting a sandy colored countertops in our new kitchen and I didn’t want the old yellow conflicting with the tans. So, I figured a white space would be best for now.
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Thursday/Friday
Our Kitchen Coming Together
Our Kitchen Cabinets are Back
Now we are just awaiting next week, Week 4, to see what happens next.
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Happy Birthday Brodie!
We asked Brodie to drop by for his birthday gifts.
Brodie greeting the dogs that miss him and love him tremendously.
It was a Pizza Day for Brodie! We had him pick up some for us, and some for him and Mackenzie.
Gosh Yeah!
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And I just had to post this cute photo of Gordon with Spooky and Sparky. 🙂
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November 28-29, 2020
Thanksgiving Weekend
Our Granite Slab that we have chosen for our Kitchen Counters.
(To me it looked like the waves rolling onto the beach. Very sandy and wavy. Leaving exposed the sea shells.)
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Canning Spicy Hot Mexican Cranberries
and,
Tropical Cranberries
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Tropical Cranberries
(As you can see I haven’t worked on the Tropical Cranberries yet.)
Seeing as how we had nothing going on this weekend, and we had just used up the last jar of our Florida Christmas Cranberries for Thanksgiving, I suggested to Gordon that we do some canning. I mean, why not? We had the time, we had the space, and we had nothing else to do.
They both turned out really great. Not just for us to use, but for us to give as gifts.
They are Spicy HOT!
If you would like to take a look:
Click Here For: Spicy Hot Mexican Cranberries
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November 27, 2020
Friday
Leftovers, The Last Taste of Thanksgiving
I believe this one will be memorable.
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November 26, 2020
Happy Thanksgiving
Thursday
As you know we cooked our Thanksgiving Turkey a few days ago on our outside grill…….
(It was hot as hell, but we were determined to wear our Thanksgiving pajamas as we can only really wear them 1 or 2 days a year. We are also determined to get our money’s worth out of them for years to come.)
Luckily for us we do still have a working microwave and a stove top/oven.
Our Lovely Kitchen
Gone is our kitchen sink but we did set up a portable table to help with the much needed counter space.
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Thanksgiving Day
We wanted our Thanksgiving to be simple and easy.
What with the turkey out of the way it was just a matter of grilling and cooking up some sides. We knew that we just wanted turkey sandwiches with the works!
Our Thanksgiving Dinner consists of Turkey Sandwiches made on either Sour Dough Bread slices, or our Cornbread Dressing that we made into bread slices by spreading it out on a baking sheet and then placing it into a 350F oven until done, and then slicing it into sandwich sized bread, and then placed back into the oven to brown a little bit more.
Like so:
This recipe is on our:
Here Gordon is fixing his sandwich using our Cornbread Dressing as the bread slices.
Our sandwiches consist of our Thanksgiving Turkey, Bacon, our homemade Tarragon Mustard, White Cheddar Cheese slices, Grilled Yams, Grilled Onions, store bought Cole Slaw, and our last jar of homemade Florida Christmas Cranberry Sauce. Also store bought gravy for dipping our sandwiches into.
Our Sides are the Hasselback Potatoes cut into medallions to resemble Potato Chips.
With a nice drizzle of Sour Cream and Chives.
Also, our homemade Dill Pickle slices and some store bought Salt Cured Olives.
Gordon’s Dinner Plate 🙂
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Decorations were simple. A pumpkin with some flowers in a bucket. 🙂
Putting all the food away was actually quite easy because dinner was easy.
We hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving!
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November 23, – 25, 2020
Thanksgiving Week, and Week 2 of Renovations
This Was a Very Light Week
Monday
This has been a slow week as far as our renovations being done. They came by at noon and told us to get out of the house for a few hours while they sprayed this alcohol based mold remover in our kitchen. So, we just moved outside to our lanai while the spray did it’s thing and then came back in when it had evaporated. I grabbed a quick lunch, obviously.
Lunch
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Tuesday
They came back today in order to gather samples to send to a lab to make sure that all of our mold was gone.
That is all they did today.
In the meantime, what with Thanksgiving in 2 days we needed to make our cornbread for our cornbread dressing.
You see, it needs to sit out and get a bit stale so that the dressing will be magnificent.
Making Corn Bread
Here Gordon is pouring the buttermilk batter into my Great-Grandmother’s Cast Iron Skillet.
But first, a blob of Crisco goes in the skillet to then melt in the oven and then the batter is added. You can see the rim of grease around the sides of the batter. That is perfection. 🙂
Into the oven it goes on 350F
Gordon was monitoring this. I just wish he had let it brown a bit more on top.
Other than that, it was perfect.
We placed the cornbread into a mixing bowl and covered with foil to vent so that the cornbread could dry out a bit. I have it on my Xylophone behind my desk in our bedroom. Just because of the renovations.
The cornbread wasn’t getting stale fast enough for me so I decided to place it beside this machine that we have had going off in our home sucking up the moisture in the air. I figured, why not? Turn that cornbread stale! 🙂 And it did!
The workers did come back today and removed that big tent that had roped off our kitchen. That’s good. At least we now have more room to access what is still left of our kitchen.
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Sunday, November 22, 2020
Our Weekend Thanksgiving
A.K.A. ThanksGrillin’
We decided to shoot and grill our Thanksgiving Turkey before Thanksgiving.
We have something very special planned to do with it and we will bring that to you. 🙂
It Turned out Perfect!
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We also created a new post depicting our Thanksgiving Turkey called:
If You Would Like To Take A Look
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November 21, 2020
This is a great start to a nice weekend. With all the worker’s gone we got some much needed privacy. We do have access to our refrigerator in our kitchen, we just have to unzip and crawl through something akin to a tent to get to it. But with people and construction going on we usually steer clear of it.
Those loud machines that suck the moisture out of the air were going full force though through the entire weekend. I do have to say that all that white noise helped me to sleep very well. As well as pick up so much information that travels through white noise. 🙂 (Only an Empath will understand that.)
I’ve shown you a bit of our menu over this past week. We haven’t used a lot of dishes as we have mainly eaten sandwiches, some soups made in the coffee pot, and a few salads. But that light eating can only last so long. Here is one of my salads.
I have been washing dishes in our laundry room sink and setting them out to dry on top of our dryer. But, I only do this when our worker’s aren’t here as I am doing my best not to come in contact with them for health purposes.
We have picked up a few nights of take out food.
Here we picked up Chinese Take Out and watched the new release of the movie Mulan. Loved it!
Chinese also makes excellent leftovers.
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November 20, 2020
Reno Day 5
Me, In the Pantry, In the Kitchen
As you can clearly see, this is not an ideal kitchen situation.
Yes, we do have access to our stove top, oven and microwave, but who wants to be in that cramped space?
Which is why cooking in our kitchen isn’t so ideal at this time.
This was Breakfast and Lunch for me Today
These are foods that are easy to keep in our mini-fridge and besides, I really don’t associate eating in my bedroom so I haven’t been that hungry as it is.
The dogs also haven’t been very hungry and I think that is because all of this is new and different and they just don’t know what to think about it. But, we have got through Week 1! Our workers won’t be back until Monday, November 23rd.
We do have something special planned for this weekend and you will just have to trust me when I tell you it will be fun. You’ll see!
Julie
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November 19, 2020
Reno Day 4
I haven’t been in there yet to see what they’ve done today. But, they found a hell of a lot more mold which is alarming to us. Also, the supervisor overseeing all the work is no longer with the company as of today. Don’t know what happened but that is a bit disappointing given that we started with him and were happy with him. So, the new supervisor just left. Gordon met with him.
The dogs and I spent most of the day in our lair/bedroom/bathroom.
They are very sweet and easy to handle.
They just like to go outside and chase the squirrels.
Spooky went nuts when she saw squirrels running all over our lanai cage.
But, now is the time to do those things that I never have time to do because a house is a big responsibility and there is always something to clean or do.
My Reading Nook
(I also have two very long stacks of books beside me.)
It’s been fun just sitting there flipping through decorating books. Some of these books I had not gotten around to looking at and I bought them years ago. And some books I had just ordered and happy that they had arrived.
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Well, I finally decided to take a look in the kitchen and to grab a few cans of mango.
(Oh, and the shirt I am wearing was a gift Gordon had made for me when we were dating and both of us working at Carowinds Amusement Park. It is 38 years old. He used to be Yogi Bear.) 🙂
Here is a photo of Gordon getting into his costume.
Gordon as Yogi and that is Jabber Jaws on the right.
They are from the Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Series
I came across these photos when I was doing some reno-prep and that got me to thinking about the shirt I am wearing above. I hadn’t worn it in awhile and I wanted to. I can be very sentimental.
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This is an area where they found more mold and had to cut away at the dry wall and rip up this part of the carpet.
And we still have those loud machines going in our living room/kitchen, sucking up all that moisture.
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Dinner Tonight
Thawing Sandwich Meat out in our Bathroom Sink
(It was frozen in vacuum sealed packaging.)
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Everyone is Having a Snuggly Day
We Do Have a Comfy Cozy Bed
I Think Sparky’s Drunk on Love
(He loves his man Gordon.)
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Sandwiches For Dinner
Making Toast in the Bathroom
The bathroom mini fridge easily houses lunch meats, cheeses. and condiments. Which is why we’ve eaten quite a few sandwiches this week whether for lunch or dinner.
Mine above: Salsalito Turkey on Seeded Rye with Muenster, Romaine, Our Tarragon Mustard, Our Dill Pickle Slices, Roma Tomatoes purchased at a road side stand from a family, and my cheese stuffed red peppers. Oh, and I always love a spring onion whenever I have a sandwich.
All For Now,
Julie
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November 18, 2020
Reno Day 3
Right Outside Our Bedroom on the Lanai
Sparky and Spooky
This was not a particularly busy day for us. The workers did show up and finished packing and moving the rest of our living room things out into our POD. They also expanded our kitchen area that they had roped off from yesterday with their big plastic tents.
I know that when I took the dogs out while they were working that they all stopped what they were doing to look at me and the dogs as we exited into the backyard. As if they had spotted some rare unicorn. I was even tempted to start prancing around just to entertain them but then thought better of it. 🙂 I have been keeping away from them and sequestering the dogs away as well, just to keep on the safe side.
They will be back tomorrow to do more work. We’ll document, as usual. Until then.
Julie
But here is our kitchen:
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November 17, 2020
Reno Day 2
Julie’s Pajama Bedroom Selfie
(Something I never dreamed I would be doing. I feel like such a naughty Kardashian.) 🙂
If I am going to be sequestered to the bedroom then why not wear pajamas?
Time To Pay The Bills
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I am feeling much better today than I felt yesterday. I think I just needed to rest up, take that 3 hour nap I took, and have the lazy day that I had yesterday. Not to mention the good night of sleep I got last night. My only ailments today are some sore arms from a lot of heavy lifting in our reno-prep, and my butt bruise due to my hard fall I had last week.
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I Took These Photos of our Kitchen Last Night
This is where it all started.
We’ve had some mold experts out to our house yesterday and today to take samples of our mold and to take some with them. I told Gordon that I think that we should be collecting our own samples and keeping them, just in case. I think in this day and age we need to look out for ourselves and there are so many businesses and organizations that do not care about people and what we go through and will not have a problem screwing us over to protect their own interests. I’m not saying that about this company that is overseeing our renovations, but I do worry about who they report to.
We are also documenting everything by taking photographs.
When we had our lanai extended a few years ago one of the workers drove a spike down into the area they were pouring the cement and busted a pipe in our sprinkler system. Luckily, because I took so many photos, we had the proof and the company paid to repair our sprinklers whereas they weren’t going to until I produced the photograph. So, document your workers.
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As I’ve said, the dogs and I are staying put in mine and Gordon’s bedroom, but Gordon is stationed in a corner of our living room doing his work from home while we had so many people coming through the house today. Gordon is on a ‘one week at home, one week at work’ kind of a schedule. This is his week to work from home. At least he is in there to oversee everything that is going on and in documenting the work as well.
I’ll be posting all those photos.
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I Set a Table up Outside our Bedroom Door
I told Gordon this is where he can deposit our mail for me to go through.
We are expecting a lot of packages.
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I Made Us Lunch Today
A coffee pot is for much more than just making coffee.
It is great for heating up water to be poured into a Cup of Noodles Soup.
I washed the coffee pot and filter out first. I then ran hot water through the coffee maker twice before I heated up the water to make Gordon’s soup. I didn’t want any coffee flavor residue to taint the taste of the soup. These soups are very easy. You just need to add hot water to them and let them sit for a few minutes to soften the noodles.
Now For MY Soup
These soups are the snacks that local people in Hawaii eat everyday. You will see kids playing in parks and they will pull a pack out of their pocket and start snacking on the dry noodles. When I was cooking them I would always snack on the dry noodles myself. Veronica and Brodie would also eat them dry occasionally. A common sight with the locals of Hawaii. A nice memory to add to our renovation diary.
I simply placed the dry noodles into the coffee pot and then turned it on to have the water heat up and make my soup for me. (Along with the spice packet, of course.) I used to do this when I was in college. We never drank coffee but everyone in the dorm had a coffee pot in their rooms to use it to make other things.
I could have wandered out to our herb garden and snipped off something nice to add to my soup, but I didn’t. Next time I will utilized my herbs that are right outside my door.
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Graystone Renovations
The company we are working with.
Our Upholsterer’s O’Neil and Son’s Picked up our Couch and Chair Today
(Can’t wait to see the results when they finished the recovery.)
It was funny that when Gordon was talking to them he mentioned the fabric that we want except we want it inside out and that is when the man in the red shirt said, “Your the one! Your request went through the whole store!”
I write about that in the post below.
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MOLD
Back to Back
Our corner of our living room that housed our entertainment center. Look at all that mold and damage. The water leaked from underneath the wall in the left photo, and ended up here on the right photo. We are told that our entertainment center damage is too massive underneath and that we will need to buy a new one.
This is our Entertainment Center
This is perfect for our needs. We own lots of DVD’s, VHS Tapes, and Bluray’s. We will never find a more perfect entertainment center that can house all of our collections and keep them tucked away. We have been looking online at furniture stores in our area and none of them are this massive and has this much storage.
The younger generations are not into owning video’s. They are into subscribing to this or that and then streaming what they want on their computers or cell phones. But, they are dependent on a corporation and technology for their entertainment. We are just dependent on electricity for ours. I think ours is more reliable.
When you own something then it is yours.
But, if you are constantly “renting,” then it isn’t.
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The Kitchen is Cordoned Off
That is Gordon doing something underneath there. I forget what? 🙂
But, this is the tent they have erected around our kitchen.
Also two machines that run non-stop to suck the moisture out of the air. (I did wake up skinnier than usual. I’m wondering if those machine’s are sucking the moisture out of me? I did wake up in the middle of the night so thirsty that I drank 2 cans of Gingerale.) 🙁
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Time To Buy A New T.V. For Our Bedroom
I have been against buying a new T.V. for our bedroom for a few years now. I just didn’t think it necessary as we don’t watch too much T.V. in our bedroom so I couldn’t justify the expense. We would generally just watch it for an hour or so as we would drift off to sleep at night. But, with our kitchen renovations and us being so sequestered in our bedroom, I finally agreed to a new one. Plus, the old one finally started to develop lines in the screen disrupting the picture. Because this is November with all the Black Friday deals going on we were able to find a nice T.V. that was so cheap too! We also bought a flat screen for our new “den” for when we set that room up.
(I’ve been asked why I have a cross in my bedroom if I am not religious? That cross I actually bought for a Dracula Halloween one year that I hope to recreate and photograph for a future Halloween post. But, I also own stars and a Buddha or two. That doesn’t make me Jewish or Buddhist. My range is far more wide than the average person is capable of giving me credit for.)
Gordon Installing our New T.V.
Removing the Old One, Installing the New One
Our Kitchen That We Will Not Be Doing Much Cooking In
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Which Is Why……
Popeye’s Verses Chick Fil A
Having grown up in the south with my grandmother’s friend Edna having ties to Chick Fil A, and us constantly receiving coupons for free Chick Fil A sandwiches, and with them being so delicious, I am a Chick Fil A girl. Gordon however, is a Popeye’s guy. I will agree that in comparison his sandwich is so much bigger and crunchier than mine. BUT, I really don’t need all that extra chicken and breading when I am trying to lose some weight or even maintain my weight. I will agree that I do not care for the owner of Chick Fil A. He is something of a homophobe, etc.
Regardless, it was a delicious dinner for the two of us.
Julie
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November 16, 2020
GOOD MORNING!
The Renovations Begin
Our Coffee and Tea Station
(In our bathroom. BUT, just so you know, we do have a separate toilet room so the coffee station isn’t exactly in our “bathroom.)”
Found my Splenda Packets
Obviously I Adore our Coffee Station 🙂
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I have not been feeling very well today. It was hard to get out of bed this morning when the alarm went off. I also haven’t eaten very much today but I am craving a nice big sandwich for dinner. I think all this work has just caught up to me. Also that big fall that I took. My body is sore and I’m just tired and need to rest. I was awake for a few hours last night and couldn’t sleep so I took a nice nap today. It was great! I had a lazy day. And I actually spread out some books across the bed that I came across during our reno-prep that I hadn’t looked at in years and flipped through a few of them before I got drowsy and went to sleep.
Gordon Dealt With All the Reno Guys
What You See Here Is Pretty Much All They Did Today
They Did Find Lots of Mold From the Leaky Dishwasher
They did cut all the water off leading to our kitchen. That means no ice from the refrigerator for awhile. But, luckily I had the foresight to save some ice into large freezer baggies yesterday. I don’t even know why I did it? Something just told me to. So, we do have lots of ice saved in our freezers out in our garage.
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Doctoring Up the Pho
(Pronounced Fu)
We are Huge Fans of Pho
This is one of our renovation foods that we are turning to for taste and comfort.
The soup does come with a nice base.
And now for the doctoring up:
Thin sliced Zucchini
Thin sliced Mushrooms
Thin sliced Spring Onions
A Sprinkling of Curry Powder
Leftover Chicken and Mushrooms from the Asian Store
(We are trying to use up fresh vegetables in our refrigerator.)
Microwave and Viola!
A much better Pho than it could have been.
All for now. Day 2 starts tomorrow.
Julie
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November 15, 2020
Last Day of Reno Prep
Gordon and I are both exhausted! Tomorrow is the big day!
We have both been working so hard in doing all this reno prep.
Packing, painting, planning, plotting, and any other “P” words you can think of. 🙂
Today my main focus was to continue our “studio apartment” prep for myself, Gordon and our dogs. Tomorrow our contractor arrives with his workers.
The Snack Shelf
The Food Case
During our Reno Prep I Found This Photo of Gordon’s Grandmother Beryl
(I stuck her in the middle of the paper roses. And just shut up you Marie Osmond fans that start to belt out that tune. I mean it!)
(The Tower of Pho, Pronounced Fu.) 🙂 I giggle every time.
Our File Cabinet of Food and Needs
A Niche Housing our T.V. Trays
Advil, The Medication that is Getting me Through Reno Prep
A Jar of Doggy Treats
I moved the dogs food and water bowl into our bathroom.
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Making CHEX MIX AGAIN!
Look, I really needed to make my most favorite thing in the world.
Just to make me feel better. Strangely, other than Brodie and myself no one seems to really care about Chex Mix. WTF? What is wrong with all of you? Honestly!
These gooey dark bits are what Brodie and I would fight over.
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I set up these comfy cozy dog beds for Spooky and Sparky underneath my desk. Also their dog toys to give them comfort and blankets for when our weather turns a bit cold tomorrow.
Spooky watches way too much T.V. and gets way too emotional. Especially during those ‘save the dogs’ commercials. She actually cries when they come on. Dogs are empathic, btw, and also really annoying. I have enough emotions to deal with myself without taking on Spooky’s.
Just a few more things to do and then it’s time to crash and not wake up until that damn alarm goes off tomorrow morning. 🙁
Julie
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November 14, 2020
Exhausted, But Happy
I don’t really know if I would use the word “happy” to describe my feelings right now but I guess it’ll do. But, I suppose that I am just more pleased that we are making progress in all of our reno-prep.
It is exactly like we are moving, all this mess, all this packing.
Removing all that we had stored up here. Also, Gordon is painting the area white as we never got to do it a few years ago when we originally painted the kitchen. We just had too much stuff up there and didn’t want to move it. Well, now we can paint up there.
Boxes, Packing, and More Boxes
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Moving Things Into Our Den For Renovations
Nothing is as it Should Be, It Just is What it Is
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Prepping Our Bedroom
What you see here is my suitcase full of food, paper plates, cutlery, dog treats, etc.
Our Bedroom Sliders Leading to our Lanai
This is the exit that I will use to take the dogs out during the day during our renovations. I also told Gordon, who will be in the same room as the reno guys, to use this entrance/exit to see us. Not the bedroom door leading to the living room. I want to block that door off so that no Covid 19 virus can get through there. It is also supposed to be cool weather for us starting on Monday, our reno day. I told Gordon that he may want to open the sliders in the living room and turn off the A/C. Just make sure no snakes or lizards crawl into our home at that time.
Because we are cleaning so much I wanted to make sure our dogs were bathed so that we didn’t need to worry about that. I have been doing all of our laundry, bedding, towels, dog beds, etc. so that we are good for awhile.
Sparky All Clean From His Bath
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Well, this is it for today.
We only have one more day to prepare .
Talk to you soon,
Julie
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November 13, 2020
I really don’t have that much to say to update you for today. Gordon and I are still packing things up that we have been moving into Brodie’s old bedroom/our future den. Things that are important to us and things that we will need access to. I’ve also been carving out niches in our bedroom and bathroom that will be important to us in getting through these renovations easily. I’ll take some photos tomorrow and post them. I am also doing laundry today, tomorrow, and Sunday in order to have everything nice and clean so that I don’t have to get in the laundry room until next weekend when the workers aren’t here. I have no desire to drag laundry through a construction zone with all that dust, dirt and men in my way. Speaking of which, I need to get in the laundry room now and get the rotation going once more with the washer and the dryer.
Julie
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November 12, 2020
The POD is Here!
Hurricane ETA just blew through here yesterday, and today we have our POD delivered.
I woke up this morning to our entire backyard being underwater and covered with branches and debris from the huge storm. Schools closed, business’s closed, but our POD made it through.
The POD will sit in our driveway for weeks and house some of our household possessions during our renovations.
We were supposed to have Brodie’s old bedroom carpeted today but the company cancelled on us because of the hurricane and said they cannot come until Monday. That is when I told them that our renovations start on Monday and we will have to put off the new carpet installation until December.
So, Gordon and I have spent the day moving a lot of our possessions into Brodie’s old bedroom in order to get them out of the way. Just special things that we don’t want movers to pack up. Also a lot of food, cooking things, books, some furniture, things we want to use for Thanksgiving and even Christmas if renovations carry on longer than expected. It would have been nice to have the carpeting down first so that room would be mostly complete. But no! 🙁
Right now I am sitting on my heating pad as I type this because I had a really bad fall today. I was moving something into our new den, and it caught on a door frame and I couldn’t catch myself as I was falling so I hit the hallway floor HARD! I landed between my butt and my left hip on our hard tile floor hallway that is on top of cement. I used my left hand to try and ease my fall as I was going down. I didn’t break anything. I just sat there and called for Gordon to help me up because I didn’t want to move too quickly until I knew that I was o.k. to be moved.
I did manage to continue on with my day in spite of my bad fall. I am a bit sore, but considering that I had a pretty bad fall today I am doing pretty good. I think back to when Christie Brinkley fell and broke her wrist while rehearsing for Dancing With The Stars. She fell on a dancers floor which is very flexible and cushiony. I fell HARD on HARD CEMENT! I didn’t break anything and I contribute that to my nightly intake of wine. Seniors that drink an average of 8 glasses of alcohol per day are less likely to break a bone if they fall. I am certainly proof of that!
I was even able to carry on with everything that I needed to do today. However, tomorrow may be a different story. Sometimes the pain and bruises can appear a day or two later and can be worse than the initial fall. Which is why I’ve been taking my Advil and sitting on my heating pad. Gordon is making dinner. A repeat from last night which was great!
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Last Night’s Dinner
I had literally been eating spaghetti 6 nights in a row and still had leftover sauce. That is when I remembered the cornmeal pizza crusts that Gordon and I had bought from Sprouts months ago and that were in our freezer. I had the idea to just spread my spaghetti sauce on top of those crusts, add some toppings and then what a great dinner! So we did!
Topped with Roma Tomatoes, Turkey Pepperoni, Mozzarella Cheese, and Fresh Basil
We did add splotches of this Artichoke Piccata Sauce.
What a Great Dinner! Leftovers make a great Lunch!
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Tonight we recreated the same dinner. It does feel good to reuse food and not waste it.
Although we do happen to waste a lot of foods sometimes.
But, I do rarely waste anything Italian. Wonder why? 🙂
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November 11, 2020
Veteran’s Day
What a Day! We have torrential rain from Hurricane ETA. Actually hurricane rain and winds most of the day. Although I think now we are down to tropical storm rain and winds. A little bit better. Our NOAA weather radio has gone off all day long warning us of tornadoes and water spouts around the Tampa Bay area. So, while I was doing some packing here at home Gordon went to our new upholsterer’s business, O’Neil and Sons, to shop for our fabrics that we want for our antique couch and chair recovery.
Said Couch and Chair
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The Many Fabric Samples Gordon Brought Home
Spread out all over the stove top.
I initially had in mind something very Royal Hawaiian. A fabric that you would see on a couch or chairs in the lobby of The Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki. However, that fabric was located at that crappy and mean upholsterers that we aren’t going with. (Which I write about below.) BUT, we found a nice family owned business that is working very nicely with us and we are very excited to do business with them.
This is the fabric we chose for our couch except…..inside out. 🙂
Meaning that the top of the fabric is beautiful but we need something more subdued for our living room. Our living room is a very busy room as it is which is why solid colors work best in there because of our many collections you see everywhere. But, we were tired of solid colors and wanted some sort of pattern. So, I kept flipping through some gorgeous fabric but they were just too bold for what we needed. However, when you flip the fabric over, viola! subdued fabric prints. Yes!
I told Gordon to tell them that we want this print except inside out. Something that no one had ever requested at their business and that they had never heard of. Well….. 🙂
Actually, I would love to take credit for the idea of turning fabric inside out but that accolade goes to Hawaii. The business men in Hawaii do not wear suits and ties. They wear nice pants with subdued Aloha shirts. The “subdued” floral prints are due to turning the fabric inside out. I call it Aloha Professional. I do have to say that to me the best dressed business men in Hawaii were the Tongans and the Samoans. They would wear their traditional skirts with Aloha shirts. You would see them all over Honolulu and Waikiki wearing their business best. Loved it!
The Star Fish print will be on the yellow chair.
So excited about that!
Julie
p.s. And to just give you the cost. To recover both pieces of furniture will cost us $1, 600.00….something. I don’t have the exact figure in front of me. It was originally going to cost us $1,900.00 but today is Veteran’s Day and they gave Gordon a military discount. 🙂
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November 10, 2020
Let’s start our day off with a heap of gravy and maybe a biscuit or two.
But, definitely gravy!
Because we will be living in our new ‘studio apartment’, our bedroom and bathroom for about 3 weeks during the renovations, we have moved my treadmill out, and my desk in.
(p.s. I hate that thing that I created over the sliders. It is a yellow tablecloth that I pinned up here and there and added some silk flowers. I only did that because we were refinancing our house a few years ago and it needed something up there. I’ll take it down eventually.)
(p.s.s. The inspector LOVED it and even commented on it! Go figure?)
For now the treadmill sits right outside our bedroom sliders. When the new carpet goes into Brodie’s old bedroom/our new den in just a few days, then we will move the treadmill into the den.
But for now, here is my new set up. My zylophone, and my desk. My zylophone also acts like a desk to house the overage. I’ve got two dog beds underneath the area for Spooky and Sparky, and I can just move my chair when I need to take the dogs out during the day while the renovations go on. We can just scoot out that way and avoid the workers.
It’ll be a bit crowded but also very cozy and that is fine with us.
We are used to cramped quarters.
Me on the outside, Spooky and Sparky on the Inside
A Very Humid Day
Looking Into the Boudoir
As taken from the outside on our lanai, at night.
Dinner Tonight From MD Market 🙂
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November 9, 2020
Our contractor dropped off lots of boxes for us and packing material. Gordon and I had already several plastic storage tubs in our garage for another storage project but we are using some of them here to store our things in before the renovations start.
It’s just lots of packing and wrapping and sorting for the upcoming holidays. Something goes in some tubs for Thanksgiving. Other things go in other tubs for some Halloween projects to finish up. And then other things can go in boxes to be stored in Brodie’s old room while the renovations go on.
I’m not just packing up everything without thinking. That would be easier. But, what with the holidays coming up I am having to put more thought into how I pack and where I pack it.
Still Eating Comfort Food 🙂
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November 7, 2020
(With updated content November 10, 2020)
Whenever I Become Overwhelmed, I Shut Down!
I’m probably opening up a can of worms here that I really don’t have the time to try and put back in the can, but I also need to open up that can of worms and get it all down on paper, or rather, being able to blog about it, and it really does help me cope with all that we have going on right now. I am very overwhelmed and normally when I become so overwhelmed with so much to do that I tend to just shut down. Meaning, I end up just laying on the couch and watching T.V. all day because there is so much to do and I don’t know what to do first, second, third, fourth….so therefore I end up doing nothing! Because doing nothing is easier.
Our lives are very busy with all the prep work that goes into getting ready for our upcoming kitchen renovations and new living room carpeting. We ourselves, are upgrading our son’s old bedroom because he has moved out and we are going to turn that room into a den. We’ve finished painting it, installing a nice new ceiling fan with light fixture, and now Gordon is removing the old windows in his room and we are installing new hurricane proof windows.
These are the old Windows
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It is a difficult process because when our house was built they literally cemented around each window. So, Gordon is chipping away at all the surrounding cement in order to try and remove the old windows. This should take a few days.
You Can See Here The Cement Around The Window
Gordon Still Chipping Away, He Did Get This Window Out
When the windows were installed they spread this foam around all sides.
Me, Taking a Photo Of The NEW Window
Gordon did install this window. We were just waiting for this foam to dry so that he can then scrape off the extra. You can see Gordon here. And with me in my pajamas.
See The Foam?
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Once It Dries You Scrape It Off
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Although this photo is dark, the window is in and is perfect!
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Next Window in Brodie’s Old Room
Here Gordon has borrowed a tool from our neighbor’s that is helping him to remove this window faster and easier.
When you have the right tools…..
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Gordon is Wearing a Mask for Dust Purposes, and Because Our Neighbor Helped Him With This Window
Window Removed
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Outside The Window
Ready to Install The New Window
(See Sparky in photo, left.)
Gordon Doing The Last of the Drilling in the Window
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I was going to take step-by-step photos of this project but I was doing something more important, (trimming and coloring my hair.)
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I just wanted to add that Gordon has never installed windows before. We did look into buying new hurricane proof windows and having them installed professionally but the cost was going to be over $2,000.00 for both windows and labor.
Home Depot does sell hurricane proof windows. These windows only cost $300.00 each. So, Gordon hit Youtube to look at video’s on how to install them and he just did it himself. It wasn’t easy, but he was determined and he did it!
Here are photos of the new windows installed You can see the gray cement stucco all around the windows. That is because Gordon had to re-stucco the entire area. Now we just need to paint over it and it will look great!
(This is why it is important to have an extra can of your house paint in the garage. You never know when you might need to make these touch ups and matching it up to something new can be difficult.)
The Stucco dries quicker than Gordon thought. Note the cement block in the photo below.
Remember that if you ever do a project like this.
Just mix it in small batches at a time until your project is finished.
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In the meantime we have our contractor dropping off boxes and packing material for us. We will be packing up our special things and then moving them into our new den until after the renovations are finished. We are having the “den” carpeted by mid next week. Therefore we can’t store anything in there until the carpet goes down. We will literally be living in our bedroom and bathroom with our dogs during all the renovations. At this time we know we are getting half of a new kitchen, but we may be getting an entire new kitchen depending on how the initial renovations go.
It looks like for about 3 weeks that we won’t have a kitchen sink, other than the laundry room sink. So, I will be washing what dishes we accumulate in the laundry room during this renovation process. Our POD arrives on the 13th. and it will sit in our driveway housing our possessions that they move out of our house during the renovations.
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Gordon and I are currently looking into having our antique couch and an antique chair recovered at this time.
This is our Couch and Chair we Wish to Have Recovered
We want our couch to be made a bit more cushiony with some classic beach design fabric, same with the chair.
We contacted one company that asked to see what we wish to have recovered.
The company is: http://georgeup.com/
We contacted them about upholstering our couch and chair. They then contacted us seemingly interested in doing business with us. They did ask us to send them these photos. When we did, they then wrote back and said that they are busy through January. I then had Gordon to ask them, then why didn’t they tell us that to begin with? Why did they have us send the requested photos? Only to reject us? I then told Gordon to tell them that we will just take our business elsewhere. They then wrote back, “Good.” (Republicans. Not professional at all.) I think that when Gordon initially contacted them via their website that he just left his first name as Gordon. However, when they asked to see photos Gordon sent them through his email account, Gordon Whann, and I think they saw us as Mexican’s and didn’t want to do business with us. Sadly, we had shopped through all their fabrics for hours picking out which ones we wanted only to be rejected. I hate that we wasted so much time on them.
So, now we are trying to find a non-racist upholster people to do business with. Sadly, this is what our minorities go through. And I believe, that given the current state of our nation that people are finally seeing that as fact. We are white, our name Whann is Welch, but the average American when seeing just our name thinks we are either Mexican or Chinese. And therefore, discriminate against us, sight unseen.
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We are also looking into having our kitchen counter tops upgraded to a granite, or thereabouts.
Looks like Thanksgiving will be a turkey on the grill. Who knows what Christmas will look like? And I’m pretty sure we will be still putting our things away and setting up our home once all is done through January. AND, we are doing all this during a pandemic, AND, what with our country’s uncertain political future……
Yeah, can you blame me for wanting to just lay on the couch all day?
I know we’ll get through this. There is just a lot going on and I’m sure I’ll have my good days and my bad days. But, being an Empath during all this political crap is really weighing me down. This is when I need to push all those feelings aside and out of my body and just trudge on.
Tomorrow is the countertop guy appointment to take his measurements.
Julie
Stressed! But Eating Good Comfort Food: 🙂
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We did replace all of our beige outlet fixtures in Brodie’s old bedroom with new white ones.
To match the walls.
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All These Doors Need To Be Painted White
In addition to our new door for Brodie’s old bedroom we also purchased new doors for the guest bathroom and Veronica’s old bedroom as well. We just need to paint each door white while we have the room to do it. Then we will just store them in the garage until the renovations are over with and then we can install them.
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Finished Painting The Hallway, BTW
(Using Corks Here to Paint Around Light Fixture.)
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P.S. Oh, and our dogs that were “fixed”, are doing it! Yeah! What the hell is that all about? I think it is something psychological. As in they are afraid they will be separated what with all that is going on. They are extremely bonded. Therefore I believe they join together so no one can tear them apart. They have done that kind of behavior ever since I adopted them. And they seem to do it when they are stressed. (Gross.) 🙁
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November 3, 2020
Election Day and More…
(We voted by mail weeks ago.) 🙂
But today both Gordon and I had our projects that needed doing. For me, it was painting the hallway white. I intended to paint the hallway last November, 2019 once I had painted our laundry room and just never got around to it. However, seeing as how we had painted Brodie’s room white, the time to do the hallway was now.
This is the Hallway to Paint
It isn’t very large at all but it has had this same beige paint on it from when we originally bought the house over 14 years ago. The white paint will help to brighten it up.
But, before I can get started painting Gordon is cleaning the vent and changing the filter.
Check out that massive hole. Also remember to remove all light switch and outlet covers from your walls and set aside in baggies so the tiny screws don’t get lost. We did that with Brodie’s room but I forgot to mention it.
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The Back of Brodie’s Door
We needed to buy a new door for Brodie’s room and we thought since we were buying his old room a new door, we may as well buy a new door for Veronica’s old room and their shared bathroom.
These are very typical lightweight and thin doors that are in most homes in Florida whether they be middle class homes or the wealthier homes. But I wanted a new design other than the same design we have on every single inside door in our home.
Therefore, we chose this design. We both like the curve at the top. Why does that matter?
I’ll explain something to you……
Look Very Closely at This Door
It is called the Cross and Bible door.
From the doorknob up is the cross. And from the doorknob down is the Bible.
Subliminal messaging right in our own home. 🙂
I recognized them when we bought the house but I really didn’t care at the time. But now I’m just ready for a change so we are starting at this end of our house for now.
(I will add this. When you see bushes and foliage outside a person’s home that is round then that means they are very female friendly and will most likely help you in a pinch. BUT, if you see trees and bushes shaped into sharp points in someone’s front yard, avoid the hell out of them. They will most likely shoot you if you knock on their door needing help.)
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Although these new doors are white they still need to be painted white or whatever color you would like.
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This is Brodie’s room’s old ceiling fan. I just didn’t want it anymore even though there is nothing really wrong with it. But, I wanted just one single light underneath a ceiling fan with shorter blades. And that is what Gordon bought and installed today.
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I like our new ceiling fan and light fixture as it is closer to the ceiling than the one we have. We are very tall people and the ceiling fan we have in here now I’m scared it will chop one of our heads off. With this new ceiling fan it will be up higher and give more headspace.
Gordon Installing Our New Ceiling Fan and Light Fixture
Doesn’t it look nice? Our new ceiling fan with the light fixture.
Brodie’s old ceiling fan and light fixtures.
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Brodie’s Old Closet Racks
How To Clean Wire Racks
These wire racks are also located in most Florida homes whether they be poor, middle class, or wealthy. Overtime they seem to develop this dirty, grimy, greasy film over them. Most families just throw them away and buy more because they are hard to clean. Gordon came up with the idea for me to use our Goo Be Gone on them. Goo Be Gone is a cleaner that can easily remove the sticky glue from labels on bottles, or sticky price tags on platters that you buy. Goo Be Gone also comes in a spray so before we started painting the closet I used that Goo Be Gone on the wire racks, I let them sit for a few minutes, and then I was able to wipe them totally clean. That way we don’t have to buy new ones.
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I’ll post our photos of our nice white painted rooms tomorrow.
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Our Election Night Democratic Pasta Salad
With a few of our Tabasco Peppers From our Bush
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And a Lovely Gift For Me From my Herb Garden
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This was a throw together Pasta Salad on my part.
It is Extremely Delicious!
As busy as we have been I didn’t want anything big or complicated tonight.
And as always, my roasted garlic, feta cheese, sundried tomatoes, and now our newly famous cheese stuffed peppers….and of course, BREAD!
Talk to you tomorrow,
Julie
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November 2, 2020
Day 2 of Painting
This is Gordon yesterday doing a second coat of paint over paint that wasn’t dry. I told him that it was a bad idea but he did it anyway. Sometimes everything works out nicely. And other times it doesn’t. See photo below:
While Gordon was rolling the brush around, a section of the pain all came off.
You can see it here.
That is when Gordon quit for the day and we left the room to dry thoroughly overnight.
(I will say this. When I was selling cosmetics I would hear from some women that they went to bed thinking their nail polish was dry only to wake up and find their nails had impressions on them from their sheets and blankets. I would explain to them that if you can smell your nail polish that it isn’t dry. But, if you can’t smell it then it is. Same rules apply to all paint.)
The next morning Gordon patched that spot with spackle. It is pink when you apply it but it turns white when it is dry.
That is how you know it’s dry.
Now it’s time for me to do the cutting again all around the room just like I did yesterday.
Gordon doing the second coat of paint all around the room with the roller brush.
You can see what a difference applying a second coat does to brighten up this room.
It’s also important to open a window, turn on a ceiling fan, keep doors open, so that all the fumes don’t get to you. This paint is for the most part not as smelly. However, it did kind of get to us after awhile.
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Spaghetti Dinner Tonight
With the Election 2020 looming tomorrow I was in desperate need for some comfort food.
My dinner to the left, Gordon’s to the right.
I do have to say that I was definitely comforted.
Looks like tomorrow I will be painting the hallway.
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November 1, 2020
On Prepping the Room to be Painted
When Brodie moved out yesterday, (see blog post below this one), the room was a filthy mess.
The first thing we did was to set about cleaning it up. If you are wondering why we would be cleaning a room that we will be painting and carpeting, it’s because we want the paint to go on the walls nice and clean and not be all dirty.
First comes the Spackling
You can see the white dots on the walls? That is where Gordon placed a putty into the holes in the wall that used to hold nails to hang up pictures. That needed to dry overnight.
As Gordon was spackling up the holes in the walls that took me back to our many moves when Gordon was in the military. It was common place with a lot of military families to use toothpaste to patch up the holes in the walls. Oh, it didn’t work. It was just done to trick the housing inspector into believing that they had patched up those holes in the walls before they vacated military housing as they are required to do. You may ask me why didn’t they just buy the correct stuff and patch them correctly? It’s because most military families are poor and that was an added expense to their already slim budgets that they couldn’t afford. I would also like to say that we never did this. But it was common practice among many. Never underestimate the poor, they are very creative.
Gordon Moving the Bookshelves into Brodie’s Bathroom
Julie Wiping Down the Walls
Before you paint you need clean walls and baseboards. You can’t paint over dust. Your paint will become all dirty. Which also takes me back to our days in military housing when the painters the military would hire to paint the insides of our homes, they would paint over roaches and other bugs. I can’t tell you how many geckos we found stuck to the walls in Hawaii because they would paint over them. I thought it was very cruel.
It’s also important to use your vacuum cleaner to suck up all the dirt and dust and debris all along the baseboards of the room because we will be painting all the baseboard molding. I don’t want to collect dirt in my paintbrush. The only good thing is that I don’t have to worry about the carpet and it doesn’t matter if paint gets on it as we will be having new carpet put down.
Some have suggested why not just put some sort of flooring down in the bedroom?
The reason we don’t want to do that is because we like a nice plush carpet with lots of padding that acts as a cushion when we walk on it. Otherwise we are just putting some hard floor over top the hard cement. This is Florida where no one has flexible flooring. Everything is built to withstand our storms and hurricane’s.
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Now It’s Time To Paint
WHITE, of Course
(The yellow plastic piece is a paint guard that you can attach to a can of paint that will help prevent spillage.)
The inside of our house is very dark. We have the sun rising on the left side of our house, and setting on the right side of our house. I think that if the sun would rise shining it’s rays in the front of our house, and then set beaming it’s rays on the back of our house, then we wouldn’t need so much inside lighting. However, because that’s not the case, we do need to do all we can to brighten up our home’s insides and that really does mean nice bright white painted walls.
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I’m Doing the Cutting and Working Around the Windows
This is Called Cutting
It’s where I’m using a paint brush to paint all along the baseboards, corners, edges, tops, so that Gordon can then come along and use a roller brush to cover everything else.
Gordon Using the Roller
We did one coat throughout the room, let it dry, and now we are doing the second coat of paint. Also painting the ceiling and the closet. We did take off the closet doors in order to better paint. And lucky for us we get an additional hour today to paint because Daylight Savings Time ends today. Thanks a lot Benjamin Franklin. 🙁
P.S. I’ve had Mackenzie’s pizza yesterday for lunch and dinner. And then today for breakfast, lunch and I will be having it for dinner again tonight. I told Mackenzie that I owe her a pizza. 🙂
It Truly was Delicious!
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October 31, 2020
Happy Halloween
Before we can even start to do our part of the prep work towards our renovations, is that our son was to move out.
That day was today.
Before
Gordon, Brodie, and his Friend Jason
Moving His Things to His Storage Unit
Me, With Brodie and Jason
We’re all wearing masks. I’m trying to socially distance but Mr. Gordon “I can’t stay away from people” Whann can’t stop talking and socializing. He is so gonna get us sick!
After
On their way to the storage unit.
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Pizza’s Here!
We bought everyone their own pizza.
Gordon’s Pizza Left, Julie’s Pizza Right (With Barbie Tables) 🙂
Actually, “my pizza” is really Mackenzie’s. I ordered sausage on mine and this was the only one with sausage so I assumed it was mine. Turns out they screwed my order up and I’m feasting on Mackenzie’s while they are dropping off the moving truck. I’m pretty sure she’s mad at me. 🙁
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Look what Mackenzie found under Brodie’s bed. 🙂
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Brodie’s nasty room. How embarrassing! I never knew it was that filthy.
I asked him if he realized he was living in such a filthy mess? He said “No.”
He’s leaving behind the book shelves.
Which is fine with us as now we can spread out a bit and have more room for our books.
Gordon is out shopping now for a new light fixture for this room and for some spackling paste to place over the picture holes in the walls. That way it can dry overnight and then we start painting tomorrow.
Right now I’m just trying to air everything out because of all the traffic we’ve had in the house today.
So, tomorrow is the paint. We will then wait for the carpet to arrive and then we can start to set everything up in our new den how we like it. It will be nice to spread out a bit.
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Well, now Brodie will be living with Mackenzie and her parents for a few months until Mackenzie takes her finals and then finds a job. Then the 2 of them will find a place together. Such scary times now. So much uncertainty. But this was what they inherited and they must find a way to maneuver around it/through it/ over it…….. It’s like I told Brodie, “Your future is out there. Whether you find your happiness or your sorrow, either way it’s out there.”
I cannot believe that on my most favorite night of the year that Gordon and I sat up a large box in our driveway with an old cheap tacky Halloween tablecloth draped around it and with my plastic witch’s cauldron full of candy for Trick-or-Treater’s to select their own treats.
My how the mighty have fallen.
Julie
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October 27, 2020
It was my idea for us to gather up all of our alcohol in our house and place it in our bathtub so that while the renovations are going on that it would all be safe. Well……
Once Gordon and I had gathered up (most of it) and placed it in our tub we looked at each other and said, “We’re alcoholic’s.”
That’s when I looked at Gordon and said, “Oh, by the way, I’m out of my Barefoot Wine. Pick me up another 36 bottles to get me through these renovations.”
(I would lie to you and say that they are small bottles, but they aren’t.)
We’ll get through these renovations one bottle at a time.
Julie Lancaster-Whann
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October 24, 2020
Entering Halloween Week
I am almost too tired to even be writing this right now because of all our renovation prep Gordon and I are doing. I am going to start a post about it once things get going. (This post right here.) Right now I just want to enjoy Halloween week. Cooking, creating, projects….. it’s fun!
Gordon was out today buying new carpet for Brodie’s room. The company comes to measure his room tomorrow. We chose something nice and “Pearl” with lots of cushion. That room will be our new den/computer room. We are very excited! We also have the paint and we are excited to get started but we are awaiting our Brodie to exit it. He is so frickin’ slow. He has promised that he will be totally out by next weekend.
While Gordon was out and about today doling the shopping he stopped by the Spanish store and got us dinner. Can’t wait to try my Mexican bbq wings and rice.
I spent the day cleaning our bathroom. Windows, shutters, bathtub, floors, doing bathroom laundry…
It was my idea to put all of our alcohol in our bathtub during these renovations so that we can keep track of it. If you know what I mean. I’ll have to post a photo as it wasn’t until we looked at all of it that Gordon and I turned to each other and said, “We’re alcoholics.” And when I show it to you, you will also say, “Your alcoholics.”
I’ll keep you posted on our renovation progress, but I also want to enjoy my favorite time of year. I guess I’ll just do what I can.
Julie
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October 22, 2020
Renovations, Coming SOON!
Carpet Samples
We’ve Settled on Sweet Basil
(We were considering Sunset but our son looked at it and said, “It looks like piss.” Well, thank you Brodie for ruining Sunset for us.)
A few weeks ago our kitchen dishwasher leaked and water ran out the back of it to our living room carpet. Gordon first noticed this very wet area and just assumed that our dogs had urinated there. But, he then realized that it was a huge wet area on our carpet that had extended out a few feet from the wall and even crept underneath our very large entertainment center. That is when Gordon realized that there must be a leak in our dishwasher. So, he pulled it out from underneath the counter and turned it on to test where the water was coming from. Sure enough, water started running out from underneath so I grabbed lots of towels and Gordon shut it down.
We didn’t realize the extent of the damage at first. We just thought we needed some new living room carpeting but we have since come to realize that the water damaged the cabinets in an entire section of our kitchen. We’ve been doing without a dishwasher now for a few weeks and we have been using lots of paper plates, cups, bowls, paper coffee cups, and cutlery. I hate all of this plastic that we are using even though we are recycling most of it. I preferred either hand washing, or running our dishwasher but with all the cooking we do it has become just too much for me to constantly hand wash everything. (I didn’t grow up on some Little House on the Prairie.)
We’ve had two dishwasher repairmen out to our house and we either pay $400.00 to get it fixed, or we buy a new one. Well, looks like we are buying a new one. However, not until our kitchen renovation starts because it will just be one more appliance that we have to deal with until then so we are going to wait. And renovations don’t start until mid-November. We will be getting half a new kitchen, and all new living room carpeting. We are buying the new dishwasher and might as well buy a new garbage disposal, and we are paying whatever to upgrade our kitchen counters. We are looking into granite or quartz. A neighbor kind of tried to shame us into buying marble and that’s when I said, “GRANITE COUNTERS MATTER! GRANITE COUNTERS MATTER! Yeah, don’t mess with granite cause once you go granite, you never got back. 🙂
Our contractor that is doing all this work came by yesterday and dropped off some carpet samples for us and lots of boxes and packing material. Fun! 🙁
But before we can even touch that, Brodie has to clear everything out of his room and move it to his rental storage room. He will be living with his girlfriend Mackenzie and her parents in Tampa for a few months. Mackenzie’s twin sister Susannah bought a condo and they helped her move into it last weekend so there is a spare room and Mackenzie’s parents offered it to Brodie. This was all before we knew we needed him to move out. The timing was perfect!
Brodie has been packing up his room and I think that he will rent some sort of van to move the rest of his furniture out this weekend. So, it looks like next week we will be painting his room and carpeting it once we finish painting it. Then, we will move some of our furniture in there and start setting it up as a some sort of den/computer room with lots of book shelves and my treadmill will go in there as well. We want to buy a T.V. to mount on the wall and move a computer desk and some chairs in there. It’ll be great! Once we do all that then we start packing up our precious things and then storing them in there. I’ll let you know what happens after that…..
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October 12, 2020
Remember when I write below about how our dishwasher leaked and water built up underneath the cabinets and then drained underneath our wall onto our living room carpet causing mold and damage? And remember how I said that none of this is really bad, it’s just life? Remember? Well, now it’s BAD!!!
We had the insurance adjuster out today to write up his assessment of the damage and it looks like we will either be getting a brand new kitchen, or at least half of a brand new kitchen. New breakfast bar, new cabinets, new countertops, and perhaps new tile on the floor. If the workers damage this tile. We will most likely have one of those giant PODS in our driveway that will hold boxes and boxes of our possessions, along with a lot of our furniture while we get brand new carpeting in our living room.
So, to those of you that think this is all good news? You would be right if we weren’t such hoarders with millions of our collections. Even the insurance adjuster just stood there looking at all of our stuff in amazement shaking his head. He also took lots of photos and I just know he’s showing them to everyone in his office while they all look at them with shocked amazement on their little judgemental faces.
In a way this is a blessing in disguise. It’s just a journey that I don’t care to go on right now. Or ever. I hate change, I hate to be disrupted. Do you think I want my entire living room/kitchen/dining room/kitchen nook packed up by a bunch of strangers while men are here for weeks at a time with all of their trucks parked outside our house during a pandemic??? NO! So, like I said, this is bad.
I told Gordon that I am planning on locking myself in the bedroom with my computer and the dogs AND a new mini fridge that we’ll keep in the bathroom until all the work is over with. I will only emerge from my lair to answer the door for all the wine and take out we’ll be ordering.
I really do dread all this,
Julie
P.S. I suppose all this work could start as early as November and as late as January/February. I’ll let you know. 🙂
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October 3, 2020
And Now For All Of Our DRAMA
- My car won’t start because it hasn’t been used that much since the pandemic/lockdown started. Brodie is on it though and repairing it as I type this. Gordon has a migraine and is in bed asleep. He suffers from migraines and when they flare up he needs to sleep them off.
2. Our refrigerator ice maker isn’t working properly. We can get it going and it will last another month before it will quit on us. Then we’ll get it working again and it will last about a month at a time before we have to continuously fix it again, and again, and again.
3. We noticed that the carpet beside our entertainment center was wet:
Gordon then realized that the water was coming through underneath the wall from our dishwasher.
He did find the leak:
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Spooky photo of the leaking trail of water from the dishwasher.
Look at the water line behind the dishwasher.
Bottom Line:
Can’t use dishwasher until our insurance agent comes to take a look at the damage. Then we either fix the dishwasher or buy another one, and/or buy new living room carpet. But, until then……..
It’s paper and plastic EVERYTHING!
So, do I view all this as being bad? No. I view all this as being LIFE. This has not been our Annus Horribillis. (Latin for horrible year.) I have no earthly idea if I spelled that correctly but 2020 has been most people’s Annus Horribillis, but not ours. We’ve gotten through pretty unscathed, so far. However, that never means that we will continue to. But, we are pretty o.k. for now. I will take our problems over something more serious any day of the week.
Hope all is well. We’ll get through.
Julie