Work, Work, Work- not quite

My mom is here visiting so I'm not getting as much done as I should. I've really been quite lazy this past week. Ed worked this weekend at his brothers house so we didn't get as much done as we would have liked. We did manage to get some more siding up.

I did make a trip out to Lowes to pick out some lighting fixtures for the outside. My only real accomplishment this week was painting our chandelier black. Here is a before and and not quite finished picture. I'm on the hunt for the perfect shades and fabric to cover the chain. I think I'm looking for a black and white toile, maybe gingham.

PS these pictures have been brought to you courtesy of Aunt Nancys old camera. She said I NEED to have photos on my blog. Thanks Aunt Nancy!

Nana arrives on a jet plane

My mother is coming for a visit. I am excited. It's been a long time since I've seen her. I just kind of wished she waited until we had sheet rock on the walls. I have so much work to do. So much to clean up and I have to re dust everything. Ah, why bother I'm just going to have to do it again in 15 minutes. I have so much to do before I head to the airport to get her. So, why am I sitting at the computer? I couldn't tell you. I really came down to switch the laundry. wink wink

I've lost control

Seriously I have! I just have to do a little work to get it back.

..... I moved my computer down to the basement. The only spot to put is was right next to the laundry room. It's not so bad down here. Except for the sawdust falling from the floor above. The only noise is the hum of the dehumidifier. It's just enough to almost block out the arguing from upstairs. If I get up off my butt and start a load of laundry, I think the noise could block out the whole world beyond.

.... My lost control - well I popped off a couple of buttons on my keyboard to clean the sawdust out and the control button flew into the pile of dirty laundry. :)

Woo Hoo

Good news! No work tonight my DH asked me out on a date. It's been so long, I can't even remember the last time we have been alone together. I think it was last summer some time.

More good news. This week I had a meeting with our school districts child study team for Moe. At his three year check up his pediatrician recommended some speech therapy for him. I really didn't think he needed it. So I kind of brushed it off. A few weeks later he had gotten sick and I saw another doctor in same office. She looked at Moe and said the same thing, but she had also said that he may have a slight learning disability. Now I started to have doubts. Two different doctors saying the same thing. I knew he could talk. In fact he started to talk, very well too even before Cole. Then at one point he just started gibbering. It wasn't baby talk. It was like he was just talking too fast. Every once in awhile you could make out a word.

After we had gone back to the doctors a week later (and we saw the first doctor again) he repeated the same thing and gave me a list of evaluating centers to see. Now I was really worried. I called all the numbers he gave me. On the last one I broke down and cried. I didn't know what to do. None of them took insurance and the evaluation alone ran $600-$800. So I think the woman took pity on me and told me to call the school district. After months of phone calls and writing letters I got an appointment with the child study team.

I dropped Cole off at Aunt Kathy's. This was the first time I had gone anywhere with just Michael. She screamed, Moe cried, I had a headache!

The team was very nice. I met with three people then they had me on speaker phone with I think, three more people at another school. I spoke to them for while and then they spoke with Michael, asking him all kinds of questions. He is such a ham he was eating it up. He went around the room pointing to colors. He even said some of them in Spanish. He was pointing out letters, telling them stories. Telling them we had to break Cole out of Kathy's house. He spoke clearly and in full sentences.

Their conclusion- there is absolutely nothing wrong with him or his speech. They said it is possible that it's the twin thing where they create their own language, although Cole has never done it. Their only recommendation was to spend more one on one time with him. Yeah, like Cole is ever going to let that happen.

puttering along

Today we started the siding on the side of the house. We got 4 or 5 courses up when it started to rain. Well at least we started, right? So we decided to work inside on the wall to the bedroom. We moved it out about two feet. We also removed everything in there that was up against the front wall of the house. We have to take that down next to add more windows. We are almost to the end-at least for replacing all the plywood on the out side of the house. Once we finish this area in the front its all about the siding baby. I'm getting excited. I may just have a normal looking house soon. At least from the outside. Now all I need is my kitchen sink back and maybe some steps to get use our new doors. Oh and maybe.... I could keep on going!

if walls could talk

I've been with out a computer again for a few days. I snuck down into the basement and hooked up Eds office computer to the Internet. I couldn't take it anymore. I can't believe how much I took the Internet for granted. You know it the little things, like being able to look up the weather.

Saturday we took out the old bathroom. Remember when I said the bathroom really just need to be painted and everything was in decent shape. How wrong I was! The skylight had leaked. Just a little here and there. When we took up the floor we found out most of the floor had rotted away. Not only that, when they installed the toilet almost 50 years ago, they just cut the joist in half and it was just hanging there doing nothing. We ending up having to replace three more floor joist.

The funny thing is, while I was cleaning up the mess I found this index card rolled up really tight sitting in the corner. I almost threw it out. I don't know why I picked it up. It was first dated 1969. Eds older brother Ken put it in the wall when he was 11 helping is father remodel the bathroom. It was also found, signed and replaced again in 92 when we remodeled it again. I don't remember Ken putting it in the wall. The cute thing is he had is daughters sign it also before replacing back . Cait was 5 at the time and Allison was 2.

Sunday we took off the front wall of the house. We framed for the new front door and the windows. Removing the large bay window was not easy. For some reason I found myself standing outside holding up the window by myself while Ed was prying it away from the studs. I don't know what I was thinking other than I am really, really, insane. It didn't go that bad. I broke one of the glass panes. I was very lucky that my hand didn't go all the way through.

Today we put in two of the window. While Ed was cutting the openning for one of the windows a leg on his ladder broke off. He got a little banged up. His ankle is really swollen. Once again we got lucky. It could have been so much worse. I was a wreck. It really scared me. I don't know what I would do without him. I mean who else would I get to do this remodel :)

Oh, it is so nice to have windows that open on the front of the house. It's not so oppressive in the house anymore.

Cooling Off

Seriously what do you do when it so frickin hot out and you have no AC. I tried to stay at the library but we had to leave when Moe started throwing a major temper tantrum. Another day we spent all day at the mall. My first time there in over six months and it's pretty much within walking distance. I really hate that place now!
According to weather.com it felt like 102. Let me tell you it felt hotter that that. I think we had ice cream for lunch for 4 days straight. I'm such a bad mommy!
I love the looks on their faces. It would be a cute picture if it wasn't for the dumpster and the construction debris in the background. I finally broke down and bought a kiddie pool. The only reason it took me so long was we really didn't have a safe place to put it.

So I was enjoying myself taking a break from the construction and watching the kids play, when I got this picture and more pictures just like it. Oh crap, crap crap!!!! So after research the computer to find what the heck happend, I found out that my sub mirror was stuck. Once I unstuck the mirror a plastic pin inside broke as well as the auto focus feature. I also found out that it a common thing on the Canon Rebel. and cost around $200 to fix. At this point I've put too much money into my camera for what it's worth. So I have a choice to not take picture until I can save up enough cash to buy a new camera, or try and fix it myself.

This is what I see in my future as well as a few more tears.

Two foot addition- part two

The inside wall comes down.

What a mess.
Removing the door to the addition. We are going to reuse this door on the driveway side of the house.
The main house is now open to the addition. Shh........... don't look at that mess in there.

Two foot addition

2 Feet!! Why I don't know? There is a reason, a very good reason. It has something to do with not being able to put the foundation wall back where is was. I'm not going to get into that now. I didn't want to show this picture because of the amount of crap all over the place. We took most of the cabinets out because it was raining in our house and the ones that we were keeping got moved to a safer place, into the addition. That's where everything is right now in our addition. I am hoping we can get the attic stairs in tonight so I can put all the holiday decor and stuff up there. Maybe I can make some room to move around. We also have a 6' bathtub in the basement that we plan to move up there tonight. Oh, the joy! It has to get up there sometime. It's going to go into the bathroom on the second floor anyway(next year).

The 2' addition right.

That's the header for my new- recycled window. Cutting the opening.

Wrapping the house like a big birthday present.
Everyone works here. The kids are helping daddy remove the plumbing for the last cabinet. Say bye, bye to my beautiful dollar store shower curtain cover counters. Let me tell you it's about time! --- OK that was two weeks ago and I'm without a kitchen sink again. This could be one of the many reasons I haven't blogged lately I'm back to washing dishes in the bathroom.

Hey get out of there I have to wash dishes!
The recycled kitchen window is in. This window has been sitting in our shed for three years. It was a little dusty but works perfectly. It was never really used before. It was a left over (because it was three inch to small for the homeowner) from a job that Ed did. Hey look over there to the right is that siding I see? I can't wait to see more of it!

Raising the Roof

See all that lumber going up there. That's Aunt Nancy and I again. Of course it was on the back side of the house so we had to carry it around to the front and lift it up to the guys. Once they got up there they refused to come down. Pain in the butts. Let me tell you I don't know what those guys would have done without us. Anyway dark descended and we called it a day or week. We had to wait until the next weekend to get back up there. It rained and rained for 40 days, 40 nights. At least that was what it felt like. I really thought I was going to float away. After the rain stopped the temp jumped up into the 90s. Forget the house man- fix the AC!

The sky is falling

Oh no -that's just Uncle Mike.

This was the kids room. At least what was left of it. We turned half of it into a new bathroom and pantry.Poor Uncle Mike! Uncle Ray went through also, but I never saw where. Remember how I mentioned before how I under estimated the amount of pain. Well it wasn't all mine. Blood sweat and tear, baby.

Here's Uncle Ray showing off his damage.

Going Topless

First off - Thanks Aunt Nancy for the title.

So much has happened since I blogged last.

So lets start at the beginning. My husband is a carpenter/builder. We have been working on our house at a very slow pace. Very slow and I mean years. This past month and a half we have been working like crazy. Ed has a normal job during the day(which just means he works for someone else) of course they are in their busy season. So he is putting in almost 12 hours a day and then coming home to work on our house. After a month and a half he finally crashed. He came home from work last night and went right to bed. Let me tell you I can't believe the pace he has been able to keep up. I crashed after the first day.

So this brings me to the first day of construction on the main part of our house, our bed room. Let me tell you.... I totally under estimated the amount of mess, stress, tears, pain and just work involved here. And- I've seen the mess my husband can create.

So the first night we went to sleep under the big dipper, right here in this bed. As, the planes flew over head we all snuggled together to keep warm. It was 42 degrees that night. I would give anything to go back to that weather.

Next down the line was the old bathroom. We put that bathroom in almost twenty years ago. God I feel old! Everything still worked great in here, except the skylight leaked. Truthfully it didn't need anything but a new coat of paint. Yet, it's out of here! Why you might ask? Well, it's smack dab front and center of the house. That's where my DH wants to put the front door. When every thing is finished this bathroom will be the entrance way in to the house.

The following day we moved on to the living room/ kitchen. There used to be a wall between them. Now it is a huge open room. See the wall on the right there that's the last of the old bathroom wall . I still have to take that down, then the room will be even bigger. When this area is finished it will be the kitchen / dining room. Really just one huge frickin eat-in kitchen. Say Hi to Uncle Mike! I'll show you later where he fell through the ceiling.
That's Uncle Ray there passing up the i joist to Uncle Mike. It's about time the guys started doing something. I thought Aunt Nancy and I would have to do the whole thing by our selves. See the huge beam down the center. That is actually four beam put together. Aunt Nancy and I put them up the night before. Hey, I'm not kidding we did!
Now this isn't your normal roofing system. Some people have commented on being a little over kill for an attic space, but we are planning to put a second floor in next year. Will it ever end??? Not if your married to a contractor! When I married him, I married this......