I'm claiming to be busy, not slacking

Well... I think it's a little sad that I still have posts from Feb of last year on the page because evidently that's how little I've posted this past year. Well, here is an update on things around here in short form. 1. Bathroom has been updated and looks nice. I'm sure that every project will have surprises in this house. So far, they all have. 2. 10 year anniversary vaca was wonderful. Drunk, naked and tattooed pretty much sums up the week. 3. Mason is now 9. We had a lovely outdoor party around the bonfire. 4. Michigan weather is weird this year. 5. My brother is engaged! See his website for details. (I'll let you all figure out which one) 6. Christmas party #1 is done. Thanks for all the wonderful gifts!! 7. #2 is tonight. 8. The dog is the same. He's settled down quite a bit and I hope to get into classes again in the new year. 9. I'm also hoping to get the kids in karate and maybe some gymnastics and swimming as well. 10. I'm also hoping to lost 60 lbs and win the lottery. Well... let's see what pics I have laying around.... Ooohhh!! Lego! 11. We did the lego thing. It was a lot of fun and they did some wonderful things with lego. I lost Kevin and the kids in the big lego pile for over an hour.

Argh! Stupid thing doesn't want to recognize new paragraphs! Sorry. It was supposed to be more list like and less run on sentence.

Bathroom renovation, Day 1

And here we have a very crappy "before" picture. I don't think that I've had enough to drink. (Coffee, alcohol... take your pick.)

After first layer of floor was peeled off. (insert start of weird urine smell here and maybe you'll want to get me that cup of coffee, or alcohol, or coffee with alcohol)

We found a lot of old water damage by the toliet and found that we would have to replace some of the flooring that hangs out above the sub-floor. So, we took off the rest of the linoleum and the corresponding tiles that were living under them. This also lead to an increase in the weird urine smell.

Also, if you look in the corner by the tub you'll notice an open area were we found A LOT of old walnuts stashed. At this point we looked into getting a new tub for the bathroom. However there was no way that we could have finished the project before we left for vaca.

Kevin also needed to open the wall and ceiling in order to re-run wire for the light/fan on the ceiling. We found the following layers on the wall in this order: wallpaper-drywall-tile-wallpaper-drywall. It's standard construction procedure to just go ahead and drywall over tile, right? At this point that we debated just drywalling over the whole bathroom and adding our own layer to the mix.

In the end, this is about how we left things. You can still see Kevin finishing up his drywalling. Tomorrow we will hopefully fix the floor and get rid of the odd urine smell, then put in the new floor and vanity, mirror. From there we need to finish the walls and put in trim. Then there's the adding an electrical box to the light over the mirror. (Electrical box are just for fun anyway, right?)

Well the summer is moving along. We've visited Jon and hung out there for a bit. It worked out way better that I thought I would. The puppy and the kids did wonderfully for the drive. We all enjoyed the extra space of Jon's new place. We visited the falls, the kids hung out at the ocean for the first time and the last day we visited the animals at the zoo.

Since then we've just really chilled at the house. the kids are learning how to manage the dog on their own for a bit in the AM so I can sleep in. There's been a bit of swimming, boating and a lot of chillin'.

The end of week marks the start of our Traverse City vacation. We will be camping at Interlochen for anyone who wants to visit with us!

Hopefully one of these days I'll have some actually updated pics of the summer for you all. I still have that "computer full" issue going on. If anyone would like to donate to the new computer fund, let me know!

Quick update

Sadly I have no new pictures to share with you all. I'm going to have to get on that. Though, our computer is claiming that it's too full to deal with any new pictures, but that'll be a problem for another day. In short news, Colby is on vacation bible school #2, Mason did robots camp last week and is doing vacation bible school this week. We have completed (by we, I mean I had some guys come over from the landscaping place) the front landscaping (by "front" I mean the area directly in front of the house as those guys are kinda pricey). So far all the plants are still alive and the sprinkler has left a nice orangey/yellow sheen to our siding. Yay well water! Also, I have completed the landscaping project I was working on by the garage. The dog is having less 'psycho puppy' times and the ladies at puppy class have told us that he's "really come a long way". Kevin and I continue to go to work. We've had an architect come out and tell us how much plans are, so I think that we are going to have to continue to go into work, and maybe visit work a bunch more often. So there's the short of life around here. Someday I will take some pics and someday the computer will be happy about accepting them. And then someday I might also get a real live unicorn. (Their horn is made of REAL magic!)

Colby and Elvis

My last wall is finished

The kids helped the dog to nap

Four generations

Because Jon asked: Spring break 2012, the picture version

Long overdue

So... we got a puppy. He's up to about 40lbs now and yesterday actually did a complete loose leash walk! Otherwise, training is going and it's nice that he's mellowed out a bit with age. Though we don't need to watch him as much for the housebreaking, he has learned how and is tall enough to jump up on the counters. Yay. It's on the list to talk about with the trainer the next time we have class. The kids greatly enjoy having a dog around, I'm good with it and I believe that Kevin tolerates it. I do agree with people though that if we keep going the way we are, we will have a wonderful dog in 2 years. The picture that graces the top of the blog is him the day we got him.
This is him sleeping at the end of Feburary. As you can see, he probably wouldn't last long in the wild. =) He still sleeps like this.


As of today:

Meet Elvis Presley los Dos, or just Elvis

Happy Birthday!

My baby is 5 (though I swear she's going on 16). We had a pretty good party. Cake, presents and of course a pinata.

New Floor

The kinda before picture. I had already started tearing stuff up.

It was nice to finally figure out what the crunching noise was when I walked on the carpet. Under the carpet were linoleum tiles that I'm told have been there at least since my father-in-law was kid. About 90% of them just came right out without much effort. Under that was a lot dust and some tar paper. According to the internet, it's a pain in the @!# to get tar paper off so we left it. (And we all know that the internet never lies.)

Kevin and Al worked on the floor for about 8hrs on Saturday. The first course took almost 3 hours. This is just some cheap stuff but it makes a TON of difference compared to the carpet that was there. In exchange for Al helping with the floors, Kevin went over and spent 30mins helping him install 2 cabinets. I totally think we got the better end of the deal.

Ta-Dahh!!!

SOOOOO much nicer!

One new wall

To make it easier to update some electrical across the house and add some other wires we decided that this wall would be the easiest to demolish and pull wire through. I stripped some of the wallpaper beforehand just to see what was under there. This I believe is pic after that. This is the wall that is the dining room on one side and family room on the other. It is also what we believe to be one of the original, original walls.

The inside of a 100+ year wall. Just an FYI: plaster is very dusty.

New wiring, a little drywall and some primer.

Add some magnetic paint, a little blue and a few whiteboard wall sticky things...

We've since added a couple of other things, but not much. Later today we'll redo the floors in that room and then maybe put the trim back on this wall.

Mason's Closet

Mason asked for a work space in his closet. Given that he doesn't really hang clothes and there was a sale on Elfa closet stuff... I decided to give it a go!
The infamous "Cowboy wallpaper" up close. I guess it's a Freeman thing. This wallpaper has been on the wall since Tom Freeman was a little boy living in the house. I was unable to salvage a decent sample.

After stripping the wallpaper.

Mason helped to paint the walls. I also found paint on just about every other surface in there as well on the ottoman in the family room.

Of course after painting I noticed the the electrical was screwy so decided to open up the back wall. The kids got to help with that as well. They quite enjoyed taking a hammer to the drywall but then, who wouldn't?!?!
Yay, the crazy electric. After the wall was opened it was noted that the light did not actually go through the wall but through the ceiling and then twisted down into the wall. And, yes that is knob and tube lighting.

Ta-Dah!! Finally put all together

And with all the stuff in it.

Of course now there's more stuff in it and it's hard to see where the closet is...

Color

This is the color of Mason's new closet. More pics will follow later of the process and such. Can't call us afraid of color!

Pictures uploaded

So I uploaded the pics from the camera and well... the computer won't let me put them on the blog. ARGH!! Alas after many additional issues with the closets, I now have a art/desk area for Mason and a real nice linen closet for me, well us. As I am unable to share the pictures, I'll leave you a picture of the kid's enjoying their Christmas gift from Kevin and I. There is one good thing about the weather being so wacky.