Ashes Ashes .........

Mom's sun porch is done (sort of), the curtains are up and furniture set up. We have a few details to finish and a ceiling fan to shop for, but for now she is enjoying her room.

I gave the deck a fresh coat of stain, but between the heat and then fog, and yet another wild fire........a fresh coat of paint on the railing and new gate will have to wait

Painted Trim and the Day Bed Returns

July 15th, 2009

Today a coat of "Swiss Coffee" paint on went on the trim and the old day bed of mine went in the sun porch.


The old door got a fresh coat of white and the old paint scrapped off the door knob and plate.

And a couple of chairs for the drop leaf table that will be there shortly.

It is a small room, but Mom wants to be able to have company stay the night, or sit and have tea with a friend.

And once we find the right chair, be able to sit and read in the sun.

Laminate Flooring

July 2009



Some days things go smooth and just as planned, other days......not so much.


My mom was happy to see the floor going in, but had found out about a party at church and really wanted to go. I told her to just plan on going because this was not going to be something easy for her to help with.


She found out that the party....was the next Sunday.

She decided she should set the live trap because a giant raccoon was sitting on her front porch Friday night. Usually it take several tries for our old live trap to actually catch anything. But Saturday night was a "lucky" night. She caught....a baby skunk.


It was a good thing she did not have a party to go to, because she sure would have cleared out the room with the special perfume she had on.....



She covered the baby skunk with a sheet while trying to find some one to come and pick it up on a Sunday. Unfortunately the trap was right in front of the tool room door. With one very stinky skunk.

I thought I had seen a tool very similar to the pounding tool to pull the boards together in the shed...but I sure was not going to go look for it, besides the spec's posted on the Home Depot site for the underlayment were not right....so I was heading to HD anyway.


The rest of the day went pretty good...well except that with no one to come to get the skunk, Mom opened the trap and the baby skunk ran for it.....right into the tool shed.


I finished the floor on Sunday and Monday did the baseboards and trimmed the windows and doors

One thing about an old house....Straight, Level and Plumb just are a concept. So is 16" on center and 2x4 with today's dimensions....(less than 2x4)


Norm would not be proud...but I think he would have started with a bulldozer to begin with.

Or spent all week trying to cut them to match the odd waves.


Me.....I am thankful for caulk. On three of the walls I think the finish nails are more for show and to hold it to the drywall while the caulk dries.


But, by the end of Tuesday it was looking pretty good.




Mom was not happy being in the photos in her work clothes, but she was pretty happy about the progress in the old room.


Just a few months ago, the room had a rat and a wall full of bees.....what a change!

The Sun Room

July 2009

After decades of everyone else enjoying the old sun porch and not being the room she wanted, we are working on the sun porch.

We fixed up the walls....well sort of, the International Sisterhood of Drywall Mudders is NOT calling me. But it looks better and you can hardly tell my dad used fiber board drop ceiling panels.

Tomorrow I am doing the laminate floors....sure hope it goes as easy as it looks!

Exterior Painting Done

Summer 2009

Mom wanted dark red trim on the house so she would not have the forth house on the top of the street with green.

But with 2 coats on the kitchen window trim, she decided maybe not.

Since one house had sage greens, the other blue greens and the third forest greens, and her house was dominated by a big yellow brick fireplace, we had to find a green that was different and still worked with all the yellow



Officially the color is "Harmonic Tan" kind of a greenish tan. Or as my mom has called it: pea soup (she checked against a bowl), puke, baby poo..... I went with celery green and eggplant purple trim. The photos do not show the color true, but it looks really nice.

I also did new window screens, even getting windows that were painted shut in the 60's back to opening and new sheer curtains to fit the style of the house.

We have been planting new plants in purples and whites and finally doing some more of the fun part of fixing up the house.

I still have the garage to paint

The Deck needs a fresh coat of stain

Mom decided to clean off the paint brush on the old wood furniture, so that needs paint now too.

But, for those I am finally breaking down and buying a paint gun!

And of course then the picket fence will need a fresh coat.

Oh and the new side gate too!

We still have to figure out some kind of garage door too

And then there is the kitchen that needs a good scrubbing and a fresh coat of paint.

And of course all the rooms in the old part of the house need drywall...and the wood floors refinished and....

I did discover a new favorite thing along the way.

Ryobi! I think I need them, Home Depot and the Costco food court as sponsors.

Painting the House

2008 was not a big working on the outside of house year, between the GAP Fire, busy with work and cleaning out in the inside of the house, little was done on the outside.

So this spring my mom decided some long deferred maintenance was getting done.

Like painting.....She threatened to climb up on the contractors scaffolding and start priming. I decided maybe I had better start painting.

After all, how long could it take to paint one small old house......

About 300+ hours, 2 coats of primer, 2 coats of paint and 24 tubes of caulk later.....it takes a LONG time and is a ton of work.

And you can cancel your gym club membership.

Because the house had so many years of differed maintenance, I used a brush to make sure I got paint in all the cracks and to seal up the old paint.

We discovered that raccoons were using the old "green house" for roof access, so it had to come down two.

We still have a lot of clean up in the yard to do.

The New Veggie Garden

With the yard cleaned up, we took some time making a place by the house for my mom to grow veggies close by.

And a few flowers too