Goodbye Nasty Linoleum

Now that the roof is mostly done, it's back to the inside of the house.

The laundry room was one of the last untouched rooms and it had the nastiest gold and yellow linoleum. That was ripped up, exposing the sub-floor. Yay.

We tore out the old 2x4 wall beside the stairs. We replaced it with a wider 2x6 wall, which is where we will run plumbing for the washer and sink. Yes. I get a sink. Yay!

We also raised the ceiling height to above 8 feet, like in the kids' bedroom on the same side of the house. Now the final step is to put the ceiling joists back up across the whole thing, then that side of the house will be done.

That means we will only have one room left to frame: our closet and bathroom!!! Wow!!!

It feels like it's taking an eternity!!! Someone give me some patience!

Let's move on to more exciting things. I'm thinking about the pink stone and mortar on the front of the house. If I were Chip and Joanna Gaines,  I'd paint it white and call it good. Man, I'd love to do that, but Trevor would kill me. Plus, I kinda want to prove there are other ways to fix this horrible kind of problem besides just painting it.

I found this cool company www.dyebrick.com that has a really cool way of literally dyeing the brick or stone in this case. It is not a new company. It's formula is tried and true against the test of time. I'm thinking about ordering a sample and having a go at it. My  hesitation, if I have any, is regarding the color of the mortar. What color do I go? Light? Dark? I'm ordering browns and grey to play with for the stone color. I'm thinking of a variation in the stone color, but I don't know. Having never done this, and seeing that none of their customers have either, I'm on my own.

Luckily, I have a whole pile of pink stone with red mortar attached sitting on the side of the house just waiting for me to play with. The people who put the fireplace in were kind enough to use the exact same stone as what they used on the front of the house. Lucky us. We saved the stone when we tore the fireplace out to reuse on the front of the garage.

Enough of my boring life for today.

More later. Maybe we will do soffits this week.

Baby Steps

I feel like the house in town is an accumulation of small little miracles. We've been working on it for so long now, some days I look back on what we've accomplished and feel like we've gotten nowhere. But then again, LOOK AT WHAT WE'VE ACCOMPLISHED! ! It's all a matter of perspective. Looking back at where we started from, we really have come a long way. And just for reference, when I say "we", I'm referring to my dad, Trevor, and me.

We basically have replaced and sealed up all but one window of this house. That's a heckofalotofwindows.

Lol.

We have redone or replaced every wall inside the house on the main floor, with the exception of the laundry room wall which we are in the process of replacing. I'm talking knocking down lathe and plaster, stripping of nails and electrical, and in some cases, reusing old studs and salvaging whatever we can to save money when rebuilding.

The floor plan has been completely reworked and flows so much better. There is only one wall that will be in the exact same place at the end of the project.

Fixing the spongy floor was such a huge thing! It was so much work to carefully pull up each plank in the hopes of salvaging the original hardwood floors. Our subfloor is SOLID now. I can't believe it's the same floor.

And then there is the roof. What. A. Project.

Whenever we've been in a bind, like with the subfloor or with the roof, we've always been blessed by family coming to help. There is no way we'd be able to do these things without them, and I am so so so thankful for my family!!! Thank you thank you THANK YOU!!

The roof is finished. It humbled me and kicked my can and a whole bunch of stuff like that. I learned that being a wus is just being a wus. It's not cute and accomplishes  nothing. At the end of the day, you just have to put your wus away, buckle up, get a backbone, take a breath, say a prayer, and get to work. It's scary being on the roof. It's hot being on the roof. It's not fun. But there is no other way.

We burned up the motor on my beloved saw that belonged to Trevor's grandpa. I used that saw for everything. I could cut with that thing like it was an extension of my body. The new saw is nice, but it's just not the same. I had fine tuned exactly where to line up the saw in order to get the cut I wanted. I could keep that thing steady as heck for a cut you would think came off a table saw. The new saw has all these bells and whistles and almost too much power. It's as quiet as a vacuum. It will take some getting used to for sure. I got yelled at for cutting crooked with it today.  Me. Cutting crooked. I miss the old saw.

I still need to write a post about Samantha and her baptism. I've not forgotten. Stay tuned.

Well, We're Alive

What. A. Mess.

This roof is a beast. It's half way sheeted. We had a ton of people from our family and ward show up this morning. I can't believe how much help we had. We got so much accomplished. The eaves were extended, and even a catastrophe was diverted. Well, kind of. The spine of the addition (that's not a technical term), the board that runs across the length of the house, it split. A really bad, saggy split. And then the roof was just falling down. Oh joy. This dumb, stupid, horrid house. But these guys just came up with a solution and fixed it. Thank heavens.

This afternoon, everyone was dragging and I felt so bad for how tired everyone was, so I stayed at the house and helped. Everyone was leaving, and in the end, for the last few hours we had two guys on the roof, and three on the ground (including me). We got half the roof sheeted and still have the other side to do. So much left to do, but it will be amazing when it's done.

I can't thank everyone enough.  Thank you everyone!!!!!!! You know who you are!!!

The baptism happened yesterday too, but that's a totally different post. Maybe tomorrow. I'm going to limp to bed now. Did I mention my super hurt left ankle that I dropped a pile of 2x4s on today, or my right foot that stepped on a nail? That was just plain dumb of me. Dumb.

Not to whine. I'm in amazing shape compared to my dad or Trevor who can't walk tonight because they hurt so bad and are tired. Trevor couldn't sleep last night because he was in so much pain. Har har. It is a little bit funny. You have to admit. This is why professionals do this. We are a bunch of ninnies.

The Weekend of Certain Letters and Hockey Sticks

This is it. THE WEEKEND. Today is the start of the roof. Exciting stuff, eh? I'm not excited, but I am. I mean, Samantha will be baptized!!! I'm so excited for her!!! The roof... meh. I'll be sooooo sooo soooooo happy when it's done. It's a huge project. Our roof is not the same height. The additions are taller than the main house. I'm not sure on the difference, but it's a big deal. They left the cedar shingles on the roof of the main house and built the additions to match the height of the main house with shingles. Wait, following me here? Then they shingled directly over the cedar shingles straight across the roof, using the shingles as the deck. Still following me? It's hard for me to explain, because I'm not fluent in roofing lingo. Sorry.

Anyhoo, this train gets started today, and there is no going back once it starts moving. I sure hope it all goes semi smoothly. We are getting a bathroom!!!! Yep! The porta potty comes tomorrow!!! No more going to McD's!!

And back to Sami's baptism. I threw together a program yesterday after a few people told me my simple one was not enough. I had a very very simple one planned, but apparently baptisms have turned into large productions? I don't know... I missed the memo on that one. I thought the baptism was the point. Silly. I'm thinking this grumpiness I'm feeling about it is just from me hating things like this. Sometimes I wish my family could crawl into a hole and do things without having the whole world (ward) watch. I'm also thinking this is the roof talking. Yeah. Pretty sure.