This will take a minute. I can hang on if you need to go grab a snack.
Ready?
Monday~ The big plan for the day was to fix this.
MANY years ago this hallway was carpeted. And being the unsanitary filth trap that carpet is, it finally got to a point of desperation one day when Emily poured a bottle of Hershey's chocolate syrup all over that area at the top of the stairs. What a sad waste of chocolate, huh?
I tried to clean it with the carpet cleaner but there was just no saving it. So one day while Roger was at work I ripped all the carpet up out of the hallway. Baseboards too. He was sure surprised when he got home. LOL
We want to put down hardwood eventually but that can't happen till we complete a long list of other projects. The temporary solution was 3/8 inch MDF on which I applied a VERY amateur faux finish using leftover paint and poly stains from a thousand previous projects. It looked better than these pictures at first. But by last week it was looking exactly that bad. Worse really.
All the visitors to our house are either extremely kind or nearly blind because I actually got a lot of positive comments about it looking like tile, stained cement, stone, etc.
We never did put the baseboards back on because this was supposed to be a temporary solution. Just something smooth and moppable to last until we put the hard wood down.
Time moved on like it does and a couple years later we decided to get out of debt. There was no "hardwood flooring" category in our budget and there won't be for at least another year or two.
But that ugly floor was taxing my psyche. Every single day.
Before we could do anything about it I had to clean off a bookcase that has been sitting against that diagonal wall for a hundred years serving no useful purpose except to gather junk and dust.
I got started on that while Roger went to work (on the first day of his vacation!) for a couple of hours.
Then Heather called and needed a babysitter for a couple hours so we had some of this...
Fun grandbaby snuggles while I managed to turn this...
Into this...
Oops! We had more CD's than I realized. I put them in this binder (and a second one that I bought later in the day) and threw all the cases away. I probably should get rid of the CD's too since we never really listen to them but I'm not ready yet. It might be nice to grab the binders and take them with us camping. A little nostalgic listening while we relax in the mountains.
It took the rest of the day to get that bookcase cleaned off. I have almost every book Stephen King ever wrote. In hardcover. Why? I liked the books but I don't read fiction more than once as a general rule. So I thought I'd just give them to the thrift store. But then I discovered that there are people who collect them on purpose and they are worth something. Not wanting to invest the time right now to research their value, I boxed them up and put them in storage to deal with later. Who knows? They might be a little boost in our get of debt journey.
Tuesday ~
Roger busted out the palm sander and scuffed the poly stain on the hallway floor so that the paint would stick.
We had a very special event to attend mid morning so we got the sanding all done and then went to Emily's school for the reflections assembly.
Out of 247 entries she was one of 6 students in her school to win in the literature category for a poem she wrote. She didn't even know that she had won. I received a call the week before to invite us to attend because she had won. But they couldn't say what she had won exactly. So I kept it a secret and she was surprised to see us there. It was nice that Roger was off work so he could go too. It's hard for him to get away from work to go to these things most of the time.
The theme this year was "Beauty".
Her poem:
It took the rest of the day to get that bookcase cleaned off. I have almost every book Stephen King ever wrote. In hardcover. Why? I liked the books but I don't read fiction more than once as a general rule. So I thought I'd just give them to the thrift store. But then I discovered that there are people who collect them on purpose and they are worth something. Not wanting to invest the time right now to research their value, I boxed them up and put them in storage to deal with later. Who knows? They might be a little boost in our get of debt journey.
Tuesday ~
Roger busted out the palm sander and scuffed the poly stain on the hallway floor so that the paint would stick.
We had a very special event to attend mid morning so we got the sanding all done and then went to Emily's school for the reflections assembly.
The theme this year was "Beauty".
Her poem:
Beauty is...
Beauty is never boastful.
Everyone is beautiful inside of their soul.
Anything can be if you look at it the right way.
Unique in every way.
The more love the more beauty.
You are beautiful if you think you are.
We think that she is pretty beautiful inside and out.
On Tuesday afternoons there is a big shuffle of the kids from school and then to take Kenzie to her CNA clinicals.
So we got the floor painted just before we left and then managed to stay away from home for 2 or 3 hours so it could dry. Painting the hallway floor is a logistical challenge because of the layout of our house. You can't really get from anywhere to anywhere without walking on that floor.
We spent that evening doing a lot of decluttering in our bedroom because it was next on the makeover list. After the kids went to bed we put a second coat on the floor. Literally painting ourselves into our room for the night.
Wednesday ~
We put new baseboards up in the hallway. YAY! A much nicer temporary solution to our flooring problem.
We used the same floor paint that is in Jaxon's room and it matches the tile in the bathroom nicely too. So everything is much calmer, simpler, cohesive now. My psyche can handle this for another year or two. :)
Well worth the $30 we spent doing it.
The hallway feels so big now that that bookcase is out of the way too.
I spent the afternoon getting a few things made ahead for Thanksgiving.
And then Kenzie took me out on a date for my birthday. We purposely put the date off so long after my birthday so we could go and see New Moon together.
We saw the first one together for my birthday last year, I think. I'm not a huge Twilight fan, haven't read the books and probably won't. But the movies (and the theater audience) are entertaining and the company was top notch.
We prepared for the Thanksgiving feast by gorging ourselves before the movie at Buca di Beppo.
Kenzie has been there before but this was my first time. It was delicious. And gluttonous. OMG! I haven't eaten that much food in one sitting in at least 10 months. ;)
Jaxon had worn his very last diaper on Tuesday night so that meant we couldn't keep him trapped in his cage crib at night anymore. So we transformed his crib into a "big boy" bed. He was thrilled!
And he's doing very well so far. So that's it! No more diapers or cribs for us! *sniff*
Thursday~
Thanksgiving with all our favorite people and all our favorite Thanksgiving foods. Pretty much a repeat of
last year. It worked as well this year as last. Only add a little exhaustion because of the extra cleaning that remodeling brings with it.
I used a recipe from my PYP friend's blog to make this yummy Pumpkin Cranberry Spice Cake
I LOVED it. I wish I didn't love it so much because with all the other pies that were available we ended up with a lot of this cake leftover. And it's H A R D for me not to just eat it. All.
Friday ~
We decided that we couldn't take Jaxon's moppy hairdo for another day. So we took him to a place I've been hearing about from some friend's called Cookie Cutter's. It's especially for little kids.
Now, I'm usually a pretty hard core, no fuss, no frills, Mom. But I was willing to play the "over the top" card to get this kid's hair cut for real. My lame at home buzz cuts weren't doing his cuteness justice.
It worked!
When we first walked in the door he said, "I don't like to get my hair cut Mom." But then he totally fell for it!
The fire truck chair, the bright colors, the DVD he got to choose to watch. He sat right there and let it all happen. There was no kicking, no screaming, no full body holds. There was a moment when she was spraying his hair with water and I asked him if that was pretty cool.
With a very serious face and a bit of a scowl he said, "No. It isn't."
But he sat there as if haircuts were not the dramatic wrestling match that they have been his whole life.
And he finally got a cute non-buzz haircut. Hooray!
There's my handsome little man!
We spent the rest of the day decluttering the bedroom.
We had to figure out a way to move the TV to the other side of the room without stringing satellite cable across the room like a giant spider web.
I had a pile of scrapbooking stuff that had to be relocated to the craft room.
We had a pile of 3 boxes of stuff we brought home from West Virginia when Marsha passed away. It has been sitting in the exact same spot for the 2+ years since then. We finally worked up the heart to go through those and tuck the treasures away in the hope chest.
Last weekend we moved the computer armoire out of the bedroom. Since Roger and I both have laptops now I was anxious to get rid of the desk with all it's horizontal surfaces for piling junk on.
Saturday ~
We repainted the accent wall in the bedroom!
I'll have a bedroom makeover post in a couple of days. But here's a sneak peek. See that brown wall?
It's not brown anymore. :)
And the greenish upholstered headboard isn't greenish anymore. :)
In fact not much about that picture is the same now. :)
There aren't enough smiles :) to convey my joy at the progress we have made in that room.
And I am seriously resting better in there without all that STUFF all around the room. Ahhhhh......
I just have to spray paint a half dozen things,do a couple of small sewing projects and put them in the room and then I'll post about the mini bedroom makeover.
All our home makeovers are mini till we get out of debt and then we'll go MAX!
But until then, these little changes make me happy. And less inclined to go house hunting.
Sunday ~ Weigh in! 140.2lbs. Up about a pound and a half from last week but still within my goal range.
The food was GOOOOOD on Thursday. And Friday. And Saturday.
And I'm so THANKFUL that it's gone now.
Back to healthier eating!
It isn't hard. Eating all that heavy food made me feel, well, heavy. ugh!
Okay, I'm off to spray paint anything that will hold still! Hope you all have a great week! See you soon with bedroom makeover pics. I'm stuck on a couple of small things too so I'll be asking for suggestions. :)
Happy Day!
