snadblog

My to-do lists have building up so much lately that I can’t seem to get everything done that I need to, especially those jobs that don’t have a deadline.  I tell myself I’m complete the tasks sometime.  Eventually.  When I get around to it.  And yet, the list continues to grow, not shorten.

Combine that with the advent of Spring and the urge to get outside and do something, and the result is that I decided yesterday that I would take today off from work.  A couple of quick notes to co-workers and it was done.  I had such big plans to get lots of stuff done today.  And did I?  Oh boy, did I!

I got up at 8:00 am, rarin’ to go, and tackled projects left and right:

• I scrubbed clean the nasty turkey fryer (from Thanksgiving!)
• I gave Jack a much-needed bath
• I cleaned out all leaves in the landscaping and trimmed last year’s growth from the perennials to make room for new
• I finally used the vinyl/leather repair kit I bought at least 3 or 4 years ago to patch the gash in the driver’s seat of my Blazer
• I sewed up the seat’s stitching where it was coming loose.
• I cleaned the inside of the windshield, which was desperately needed
• I painted the outside of both back doors
• I removed the remnants of the old storm door frame from the kitchen/deck door
• I finally replaced the mismatched floor trim surrounding the fireplace hearth with the piece I special-ordered months ago to match the laminate floor
• I brushed the now-dry Jack and set free tons of hair

And that was all before 2:00.

Then I showered and drove to pick my Dad and Emily up, and we spent the next three hours at his dentist appointment, Lowe’s, and the grocery store.  Once I dropped them off, I was back home at 5:00 and with my new supplies in hand…

• I filled the windshield wiper fluid in the Blazer that had run out months ago
• I unloaded the new storm door I purchased at Lowe’s for the kitchen/deck door (installation will have to wait for another day)
• I installed the new deck railing flower boxes I purchased
• I put two coats of paint on a piece of wood for a TV shelf I’ve been wanting to create for ages
• I unloaded and put away a ton of groceries
• I made a yummy dinner of peanut sauce stir fry with Jasmine rice

And now it’s 8:30 and I’m exhausted.  My legs ache, my arms hurt, and I’m tired.  But it’s the best kind of exhaustion, because I know I accomplished a lot today, and I still have a full weekend ahead of me for fun (and more tasks, I’m sure).  It feels really really good.

I think I earned myself a big bowl of ice cream now.

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With the inside renovated, we decided to focus our attention next on the outside of the house. This decision was made mostly because of this summer’s freak hail storm. We were “lucky” enough to have such bad hail that our roof was damaged to the point where the insurance company was paying for a new one. In addition, our siding was cracked in several places, which meant more insurance money for repairs. With the insurance company backing us, it was an easy decision to make to renovate the outside of the house. Especially since our roof was old and moldy and the siding was filthy. Plus, we could hire people for most of it, so it wouldn’t be that much work for us!

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Aha! You forgot about the bathroom, didn’t you? I wish I could have. It should have been done (or stayed done) long ago, when we first put the laminate down. As I already told you, though, we had a leaking problem and had to tear it all back up.

Since we have two other bathrooms in the house, this little half-bath got the lowest priority possible as the renovation progressed. We just shut the door and forgot all about it. We also figured we’d be able to make good use of kitchen tile scraps if we waited. When everything else was done, though, focus turned back to the bathroom.

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The last piece of detail work left to describe is the installation of the trim that bridges the gap between the tile and the laminate, wherever the two meet. They sell T-moulding and reducer moulding everywhere, so I didn’t think twice about it when I purchased the floor material. At some point early in the process, I went to Lowe’s and bought some moulding that matched my floor material fairly closely. It hadn’t occurred to me before that I should search for trim that exactly matched the floor, or that I should make sure any floor I chose had matching trim. I just always assumed that I could find a match easily.

I was quite wrong.

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The floors were done, but there was still lots of other detail work to be done in the house, and little side projects kept popping up everywhere. At some point after the laminate was done but before the kitchen was done (who can keep track anymore?) I also put up some new shelves in the study area. I had some IKEA shelves from a couple years ago that I loved that graced one wall in the study. They looked great, but the wall didn’t look as polished as it could have.

I decided to expand on the concept and add more shelving on top, to create a full wall of shelves. It took a while to acquire the shelves (all the IKEA stores are several states away), but I finally did get them. I had a scare at one point, when Jack decided to eat the corner of the box, but fortunately (for him) he didn’t damage the shelves. Once I added more shelves on top of the existing ones, the change was dramatic. We now have a full wall of shelves, with only a 8″ gap along the sides and top.

I’ve toyed with the idea of building the wall out to fill that gap, to make it look completely built-in, but Dennis had the brilliant idea of building a wine rack to fill the space, and paint it to match the shelves. I think it will look fantastic, and it’s definitely on my project list, but not until after the current floor work is completely done. One day soon, though!

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