I Got Wallies

I got my chalkboard Wallies today! Hopefully this helps James find things. I need to order another set though, I ran out so I just put them on the most used cabinets. And obviously I didn't get them straight...

That is an antique Coke crate that I got at a yard sale for a quarter!

If you want to get your own Wallies, or just check out Home Interiors website here is is: http://www.homeinteriors.com-dianesplace/ (Diane is the consultant I use...she's awesome)

Oh, and in other news...we have to replace a wall in the dining room. One (only 1!) panel was glued and I didn't realize it until it fell off the wall...with chunks of the top layer of plaster attatched to it (ouch!). This is the same wall that has the bad drywall job where they tried to cover where the pass throughs were at. So with all that going on we think it'll just be best to replace the wall. But until we have the money to do that we have a work of art on the wall right now (see the last post and you'll get it)

A picture worth a thousand words...

...and not one of them are pretty, nice, or ladylike.

Whatdya think? Can we call it artwork?

And the walls came tumbling down...

Literally. A piece of paneling was hanging on by a nail somewhere and I got between it and the wall to see where. I found it. I went to reach in with the hammer to pull the nail, heard a creaking sound and pulled back just in time for the whole panel to go crashing to the floor! I think that coulda left a mark...each panel weighs a ton.
The room seems to have doubled overnight from taking down the ceiling and some of the paneling. I only got 1/2 a wall done and had to stop. I had not expected the weight of each piece to be so much, and with the problems I have with my neck and shoulder I can't physically do it. So James gets to have that fun.
This is where the top trim piece goes over the transom window. I about cried when I saw what was under the little piece of paneling. The wood in this picture is the actual door frame and the hand hewn lathe. And the plaster, of course.
Same thing from a different angle. I figured out that the plaster is true horse hair. I picked up a little piece that was laying up there and could see the hairs in it. From this angle you can kinda see that the lathe is hand hewn (notice the rough edge). The lathe and the frame are made of the same type of wood, but I have no idea what kind it is. Its a little dark with a reddish color to it.


When I was removing the nails from the now bare walls it looked like the plaster was crumbling around each nail I pulled out. Upon closer inspection, its not. What is crumbling is layer after layer of paint! I also figured out that the paint on the door frame is peeling too. Its like it never adhered to the paint under it.

Last night when James was hanging the chandelier I looked up and noticed a crack between the wall and the ceiling. I climbed up on the freezer to get a better look and realized it was drywall that was not hung right and there for didn't line up right. And I can see where the pass through's were at...they drywalled it, but didn't mud or paint it so I can tell where everything was. Oh, and I was told there was no drywall anywhere in this house. That its all plaster. Uh, no. That's not right. Last time I checked, plaster has never been made in sheets that you nail up. It'd be sweet if it was though!

Oops

I almost forgot to post this...
The flourescent light that was mounted over the sink dies a few months ago. While we were at Menards the other day we got a new one. Changing them out was no big deal, not much work required. What we had not noticed before was that the cord to the old one actually ran behind the cabinets. Like the cabinets were mounted over the cord. James was pulling on it and it wouldn't budge, so he gave it a good yank...and a piece of the cabinet went flying! He looked at me and said "You didn't want to keep these cabinets any way, did you?" and my response was "I think you just decided for me". The next time I get to a store I'm going to get some wood glue to put the piece back and hope that makes it not so noticeable. And we have decided to go with the open shelving when we do the cabinets.


Let this be a lesson to everyone...when putting up new cabinets don't run appliance cords between them and the wall. Appliances do go bad, and you don't want to either ruin your cabinets or have to take them down and put them back up to get the cord out.

Another Round?

James mig welder and hood came today, delivered by UPS. This time he came barreling into the driveway with the horn honking! Cledus about went through the window! I managed to keep him in the house though and met the guy in the driveway. Then made him stand there holding a mig welder and hood in his arms while I took my sweet time putting the code into the garage door opener so he could put it in there. His face was red and he couldn't wait to put it down. I'm usually not that mean, but when the guy seems to enjoy tomenting my dogs I gotta do something about it. If he does something like that again I think I am going to make a formal complaint about it.

More Dining Room Progress

The tiles are all out! I'm covered in itchy dust from them, and socks keeps eating the little pieces that crumbled and fell to the floor, but they are now out. I'm getting ready to take down the cross tee's but I can't take the actual framing down until James gets home and takes the light out.

The blue lines are chalk. I also found out that this is an Armstrong Intergrid suspension ceiling.


I got these yesterday at Gordman's for $3 each. I'm going to use them to cover 3 small holes in the wall in the laundry room.

More dining room pictures to come...James should have the light out and the chandelier up tonight. Then tomorrow I get to take out the frame and the paneling. And then comes the agonizing process of picking out paint. I hate picking paint...I want color, James wants off white, so I have to find something that makes us both happy.

At last...

Progress! The ceiling started coming down today!
I started doing this while James was outside playing with his new toys (an engine and an air compressor...he loves tax return time).
This is the top of the door between the dining room and living room. That is the lines from where the top trim piece was removed. And you can see it looks like the plaster was never painted under it, and that when it was removed the wall cracked. There is a crack in the same place above each door and window where the trim was removed. Obviously it didn't want to be removed.
This is our new chandelier. That's right...I won! James wanted a fan, I wanted a light. And I got it. Its not really what I wanted, but it works for now. It matches the house style and was in our price range ($35 at Menards).

A temporary solution

I was getting really tired of picking CD's up off the floor everytime we watched a movie (they were piled on the amp) so I did this...
I have had this bookcase since I was probably about 10 years old. It has always hung on the wall. Eventually, when the dining room is done, it will go back on the wall and hold pretty stuff again. For right now though I think its working well as media storage. And it got some of the candles off the end tables so now we may be able to actually use them again. James says its really ugly and wants to junk it or at least put it where it can't be seen. I told him absolutely not...even though he said please. As for the bookcase that was here, it found a new home...

Right around the corner in the dining room. For now an way. I really hate this bookcase. It looks cheap and doesn't look right any where I put it. But it has held up good...3 moves and still going strong. Not bad for $7.99 at K Mart, right? And yeah, that was the regular price. I bought it when I got my first apartment and never expected it to still be standing now (7 years later)

While this is working for now, I am looking into something more permanent to hold everything in one place. I just haven't found one yet that I like. And by hold everything in one place I mean this is only the over flow of stuff. There's more in the drawers of the entertainment stand and hidden on a rack in a corner. And I am also trying to find a new bookcase because this one isn't big enough. I have two boxes of books that just won't fit.

Changing it up a little

A little up date...I just changed some things on here, and have no idea how it looks yet. The feeds stayed the same, just the actual blog name and description changed. And I curently don't have a banner on houseblogs either. I'm still playing around so there may be more changes.

Genius

I decided that I am tired of hearing James complain that he can't find any thing in the kitchen. Its his excuse for everything food related. Such as "I wanted to take my lunch to work today but I can't find the plastic bowls", or "I would have made it but I can't find the lid to the skillet". And my favorite "You were hiding that!" to which my response is always "it was in the front of the cabinet" and his is always "which cabinet?" So yesterday I ordered these...

http://www.homeinteriors.com/sites/dianesplace/productdetails?sku=17110

I am hoping that writing what's inside the cabinet on the outside of it will end all that. These are about the coolest things ever. They are eraseable, removable, reusable, and come with the chalk! I ordered 2 sets because we have a lot of cabinets and some have more than one thing in them. For example spices only take up 1 shelf so I put the waffle iron, toaster, and food processor in there too. Hopefully this will work. It kind of seems like I'm teaching a kid where all the stuff is, but I'm not getting through any other way and I'm tired of being accused of stashing the Oreos...when they are in the same place everytime!

Round 2? Bring it on!

I had a run in with the most stupid UPS guy I have ever seen yesterday. I saw the truck pull up and the dogs started barking. I went to answer the back door and the dogs went running out barking all the way. They ran right past the guy, but the guy turned around and started waving his little machine while yelling at them (they were not even near him when he started doing this, they were probably 20 feet away) and they went right up to him barking and jumping at him. They did not jump on him, only around him. The guy continued yelling and waving his machine at Cledus and was kicking at Sox! I was yelling at him to stop waving the machine because it was getting Cledus worked up (where he wasn't before) and the guy wouldn't stop. He instead started yelling at me that my dogs were attacking him (when they weren't...they hadn't touched him) while I was yelling at him to stop waving the damn machine. Cledus then knocked him over! The machine went flying! Cledus got what he wanted though and went up and sniffed the guy and went on his way. The guy stood up and I told him that Cledus was not attacking him, that the dog hadn't even touched him. Cledus was feeling threatened by the machine and wanted him to stop, and that was why he knocked him over. I also told him Cledus has never bit or attacked any one before. The guy said he really thought the dog was going to and that was why he started waving the machine, to keep him away. What? You don't do that! About this time Cledus came trotting up to me to make sure he did the right thing, and the guy started waving the machine again, yelling at Cledus to get back! I started yelling at him again to please put the thing down because now Cledus was ready to go (he was waiting for me to tell him it was ok). The guy finally put it down again and Cledus went up and sniffed him and then went and peed on his truck! The guy was ok, he said Cledus didn't bite or scratch him and he didn't want to file a report. He also asked that the next time we are expecting a delivery that we not have the dogs out and don't answer the door if we can't keep them inside. Understandable, and I told him that wouldn't be a problem. To make one thing clear, this is apparently a new driver. Cledus loved the other guy, and they would even play. But that guy had never threatened Cledus before. I have a feeling that as long as this guy delivers here we will have a problem.

The reason why I say this was the most stupid driver I have ever seen is because he did everything wrong. I was raised around dogs (bigger than Cledus) and was always taught that when you feel threatened by or are afraid of a dog you never call attention to yourself by waving things around, yelling, or running. Instead you back away slowly or stand still and never let the dog see that you are afraid. James said that if Cledus would have bit the guy that we would be making a complaint to UPS because the guy was threatening and intimidating our dog, causing him to go on the defense. James also said that the reason why Cledus just sniffed and went on after round 1 was because the machine was not in the guys hands any more, so there was no threat. That Cledus wasn't worried about the guy, just the thing he was waving.

This was Cledus trying to explain things to me afterward. I ended up being late to my interview but they were understanding. I took this picture while I was trying to calm down and make sure my new camera was ok because it also took a fall at one point.

Blogger Problems

Blogger makes me mad! I've tried to leave comments on a few different blogs and the stupid verification picture won't come up, therefore I can't leave any comments. This has been going on for about a week. It's just frustrating me. Is any one else having this problem or is it just me?

Breaking News...

Any one who knows the New York Yankees knows who Don Mattingly is. What most people don't know is that his actual home is only about 45 minutes from where I live. His home is on Darmstadt Road outside of Evansville, Indiana. I remember my grandparents always slowing down so I could look at his massive stone mansion with a stone fence and gate. He even had a restaurant in Evansville. To put it in a way, people around there were proud he was from their town. Today was not such a proud day though. According to channel 7 news his wife attacked him and he called the police to have her removed from his property and put a personal protection order in effect. When police came they arrested her for public intoxication and some other charges. Since they took her to jail the protection order was dropped. However he personally requested a restraining order and the removal of all rights to firearms when and if she makes bail. They also said they would have more details on the 6:00 news. How bout that? I guess no one's life is perfect, huh?

To Do List

This is the new (much bigger) list. I'll probably be adding more later. And it will probably take years to do all this because we're just taking it one room at a time to not feel overwhelmed by it. Except the windows. Since they have to be removed completely from the house they will be done as the weather allows.

House in General (Inside)

1. Refinish all windows (including glazing)
2. Paint
3. Refinish door frames that need it
4. Find a way to remove paint overspray from baseboards and framings, then retouch. If that doesn't work out, then refinish all
5. Refinish floors
6. Replace ceiling fans with newer models. Currently they are all probably 70's-90's models.

Dining Room

1. Remove drop ceiling
2. Install new light fixture and wiring
3. Repair plaster on ceiling
4. Remove paneling
5. Repair plaster if needed
6. Finish removing carpet
7. Put the pass throughs back in
8. Have new top pieces made for all window and door frames
9. Find (or have made) replacement door and transom for door to kitchen

Living Room

1. Replace wall where woodstove used to be

Bedroom

1. Repair plaster where needed

Front Bedroom (Guest/Game Room)

1. Replace light fixture

Kitchen

1. Refinish cabinets
2. Find period appropriate hardware to match original cabinets
3. Tear out sink base unit
4. Have a custom base unit made that matches original cabinets
5. Build or find an island
6. Tear out little cabinet by door
7. Relocate freetanding cabinet by refridgerator, put shelving in its place
8. Tear out linoleum and subfloor like stuff under it
9. Remove all wallpaper

Bathroom

1. Replace formica walls with drywall
2. Replace stand up shower with tub
3. Refinish linen closet
4. Replace floor under shower (shower leaks so I 'm sure this will be needed)
5. Have large mirror on wall framed and possibly relocated to another room. The mirror is about 5'x4'...I might be a little off, but not much. Its huge.
6. Insulate. There is currently NO insulation

Laundry Room/ Rear Entry

1. Replace walls. (They are plywood pieces, with big cracks between each piece)
2. Level floor
3. Paint the cabinets so they match
4. Insulate...again, no insualtion right now
5. Find a way to place the cabinets so there is more room.
6. Replace trap door with something as sturdy, but not as heavy

Basement/Foundation

1. Fix floor
2. Put hole in floor for sump pump. (sitting on the floor its still leaving about an inch of water)
3. Repair foundation

Outside

1. Paint smokehouse
2. Figure out how to bring the corner back together so there is not a huge gaping hole
3. Level backyard
4. New gravel in driveway
5. Fill in the holes clementine has dug out
6. Install another T post for a clothes line (there's already 1 there)
7. Remove a large branch from a tree so it doesn't put a hole in the roof
8. Repair the back side of the barn

House (Outside)

1. Remove shingle siding
2. Restore original wood siding
3. Repair/replace window trim
4. New screen doors (hopefully wood)
5. New transom screens (No more birds between the doors!)
6. Paint
7. Replace wooden front porch steps

Short term ADD?

I am realizing that I am having some kind of home improvement ADD. I can't seem to finish one thing with out moving on to the next. Wednesday I got the front bedroom to a point where its about 75% cleaned up. All I have to do is finish 1 more box, clean the floor, and have James set up the bed. Well, I decided to do a load of laundry while taking a break before starting on that and ended up working on the laundry room! And then this weekend we are back to the dining room. I just can't seem to focus on one thing. Maybe because since I'm home all the time now I am realizing that there is so much more that needs to be done than I thought. Or maybe its because I'm being thrown off because I can't work on the dining room, which is the main priority right now. Hopefully Monday I'll be back on track with the dining room, and I won't have this problem any more. As long as James gets the ceiling done I can do everything else myself. And i have a new revised to-do list. Since I have found more things, I have decided to just start the list over.

New phones and a great interview

For Valentine's Day this year we went pretty simple. We found out last weekend that we were eligible for new phones, so thats what we got each other. I got James the enV in silver, and he got me the enV in orange! I'm lovin it! I send a lot of text mesages so the keyboard is great. He's still not too sure about his though...he says his fingers are too big for the keyboard. I now wish I would have gotten him a different one, but that was what he said he wanted. I also made breakfast, and for dinner I ordered Bobe's on 6th street (the best pizza EVER!), but I'm still not sure it was worth the 2 hour wait.


I also had an interview yesterday for a management position with a shoe store. I go back today for my second interview and testing. I explained that I will be going back to school full time in the fall and they said thats no problem. Not getting my hopes up too high though because I have to disclose my permanent restrictions today which is a general deal breaker. They can't not hire me because of it, but 2 other places have said I wasn't qualified for the job (when I was overqualified) and another said they didn't feel I would be happy working there so they were going to go with some one else. And everytime this has come after a great first interview and after I disclosed in the second interview. I hope it works out though because this unemployment thing is not working out. I have worked up to 4 jobs at a time since I was 18, and while some time off was kind of nice, I need to get out of the house.

Uh-Oh...

Saturday was an interesting day for us. I planned on James removing the drop ceiling, and instead he planned to go to Washington and get an outdoor dog kennel. It was free as long as we took the dog with it. No problem. Its an outdoor dog and very shy and timid so we thought it would give Clemintine some one to play with. We thought wrong. When we got home the dog didn't want to get out of the truck. I finally got her to get down on her own, and she hit the ground running! She took off accross the backyard, stopped to sniff the neighbors Shih-Tzu's and was gone. I tried to catch her and almost caught up when she was checking out the other dogs but she took off again and disappeared. Completely gone! So we got in my car and went looking for her. We live in the country and are surrounded by fields. You can see a long way right now and she wasn't anywhere. So after an hour of checking out fields and leaving our phone numbers with every one that lives within about a mile of our house we got back in the truck and went back to Washington to get her doghouse. And tell the guy we lost her. That was horrible! I have never lost a dog before! He was understanding though, except he said that he had never seen the dog run before! Never! He didn't even know that she could run like that! So her house is sitting in our backyard, and she is still no where around. I feel really bad about it because I have never had this happen before. We're still hoping that she comes back, but we don't think she will.

After all that the day was wasted so we stayed home and played basketball on X Box and waited for the dog all night. Nothing else got done. And its now Monday and the dog still isn't back. Today's plan is to finish cleaning up the disaster in the 2nd bedroom. Next weekend we are going to take down the drop ceiling. I can't wait to get it down, I think the room will look bigger and that musty mildew smell that showed up when we opened it up will be gone again.

I'm scared...

I'm about to begin on the spare bedroom/game room/room where we put everything we don't know what to do with

And yes, that's a pool table under all that...and the whole 15x15 room looks like that. Wish me luck, I may not come out alive

Inside the Ceiling

Yesterday I posted a picture of the ceiling in the dining room and it didn't look too bad which gave me a lot of hope. Which quickly went away. After James got home yesterday he brought a ladder in and got up there to take a better look. He looked back down at me and said "How bout we just put the tiles back in place and act like there's nothing wrong?" That was not what I wanted to hear. So I got up on the ladder and this was the first thing that caught my eye...
The first words out of my mouth were not pretty or lady-like. Why did they do that? James said "come on lets just put the tiles back and act like its not there" Are you kidding me? And let the house burn down? I don't think so! The suspension part of the drop ceiling has made the entire ceiling look like this...
The cracks make huge squares in the ceiling. And where the screws are at there are nice holes where the plaster is crumbling around them. Great.
This is the whole space. You can kind of see the squares in the actual ceiling. I told James no band-aids, this ceiling is coming out. So thats the plan for the weekend. Since we're on a kind of tight budget I don't know when the actual ceiling will be repaired, or when the tops of the frames will be replaced (3 doors and 3 windows were all removed) but the drop will be removed and a new light fixture put in.

More dining room

I forgot...the walls look great underneath too!
And I got most of the carpet out last week.
That is water damage. A lot of it. I have no idea what its from, and I guess it doesn't really matter since its already done. The wood is still in great shape over all. Nice and solid, no creaking. We didn't want to sand the floor since its already been done once, but I think we may have to. I'm not sure how stain will go over that with out sanding. And there is still some of that nasty carpet left. I am unable to move furniture or lift anything heavy, so I cut the carpet out in small strips around the furniture.

Well, since I can't do anything else in there today, I'm going to work on the bedroom and get caught up on laundry. Since I'm not working I am slowly tearing the house apart room by room. Cleaning, decluttering, organizing...all that fun stuff. Actually its not fun at all, but it is nice to have the house neat. Unfortunately I have this problem that I hate housework, so it usually doesn't get done unless I have a reason. Don't get me wrong, I do the basics, but anything more usually just doesn't get done. So there were piles of clutter covered in dust, but not any more. I have the kitchen, dining room, living room, and bathroom done so far.

No Dining Room Today

The panel removal has come to a screeching halt for today because of this
That is the corner of the drop ceiling. You can see that the paneling goes into the ceiling. The problem here is that we we not going to remove that yet. I couldn't figure out why the panel wouldn't come off the wall so I had to get a step ladder and get up there and see (I can't look up long enough to tell what the problem was). When I saw this a long stream of dirty words followed. The dogs went running . It was so bad. The good news is this...
I held the camera up and took the picture blind, but it came out good. This is the actual ceiling. the reason we were not going to remove the drop yet was because we weren't sure how it looked up there. I'd say it looks pretty good from here. Granted, it is a small part but it gives me hope. So until I find out if James wants to go ahead and remove the drop ceiling, no panels will be coming down. Which makes me sad. I'm ready to get it done!

Change in plans

A quick update...while I have been torturing myself with paint colors, James said no paint. Instead we are going through with finishing the dining room first. Tearing down the paneling, drop ceiling, finally finishing the floor, all that fun stuff. And that is what I'm off to do now...I'll probably update once I find out whats under that paneling.


And mom...if you still want the paneling you need to tell me soon because we can only store it for so long. I hope to have it all down by the end of the week. If you don't want it or wait too long it'll make a nice fire :)