Month: July 2010

A weekend home

We didn’t do much around the house this weekend, it was too hot and humid and we had a picnic to go to on Saturday.

Sunday we did manage a few small projects, first we hung the bathroom door!

Finally a bathroom door hung.

It still needs some touch ups (had to plane off one corner – which is very familiar since we had to do the same for our exterior door). And we have to put in a door lockset or a tiny handle on the current lockset. But the door functions which is a huge improvement!

After we relaxed during the hottest part of the day we decided to do some paint stripping on the trim for the tvroom. A lot of it had been stripped but the 4 pieces for the window sides need to be done still so Ryan got out the heat gun and I got out the strippers and we got to work. Until I cut my finger – then we called it a day.

Stripping trim for the tvroom

A couple more hours and we’ll have the trim for the windows all done. The trim for the exterior door is done already but can’t go in until we have a closet door frame and trim installed.

Veggies

My little veggie garden experiment is in full swing.  I planted only 3 vegetable plants just to see how I did with keeping them alive (I’m not very good at watering plants).  The Roma tomatoes are doing great, one little plant has a ton of tomatoes and even some turning red!  The Patio tomato has only one tomato but it looks good and the pepper plant has one little pepper.

Green Pepper (it should turn orange eventually)
Patio tomato
Roma tomatoes

The rest of my gardens really need some maintenance.  Some weeding and trimming are definitely in order, maybe one night this week I can get to it.  Our poor lawn is brown and crunchy too, and starting to get scraggly because we haven’t mowed.

Out sick

In case you’re wondering why there has been a lack of posting lately – especially since I was on such a roll with the painting – it’s because I’ve been sick.  The sore throat started Monday – turned into a sore-throat/migraine tuesday and even though the headaches are gone the sore throat continues.  I am now on antibiotics and hope to be all cleared up and back to painting next week.  Sleep has been a good friend of mine these last few nights 🙂  Especially since food has not been a friend.

Home to see family for the weekend and then back to the regularly scheduled program.  Hopefully next week we’ll see the bathroom door completed finally and hung, and the Gym windows painted if the weather cooperates.

First coat of paint on the trim

After work last night I broke out the paint again 🙂  I got the second side of the door primed and then I put the first coat of paint on the window trim!  Of course painting at night comes with lots of little tiny bugs that can fit through the screen so there were some casualties and there will need to be some sanding before the second coat now 🙂

First coat of paint on the window trim in the gym

Well the weather out-smarted us!

We had NO rain today – despite forecasts yesterday for rain all morning and thunderstorms in afternoon.  All well – can’t complain about good weather however we had changed our weekend plans (my parents did not come out) because we expected rain.

So we continued to pretend it was raining and did indoor projects 🙂  First we did some shopping and ordered our new front door which will take a few weeks to come (and then I’ll have to finish it to match the other door).

Then we finally added the little bit we needed to the bottom of the bathroom door so it doesn’t have a big gap at the bottom.

Bottom of the door patched

And after much wood filling and sanding during the day (and more sanding, and more sanding), I finally ended the day with some priming!  I got the window trim in the gym all primed and side one of the bathroom door!

Top of the window trim primed
Bottom of the window trim primed
Bathroom door - one side primed

And this week I’m hoping to continue priming/painting the windows in the gym and the bathroom door.  Soon the bathroom will really be done!

Rainy Day – trim time

Hot, humid and rainy today.  We decided to stick to indoor projects.  First we started working on the crown molding in the gym again.  We got the first piece coped and installed and started on the second.

First piece of crown molding up
Coped molding

Crown molding was a little rough on my arms (holding up above my head) so we switched to working on the window trim that was all stripped and ready to be installed.  Since this window didn’t have the same fancy trim as the rest of the downstairs it had no window apron to strip and refinish.  So we bought a new trim to be used and Ryan coped both ends – it came out great!

Coped window apron
Window all trimmed out
Window apron

I got all the nail holes filled.  Maybe this week I’ll have time to prime and paint the window trim so the gym will look a little more finished.

Tomorrow brings another day – another rainy day.  I can’t wait 🙂

Weekend coming up

I love short weeks, taking Tuesday off this week, while I didn’t get anything done due to the heat and humidity at least made for a short week and the weekend starts tomorrow (or tonight!).

We’re up in the air about weekend plans. It looks like some thunderstorms might be coming which may convince Dad that he shouldn’t come out to help with windows 🙂 So we have two plans …

If my parents come out – try to get the 3 diningroom windows replaced
If they don’t – then we’ll board up the last livingroom window when it’s not raining and maybe work on crown molding in the gym when it is raining.

Either way we’ll get something done and if we don’t see mom and dad at least we’ll see everyone next weekend. We also have to order a new front door, they no longer make the door that we used for the side door (and we had hoped to have them match) so we have to either pick something similar or something totally different 🙂

Camping this weekend

We’re back from our weekend at Lake Pleasant and it was great. Even the 5 hour drive wasn’t that bad because the weather was amazing. We drove out Saturday morning and back Monday so Sunday was our full day there and we packed it all in. We played with our niece, we relaxed, we ate (a lot!) and I went fishing.

Ryan was laughing at me because I decided to take up fishing as a hobby 🙂 I borrowed a pole and some tackle for the weekend and in the evening friday i took the kayak out by myself and fished for an hour or so. I caught two fish – a whitefish (about 7″) and a pickerel (8″), neither large enough to keep but still fun!. I caught both with just a worm although I did try out some other tackle without any luck. And both were easy to release.

Now we’re back home and I took today off of work to relax and get the house in order. Laundry, cleaning etc. Although it’s so darn hot out I’m dying just sitting in the livingroom. I also need to change my oil and a headlight on the car – maybe it will cool off in the afternoon when it’s shady in the car park area and I can do it then.

Baking

In preparation for camping this weekend I decided to do some baking and with the numerous raspberries begging to be picked I decided to make up some muffins. I made blueberry and raspberry muffins. The mulberries were dwindling so I could only get a few and put them on top of the raspberry muffins but I picked almost a pint of raspberries from the garden!

Fresh raspberries from the garden!

Raspberry and blueberry muffins getting ready for the oven

First batch of blueberry muffins ready

They were delish!