Next step: Drywall

Carolyn helped me paint the pocket door (she got the bottom half - I did the top then cleaned up her bottom half) - we still have the other side to do this Saturday...I wouldn't recommend hiring a 4 year old for painting jobs. :)Then, the exterior wall had no insulation - Rob took care of that.
Then, the drywall went up. (The joints and screws have all been 'mudded' once so far, and will need a second coat sometime this week before we paint it and add moulding.)

Wish Rob had another day off... 4 weeks til goal date...and counting (at least I am!)

Demolition done...ready for step 2!

This is all cleaned up after Rob and Seth finished the demo last night - all ready to start drywall on Friday! yea!We wanted to put in a pocket door, but weren't sure about dealing with the studs (changing them to "split studs") - but a blessing happened under the paneling! The wall has previously been set up for a pocket door (why they changed it I don't know?) - so excited!
More posting after the weekend...

Project 1: Closet Remodel

This is Beth posting for Rob...he probably should change the address of the blog - b/c the couch isn't moving. However, there is TONS of room for change in this house (just not in furniture rearrangement).

So,...to leave Legend Oaks behind (which he never finished posting about anyways), here is the first project of our new (40 year old) house! :)

This is how the girls' closet looked upon moving in (awful - 1 crusty rack that I can barely reach and pieces of wood nailed randomly to the wall, oh, and the tacky paneling didn't even cover all the way to the ceiling - about a 1" gap).

So, demolition begins (with Seth helping him) - first the crusty closet rack and nasty wood pieces come off...why were they there? We don't know? (We expected to find holes behind them!)

Then, all that yucky paneling comes off! (along with baseboards and parts of the door frame of course).



It's a decent sized closet - walk in actually (the only one in the house that's walk in) - so we decided to get creative. The twins' dresser is going to the baby (it has a changing table type top), so without any luck on craig's list, etc (and not willing to pay full price for a dresser), we are going to put some built-ins in the closet to hold the twins' clothes (maybe Carolyn's too?) - more racks, and some better shoe organization.

And the door (which swings into the closet, limiting what you can put in there) - that's coming down! It will be replaced with a different type of door, but we're still looking into what we want to make sure we can do it.

Well, we'll keep you posted! Goal Date for completion: November 14th

Ending Radio Silence - Part 3

Let's make some room!

The girls room had these completely worthless things called "toys," so we got rid of those.

We eventually took Carolyn's bed out as well.

Seth's room (which is now Seth and Carolyn's room) didn't lose as much, but we put the bunk bed in the far corner and greatly reduced the clutter.


Our bedroom went through a massive de-cluttering effort. We removed Beth's craft table, my exercise bike, and our guitars.


We removed the food storage shelves from under the shelf in the kitchen, which was a simple but great improvement in appearance.


Rearranging the living room accentuated the "open floor plan". It doesn't fit our personality at all, but it looks fine for now.


All that just so we could put one small sign in the front yard.

Ending Radio Silence - Part 2

Home projects are a family affair around here. And we're... unconventional... OK, so I guess I'M the one who's unconventional with many of my management practices.

In this episode, wanted to get a good idea of what we needed to do to prep the house, so I grabbed a piece of chalk and the nearest piece of wall and started writing. The kids helped.

Chalk comes off most paints with just a sponge and a bit of water. Use the idea at your own risk.


I'm pretty tall, so all I typically need for painting is a small stool.



Beth's youngest brother David saw room for improvement on my idea, so he set up the scaffold. Lots of room for movement- much more efficient than my idea.



Beth's next-oldest brother Will could NOT be outdone by his little brother, so he showed us all how it was to be done!


And here's the finished product. This is the same corner in which I was standing on the stool.


P.S. Want a white board but don't want to spend the money to get a big enough one to use? Use dry erase markers on a window or a mirror. Done one the cheap. Yeah!

Ending Radio Silence - Part 1

For those of you out there keeping score at home, I haven't posted anything about rearranging the house for quite a while- about three months, in fact. The reason is that we've been working on a long-term project. But, it has finally... well, finished isn't exactly the right word, but we've reached the end of the project.

So let's go back to March of this year and catch up. The last post of this series will be the longest because so many of the project pieces came together within the past couple days.



Story Time:

Once upon a time we had an enormous computer desk.


Beth and I were both in school and we used the computer a great deal, so it was the central part of... well, the entire house.

Then we got a great deal on what I liked to call the Bailey Family Receptionist Desk.


It was even larger than the first one! This thing could hold 2 monitors, 2 laptops, a printer, a KVM, 3 computers, a trash can, 2 drawers of files, 2 drawers of supplies- the works! But good gravy, it took up just about half of the house. So we downsized.

Enter the Executive Desk.


We wanted something still large enough to hold files and the computer, but now we had a flat-panel monitor so it didn't need to be so deep.


Enough is enough- we're going minimalist. We commissioned the two best carpenters in the house (Will and me) to make a simple desk.


No frills- no drawers, no cable drop holes, no Murphy Bed. It's sturdy, fairly stable and very low-maintenance. But most importantly, it's tiny. It's about four feet wide and about sixteen inches deep, so it fits between the couch and the wall.

Oh yeah, and it only took a weekend to create.

Miniature Golf Is A Serious Sport

Beth's post about our recent Miniature Golfing Trip to Myrtle Beach told only part of the story, so I thought I'd... embellish.

Seth demonstrates his commitment and dedication to the sport with his stance.

David, while deviating slightly from the serious image we golfers typically portray with his pink ball, demonstrates an admirable level of concentration in this challenging finishing putt.

Beth's Dad (Grandaddy) is the epitome of concentration. As Seth is being stalked by a ferocious dinosaur, he is keeping his cool and lining up his putt.

I had two recorded Holes In One during the game and this would have been my third, if I had nudged it a bit harder or if the wind had remained constant. I took the wind into account using my handy dandy slide-rule, but Mother Nature isn't as constant as I am.

More juicy details:

• Grandaddy stomped us all royally the first round. He was only a few strokes over par and more than 5 strokes better than any of the rest of us. Grandaddy was the best overall because he was both accurate and precise (he only deviated by one point between rounds and stayed very close to par in both). I'm appalled that my darling wife would have the audacity to laugh at such a fine specimen of a golfer as the Magnificent Grandaddy.
• I came back in spectacular form (if I do say so myself) to beat everyone by 1 or 2 strokes the second round. I won the title of the Most Improved by making up 9 strokes between the two rounds.
• Seth and David both dominated their respective age classes.
• Seth was the only other one in the crowd who had a recorded Hole In One.
• David was heroic in saving my borrowed hat from certain peril. The wind took it but David, leaping across the raging creek in a single bound, caught it before it got to the outer fence. Such gallantry!

And that, my friends, is something MUCH closer to the real story.