Friday, October 28, 2011

Painting by numbers

It sure seems like a while ago that we were doing all this painting. During the first weekend in September, my parents came to help prime all of the drywall we had recently finished finishing. Mom and Dad are a great team, and they white-washed the bedrooms and hallway in no time.

Dad and Mom working diligently. 

While they were upstairs working with white primer, Amanda and I were out in the garage working with white paint on our surplus of window and door casings and baseboards . As Amanda had a limited number of comfortable maternity clothes, she also wore a blue disposable coverall. Incidentally, she looked like a blue M&M with a paint brush. 

Jim and Amanda pretending to work while no one was looking. 

Soon enough, our working construction zone was gone. Evidence of the rough original studs, electrical wiring and insulation was only barely visible along the bottom edge of the wall. All of the measurement notes, chalk lines and repair work on the drywall had been replaced with a fresh clean coat of while primer. We now had a 'blank canvas' that resembled two bedrooms and a hallway! 

How refreshing, it looks better already! 

Monday, October 10, 2011

Well Side-Project Conclusion

Woah, no real posts since August?! You probably figured that we lost our motivation in our various projects, or moved out, or were eaten by trolls. Well you figured wrong. We ate one of the trolls.

Actually, we have had a wild ride during the last month or two. This was the last leg of the headlong race to finish the nursery before the birth of our first child. There has been much productive work in the last few weeks; however, our sweet daughter Avonlea won the prize. Not really a photo finish, as she was born two weeks early and our 'completion' status is about a month or two away. In reality, Avonlea is sleeping (sometimes) in a bassinet in our bedroom, and our projects are in pretty decent shape.

The day before Avonlea was born, my family came over for a working party. While Mom, Dad, Amanda and I were painting upstairs, two of my brothers Andy and Tom worked together to finish our well side-project. As you may recall, our well was way overgrown and needed some serious help. In one afternoon, my brothers spread out twenty 40lb bags of chipped granite around the well. The area around the well looks really super great, and I am thankful that I won't have to pick up 800lbs of stones on my own.

See how great it looks now, thanks Tom and Andy!

 Mom and Dad purchased all the granite, then Tom and Andy installed it as a belated birthday present for me. To think, I would request bags of rocks for my birthday!

As if it wasn't cruel enough to make my out-of-state brothers, who I don't get to see but once or twice a year, move around a bunch of stones; once they had finished, I asked them to walk around our yard and pick up rocks. Here is a photo of our incredibly strong and resilient outdoor workforce. 
 Thanks guys, you're amazing!