Laboring…

Embracing the good ole American way by laboring on Labor Day Weekend. Happy Labor Day to the U.S. of A. and to our Canadian neighbors!

Pictures23The beginning of the project on this side of the house involved cutting down a great old juniper tree that was being used as a ladder for racoons to get on our roof. This is probably the best photo I could find of the vertical siding that Dear has slowly been changing out for horizontal siding.

2012-01-021This was the beginning of the siding project.

Pictures25This is a photo of I took on Sunday after church, the day after the work began on the siding. Katie, Andrew and I said goodbye to Dear and we went to a World Concern Food Truck event to raise money to feed the hungry around the world. We promised Dear we’d bring him home a treat from one of the food trucks.

 

Food TrucksWe arrived at the Crista Campus in Shoreline, Washington for the food truck event. Now we had to choose which truck to order from.

Food Trucks2Katie and Andrew chose the Cheese Wizard and had some gourmet cheese sandwiches that they raved about.

Food Trucks1I had the Cod tacos from another truck. I didn’t take a photo of the crepe we shared for dessert with fresh strawberries and lemon curd.

For Dear I chose a Shawarhma sandwich wrapped in pita bread. When we got home Dear had made a lot of progress.

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Siding 007This was the stopping point for Sunday. Dear will continue laboring on Monday. The area above the large header board and flashing will be filled with shingles, like the shingles you can almost see on the peak above the large window.

P1010564Are you laboring, camping, or just taking it easy this last long weekend of summer?

Gathering Moments ~ Hidden August

For my August Gathering Moments – a month in photos post I decided to share what didn’t make it on the blog already. Linking with Cheryl at Thinking About Home on Saturday.

2014-08-29 August recap3Glimpses of the unfinished bathroom. We hope this project will be completed soon.

2014-08-29 August recap1We purchased some new patio furniture that does not involve cushions. I also wanted some chairs that rock and roll. We are pleased with these pieces.

It’s been a nice relaxing time for Dear and I to watch more of Inspector Morse after visiting Oxford in July. We put the dvd’s on hold at the library and as they slowly become available we watch them. I’ve also been reading the Louise Penny Inspector Gamache series and just finished How the Light Gets In…so riveting. Now I’m splurging and ordering the new book that was just published this week because there are already too many holds on it at the library. In the meantime I checked out Surprised By Oxford from the library. It’s a Memoir written by Carolyn Weber. Here’s one of many praises for the book , “Carolyn Weber’s brilliantly written account of her conversion to Christianity at Oxford will inspire her fellow believers and provide intriguing food for thought for sceptics. It is honest, entertaining, and refreshingly free of superficial cant. I warmly commend it. Don N. Johnson, Senior Pastor, Montecito Covenant Church.

2014-08-24 Kt's 10yr + foodKatie and Andrew had fun dressing up to attend Katie’s 10 year high school reunion. They enjoyed their time in downtown Seattle last Friday.

2012-01-021I forgot to take a before before photo (yes, I did mean to say before twice) of this part of the house but then I found an obscure photo from the winter. Dear took the vertical siding off this part of the house and will be replacing it with the horizontal siding you see on the other side of the chimney. He’s out there working right now while I type away. This might be interesting to Vee’s John who is the master of siding.

2014-08-29 August recap2We had to move a few of the rounds of wood from the part of our yard closest to the street when we realized someone was helping themselves to our wood. To make sure most of the wood didn’t go to a thief we invited the boy scouts to take what was left to split and use for a fund raiser. Look at that early sign of fall appearing on our dried out summer lawn. The last of the purple in the yard is still hanging on.

The new siding project will be taking most of our time this weekend. I am thinking of stealing Dear away from that project to go to a Food Truck event at World Concern here in the Seattle area for lunch on Sunday after church. Our Daughter In law works at World Concern.

What’s better than spending a Sunday afternoon enjoying delicious food from Seattle’s favorite food trucks? Knowing that you’re helping feed hungry families at the same time! Worldwide, hunger kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined, but with your help, World Concern makes a lasting impact in the lives of the poor in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Haiti.
On Sunday, August 31 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., 10 of Seattle’s top food trucks will rally to fight global hunger at World Concern’s 3rd annual Mobile Food Fight for Hunger in Shoreline.

The very best thing about August is how it has brought our families together. The State of Washington is now the home of all our children. We have received the beautiful photos of my brother’s family bringing their new son home from the Ukraine. Mandy and Andrew arrived in Dallas this afternoon to the waiting arms of my brother (papa as Andrew lovingly calls him) and Big sister Hope. Oh what a happy day!

Progress!

2014-06-07 bathroom demoDear always enjoys a good project and I was happy to see him smiling throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday. Our bathroom renovation is moving along with the first order of business being a new window. When we moved into this old house we decided to replace all the windows. All the rest of the windows in this house had been replaced maybe 10 or more years ago. The new bathroom window has been sitting in the garage for all those years waiting for it’s debut!

bathroom demo 008Hard to tell with the perspective of this photo but I’m leaning out the opening and taking a shot looking down to the ground. There’s a bit of a drop off in the slope of our yard going from the front to the back of our home. This main floor bathroom is at the back of the house 1 story up! We have a basement that is below a portion of our main floor.

june photo challenge 001The framing for the new window was completed on Saturday but we’d have to wait until Dear got some help other than mine to set the new window in on Sunday. Josh and Laura were able to stop by on Sunday just long enough for Josh to help Dear set the window in and level it before it was secured permanently.

2014-06-09 windowThe old and the new side by side. The old window had a side slide and the new bigger window moved over from the tub and moved a bit higher opens up and down.

Huge sigh of relief that this all got taken care of on the weekend and there was no rain to worry about. Next step is signing the contract with the company we are going with, having them come out to measure and then ordering all the new items for the bathroom. Dear is really looking forward to demolishing the tub surround. We’ll have to keep him from tearing out the toilet and sink since we have an event here on Thursday evening! Our company will get to enjoy our rustic bathroom!

Hope your weekend went well. I’ve got to run to the big box home and garden store to get some supplies for Dear today and get some branches cut up for the yard waste pick up. What’s on your agenda?

And So It Begins…

Bathroom 001

The fun has started on our main floor bathroom. Dear will be doing all the stripping of the old materials ahead of the bath renovators coming in later in July. We have to start ahead of time because we are weekend warriors. We have one more group event at our home that we will need the toilet for this Thursday so the major demo work won’t be until next weekend. Today that old window is coming out and hopefully by Sunday afternoon the new window will be in. The new window is being moved over to the next stud so we have room for a wider bathtub and surround.  The window project will involve some outdoor siding work also.

For now the tub is being used for trash!

Bathroom 002

Once the project is over I will share the before and after photos!

I’ll manage to fit in some soccer watching today, too. World Cup is starting this Thursday and I’m getting excited. Do you watch soccer at your house? I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I happen to really enjoy the sport.

What are you up to this weekend?

Timber!

Trees etc 005Because of plans for a driveway this great old tree had to go. This is also a very messy tree with the pine needles that cover everything on this side of the shop.

Trees etc 003

We got a very good bid to chop the tree down and get rid of the branches leaving us with the larger tree cuts for fire wood. Even though the driveway will be a 2015 project we decided to take advantage of the good price we got for the job.

2014-06-02 pine treeMonday at ten the work began. I watched from a safe distance capturing the moment the tree was felled.

2014-06-02 pine tree2

2014-06-02 pine tree1Timber!

2014-06-02 pine tree3Now the wood chipper was put to work. They tried to talk me into keeping the chips. It’s just not easy to unload them. I just smiled and said they could keep the chips.

2014-06-02 pine tree4It was hard enough to move all the little logs to a central location. Dear is away until tomorrow so I got the wheel barrow out and got to work.

2014-06-02 pine tree5I got my heart rate up in no time flat.

We will miss the lovely tree view we had but we will enjoy finally having a paved driveway to our garage and no pine needles to clean up.

Another view of the before and after looking down what will eventually be a driveway. This tree team probably underbid this job so I rounded up the cash payment I gave them and will have them back again to grind the stump down before work commences on the driveway.

Dear has been in Chicago at another conference since last Friday and I’m looking forward to his return early on Tuesday. This is the last trip that we will take separately for the rest of the year, Lord willing. Dear and I have had enough time apart this year.

We are having a great stretch of dry days with highs into the 70’s. Perfect weather for me. How are things in your world?

Juniper Tree

 

I committed the bloggy error of not taking recent photos of this juniper tree before we cut it down. That meant I had to go digging in the archives for photos I might have and this is the best one I could find.

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What we found out this past weekend is that raccoons were using our Juniper tree as a ladder to gain access to our roof. We did not like that idea at all. We have had problems with rats, too, so we thought it would be best not to have sturdy tree branches close enough to the house for varmints to access our roof.

I’ll miss the views it enhanced from my computer window and our living room window.

Trees etc 001We still have to deal with these stumps. I was joking around with Dear about carving something into these stumps for yard art. Taking the tree down also gives us more urgency to finally finish replacing the siding on our house. So many projects so little time when your handy man works full time!

Trees etc 004If we ever put a fire pit in somewhere on our property we could use this wood once it seasons. We have on more huge tree that we hired someone to take down and we’ll have lots more wood. I did take before photos of that tree and will share the proper before and afters of that tree.

Trees etc 007In the meantime we have lots of yard waste to deal with besides our weekly mowing the lawn yard waste. We have wondered on many occasions why yard waste is not collected every week during the summer months instead of every other week.

Thankfully when the tree guy comes to chop down our huge tree on Monday he will be putting all the branches through a chipper and taking the waste away with him. He will leave the large logs for us.

I’ll take some photos of the tree guys at work.

It’s June! How did that happen so fast? We have some fun events scheduled for June like our end of year barbecue with our small group, my niece and her husband are coming to visit, a fun day with the MGCC girls, and a wedding in Portland the end of June. In the midst of all that we have to demo our main bathroom and order all the new fixtures. What do you have going in June?

 

Sloppy or Neat?

I was a little tired of the window coverings in our living room so I went from sloppy to neat and I think I’ll enjoy the new look. Nothing major but a nice change for my eye.

2014-02-26 panels

The new panels are on the right and the old look is on the left. I blew it and didn’t take clear photos of the old look before I took down the panels to replace them with the new more tailored look.

2014-02-26 panels1I went with very sheer panels because we like to have all the light we can come through into the room. The panels were very reasonably priced at Home Goods. I also got a new curtain rod that Dear has not had a chance to install yet. A set of 2 panels cost $14.99. I bought 4 panels, 2 for each side. The new curtain rod was $19.99. So for a little over $50.00 I have a new look. Do you have HomeGoods or HomeSense where you live? I have gotten some great products from this chain.

New look 001-001The old look…

new panels 001The New Look…

The thing that remains is that I take lousy photos of my front windows. Another thing that is different in the new look is the Blue Service Star flag/banner that you can see through the blinds. Our son in law is still actively deployed and that banner stays in the window until he returns from his deployment.

Have you changed something up at your place during this long Winter?

Out with the Old…

February 006Our dishwasher was over 10 years old and it started making noises and wasn’t pumping out all the water so we knew it was time to investigate something new. We ordered a new dishwasher and the service man came on Tuesday to take the old one out and replace it with our new one.

February 007Out with the Maytag and in with the Miele.

February 008I think we’ll be happy with our choice.

So much excitement around our town. Katie and I did not make it down to Seattle on Wednesday because my throat was acting up and it was cold. Traffic was gridlocked and they are saying that over 700,000 fans gathered downtown to welcome home the Seattle Seahawks and their Lombardy trophy. Here’s what our outdoor thermometer registered…

February 009That’s cold for the Seattle area! We sat and watched all the T.V. coverage of the parade and the welcome home rally at Century Link Field in our warm family room. Dear went into Seattle before the sun was up and came home with his work computer before the parade road closures started. That was a smart move as he made it home smoothly instead of being stuck in a traffic nightmare with 700,000 people trying to get out of Seattle after the parade.

I found a few more fun photos from our Super Bowl Sunday celebration.

February 004

February 003February 001So much fun!

Needless to say my Wednesday was a wash. I did manage to feed the three of us two meals. I also used my time sitting in front of the T.V. scanning more old photos. I’m glad I have something to show for Wednesday. How did your Wednesday go?

A Joyful Heart…

…is good medicine.

I never want to lose the ability to laugh at myself. After complaining about my new hairdo last year a memory of a photo kept coming back to me from my early years.

2013-11-018Here’s my 6th grade photo from Fremont Elementary School in Montebello, California. The photo from November of 2013 isn’t the clearest but it does show how similar my hairdo is to my 6th grade years. Gave me a good chuckle.

We’ve had a relaxing weekend at this old house. Dear took Katie to the airport before the sun was up on Saturday. When I finally got up we had our coffee and I slowly got ready for the day. Our dishwasher is telling us it’s not long for this world so we went out to investigate what’s new in dishwasher world after 10 years. We had a good education and are considering a Miele to replace our Maytag. After church we tried a new spot for  brunch. I’m getting a little excited for Season 4 of Downton Abbey tonight. Are you a fan?

Before and After

Before we had the vinyl floor and this smaller area rug and our chairs still had the cloth upholstery on them.

more after 004

After with the wood floors, the larger area rug from the living room and our dining chairs recovered in leather. I should have put a less busy tablecloth on the table…

Before the new look with the kitchen cupboard open and Dear working in the kitchen.

before and afters 004

The new look in a new season judging from my bare feet instead of my comfy slippered feet.

This is the rug that was in the living room and is now in the dining area of our kitchen. We also gave the piano to our kids and moved a lot of stuff around.

Still the old look with yet another spot for the piano before we gave it away with the secretary in the far corner of the room. The antiqued white cabinet was still in it’s corner but we have decided to keep that piece out of the living room now.

New look 001

This is the new look with a smaller area rug we had elsewhere.  The Cabinet in the spot where the piano used to be will show in the next photos.

This is the before at this angle with the old floors.

more after 012

This is the new spot for the Secretary where the piano used to be.

Marseille-floors 026

Before

more after 003

After

P1040275

Before

before and afters 014

After

That will be a wrap on the Before and Afters. It would have been good to take shots at the same angles but sometimes things just get away from you. Hope I didn’t make you dizzy or confused by the sequence. I know we will enjoy the new floors for years to come. We still have some finishing up of baseboards and closet work ongoing. It will be nice when this project is complete and we can enjoy nesting in this old house.