DRAMA CARPET

I am exhausted today!. The morning started at 7:00 (after going to bed @ 1:00) My nephew Harrison (2) came over for me to watch while his parents went to the temple. So 5 girls and a two year old later... spending all day outside running around, digging up treasures with a metal detector in my back yard, climbing trees, playing tag, going for a walk down the street and generally trying to keep an eye on everyone is enough to wipe me out.. (and that was just what happened up to noon.) So, Myrna came over and we drove to Queen Creek to pick up the carpet. Remind me in the future, that if an entry ever says Queen Creek- no matter how good a deal it is to just skip it and move on.. the drive there was an hour long. So, in a big truck hauling a trailer.. gas being $3.15 a galon.. $60 later we got there. The carpet was stored in an outdoor unit.. not the best storing conditions. We had to dig it out and load it ourselves. I got it just to to check it out. I wouldn't use the pad- it's in a bunch of pieces, and looks like it may have gotten wet. I'll probably stick with my original plan and have the carpets that are already in the house cleaned (already have an appointment scheduled) and see how they do. If they turn out good- I'll just keep that in and save myself the hassle of removing the old, and hiring someone to install what I just picked up today. If nothing else, I can put the carpet back on Craigslist and re-sell it to get my $$ back. So, it was a pretty crazy day of running around. I definitely am going to bed early tonight.

FANTASTIC FIND!

OK. so, I said I was going to be sanding today and I had every intention to.. Got out my little table to put the door on.. plugged in the sander I borrwed from Kent, had my scraper and water bottle out.. started sanding.. and was completely devistated that the doors were not in good condition.. the wood was splitting in areas, and the sanding was going to take FOREVER. I came to the conclusion that I need to get new doors for the house. I went to Home Depot to look at doors, countertops, cabinets and paint.. First of all- why is it that when you want help, no one is around, but when you don't want it 5 people ask you if you want help? Today I wanted help so of course no one was around. I was in the Countertop/kitchen cabinet area for about 15 min. Finally a guy shows up and asks if I need help. I told him I wanted an estimate on kitchen cabinets.. so after the guy works on the measurements I gave him he says it's going to be like $2000. You've got to be kidding! There's only about 30 sq feet of countertop space- and I wasn't even trying to get granite! So, no new countertops for me for a while.. another thing I'll have to save up for.. Then, after finding out that I needed 20 gallons of paint to repaint the house.. (at $100 per 5 gallon- because all paint is not the same as my brother seems to think.. Glidden is YUCKY- so no wonder it's only $60 per gallon.- dang it!) I checked out the utility cabinets and they're definitely not free. I got the paint- there's no way I'm waiting to do that.. I didn't even try to look at doors after finding out that I couldn't get anything else anyway.. Needless to say with no job yet, it was a very discouraging day. Projects that I wanted to do right away are going to have to wait for quite a while now. The day however did turn around. There's nothing funnier than to listen to what 10-12 year old girls talk about. But the best thing of the day was looking on Craigslist. I haven't been on in quite a while because, well, I have all the furniture that could possibly fit in my house already.. I was just checking out to see if someone had a great deal on wood floors. No such luck today, however, I did find some carpet for only $100. The description said it was new never used- enough to fill a house. I called on it and it's still available and the padding is included! How great is that?? So, it looks like I won't have to deal with 10 year old carpet after all! I am totally excited. The lady estimated she had 1000 sq ft. or more and since my house is only 1200 sq ft. it would be enough. Halelujah! I called my sister Myrna (the oldest girl) to see if she could take me out there since she's got a truck and Kent's is broken. So, we'll be heading out there to pick it up at 1:00 tomorrow. Here's the link to check it out.. http://phoenix.craigslist.org/mat/521788968.html So Myrna called me back after checking out the Materials section of Craigslist where I told her I found the carpet.. she'd never looked there before- I go all the time looking for cabinets.. anyway- she found some doors for $10 a piece! it's like a miracle!. I called the guy and left a message. hopefully he'll call back tomorrow. He had 4 bedroom doors w/6 panels- exactly how many I need in the right size. He also has a closet door that will fit in my hallway closet.. and a bedroom closet door- all the right sizes. So, hopefully he'll call me back and I'll get 6 doors for only $60. What a deal! So, anyway, the day turned out pretty great.

DOORS

So, we're at the start of another new day. I think I'm going to start on the doors. Bedroom doors and closet doors. I'll start with the ones that have just been sitting in the wash room for the past 10 years. They need to be sanded down- some have extra texture on them, some have the paint flaking off.. Kent was going to texture them all.. I really don't like textured doors, so I've got to sand them down and start from scratch. I tried to sand one of them earlier this week and ended up breaking my sander because the texture was too thick, and there were too many layers of old paint to get through. So, I borrowed Kent's sander and his industrial strength sandpaper and will start working on it today after I go pick up two of my nieces for a sleep over at Grandma's this weekend. (there will be 6 girls in all staying over.. my 2nd oldest brother Steven's (who died last year) daughter couldn't make it over for Christmas day (she's living with her Uncle & Aunt on her mom's side who are fighting for custody- with our support- it's a long story..) so she's getting to come for the weekend. She wanted to also spend time with her girl cousins and somehow it turned into a weekend sleepover for everyone. The rest of her wish list was to go to "Grandma & Grandpa's favorite Restaurant"- which is Home Town Buffet, which cracks me up because that is like the old folks gathering place.. my parents are "regulars" there.. they know the manager & waitresses by name- and vice versa. They even know the other "regulars". Her other wish was to go to the park that they always took her to when she was younger. So, Saturday is all planned out. The weekend is going to be filled with giggleing girls for Grandma and sanding doors for me.

DAY 2

So, this is my house. I love red brick houses. Ignore the yard.. that's on the last of my list of "things to do" So, we're on to another new day. Kent (my brother) started moving some stuff out of my house to his. I took some before pictures this morning just to show what a bachelor pad it's been, and how much work it's going to take to fix it up... but I'm totally excited to get started. He's cleaning some stuff out of the back yard today.. wahoo!!! It's a great house on a large lot, so my back yard is big which is fantastic. The biggest project of the house may be re-texturing. Kent did it a long time ago.. but it was more of a trial run and I don't really like it. He just did his house at the end of the block with a different type of texture that I like a lot better, so I'm thinking of having him re-texture this house. We'll see.

picture of the back of the house. I'm standing in the middle of the back yard.

1/2 of the kitchen- the counters are extra tall which I am so excited about. I just have to paint, replace the floor and countertops, and add some tall cabinets to the area I'm standing in which is by the fridge.

the bathroom- will be gutted.. I'm putting in a pedistal sink, new mirror, new lights, tile floors, new window, I'm also going to be cutting out part of the wall behind the door to add a closet door.. there's a closet outside the bathroom that I want to be able to access from inside the bathroom, so that will take some construction. Can't wait until this room is done.. It will probably be the first one to be worked on since I have all of the material for it already.

This is the middle bedroom which will be turned into my office/library. The wall on the left will be lined with bookshelves to store my books & movies. The wall on the right will hold my desk.

This is the front room/dinning area. My original plan was to put new wood floors throughout the house... but since I don't have a job right now.. that is going to be a project to be done after I move in. (6 mo. to a year.) This is going to be painted.. I'll have 2 accent color walls, I'll be adding new floor moulding and crown moulding. Can hardly wait to see my furniture in here.

In the beginning....

So, I thought I'd try out blogging to track the progress of my new house.. I should have started it when I started refurbishing my furniture, but it's too late for that now, since it's finally done! (not to worry it only took 2 months- but it turned out beautifully) I would love to have a workshop so I could work on furniture more often.. but I'll have to be content to stick with a day job.

Here's an example of a project we (my sisters & I) did for a friend of ours- it was a surprise room "make-over" and this was an addition to the front room... The first picture is the drawing of what we wanted the project to look like.. (the base was a coffee table we bought and added on to to make the entertainment center.) the next picture is obviously the finished project. I think the hardest part about the project was getting the paint on the top we built to match the pre-done bottom. In the end, it turned out fantastic!