Updates galore

I have been remiss.  I haven't updated this site properly in ages.  For the record, we were very busy finishing up construction, and now it is officially complete.  Now that all our non-work clothes are covered in paint and caulk and wood putty, I am free to write up a storm.  I'm not sure what we'll do with ourselves after work or on weekends now, though.  Read, you say?  What is this reading thing you speak of?

So we've finished all the tasks we wanted to, and we now have a shiny new basement with a workout room/extra bedroom and an office and a project area and several new closets.  Important note:  K had absolutely no built-in storage before now.  Any semblance of storage was courtesy of Ikea, and was put together by hand.  Now we have closets and attic-like areas and it's like a new place.  We can finally STORE things.  Crazy what a little domestic upgrade can do to your attitude.

(Pictures have to come next post, since my camera card is at home today...)  But trust me, it looks AMAZING.






And, I have the best news ever (to me).  Grandma's Johnny Clock is hung!   (I think it's completely possible that K secretly hates this with the fire of a thousand suns dislikes this item a little, but I'm kind of a sentimental fool -- shocking to all who know me, I'm sure.)






ps...  I had to Google this, since my memory card is at home.  The hinges at the top are white, and the hands are actually black.  Hey, K...  it could be worse...  it could have GOLD HANDS!

Ahhhhh time off work

We had almost a week off work, and now it's time to go back already.  (Though not for Karen...  she gets another day, lucky &*>~%#!!)  Had some good fam time, some good productive condo time, and lots of time for pictures.  Enjoy.

  

Sunday night painting

Yesterday, we went to Kay and Dan's for the Browns' game, as well as some fabulous tapenades and spaghetti with meatballs. (Quick sidenote...  why is it that I fall asleep every time we sit down to watch football?  Get back to me on that, would you please?)   Afterwards, we took a quick look at the Eastlake house, which looks really, really good.  If anyone's in the market for a new house, this is the house for you and not just cause I'm being paid to say that!

We got home around 7pm, and little worker bee Karen was ready to organize stuff and do homework, while I was ready and excited to sit on the couch and watch TV all night help.  But, it turned out to be one of those nights where work is leisurely and fun, and with a little Billy Joel, we sang and time flew.

I added sunny kiwi (??) to the stairs wall, and got out the new trimmer and went to town.  I would like to point out here that I am MUCH BETTER at the quick and dirty jobs than I am at the detailed ones.  (Ruthanne is nodding with a raised eyebrow.)  I spent over two hours edging the outside of two walls, and about 30 minutes rolling them both.  All of a sudden, it was 11:45pm, and time for bed.  Aside from a few hits to the ceiling that we will never be able to reach will surely be able to touch up, it looks GORGEOUS.

KAPLOWEE!  Painted accent wall.

We did nothing to this room, but I love this picture.  (Hi, Muffin!)

Base update

I told myself I had to work for at least an hour, to prove that I'm not a complete slacker.  I put on my painting clothes, and trudged downstairs.  Turned on some tunes, and started painting the top of the bookshelves.  Next thing I knew, it was 11pm, and I was exhausted.  Voila!  Newly painted walls!!!

By the way, I have paint ALL OVER MY BODY.  

Clearly, when you're a crazy painting freak, things get a little messy.

Cubby Hole Tile Night

Oh, boy! Monday!

Happy Monday!

I can't believe the weekend flew the way it did.  We learned several things this weekend:

• having family help you paint makes painting go by MUCH faster.
  
• garlic-stuffed olives make really good painting rewards
• we underestimate EVERY task

Don and Ruthanne helped paint on Saturday, and they are the fastest, quietest little workers I've met.  It was like a scene from a movie, where everyone just works, with a backdrop of music.  A little creepy in person, but very effective.  The second bedroom is completely painted.  Now we have hallway and office walls, bookshelves, trim, cubby doors.......  I can't count down all the work left, but we're getting there.

AND, we had chicken soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner twice over the weekend.  If that's not blogworthy, I don't know what is.

Last night

I don't think we've worked in the basement without a whopper of a story (in our own eyes, anyway.)  We started last night ambitious but realistic.  Set small, attainable goals, grabbed some beverages.  There was crawling into storage areas, there was trim that we painted.  We even did laundry.  (Well, Karen did laundry.  We can't forget this, now can we?)  And we started out pretty good.  Got a lot accomplished for a short night after work.  But then I somehow knocked over my beer.  I was working in the cubby hole, crawling and painting (mostly getting paint on me, by the way) and I must've bumped something, cause my bottle splashed the new wall, and covered the top of the cabinet.  No biggie, every great ship has a christening, perhaps our basement walls were the same.  Grabbed a diet coke, put it on the washing machine below the newly painted cave I was working in, and crawled back in.  After a few minutes, Karen came through to inspect praise my work, and offered to grab us beer.  She placed it on the floor, a good distance from both of us, and we worked.  Two minutes later, we heard a strange noise...  While the washing machine was finishing its spin cycle, a can had fallen and sprayed diet coke all over the place.  Karen (kind girl that she is) cleaned it up since I was a cave-dweller now, and as she did so, guess what her foot toppled over.  Yep.  Beverage number three.  So, we have learned a few things.  1.) If you paint a very small area, your neck will hurt from bending to avoid paint in your hair.  2.) You will have paint in your hair regardless.  3.)  No matter where you put your drink, it will either spill on its own, or be knocked over.  And, 4.) taking pictures of all this makes it awfully fun to recap.  :)

Progress

Underestimation

We began painting the ceiling of the lower level this weekend.  We went to Home Depot Saturday to get supplies, and left the work for Sunday morning.  Found out it's not exactly as easy as we figured.  We spent about two-and-a-half hours painting, edging, extending and rollering (as well as moving the furniture from one part of the room to the other.)  About halfway through what we did finish, we pondered hiring someone to finish, stopped to eat a snack and watched part of Almost Famous.  I am very good at diversion, especially when it comes to actual manual labor.

My plan is to finish the rollering this evening.  Updates to come tomorrow, and perhaps even pics.  (Though, it's hard to tell the painted from the non-painted.)

Updates to the condo

Oh, the fun we'll have

The basement drywalling should be done today, which means we have an upcoming weekend of cleaning and painting.  In case you missed the invitation earlier, we will be having a HUGE PAINTING BONANZA!!!  (Somewhere, someone is unable to properly punctuate his posts, since I've taken all the uppercase letters and all the exclamation points.)

Beer and pizza will be provided for all who join us, as will fun and stories you can tell for years to come.

We'll have monkeys!

The drywallers come tomorrow, and we have a huge task ahead of us.  We were planning for their arrival and completion before this weekend, and had figured we'd paint Saturday and Sunday.  Now we're delayed a weekend, and are planning for October 10th.  Carrie, (and Mike, and Will, and anyone else who feels a compulsion to assist us in our plight) please consider this a sincere invitation to join us in Cleveland for pizza and beer and laughs and games and monkeys and, oh yeah...  lots of painting.  (Okay, maybe no monkeys, but we've got connections; we'll see what we can do.)