A man, a dream, and an A-frame

It's been awhile. 
We have been busy just living in our project and while there have been small blog worthy notables that have occurred here and there the longer I went from my last blog the more of a challenge it has been to post! Now I know what Harper Lee felt like after penning 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and never writing again, and how One Direction must feel after their one hit smash (that's range for ya!).

So I will do my best to illustrate the most dramatic of events that happened in the past 10 months, it's been all about the A-frame.

When we last left off, the A-frame had been brutally and unfathomably vandalized. We put it out of our minds because we had a much larger task at hand: the house. Once the dust settled and the callouses healed Mike got his second wind and set out to fix his man cave.

He had a vision. 
He cleaned out the broken glass, the 5 large drums of powder dyes ($300 dumping charge), the cedar shakes that had ripped off during the pillaging. He framed up a circular opening and installed a 5 foot glass table top someone gave him as a window. Fresh plywood went up on the slanting walls. We had a clean slate to start something new, something better than we or the A-frame and maybe even (dare I say) humanity itself had ever known.

Then the tree fell. The flippin tree fell directly on the A-frame. We sat there on the sofa watching as it crashed in slow motion just to the right of the roof's peak . Mike was eerily calm.

At first he figured he'd have to take the whole darn thing down and start from scratch. But in true Mike fashion he decided to work with what he had. He re-framed, re-supported, and re-ally work his butt off to get it looking better than it had (and more structurally sound).

It's a work in progress (much like it's mother house), but say's Mike to the A-frame in the abbreviated, mutilated, and completely out of context words of Jack Twist in Brokeback Mountain:

 'I can't quit you!' 

This too shall pass, we've been challenged before (read all previous posts). 

Please don't feed the dust bunnies

This mess is a place!
Today we cleaned, until I broke the faucet and we had to turn the main water off to stop the flood. I was ready for a break anyways. Thanks to Mamma Caponi for her help cleaning the kitchen. Was contact paper in cabinets en vogue at some point? Why why why!?

I must say this place is beginning to resemble something livable

Good thing cause we sure are living here!
Does anyone have a microwave they want up get rid of? This is one thing we are lacking- at one point we had 3 in our position and now we have none- I cannot bring myself to buy a microwave! Lemme know if you have one collecting dust bunnies somewhere.

We have lift off!

Sublime.
That is how I should be feeling, but we're in the middle of a house renovation hurricane and we're moving in! Picture one of those nutty weathermen gripping their microphone for dear life, hairpiece flapping in the wind, desparately holding on to the pier while a tsunami of destruction crashes in the background. Now add in an earthquake and locusts....... you get the picture. If you are questioning my logic to select this weekend for the perfect storm of moving and renovation I will remind you that we are paying two mortgages (well technically 4, but thats not the point) and have been since November. There is no money tree and I actually thought twice about chewing a whole piece of gum yesterday when I could stash half a piece away for today (Nana- I make you proud!). We've GOT to get out of Mike's house so we can rent it and I can chew my gum frivolously as I am accustomed to.

Thank goodness I 'gotta guy' who did most of the heavy lifting related to moving. Infact I only took in a few lampshades (and managed to drop one). But I was a little woosely from layering on the final coat of poly to the family room:

Remember this:

We've come a long way

Tire swings and delicious things

We love having visitors, even more so when they bring yum yums! I'm not talking about Cory (or am I?) 
Cory is in town so Nikki swung him by to see the place:

 with deliciousness in toe (again, not talking about Cory. Or am I?)

Nikki said she made these little spheres of heaven - so naturally I giggled at her joke. Come to find out she did make them!   Smack my granny and call me princess. After a few of those I needed a tall glass of milk (Cory?)


She brought just enough for me AND the little ankle biters that showed up today. 


Since Annie is fully entrenched in painting the family room Jeff brought Mietta, Warren, Magnus, and Evalia over to help us out (but mostly because it's the only way they can actually SEE their mother).


Question: How do you get kids to clean without them even knowing it?  
Answer: Rubberband some damp washcloths to their feet and send them on their way.

It really worked, their washcloths were filthy! 

Jeff started the effort to smooth out the ceiling texture in the foyer and library:

Mike was doing most of his work outside (the list has failed me yet again) and when I wandered out there to see how he was doing, well........he was in the midst of hanging a tire swing!

I think is was a list-worthy mission, the kids definitely thought so!


Meanwhile it looks like we have finished the floors upstairs, which inspired a little happy dance

Ended the day by putting the first coat of poly on the floors downstairs.....

T minus 6

T minus 7 and counting

On the way to the house- move in date set for next Sunday! Which means we will take some of this

And do a little more of this

And this

And some of this

(Mike photo bombed that one).
And a little less of this

Tee heeee, I keeed! Kind of - get to work !

New bowx

Remember the circuit breaker box to rival Mrs. O'Leary's cow? (look it up- you should have paid attention in 7 th grade history class).

Handy Randy replaced it!

I've never stared longingly in shear amazement at a breaker box before but it is a beaut!

We got approved on our electrical inspection, bitter sweet news though, as our time with Randy dwindles. As he turns to leave I may attempt to lob off a swath of his pony tail as a momento, Emma I'll try to get enough for us both. Your welcome.

Like Chicken Soup For the Stomach

We brought canned soup to the house for our lunch break. To which we were abruptly reminded by this site

That there was no soup for you, um, us- well at least heated soup. Too bad, it was actually in the 40's that day but the pumpkin bread we've had in the fridge for a few weeks will have to do.
Within an hour or so Caroline called to say she was stopping by, little did we know she had been cooking up a storm and brought .....

Delish home made chicken soup! Piping hot-

And 'smack your mamma good' as Kelly would say. No offense mom.
Thanks Caroline!

Headed to the house!

Stopped by the Home Depot

And headed to the house. Looking forward to some friends stopping by- come see our progress!
Then we will celebrate Melissa's birthday - happy birthday my friend!

Gettin' Randy and Feeding the Hippo

Electrical update

We officially hired Randy to be our electrician!

Which means we are 3Gs closer to the poor house. Money well spent though- Randy is replacing our circuit breaker panel which looks like it came over to the new country with Columbus. He's upgrading our service to 200 amp (120 now) and adding a few grounded 3-prong outlets for our computer and tv. Being do-it-yourselfers (read 'cheap') we asked him what we could do to facilitate the process. He left us with a to do list:

Which led to this:

Then this:

And this:

Who does that lovely picture taking silhouette belong to?
Digressing...
And this:

And this:

On another electrical front, we don't feel like we pay Duke power enough as it so so we are giving them $1800 to bury our lines in the back yard. I tried to haggle with the monopolizing cold hearted hungry hippo on the basis that we are doubling the amperage use of the house, but unless we find a way to generate our own power (put the nieces and nephews in a hamster wheel when they come over?) Duke holds all the cards.
Long story short,
Power to the people - word.

There's only room enough in this house for 2 bloggers

You know what that means (just kidding, I'm sure that was just vague enough to let your imaginations run rampant). My blog inspiration and life long friend Stephanie came for a visit from NYC last weekend just to help me finish painting the shelves ( yes, 4 kids and countless hours later the shelves are still without the last coats of paint, and yes helping me paint was the last item on Stephs agenda). So when Miki dropped Steph off looking like this:

I was worried that she forgot her painting outfit, in which case I'd have to release the light fixture dangling by a thread over her head! Oh I keed I keed! She promptly changed and got to work.

Thanks Steph! You will feel so proud of yourself the next time you visit and set your belongings in the expertly painted drip free closet. That's worth another trip!

Little helpers: child labor part deux

I love our little nieces and nephews- especially since I have realized that they share their mothers enthusiasm for painting! Jeff brought Mietta, Warren, Magnus, and Evalia to the house to see what they're made of (besides sugar and spice and everything nice)

Here they are priming the closet shelves:

A little extra spice from Mietta - work that camera girlfriend, own it!

Evalia after falling into the paint tray- paint EVERYWHERE! Bless her itty bitty heart!

The twins and I play the most fun game, like ever: cover the yellow! It was a three way tie.

How many Uncle Mikeys does it take to transport 3 kids upstairs? He's most industrious- this was the only way to ensure we don't have little white footprints all over our newly sanded floors

So of any of you parents need us to babysit....

Our pretty painter

In between house cleaning gigs and chasing around her 4 kids (all under age 9) Mike's sis Annie is a professional paintress. So we hired her to pick up our slack. She is extremely detail oriented- The first thing she did was inspect everything we had attempted to mud/spackle/sand to get it 'paint ready'

And then she did it all over.

Spackle

Sand

Caulk

The woman has standards- don't mess with her our you'll find yourself caulked to a closet and ready to be primed.