Unexpected Great Weather

Today was unseasonably cool and it was so nice.   Temperature outside about 75 so windows were open and I decided to work outside.   

I hate where the day lilies are at the house.   I don't really like stuff right up on top of the house.   I always felt like it just attracked bugs.   So bye bye day lilies.   I transplanted them around my She Shed and on the side of the fence.   Hopefully that helps with me having to weed eat the fences constantly.

Before

After

Life is Good

I'm happy beyond my wildest dreams.  If you would have told me 5 years ago I would be in this current state of mind I would have laughed.   Gotta say I'm so happy and content with my life.

Bathroom Remodel has Started

I've been trying to get a contractor in here for 6 months.  Because of COVID all of them are so booked up.  When I finally made the decision that there was no rush and I was going to just wait until next year I got a call from my contractor.   He's waiting on a bigger job and can do my bathroom remodel.   Whoo hooo. 

I decided since they were ready to go that I would let them just do the demo.   They had it all demoed in less than half a day and started putting it back together.   This is going to look so good.   Right now we are at a temporary stand still waiting on the shower base to come in.   It was ordered last week and takes 2 weeks.   Hopefully this will be completely done by the end of August.   Won't that be awesome.  Then my remodel will be done!

Here's the way things started with the bathroom.

First thing was to rip out all the carpet.   Who puts carpet in a bathroom?   

Second thing was to rip out that wall between the toilet and the vanity.  It was a sheet of drywall and all it did was make the room look smaller.  

Some people may like it but there were mirror tiles on the wall that I also ripped off, so 1970.

This is the first day after the contractor got to work.   

Everything demoed and starting to put things back together. 

Couple of things we found during the demo.  First there was a heat/air vent that will be in the shower.  I opted to keep it.   Might be nice to have heat blowing on you during the winter.   I can just close it off in the summer if it's too much.  

Second thing, you will see in the picture above is an outlet was behind the old shower.   I opted not to keep the outlet in the shower.....good idea?   Instead, they just turned it around and now I have 2 outlets in my sewing room.   Because you can never have too many outlets in a sewing room.

They are putting everything back together and right now 

we are just waiting on the shower base to come in.  

I'm super excited to get this last stage of my remodel done.   Now hurry up shower base and get here. 

Carpet is Gone

Finally, all the carpet is out of the master bedroom.  That was a harder task than it appeared.  I had so much furniture and stuff that needed to be moved out...and the problem is it can't be moved back until the new carpet is installed.   Well good news the old carpet is out and the new carpet is scheduled.    Now I just need to clean the sub floor good and paint he walls.   I had to move all the furniture in other parts of the house and the garage.   All I have is a twin bed and the tv in the bedroom for now......Come on carpet!

Golf

My new challenge in golf is to try and figure out how to hit this tiny little ball.  It's more challenging than it looks.   Line up to the ball, keep your body aligned straight, don't move your head, lead with your hips.....there are so many things to remember just to hit a ball.

Well Jackie and I had our first golf outing and we didn't do as bad as I expected.  (I'm speaking me doing bad).   We actually won a pink golf ball each....for getting 5 bogys.  For those ungolfers out there, that's 1 over par, and for us rookies that is pretty darn good. (At least in my opinion).
 

We actually look like we know what we are doing.  

We golfed 52 on a 9 hole course which isn't perfect but for a first time it's not bad, 

oh and we loved driving and riding in the golf cart. 

We had such an amazing time and I start lessons on Monday.  

That was Easy

That was the easiest carpet I have ever ripped up, and I've done a lot.  

I was told by the carpet salesman that it was most likely glued down.  Nope, just laid right down on the old tile and that was it.  Easy Peasy.

I'm thinking maybe I need to cancel the carpet order and just go with the retro linolium look.

What do you think?

Nah, I'm just kiddin'

Here's the existing carpet....I know, hideous. 

Only took about 1 1/2 hours to rip all the carpet and pad out.  Whoo hooo.   It's ready to be scrubbed and then I am in a hurry up and wait mode.   Carpet has been measured and ordered but seems like everyone is doing remodeling and ordering carpet.   5 weeks out.......I'll see you in about 5 weeks with updated photos.

Beautiful Cedar Shelf

I had orginally went to buy a piece of cedar to make a shelf when I found my mantle.  Well today the weather had a bit of a breeze and wasn't so blistering hot I finished my shelf.

First I started with a beautiful piece of cedar and did a lot of sanding.

 Triple coat varnish recommended by the people that I bought the wood from.

Two coats later, which I guess is an equivalent to 6, it's finished and beautiful.

Finishing the Mantle

The people I got the wood from told me that I needed to sand it down, otherwise the edging would just flake off constantly.   Today was the first step.  I used my electric sander to sand down the first layer.    It's really bringing out the reds in the cedar......and look at the worm holes.   What character. 

Perfect Mantle

Well, at least I think I found the perfect piece of wood to make a mantle.   I'm super excited and it was just by chance that I found it.

First of all, this is my ugly fireplace.   This is the one thing about the house that I truly hate.   I've even thought of taking all the rock off but I think if I can at least dress it up and hide those ugly square tiles with a unique mantle I'll be happy.  

Since the rock has so many different levels I decided that live edge wood is the way to go.  

It's 6' long and 3" thick.  Weighs about 30lbs so I can handle it myself.   It's so unusal and I love it.

Making the Garage Fancy

Well no one will even notice but me, but when I first moved all my treasures to the garage I stapled fabric over the windows and door.   The fabric over the door was a genuine pain in the ars because everytime I opened and closed the door it would get closed in the door.   Today I decided it was time to make some new curtains.   I also have been organizing my fabric and if truth be known I finally found the fabric I bought for the curtains.  Yep, this is the before...now you see why I need curtains.

I had 5 different windows and 1 door to make curtains for.   All done.

And here's the finished product.   They are made of green striped ticking.   Pretty sunnty out so you can't really see the true color.   They look really nice.

It's the Little Things

No one noticed but I new this little tiny piece of tile would drive me crazy if I didn't fix it.

Before

After

It's fixed.

After

Bye Bye BBQ

There is, or should I say was, a really old BBQ in the back.  It's nice because it hooked directly to natural gas, which I didn't even realize that was something you could do, but it didn't work.  At least I didn't even want to try it.  Pretty disgusting.   I've taken out the old BBQ grill and as soon as they go on sale at end of the summer I will be getting a new one.   One that runs on natural gas.

Before

It's the one right next to my smoker.

And the After

Now to watch the sale ads!

Ready for Winter

Did I really say that out loud?  Not ready for winter but super excited to get my fireplace insert.  Thanks to my bestest baby boy I have a new gas fireplace insert and I love it.  Thanks Mikey.

Before

It may not seem like anything special but it's my new vent cap for the fireplace. 

Worker man putting in the fireplace.   

He had to chisel into the concrete a bit to get to the gas line but all is good!

It's done!

Didn't I tell you it was perfect!

Now I have to burn it for 12 hours to get it ready to use regularly.   Not bad, it's 64 degrees outside, I have all the windows open and fans going but my family room is nice and toasty.

I'm sure you'll agree, it's time for a mantle to get rid of those awful squares.   

Cleaning up the Great Outdoors

The prior home owner had lots of flowers but they were scattered everywhere.   No rhyme or reason to how she placed them.   I've been working all month to try and clean things up.

I didn't take a previous picture of the mess I started with but here's a picture from last summer.   Lots of "stuff" in the front.

Thanks to my girlfriend Patty who gave me tons of landscape blocks.  All I had to do was haul them.

My first projecyt was to border around the trees.   The guy who mowed my lawn last year would always cut into the bark of the tree when he did the weed eating.

I also took out a huge bush on the side of the house.   Some people call it a snowball bush, I call it a stinky bush.  It was quite a job to get the stump out.  Thanks to Patty again I got a bunch of hostas.

Then it was time to tackle that jungle in the front of the house.

Simple and clean now.

Couldn't have done it without my little helper.

I also don't like how it looks like you drive staight into the family room.  I decided to plant some flowers right in from of the family room window.  Nice to hear the water running too.

Founs a steal of a deal on flower pots at the end of the year at Lowes last year. 

I have one more flower bed to do, but that's for another day.