Home Improvement

We got a lot done this weekend. Saturday we decided to reclaim the house from all the dust and debris that has been thrown around from all the construction. While Lisa picked up, dusted and vacuumed the living room, I scoured the kitchen, from ceiling to floor. It’s not that the kitchen looked any cleaner, because we keep it pretty clean, but that I knew it was cleaner because I had just done it. I washed down the walls, the cabinets and appliances, and mopped the floor. I always feel good when the kitchen is that clean, because I know how clean it is.

Lisa did a great job in the living room. It hadn’t been done really good for a long, long time, what with all of our trips to the southern tier to help Le out, and then our destruction/construction. There was a lot of dust around and we were amazed at how much crap got sucked up into the vacuum. Of course, the cats always get weirded out when we clean like this, and they always make themselves scarce. Cedar streaked out the door when it was opened, not to be seen again until later in the afternoon. Simba decided that the partially missing wall in Joe’s bathroom was an excellent place to hunker down, and Tigga stuck her head behind the computer table. She has this philosophy, apparently, that if she can’t see you, you can’t see her.

Sunday we were up early and out the door to the Home Depot by 9:00. We picked up four sheets of 4’ x 8’ ¼” thick luaun to cover the underlayment with (where we tore out the floor). I picked up a 21” prybar because the 14” one we had wasn’t getting the job done when tearing out the floor, and we still had about 2/3 of the floor left to tear out. These flat prybars are much better than a crowbar because they’re very flat, very slim, and can be inserted under mouldings and floors without damaging the item that is being pried up. In our case, it didn’t matter about the damage, but the idea was to get that flat bar under the old luaun.

We picked up a couple of runners that we spied, deciding they’d be a perfect fit when the floor is completed – one in front of each entry door (other than the garage door).

We got home, unloaded the truck, and I put a corned beef brisket in the crock pot. No sooner did I get it on when Bob and Wanda pulled up in the driveway. Bob is recovering from two bypass surgeries in 3 weeks (last one was about 3 weeks ago now), and for a 72 year old man recovering from surgery, he’s still in pretty darned good shape. He and Lisa worked side-by-side in measuring and cutting the luaun to fit into the odd shapes around our entryway. Lisa and I did all the physical work, under Bob’s guidance. We were grateful to have him there because we learned some tricks from him that, had he not been there, we’d have done a lot of work the hard way.

Lisa had a ball using her new air nail gun and compressor. And did it ever make the job go by faster! She’s so cute, with that big shit-eating grin on her face when she gets to use her new tools. Later, after Bob and Wanda left, we had to cut an 8 foot long, 1 inch wide strip of luan and we used her new table saw. Another huge grin on her face!

Besides Lisa’s ability to play with her new toys, we got one step closer to completing the job. Tonight Lisa will stop by the Home Depot and pick up some adhesive and a trowel, as we’ve decided to use the adhesive in addition to the “self-stick” backing on the new tiles. But we’ll pass on doing any of the work tonight. We’re a bit stiff and sore from yesterday’s labor.

Tonight she wants to organize her work area in the garage (as she feels it’s gotten out of control) and I’m going to sit down and try to get some more assembling done on Michelle’s blanket, get a few rows knit on our blanket, a few on little Brandon’s blanket, and a few on the new baby’s blanket.

We’re going to look for some sort of vertical style wall border to put between the entryway and the livingroom because I don’t want the green in the living room, nor do I want the blue in the entry way. This should be interesting.