Painting, Hanging, Digging and Thieving

I'm blown away by how fast the last couple of weeks got away.

And if I think about it too much it'll discourage me.
So, moving right along...

Most of what we've done since I last posted has been

taking care of lots of smaller details.

Combined, all those little details have been time consuming.

I'll just cover our more significant accomplishments.

Matt O finished sanding our sheet rock on Tuesday, the 10th.
He cleaned up, packed up, said "Thanks", "I'll email you an invoice." and "Goodbye"
and headed off into the sunset.
But I have to tell you a funny story.
Jeff, Matt's brother, came a few times to help Matt out.
One morning Jeff brought along a white bakery bag with a couple
of doughnuts from Lee's in it for his breakfast.
He set the bag in the window of our master bedroom.
When he decided it was time for breakfast,
he went to go have himself a doughnut,
but the bag was gone.
Looking around, he just happened to get a glimpse out the window
and there, on the back lawn, saw his white bakery bag next to Ally
who was just finishing up doughnut number two.
Hahahahahaha!
Jeff was very good humored about it and laughed when he told me what she'd done.
But the next time he showed up with a white bakery bag,
he was careful to put it in the sill of the transom window in
our bedroom that sits six feet off the floor.

Not long after stealing Jeff's doughnuts
she stole a piece of pizza from our picnic table when we weren't looking
and
a muffin I'd started eating for breakfast one morning, but had put down
to go do something else.
This lovable mug doesn't look like a thief, does she.
So, what's her deal lately?
She doesn't like her new dog food.

I reported in the last post that we'd painted the garage
"Gil-Bob Gray" and "Grease Monkey".

Well, as we were merrily painting along, each of us lost in our own thoughts,

Mr says to me, 

"What if we added a wainscot of another color?"

I thought that was a great idea and asked him what color.

Red

I knew he'd say red.

He's always liked red.

I picked up some Valspar color samples at Lowe's.

We do the majority of our miscellaneous supply shopping at Home Depot 

even though Lowe's is closer, but I just happened to be at Lowe's that day.

We do not like Valspar paint at all.

From those samples, he chose "Fabulous Red".
The next time I was at Home Depot
I had them color match it and mix up a gallon in their Behr semigloss.
And I've renamed it, of course, since I renamed the others.
I'm calling it "Rev It Red".
And ya know how one thing leads to another?
Yeah, ya do.
I suggested putting a black stripe on top of the red
and we changed the trim color to black too.
The black paint is Pratt and Lambert's "Black",
(yeah, I know...real original, huh)
but we're calling it
"Smudge".

We also painted the garage floor while we were at it...

The prep work  actually took us longer than painting it did.

And Dean got all the lights hung in the garage.

There are 12 four bulb fixtures mounted on the ceiling.
It's bright!
When all those lights are on it reminds me of an operating room.
It'll be perfect for when he's working on automotive projects.

All the doors in the basement are hung...

And the last two things I'll mention are:
We built the front porch using Fiberon decking.
Fiberon is a little pricier than Trex, but I liked the looks of it much better.
I'll post a photo of the front porch next time,
when the railing will be complete.
We couldn't finish it because one of our components
was damaged and needs replacing and
the balusters are back-ordered.
Last, we dug a 40' trench to bury a 3" pvc conduit for our
secondary water line that will feed the sprinkler lines up at
the top of our property.
We had to get that in before the truck-load
of gravel we're having delivered tomorrow.

That's it for tonight.
I know it's been 2 weeks
and this short post doesn't sound like
a lot has gotten done,
but trust me...
we've kept very busy.

Thanks, as always, for stoppin' by.
Good night and God bless.

Why We Love Fruitland Drive

I've been mulling over doing this series of posts for a while.

Now is as good a time as any to start, I suppose.

So, here goes with post number one...

Fresh Cut Hay

right across the road from

Our Retro Bungalow.

It's a simple, down home sight to behold.

And it smells good too.

I do love it, indeed.

Gil-Bob Gray and Grease Monkey

Matt O is just about finished with taping, mudding and sanding our sheetrock.

Our bungalow job has required more time and has been more

labor intensive than the usual home its size.

That's because I requested smooth finish ceilings as opposed to textured.

It's one extravagance I was adamant about.

It's been great to have Matt around and because summer break has begun

his boys, Gage and Gavin, have been around too.

Gage just finished 3rd grade and Gavin just finished 7th.

I love having their bicycles in our driveway while they visit their dad, swing on the rope swing 

that hangs from our walnut tree, enjoy an ice cream bar from our freezer or play ball with Al. 

They are a bit on the reserved side, but we've have some pleasant conversations

about dogs and chickens and school and swim team.

Matt grew up just down the street from Our Retro Bungalow and his family

knew the Chadwicks very well.

When Gage and Gavin get back on their bicycles after visiting here for a while,

they head south on Fruitland Drive about half a mile 

to visit their Grandma and Grandpa O.

I was pleased as punch to find Matt, his lovely wife Jessica and their boys

having a picnic lunch together in our garage one day.

I just love that.

As I think back on what got done this past week

it doesn't seem like a lot compared to some of our previous weeks.

Things have taken a different pace;

we're still busy as bees, but the intensity has eased up.

Dean got the framing done for the stone pillars on our front porch.

And I painfully accepted the reality that composite decking is the wise way to go.

I really, really, really want a real wood front porch, but Mr Mossi reminds me that 

even though we think we'll never actually grow old, we will.

It's just plain hard for me to embrace the 'maintenance free' program, 

but I did some shopping and research and finally sucked it up and

decided on a product.

AaaannnnnD...

we painted the garage.

The garage?

Yep.

Why?

Because when we move in we don't want to backtrack and have

to move everything out to paint and finish it. 

We've had some interesting comments about painting our garage,

but we painted the garages of our three previous homes.

Yes, we did.

I chose Pratt and Lambert's

"Genteel Gray" 

for the walls,

but it shall henceforth be referred to as 

"Gil-Bob Gray"

 in the bungalow garage.

Gray is the hottest color trend right now in homes,

but that is absolutely not why I chose 

"Gil-Bob Gray".

I don't buy into trends very easily and I don't care for gray at all.

I chose gray for practical purposes.

You see, my husband 

(Gilbert is his first name and that's a big secret so don't tell a soul)

and our son-in-law Robert 

(you know him as Tannon but his first name is Robert)

are gear-heads and always workin' on some kind of automotive project together.

(when we're not up to our eyeballs in house building, that is)

Gray will allow the colors of  the smudges of automotive work to blend in naturally.

I thought it was a genius idea.

The trim work in the garage will be painted

Pratt and Lambert's 

"Steel Wool",

which is a darker shade of 

"Gil-Bob Gray",

but the trim paint shade shall henceforth be referred to as

"Grease Monkey".

You get the idea.

We are very appreciative that Matt's scaffolding was conveniently here
and we took advantage of that what with our garage ceiling being 12' high
and hauling the ladders back and forth and climbing up and down and up and down
those ladders would have been a huge pain.
Have I mentioned I'm a bit acrophobic?
True story.
 And then there's our dog-child...

who brought me ball after ball after ball while I was up
on the scaffold just to remind me
 how neglected she's been as of late.

Dean also started getting all the outlets and switches in the garage
installed and covered.

Other than the excitement that the deep-green tops of the potatoes I planted have
made their appearance in the garden,
I have my very first zucchini blossom, a few tiny tomato blossoms
AND
A BABY PUMPKIN 
 (YAY for pumpkins!)
in the garden,
that's all the news from
Our Retro Bungalow
for last week.

Thanks, as always, for stoppin' by.
We sure appreciate the support from y'all.
Good night and God Bless.

All About Decks (well, mostly)

We are still busy, but aren't feeling the pressure we did

in previous weeks and that's a wonderful relief.

The first thing we did this past week was move the trailer.

I can say with confidence that this will be the LAST time we 

move the trailer while it is our actual abode. 

We had to move it to make room for building the back deck.

On Monday Inspector Craig showed up to inspect the drywall nailing, 

deck flashing and deck joists.

Matt O showed up Tuesday to put up all the corner bead on the sheetrock...

The next day he started taping and mudding...

The rest of the week I worked like the dickens to finish all my schoolwork, 

get it submitted, take one last test and now I'm DONE! 

WAH-HOOOOO! 

Only thing is, I'm pretty sure that I'm no longer interested in 

employment based on my course work. 

Now I'm thinking I'd like to work for a contractor. 

Yep. 

We'll see. 

But until we get moved into the house, there's no time to think about going to work.

I also did yard work and helped Dean here and there with building the decks.

The front deck is framed and flashed...

And the back deck is...

DONE!

(except for sanding, priming and painting, steps and railing that is)

And ya know what?

We used all the floor joists from the original house for the deck joists and 

the redwood decking from the original decks!

YES, we DID.

We saved everything that was good enough to keep and reuse when we 

tore the old decks apart. Saved us a nice chunk of change and it makes us 

feel pretty good about not wasting the natural value of the trees that all 

that lumber came from.

Not that we're like tree huggers or hippies or anything.

And not that there's anything wrong with huggin' trees or bein' a hippie.

Thanks for stoppin' in again.

Sure do appreciate y'all.

Good Night and God Bless.