Busy, busy, busy

Sorry for not updating my blog lately. Over the last two and a half weeks, I've worked over 200 hours at work. It's been crazy and exhausting. Fortunately, things will be slowing down soon and I'll be able to get back to some sense of normalcy. My son and I made it down to a pre-season Phillies game last Saturday (where they lost) on my day off. Go Phillies!

Projects that are underway:

Dining room moulding - I've cut all the moulding to the proper lengths the other weekend. There are 96 individual rails and stiles that will form the faux panels. Once I get back to normal life, I plan on jumping back into this and finishing this project.

New projects:

Outside - Preparing a garden for my wife.

Trying to grow grass and kill weeds, particularly thistle. Thistle is a noxious weed in our lawn that is keeping us from walking barefoot out back. I'm declaring war.

Installing an invisible dog fence. I'm going to need a quarter mile of wiring!! yikes. . .

We just started the process of refinancing our mortgage. My new rate is 1% lower than my present rate, which will result in some substantial savings to my pocketbook once done.

Updates soon, I promise. . .

Sickness strikes

The day after my last blog entry, everyone in my house except me got sick. The flu, strep throat, bronchitis. It's been general hospital here so projects have once again taken a back seat. Fortunately, everyone is on the mend. We have a pullout sofa bed in the family room that when someone is sick, the tradition has been to pull out the bed. It's been open since last Tuesday. I'll be glad when it is folded back up.

Our garage door opener died when it tried to open while being iced shut. Apparently snow that was on the cars melted, then refroze when it hit the outside air. Repair parts are on the way.

Vacation - check. Wood trim for dining room - check.

Well, we've solved our vacation problem.  After trying to find a beach vacation on the east coast, we changed our direction and instead have rented a waterfront camp in the Adirondacks for a week this summer.  

The camp is about two and a half hours north of where we used to live.  We spent many weekends in the Adirondacks hiking and camping when we lived in New York.  We are all looking forward to returning to a place that holds a special place in our hearts.

The camp is 8 years old and comes with a canoe, row boat, and a small sailboat.

In other home improvement news, I just received the picture frame moulding for the dining room . . . All 210 feet of it.  The trim work will start in a couple of days.

Getting back to work soon

We've been sluggards round these parts lately and I haven't been doing any projects.  That's about to change however as I special ordered my trim for the dining room project.  It should be in in about a week.

Right now we're entertaining friends from NY who will be here through the weekend.  Hopefully my trim will be in by next weekend, so stop back in a week.

Vacations anyone?

There's been no work going on here at our house lately, hence no blogging.  We just de-decorated the house this past Tuesday and I'm feeling like I need to get back to work.  .  .

I've been trying to figure out the family vacation for this year.  We sorta want to do a beach vacation, but finding the perfect place has been eluding me so far.  I totally get people who go to the same place every year.

Merry Christmas!

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

From my family to yours, may you have a wonderful and blessed Christmas!

Tis' the season

I haven't been blogging recently because I haven't been working on the house and life has been busy. That being said, I thought I'd take a minute to keep things current.

Thanksgiving went extremely well. We wound up having twelve people over between my wife's family and some neighbors. The dining room was back in shape.

The day after Thanksgiving, we went and purchased our Christmas tree and decorated the house. Nothing makes a house feel like a home like Christmas decorations.
The first Monday after Thanksgiving is deer season in Pennsylvania. My nephew went for the first time with my Dad and I to hunt land in central PA. We had a great, albeit cold, time hunting the elusive whitetail. This was the first time in 13 years that I hunted with my dad. Unfortunately, we're eating pasta this year because one of us missed a shot. I won't say who, but my nephew was carrying around an empty shell casing afterwards. . . 

This past Saturday, my wife's entire family traveled three hours west to meet up with extended family from Ohio at a Bed and Breakfast. We exchanged presents, ate a lot, and had a good time catching up. My sister in law gave me a Porter Cable pin nailer to work the moulding in the dining room!

Coming home from this trip, another snowflake shut the roads down. I miss upstate NY.

Color choices and Basement Cleanup

Our paint color consultation on Friday was everything we had hoped it would be. We went from room to room, picking colors and ways to improve each of the spaces. By noon, we had gone through all the rooms on the first and second floor. Starting from scratch like this, the designer was able to pick colors that would flow from room to room. Here's some of our picks, all Sherwin Williams colors:

Ligonier Tan - Family Room / Kitchen / Foyer

Sierra Redwood - Two Kitchen Walls with cabinets

 

Green Sprout - Study

Master Bedroom - Restrained Gold

Friday afternoon we went to pick up the paint for the family room, foyer, and kitchen, seven gallons in all.  The plan is to start painting this coming Friday.

One of the problems with buying new construction is that there is no shelving or defined storage in the basement.   Consequently, we still have a myriad of boxes down there, which makes finding things near impossible.  As I couldn't find some of my painting tools, I figured this would be a good weekend to create some shelving.  I had purchased the supplies earlier this week, which consisted of a couple of sheets of plywood (ripped in half) and some 2 x 4s. By noon, I had 3 shelves twelve feet long and two feet deep.  By two o'clock, we pretty much had all the shelves filled. I still haven't found all of my painting tools, but I did find tools that I had written off as being stolen in the move. 

Harp in the house!

For those of you who know my eldest daughter, you know that she has been saving her money to purchase a harp for several years now. Yesterday we took the plunge and picked up a beautiful Lyon and Healy Troubadour VI harp at the nearest harp store which is an hour or so away.  She starts lessons this Friday and is very excited.

Weekend Washout

The weather did not cooperate this past weekend and I didn't do anything with the deck. Fortunately I was able to catch up on inside work on Friday / Saturday and catch up on a nap on Sunday. I'm hoping that this Friday will be dry so that I can wrap things up on the deck.

We hadn't hung pictures since moving in and we spent a good bit of time on Saturday morning figuring out where most of the artwork was going.  I then spent several hours hanging them.  I still have more to go, but it's nice not having piles of art stacked up.

Good news - The Phillies won the NL East pennant this past weekend!  My condolences to my upstate NY (Mets) friends.