Eating an Elephant

They say you can eat an elephant, one bite at a time.  Remodeling is a little like that, especially when you LIVE right in the middle of the mess as is happens.  We have finally finished our basement Family Room over the vacation weekend.  Hoooooooraaaay!  And better yet, our carpet guy is coming in a day to do the hallway and stairs that lead to it......it will be like new!

Back in JULY, our dumpster looked like this after we discovered our basement had been flooding over time.  The break of a sprinkler expedited the discovery.  I can't really say that I was sad to say goodbye to the teal carpet........we already had plans for its demise.  The flood brought more rapid results.

Never did get a picture of the room furnished pre-flood.  It was such a race that day to empty things out....but here it is with the wet carpet, and wet drywall behind.
Long day of moving furniture, and all of the carpet is gone.  Great linoleum underneath, original to the 60s.  Later we found out that this linoleum was laced with ASBESTOS.  We had to have it professionally removed.  Good thing they didn't know we removed our popcorn ceilings ourselves????  

Down with moldy wall #1.  We also had to tear out all of the built in shelves that you can kind of see to the left.  : (

It was Labor Day weekend when the new drywall began going up.  It went pretty fast, and we were so excited that the end was near.......till we discovered the other wall was moldy too.

Down goes wall #2 and #3.  Someone brilliant had glued the drywall to the concrete here.  

No wonder it was moldy.

So a few more weeks until the walls were finished.

Sealing the mold in with paint.

Framing it up for the new drywall.

Up goes the green wall.

A little mud and taping to do.

Blowing on some texture.  Notice the cloud I am in.

I had done a little texturing before, but after this huge room, I am feeling like a pro.

Asbestos guys came and removed the linoleum.  The black floor is the remainder of the mastic adhesive that dyed the concrete.

Walls and ceiling painted.

All ready for tile.  But this pile is HUGE!!!

Tiling for a few days.  Sometimes there has to be a teacher inservice day!

All tiled, ready for grout.

Trimming everything---walls and windows.

And finally, this past weekend, we moved the furniture back in.

We chose out an area rug that is coming home this week.  Hopefully tile will be a good choice in case of future flooding!

Now we need to warm it up with some books back on the shelves, pictures on the walls, and kids rolling around on the floor!

For Grandma and Grandpa

9 months old

If babies could talk, what would they say?  Well, Miriam is definitely talking with this smile and saying something to the effect of-- "Look what I found!  No one told me there were crayons and paper in here!"

No one can stop me!

Give me that camera!

Family Night Pizza

One of our favorite activities is making pizza.  So since MOM was in charge of the activity tonight for Family Home Evening---we had a pizza making party.  That is me in the chair with the pointy nose, overlooking the process!

Amazing how you can have so many totally different looking pizzas when everyone had the same ingredients to work with!

Public Art

I had such fun today!  For three years, I have been on a committee to select artists, and ultimately artwork for our town--$600,000 worth.  It has been amazing!  The first phase is done.  

We had the dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony today, of which I was in charge of.   Nick and Jean gave a 30 minute presentation about the forging process.  It was amazing---18 months to create these pieces.  The Mayor spoke, DOC rep, WSAC rep, etc.  I am so glad that it went well, and so glad it is over.  But mixed feelings about that too.  For the past three weeks, during installation especially, I have made some new friends.  And we won't be seeing so much of each other anymore.

Artists, Nick Lyle and Jean Whitesavage, completed 6 sculptures along a walking/bike path in our town.  They are of local wild flowers, potato blossom, and wheat.  The work is entitled, "Prairie Flowers, Potato, and Wheat."  I live along the bike path, and so my home was their home for the 10 days or so that they poured footings and installed the pieces.  There aren't any port-a-potties along the trail!  We even were able to have them for dinner, and they are wonderful!

Their works are of hand forged steel.  They are amazing.  Nick and Jean live on Whidbey Island.  They are nationally known artists.  Quite renown--you should google them!  And now we have some of their work here.  We are so lucky.  This is part of the Washington State Art Collection, Art in Public Places.  It contains over 4500 pieces of art.  Whenever a state/government building is built---1/2 of 1% of the building costs is used for public art.  So $600,000 is that little slice of what it cost for our local prison expansion.  Amazing......

Jean and Nick holding the ribbon while the Mayor gives it a snip.

Crowd is behind me.

We had a "walking tour" along the path with the artists for the public.  Here is me getting a shot with Nick, Jean, the Mayor, and Rhonda.  

I have to get my picture with famous people sometime!

This sculpture is "Blazing Star."

"Yellow Bells"

The tour had ended at this point, and we are just hating to leave.

 Alice Taylor, of the WSAC, on the left.  She is such a great person.  These are three people I have loved getting to know over the past three years.  Hopefully they will come back to visit!

It was a little sad to say goodbye, but the festivities went wonderfully! 

And this is what I came home to............

A sleeping dad and his little girls!

Cub Scout Service Project

We had a cub scout service project this morning, after posting our Veterans Day Flags.  Everyone met at our house this morning at 7:00 am to put flags around town.  We had cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate, and then headed out to rake leaves.  We raked a lot of leaves, and had a lot of fun.  I think that it surprised the boys on how much fun a service project can be.  Matthew is in the pack, and I am the cubmaster.  We have a really fun group!

Coupons

I tried my luck with the double coupons yesterday.  First time couponer.  I figured I needed to start putting to use all of the extra 5 ad packs that we get each Sunday for Matthew's paper route.  There was also a General Mills promotion of spend $30, get $15 instant coupon back.  I was pretty proud of myself.  I did 6 transactions of $30 to keep rolling the 15 back.  Fortunately, the Albertsons I went to wasn't crowded at the time, and the cashier lady was very nice to me.  I only spent $68.  It was pretty fun!  : )  Good thing I have a huge food storage room!

Happy Birthday!

Six years ago, an overdue mommy headed to the hospital in the middle of the night to bring home this bundle of joy!  And oh what joy he has brought to us!  His constant singing, chatting, running, jumping, and playing.  Life wouldn't be the same without him.

Dad surprised him with a new John Deere hat for his birthday this morning, and his own bag of marshmallow cereal (which mom never buys!) to have for birthday breakfast!

Pumpkin Patch

We went to the pumpkin patch this week with Matthew's class.  WAVA has family outings every week or so.  This week was pumpkin patch.  We had a great time, met some fun friends.  Matthew got to meet his teacher, Mr. Terry.  He also met some other fourth grade boys.  They especially loved the corn maze!

Here is Matthew sitting by his teacher, Mr. Terry.  He was excited to meet him in person!