Ev"s New (to hime) House

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Some more work done...

Alot of work got done this Holiday week, thanks to alot of help from Papa McLane and Uncle Roger. Here's some before and after pictures...

Some more pictures from Christmas Week 2006

Monday, December 25, 2006

Uncle Jeff vs. the kids

Glad somebody besides Uncle Wooly can take the brunt of the punishment this year...

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Linoleum is down....

Its a late night but the linoleum is in, just in time for the arrival of our Christmas guests. They'll probably walk into the house tomorrow night (technically tonite, I guess) and be hit with the wonderful Christmas aroma of..... vinyl sheeting glue.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Filling in the cracks...

Once this dries we'll be able to sand it smooth...

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Still working on the house...

unfortunately upon arriving home from Hawaii, the house hadnt magically fixed itself so this weekend I was back at it full swing.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Finally some more Hawaii photos...

Taken me long enough to get these posted...

Monday, December 11, 2006

Finally another post...

Good to be back home again. Hawaii is a great place to visit. Hopefully over the next couple of days I'll get some more photo sets online. Here are some pictures from the trail on Kauai that we hiked...

Monday, December 04, 2006

Second try...

I made a couple attempts last night to post but didnt have much success for whatever reason. Looks like its going to work tonite.

This is the beach area right in front of the hotel....




One of the many big strange tropical trees...

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Morning view...

Aloha!

After a 24 hour day, we are here, at the top of Honolulu the top floor of the Sheraton Waikiki, no. 31, city side view. As you can see my hand is not to steady tonite....

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

The Cousins

Emma gets a kick out her cousin Emmett.

Monday, November 27, 2006

The Kitchen Floor

One drawback of the house upon moving in was the poor layout of the kitchen, virtually no wall space with SIX doorways entering it. So with the help of Charlie and Papa McLane we decided to take out the wall below and merge the pantry and bathroom into the kitchen space.


Some demolition took place...


We ended up with this after the walls, were gone. Notice the wiring now dangling...


Which leads to the project of late, restringing wires, which leaves a floor full of holes....


The old wood floors of the kitchen are well beyond salvaging, so the plan has been to cover it with luann and lay linoleum. I had to cut out around a few holes...


being careful not to cut thru the subflooring below the original tongue and groove boards...


and finally filling in with plywood subflooring and using the good ol' liquid nails to hold it in place.

Friday, November 24, 2006

The boxer

Ev has been training hard in the basement...

Sunday, November 19, 2006

the dark side...

You've seen one side of the basement. But there is also a side that the Jedi have not shown you, a more powerful side, the dark side...

The idea of using this waste line from the upstairs bath as some sort of zip line for kitchen had crossed my mind...


why hadnt the previous owners just run it straight down to the basement, instead of diagonally across the OUTSIDE of the wall? Because of the cyrogenic chamber in the basement is blocking a straight drop, of course...
I managed to detach some the feed pipes to this tank this weekend, though I'm going to have a few more bodies to lower it from the ceiling, whoever is inside weighs an absolute ton.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Somebody has been working....

Somebody has been working like crazy plus watching 2 kids while I'm at the office and then when I get home supper is waiting and after that she's off the the neighbor's house to help out with things while I hang with the boys (I cant multi-task like her). That Nan is something else...

Painting under the stairs....


Painting walls...


and filling cracks and holes with DryLock Plug compound...

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Hanging around...

Ev's having fun just hanging in the basement. Thanks Aunt Abby for picking that up for us at IKEA.


Nan picked up this cubby storage at an auction a couple weeks ago. I should have gotten a before picture, after some Elmer's wood filler and a couple coats of paint its looking pretty good.


Nan put some time in today cleaning and organizing in the basement, which was a job since it had become my catch-all for tools and supplies during this whole house project. Thank you, my dear.


Spent the day wiring in the bathroom. Having light on a switch is way more convenient than pulling a string for it, plus I won't seem quite as crazy when I'm not swatting at a string that I think is a fly buzzing my head while working in there.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Before pictures...

I've loaded up a bunch of prepurchase pictures of Ev's new house....

Monday, November 06, 2006

The new shower...

The whole family is quite happy about having a shower on the main level now. No more trips down to the basement for that.



Now this next image might scare some of you out there, but this basement shower that we've been using for the last month had its fine points, like hot water and.... a camping type setting.... and hot water.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

It's good to have people who take care of you...

It's very nice to have help cleaning up when the going gets dirty.


Sheewww... Dada was dirty...


Cant remember the last time I went pheasant hunting 2 weekends in a row, probably not since the college days, I am getting so spoiled. Again this weekend probably too warm for hunting, pheasants go out and sunbath in this weather. Mark from the office was kind enough to come along with Tipper the Brittany and Mark from Dan's office was the only who got one.


Someone is getting bigger....

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Bathroom is sided...

Finally completed the vinyl siding on the porch to bath conversion. Nice to have that part of it done. Can be a bit overwhelming sometimes to look at the overall project, so staying focused on one thing at a time can help. My first ever attempt at vinyl went well overall, only wasted 2 pieces. Measure twice, cut once are good words to vinyl side by. Try to hit the studs when nailing it in and don't nail too tight, the vinyl expands and contracts with the temperature.

Before...


During...



After...


The cement steps in the before picture will have to stay, but I'm sure Nan can do something creative with flowers & boxes and pots & plants. The boards over the windows in the before picture were from the Stratford tornado year ago.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Arrrr.... he reveals hisself....

Aye, maties, I have beheld this terror with me own eyes... and lived to tell the tale.

You might recall to mind that a fortnight ago, or thereabouts, a mysterious marking appeared on the door of our humble home. Set a shiver down me spine, even then, when I laid eyes on it, but that shiver was a mere nothing compared to what i seen this nite. I should have paid more heed to that mark, but I was hoping in vain that it was not what it was...
"Could not be so." said one.
"Such a thing has not been seen these parts since the dark days." said another.
So I put it from my mind, only to recall it again after the happenings of this night.

I had arrived home from working the docks (or thereabouts) to take my supper, as I usually do and looking forward to what fine vittels the Mrs. might have in store for me. The sun was riding low in the sky and a strong breeze was blowing, a Norwester, not uncommon for this season. Something strange was blowing in that cold wind too, chilled me bones, it did, and made strange shadows with those skeletons of trees in that orange evening light. I should have been wary even then, but I is mostly carefree at heart and most times pay such things no mind, especially when the prospect of food and drink is near at hand. So, as you might guess, I was ill-prepared for what I saw when I opened the door to me very own home. My blood ran cold and I nearly swooned right there in the doorway. I opened my mouth to call out for help, but my voice froze right in my throat and I could only utter a wheezing sort of gasp. Aye, but a scream for help would have done me not a whit of good, nothing but God himself could save me from this terror. But, I guess my gasp was heard by the Good Lord in that instant, cause He gave me enough sense at that moment, perhaps my darkest moment, to pitch myself headlong over the rail. Twas only that fall of shear fear and terror that spared me from being run clean thru by the sword of that.... I can hardly bring myself to name him for fear he might spring from some dark corner nearby... Indeed it was him, the Terror of the High Seas, the Scourge of Stratford... Black Everette, a name that has made even the boldest and bravest of men quake at the mere mention of it for ages gone by. Call me mad, say I have lost my wits, but here is some proof that the terror still sails these seas, watch it if you dare....


***UPDATE: The story continues...***









Monday, October 30, 2006

A windy night...

Nearly got blown away trying to put up a couple more pieces of vinyl siding this evening. Hopefully it lets up for Trick or Treating tomorrow night.

A new look for the blog. Still a little tweaking to do but I think it will be a little easier to navigate the site.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

Another weekend come and gone...

Lots of visitors this weekend.

Uncle Roger, Aunt Deb and Beth came by to see the new place and meet Emmett on Friday night, since they were in the area getting ready for the state cross country meet that Kelly qualified for. Congrats to Kelly, I see in paper today that she came in 7th in class 3A. Other big news from their family was cousin Jill got married, congrats to her.

Grammy, Papa, Amy and Emma, Dan the man, and Mary came on Saturday. A first time for everything, Dan and I started in on putting vinyl siding on Saturday and continued on it again today, after pheasant hunting, of course. Pretty easy to do for the most part, though I'll to a plan an attack for going around the window.

Beautiful day today for roaming the prairies for pheasant, probably too nice, always better hunting when there is a bit of snow on the ground. Saw some but nothing within range, so Nan was able to rest easy about having to cook something "wild".

Here's some pics from family time....

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Bathtime...

I've used a cool new feature from google to create a custom home improvement search engine, check it out in the rightside column...

Emmett is getting a bath... surprise for us at the end.... make sure the volume is turned up.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

From a couple weekends ago...

Thanks, Mary for sending some pics...

Monday, October 23, 2006

Been a couple days...

..since I last posted. Not alot done on the house these past few days, alot going on this past weekend. Tonite I've managed to get alot of the first coat of drywall mud done in the bath after trying to help some neighbors with some wiring for an hour or two.


















The littlest man hasnt stopped growing yet.


Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Way more fun than working on the house...

Somebody other than Mama got to actually feed the littlest man something for the first time tonite, though in a way it still came from Mama.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

The do-over tub...

Finally, tonite, after doing everything twice on that darn tub, we've got real water coming from its own spigot in a normal manner, comestics need to be done before shower can be used, but gosh darn it, I just might have to have myself a good soak tonite.... or not, these days its restfulness before cleanliness. I kind of lost track of evenings put in on the tub, but the redos included the drain, resweating the waterlines closer to the tub wall... undoing those to flip the mixer valve right side up (turning on water was giving you a shower whether you wanted it or not) ... resweating the copper again (plastic supply lines are starting to look real good to me) and finally rotating the guts of the mixer 180 degrees since barely turning the water on got the hot and full open got cold... oh my head... I was ready to pull an Al Pacino on the tub and "Let me introduce you to my little friend!" (Scarface) Enough about the tub, I've wasted enough time on that thing already. I've had some absolutely fabulous help around here lately, here's a pic of a couple of them....

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Putting the company to work...

Finished up on the foam insulation today, a bit more protection from the wind cant hurt.















Had alot of visitors today and I put them to work tearing plaster in the kitchen. Thanks for your help, Jeff, Mary, Dan, Crystal, Gabe, Ma and Pa Beach. They were greatly rewarded with an excellent dinner by Gigi, the selection of pies at dessert was better than Baker's Square too. Didnt feel like doing too much after that feast.