Man, what a mess!

We got home from Orlando, and immediately hit the garage. We have to clear it out to have room to move stuff from the living room into it, so we can clear out the kitchen. Clear? Ok.

Here's the "before" picture of the garage.
And here's the "after".
Here's the victim pile. (The garbage men actually picked up everything, but they didn't like it very much. I think thery were epecting us to give them a 6-pack of a cold beverage as my neighbor does when he has extra garbage to be picked up. You know, the kind of beverage that would not be the best to be drinking while driving or operating heavy equipment, such as a garbage truck.)

3 gallons of Kilz paint, and the garage looks like new. We even put a couple of cabinets out there from the kitchen to give the garage a little more work space. I kind of like that idea.

So, now, on to the kitchen.

Henderson-Sloan Wedding Aftermath...

We're back from the Wedding of all weddings. I exaggerate, but we had a good time. Matt & Elizabeth's new union is so perfect. They even have matching hair, and they have a logo to commemorate their marriage. They had U2 playing in orchestral form during the buildup to the ceremony, and then they had U2's "Sweetest Thing" (one of my favorate U2 songs) when the ceremony was all finished up. They even quoted Led Zeppelin on their program. How cool is that? Also, it was sort of a mini-family reunion.

The photographer, Cameron Ingalls was the best. He had a photo-movie going on the DJ's table during the reception. Awesome photos. Check out his website. The pics from this wedding will be on there soon.

Well we had a good time. Matt & Elizabeth are celebrating in Maui. Have fun kids. We wish you the best and will be praying for your new marriage. We love ya.

More pictures of the shindig....

Henderson-Sloan Wedding

We're in Orlando today for a wedding. My niece, Elizabeth is marrying Matt Sloan. He a great guy. She's a great niece. They'll be a great couple. They'll make great kids. Isn't that great?!? Anyway, it's a evening wedding, very formal. We'll be spending the day getting ready to go. Ironing, bathing (for once), and doing our hair. Getting 10 peoples ready for a formal affair will take us all day. We'll post pics tomorrow of the shindig. Anyway, here's a picture of Elizabeth and Matt from last thanksgiving's family gathering at my brother's (her dad's) house.

One funny story about Elizabeth when she was a little kid. Terrie and I took her to Walt Disney World one time when she was about 4 or 5. It was right about the age when Disney charges for admission. You know, "3 and under are free..." We didn't have enough money for her own ticket, so we were going to try to get her in as a free kid. As long as she didn't say anything, we'd be golden. I know, it's completely wrong, we defrauded Disney of $30, and their stock plummeted because of it, but we didn't have enough money, and we were on a quest for fun. Anyway, back to our cute little story... So we told her "Elizabeth, don't say anything while we buy the tickets, OK? Just don't talk. OK?" She said "OK", and we bought our tix and got in. I'm holding Elizabeth, and we're walking down Main Street looking at all the sights, and starting to achieve our quest for fun, when we got almost all the way down to Cinderella's castle, and she taps me on the shoulder and says "Uncle Pat, can I talk now?" We had forgot to tell her it was OK to talk. It was funny at the time. I guess you had to be there.

Mary The Photog

Our 2nd daughter Mary has shown great interest in nature photography lately. She takes some of the most amazing pictures right in our back yard. The results make our patch of dirt look like a nature sanctuary. Anyway, here's a few examples of her pictures. Click on any of them to see a larger version.

New beds. Happy time (for kids), sad time (for Mom)

With the master bedroom having gone through a complete renovation from a room that 5 girls, and Sean sleep in, back into a master bedroom, we had to do something about the girls' beds. We did have a 3-person bunk bed, and a 2-person day bed. Now, we only have a double bed in there. So, Terrie found and ordered 3 Sleeper Chairs from a furniture website. They are basically a big foam chair that lays out into a bed. Sean, Mattie, and Claire get to use them. Mattie and Claire were sleeping on blow-up camping mattresses. Now they just lay out the sleeper chair, and go to bed. No fuss, no muss. For Sean, he was sleeping on his crib mattress, that he has had since he was a baby. So we are throwing out the crib mattress. This ia a major milestone in our family. Why? Because it will be the first time we have not had a piece of furniture in the house having to do with babies or young children, since Michael was born in 1988. That's almost 20 years. Sean's 6 now, and has moved to a big guy bed. He loves it, but it makes Mom sad. She misses the babies.

Headboard and Bathroom vanity...

So last night I decide to finish the woodworking on the headboard, and the plan (which I got from the Lowes website...) calls for crown molding to be put on it. To dress it up, and I think to hide some screws and nails holding the thing together. In order to properly cut crown molding, you need a power saw. Not just ANY power saw, but a chop saw. Basically a circular saw on a pivot. I do not own one, so I attempted to cut it with my battery powered Ryobi circular saw. Bad idea. 3 pieces of 8-foot crown molding later, I resorted to look into HOW to cut crown molding without a power saw. Pop up Google, type in "cut crown molding miter box" and viola! There it is. Dig out the miter box, cut the molding. Done. I love the Internet. So handy.

Now the bathroom vanity. I've never put in cabinets before. Looks simple enough. Get it level, screw it to the wall. Done. That was easy. The counter top however was a different story. The granite counter/sink combo we ordered has the largest and deepest sink known to man for a 24" wide vanity. I had to cut the vanity to make it fit. This made me nervous, because I had to guess how much to cut, and had to keep lifting the granite counter top/sink combo on and off the vanity a bunch of times. Talk about nervous. Granite doesn't like to be dropped. It looks great, feels great, lasts forever. Look at Stone Mountain. Solid granite. Been there forever. But if you drop a slab of granite. It shatters like glass. Anyway, got the vanity cut, and the counter top/sink combo fits quite nicely. Now I just have to hook up the faucet and handles, and glue the thing down to the vanity. That's Saturday's job.

So many updates, so little time...

Sorry for not keeping this place up to date, but we've been extremely busy with the house renovations, and Pat's been busy with his job, which believe it or not, has nothing to do with the do-it-yourself-home-repair business. So what have we accomplished since our last posting? THE NEW SIDING! Yes, we in fact, have finished the wrapping of our house with Tyvek and Hardi-Planks. What an experience. Would I want to do it again? In a word...no. The trim is up, now it's ready for painting. Which will happen June 2nd. We're having a good ole barn raising, I mean, house painting party on June 2nd. Call us if you want to help. We could use it.

We installed a new A/C in the back room. It's very cool in there now. The old one just simply wore out.

The master bathroom is completed! Yay! A shower, toilet, counter, everything! Can you imagine a house with 2 toilets? We can now. (pic at the right)

The hall bathroom is 75% complete. We're waiting on the counter top to come in to Lowes. Once that's here, we can pick paint color and get-r-done! All the tile and hard stuff has been completed!

All 3 bedrooms are painted and have new carpet! We did those in a marathon weekend. Clear out all 3 one day. Paint the next day. Carpet the 3rd day. Bring stuff back in the 4th day, and decorate over the next week. I would say they're 95% done. Still a few decorating things to finish. I'm building a headboard for the master bedroom, which I should have that done this week. I've have hung 5 new doors and 2 sets of closet doors. Terrie's painting some of our old furniture to make it newer and better for the newly decorated bedrooms. She has sewed valances, bed skirts, bookshelf curtains, and a whole bunch of other Marth Stweart-like things. She should have her own show! Being in the bedrooms feels like we're in a new home. I can't wait for the rest of the house to feel that way.

Next is clear out the garage so we can move furniture in there so we can clear out the kitchen. We're going to replace the cabinets and tile starting next week. Also put in laminate (wood) flooring throughout the foyer and living room very soon.

Then comes the yard. I'll post on that later.

We're getting there slowly, but surely. Please pray for strength and wisdom in knowing what to do when, and for safety. We're doing a lot of stuff outside of our knowledge and expertise.