Great camera!

The cut in ceilings that I was paiting, now all of my furniture is moved to the middle of the living room. Yesterday I painted the dining room, kitchen and part of the living room.



The right of the photo is the living room wall, the left by the chair and beyond is the dining room. Sadly there is paneling in part of the dining room.


"Mama, it would be easier to find your tools if you organized them by type."
"I cant understand you punk, speak english."
"Nevermind I will do it myself." Since the shop burned down, we have bought only needed tools. We will replace the rest of our tools in Ak. Due to having no shop, and needing the tools constantly we made the school table into our shop table in the house. The benches and chairs function as short scaffolding or additional tool/paint storage area.


Just showing the mess to you. We do clean the house, completely. We make it sparkly and nice! It is pretty well organized, partly because we dont have a lot of stuff and I clean up and organize each room that I finish. Right now the main house is being painted so its a huge mess!


View into the kitchen, and vaulted dining room wall. I painted this whole wall before I ran out of paint, part of the living room was painted and the other part, far right here, was primed yesterday. This is the first part of priming. The wall on that side only is super dark, the rest was white/cream.


Inside the kitchen. You can see the paneling, it isnt pretty but I doubt we will take it down/mud paint-there are a few options with paneling leaving it up or taking it down. The dining room/living room have several windows and high cream colored walls so it helps the darkness. The hall/foyer had to be painted, they were dark in daylight.


This wall in the kitchen had wallpaper. I do not know why someone was possessed to do that to one wall but it was horrible. I peeled what would peel easily, mudded and sanded edges, primed and painted. The cabinets are dark, and if we had/have time we will pull the doors off, take the weird fronts off, paint and put new hardware. A cheap way to lighten up the kitchen. We may have time to do this when Frank gets home.


Kitchen desk shelves, the desk is built in so I taped and painted here, I also painted inside that little wooden plate shelf around 2 walls of the kitchen... bit of a pain!


While Nathalie organized tools and tried to straighten our main house mess, Tad unloaded the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. They clean the kitchen better than some adults! They understand this means reload, wipe down counters, clean stove top, put away any extra counter top items and sweep if needed. I think he is pretty tired in this photo.


Nathalie, still making life easier. It really does, she makes it all set up so I can grab whatever I need. She also discovers things that are not tools, usually things that I set amongst the tools and lost.


The mess, and the primed wall compared to the original color. It will be a cream color when I get to lowes for more paint (friday).


Look at my sunset! If only work time was over... but it wasnt. We worked until 9, read stories and the kids went to bed then I worked on painting, homework (my college) grading their work, sewing and reading until 3 a.m.


Mudded holes from the violins hanging on the wall. We have hooks specifically for violins and guitars, they left huge holes!


I put paper down, I often dont when its just me but the kids were helping. I ran out of tape so they stopped at this point because I cut in the molding and windows. They cannot cut in yet.

'
Putting away cups. If you could look closer you would see boot prints all over the counter tops! Last night Nathalie suggested we eat elsewhere... I did walk all along the counter tops, and stools placed strategically around the kitchen in order to paint the area along the plate shelf.


He is cute isnt he...


This is the laundry room bathroom-we still have a grow light hanging in here. We will take that down/pack it. They are expensive! I took off wall paper from this room, fixed drywall, patched, mudded where needed, sanded, painted and it still look poor. The mud and wallpaper lines still just showed, so I textured it. You cant see the texture, nor can you see mud lines which you could in photos before I textured.


Same bathroom, needs it fixtures and socket covers back on. The previous owners painted the socket/outlet covers and it has been terrible. They are hard to remove and nasty looking so they will all be replaced. This room, and the laundry room next to it, had new tile put in by us last yr. I painted the laundry room also. These rooms along with many others need molding, caulk (bathrooms only) and outlet covers in order to be finished.


Nathalie doing seterra, a free geography download. They do all sorts of maps on here, it isnt their geography per se just a supplement. Nathalie was getting in some extra time trying to beat Tad.


Tad using his free time for DS, he can have 30 min a day though usually doesnt take it. Today he was playing "My French Coach" which I found on ebay for 20$. It is 60$ new! He loves it and learns so much from it, he cannot hear himself with head phones but he has a fine accent. They both sound good speaking French.

Thats all for now, I am off to tile the next bathroom.

Music and math

(Overheard from the living room from my boy who is dancing hip hop next to his math book...with a pencil in hand)
"Last night a DJ saved my life, singin' ahh ahh ahh ahh stayin' alive! 7 times 120 is 700 plus 14 with a zero so 140 which is 840 saying ahh ahh ahh ahh -insert Italian rap- stayin' alive." He has an mp3 playing techno next to him while he works. His math gets done twice as fast. He is doing fractions.
(Heard later while he is playing Legos) "3x6 is 18 6x6 is 36, two 18s makes 36 so 18/6 is 3 and 36/6 is 6..." he continues. It all sounds like freestyle, or rap I guess. We dont listen to rap, never have but he does freestyle on his own. Anything music is appealing to him. It is amazing to me that I can ask him, what is 6x6 and he will stare at me. However if I write it into a "song" or he does, he knows the answer. Somehow it sets things to order in his brain. He asked for me to buy several Italian techno songs which I did, and he learned them! He learned the German, Italian and Chinese lessons on a disc that came with their French program. The CD was an example of the other languages they offer. Anything put to a beat in his brain is learned, I wonder if he will always have to rap his multiplication tables? Will he have to dance while teaching his children or can he stand still? I am not sure...

Legos

Nathalie got new Legos in the mail. They are from daddy and me, but I think if you ask her they are from daddy. Tad got an electric guitar and amp, both for playing 1 yr + (and playing well) and for being a huge help this year. Nathalie chose Legos. She spent much time with a catalogue going over her choices, and we have some sort of village here.

And the boat, fisherman, and fisherman's son. There is another set too, it is in progress. Both kids love Legos and spend many hours building.

I snapped this with my new camera, not on purpose. I mean I did push the button on purpose but just to see what it would do. This is what I got, he is such a big person now! He will be bigger than me very soon. He is learning to beat box, something I would have minded a few years ago. He has an ability to copy any sound that he hears, sounds that are not really human. He can make the sounds that keyboards make, he does thunderstorm sounds, light saber noises, alien voices, the sounds of battle and now, beat box. I believe it was at my suggestion, really joking but partially serious. I do not mind how it sounds and it appeals to his musical mind. Nathalie is the puzzler for sure, she was overheard telling him multiple times that he was putting the wrong pieces in the wrong spots for the Lego build. She doesnt need directions for building or for puzzles, she can solve any puzzle and tie/untie any knot. Skills that I do not have... I can, however, beat box!

Cutting in

I think someone else should come and clean the fan. It is wicked dusty. Eric loaned his ladder to me, not to kill me (when I fall off) but because I needed to cut in. He wouldnt want to kill me despite my mean jokes towards him Sunday night. They were funny jokes, I mean I am funny.

The kids were using the new camera, they took about 75 photos between the two of them. All of their mama standing a million feet in the air, at 9 p.m. cutting in the vaulted ceiling. I mean didnt they have ANYTHING better to do? No mama our lego sets are nearly all built and daddy said he wanted some pictures of you. If we take a bunch now we dont have to pay any attention later.

So here you go baby, these are all the pictures you are going to get. The ceiling is cut in all the way around the dining room and kitchen, and the kitchen is mostly painted! One more job off the list.

A game of spies

"Tristin, you are not well camouflaged."
"But I am in a tree."


"Mama, Justina, can you see him?"


"We sure can punk. His shirt is orange."


"Awww man, we are gonna lose Tristin."


"Hey Tad, I have a good idea. I think it will work."
"I am sure it will. We will talk about it outside."


"Um, with the two of you things are not usually good ideas. You guys dont even make half a boy when you are together. What are you scheming?"


"Huh? Us? Nothing! Just playin' a game! Havin' fun. We are not doing anything wrong."
"Yeah mama."


"I did what? Broke my collar bone because I wasnt thinkin'? Huh uh... I mean, that was last year!"

I miss you

I open up my eyes I miss you
Everytime I fall asleep I miss you
I wanna scream and shout I miss you
Every day It's all about how i miss you
Everytime I close my eyes I miss you
Every day I'm walking the streets to be near you
When I drop my beat I feel you
How can I help you start to know how I miss you

-Lifted, Uriah Shelton and Dash Mihok

Remodeling

The first of (hopefully) many installments of remodeling photos. I have been without a good camera for a lot of the work I have done so far, the little camera that I was using for landscaping photos sort of quit on me. So, this is the kids bathroom, or hall bathroom. This is the one that Eric and the kids were working on drywall in. I finished all the drywall behind the toilet, around the shower and mudded/sanded and painted this bathroom. I have a few photos of that on a different camera card. Here, I am putting the toilet back down. Eric pulled it up, and set it in the tub. Then I laid morter and hardibacker on the floor, laid tile, grouted around the toilet area imediately (though not all finished tiling) and then put the toilet down. By myself. Okay fine with a phone call to a friend Amanda.


You can see this is where I ran out of morter. The problem with this is that it causes tile shifting sometimes, and the corners are not perfect because of it. People likely wont notice. Laying tile isnt hard, but it can be wearing and is time consuming.


Now it is finished, though I dont have a grout photo yet. The tile has to dry for 12 hrs before you grout. The rubber mallet and scrap of wood is for tapping down each tile after laying. The spacers keep the tile and equal distance apart for grouting. I did get the toilet installed AND it doesnt leak! I was very proud, I have installed toilets before but only when my husband was on site.


Another angle of finished. I am using my new camera and still getting used to it, some of the lighting is different than I meant for it to be, and also I am getting pretty fuzzy photos with the telephoto lens.


Now this is my bathroom-the master bathroom. For some reason the previous owners had a small stand up shower, and boxed in the other half of the tub/shower space with drywall and just wallpapered it. I guess it was cheaper? So we pulled out the shower, Jeremiah (Amanda's husband) and family came up and installed a nice tub for me in the space. He built a small shelf around it because there was space, due to drain issues, and it makes a nice area to tile inside the shower. I will be tiling these walls. The piece of backerboard here is waiting to be put down.


You can see the curve on the floor where the carpet used to come inside the bathroom at just that area. There were several layers of sticky tile on this floor, Tad scraped them up and threw them away. He has now finished since I took up the toilet and the backerboard is partially down for tiling.


I dont know why the ply board was painted in here, but it was. There is a problem in the corner by the tub with the drywall and it will require a patch. Tad did a lot of the work in here, he takes the vents out for me. The vents here are an older style and they take a lot of work to detach frmo their space, and some bad words are used by me. Tad just takes them up now without mentioning it.


Here the toilet is out. I cannot take the toilet up in 1 piece, I take the tank off of the back and then pull up the bowl. My flange is broken here, not sure if I need to take this one out/install a new one or if it is still usable. Eric will tell me tomorrow when he brings his ladder for me to borrow. I need to cut in paint next to vaulted ceilings, and I am simply not 20 ft tall.


The toilet had to go somewhere! The kids bathroom toilet was in their tub as well, now that shower/tub is being used. We bathed in here, or showered in the laundry room shower while the kids bathroom was being worked on. I plan on having mine done in about 3 days so the toilet wont live here long.

I have photos of the laundry room as well, the before, during and after. It still needs baseboards, but the wallpaper was removed, mudding and patching occured, the tile in there and laundry were done by myself and Frank last yr and it looks amazing, the shower we left alone. It is just a stand up shower, but there are 4 bathrooms here and 2 others have tub/showers. I painted the laundry room and bathroom.


For those who have been to my house, you know that paneling was used in excess. The maker of paneling should be shot. Some had come loose in the hall and foyer, and these 2 areas were excessively dark. The dining room has some paneling but not totally and it also has vaulted ceiling, french doors and it is open to kitchen and living room so it isnt so bad. Our bedroom has 1 wall of it which I will fix if I have time, but again there are windows and light walls as well. The hall and foyer were mudded, it takes 4 x and still the lines showed though I thought they were sanded well. This section shown is not yet painted because I had a wooden cabinet there that I had to sell first.


This is now the hall, it used to be like the previous picture without the mud lines! I still have some tape to take off of the door frames but it is a huge difference. Took 1 layer of primer and 3 of paint to make the difference, and it isnt perfect but it is so much better. Dark doesnt sell well, and we want to sell.


Another hall shot-bit fuzzy due to getting used to the camera. There were no baseboards in here, but I couldnt mud/paint all the way to the floor so we will put down baseboards.


This is the foyer, the wall on the left was actually a hideous gold print wallpaper from sometime ago. That was after I peeled 3 layers, the last one wanted to stay so I primed/painted over it. We are going to paint the door red-its on the list.


And here is our half wall when you first walk in, this was also paneling. The wall on the other side is a very dark beige color, this new color is called beige but its more like a cream. I will paint the guitar wall as well, the whole living room, kitchen and dining room will be painted this week in between tiling my bathroom floor and walls, homeschooling, college, making children's wardrobes, running errands to do paperwork (getting ready to cross through canada) and cleaning up from the shop burning down.

We are staying busy and getting closer to the end of this deployment! We are very excited about it... It is hard to be patient but at least I have work to keep me busy.