I know what I want to be when I grow up....

Anything BUT a door installer.... omg..it's terrible..you sweat and get your fingers smashed and the doors don't fit and then they do fit and then it's hot and stuffy and the attic fan makes a weird noise and then it's still hot and on and on and on and on....

But lets go back to Friday night.  On our way to the house, we stopped at Two Dudes Barbecue...

 and had this... YUMMY... we will definitely stop here again..

Saturday we got a bit of a late start...9am...But we got three doors installed and then headed to Columbia to get four more...and had a wonderful steak dinner (I had a lobster tail on the side) at Longhorn with NO wait on a Saturday at 6pm which is almost unheard of in Columbia..

And then we drove the four doors home...

And here are almost all of the doors installed...

second bedroom door

master closet door

second bedroom closet door

we used our bed as a work table..

 Apparently I didn't take photos of all the doors...  We did install master bedroom door, master closet #1, master closet #2, bedroom 3 door, bedroom 2 door and bedroom 2 closet.  yes, count again...that's six doors.  The last one we had was for the hall linen closet, but we have decided that the door we bought was a bit too wide for the opening so we brought it home and will return it for the next smaller size...

i swept and shop vac'ed the sun room..

 I also painted two coats on two of the doors...but no photo..

Thought it might be nice to have a gas price ...this is the lowest I have seen it for a while..

and did we pass someone famous?  There were two of these huge racing trucks.  It looked like a nice motor home pulling an equally nice racing trailer.  This one says "Thanks to Linda and my boys Cameron and Trey".  Then there was a duplicate of this following it...  It said "For Sale"..  We don't follow racing..at all...  Is this someone we should have waved to when they sped past us??  Oh..well...it made for conversation..

And we measured for base board and we need 332' ... that's a lot of painting baseboard...and installing baseboard ...

So what kind is this?

We were surprised to see these blooming by the garage when we got to the house on Friday.  There was one vine that was trailing on the ground and I kind of shoved it into the lattice work.  I hope it lives..

Now can you tell me what this is? 

Nancy

Thank You....

How do you thank your family for working 12 hour days?  Two days in a row?  They were amazing..and everyone needs to know that.

So thank you to

Carolyn - for coming and cooking 3 meals for us.  She cooked hot dogs for lunch and pork steaks for dinner on Saturday and then BBQ ham sandwiches for Sunday lunch.  She made GG's German potato salad, Sandra Lee's baked beans and brought all the fixin's for strawberry shortcake...

Don and Donna - Rich's sister and brother-in-law.  They showed up bright and early on Saturday morning with a miter saw and more and worked all day...  He is meticulous and the master bedroom is beautiful.

Barb - Rich's cousin came with her own measuring tape and was teamed up with Rich starting in bedroom 2.  I think they talked "dead people" all day...

Kristin and Brad - Second daughter and son-in-law.  What workers! Brad likes to work on his own. He started in bedroom 3 and before you could turn around he was starting in the living room and working down the hall.  And the other teams were still working in their bedrooms.  He left Saturday with bloody blisters on both knees, but they both came back bright and early Sunday am to keep working..  I can not say enough.  Kristin was on her knees in the kitchen slamming down boards like she did it every day.

Carole and Tom - Rich's other sister and brother-in-law.  They came Sunday to help finish the kitchen and dining room.  Carole brought food and we put Tom to work cutting boards.  The guys would call out the measurements and he would cut and deliver.  He could also do some amazing trim cutting.  He would sit on the floor and using only masking tape (and no ruler) would mark the board, cut it and it would fit perfectly around the vent.  I shake my head at that...

Ava and Owen - Two of my five grandchildren.. They were great!  They fished, swept, hauled out cardboard boxes and plastic, vacuumed, dusted, delivered cut boards and kept busy in the BASR* making a fort...

So now to the photos...

Barb and (part of) Rich in bedroom 2

and all finished with bedroom 2

Kristin and Brad start in bedroom 3

Brad continues on his own

And bedroom 3 done

and he starts down the hall

Barb and Rich almost done with bedroom 2 (yea, out of order sorry!)

Master bedroom closet done

Don working hard in the master bedroom

Don and Donna almost done with the master bedroom

Sorry Kristin...I could NOT leave this out.  She thought I was taking photos, not videos!! lol

Rich and Brad.  Brad thought if he wore overalls and a holey t-shirt that I wouldn't take his picture..Really?

{sigh} what can I say...the kitchen

Kitchen leading to the deck

Dining Room

and all together now {sigh}

The Fort!!

first time EVER cooking pork steaks on the grill...she cooked a grill full three times to feed us all...

Fool proof recipe to share at the end.. yes the grill is close to the house. Much closer than we usually have it. It was raining and the fire was going out.

So thank you...thank you...thank you...thank you...thank you...  We can't say it enough..



Rich and Nancy

*BASR - Big A** Sewing Room

The best BBQ Pork Steak..

3 hours before dinner start grill and let go to coals.   In a large saucepan mix 1/2 vinegar and 1/2 water, salt and pepper.  Dip pork steaks into vinegar/water solution and add to grill.  Turn every 15 minutes and dunk the pork steaks every time you turn them.  Cook 3 hours. Add sauce (we use Sweet Baby Rays) to one side and let grill for an aditional  5 minutes then turn and add sauce to other side and let grill for 5 minutes. Serve.

Since we had so many people, Carolyn grilled them and then put them into a roaster oven with the sauce. Kept the roaster on 200 and they stayed nice and warm in there until dinner.  YUMMY!

just because it's breakfast....

This weekend was Mother's Day and I spent all day Saturday sewing with friends...it was wonderful...Rich spent Saturday at the house priming the sun room and painting the basement and laundry room doors.  Sadly I have no photos... and no excuse.  I had the camera...just forgot..

I do however have photos of the rest of our Sunday work...

The BEST... It makes adding your drawer pulls so much easier...

Tools all laid out...

Two down and only 22 to go...

LOVE THEM!!  And it's so much easier to open those cabinets.  The two bottom drawers on the right need some washers for the handles to fit.. The holes are drilled..so it won't take long...

Around 9 this morning, I asked Rich if he wanted some toast.  We had stopped sewing Saturday for few minutes to head across the street to a farmers market.  I bought some cranberry, walnut, date bread that I thought would be awesome toasted with some cream cheese...  I was told "no, I don't want any toast and you don't either".  Huh? What?  Apparently we were going out to breakfast at 10am with all the kids and grandkids... lol    I had ordered coffee with cream and this little cutie wanted to know what was in the little pitcher...  We told her it was cream and did she want to try it? She was hesitant, so we told her cream is what they use to make ice cream...that's all it took..

She drinks skim milk at home.  She thought this was HEAVEN!! lol

MILK MUSTACHE!!!

This big grankids eating breakfast...

 And just because it's breakfast doesn't mean you have to have eggs or pancakes!!  I got a bacon cheeseburger and onion rings!! lol


After breakfast they all followed us back to the house to see the progress...  And then we got busy...

I painted the trim of one of the front doors..

Rich swept each room ..

dry dusted all the walls...

and vacuumed all the bedrooms...

and the hall and bathrooms...

We are sleeping in the living room again...

Next weekend is the BIG FLOORING EVENT!!!  We will head out to the house on Friday to sweep, dry dust and vacuum the living room, kitchen and dining room and be all ready when our volunteers show up on Saturday morning bright and early. 

Nancy

remembering...

Do you remember this photo? The Beverly Hillbillies back deck, complete with ladder leaning against the house. 

Well...It now looks like this!!

please disregard the trash pile and the big area of sand..both will be fixed sometime this summer.  and did you notice the grass is cut?  Rich used the new lawn mower...and found out that there are a lot of areas that we will still have to use the push mower and then the weed eater...{sigh}  We both hate yard work..  Oh! The upright posts were not painted because we will close in the bottom of the deck and they won't be seen.

this is what was torn off...

The back section was replaced...ladder removed..

The burned out section was replaced...

Then we used Behr Deck Cleaner ...can you believe the before and after section. Amazing...

Then we used Behr Deck Paint.. in Pewter...

all done...and drying...it is supposed to dry for at least 24 hours before you can get it wet...Oops...it rained about 3 hours later...  When we left to come home it was still raining so we won't be able to assess any damage until this weekend..

I added the new tile floor to the entryway...Once the first tile was set it went very quickly...We used a peel and stick from Home Depot.  I think they have changed the sticky stuff sometime in the last 10 years.  I used a peel and stick back then and had trouble later with them popping up..  This sticky was great..in fact I had to use vegetable oil to remove the sticky from my hands...

Rich added the baseboards and the corner trim and it's done...  I searched for a "before" photo but I guess I never took one.  Believe me it was terrible.  It had some kind of burlap glued to the top half of the walls and some paneling painted a blue gray on the bottom...  and there was a storm door on the front instead of a proper front door..and when we looked at the house the first time there was a trash can full of dog food and some kind of handmade bench...and a broom and a mop and dirt...

Kristin brought the grandkids over to see us on Sunday as I was laying the tile.  She confessed that after the family saw the house for the first time after we bought it they collectively thought we were crazy...they couldn't see it...and now she can...