About Flippin' Time

Yeah Yeah Yeah, I know I have been going to post something for months. Hopefully, you are able to go outside now instead of hitting the refresh button on your web browser hoping the website is updated.

A couple updates, we painted the house.


Actually we paid some guys to paint it and then they did it. I picked the color, so blame me. The house was previously beige, tan or something like that. I wanted something to pop out in the neighborhood. So, there it is.

As you can see we had our first snowfall of the season yesterday, a nice light coating to allow us to slip and fall. You can bet your lucky stars, that'll happen.

Wedding/trip pictures

As I had promised two weeks ago, here are the pictures.

We started out trip going to see Gettysburg National Park. I had taken a recent interest after reading the book The Last Full Measure: The Life and Death of the First Minnesota Volunteers.

We bought a CD audio tour of the battlefield and it was quite interesting. It took us all over the three day battle field and talked about what happened where. I won't spoil how the war ended in case you go there.

The next day when most of the family was in town we joined them in Washington DC to look at things, such as the memorials and the nifty things such as children scaring pigeons.

On the left you see a couple of Kathy's at the the Lincoln Memorial.



The wedding was so much fun, did you have fun Karen?

Summer time and wasting time is easy

Well, we finally did it. We held a party for the upstairs and to celebrate how smart Kathy can be. Last week we had invited several thousand people through out the country and several of them stopped by to eat food we were giving away.

It was nice and all, don't get me wrong. I could sat outside all night with everyone. My folks stopped in for the party, which was great to see.



Our garden was just about to pop with lovely colors from the lilies. The popped of course the next day. They summer has been so darn dry that we were not sure how everything would come out. But luckily we have running water and hoses and stuff, so we can water them on our own.

Kathy is starting to flip out I think because she is finally done with school and the final project and now she has all this free time. Well, I think she is starting to get the idea and is warming up to it.

We are starting to get the rest of the garden into shape. We are using the bricks from the chimney we tore out and are putting them around the flower gardens.

See that the roses are doing fine, expect they keep messing up the bricks. They were perfectly level, just a second before I took the picture and as I click the button, the rose on the right quickly jumped and messed the bricks up. Darn roses, so many problems.

Ode to sprinklers

I am going through sprinklers at a rapid pace.


Not that this needs to concern you, but be warned. If you are coming over to see the house. The likeihood that the lawn will be yellow/brown is increasing with each passing hour it receives no water.

My old reliable yellow has stopped moving.

Kaput.

See ya. It last watered one continous one time too many.

So, this evening I went with the hose hole option.

No luck.

Now, I am searching for the new ones we got a couple of weeks ago. They are certainly lost somewhere.

Hmmm. Not so much as exciting as most things.

Songs going through my head.

Been away, I know - no excuses - just have been here and there.

Good grief, I have songs that have been stuck in my head for days now. Not that I mind. But when I am working, people come by as I am trying to work them out and ask me a lot of questions. So, I am unable to listen to my Zune and enjoy them as much as I wish. The Shins are really under my skin lately....

Kathy is smart

Well, you actually probably already knew that. But now we have proof. Kathy walked across stage to much applause and music. All that hard work for a nice picture and fun headaches. Kathy has pledged her newly found free time will be spent carefully reorganizing shelves, drawers, file folders, mulch, bird eggs, velcro straps, and much more most likely volunteer work, other things besides singing.

We will be celebrating soon and hopefully you were invited. If not, well, nothing personal, but I sent it out- so not that things went perfectly, but let us know as it most likely a email issue. Yes, I blame email for things. Those evil doers.....


Remodel.

We have added some nicities latetly. We finally finished putting some tile baseboard in the kitchen. It was surprisingly nice to do. We ran into a couple of problems with some gaps in the floor that we did not anticipate. We added a piece on the bottom to help with those gaps.

All in all it went well. Our next projects involve the outside of the house mostly the flowers need to get set-up, though it has been a banner year for the pernials. I will get some of that up this weekend on the blog.

Compare and Contrast

I tried to make a decent comparison from prior to contruction to post. Some of the problem is walls and closets are now where once hallways once appeared.

So, for then and now is not what I hoped, but then again at least someone is reading this, so that is something. Thanks for making this something. Now send candy.


Videos ? Yes later this week maybe. I have paper to write for crying outloud!

This is from the top of the stairs











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I wish you well.

Living upstairs!

Saturday marked our first night in the new upstairs. We were able to get the bed together and moved upstairs.

We are starting to load up the closets and such, which is actually easier since Kathy has labeled every shelf as to where things will go. We did discuss it so you can imagine how much fun that was for me. All went well actually because of it so I need to stop making fun of it. Some day.


I took the first shower and it was very wet. I also discovered we should probable put up some window treatments so the neighbors are not getting a free show.

The bathroom update is the we have knobs on the cabinets , we have put up a mirror over the vanity. We have ordered the other mirror on the other side.

We also finally moved up the couch. When I say we I mean the dymanic duo of Karyn and Jeff, Kathy's sister and brother-in-law. They stopped by to deliver a tv they didn't need and check in on the progress. I had started moving the couch upstairs by hauling those tough to carry cushions upstairs. I was sure the couch itself would be very easy. They volunteered to help and after much careful manuvering up it went. Hooray!

We have decided to take a little break on changes such as touching up the paint, etc. for a couple of weeks. We are just plumb-tired at this point.

We will still move items upstairs and I will get some other updates in the next week here.

Snow and more

Greetings all faithful readers. This week besides the remodel, we feature snow and its friend wind. Welcome back to Minnesota - please go away, now. It was nice while it lasted this past week, but after 26 inches of snow this last week, we would rather you stop.

To see details, I urge you click on the picture.

See the fine highlights in our yard. This is the shot of our backyard. We were able, with the help of neighbors, to get at least one path to the garage.






The house behind us has three cars. See if you can find all three in this picture.

It is not easy, is it?

I agree. Anyway, with all the traveling we have been doing and the rest of our hectic days, it looks like we can start moving upstairs!
This is the new railing that has appeared. We did pick out the details, but when you are gone a week, it kind of feels like things are appearing.


We have started adding the shelving and some of the knobs to the doors, etc. Most of the shelves will be up this weekend and we hope to encourage you to come over and help us move furniture. It is even more fun than you think. Really. So go ahead and call us.
Also you can see the tile baseboard is up all around the bathroom floor. It is the same tiles that were broken up for the bathroom floor.


Maybe next week we can have the final pictures of the project with all of our furniture in place. The dramatic before and after picture comparisons should be interesting.

C'mon feel the Noize..

That's right! We are rocking and rolling like superstars in Hopkins, MN. Nobody rocks like James and Kathy!

Saturday, Kathy is back in town and we are living on the edge by studying for our Data Analysis/ Decision Making classes. For those who are about to rock, we salute you.

Now, more pictures of the remodel.



This week had the marriage of countertop to the cabinet and which included the faucet to the sink as the guest of honor.

We are still trying to decide what to do about the cabinet knobs. We are not really sure what ones should have them and which will not. Boy, thank goodness for easy worries like that.

The countertops are the color of "Summer Sandstone" not to be confused Suzanne Summers.

We have picked up our closet organization stuff and should have that in this weekend or maybe next weekend. The project is expected to wrap up this week coming up. Final trim work, handrails, tile trim work on the floor are expected to be installed.


I believe we are in charge of the mirrors for the bathroom, which we have one already ready to go. Maybe next weekend we move upstairs. Or we become disappointed.

Light show begins

The project progress has returned just as we returned from the loss of Kathy's dad. It was nice to see all the families that came in support.




Thank you for all the kindness during this time.


The first big developments came on Monday when the electricians came installed the lights.

You can see the globes that will be hovering over the bed. Not actually hovering, as much as they are pendant lights. Through the miracles of modern technology we now have seperate lights with switches over each of our beds.

The rest of lights are including the fan over the future location of the bed.
One of most nifty things is it is fancy and with luck it might pass the inspectors glare of being a half inch too low. Hopefully, they know it will be over the bed and not in a pathway. Kathy is planning on making brownies to appease those decision makers.







This is the sitting room stuff with lights! Oh boy!



Next development is today the cabinets are installed. We have been fairly impressed with the look of the cabinets. You can also see the shower door was installed. Hooray! No more spray the water on the floor.

Well, that is about it for this update. I wish you all well.

Finer Points...

The wrap up continues.

The slow neverending death of the project drags into end of January. This is where we thought it would finish at - so in that aspect we are fairly happy.

This week the floors were finished. We are very happy with the look. You can see the trim around the floors and windows. Most of the trim is done except in the bathroom where we are waiting for the cabinets to arrive "next week".




The doors are in for the closets and the hide away "pocket" door in the bathroom are installed. The handles are not installed but the doors look nice. We are going with a natural wood look instead of a stain to lighten up the upstairs. With the previous dark paneling (see previous pages) anything wood lighten up the upstairs....

The windows are in as well as the outside door to the balcony. They are very nice. We will be able to open them and enjoy the spring, summer and fall wind to draw fresh air to our upstairs.

Hopefully no wild animals.

We will wait until the rest of the work is done to finishing painting the sitting area. There is a bit of touch-up that is needed due to some painting mistakes and bumps and brusies from putting in the windows.


The bathroom is now almost functional - plumbingwise.

The toilet is in and the shower head and handles are in (the water flows nicely...) The door is ordered and will be in soon.

Besides the bathroom cabinets, the rest is the details (finer points) of the project, the lighting, the outlets, switches, fans, etc.

Oh, we need railings around the stairs because that is what the law of Hopkins declares.

Maybe next week you will see interesting things like lights and us moving up stairs. Not likely, but when we do you can see the new furniture...

We have windows, and floors too

The end is near. Well, not that end - but the other end, the end of this project.
Or so we think...

Anyway, this week all the windows were installed. They look good (I don't have pictures so trust me... They are windows) The trim should be done this week.

Next is finishing the floors.

You can see the wood in the bedroom area.

The wood is birch, which should add to the warm feeling in the upstairs. The floor wood is added in the closets. The entry in the upstairs and the sitting area should be completed early this week, while all the millwork should also be completed.

Painting because we care

The project has begun to wrap up.

We are have spent the last few days or so priming the walls and and putting up the initial paint on the walls. Some of the decisions to wait for the full coats will be because it really sounded like a good idea to stop painting due to "the high level of sick of looking at paint buckets" factor.

The priming was helped by Karyn on Christmas day before the cookie decorating began.


We decided to paint the bathroom some sort of blue-lighter than normal blue but not green. The blueness goes out into the sitting room area. The top half of the sitting area will have a metallice blue color, which is pretty cool looking. That will go up after the windows and trim are in so we can figure out how it will look, etc.


You click on any of these to see the details..




The bedroom is going to be light gray, which is actually looking nice. The hallway will be sort of "dirty terracotta" what ever that means - weird orange? I don't know we actually haven't bought the paint yet.

Other updates, the windows are still not in but the new guess it will be the week of the 8th. We are now going with new floors in the bedroom area.