All Talk

All talk I tell you! All of you who volunteered to help paint...I didn't see ANY of you on Saturday! Even Grandpa bailed on us for painting! He said he's not a painter and to let him know when we are back to siding. What? You say those were the voices in my head that volunteered? OK, I guess you guys are off the hook then. Except for Miss Jenn...What has she been talking about since day one on this blog? Painting...fun painting...orange wall painting...this is how our conversation went earlier in the week.

Me: Jenn! Make sure you have a babysitter for the kids this weekend! We're finally painting! I'll see you Saturday morning?

Jenn: Uh...Saturday...hmmm...painting....um....yeah....I have this wedding to go to up north...yeah that's it! A wedding!

Me: But I'm PAINTING!

Jenn: Yeah...wedding...and a ball tournament! Yeah, that too! I'm super busy...way too busy to paint! But I WISH I could be there to help you!

Hmmm...sounds awful fishy to me! :) Really...that was a bit of an exaggeration...and she really did have a ball tournament and a wedding to go to...I guess she'll have to help with the finish paint to redeem herself. And Jenn...try to keep your jaw from hitting the floor...but when are you available to go carpet and paint shopping with me? I think I'm going to put some color at least in the living room right away...very neutral (not orange)...but some color. The rest of the house will have to go room to room as I furnish them.

I had Friday off. So we met with a cabinet guy to talk about pricing and design in the morning. Then we headed out to meet Grandpa at the house. Grandpa and I did the siding on the little section on the south side of the house. Since we didn't have all of our siding parts we could only do sections with outside corners. We ended up doing a pretty good job I think! Dad, Grandpa, and I worked on a bit of the back side of the house at the end of the day to wrap it up. The rest of the siding parts were delivered Friday afternoon. So we're ready to start moving on that again.

We put the siding on hold for the rest of the weekend. It was time to get out the paint rollers! Mom and I spent most of the day Saturday prepping the house for painting. We vacuumed up all the drywall dust and wiped down the walls and ceilings twice. We then set up to put the 40+ gallons of primer on the walls. Dad had a sprayer and Mom and I followed behind with rollers to even out the paint. We wrapped up pretty late, and started again early Sunday morning. We still have the garage to paint tonight. Hopefully it will go smoothly. Once the paint is dry the drywaller can come in to texture the ceilings.

The picture of the living room didn't turn out as well as I would have liked...the lighting was less than desirable...but trust me that it looks great. It's pretty exciting to be painting and siding...but there is still SO much work left to do!

Siding

We started siding this weekend. Unfortunately we don't have all the parts yet so we couldn't do a whole lot. Dad put a few rows on the house so I could see what it would look like though. We are still waiting for the inside corners and J-channel to match the siding color...and a few other things I think.

I put up a picture of the start of the siding. I also included a close up picture to see the color of the siding. The picture doesn't quite do it justice. I really like it a lot and can't wait to see more of it on the house!

I left yesterday (Sunday) morning for North Carolina, so I don't know what else was done this weekend. I did talk to Dad today and he told me he thinks we might be painting this weekend.

What? Did I hear a bunch of people volunteer to help with that job??? You guys are wonderful!

Hopefully we'll have some good pictures of the paint on the wall at the end of this weekend.

Yes I'm a Girl!

I ordered my siding on June 23. I was told that it should be delivered by the end of the week. The factory got backed up and it didn't show up, but I was told it would be there early the first week of July. I was thinking, "Great...then I'll have a 3 day weekend with the 4th of July to put siding up!" It didn't show. I called the store, left messages for my salesman, never received phone calls back. I'm tyring to be friendly because Dad likes this salesman...but my siding is going on 3 weeks late. Finally Wednesday Dad called the store...and holy cow...he was told the siding would be delivered the next day! Happy day!

The delivery day was yesterday. I stopped at the house after work...no siding. I was kind of angry. However, as I sat down to watch my Tigers play at 7:00 I received a phone call from the delivery truck driver who had my siding. This is how the conversation went.

Delivery Guy: Uh, yeah, I'm heading to your house to deliver your siding, but I'm alone. Is there going to be someone there that can help me unload these boxes? They are pretty long.

Tara: No problem, I'll meet you out there.

Delivery Guy: Is anyone else going to be there? I don't know if you can pick these up.

Tara: Nope, just me.

Delivery Guy: I would prefer a man. Is there a man that will be out there?
If you're thinking what I was thinking, yes, he really did say that to me.

Tara: Nope, I'm all you've got...I'm sure we can handle it.

Delivery Guy: Well I guess if I can back up to your garage I can slide them off the truck.

At that point I'm thinking, If he can slide them off the truck by himself the two of us can surely carry them off! I'm also thinking if it's so heavy that we can't pick them up together...he should probably be bringing a truck with a fork truck on it! Whatever, I headed out to meet him at the house.

I wait, and I wait, and as I'm waiting I get this sinking feeling in my stomach. I call the Home Depot store to ask what the delivery address is. Yep, it was the home address. So I told her she needed to call her delivery guy and give him the correct one. She told me she'd "see what she could do"...I was even more perturbed, but started back home to catch the delivery driver at my house.

A much nicer gentleman from the store called my cell and said, "I'm calling the driver right now...we'll get this taken care of." So I turn around and head back to the construction site. Most of the way there the man calls back and says, "I'm really sorry...he dropped it all in your driveway." I told him I had to get 4 cars in that driveway that night, so he better get a truck to come pick it up and deliver it to the correct place. He said he was working on that as we spoke, trying to get a manager to approve it. I told him if he had problems with his manager to let me speak with him...I would convince him of the correct course of action.

The siding did get picked up...and it was delivered to the correct address finally. Putting up siding this weekend? Let's hope so!

Dirt, Dirt, and More Dirt

Nothing real exciting happening at the house this weekend. They started hauling in a bunch of fill dirt, and they will continue this week...so hopefully my lot will soon resemble something other than a swamp.

We have 3 fans running inside to try to dry out the house so the drywallers can come finish their job. I don't know when that will be.

The siding is now 3 weeks late. I'm getting a bit perturbed with the Home Depot...Hopefully I'll get a call today with a firm delivery date. It's getting a bit ridiculous.

Sorry there's not more to report.

Almost Time to Paint

I hope everyone had a festive and enjoyable 4th of July weekend. We worked all weekend, but there isn't a lot of huge progress to see on the things we did. The drywallers were busy though...and we have a lot of new progress to see inside. They started mudding and taping on Friday and Saturday. They are moving along pretty quick.

Dad put in one of my gable vents yesterday. Once he gets them in we'll put two attic fans in them to pull the hot air out of the attic area. It should help keep the house cool. The completed end looks pretty nice.

Saturday evening we had a big fire with some of our scraps. We tried making smores, but the fire was big and hot...and the marshmallows burned if you got them within 2 feet of the fire...they never caught on fire, just started smoking and became charred. :) The mosquitoes were terrible until the fire got roaring. I am covered in mosquito bites after the fire.

The weekend ended with a visit from my friend Beth and her husband who are home from Utah to visit Beth's family. They brought their 5 week old baby over, which Mom loved! She had us leave Kyle with her so we could go take a tour of the house. It was great to see Beth as we don't see each other very often.

Hopefully this week we'll see some siding arrive at the house. It was supposed to be here over a week ago...but that hasn't happened yet. We should also start seeing some more fill dirt brought in. Our excavator is supposed to scrape off the rest of the black dirt to get the lot ready for the truckloads of fill.

For all of you who have volunteered to help paint...get your brushes and rollers ready! Jenn...if I see any orange paint you're going to be in BIG trouble! Ha... Enjoy the pictures of the drywall!