Love, Laughter, and a Full House.

So the kids were all here last night. It's always good to see the house full of laughter again.

It was even better to see them working!

                                                                                                                                                      Dustin was the first one to get there in the morning. He is such a good worker.          

I worked more hours yesterday, then I had any other day this week. Considering i have burned a 900 average calories a day on this project (which after logging calories burned I decided to start this blog) I think I earned my low fat low carb, sugar free cheesecake. MMMmmmm   Funny no one missed the crust on it. I asked each of the kids and they were like "Nothing is missing" So why did I worry about crust all these years??
I made veggie trays and a cracker cheese plate. It makes a mom feel good to see the veggie plate need refills   I meant to take some pictures of the foods, but alas I forgot, until it was too late and they were demolished.

Mike got sick  the first day of his vacation time. We had such a tight planned schedule, then he goes and get sick on me. I put in double the work to make up some time. We are only 1 day behind schedule, hopefully it won't impede us from  finishing the floors.  Even sick for my birthday he got up there and was working. Once he gets started he isn't real keen on stopping either.  Drywall dust while sick is soo much fun! lol

 Yesterday morning i woke up sick, sore throat, stuffy nose, I  refused  to let is slow me down. At one point however 3-4 hours into the work I had to take a break from the lung constricting plaster and just went and sat out on the back porch.






Jordan came over and he hadn't been to the house in a few years. I realized how much work we had done when showing his new stuff. (The installation of the pool off the back deck, the remodel of the kids bathroom, the office/exercise room.) It was nice getting some perspective from another set of eyes on all the work.

 Some of the kids long time friends came by Shane even joined in the work! We made good progress even with mike's super picky. it has to be PERFECT inspections. We had hoped to paint the primer last night, it became clear it wasn't happening, so we cleaned up and resolved to paint today.

 I don't thinkI will ever get rid of the joint compound dust in the house. That stuff cots EVERYTHING!

Shane and Dustin were hard at work making a misty cloud of plaster. It looks like we have the fog machine on! There was a pile of Dust that coated 1/4 inch across the floors and counter tops. Maybe painting and doing the floors will help get rid of some of it floating around the house.

Shane is enlisted with the Marines and will be leaving for training right after he graduates this year. I am proud of him, if not a bit worried as well. I will be praying for him.

 
Some of the kids long time friends came by Shane even joined in the work!
We made good progress even with mike's super picky. it has to be PERFECT inspections. We had hoped to paint the primer last night, it became clear it wasn't happening, so we cleaned up and resolved to paint today. I don't think I will ever get rid of the dust from the joint compound in the house. It  coats everything.

Forest put himself on cleanup duty! man what a mess!

The dogs I think missed the kids. They were soaking up the love and attention. Thor looks like he is going to fall asleep sitting up.

I figured I will do a bit more catch up and show the french door installation. Like many projects you get into it and find the work is MUCH more than you thought it would be. The door was defiantly one of those.

 In the picture above you can see the finished door. I LOVE the panel windows, it warms the house in the winter days and the light coming in just brightens up my days.

Before we got to that point however, we had a huge mess on our hands. The siding on the house had not been done right, neither had the overhang of the roof over the door. We saw there was a leak, but had no idea how bad it had gotten. The whole main support beam had rotted out under the door and part of the wall there.  We had to remove the old rotten beam and replace it with new. then scab in floor joists with hangers ect.


We had figured this job to be 2 days (a weekend) but it took about 2 weeks. With Mike working a full time job and the printer business  We had this  HUGE double door sized hole in the back of the house, and it was starting to get cold!

Like everything else it eventually got done. Like I said I LOVE my new doors. We also had the chance to fix things right. With this project we added some gutters in the back and new siding (the right way). We had lots of experience with siding after putting siding on the whole barn.

heh That is another project to catch people up on, another day.