I appreciate it!

I remember digging tunnels in the snow when I was young.

I drove up to our storage shed and the tenant's kids had a tunnel. 

What fun. The tunnel was over 8 feet long.

It even had a side opening so you could escape half way through. I really appreciate those kids. They clear a path to the door of our storage shed every time it snows. I know their parents make them do it, but still it is so great to drive up and not have to wade through snow to get supplies. Thanks Samantha and Jared for teaching your children to make life better for others.

This is what the bathroom looked like when we purchased the house I am working on now. The owners had started a rehab and had given up.

Same wall now. The window has been closed in.

There is even a light in the bathroom. 

vanity is back in with a new top.

I even have the door installed. Needs to be trimmed and varnished yet, but hey, that baby is up. 

This is the kitchen when we took possession.

 It has come a long ways. I am hoping to get the new floor in next week.

 

The counter tops have been purchased and are in the garage.

Living room when we started.

Same wall with new windows and the ceiling light is in.

The west bedroom upstairs had plastic over the windows (all windows in the house had plastic over them. They leaked air so badly you could hear the plastic snap and crack when the wind was blowing) and the carpeting had been removed.

With new windows, paint and flooring it is starting to look like a bedroom.

I don't have a before picture of the east bedroom. Sharon is usually the one who takes pictures as we walk through a house. She was not with me on this walk through. I wonder what she thought when she saw what a disaster I had purchased.

I even got the front door in this week. The new door slid so tightly into the frame of the old door, you could not see any daylight around the new frame. (I had to scrape the paint on the old frame to get the new one to slide in) I could just lay a bead a caulk around it and call it good. On Thursday afternoon the furnace did not run from 1 pm till after 4. That tells me I must be getting to the place the air leaks are stopped.

When we were kids it seemed like we would dig a long time to make a snow tunnel, or we would roll up big snow balls and make fort. It didn't seem like work. It was fun.

I can't say this week was always fun. After 2 days of laying flooring it was kinda tough to get straightened up when I got out of bed, but over all I enjoy what I do. If you don't have fun while working maybe you need a different job. 

 A tenant showed up at the house I am working on today to pay her rent for March. She walked through the house and was wishing she could move to this house. That is a great affirmation that what I am doing is appreciated. 

Maybe I should take the time to let others know I appreciate the jobs they are doing as well. When I am going to have no coffee in the morning and I stop at the store to get some in the evening, I appreciate that someone is working so I can buy coffee. When the snow is falling and the snow plows are out, I appreciate the dedication and long hours of the drivers. All the professionals that we use when furnaces or appliances or water pipes break are greatly appreciated when they show up and repair our problems within 12 hours. Thanks to the people who are in manufacturing so I can go buy all the things I need for a rehab or repair, you are greatly appreciated. I think I will try to remember this week to thank some people because their occupation makes my life better and easier.

Beginning

I spent my week beginning things. In order to reach completion of any task you have to start.

I started painting the kitchen cupboards. It looks like it will take 3 coats of paint to get the finish that I want. 

I put the drains pipes back in so I could install the toilet. But I needed the floor down under the toilet before I bolted it down.

I did not want the floor in the entire bathroom because I still had to tile the shower surround. I did not want to be cleaning thin set off a new floor. So I have the beginning of the bathroom floor in.

Then I put the tile around the shower. The tile may be up but it is just the start. It still needs to be grouted and sealed.

I installed the vanity top and faucet. Water and drains are hooked up. Now, I at least have a working sink in the house. But once again it is not finished. If you look close you can see that the paint needs to be touched up around the vanity top.

I hung the shelf over the base cabinets in the laundry room but that is still needing the counter top.. At least the shelf is no longer in my way, it is up on the wall so I can stop stumbling over it.

The plan is to paint the risers and spindles white and the stair treads brown. I have the first coat of what looks to me like 3 coats on the spindles and risers. I hate painting spindles. It is slow work and to have to do it at least 3 times is a bit of an insult.

I was down at Menards this week to pick up windows doors and flooring. While waiting for load out I saw written on the harness rack "Harnesses only". If you look you can see the extension cord and a crow bar hanging on the hooks. Looks like the employees have a problem following the rules.

I would like to say that it is just Menards employees that have a problem following the rules but I know that isn't in the least bit close to truth. 

The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. On these 2 commandments hang all the law and the prophets. In this life we will never obey those 2 commandments perfectly. That is why Jesus had to pay for our not obeying, but we need to make a beginning on loving God and our neighbor. If we don't make a beginning we continue on in our sin and and are telling God we are not thankful for offering us eternal life.

So like the first coats of paint, the start of a floor, and ungrouted tile, my life has a ways to go before it is a "perfect finished product". I will only be a "perfect finished product" through Jesus sacrifice for me, but God calls me to make a beginning. A beginning like hanging up a shelf so I am no longer stumbling over it. There might be a few things in my life that I need to get out of my way.

If I ask God to help me clean some sins out of my life it will be beginning to loving God above everything and loving all my neighbors. Won't you join me in making a beginning?

Nothing Done?

I was thinking I didn't make a whole lot of progress this week on the house I am working on. I had to look at some of the pictures I took this week to even see I had made gains.

There are a couple of windows on the south side of the house in the second story bedrooms. They had plastic covering them and when I took the plastic off I now know why it was there. You could see daylight through the gaps around the windows.

I took the old windows out and and re-framed the holes from the inside of the house. Slid in new double pane fixed windows, insulated and caulked them in. 

Filled in with sheet rock and taped and mudded.

This afternoon I hooked up the texture gun and sprayed on the texture.

I also removed the dormer window over the front door. The door itself is no longer on hinges. It is ready to be replaced and until I get the new door it is simply screwed in place and sealed to keep out the cold.

There is a window on the stairway landing that was just as bad as the windows upstairs. I pulled it out and replaced it with a double pane fixed window.

I finished with the joint compound and sanding in the hallway and stairs. This afternoon while I had the texture gun hooked up I could spray those walls.

I put the bathtub back in and the shower faucet just needs the trim kit once the shower walls are tiled.

The vanity is back in place. I was ready to put the new faucet in the sink when I saw that the sink was cracked. I went to our storage and looked if we had a new sink. Yes, we did but it was made for different type of faucet than I have, that's right the faucet which matches the shower which is already installed. So I looked if we had another vanity top in storage. Yes we had 2 of them both 37 inches long. I need 43 inches for this vanity. Now I need to find out what is cheapest. Use the countertop I have and buy a new sink or get a whole new vanity top with a built in sink that fits my faucet.

Picked out a color for the upstairs west bedroom. Opened the bucket of paint and thought this looks a whole lot darker than the color on the lid. Maybe it will get lighter as it dries, right?? Wrong it got even darker. The next morning this small patch I had painted made me think I had spread dung on the wall. I didn't think that was the look I was going for. As the paint was non returnable (yea took a chance and bought a closeout item. Now I know why they were dumping it cheap) I bought 2 gallons of yellow paint and added it.

 Ended up with an olive color I can live with. Although the brown trim will definitely need to be replaced by white.

Sometimes when you don't think you are getting much done you are making a lot of progress. 

I went to a regional meeting of church officials this morning. My prayer on the way to the meeting was, "Lord help me to keep my mouth shut." I am proud to say I sat through a 4 hour meeting and never said a word. I sat silent through the debates and voted when the votes were called. It may look to some like I got nothing done, but my silence was most likely the most productive thing I did all week.

Sharon and I are reading the book of Job for our devotions. I always think Job's friends had it right when they sat silent with Job for 7 days. Then they started to talk and not only did they not comfort Job, but they showed themselves to have bad theology to the point God is angry with them. Had they sat and looked like they were doing nothing they would have been a lot more comforting.

Sometimes when you think you are doing nothing is when the most gets done. 

Taking a break

It has been a cold week. 

Cold enough to make the wildlife hunt for shelter. This was the scene just outside our window Thursday morning. The deer had found a place with some relief from the wind. Usually the deer are pretty skittish but these guys stayed put until I had to walk over to the neighbors to get a key. The neighbors are in Florida and they called because they were worried about the furnace in their building. It was working fine but I understand their concern. I have a house I have been checking regularly because the tenant works out of town and is gone for a week at a time. With wind chills of 50 below zero it would not take long to freeze a house if the furnace quit.

I took a break from sheet-rock finishing and painting on Friday.

I do not enjoy painting and I do not like mudding sheet rock, but there are times when we all have to do what we do not enjoy. Even so it was time to take a break and do a fun job.

I trimmed out some windows. For the wood for the trim in the kitchen and the laundry room I went to our storage garage and collected some aged wood. Cut it to width and then ran it through the table saw on end to get a fresh cut on the face. The waste is huge when you use old wood because there are bound to be splits and cracks that make some of the pieces useless, but the wood has a look that can not be duplicated except by age.

Once I had the window trim on I could hang the balance of the kitchen cupboards back on the wall. Fridge will go under this cabinet.

I went to the Lumber store and bought a bunch of pine 1x4s. I like to trim out houses with pine dimension lumber. As it ages it gets a warm golden glow. It also adds some depth and width to the wood work.

I finished the windows in the living room and the master bedroom. Both rooms have oak floors that have had moisture on them at some time. There were 2 places where the floors had swollen and v-ed up. I have always been told you have to take a saw and run it down the top edge of the V to make the wood lay back flat. I did not know how I would get a circular saw to cut right up against the wall but I wanted to try to save the floors. I took a short piece of 2x4 and started where the wood began to heave up. I hit the floor down and it went flat for couple of inches. Kept my knee on the 2x4 and used a finish nail gun to nail it down. Went right down the popped up joint 6 inches at a time and got both floors to lay back down flat. Now after the floors get cleaned up I hope I don't find them so badly damaged in other areas that all that work was in vain and we need to replace them anyway. 

Next I started boxing in the beam I put between the kitchen and living room. The place is actually starting to look like a house again.

There were several base cabinets left in the house by the previous owner. They must have been purchased with the hope they would fit somewhere as they remodeled. Even though they don't quite fit the east wall in the laundry room, I am sure the tenants will want the storage space and the counter-top that will go with them.

     In our culture we seem to be pulled in 2 directions. One tells us we need to work hard and be industrious. One tells us to have a good time and enjoy life. Sometimes it is hard to find the balance. Those deer in our back yard this week have to get out and forage for food every day, yet when the cold set in they found a place of shelter to hunker down and survive in some comfort.
    There are some who need to spend less time on recreation and make sure they are being productive. there are others of us who have to realize that stepping out of the busyness of life is not a bad thing.
      The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, "come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest." Mark 6:30 ...
       We all need to look at our lives and first make sure we are working to build God's kingdom. If we are working to build God's kingdom we next need to ask if we are taking time to rest.
     Resting means different things to all of us. Sometimes for me it is to read a book. Sometimes like this week Friday it was to stop the work I was doing and enjoy doing some woodwork. Make sure you take time to rest and enjoy all the blessings God has placed in your life.