They're baaaaaccccckkkkkkk

The painters that is. It's Saturday morning and the painters are here to finally complete their work. It will be nice to see the finished product whenever they get it done. 

I am patient and they do good work, they have some difficulty when I put parameters on when they can come into the house. It's Saturday morning after all, I try to get a little extra sleep on these morning so I told them not to be here until 9:00 a.m. and I also told them I want them out by 3:00 p.m.

Saturday besides n=being my extra sleep day is also my sit by the fire and read day. With these gents in my living room and kitchen I can do neither. Now, perspective is a wonderful thing. Given what we have been through in the last two weeks a little inconvenience by painters is a minor thing. So, I'll sit here for a while then maybe take my beloved out for breakfast, do some errands and oh yes, enjoy the sunshine. Ah the sunshine, while it is cold out there, the sunshine just makes everything seem brighter.  

So, they are back and the job will be done. In a little more time all this work will be completed, nice!

So here are they are working away in both the hallway and in the kitchen, they will also finish the living room completely, I hope. 

Renovations are almost complete

Almost completed, a little late, but I built in an extra week just in case they could not deliver. There are a few things left to be completed and the entire kitchen will be done. Oops, I can see a broom and a few other things still in there, but as for now it is usable or should I say functional. I'm starting to cook in there tonight. I'm surprising the kids with French Onion Soup for tomorrows dinner, they've asked for it and I'm doing some of the work tonight.

Ask me in a few days/weeks whether or not I will provide references for the folks that built my kitchen. The 24 hour rule may become a 14 day rule. I want to enjoy Christmas and New Years with my family and friends before I make a determination of my support of the cabinet people.

We do love it and have already had the pleasure of an impromptu gathering on Friday during the storm.

Renovations are continuing

Well, I have not commented on the renovations in a while. Most of the work is completed with the exception to our kitchen. We had a commitment that the cabinets would be completed by Dec.11, 2008. Unfortunately that date has passed and a new date has been given. The provider (who shall remain nameless) made some excuses and then gave me a new date, next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I guess that is three dates. The photo directly to the left is what the kitchen looks like currently, the floor is in, the electric is done, the crown moulding is done, it's a giant canvas awaiting the hickory cabinets to be painted on. That was my poor attempt to sound artistic.

I'm trying to be really patient and grace filled in this process. The problem is that the longer we live without a kitchen, the more we spend on either prepared food or restaurant food and I am so sick of restaurant food. I will begin to bill them for the costs if they go beyond next week.

I have, however, made it clear to them that the kitchen will be completed before the week of Christmas. There is no way that I want people in my house finishing things while I am trying to prepare for Christmas. 

I'm just a little frustrated, can ya tell. the photo to the left shows how our bedroom looks now. We had the walls painted, added new trim and crown moulding and our new bedroom suite finally arrived. The matching blinds are ready to be installed when all the other work has been completed.

The living room is completed, with the exception of a final coat of paint. I am really pleased with all that we have been able to do in these past few months and the final product in the kitchen will be awesome.

I asked the Lord to give me patience and He is using circumstances to teach me patience. He is much wiser than I am. 

Trying to learn patience

I asked for the gift of patience, it is a gift right? I would dare not say it is a curse, so it must be a gift. As noted previously, we are having some renovations completed in our house. Almost all are cosmetic and almost all require the room or rooms to be unavailable for some time.

What this means to me as I try to exist here and never mind try to work is that there is very little space to do stuff and the space that is available is full of stuff from other rooms that are unavailable. This is not a complaint, I am not being negative, I just have a hard time seeing into the future(my crystal ball broke yesterday). I think I can imagine what it's all going to look like at the end, at this time it's the journey to that point that I'm having some trouble with.

And that's where the patience comes in. The lack of privacy and the inability to use the little room that I have is teaching me patience. How many times have I used the analogy (it is an analogy right?) of the journey being more important that the destination? I suppose that the request that God gives me patience really does give Him the opportunity to teach me patience, doesn't it? Thanks Alan for that kernel of wisdom.

Oh well, I've just had a sermon from the carpenter (not That one, the one named Steve) about looking to the finished product and not the pieces of the journey. I think I get it, I just hate it when the words I use so glibly to placate the concerns of others come back to bite me in the end. That'll learn me, won't it?

Thanks for reading and listening and more importantly for praying, I need all of them right now.

 

Fall is here

I'm sitting here reading and enjoying some quiet time. I looked out the window to see rain and the leaves being blown about. I guess there is nothing I can do about the onward push of the seasons but to enjoy the positive things about them. For example, I am not outside as the rain and wind are blowing.

Here is my view from my comfy warm chair this Sunday afternoon. While it gives a nice view of my new window, I'm not really sure that it shows what's happening out there. It's just the changing of the season and apparently the snow is coming next week. I don't think it will be much, but I'm not ready for any of it, the snow tires are still sitting at Thomans and need to be installed, even though it appears that the tires they sold me don't have rims to go with them. It's time to talk to Rick about that.

The new bedroom furniture is being ordered this week. It's part of the ongoing renovations that we are doing. Unfortunately, with the change in the dollar, the price has risen about 20%. We will have to eat a few dollars more to purchase the one we want. I will delay the purchase of my new bike due to the American dollar. My beloved really likes this particular bedroom suite and it will be nice to finally have bedside tables instead of tv trays. We have not had a new bedroom set since before the boy arrived in 1987. A friend is helping us out and ordering the set and it should be ordered this Wednesday. We have always wanted a sleigh bed and we will have one soon.

These renovations have taken on a life of their own, I am excited to see what the house will look like when they are done. I think I will finally feel like this is our home, and not the house of Henry and Mrs Henry. This time it will be what we wanted it to look like. It has been six years(as opposed to Bowie's 5 years) and I can't wait. I have set an unreasonable time table where I want the whole thing completed before Christmas, so we will see how much we can complete.

"The Project"

I referred to this blog as "The Project" as sometimes we feel like we're living in "the projects".

We have been planning on doing some cosmetic work in the house for some time now, nothing major although if my friend Steve W. has his way, we'll be moving walls and all kinds of things. That kind of stuff will likely not fit our budget for this job along with the other things we want to do. He is however going to install crown moulding in the living room and put new trim (the stuff that is there now is almost 50 years old and broke into smithereens when Jo took it off to get the paper off) in the living room, hall(I think) and dining room.

We want to paint the living room, replace the window in the living room (coming in a few weeks), replace the wood stove with a gas fireplace, paint this room (the office aka my sanctuary or music room), paint our bedroom(which also needs new furniture and carpet) the kitchen and the dining room.

Jo has much of the work with help from Sharon C. (thanks Sharon). Others have lent tools (cause I'm not a guy with a lot of tools for working around the house, thanks Rick) and a few have offered to help with the painting(thanks Dan and Ken). There's a lot to do, and we're currently living in a constant state of moving stuff from one room to another (usually into my sanctuary) to keep working on "The Project".

It will change the house significantly and we will then have it the way we want it to be, as I said it's mainly cosmetic as we will soon be empty nesters and will not need much more room for the two of us.

I am currently unable to do anything on this project with the exception of encouraging Jo, rubbing her sore muscles and getting a cold glass of water or something else when the day is over. We anticipate that we will be completed "The Project" by Christmas, cause I've told Josh many times that he's coming home to a new house.