Glutton for Punishment

Ok, so it's been almost 20 days since my last writing and I have done very little to the house. It's not that I'm not working... I started back to school at night Jan 9th - Archaeology - it's interesting. I finally rented the townhouse I've been living in, so I have been packing trying to get everything out of there by this Sunday (Jan 28th). I must be a glutton for punishment because even though I rented my townhouse, my new house is not done... so what does that mean for me? Well if you've ever undertaken a chore that takes up every weekend and every single day off you could even think of - not to mention a lot of nights after working a full day at your regular job - you will know what an impact that can have on your social life. Literally - I have NO social life. Yea, and if a year of no social life is bad enough... I'm moving in with my parents until my house is done - ha ha ha, yes... I truly am testing my limits! Actually, my parents are great and I'm not dreading it too much... plus, It will make me work much harder to get it done!
Quick update: bought the grout for the bathrooms - will grout Jan 29th, finished installing all the planks on the front part of the porch - it looks fabulous! I went with the composite planks - you know, the plastic & saw dust extruded stuff... nice stuff! Finished a lot of misc. framing and woodwork that needed to be done before the siding guys could start. Siding guys are working and they should be finished this week, finally finished the kitchen cabinets (had to re-order 3 times becuz of Home Depot's mistakes) and the counter top buys are coming on Monday.Thats about it - next time you hear from me, I'll be living with the parents - but heck, at least I wont be paying (2) mortgages anymore... a year of that nearly killed me! Gotta Jet - PEACE OUT!

Woo Hoo New Year's Eve, Let's.... Lay Tile!

Ok, so laying tile isn’t what most people had in mind for the New Year's weekend, but with all the rain, what else was there to do? Believe me, I'm sure I could have found at least 10 other things to do that would have been much more fun than laying tile but, the tile can't lay itself! I worked Saturday morning (12/30/06) with my dad, finishing the odds and ends of the porch roof and cleaning up a bit then Saturday night the real work started. 8:30pm-2:30am was spent installing all the whole tiles in all (3) bathrooms and marking the tiles for the (2) smaller baths for cuts. When I woke up Sunday (1:30pm) I headed to Lowes to have the tiles cut (I dont really like those cutters). Come to find out, their saw was broken and had been for 2 weeks. I ended up at Home Depot renting a tile cutter. This thing was HUGE - I've got a pic of it in my pics. It ended up being the best thing though. Went to work at 9pm New Year's eve and worked until 4:30am New Year's Day - got all the tiles cut and laid for all (3) bathrooms. Now I just have to pic out my grout color. I'll grout all (3) in one night, it's not that hard. Tiling is not that hard and I like to do it at night - dont ask why because I dont know... I just know I like tiling at night!

The house is within a month of being done. All that is left is: grout floor tile, install wall tile in shower and bath surround, install toilets, bathroom cabinets, sinks and shower hardware, install baseboards throughout house, install interior doors, finish installing oak treads and trim on stairwell (we're working on this now), install carpet in upstairs bedroom, install final cabinet when it comes in and have Corian folks install counter tops, finish porch then move my crap in! Not a lot, but it seems like FOREVER.
Oh yea, and I started back to school today... school, regular work, building this house, being a mother... yea I can do it all! Gotta jet PEACE OUT!