Weekend warriors - how did you do?

[lb2006]

we shop-vac'd our entire house - we have no ceiling from the main floor to the ceiling (ETA) attic. We dug up brick borders to re-use for a firepit, de-nailed our cedar decking to reuse for trim pieces, evacuated the HVAC system & moved the unit to our rental until the reno is ready for it to be back.

And survived 5 inches of rain in 3 hours with holes in the roof!

[315]

I posted here.

[emoflamingo]

I didn't post but I bought floor registers and installed them myself. With a hammer. They're ugly brown but I won't flip out if Monkey plays with a bouncy ball in that room now. I may attempt to paint them eventually, but I'm not too hung up about it.

[TBM]

DH and found a couple of contenders for tiling our kitchen...when we get to that point. I think I might call the design center to order a couple of tiles for us to live with for awhile. We are going to need to know which floor before we decide on finishes for the cabinets.

I woke up sick yesterday, and didn't accomplish much, but DH replaced the screens in several frames and installed them, and he took some stuff to storage. We attempted to design closet storage using IKEA pax, but failed. ;p

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[darkling_glory]

I pulled a YoungHouseLove and ORB'd all the things!

I had a black wrought iron shelf that was dirty and rusty. I cleaned and sprayed it and now it looks brand new!

I also sprayed an old 80's brass mirror. It's such a good size! I can't wait to hang it in the foyer.

On a roll!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using proboards

[pumpkin]

I didn't get much done but I'm blaming it on the heat! It was in the low 90s yesterday and for a place that gets maybe 20 days a year over 80 degrees it was too hot to do much.

But I did get a cabinet primed and found some throw pillows i love. Otherwise it was unfortunately a lazy day.

[mrs.jacinthe]

Saturday, when it was like 105 degrees out, R decided it would be a great day to spend in the yard. So he weed-wacked, raked up leaves, filled in our (sparse) gravel around the square foot beds, turned over all the soil in the house's front garden, and raked up some dead grass. We also went to HD and picked up a few sad little veggie plants to go into our square foot beds, and he planted those on Saturday night.

Sunday, we went to an open house for a house down the street (OMG, jealous!), R fixed the effing dishwasher, built shade frames for the square foot beds, etc. I mostly sat around doing nothing.  ETA: But I DID make a swim barbell for use in swim lessons.  I've been having trouble pulling the trigger on a $20 model on Amazon, so I went to HD, bought a $6 square of insulating foam and some short lengths of PVC, then with a little cutting and sanding, made a kit-bashed version of this:

[boiler717]

I actually ended up doing stuff! My pansies finally died so I put together summer planters. Here are the ones on the front porch.



I also did a tall planter between the two garages with pink and purple double wave petunias and potato vines. The back deck has a hot pink New Guinea impatient and a little herb garden.

[darkling_glory]

nursecramer

I saw it! And the entire time I was spraying my mirror, I kept telling myself it was ok because it does not look like a kingdom! Haha!

PS my phone auto corrected your name to murderer, which made me lol!

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[mrs.jacinthe]

nursecramer - It can be used for a number of things, but I think it's a great tool for swim lessons. What I do is have the kids hold onto the bar with both hands instead of a kickboard, then they can start to practice freestyle arms (one arm down through the water, make a circle, back to the bar, repeat with the other arm). I've seen the little old ladies at the pool use them for exercise ... all kinds of stuff. I'm having second thoughts about the amount of foam I used ... I may need to do a quick trial today and add more foam circles, but I'm not sure.

[halleesmom]

I didn't post my projects last week but I have a house now so I want to play!

The prior posted about floor installer got the floors and baseboards finished.  I am very happy with the final product although he was a drama queen to work with who left a mess.  He literally left hand prints and pencil marks and smudges all over the walls.  I went through 4 magic erasers to get those off. 

We assembled the toy storage units and got H's playroom set up, I have a few more pictures to hang in that room tonight but then it will be done.

DH hung up some pictures on his walls in the bonus room so that room is almost done, just waiting on racks to display his hats.

We took all of the extra totes and holiday decorations to the attic so the garage is completely cleaned out.  

We bought the living room furniture; I need to look for a rug this weekend.  

Moving sucks but I am glad we are almost settled in.  

[ktzmoh]

Saturday:
--Morning lakeside run at 5am - beautiful

--went to the stone yard and bought a few extra flagstones to finish off our path

--Helped a friend inland - where it was 106 friggen degrees for the rest of the day


Sunday:
--went to costco for some new hoses (cause that's how we roll, baby)

--drove around to our favorite nurseries and dropped some jing a ling on the final pieces of our landscaping project - we bought:
    a tree for the back yard
    some more bamboo to complete our privacy screen out back
    a tall shrub for the side of the house
    god help me if I can't walk out of a nursery without at least 10 new and interesting succulents.

--Went all caveman on the flagstone and chiseled them into smaller pieces to fit the empty spaces in our path

--Gossiped with neighbors about the new families moving onto our street.

[boiler717]

Oops, sorry for the crazy pic!

[emoflamingo]

Jul 1, 2013 12:49:10 GMT -5 @callmefia said:

Jul 1, 2013 9:09:24 GMT -5 emoflamingo said:

I didn't post but I bought floor registers and installed them myself. With a hammer. They're ugly brown but I won't flip out if Monkey plays with a bouncy ball in that room now. I may attempt to paint them eventually, but I'm not too hung up about it.

Omg I had H spray our old icky brown registers and they are AH-MAZ-ING. Of course, I'm the only one who notices them but I guess thats the point. Lol. We painted them a dark steel gray color to match the walls since we don't have any white baseboard (it was paneling we painted, and then quarter round. We painted it allllll). The color isn't exact but I insisted on spray paint and not brushing so we just got the rustoleum in the closest color possible.

We got actual baseboard registers in a pretty finish, but I couldn't find the floor ones because they're an odd size (2x14") and the hardware store had white in 2x12 but only brown in 2x14. And if I had been more patient (because I have only been waiting 7 months for this stuff to get wrapped up by someone NOT me), I would have sprayed them because I have some leftover paint. NOW I'm afraid to take them out lol. At least they're on the floor and almost blend in?

[FoxInFiji]

We got sooo much done! My dad was over all Friday, Saturday, and Sunday turning our house into a shop and installing trim. The LR is our 20' long cutting station and trim storage. The LR furniture is pushed together, rug rolled up, plastic on the built in bookcases, and cardboard on the floor. The DR table is the preassembly station where DH was nailing the head cap, header, and bullnose together. The entry floor is the baseboard storage.

My dad got the master bedroom completely finished and the master bathroom almost finished. 3 windows, 6 door sides, and all of the baseboard are complete. Construction in our master bedroom is officially done! Well after I pull everything back off the wall and putty all the nail holes that is. My dad is coming back Thursday, Friday, and Sunday to hopefully finish the rest of the install. It looks amazing!

DH made a lot of progress on the wood cladding of the master bathroom knee wall and finished building and installing the closet jams. I started and finished the entire wall pattern on the closet wall. It took forever but it looks cool.

...pictures to come...

[sierramist03]

We were out of town for the weekend but I painted our front door today after work since its nice out. Management company gave me approval to paint but it had to be the same color still looks a ton better.

[mrs.jacinthe]

Jul 1, 2013 11:46:30 GMT -5 nursecramer said:

Jul 1, 2013 11:26:09 GMT -5 mrs.jacinthe said:

nursecramer - It can be used for a number of things, but I think it's a great tool for swim lessons. What I do is have the kids hold onto the bar with both hands instead of a kickboard, then they can start to practice freestyle arms (one arm down through the water, make a circle, back to the bar, repeat with the other arm). I've seen the little old ladies at the pool use them for exercise ... all kinds of stuff. I'm having second thoughts about the amount of foam I used ... I may need to do a quick trial today and add more foam circles, but I'm not sure.

Do you teach swim lessons? Can I badger you for professional advice without offering you any sort of payment? I'm trying to teach my 2.5yr old to swim. He's pretty timid in general, but even more so in the pool.

I do!  12+ years now.  Badger away.  

2.5 is pretty young, TBH.  Some kids are AWESOME in the pool at that age, but others ... well, they're just not.  What is the specific problem, and what are you currently doing?

[halleesmom]

Jul 1, 2013 18:12:14 GMT -5 nursecramer said:

Jul 1, 2013 11:56:05 GMT -5 halleesmom said:

I didn't post my projects last week but I have a house now so I want to play!

The prior posted about floor installer got the floors and baseboards finished.  I am very happy with the final product although he was a drama queen to work with who left a mess.  He literally left hand prints and pencil marks and smudges all over the walls.  I went through 4 magic erasers to get those off. 

We assembled the toy storage units and got H's playroom set up, I have a few more pictures to hang in that room tonight but then it will be done.

DH hung up some pictures on his walls in the bonus room so that room is almost done, just waiting on racks to display his hats.

We took all of the extra totes and holiday decorations to the attic so the garage is completely cleaned out.  

We bought the living room furniture; I need to look for a rug this weekend.  

Moving sucks but I am glad we are almost settled in.  

Whoa. I would be pretty upset about this. Unless he is also a painter who is coming back to touch up the walls. For free.

Nope....

[mrs.jacinthe]

Those are pretty normal issues. The only critique I have is nose plugging. Don't do it. Instead, teach him to blow bubbles with his nose when underwater, like blowing into a tissue. Nose holding is a baaaaad habit and it's hard to break once its ingrained.

How is he at getting his head wet at home, like in the bathtub? What do you do when he gets stubborn about things?

ETA: I have some suggestions, but I want to know his reactions first ...

[mrs.jacinthe]

Ok, if he's not happy getting his hair wet at home, either, its ok if he's not thrilled to do it at the pool. A trick I use, especially if the kid likes jumping off the side, is to let them jump (in water where I can stand but they can't), catch them lightly, but then "oops" them under the water. It's never an accident, but I can play it off as "Wow! What a big jump! Did you even get your FACE wet??? Great JOB!!!" The more enthusiastic you are about stuff they may not like, the better it goes over, usually. Celebrate, for example, an accidental dunking like he just won the lottery, instead of commiserating. KWIM? Also, its helpful to teach him to blink the water out of his eyes instead of rubbing. And spit the water out when it gets in his mouth, instead of swallowing it or trying to breathe it in. Water in The Nose gets blown out instead of breathed in, Etc. If you need any ideas on actually explaining that stuff, let me know. I've pretty much scripted all my explanations at this point, LOL.


Another suggestion: when he discovers that he can no longer touch and wants to go back to the shallow, have him "swim" himself there, by paddling and kicking. Hold onto the back of the life jacket for sake of steering and so on, but have him get himself there.