Mad Dash

We are in the home stretch and still have a thousand things to do. This is from manual labor day weekend. How do you haul 27 bags of mulch, in the element of course.

Another big shipment arrived the other day.
Portland helping unpack, or just enjoying the catnip.

Hmmm a big ball?

Yep, we have transformers patio furniture.

Although I did like burning things in the little grill while sitting on folding chairs, I guess these will do.

The hose numbers only sat in the closet for 6 months before I got them put up. Pretty cool.

Getting Close

The tour is right around the corner and we are finishing up a few odds and ends. While working in the yard this weekend I notice a large spider had strung a net between our and Eric and Elise's house. It had to been 30 feet, bravo Ms. Spider.

The beige floor and pink grout have been driving up crazy since we moved in. The light grout never looks clean so we decided to stain it. You can see the middle where Sam scrubbed it by hand and the dirty edges from the mop.
Applying the stain. It goes on yellow and the acid carries pigment into the grout.

I have a few spots to touch up, but you get the idea.

Alright the marathon begins to get things ready for next weekend.

Happy Manual Labor Day Weekend

We needed this long weekend to get some outdoor items wrangled. While working on inside projects the weeds have taken over. The short version is we ran, worked all day, ate BBQ, drank some beers, and did it all over again. With the homes tour only a couple weeks away, it's crunch time. We made 4 trips to home depot and one to the nursery. Other than outside stuff, Sam managed to get all of the trim touched up and the living room put back together.

Saturday morning the Roe Circle professional mowing team had an impromptu performance. Mow the lawn, check.

This weedy mess of a patio was our major work item. We had already pulled the large grasses and filled in one of the holes early in the year. That useless hole there in the middle had to go.
Our friend Mike came over to help with the manual labor. The hole took 24 bags of sand.

Halfway there. The extra pavers came from the renovation next door. The difficult thing with filling in a 60 year old patio is making everything look old.

Sam thinking hard about where to put the new plants.

In the front beds we put in new metal edging and mulched everywhere. This tree is a weeping blue atlas cedar. I have thousands of tiny cuts from working around the fountain grasses. My arms and legs burned most of the day from sweat and bug spray.

Hey look at that, pretty respectable. I need to continue sweeping up sand and washing the pavers, but all in all we are ready for a party. Now that the grasses are gone and the holes are filled in, the patio looks huge. Plenty of room for a table and a firepit.

The pink elephant ears just have to stay alive until the homes tour.

Now after an exhausting day I am ready for a shower and bed. The supervisors called it a day early.

Already a Good Weekend

I have been slowly working on the bed for the second bedroom. Wednesday night the jute webbing came in and I started attaching the supports. Well, until I blew a couple nails out of the top, SH*T! A couple days worth of repair later and I picked up.

Attaching the webbing.

One half completed
Done but upside down.

The door hinges let me fold it half to get it around the hallway corner and into the bedroom. I reinstalled the legs and the headboard in the room.

Jointing/hinge/leg detail.

All ready for the mattress.

Hey look a bed, the cats haven't been able to crawl under a bed for over a year. Now we will know where to find Nera when she gets scared.

That was more work than I expected, but it looks nice.

This project didn't take much other than a lot of time:
- 2 sheets Baltic birch plywood (with a bunch leftover),

-Glue,

-6 hairpin legs,

-2 headboard supports,

- Polyurethane finish,

A neighbor's table saw, pocket screw jig, and a few screws

My table saw would have never handled those birch sheets so big thanks to Jerad.

Just In Time for the Weather to Change

Well maybe not just yet, although this weekend was pretty chilly and we did get the fireplace running. The projects this weekend seemed to take much longer than anticipated. I was gone last week so the bed hasn't been progressing very fast. Maybe I can get it finished by next weekend. I got half into the fireplace last weekend and figured that needed to get done as much as anything else.

The old "realistic" gas log.

Our old valve was very sticky and hard to turn. I plumbed in a new one. There are some spacers under cement board to raise the floor.
And the new fireglass setup, pretty cool.

Three of the four Salvador Dali's got framed. Sam is going to post more on them when we get the last one back from the frame shop.

It also was a big weekend for stuff getting delivered. I ran from home on Saturday morning so I could be close when the furniture delivery guys called.

Nera checking out the loveseat. It is charcoal grey and pulls out into a twin bed. You can see it is pulled away from the wall, we fought trim all weekend too.Finally a dining table. It easily seats 8, 10 with the leaf in.

I installed trim and Sam got the not fun job of caulking my gaps. Really, it is the crooked walls.

We ordered some very cool patio furniture this evening. Well at least chairs and a small table. They should arrive in a couple weeks. This is starting to look like a house.

Thomas Edison would be so proud

The weather this weekend was gorgeous. The humidity was low and temps were is the low 80's. We opened up the house and spent as much time outside as possible. We put in a few miles Saturday morning and then worked, worked, worked. Saturday night (starting on Thursday) I made pulled pork and hung out with friends. It is nice having the kitchen and dining room into usable conditions. Sam installed and caulked lots of trim and did a bunch of paint touch ups.

I finished sanding the bed and started putting on polyurethane. I have to go to Louisiana, but that should be done this week.

Sam and Nera both enjoy looking out through the skylights.
Hey look another cool thing that has been packed away for years. This is one of the Murano glass lights from Italy we bought on our honeymoon.

The original version of this one broke in shipping and it took forever for the master to make another. We have three more that will get mounted over the kitchen table.

Wait is that? Yep another light. We have only been in the house a year without a front light. Now we won't fall over the flamingo when coming home.

Is there a hole in my pocket? No! It's a Homes Tour!

With the KC Modern Homes Tour fast approaching, we finally bit the bullet and made some furniture purchases we've been putting off. Add that to the Salvador Dali prints we just took in to be framed and the fireplace glass we ordered, out pocketbook feels pretty light. It's a sacrifice we're willing to make to have real furniture in our rooms and our artwork on the walls instead of in the closet.

Here's the dining room table we ordered. Studio Build is making a set of chairs for us. Now if we have people over for dinner, they don't have to sit on folding chairs and eat off a card table! We're so high class.


We also purchased a love seat that I'm really excited about. It's European sized, so only 4' long, but it also has a pull-out twin bed. Just one more option for visiting family, or guests who may have imbibed too much at one of the Roe Circle shindigs.


John continues to work on the bed and I have been toiling away painting and touching up the paint. Trim is this weekend, followed by more touching up. The front door light needs to be installed and one kitchen light changed out. The art should be ready in another week. The fireplace glass should show up anytime after Saturday and the furniture should be here in a week or two. If we can get the trim installed, caulked and painted, the house will almost be complete!