Recovery...

Got a bug I can’t seem to shake for the last 3 months. Sorry about the lack of posting, but we haven’t done much lately. And I am not sure a picture of the couch with me in my jammies was in real demand.

But, here is one of Sarge holding down his end of the couch.

I am off on Sunday for a 10-day trip east. It is a pretty exciting trip, although there will be tons of work; I have some play penciled in. More soon. Gotta beat this bug before I get on the plane.

Phun photos phrom the weekend

We had a lovely weekend, we had the party. We played a lot of pool (I even had a 2 game winning streak). We went to see the bats, got a little dark – so we didn’t get eh chance to actually see them (here is a photo of them at their prime from the vault). We also went to Smitty’s in Lockhart, and bowled (something I hadn’t done since Jon and Kate’s wedding!)

Waiting for an hour on the bat bridge.Baum brothers
Pick up bus ont he way to Lockhart.
Smitty's
Bats from the vault. Next time Noel, sorry.

What are they doing to my boyfriend?

Dad sent this one to me the other day. It was before the “finger incident.” My uncle Tommy stopped by on his way through town. This one goes down in the books.

Chez Nous

Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of our trip to Chez Nous. I will tell you one thing, it is a quaint little hole in the wall off 6^th that has great food, helpful service and a nice wine selection. I have yet to be let down. They are consistently heralded as one of the best around town…and in a city known for BBQ and tacos, well let’s just say, that means something.

Keepin' it weird

Happy Housewarming!

We had a lovely party with 30 friends and neighbors. Here are the before photos.

I forgot where I put the camera during the party so I don’t have any shots of the evening. But it was fun!

Tonight, we are going out to a very nice little French place off 6^th. We went there for Erica’s birthday dinner and I have been meaning to write a review for the phlog on it ever since. It is a fantastic little place, so tomorrow (after the champagne has worn off) I will make sure to tell you all about it.

Progress

There is still tons to do, but we have been making progress.
Today Ian is going to go "house" on the house and get tons done on his day off. I have still have a lot of scrubbing and laundry to do before Ian's brother Noel arrives in the morning. We should have a wonderful time at the party on Saturday on the big back deck!

Trimming on the cake

We spent yesterday getting the house ready for today (the BIG trim day!). We have never done this before so it was a puzzle/mathematical challenge.

Ian manned the saw, while I womanned the nail gun. We were able to get the living room, kitchen, dining room and hall done.

We are also in process now of setting up our bathroom and kitchen in working order. That will be fantastic; I can’t wait to get the stove off the back porch (feeling a little trashy for the ‘hood).

Tonight we sat back and watched our first load of laundry spin around and thought about how happy we are. It was such a productive weekend!

Also, to all you Mom’s out there – happy day, you deserve nothing but the best.

Um, that didn't take long

Horizontal Dog!!

Sarge really likes his new back yard - here he is leaping off the back porch. Ian caught this with his camera phone.

Seriously, people, it’s not like we’ve been slackin’

It has been 2 weeks since I put up photos. So forgive me, there are a lot (and still many to come).

As you may recall, my dad flew in from Portland, OR on the 24^th of April. He was coming in to help us lay down the hardwood floor. My uncle Tommy (one of Dad’s three brothers was driving thru TX and stopped by – see photo below). Well, that was all good until Saturday afternoon when Dad had a bad run in with a skill saw (I kid you not). He almost (still hanging on by a bit) cut three fingers on his left hand off. After that “riveting” experience of getting hi to the ER, having them stabilize him, and getting him all sewn up so he could have surgery at home 2 days later – let’s just say we weren’t so keen on heading back to work with power tools.

That didn’t matter, we had to get done. As of May 1, we no longer had an apartment. we needed to get done. On Sunday we called in the troops. We had French, Caitlin, Micah and Ian on floor duty. While Erica, Nina and I packed up and loaded all of our belongings in to the U-Haul. See plan B was to put everything we owned in the truck and live on Micah and Erica’s couch. On Sunday night, at midnight Micah nailed the past piece of the hard wood floor down!!! We all cheered, went out on the porch for a beer and talked about how amazing the house looks (and the floor wasn’t even shellacked yet!) Jax's first rose of the season.

We knew that buying the unfinished, utility grade three, red oak was the cheapest way to go, because in the end it kicked your butt with the amount of elbow grease required to make it shine.

For those of you who have never done it here is the process:

1. Super coarse sand
2. Medium coarse sand
3. Filler for any holes (UG3 = lots of holes)
4. Super fine sand
5. Vacuum as good as possible
6. Wipe down with turpentine (phew!)
7. Coat of sealer
8. Coat of finisher
9. Buff with wicked crazy machine
10. Vacuum as good as possible
11. Wipe down with turpentine (phew again!)
12. Coat of finisher (repeat 1-3 more times based on need)
13. Done!

Some how our process wasn’t as pleasant, let me tell you our process:

1. Super coarse sand
2. Immediately, run over cord
3. Buy new cord at Home Depot, install new cord
4. Medium coarse sand
5. Filler for any holes (UG3 = lots of holes)
6. Super fine sand
7. Oh crap, not working
8. Super coarse sand
9. Medium coarse sand
10. Try belt sander (something has gotta give, what’s this stuff made out of anyways, steel? Jeeze!)
11. Super fine sand
12. Scrape up any left over filler (I swear this is steel!)
13. Vacuum as good as possible (AKA: buy $80 vacuum because Roomba ain’t havin’ it)
14. Wipe down with turpentine (phew!)
15. Coat of sealer
16. Coat of finisher
17. Vacuum as good as possible
18. Wipe down with turpentine (phew again!)
19. Buff with wicked crazy machine
20. Find out crazy machine has one wrong attachment
21. Scream at Lowe’s rental workers for not knowing head from ass
22. Get correct attachment
23. Buff again with wicked crazy machine
24. Vacuum as good as possible
25. Wipe down with turpentine (phew again!)
26. Coat of finisher (ran out of time, should have put third coat down, but didn’t – guess we will do that another time down the road)
27. Done!

So for all you out there that may some day want to put in your own unfinished hardwood floors let this be a lesson to you. Hire out.

Here are the floors before they are shellacked:

Close upIan trying to control the buffer, it was hysterical!

But, in the end, it looks pretty nice, dontcha think?

Ok, are you ready?

You sure?

OK! Here it is!!!!!