HomeWORK!

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Well, much has happened since our last entry, the floors are completely sanded. The living roomand master bedroom are varnished. In the living room I sanded every bit of old vanish, paint and other blemish off the floor until it was just the bare oak. It was made even more difficult by the sticky residue left by the peel-n-stick tiles (it was so sticky that our shoes would stick and we’d step out of them and then get our feet stuck). It pretty much took 2 days of sanding to finish the living room. In the 2nd bedroom / laundry room didn’t have tile over the wood and I needed to get the area under the washer and dryer finished so there would be a place for them when they were delivered. I wasn’t as worried that it was sanded perfectly so I just gave it a quick hit with the sander, applied Mineral Spirits and varnished. It looked exactly the same as the living room without all of the work. So in the master I washed the sticky off the floor with mineral oil, sanded lightly and varnished. Took a few hours and looks the same as the living room. I imagine that anyone refinishing multiple rooms goes through much of the same process:

1) Let’s make it new and perfect.
2) Man, sanding the floors really makes my back hurt.
3) I kinda like the rustic look, how about you.

They pretty much came out the same everywhere. The floors in the kitchen, bathroom and hallway are all projects for another day. The whole floor project was made even more exciting by all of the deliveries we had, which either needed the floor we were doing for its home or a walkway. We are really glad it’s finished and love the outcome. It was all worth it.

Little by little it’s starting to look and more importantly, feel like home. Its weird living in a new house, you have to get used to all of the strange noises. Gar seems at home wherever he is but Loki is afraid of the house. It might be the semi-slick floors (he was afraid to go in our old garage after the floor was painted, we think he thought it was a liquid.) They both love the yard and we have been tying them up in the back because we still have to train them for the Invisible Fence before they can be left unattached and unattended outside. Oh yes my buddy David laughed at us because we bought an “Invisible Fence”. They also traded our cow for some “Magic Beans”. I know the fence is really there because they hooked a box to the wall of the laundry room with a “blinking light” on it. We have been priming and painting in various rooms of the house. We decided to go with a similar color to the Boise place, it’s a Mocha brown but it is a darker color. The living room is getting finished and I will probably be spending most of my day assembling furniture. Yesterday, I put together a TV stand and I am working on 2 tables for behind the sofa as well as a tall shelf unit. Today DirecTV is coming to, hopefully, install satellite TV. We were trying to get DishNetwork but they couldn’t get the satellite lined up because of all of the trees. We also have an electrician coming today to give us a bid. He’s a Pastor and does electrical work on the side. Once the electrical is completed then the heating and Cooling folk will get at it. We got 3 bids and they were all very close to each other so we just picked one, alright we picked the Christians. Yeah, we discriminate. It’s sure nice to be sleeping in a “real” bed.

Church is terrific and I hope that some of you are listening to the online sermons from Pastor David at the Calvary Chapel of the Triad. http://www.reachthetriad.com/teachingflash.php?Testament=Special&Book=All On Sunday we recently started the Book of Acts. Thursday we’re going through Ruth and we recently went to a couple of nights where Pastor David talked about prophecy and current events. Great stuff.

In Tennessee I got a cool shirt. It looks like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup package but has a different message as you can see. If I wore this in Boise I would get strange looks but here whenever I wear it people talk to me like crazy. 5 or 6 people will mention it and we’ll chat. I can’t imagine how many see it and don’t comment. It’s fun.
More later, m

p.s. watch for pictures of the house at the WebShots page tonight or tomorrow. The Pastor electrician quoted us a much lower price than we hoped. He's going to do it all: Move stove plug, add 3 outlets, upgrade 200 amp service, install HVAC and add RV plug. Woo Hoo! PTL