Scribble and Scrabble

Category Archives: The House

Colby’s Room

by Heather | 0 comments

Our house has four bedrooms in it. One is our room, the second is Ben’s bedroom, the third is Andy’s man lair and the fourth is a bedroom downstairs deemed “Colby’s Room.” It was a pretty gross room that we just used as storage for a while. Then we started sticking Colby in it when we had to leave for a few days. Jack and Colby eat each others food so the only way to guarantee one cat didn’t starve over a long weekend was to separate them. Colby’s room is going to be Andy’s new man cave though. Colby will have to be demoted to the laundry room ;-)

The original owner put up shingles on the wall because it was a “forest/tree house” themed boys room. 60 years later, those shingles were still there, just painted white.

Andy removing the beautiful shingles.

After we removed shingles and old drywall Andy spent a weekend rolling this rubber waterproofing stuff on the concrete block. We’ve used it in other rooms downstairs that used to leak and it’s proven very effective in sealing things off before we refinished the room.

View of the bedroom from the downstairs hallway. The bathroom we finished is the doorway on the left and our master bedroom will eventually be in the bedroom to the right.

Andy screws in the subfloor.

Andy’s dad pulling out the rotten window frame wood. Andy’s parents came up a few weekends ago and helped us with a few projects in the room.

Ben watching Andy and Grandpa sawing wood outside. Every time Ben walks by saw horses in the garage he now says “Gampa!”

Andy put insulation up and started wiring. The room still needs a TON of work, but we’ll get there! We always do :)

The ugliest bunch you ever did see

by Heather | 1 Comment

I pulled some of the carrots from our garden today and they were quite ugly. I’m not sure what happened, but we’ve had a rough year with the garden between chipmunks, the weather and me not being on top of watering.

They cleaned up just fine though and are very tasty!

Office Details

by Heather | 2 Comments

We finished a few more details in my office downstairs. Andy cut and Roman Ogeed bookshelves and I sanded, primed and painted them. He hung them up for me this week, they’re so pretty! I love having my books out of boxes and up on display again.

Directly across from the bookshelf is another cubby. We didn’t exactly plan to have cubbies in the room, but there were cinderblocks making up the lower half of the walls so we had to accommodate for those. I received type trays from Andy’s parents one year for Christmas and Andy hung them up in this corner of the room. I have a few little knick knacks on display but also want to put in some more trinkets and a few of the little lego guys from when I was a kid.

Except for caulking around a few of the windows and staining the doors, the office is complete! It’s actually a nice big room even with my desk and quilting stuff in there. Plenty of room for company to sleep on aerobeds (since we don’t have a real guestroom). Sometimes I’ll just walk in there to stare at how pretty it is :) A far cry from the icky room it was when we bought the house. Incidentally, tomorrow is our 5 year housiversary!

Memorial Day Weekend

by Heather | 0 comments

For the past few years on Memorial weekend, Andy’s parents have come to help with house stuff. We actually didn’t do any demolition this time and instead focused on little details of past projects that never quite got finished.

Last summer we switched the house from oil to gas. We finally got rid of the 250 gallon oil tank this weekend. Andy cut off the old pipes and with his dad’s help, moved the tank outside. There is SO MUCH more space in the laundry room now.

“Ok, now what?” Haha, they managed to get it out to the road somehow and within a few hours it was picked up by a scrapper! Andy scraps stuff too, but this monster was just not worth the effort.

Andy’s dad built shelves for the storage room off the office. We don’t have an attic or basement so every space needs to be used efficiently. I would love an attic, but honestly we’ve built so much storage into the house that didn’t exist before that we’re doing alright. Plus, I’m not really tempted to hang on to everything!

Andy installing the pergo floor we picked out. We were just going to go with linoleum tile but this flooring was on clearance at Home Depot. We ended up only having 1 piece left over, crazy!

Camping stuff all nestled in its new home. We’re just leaving the drywall as is, there’s wiring and pipes that might need to be accessed so it doesn’t make any sense to finish-finish the room. Our storage freezer is at the opposite end in a cubby we made for it.

The windows in my office finally have trim too! The boys measured, cut, nailed and caulked while I filled nail holes with wood filler and put the first coat of primer on. Hopefully I’ll get back to painting them soon!

Andy’s dad installed a mirror and its edging in the downstairs bathroom.

He also put up glass shelves in the bathroom. With details like this I’d have to call that room totally finished. A far cry from this bathroom of 4 years ago.

Andy’s mom was so helpful through all of this. When she wasn’t working on a project, she was watching Ben so the rest of us could work on a project. Here, they’re enjoying Sesame Street with some graham crackers.

Jack was tremendous help.

As was Colby the Supervisor.

It was a really warm weekend too. We had some copper pipe in the garage so Andy made a sprinkler for Ben.

It even included an old kitchen sink sprayer that we used to squirt each other.

Maybe Ben doesn’t have such lame parents after all.

Next year Andy’s cousin is getting married Memorial weekend, so we’ll be all fancied up instead of grimed up. Thanks again mom and dad for helping this weekend, you’re probably as sore as we are, huh? :) And most importantly, thank you to the men and women who gave their lives so that we could enjoy the freedoms we do. So that we could be together as a family, safe to live without fear in this country. To the military families that have lost someone, my heart goes out to you. I am so humbled by your sacrifice.

There is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13

Whatchamacallit Answer

by Heather | 0 comments

Andy’s mom was right, this is a trap for carpenter bees.

Every summer carpenter bees start drilling little round holes in all the trim at the top of our house. We thought painting it would seal things up so a few years ago my entire summer project was to fill up all their holes with caulk and then paint over the wood. It didn’t work so well, they came back with a vengeance and just drilled new holes. Although our house had a lovely new shade of green trim so all was not lost.

Andy started looking for other solutions online and found these carpenter bee traps. Being Andy, he thought why pay for one when he could just make it? He found plans for one online, bought the cedar wood (apparently it has to be cedar) and went to work. I think it looks like a cute little bird house, but the theory behind it is that the bees fly in the little holes (same size as the ones they drill) and end up getting stuck inside the plastic bottle and can’t back their fat selves out of the holes. Andy hasn’t installed it yet, but word on the interwebs is that they work VERY well. Pretty nifty little device!

Busy, busy, busy

by Heather | 0 comments

This weekend was b-e-a-utiful, 70s and sunny! It felt great to get so much outside work accomplished in March (instead of May). Andy and I tag teamed watching Ben and then both worked during his naps. Andy pushed Ben around on the power wheels he found at the dump (since Ben obviously isn’t old enough to push the pedal and steer by himself). The boy had a blast and kept saying “truck” the whole time. We also had our first bonfire of the season on Saturday night!

I took down Christmas lights from the lilac bush out front. They were so pretty sparkling in the sunshine! Andy took icicle lights off the house and found a random rusty screwdriver up on the roof.

Ben took a 3 hour nap Sunday afternoon and I was able to get so much weeding and flower bed cleaning done. I took a break at one point and wandered in the garage to find Andy making sparks. I’m still not entirely sure what he was doing…

I also planted more seeds for the garden (just indoors for now). The tomatoes I started a few weeks ago are already popping up.

The fan on my computer also died this weekend. Handy Andy came to the rescue. I don’t know if the tools in this picture actually had anything to do with the replacement of the fan, but this is how his desk looked afterwards. He just happened to have a comparable fan “in stock” and replaced mine with a little fiddling.

Finally, my mom visited Saturday afternoon and we went on a girls birthday date. My birthday isn’t actually until June 1 (I’ll be expecting cards then, haha, just kidding). But my mom and Paul are getting a puppy in a few weeks and won’t be able to leave home for more than a couple hours. We went out to lunch and then to the Clinique counter at the mall for my birthday present…big girl makeup. I was pampered and given some skin care and makeup tips. Now, I’m not really that into makeup and lipstick and dozens of eyeshadow colors, but it was so much fun to see what was right for my skin. It’s really nice stuff too, feels great when I’m wearing it and hopefully the cleanser and lotion will help protect my skin as I get older. Thanks mom, I had so much fun with you :)

And, random Benjamin picture…this is his new way to watch Sesame.

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