Heather's woodworking projects

Heather has been creating some absolutely beautiful pieces of furniture! Through remodeling her house, she has discovered a love of woodworking. She can often be found looking at the latest projects posted on http://www.knock-offwood.com/ which is a blog of easy furniture plans written by a woman in Alaska. Here are some of her creations:

She calls these her "picture frames" and she made them out of a simple molding she bought at Menard's, mitered the joints and air nailed them up. I had no idea something so simple could dress up a dining room so much!

Heather made this headboard using a door she removed from her house during the remodel. Simply added a couple 4x4's, put some boards on top and down the middle, painted it and instant headboard! In my esteemed opinion, it looks like something you'd buy at IKEA! And she made it using an old door. That takes skill!

It's hard to say what woodworking project Heather is most proud of, but I'd have to say it is this one. With an awkward spot in her living room, but between the main entrance and kitchen, she decided to build a window seat. She used two base cabinets (the ones with the drawers) and one upper cabinet from Menard's. She built the two cubbies with no doors and the countertops. She even hand crafted the seat cushion. What was once an almost unusable space has become a really awesome spot to read a book and doubles as additional living room seating. The cats also really like this spot :-)

This was her first attempt at a headboard. The lighting is terrible in this picture, but it has a white washed stain on it to compliment the white furniture in my room. She used a plan from Knock-off Wood. Due to the amount of wood used, it is quite heavy. Dad said if there is ever an air raid we could just hide under my headboard! Silly Dad. But at least I know it is solidly built and made of real wood. It is gorgeous and I love it!

I had to share her awesome projects because she has worked so hard on them. I sure hope she wants to come over to my house and try out some new plans!!!

New vanity = ordered!

We have been looking for a 30" x 18" vanity for my bathroom for about a week. After checking out Home Depot, Lowe's and Menard's and not being impressed with the selection, I decided to order a custom cabinet from Thomasville at Home Depot. It ended up being slightly more expensive, but far better quality and is exactly what I want. I also ordered a custom top for it that is going to be so beautiful! Oh, and an over the toilet cabinet, too. They said it would be six weeks, so plenty of time to get the tile laid, right?

Other recent purchases:
Two ceiling fans at Menard's - on sale for $50!
Plumbing supplies to get the bathtub operational
Sheetrock for the bathroom

I started a new job at US Bank today and so I am no longer available during the weekdays to help Mom and Dad with the house. This makes me kind of sad because I really enjoyed getting to spend quality time with my Mama and Papa. :-/

Some of my favorite helpers!

My most favorite helpers in the whole wide world came to assist at the construction site a while back:

David Anthony with Grammy

Sydney Lucille

Katherine Joan

Thank you to my sister-in-law Kourtney for stopping over with my precious nieces and nephew for a visit. I love these kids!!!!

Iowa house damage

Mom and Dad drove to Ames last Monday to survey the damage and line up people to fix the place. They took these photos of the damage:

This is the side and back of the garage. You can see that if the tree would have been just a few inches to the left the damage would have been much more significant. Fortunately it is just the overhang that has been ripped off.

A hole in the ceiling of the garage. There were several places where the tree went through the roof in the garage.

The overhang on the back side of the garage also sustained some damage.

The bigger picture of the tree on the house. I am so thankful no one was living there when this happened, the damage is relatively minor and the contractors have already removed the tree off the house.

Now, if only we could sell the place once the roof is fixed...

Reinforcing sub-floors

Brother Russ first introduced us to this genius technique at Heather's house. Because the sub-floor has lived a good life for over 50 years, we decided to give it a little help to make it stronger for the next 50 years. Dad cut the plywood into 14" strips, applied Liquid Nails and then we screwed it to the sub-floor from underneath. This photo is of the laundry room "ceiling" which also happens to be the bathroom sub-floor. You can see we've attached the reinforcing plywood. We will also attach 2x2's to the floor joists for further support, we just haven't done that yet in this photo.

We will do the same reinforcement under the front entry and kitchen where I plan to install tile.

Piles and piles of junk

Where there is demolition, there is junk. Lots and lots of junk. Fortunately, Dad got Mom a dump trailer for Mother's Day (what a guy!) and we've been very busy filling it up - three times and counting! Dad hauls it to a demolition landfill for half the price of renting a dumpster. I thought you'd like to see some of our piles of junk!

This looks like old kitchen cabinets and the plywood that was under the kitchen tile.

The basement needed to be un-finished so we could reinforce the floor above, correct wiring issues and do a much better job of waterproofing the place. This is a pile of basement junk.

The handy dump trailer with load #2 all set to go!

We are already hard at work accumulating enough junk for load #4. We still aren't done with the basement demo, but we are getting there!

Bathroom progress

This is a before photo. We have since removed the old vanity, bathtub and plywood as well as the sheet rock on the wall with the window. Dad added insulation to that wall and put up a vapor barrier so I will stay warmer in the winter. Thanks Dad!

Mama and Papa moving the bathtub into position.

The new tub is in! It is white, but appears blue due to a protective film on the surface.

Yay for a new tub! Now I'm working on finding a new narrow depth vanity...

Unfortunate turn of events

I just received a call from Mom. She said a tree fell on 121Wilmoth in Ames. This is the Iowa house I proudly posted pictures of a couple weeks ago when we finished it. Mom and Dad are going to survey the damage tomorrow and will hopefully get me some pictures to post.

This is obviously a before photo. It was the tree on the left side of the photo that fell across the garage and fireplace room. We already know the overhang on the garage was sheared completely off, but are unsure of any other structural damage.

Our beautiful house that we worked SO hard to fix up...

One month of home ownership

And what a month it has been. We made lots of progress on the house today with the help of Mom, Dad, Andrew and family friend Shannon. Dad hauled one dump trailer load off this morning and then a second dump trailer load this afternoon! I envision more dump trailer loads in our future as we are not done tearing apart the basement. The upstairs bathroom is completely gutted and ready to have the sub-floor reinforced so tile and the tub can be installed. We have accomplished a lot in the past month!

New photos!

I took these with my cell phone, emailed them to myself, downloaded them to Picasa and then uploaded them to Blogspot. Whew! All for your viewing enjoyment. I sure hope my old fashioned digital camera works again soon!

The sub-floor in the kitchen and the walls where the paneling used to be.

Dad sawed the plywood into chunks and then we used brute strength to pry it up. It was nailed into the sub-floor and for good measure they put probably 500 screws in it, too. Not fun!

The tile in the bathroom is almost gone. The vanity and awful tub are going on Friday. The plywood will also come out on Friday.

Because the sub-floor in the kitchen was very weak in many places, we need to reinforce it from below. So that meant the sheetrock in the bedroom below the kitchen had to go. Here is the before picture...

...and the after picture! Clearly we need to address some wiring issues and also some water issues.
The pile of junk we tore out of the bedroom below the kitchen. It is going to the dump on Friday!

We've slowly but surely been making progress and will soon be able to start the process of putting the place back together. My kitchen tile is on back order, but it should be in soon. We are looking to start painting soon and then redo the wood floors.

Tile has been ordered

Just got back from ordering the kitchen tile at Lowe's! It has blue undertone (blue is my favorite color) and will look next to my natural maple cabinets. Dad also purchased the tile backer cement board and plywood for reinforcing the floor from below. Can't wait to put it in!!

No more kitchen

The last cabinet was torn out this afternoon around 2:30pm!

Other highlights:
Got one piece of plywood off the kitchen floor and decided we'd wait until Dad had the Skilsaw along for the rest.
Purchased a new bathtub and tub surround at Menard's!

Doesn't sound like much, but I was of no help with my back injury and Mom left at 1pm to go babysit the munchkins. So Dad carried the team today with his Sawzall and cabinet demolition skills. Thank you Dad!

A trip down kitchen memory lane!

Since I can't get my camera uploader to work (keeps saying "device not found" - have tried everything to no avail - please email me if you have any ideas!), I thought it would be a fine time to pay tribute to the kitchen that is no longer. The cabinets, appliances, floor and paneling had many good years together, but alas they are on their way to find new homes. Enough of the drama, look at these pictures!

That tribute to ingenuity that was the added counter space (on the far left) was first to go. What a bunch of tired looking cabinets. They were so dirty and covered with years of grease - disgusting.

The mis-matched cabinets, tile with wandering grout lines and wall that says it was last painted in 1984. Shudder. For the record, I was born in 1982, so that paint is almost as old as I am!

Really hope to post new photos soon!

Black and Decker Scrubber discontinued :-(

It turns out Black and Decker discontinued our wonderful scrubber tool that has come in handy for washing walls. But lucky for us we stopped at the Black and Decker Outlet in Story City, Iowa on our last trip to Ames - and they had them! Mom and Dad bought one as a spare.

Demolition derby

News from today:
*I passed the re-inspection! A big thank you to Mom and Dad for doing the re-inspection as I never want to see that inspector again in my life.
*Took out kitchen upper cabinets, one set of lowers, the ugly extended counter top, gnarly looking "paneling" and the really nasty stove.
*Ripped up the kitchen tile.
*Tore up the cement board in kitchen (although we still need to tear up a layer of plywood before we finally get to the sub-floor).
*Tore up a few laundry room peel and stick tiles.
*Hauled all debris to the dump trailer.
*Dad also patched more holes in the wall, which will be an ongoing project as they are everywhere.
*Most importantly, we had the best little visitors come to see the progress and join us for lunch when Kourtney brought over Katie, Sydney and David. I just love those little people!

Sadly my computer is not recognizing my camera for some reason, so it won't let me upload all the great photos I took today. I will see what I can do to fix this because you are going to want the visual on this one!

Since I've come home I'm realizing I pulled a muscle in my lower back. :-( This needs to heal quickly because we still have PLENTY more to do at the house!

Holes, holes and more holes!

It has been a steady few days of washing ceilings mixed with patching and sanding holes in the walls. I guess the children that lived in the house before could pound nails in, put thumb tacks up and put stickers wherever they wanted to. Now I see why Mom and Dad never let us hang anything on the walls in our bedrooms!

If you look closely you can see the hundreds of patches on the walls - and this is only one room.

The re-inspection is scheduled for Thursday and this time Mom and Dad will be there with me. Thank you Mom and Dad!

We are almost ready to paint our first ceiling! The walls, well, they still need more work...

My Uncle Joe

Me with my Uncle Joe

Every time we go to Iowa we also stop by Joe's house to clean it out and tend to his personal care as he is no longer capable of doing it and won't leave his house. This is after he has been cleaned up and is wearing his new outfit that he was very excited about. He loves it when we visit and even though it is not always fun making the trip or cleaning him up, he is so worth it. I include him because we spend a lot of time driving to Iowa and it is not just to work on rental properties... Sometimes we have more important things to tend to :-)

Failed the inspection

I forgot to mention that my house failed the inspection on Monday. Even though I addressed everything on the City of Bloomington's hazard list, the inspector found a new hazard not on the list (apparently the first inspector overlooked it) and cited me for it on the spot, thus the house failed inspection. I was not a happy camper about this or when he gave me a side hug after asking me to marry him. So far I am not impressed with the City of Bloomington...

Iowa house project

As if we weren't doing enough home renovations, we've also been working on fixing up an Iowa rental property for sale since April. I've spent many an hour painting the place, laying tile and then painting and painting some more. Here are some photos of the Iowa project. It is a shame I don't have some before pictures so you can see how beautiful it is now!

The front - new paint job, new screen door, ugly shrubs removed - actually now looks like the best house on the street

The living room with pretty fireplace, awesome built in shelves and refinished hardwood floors. I mixed the paint color from two different paint color rejects and it turned out great!

My favorite thing to do to all of the rental properties - paint the doors red! Learned a new technique at Sherwin Williams. Use a gray primer and the red covers 100% better than if you used a white primer. The results were very impressive. Color is Wild Poppy in case you are wondering :-)

This room is probably the most dramatic change in the whole house. When we started it had dark wood paneling, a window that was held in with putty and dark blue carpet that was saturated with water. Now it has a new window, the paneling was painted our lovely brown tone and Heather and I tiled the floor. I think it is now my favorite room in the house!


This one is located at 121 Wilmoth in Ames, Iowa. If you know of anyone with kids going to Iowa State University, it is located three block from campus and would be a great investment property! It has had a solid rental history for the past 11 years, but Mom and Dad are looking to get out of the rental business. Ahem, they have projects in Minnesota :-)