Working on the Floors

We had the ambitious thought that we could tear up the rugs today in the back bedroom and start sanding. The tearing up part wasn't hard at all. Even fining a sander to rent wasn't so bad either. It is deciding how far to sand the floors down that has us slightly befuddled. There are surface stains that would probably come out with fine grit sand paper. But there are quite a few water stains and one random size 7 footprint that need to go away.

While we were tearing up the rug, we thought we might as well take it out in the closet too. This was an easy decision because as we were pulling and folding the rug, clouds of plaster dust and construction debris from at least two different projects were poofing up into the air! This meant, though, that we also had to pull off the floor molding and will have to move it down to accommodate for the lack of rug! Then I got the idea that the "old" paint doesn't match the new and there were marks in the wall from construction stuff...so now, we have to attack designing/figuring out the entryway into the back bedroom and paint/repaint the closet.

Here are the colors of the back bedroom. (These are pretty true to what is there--a moss green and "soft candlelight".)

I was having fun pulling up the padding. It just kind of pops off the staples...you know me, the simple things in life keep me amused.

Attic Insulation

Once the insulation man told us that we could use a lot more insulation in the attic (at least another 8") Kevin has been hard at work rearranging the pink popcorn, moving it to the eaves and hard-to-reach-with-a-roll kind of spots. A couple nights with sore knees and bloody spots on his head from stinking roofing nails... But the good news is it is almost complete. The bad news is, he found a place where one of our chimneys is leaking :(

Picture this: Kevin's little GTI with 8 rolls of insulation! (I wish I had gotten a picture of that!)

(da man emerging from the attic cave)



(before)



(after additional insulation)



(water stains from leaking chimney)




Oh, and Rudolph came to visit...

8 hours of baking

There was merriment to be had on the Summit this weekend! People were covered in flour, the air smelled of gingerbread, Christmas tunes were filtering through the speakers, and tummies were filling from quality control sampling.



The list of cookies and other deliciousness made:

many dozens of gingerbread + frosted
shortbread
70 finger cookies + the few that were sacrificed for quality control
lemon yogurt cake
chicken Parmesan
yummy rugelach (apple butter and cinnamon & sugar)
oven pancake

Weekend well fed/spent!

Ice, ice, baby, too cold!

We have decided to not only quote Vanilla Ice, but to also take advantage of the Federal Energy Efficiency Rebate. Nice Andy came and walked through our house suggesting places to insulate, later revisiting with someone who had a thermal camera. It just so happened that day it was 20 degrees outside and this ice dam formed over the back steps we use to get into our house!


Andy's drawing will be a great tool for us to refer to as we remodel and update different parts of the house. The place we did get fixed was the roof line above the downstairs wash room and half bath. After cutting a hole in our closet wall, the first thing noticed was that, although there was insulation, it was placed on top of the rafters, rather than in between (which would work much more effectively at blocking/trapping the heat). The next oops! noticed was that the exhaust fan was not vented to the outside, but rather just up into the attic space, again, adding heat to the space.


Andy and his work crew properly vented the bathroom fan, repositioned the present insulation, blew in recycled newspaper insulation--making sure it got into all the nooks and crannies, and tyveked and insulated the back closet wall.

It was in the 40's today and rained for a bit. We woke up to the sound of ice sliding off the roof! Now we will see if the amount of ice is less!

Looking Up

Well, I Guess it is Time

The house came with a dishwasher, but we have only turned it on once in the 1.5 years we've lived here. I guess we like washing dishes by hand... But, we decided that perhaps it would be good to know if it does in fact work. Once the water was turned on, it does!



(Although, we still haven't actually put a load in it, but we did buy dishwasher soap. That's another step closer!)

Slowly but surely...

From this:




To this: