Day 73-74- Shower with a Stranger

Soooo...you might think the title post is weird but that is essentially what happen...kinda. A new neighbor down the way stopped by on a Saturday morning. He is a tall friendly older man who loves to work on houses as his hobby and also likes to help people out whenever he can. We will just call him Godsend for now. Well I typically will not turn down help so needless to say I took him up on his offer of trying to help me get some misc. stuff done.

Now although I may at this point be semi-talented as a tile-girl the shower surround really intimidated me. And by intimidated me I mean it scared the crap out of me. I mean tiling a shower is serious...there is alot of water in a shower and if you screw it up you may just screw up alot of other things down the road as water slowly leaks into your walls...yeah. So needless to say it was something I kept putting off which essentially meant that I kept putting my plumbing off (aka toilet) from being installed because I wanted the plumber to come back and be able to do it all at once. So needless to say on this Saturday morning I had a large leering goal ahead of me and was not sure about pulling it off. And this is what led to the stranger and I sitting in the bathtub together. Now let's just say that you get to know someone pretty quickly sitting in a bathtub together! But he ended up being a very sincere guy and got me started on getting 6 rows straight and pretty across the back. The rest was up to me though!

How do you think I did?
Grouting from tub to ceiling was a bit messy and seemed to take forever but I was so excited about the little glass tiles that it kept me motivated. I left it very simple, very neutral, but it also went perfectly with the beauty of the floor. So next time you are here you will have to join me in the shower! Ha!

Day 30 & 31 It's been a month!

Wow- I really need to catch up with my blogs so I might keep the next ones short and sweet. :) So the rest of the weekend we finished insulating the attic and upstairs bathroom. It was very itchy (fyi: if you are clastrophobic I would suggest getting someone else to do it).

*Mental note to store in the back of your head in case you ever are adding more insultation to your attic or wherever: Wear long sleeves and gloves to avoid getting insulation in your skin, if you do get insulation all over your skin try not to scratch. Once you are done take a cold shower in order to keep your pores closed and not let the insulation into your skin. Once you feel like you got all the insulation off you can then take a hot shower.*

We also scraped some floors that weekend. Cheryl scraped the nasty glue off the wood floor in the dining room and Tiffany and I tackled the kitchen.

The stick-down/glue down tiles in the kitchen SUCKED. You had to scrape each one off with a crow bar and hammer and/or floor scraper and they came up in tiny pieces. When you got more than a 3"x3" piece there was cause for celebration!

Woot Woot!

Day 29- And SCREAMS went out

So on a Friday afternoon I am awaiting my little sisters arrival to come and help me with the house for the weekend. My contractors had just left and my other little sis had just run to grab something from the other house. I am trying to clean things up a bit and am upstairs using the shopvac. All of the sudden a bird flys from one attic opening to the other right above my head. Needless to say I screamed. I call my contractor to freak out and ask him what to do and if he can come back asap. THEN....my hero arrives. It is Tiffany and she is wondering why I am screaming. I start to explain what just happened when all the sudden the bird flys out again and over to a corner and into a piece of insulation. It was near an open window in Lucas' room (which is how I am assuming he got in in the first place) so Tiff decides we should try and scare it out. I agree with her...and then hand her a 2x2 while I stand frozen and gutsy girl goes over and starts hitting on the stud next to the bird. Nothing happens. We decide that maybe if we start using the shop-vac again that it will scare him out. So I turn it on and start vaccuming...then all the sudden we see insulation fall from the attic above and we look at eachother with that evil eye and whisper "there he is" and then all the sudden I look up and he is sitting 12" from my head on a ceiling joist and all I could do was start SCREAMING!!!!

The bird then flys into Lilly's room and is sitting up on top of a piece of insulation up in the corner right next to the window. At that time Cheryl comes back and wonders what is going on, we tell her the story and show her the bird and she comes upstairs to join our venture. So we come up with a plan! We will open the window in that room, close the door, turn on the vaccum and hit the wall with a stick and he will just fly out...right??

Sooooo...Tiffany BRAVELY goes and opens the window that is next to the bird so that hopefully he can fly out. We all go in Lilly's room and close the door hoping to contain him in the room (although one wall is only studs so there is about a 5' opening for him to fly back to Lucas' room). So since I did not think to grab my camera at the time; here is a description of what is happening:

-I am in the corner of the room (farthest from the bird) trying to duck behind Cheryl although she is so skinny that it is kind of difficult to use her for any kind of protection.

-Tiffany has her beating stick (a 2x2) and is approaching the bird to plan on hitting the studs trying to scare it out.

-The Bird (which is black and ugly) has its yellow eyes wide open, its beak chattering and is probably way more scared than I am...maybe.

Tiffany gets in place and starts hitting the wall...scared bird does not move. I turn on the shop-vac and start yelling at the bird to get out of my house. He flys across the room and almost out of the 5' opening but instead perches on top of a shelf. (I hold Cheryl in front of me...what? you haven't seen the movie THE BIRDS?). The bird finally realizes that maybe he should try to get out of this house where girls are screaming and trying to hit him with a 2x2 and suck him up with a vaccum so he heads for the window...but BOOM! He hits the top of it instead. Ouch! He regains his composure (while still in the air) and FINALLY flys out the bottom!!! Tiffany rushes over and closes the window, I run to close the other bedroom window and we all breathe a sigh of relief.

So needless to say I have to give a shout out to my heros that day. For some reason I could not be as brave as my sister Tiffany. Maybe its because she deals with 8-12 children everyday under the age of 5 that nothing can really scare her anymore? I'm not sure...but I am really glad that she showed up when she did.

The only brave thing I did was after the bird was gone. I wanted to make sure that he had come in through the open window and not the attic space above through a vent or something (since my house has been known to be a bird haven). Sooooo I get a ladder and VERY SLOWLY stick my head up through a 2'x2' opening that has about a 6" layer of blown insulation above it. Kind of assuming that at any time another bird will swoop towards me and start pecking my eyes out........but nope. We are good. No holes in the gable vents that I can see and we decide that maybe that was enough action for the night and that we should go eat some dinner.

Although it would have been awesome to catch on tape and post to you-tube...all I got was a pic of my sister the next day being awesome like she always is. I thank God for the heroes in my life. There are many right now and I couldn't do this without them! XOXOXO!

Day 26- My most Loyal Crew

Just wanted to give a shout out and thanks to my most loyal working crew- My parents...and don't forget my 89 year old grandma who also tries to help where ever she can! My mom has been a wallcovering stripper, plaster knockerdowner, staple puller, and just about anything else I ask her to do. My grandma usually takes clean up duty but is also been known to strip...wallcovering that is.

And my dad (who is not pictured below because he worked the first shift this day and we were working the second shift) has done a little bit of everything too, this day he took down the kitchen cabinet and old vent...which he had to do partly with a sawz-all.

Looks like it is almost ready for a new refridgerator!!