Today, my mom watched the girls, and Joe, his dad (Summer and Camryn's Papaw), and I went to the new house to work. Joe and his dad started on the exterior yesterday. The trim and facial boards were falling off and partly rotten, so they had to replace them. They were going to nail the existing gutters back up, but when they got them down, they saw that they were in bad shape, so they replaced them, too. I thought gutters were expensive, but really it's the labor involved in installing them when you pay someone to do it that costs so much. We bought gutters at Home Depot for $4/10 feet sections.
We do not like the color of the trim on the house at all. It is a weird brown color, and does not go with the brick. We spent some time looking at paint last week and decided on an olive greenish color.
Yesterday was demo day for the stuff that they were going to replace. Today they put the new trim, facial boards, and gutters on. They only did the large section on the front, where the majority of the bad wood was. They'll work on the rest of the front in the next few days, and do the back after that.
The ugliest part about the front of the house: the porch.
There is a layer of dust on the boards right now because they were sitting in the house while we were sanding drywall, so it's kind of hard to tell the actual color of the trim at this point.
Our fireplace is HUGE, as you have seen. It's 20 feet long if I recall correctly. When we bought the house, there was wood paneling above it, and a mantle that was basically a rough piece of lumber, painted brown. We tore out the wood paneling, and removed the old mantle. I checked prices of mantles, and was shocked that a piece of wood could cost $600. I didn't think it made sense to pay that much when we could make one ourselves. When we were on a shopping spree a couple weeks ago, we came across a huge piece of wood. I forget the exact term for what it is. They said that it had been sold, and we could special order one for $100. It was the exact size we needed, so we did that. It arrived a few days ago, so today while Joe and Joe Sr. were working outside, I sanded and stained our new mantle. I think it is going to look beautiful.
Today while we were shopping for gutters and stain, we also got a handrail for the basement stairs. The old one had a couple layers of chipped paint and had seen better days. I stained the new handrail the same stain as the mantle. I love this dark wood!
So, we had a productive day today! With all that is going on this month, we really have to make use of our time. Not only is it Derby week and there are tons of festivities, my parents always host the Derby party for all of our family and friends. It's a really fun, all-day event. So, we won't have any time next Saturday to work on the house. Also, May is the absolute busiest month every year. My dad's birthday, my uncle Mike's birthday (50th this year!), a couple cousins' birthdays, my cousin Richard's confimartion, graduations and parties, Mother's Day, you name it, it happens this month. On top of all that, we are being pressured to get out of the house we are living in as fast as we can.
Poor Camryn has a cold. It's a bad one, with a yucky cough. If it doesn't clear up by Monday, I'll have to take her to the doctor. I felt her chest rumble a bit when she was breathing earlier, so it's better safe than sorry. No fever yet so far, so that's a good thing. I'm really hoping Summer doesn't get it as well, but that's kind of inevitable.
Joe is waking up in about 3 hours to go fishing with my dad. Crazy, I tell ya. I swore I would never be a fishing widow like my mom, but here I am.
I'm going to leave you all with some homework. Please, someone, tell me what this tree is!!!
It's the tree that is in our front yard. If you click on the picture, you can see the leaves. They are a really weird shape, I've never seen anything like it before. I'd like to know what it is so that I know how big it gets and everything. We're going to plant a second tree and I want them to look nice next to each other. If I wasn't so tired, I would offer whoever tells me what the tree is a prize, but you'll have to settle for some blog recognition :-)
(picture above is from a college party Jon went to, where he reportedly got drunk and tried to make out with college girls).
I wasn't there so I don't know if he was cheating, but pictures don't lie. He was out that late and he left with the mystery woman.
Needless to say... I think it's time to dim the lights on that stage. What's happening to that family is not pretty and is only getting worse. The adults in the situation need to end this selfish charade and take care of the kids they claim to have wanted so badly in the first place.
