Guilty conscience

Well I got to feeling guilty about not posting any pics. So I thought I would do a few more of the bathroom story.

Here's the bathtub after the tile has been ripped off. That was a messy job.


Here's what the shower looked like after the tile was ripped out. Yes, that is rot. The contractor who did the job said that it looked like it had been set on fire. He had to cut out quite a bit of wood and replace it.






Here's the sink vanity. I removed two of the drawers prior to the remodel because we didn't have a decent place for storing towels. Old houses are great, except for storage. I use a wicker lined basket that looks really cute. Yep, it's still there. Seth and I hope to refinish the sink vanity this summer.






More lovely pictures of the shower. That hole was actually there. The contractor didn't put it there. He asked if we had known about it when we bought the house. I said no. Our inspector didn't even mention it nor did all the plumbers who had crawled under there since we had purchased the place.

Bottom of the shower after the old plumbing has been removed. The new walls are up and looking great. We turned the shower into a much needed storage closet.
The whole process took about 3 weeks, even with grandma in the hospital, Neil and the kiddos in Utah. Grandma was supposed to stay home and let the contractors in while we went to get Seth who was visiting friends in Utah. I wound up staying home and visiting Grandma (my mom) in the hospital.

Drat, that is my finger. I thought I cropped that out.

Well this appeases my guilty conscience about never posting pictures of our house and getting to look at everyone else's lovely houses. Gotta run. It's off to the Land of Nod.

Just another week in Paradise

Just another week in paradise. The kiddos and I got a lot done this past weekend. Seth, Tina, and I leveled the north side front yard flowerbed. Neil had removed the old, rotting camellias a weekend ago or so. I sure will miss their pretty blooms. During the remodel last year when the plumbers were tying the new sewer line into the old, they shattered the old for several feet. They replaced the old line at a greatly reduced cost up to the house. But the camellia was right were the old line was. I guess the combination of losing the tree that shaded it and the indignity of having it's roots poked at was more than it could bear. Camellias are pretty disease resistant, but I guess not this time. Neil just had to prune it way back and topple it over. Seth and I transplanted the hydrangeas there. They'll like it there better now that their shade is also gone. We had to cut down both 30 year old Chinese Elm trees that were in the front yard. One the county didn't like as it was supposedly hanging into the street and the other was doing massive damage to the old driveway and would have done damage to the new one also. Well more on last year's remodel later or once I get the pictures scanned.
Seth and I also transplanted the patio rose that had been in a pot for several years into a flower bed in the backyard. Also got the last of the cement forms that the contractor's people had left picked up and stacked. I'll have to call him this week and tell him to come pick them up. We should be getting quotes pretty quick for the little patio off of grandma's room and a some kind of cover to go over the school room door.

Hope everyone is doing okay.

Where is everything?

I thought I would share some floor plans of our house so that you can get a feel of where everything is. I always wonder how other people's homes are laid out. Just nosy I guess. This is the main house. The master bedroom and bath were added sometime in the 60's as evidenced by the avocado green toilet and sinks. The midde bedroom is really small as it took about 3 feet out of it to make the hallway. Hubby was a drafter once and he did the floor plans and site layout for the county last year for our permit. The red ink is my doing though.

This is our garage/grandma's room/school room. We took a good hunk out of the existing garage for grandma's bedroom and bath. We had this good portion of yard behind the garage that was nothing but a dump site before we added the school room. We had intended originally to use the school room as grandma's room but she felt sorry for us and said she only needed a small room for herself. She has somethings in the school room though, like her computer and television.

Today was a little better. Didn't have to take hubby to work, so that means I walk to work. Thankfully it's about a 7 minute walk one way. I work as a librarian in a middle school. I like the job most days. The added benefit of walking is that I have lost almost 20 pounds since I started walking to work. So that's good.

I'll try to add pictures tomorrow of what the house looked like when we first bought it. Picture broken glass, no lawn or flowers, etc.

I also want to mention a few other blogs that I really enjoy visiting:

One woman's cottage life

Cottage at Wit's end

I really enjoy seeing what these other families are up to in their homes. If you like cottage/vintage style you should really enjoy these sites.

Gotta run, it's Bible study tonight and the son, who is ever routine conscience, is pestering me to get going. See ya!

Just pluggin' along

Oh what a crazy day around here. Rushed the hubby to work and then rushed home, got the grandma up and rolling, all the kids schoolwork together and graded to turn in and ran out the door again to take them to biology and history class and grandma to the doctor. Had to rush home and get ready for work. Thank goodness for the father-in-law "Pop" to pick up the kids at noon and bring them home. You're probably wondering why the kids are at a class if they're home schooled. Well, they take a one day a week class and then we finish assignments at home. Biology is pretty straight forward and he spells it all out for us. The kids complete the assignments and we correct them. History is a bit more lax with just the time periods outlined for us and we can pretty much choose how we want to cover it. Can anyone say great World War II movies?

Yesterday was a great day around here. The weather even cooperated. Got a few things done as Neil had a rare day off. He dug up the old camellias on the north side yard. They were rotted and termite infested. I'll transplant my hydrangeas over there when we get the ground leveled, which had better be pretty soon. The old tree out front is gone and so is their shade. Anyone familiar with California summers will understand completely when it reaches triple digits. Also got the new lighting in the kitchen hung up. Yeah!! You might not think that's much of an accomplishment unless you knew my hubby. He's a great, sweet, hard working man but if it involves fixing something, most of the time count him out. Fortunately I keep a couple of good handy men on speed dial. We, much to my regret, did very little of the remodeling work ourselves. Of course if Neil was able to we'd probably still be breaking ground. He works 6 days a week, 60+ hours. Seeing as how he's fond of his sleep I don't think he'll give that up to do much remodeling work. He is very supportive though with whatever I want. Also got most of the shelves and pictures hung in the schoolroom and grandma's room.

Here it is. The light I choose for the kitchen. Hubby was a little skeptical and so was I. It's just really hard to find anything cottage style around here. There's plenty of Tuscany and modern and French country, but not cottage. So I hope this works and that we like it a lot. It seems a little big right now, but hope once the wall is down that will change. No the picture was not taken in my home.

It looks better already. Hopefully next weekend I'll dynamite the dust off the sewing machine and sew grandma's curtains up. Maybe even get some pillow cases sewn. I love to sew, but with home schooling the kids, taking care of grandma (which is my mom), working 17 hours a week, and doing household work there's not much time leftover for me either. I haven't used one of my 5 sewing machines in probably a year. I've got several quilts cut out and ready to go but not sewn. I guess I don't like giving up sleep either!

Tina's supposed to be doing home economics this semester also. She's doing great on the cooking and even experimenting on us with her own recipes. She hasn't killed us yet. Keep our fingers crossed.

Hope everyone in Blogland is having a great week. I don't always leave a comment on the blogs I like to visit, but I do enjoy what you have to say and love seeing what you have done with your homes and what's going on in your life.

Catching up

Okay, it's been awhile since we've posted. Life seems to get so crazy. I did try to post a couple of days ago. Even spent a precious 45 minutes on the darn thing. Hit some button and there went all the hard work. Ugh!!! I've been trying to read more in the help center in hopes that will clear up some of my confusion. Learned a few things, don't know if they'll help or not.

We've been slow getting things done around here. Did manage to get the two borrowed bookcases out to the schoolroom this weekend and the too little bookcase from the schoolroom to Seth's bedroom closet for much needed storage space for him. Fits perfectly. Now he'll just need to get organized. Also cleaned out a few more of the kitchen boxes stacked on the patio. It poured rain here on Saturday evening, so I was glad that I had finished doing that.

Finally got my mom out of the hospital and now we just need to get caught up on some schooling stuff. Sometimes that's easier said than done.

Was hoping to get more done this long weekend, but the hours and days just slip away.