This morning

I found this on my fridge this morning, and it made me laugh out loud.

Basement ceiling pictures

This is a pretty good shot of the beams that Kevin has installed along the ceiling in the basement.  

 Here, he and Andy are nailing in one of the panels between the beams.

 One section finished!

 Close-up of the pattern in the paneling.

And this is why I haven't been able to park in my garage for almost a year now...

Stair project update

Since I last posted pictures, not much has changed in the basement.  Kev has a month to finish, but it's iffy if he can simply because of our schedules.

We've been crazy busy since school started.  He's worked several weekends, we've had endless Volleyball tournaments to go to and we've been helping a friend who unexpectedly found herself divorcing.  She's got to move in the next two weeks, and we'll help, which takes even more time from our project.  (And we wouldn't think of NOT helping her, regardless of our own projects.)  Added to this are family commitments which we know we need to do, but it all takes time away from the Stair Saga.

Things NOT finished yet are:

• the basement ceiling
• painting
• upstairs carpet
• siding

We're working on them all.  We both hated the suspended ceiling that was in the basement, but weren't sure what we could replace it with, because we also dislike sheet rocked ceilings.  So, what we came up with was a wood ceiling.  Kev has built a "tray" around the outside of the room out of pine boards.  He's also built pine "rafters" or beams across in three places.  Now we are putting up wood panels between the beams to fill it in.  We also replaced the big florescent lights with spotlights (Canned lights?  whatever.)  Kev had to do some rewiring and some patching of sheet rocked walls and he's finally textured the wall where the stairs were and the wall upstairs where we took out an outside door.

I'm the painter, so as soon as I have a chance, I will paint the living room upstairs and the family room downstairs.  I'm thinking about using a different color downstairs, but will keep upstairs the same color.  

Carpet needs to be chosen and laid upstairs.  For a while, we thought about doing two types of flooring upstairs, making the living room and dining room individual instead of the same thing throughout.  But, someday I want to remodel the kitchen and do new flooring in there, so for continuity, and so I don't have three types of flooring upstairs, we're keeping the same carpet in the living room and dining rooms.  I finally got a hold of a carpet company who bring samples to the home and will figure the cost right there in our home.  I've heard good things about this company (based in Woodward, OK), so I'm eager to hear and see what they have.  We meet with then next Tuesday.

Siding...oh my has siding been a drama.  Since our house is a modular, the company which built the house had their own siding installed.  It's NOT a standard size.  It's lap, cedar siding, but it's made of 9 inch boards, not the standard 10, or even 8.  So I finally told Kevin to wait till summer when we can get James Hardy boards and do the entire house rather than siding the front now and the rest of the house later.  So, he's off the hook on siding.

I hope that we'll have it all finished before Christmas.  The terms of the bet will be discussed since Kev says it's not all his fault that it probably won't be done by the 4th of December.  (Besides, I'm in charge of the paint and the carpet...if I don't get it done, it will be MY fault!)

I'll try to get pictures posted of the remaining aspects of the project!

Now that the end is in sight, I wonder what his next project will be...

Reading, reading, reading

I've been doing a lot of reading lately.  Maybe because we've been so busy that I haven't had much time to do anything else!  It helps that I can now read on my Nook, or on my iPad.

Last fall, the community college was thinking about making iPads a requirement for all students.  But the cost was being considered, so at the library, I ordered both a Kindle Fire and a Nook Tablet to see if they could be a good substitute for the larger iPad.  I played with both over the next few months and quickly found on nice benefit:

I could take one with me to the gym and actually read while I was on the treadmill or elliptical machine!  Do you have any idea how much quicker time goes when you aren't just watching your speed or miles walked, or even the news?  I'm able to read, keep my speed up (and sometimes go even faster if the book is exciting) and the time just flies!  Makes working out  at 5 a.m. almost enjoyable.

Then in April, the decision was made to go with iPads, and the school bought me one.  Technically, it belongs tot he school, but we were instructed to treat them as if they were personal items and use them for whatever we wanted.  So I downloaded the Nook and Kindle apps and switched to taking my iPad to the gym.  The larger page size means that I don't have to flip pages quite as often, but the size is a little cumbersome.

I still use my Nook some, but find that I'm  using the iPad more and more all the time.

Kevin also likes me reading ebooks because I can read without the light on when we are in bed.  He'll go to sleep, and I'll read.  With the iPad, the light doesn't bother him.  Besides the 2 apps, I also can read books from the State Library through their ebook collection, which is nice...but it's so popular that all the copies are taken and I usually have to wait for the book I want to read.  (The State Librarian in charge told me that she had to buy 58 copies of 50 Shades of Grey just to keep up with the demand.)

I have bought some books, and I've borrowed several from the library site, and I've read many many free titles that Amazon and the Nook have.  On top of that, I've even read several in print!  In fact, sometimes they will provide an author's first book free and to finish the story, you have to either buy the ebook, or get the rest of a series in print!

My wish list is long, long, long, long and we're coming upon the season of new titles!  I'm drowning under all the new titles I want to read!  What a rough life!

In January, expect to see another long list of titles!

Pooh

My latest finish:

This one will go in my office, with other "reading" themed items.  I took it in yesterday to get it framed and found the perfect whimsical purple frame for it.  Can't wait to see the finished project!

And yes, I've started something new, but it's a gift, so no hints until it's finished!