Weekend Update - April 15, 2012

Things are progressing well at the new house as Lawrence has spent almost every waking moment over the past few weeks working on something. The biggest project he has undertaken, and is still working hard at it, is finishing the ceilings and walls. If you'll remember, all the ceilings had this thick texture that was sprayed on then moved around into a wave type pattern. Looked really bad. The walls were fine but had that old fashioned popcorn texture on them. I scraped most of the walls, Lawrence and I did the living room ceiling together, and he did all the other rooms by himself.

After that was done, Lawrence went and covered every inch of those ceilings with a smooth layer of joint compound, and is now going back and smoothing and sanding all of it. It's a major undertaking that has taken weeks to complete, and he is just about finished. I started taping plastic to all areas not to be textured or painted and hopefully I will be able to finish that project next weekend. There are still a few minor details to complete, but when we do, out comes the texture gun as well as Lawrence's new toy, a brand new professional paint spraying system. When it comes to tools and toys, he doesn't fool around!

My two big projects this weekend were cleaning out the garage of all the junk that needs to be thrown away and dragging it to the curb since tomorrow is heavy trash pickup day in our neighborhood. This included old ceiling fans, stove vent fan and light thingy, old closet poles, and just about anything else that needed to go. I also carried all the tin gutters that were removed from the house and stacked in the backyard against the fence. All of that is now at curbside as well. With Lawrence's help, we both removed the junky old gas stove that was in the kitchen and moved it to the curb also.

As we were finishing up with the stacking of junk, an ambitious old man came by in his pickup truck and started loading all the metal items for recycling. I had no problem with that, but there was a lot of metal on the curb and his pickup truck was already full. Surprisingly, he got every bit of it in that truck, including the stove on the back tailgate, and away he went. All that was left was a box of scrap wood and the closet poles. I was impressed.

Back to the taping of plastic in areas not needing texture or paint. Lawrence was using the 8 foot ladder in one of the bedrooms for his project, and the 12 foot ladder won't fit in the bedrooms, so off to Home Depot I went for yet another ladder. It's a 4-foot model, and that makes our current count of ladders at four. If you ever need a 4-foot, 6-foot, 8-foot, or a 16-foot extension ladder, we've got them all. When this is all done, I might have to start renting out tools, sprayers and ladders. We'll pay off that mortgage in no time!

Back inside the house, I finished up removing layers of wallpaper in all the rooms, including the kitchen as we prepare for texture and paint. Lawrence also did a load of laundry in our new washer and dryer. They are the weirdest machines I've ever seen, but they do a good job with the laundry.

Last weekend a friend of my family came by to help out with some electrical problems. He's a master electrician with over 40 years of experience, and he fixed everything that needed fixing, as well as solving a few mysteries of what wall switches went to what. He'll come back soon for a few more things. He also agreed that the main breaker box outside needs replacing but he can't do it since he is out of Austin and not licensed in Houston. He wrote down some important specifications of what we need to replace and I am on the hunt for a good electrician. The replacement of that breaker box is going to be expensive and crazy as we have to pull a permit from the City of Houston, have Reliant Energy come out and cut off power to the house, replace the box and do rewiring, have Reliant come back out and turn on the power, then have the city inspector come check it all out. I might need to start my rental service quicker than I expected.

A little further back we had a minor injury at the house, and it involved Rusty the dog. He was wandering around the backyard when he saw a neighbor dog, and he ran towards the wrought iron fence at a full gallop. He's not used to fences, so WHAM, his head went right through the bars and he got stuck briefly. He made a huge racket with a type of doggy scream, but luckily Lawrence was close by and helped him get out. He got a few scratches and they are healing well. Lawrence placed some big potted plants and bricks along the fence line to try and discourage Rusty from trying that again.

So, as you can see, we are progressing right along, and hopefully within a couple of more months we can start moving things over little by little. Lawrence wants to be in the house like right now and is about ready to set up a tent and sleeping bags in the middle of the living room floor. I keep saying it will be awhile mostly because we have some major expenses to cover like new carpet, blinds, a stove, all the paint, more furniture, etc. and it's a matter of money at this point. We get it, we spend it.

Patience, my friend. Patience.