work in progress

I have a feeling the house is going to be in a permanent state of "work in progress" for many many months to come. As soon as we get one project done, another rears its head. So many dreams, so little cash. So one project at a time is how it moves forward... 

The bathroom is finished, officially. Look how well it came out! Well, here is what was there before, nasty brown cabinet with low sink, standard toilet, awful linoleum.  

Then enter my amazing G. He removed all offending fixtures, painted the walls a nice green, installed a new Marmoleum floor, put in a new sink and cabinet (at the right height for us tall folk) and installed a new low flow dual flush toilet. That toilet uses .9 gallons of water to flush. Outrageous!! 

In other exciting house news, we have decided to install hardwood floors. And of course, because we're us, we are doing it ourselves. We're using Tigerwood, a South American hardwood that is FSC certified. We tried to buy the pneumatic nailer at Home Despot, but they didn't have the right kind of nails for it (!?!?!?!?!?!?!) so instead of buying the expensive nailer and the compressor and the bits n pieces for the compressor, we bought a manual hardwood nailer. We saved a ton of money, and it can't be that hard, right?? 

Ha. This is an interesting lesson. So if you don't hit the nailer with the exact right amount of force, the nail doesn't go in all the way. If you hit it too hard, it will split the tongue of the board. Sounds fun, eh?? Well, here are D. and G. trying to figure it out: 

                

After a long Saturday evening of trying to sort it out... we three decided to return said manual nailer and go for the pneumatic one. We didn't make it back to the store on Sunday due to a Rebreather class... and for some reason, by Tuesday afternoon, G. decided to give the manual version a try again. He seemed to get in the swing of things... look how awesome the floor looks at this point!! 

(This is the second spare room, not the guest room, but the Other guest room - we painted it yellow after we ripped out the carpet and found 50 year old cork floors that simply couldn't be refinished. Sally- it's the room you stayed in... )

And I just came across this photo - I had to post it because I love the look on C.'s face. This was an impromptu BBQ we had a couple months ago - We ate ribs and shrimp and crab and scallops and corn. Well, I take that back. That is what the boys ate. I just ate corn. :)

Actually, I did try a scallop (still think they're gross) and a shrimp (I could probably eat these again) and a bite of ribs (tasty!) and a bite of crab (no thank you, even when coated in butter). See, I am working on being a good little omnivore! 

Ah, glorious life!