Sunday, June 16, 2013

Claiming my blog on bloglovin

Since Google Reader is going away, I am trying Bloglovin as an alternative.  I have over 20,000 posts to read!!!

I am planning on doing a lot of quilting the rest of the year, and will have lots of fun things to show you,.  I don't want you to miss anything, so please do:

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Monday, June 3, 2013

Update

It's been a while since I have posted. I've been busy, although there isn't a lot of progress to show for it. Here's an update.





House

My family bought a house together to fix up and sell.  This was very stressful, as we all had different ideas about what needed to be done, how much money should be spent, and what part we wanted to play in it.  In the end, I wound up holding the bag.  I am still taking input from the family members, but this means that I get the final say so about what gets done.

The contractor that I hired seems to be doing a nice quality job.  However, due to his personal issues, he has been taking a lot longer than expected to finish the job. I was trying to help as much as possible, and was able to paint two bedrooms and two bathrooms.  That took a lot of my time, since I don't have a lot of experience in preparing walls, priming, etc.

There are some beautiful changes that have been made so far:

Dishwasher and counter

In the kitchen, a new sink and a dishwasher has been installed and a nice bigger counter top installed over it.  He had to add another cabinet on the other side of the dishwasher, so there is even more cabinet space.  The dishwasher and cabinet are where the stove is in the photo.  The stove has moved to the right of the cabinets.  It is a beautiful big kitchen with two windows and the dishwasher and bigger counter top makes it a much nicer space to work in. The kitchen is much nicer than my tiny kitchen.

Doorway

A doorway has been made between the kitchen and the living room so people don't have to go down the narrow hallway and past all the bedrooms just to go from the living room to the kitchen.  The doorway is on the left of the photo, where the refrigerator was.  I think it really opens up the space and doesn't feel so boxy.  It also separates the public spaces from the private spaces.  And as I told the contractor, if you are watching the movie, you don't burn your popcorn because you can go straight through the kitchen instead of running all the way around the house.

Sliding door

There is a bathroom that is past the back door.  There wasn't a door to the bathroom probably because it would keep getting in the way of the backdoor.  Instead, there was a broken foldable closet door.  It didn't feel very safe to me, even if it wasn't broken.  Instead, the contractor put in a pocket door.  It is a nice solid door that slides out of the way.

Paneling

The house had a lot of old paneling throughout the upstairs, this cape cod had paneling in the bedroom and bathroom.  And downstairs, there was paneling in the room between the garage and back door. (They call it a breezeway).  All of the paneling has been taken down and is being replaced with drywall.

There are many other things that are being done - the list is huge, but we really wanted the house to be a wonderful and comfortable place for the next owner to live in, and to increase the market value of the neighborhood.

Work

Since my daughter has graduated and is back home, she is looking for her career path.  While she is looking, I was able to get a job for her at my place of employment.  Initially, she was scheduled to work on a different time schedule, but one of the people switched with her, and we were able to carpool.  It was really enjoyable, and many people reported to me that she is a wonderful worker.  She enjoyed meeting people from different walks of life, and was able to get a lot of employment advice from them.

Housework

It's been a while since I told you I was rearranging things in my house, and sad to say, but that is still in progress. I emptied out the small bedroom and turned it into a guest room.  Then I worked on making the current guest room into a crafts / sewing room.  I took out all of the sewing supplies from my bedroom and made it a proper bedroom.  I've made significant progress on my bedroom and the now guest bedroom, but just like the other house, it is taking a long time. I still have to arrange my craft / sewing room.  And all this work upstairs has left the public areas downstairs needing some serious attention.

Garden

This year, we decided to make a different plan for the garden. Instead of the usual tomatoes and peppers, we have decided to plant lettuce, spinach, squash, pineapple basil and anise.  I am growing them in the house and will transplant them soon.

Quilting

Unfortunately, quilting has had to wait while I work on my job, painting the house, and my own rearrangement of rooms. I have been drooling over quilting magazines and am itching to get started on quilting again.  Wanting to quilt has motivated me to hurry up and finish cleaning the living areas and the sewing room upstairs.  It will happen.  Soon, I hope.