Patio Door Is In

This morning I took some pictures of the new patio door and found this sweet one of Daniel and Mario.  Mario is not a cuddly cat.  But he does seem to like boys and men and will sit with them when he wants to.

Yay!  My patio door is installed!

During the final stages of the basement project almost every wall in our house got cracks.  Some are worse than others.  I have much repair to do.  The wall that now has the patio door was particularly bad.  After they got done installing the door there were big chunks of plaster gone.  Instead of having them patch in those spots with sheet rock I decided to just take all the plaster off that wall.  The installer agreed with me and said that we could then insulate that wall.

This old insulation gives me the creeps.  My good little helper, Daniel,  took off all the plaster and remarked that he really liked doing it, while I tore off the laths.  I have so many slivers in my fingers.  I should have worn gloves, I guess.  I hope to get the old insulation out today.

It has been my dream to have a patio door there since we moved into this place.  Now I can be in either my living room or dining room and see the beauty of the outdoors and get more light in my house.

Here is what our front entry looks like without the wall between the entry and basement.  You can tell it isn't finished yet.  Even in its unfinished state it is such an improvement.

As soon as they installed the new door we found we have a problem.  It is hard to stand on the landing and open or close the door as there isn't enough room.  Yesterday the salesman came out to see if there was anything else we could do.  We can't make the landing bigger as we would not have enough head room further down the stairs.  Tim would have to duck every time he went down.  The best solution he came up with was to eliminate the storm door and make the main door a swing out door.  He was going to check into that to see if it would work with this door. 

That wall between the entry and the kitchen will be coming out, too.  Today the electrician is coming to help us plan where we need to move the switches and outlets and lights.

The window men will be here as well.  We still have a window in the kitchen that needs to be installed.  I'm hoping they do that today as it is probably going to be warmer than any day in the near future.  It got so cold in here yesterday when they did the patio door as there was a pretty strong breeze out of the SW.

I had best get my boy up so we can start school on time.  And I need to find those extra shingles so the guys can use them on the top of the bay window.

Thanksgiving

Maybe because I haven't posted much lately I had trouble loading pictures today.  The first group of pictures is actually the last I took so they are a little out of order and I don't like that.  But I am thankful that they did load onto Blogger.

I had the most wonderful day. 

The above picture is of some Thanksgiving crafts.  Whitney, Leah, and I made the turkey nut cups.  Whitney's mother-in-law, Janice made the cookie candy turkeys.

After our meal we all went outside.  Our son-in-law, Ryan, had brought their tractor for us to use this winter if we have snow.  He and Tim worked on getting it in the Quonset and hooking the snow blower up to the back of it while the rest of us played outside ball games.  Then we took some family pictures.

We have a family tradition that everyone who wants to names one thing they are thankful for.  I said that I was thankful to have my whole family home and for better health than last Thanksgiving.

You might notice that our older sons are all a little beardy.  They said that it was No Shave November.

I think that I have a good looking family.

These two are a good looking couple.  We are so happy to have Ryan as a son-in-law.  And who would have thought we could all be outside in our shirt sleeves on Thanksgiving?  Enjoy it we did.

After pictures the men and Whitney helped Tim get some heavy things into the basement.   They got the freezer, the furnace, and some shelving moved down there.  One commented that he hoped this isn't going to become a new Thanksgiving tradition in our family.

Finally we could play bingo, another Thanksgiving family tradition.

Since we had not had our pie and coffee we did that as well.  You should have seen the prize table.  Never before did we have so many great prizes.

As the matriarch of my family I get to call the numbers.  I played, too, and won three prizes.

This is a before Thanksgiving picture.  Since we did no regular school this week I told the children we would just do fun stuff.  Leah loves to make crafts.  This is a cat we made one day.

Leah took a picture of her beloved Elly.

Another one of Leah's crafts is this hand sewn bag.

I am happy to report on the progress of construction this past week.  All the windows upstairs have been replaced as well as one in our bedroom and the one at the bottom of the stairs.  This is the biggest project right now.  Here's before...

...and during pictures. 

You will have to wait for the after photos as this is as far as they got on Wednesday.  I am thankful to be able to get into the front of my house and to go from my kitchen to my basement without having to go out my back door, go around to the front door, and crawl over or remove the foam insulation before going downstairs.

Our table before we ate

The kids all got here early so we had time for fun before dinner.  Since we now have a Wii we bowled for prizes. 

We had two groups of 4 players for each round.  Brandon won our game.  Dustin the next though Dustin's and my scores were the same.

Leah's score was only 4 points lower than Dustin's.

That's all the pictures I have.  I can think of many other reasons to be thankful.  I will say that I am thankful to have the new basement and windows.  I am enjoying putting things together and am going to go work down there right now.

Pictures

This morning I went outside to take some pictures of our new basement.  When I loaded them onto my computer I found some I had taken of Leah about a month ago.  This was taken before church.  I like it so much I think I will have it made into "school" pictures.  Certainly I will have an 8 x 10 made for my wall.

And I found some pictures of our dog, Elly, and Whitney's puppy, Jade, chewing on their bones.  Jade is now as big as Elly and stockier.  They both are half black lab.  Elly's other half is boxer, Jade's is red heeler.

That white stuff on the ground is snow.  It snowed briefly this morning and melted almost immediately.  This is the west side of our house with our new steps.  Right now this is our main entry.

This is one of our new basement windows.  We have eight.  Tim and Whitney worked last Friday and got four window wells installed.  Whitney dug all the holes so Tim was able to install three more wells before he had to leave for work today.  He only has one more to do as well as fill the holes of the ones he did today with rock.

This is the south side.  It needs the most work yet.  When the workers come they will put a ground level entry door on the left side of the entry.  It will be somewhat like a split level in that we will either be able to go down into the basement or go up into the entry.  Where the door is on the right we will have a bay window.  Then that little section will get new siding.  The picture window on the far left will become a patio door.  Once the ground has settled in a few years we will put in a patio.  It's a work in progress.

This is what it looks like going down from the landing.  The wall on the right will be taken out as well as the one between the kitchen and entry.  That will make the kitchen bigger.  We plan to add cabinets on the east wall of the entry, too.  As you can see we will have to do some wall repair on the left of the stairs and forward as well.

These are the new steps.  The area to the left is where the old cistern used to be.  If you scroll down on older posts you can see what an improvement these stairs are!

This is the west wall.  Our old basement only went up to the red pole.  I am pleased with all the extra space I have now.

This last picture is the north east corner where I will have my "fruit room."  I had an aunt who called her room where she kept her canned goods a fruit room.  I like to call it that too.

Yesterday I spent part of my day organizing my canned goods, that I had had boxed for months, onto my shelves.  It was an enjoyable activity for me.  In the future we will make walls to keep out the light as well as add a few more shelves .  Then it will really be a room.

Leah looked at these pictures and commented that the ceiling looked so ugly.  Tim and I feel the same way.    We plan to put up a dropped ceiling to hide all those wires and pipes.  But it probably won't be this year.

As you can see from the pictures there is still much work to be done.  The yard around the house is all clay.  Next spring it will need to be filled in with black dirt and planted with grass seed or landscaped in another way.  The installers need to put in the new windows in the upstairs and main floor that we ordered.  The back entry needs to be cleaned out of all its stuff so we can make it into a second bathroom.  I could go on and on but I'm sure you get the picture. 

I am feeling the stress of it all and would appreciate any prayers you feel led to pray for us.

A New Post

It has been almost a month since I posted and I am tired of looking at that old post.  I had wanted to take some pictures of the finished basement and put them on here.  But I haven't taken any yet.  I will try to get out and take some and post them later.

The basement crew finished and left a few weeks ago.  It is nice to have their mess out of the yard.  Tim, the children, and I have been working on cleaning up garbage in the yard.  On Friday we put some things in storage in preparation for the snow that was forecast for today.  I'm happy to report we didn't get that snow and it has moved north.

The company, Redlin Johnson, who is putting in our windows and doors got started a couple weeks ago.  They put in all the basement windows and built us some stairs leading down into the basement.  Since they were waiting on the other windows and doors that is all that has got done.  While it has been nice having a break from workers being in my space I am hoping work will begin again on Monday.

This past week I have been busy painting the inside basement walls.  Ron had advised that we get a good oil based paint to make it more moisture proof.  So I bought an expensive primer and paint.  Last Sunday my older daughter, Whitney, came over to help me.  We used all of the primer and didn't even get 2 walls painted.  The primer was so smelly that I got sick that night.  I decided that it wasn't worth it to use the oil base paint.  Even though the paint store sold me the paint for concrete walls, the label on the can didn't say I could use it for concrete.  It was made for metal and wood.  So Tim took it back.

Tim went to Fargo on Tuesday to take back to Menard's the left over styrofoam insulation sheets we had used on the outside walls.  While he was in Fargo he stopped at Home Depot and got a Behr brand paint that is specifically made for basement walls.

On Wednesday I decided that I needed to get those walls painted before the workers came back.  Since I needed to put 3 coats on all the walls it was going to take me several days.  I realized that it would make the most sense to take time off from regular school work and do this.  I struggled with that for awhile but am so glad I made that choice.

I painted all day on Wednesday.  I got a coat on all the walls and a second coat on two walls.  I was pretty tired and grumpy that night.  I'm sure glad I had been doing Pilate's and yoga for about a month now as I would have been pretty sore otherwise.  The only problem I have had is that my right hand has been sore and hard to use from holding the roller all day.

Leah and I had appointments to get our hair trimmed on Thursday afternoon.  So I told myself that I could only paint until noon.  That way I would have time to make lunch, do vision therapy with Daniel, and clean myself before heading to town.  I got another coat of paint on all four walls.

On Friday I cleaned my house and then finished the painting in the basement.  I only had two walls to paint so it didn't take me long.  Later that day I cleaned up all the plastic sheeting and garbage I had down there.  Then I vacuumed the floor.  It looks so bright and clean now.

I still have a little section of the south wall that is under the front entry to paint.  It is really dirty and I haven't been able to get it clean enough to paint.  There are six windows that need a cement ledge put in that I will need to paint as well. 

I had time on Friday afternoon to help Tim clean and organize our cement Quonset so we could put the camper and my car in storage.  It feels good to have all that work finished.

Tim got some window wells at Home Depot that he is hoping to have time to install this week.  It certainly would have been easier to put them in before they filled in the dirt around the foundation.   He is having some rock delivered to use in the wells as well on the driveway.  They will do that on Monday.

It sure was nice to have a day of rest on Sabbath.  After getting home from church we enjoyed some precious time with two of our grown children, Brandon and Whitney. 

Daniel and Leah have been wanting to have a sleep over at Whitney and Ryan's for some time.  Whitney told them they could stay over Saturday night.  It was a long day for Leah as she didn't do much of anything all afternoon but lay on the couch asking when they were leaving.

Tim and I took advantage of being alone by going to the movie, Courageous, last night.  It was so good.  When we got there we saw several from our church at the movie as well.  We hadn't prearranged that so it was a nice surprise.  If you appreciate a movie with no foul language or sexual content I highly recommend you see this movie. 

That pretty much wraps up this past week and month.  We will be going to Fargo for Daniel's vision therapy appointment this week.  And we will finish the three days of school that we didn't do last week.  It will be nice to have a another short week of school.

My precious little ones just got home.  They are full of excitement and want to tell me all of what they did last night so I will sign off.