You know you've made it in life when...

... you start renovating your laundry room.

Seriously though. Cleaning 58-year-old grime from a disgusting basement laundry room is one of the grossest jobs there is.

Summer Renovacations Pt. II

The greatest summer ever continues, though I fear it is now on life support. Seriously, we've had so much time to enjoy life this summer. But now I probably sound like a typical braggart teacher who doesn't know how good he's got it. Regardless, we've managed to hit up a few more summer projects. And I do mean  "we".

To start, my parents had an old 1958 organ which did not work that well anymore. Rather than throw it out I did my best Salvage Dawgs impersonation (great TV show) and took the thing apart. I then put certain pieces back together, painted it, and put a nice pine top on it. I also scratched it up a bit for that rustic flair. Cause Becca and I are hipster Catholics now or something. We actually just like nice old things. 

The problem was that Becca liked the desk so much that she insisted on it going upstairs to replace our old second hand desk in the school room.

Our new one looks nice, but it's not practical. I mean, there's no storage!

Not to worry, I took apart the old second hand desk and refashioned it into shelves for the room. I then got a little crazy. The school room needed a little pop of colour...

A little out of my comfort zone. But it was fun nonetheless. And Joseph and John Paul helped me a great deal.

Following this, Becca's wanted some little crate baskets. We priced them out at Home Depot for $10 each. So I went and built some instead. Well, I had some help again:

Voila

Let's see, it took me hours of ripping wood, cutting, sanding, gluing and nailing to get them. For the money I saved I think I worked for $4/hour. I am a basket case indeed. Next time we'll just buy the stupid things.

While working though Joseph and I noticed it was getting a little darker! That means the solar eclipse was in town.



There was a lot of talk about this eclipse. That it's the 100 year anniversary of Fatima, and how apparently the devil was given 100 years to wreck the world. And the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. And how everything in history has been leading up to this very moment... hogwash, right?

No! Something very eerie is going on. I shake at the thought. You see, while the eclipse was happening I went to the fridge and randomly picked up some left over wieners and started barbecuing them. It was very random. We didn't even have any buns or bread. Well... deep breath... Becca was out with John Paul and just as I finished cooking the wieners she showed up with a package of hotdog buns. Just like that. She didn't even really know why she grabbed them. It was very random. And she grabbed a pack of eight. I cooked exactly eight wieners. All during the eclipse. Not so random now, hey hey.

Becca's in the DIY bit too!

She's made some little box holders for school books.

And she's had this idea for glass jars as cups for the kids using grommets and such. Cute.

Ok. maybe I bought the grommets, drilled the holes, and even spent $2.90 on a stupid A&W rootbeer in order to steal five extra straws with it...

But she did do a project all on her own. I kid you not. She needed some hooks to hang up her cooking aprons. She bought two hooks, mounted them on an old piece of shiplap, and hung them on the wall. It's level too!

Great job wifey!

From now on I'll leave the DIYing to you!

 

Summer Renovacations

I chose the title Summer Renovacations because this summer's renovations have really been a breeze. They've really felt like a vacation. This is because I tackled my main project, the basement rec room, back in February. Having the main event taken care of, my summer suddenly opened up to a myriad of project ideas I've had in the back of my mind.

But first, at the end of June while Becca and the kids went to Ontario early, I had to take care of some business. Our upstairs hallway/closet was in rough shape. You see, kids like to run into walls with things. Sometimes they just like to run into walls. I can still picture in my mind the time Joseph ran headlong into one wall and hit is so hard that he smashed into the wall on the other side. Two dents in one shot. But enough about Joseph's head. I did some very unmotivated painting. There's nothing like getting up at 4:30am to paint, then go to work, and then race back to work some more. Add in a sprained ankle, and fun was had by all. However, I can't imagine the mess if I'd tried to paint with the kids around. I'm sure there'd be a couple of dents in my head from banging it against the wall in frustration. Behold:

Becca has a long list of little knick knacks she wants made. For instance, she asked for a little holding tray for our plastic wrap containers. I told her to buy one. She said they go anywhere from $30-50! There's nothing like motivation to get a job done. A couple scrap pieces of wood. Some plumbing strapping, and voila.

So we have a basement bedroom. You might not know this because up until now we've called it the box room. Not full boxes. No no no. We stored empty boxes. You know you've made it in life when you can have an entire room dedicated to empty boxes. Alas, the grossness of the room was too much. It was the dingiest room in the house. Blech. So I took to painting and ripping up carpets.

 What a nifty surprise! carpet on carpet! I asked Becca if we could keep it, but she said no.

Hey, I got to lay carpet for the first time in my life (minus carpet on our front steps). It was kind of easy. I'll bet you can't tell that I vacuumed too.

The closet was so disgusting. Not anymore. I lay in some of my left over kitchen tile to save a few bucks (and not have to merge two carpet pieces together.

Keeping with the basement, I wanted a door for our storage closet in the workout room. Now I've had my eye on a falling apart old horse lean-to at my parent's place for some time. They let me raid it a bit, and so I slapped together a barn door. 

Not fancy. Which is fine because I'm not capable of fancy. Just let the wood speak for itself.

My parents bought a condo in Saskatoon. They needed their table back. Becca was all too happy to oblige. We needed a table. They aren't cheap. And so I took a stab at building one. There were just a couple of problems. First, I couldn't get my hands on the right wood I wanted. Second, I don't have the proper tools and work space to build one. 

However, a couple of months ago while visiting some friends I noticed their dining room table was very, how you say, rustic. It looked nice, and seemed to function well enough. And so, I thought it'd be fun to do the same. Maybe some day I will have the right wood and tools. If so, this current table would make a great outdoor table. 

Some ridiculous over the top staging here:

 Oh, and I slapped together a bench for it too. Rustic is in, baby. Especially when you don't know what you're doing.

 Even Mr. and Mrs. Bear think this staging was a bit much. The dining room hasn't been clean since.

Hey, I bought a stud finder! After years of messing up walls, I bought one. There were two at the store. One was $45. The other was $5. You'll never guess which one I bought? 

I had to test it first. 

It must not work!

So I must start thinking about setting up my classroom and prepping for the school year. The thought ran through my mind that how can I spend so much time on other kids and not put some work in to make Joseph's school year better? The answer is, of course, I get paid to do the former. Regardless, I whipped together a quick desk, chalkboard, and bookshelf unit. It literally took a couple of hours (which is two more hours than I've spent at my school this summer). The boys, and their teacher, love it!

 Apparently I have to build a frame for the map. Oh, and that's our gift card Home Sense metal paper holder thingy on the right. Home Sense... Nonsense. What garbage there.

The boys love coming to do work in their new school room. Of course, since the staging occurred, it's been a mess. 

Mr. and Mrs. Bear are hard at work at their desk too.

Sorry, I don't know where the bear thing came from. They're always laying in the way I guess.

 Clearly I have too much time on my hands, not having to do a giant reno. Here's a fun project though. We love our neighbours and all, but we also know they need a break from us. Hence, there is a little privacy fence separating us. The problem is, the fence looks like this:

You'll never guess which side of the privacy fence that camper belongs too. Anyway, the fence needed some fixing. So I called up a guy I know to come over with his loader to take it down. He looks like good help. 

Mr. Workerman and I re-set the posts. However, we went to buy some concrete at the store and the guy there told us to try a new product. Basically you mix two bags together and then, via chemical reaction, goop starts expanding all over and setting the posts in place. I think it's glorified spray form. It was neat, but I'll stick to concrete next time. Concrete's way more fun.

 When my parents tore down their old garage I took some of their old yellow siding boards. You're probably following a trend here. I take stuff from my parents. Well, I tried to straighten the boards out, spent about three hours peeling paint and sanding (I had two great little helpers) and then painted the thing white. But wait! Becca had a great idea! Why not add a little mini-Saskatchewan decoration! And why not add a little "T" where Tisdale is!

Yay! Maybe we should sell these things!

Danny needs some rest. Actually, it's been pretty nice not having to work so hard on real renos, or build a house, or have a job... A real summer renovacation. Oh there's more to do. And the garden is in full bloom. I also should make my way to the real school soon to set up a classroom. One that pays me money. Or maybe I can just take my parent's old money?

The Week Off

My winter "break" is winding down. I use the word "break" with the scare quotes because this break is usually quite busy. Here are some of the things we've been up to.

Hockey

Joseph had a full slate of hockey. Along with a few practices, we just got back a few minutes ago from a game in Bjorkdale (25 minutes away).

There he is on the face off. He was cheating a bit by hanging over the other team's side.

Every kid gets a stint or two in net. Thankfully Joseph doesn't like playing goalie. I couldn't afford the equipment. On the other hand, he'd never have to pay for playing in any beer league when he's older.

The crowd. If you've never watched a game in small town SK, it's the equivalent to sitting in a freezer. But we love it! Joseph scored twice, and had five assists. He played great.

We talkin 'bout practice here.

S'toon

We took a day trip to Saskatoon for some much needed shopping.  It went smoothly, and we were able to visit with my sister and her family. The trip is tiring though. John Paul fell asleep on the way home with his juice straw still attached to his mouth.

Moving Day

My brother and his family finished their house. By finish I mean it's just good enough for them to move in. That's exciting! I'm sure it'll take years before everything is finished completely. So I took a day trip to Humboldt to help them move.

One of many trips.

Stuff starts piling in.

Their lovely kitchen. I hope Becca isn't jealous for it.

The day was very inspiring for me. After making dozens and dozens and dozens of trips carrying boxes up and down stairs I came home late and announced to Becca that we had to start throwing stuff out. It's too exhausting to move it all.


Hair-a-see

I finally gave Joseph a haircut. That means tub time after! Rub-a-dub-dub...

Yes, you can tell by the above picture that our tub needs new caulking. I was planning on doing it over the break, but something else came up...

Basement Renovation

A couple of weeks ago we were hanging out in Nipawin. We were talking with my brother Stephen and he was mentioning how he had a few days available with nothing much to do. Becca then opened her mouth and said: "Like doing our basement?" "Sure!" he replied. Huh? What? You mean our basement reno that we were planning on tackling this summer? Our ugly basement with water damage (it's all good), lousy painting, and 60s wet bar? As we drove home that night we talked about it. I usually like to plan, and over plan, such projects. But, the whole thing was pretty straightforward... And, I had an upcoming week off to finish things... And it sure would be nice to free up some time this summer for things I want to do like building knick knacks and things... and a trip to the beach.. and.. why not!

So we prepped and cleared things during our evenings. Then Stephen came and started doing the dirty work of ripping out carpets, cabinets, and removing our old wet bar area (the old carpets that were glued down... better him than me). We chipped in at night time, and of course when my week off finally came. We all worked together.

I mean everybody...

Most renovations hit a snag. Ours occurred when the bar area was removed. There was a little section that had some 9x9 vinyl tile underneath. This tile may or may not contain asbestos. Floor tile asbestos is safe, unless of course you're trying to remove it. The way it was installed, there was a chunk of plywood over top that couldn't be taken out without disturbing the tile. We had a problem. What to do? Get the tile tested? Nuh uh. Open up that part of the room to the furnace room? Nuh uh, not without moving electrical and furnace stuff. So Becca and I lay in bed awake. Late at night. Talking and talking. There would be little sleep that night. Not without a solution. And then, as sure as Donald Trump is president of the United States of America, it hit us!

That's right. We decided on building a wall using that plywood as part of the base for storage within the wall. To quote someone else: "We're gonna build a wall. I think it's a great idea." The only problem was how to get our neighbours to pay for the wall. Ok, that wasn't a consideration. Nevertheless, we built a wall. Here's where we're at right now:

John Paul's anxious to show you. But first things first. I finally put some decent trim on the one side of the door. Now I can use my chin up bar downstairs instead of hauling it upstairs when needed.

For now it's basically a workout room. Hey, it's what we like to do (yes, even the boys).

 We found an old heavy mirror kicking around in our furnace room. I built a frame for it using wood from my old tree house I built when growing up (clearly the tree house didn't stand the test of time). Now I can stare at myself in between workout sets. That or check my posture from time to time (good excuse, hey).

We still don't have all our books up yet. We bought a heavy duty workout mat from Costco. It's been great. Also, we purchased a google chromecast on sale. This means we can play a workout video from Becca's ipod (which we do frequently) and play it over the TV (my grandpa's old one). It basically works out to be a poor man's version of a smartTV. Pretty nifty.

Finally I get to use my chin up bar!

 The boys love the space for playing ministicks.

 Weights and my punching bag. I want a Rocky poster there, but I gotta ask my wife first.

 And yes, there's our beautiful wall. The plan is to build a sliding barn door in front of it. But first I have to tear down a shed at my parents place, and figure out a DIY rolling system (they're $160 at Home Depot!). At least I'll have something to do this summer.

I built some quick shelving in the room. We'll fill it up when we're done going through our stuff (and hopefully throwing things out).

Long story short, it was a busy week off. It was nice to get the main part of this reno out of the way now, especially before Lent. You know, when renovating your house there is a lot of focus spent on how to make things look nice, do a good job, and have something you're proud of. This is good. But let's be honest, it's not like we end each sentence with "for the greater glory of God." For instance, "I will try and build a farm door to add a rustic touch to our basement.. for the greater glory of God." No, there's a bit of materialism that is hard to avoid with renovations. But we can be done with it for now, and focus on what really matters...

Joseph's hockey.

Just kidding. Time to focus on what really matters.

Have a great Lent.