Monday, June 27, 2005

A Weekend of Work

Our family room was an add-on during the 70’s. When we first moved into our house 8 years ago, the family room had that ski lodge / game room feel to it- dark wood paneling and decorative dark wooden beams on the ceiling. Not long after we moved in, we painted the paneling a nice warm gray. But the beams finally got to Vernal- she wanted them down. There were four of them and the last one came down on Saturday. I pulled out a CD (Dido-Life for Rent) and realized we got that CD the day the first beam came down. It was my background music and the back of the CD was dated 2003.

I’M SORRY THAT IT TOOK SO LONG!

It was a chore though. All those nails were sunk into the wood and I had to chip away at the beam to try to get the nails. Each end had 6 nails and then there were another 6 spread along the length of the beam. Pulling down the first beam was more of an exploratory mission to see what the ceiling looked like on top of the beam. It was gyp board, so we could pull them down and paint the ceiling. The other two beams came down one Saturday a couple of months ago. I found that if I get the nails completely out at one end of the beam and pull from that end, the beam will come loose from the ceiling except for the other end that is still nailed into the wall- then you just twist and pull it. This process takes about an hour as compared to what seemed like 4 hours for the first beam. Although, I quickly learned that by pulling down on the beam it is a good idea to have a hard hat on, because the first time I tried that technique I ended up with a pretty big lump on my head.

So this weekend, I took down the last beam and Vernal patched the nail holes in the ceiling and walls. We also just recently had a new sliding glass door installed to replace our old broken door. The wood trim on the inside was unfinished, so I stained and sealed the door to match the existing trim inside that room. Vernal also put up and rearranged some pictures of Goose and Turkey along with a new wall candle thing from pottery barn that she got for Christmas. All of this was put over the piano (thanks Darwin and Roamer.)

We still have work to finish with the ceiling and the crown molding. Maybe next weekend we can Git-R-Done!

I also did not have to prepare a Sunday School lesson and managed to watch two videos (Friday Night Lights and After the Sunset.)

6 comments:

GoldenSunrise said...

You should be able to get a lot of stuff done around the house now that you have a break from teaching S.S.

I managed to take down a wallpaper border in the bathroom. It matched the previous owners shower curtain. It went ok with our colors so that is why I didn't take it down earlier. I was getting annoyed by the butterflies- so it had to go. It only took an hour to do.. I wish I hadn't been so lazy.

shakedust said...

There is so much that needs to be done at our house. I need to find some way to get Golden to do it. ;)

Doc said...

I'm jealous of the piano. But you know you could have just used that old 1980's synth.

Dash said...

Wow ... staining the trim and everything -

Nothing makes for a satisfying return from work on Monday like having worked on the house all weekend.

BTW - After the Sunset was a great movie. Mrs. Dash and I just bought the original Cary Grant & Grace Kelly movie that inspired it: "To Catch a Thief".

After being so impressed with "Sunset" we were all jazzed to watch it. Saddly, it took us at least two attempts to get into the movie. It went well once it got started but wasn't nearly as satisfying on an emotional level.

If you've ever seen it, you'll appreciate that Mrs. Dash and I were suprised at how suggestive the fireworks were.

T said...

Yes, for the year it was made it was quiet the movie. Cary Grant and Grace Kelly.

f o r r e s t said...

I enjoyed the movie too. I got AFTER THE SUNSET on a whim, because I don't think it made much of a splash at the box office and I didn't hear to much about it. But I have been enjoying thievery type movies lately and I like Pierce Bronson, so I gave it a shot. It had a good suprise ending.

Any way I have enjoyed movies like the Ocean's 11 & 12, the Italian Job, the Thomas Crown Affair, Entrapment and even National Treasure and of coarse TV shows like Alias they are always breaking into something. I am sure there are more but I can't think of them now.