more pictures

more pictures

Things are coming together

This past two weeks I have seen two bathrooms get tiled, The outside painting finished, Some inside painting done, Front door on, back door on,  all interior doors and trim.  I have been very blessed to have only a few things go wrong like the patch stucco looks terrible (there was lots of patching and wall fixing to be done)  I followed Elder Uchtdorf's talk and slowed down stepped back and am taking a deep breath put a halt on painting and am hoping the drywall expert that is coming tomorrow can fix the problem.  Many things can still be done outside of painting so we will take our time to get it right. 
 
Saturday I woke up early and got many important decisions made like all the finishing plumbing,  Back yard clean up arrangements made,  Finalization on bathroom vanities with my cabinet maker and an idea of what to do for lighting.  I felt blessed to have a productive day!!  The Lord has helped me so much and I seriously could not do this without his help.  I could not do it with out Mike either.  He has been my cheerleader and sounding board and true support.  I am so excited to see him this Thursday.  The days and weeks are boring and lonely without him by my side.  I am going home for Christmas and that sounds so nice!!  I look forward to some down time and I will let Liz my realtor step in for a while and watch the project.  Enjoy the pictures as you see the house come to life!!

Where has the time gone

I can't believe how the time has flown.  I thought I would get to writing in this on a daily basis and that never happened.  When I was living in Woodside Terrace I did not have the internet so I couldn't use my time very effectively in the evening.

Now I am living with some friends from 25 plus years ago.  I use to clean her house when I was living here before Mike and I got engaged and I also lived in this ward when I was a missionary.  The Eatons have been very generous.  Jared is living in AZ with Tiffany for 3 weeks.  He is practicing being a dad changing diapers and being very cute with Ginger and Benson.  I will post some updated pictures tonight and hopefully catch you up a bit latter on details.  (maybe?)

Above is some of the new windows and doors. Next is me using the sawsall.  I really was much better at it than the picture shows. 

Early Mornings

I woke up this morning at 4:30 and could not sleep and that is the pattern for most days.  My mind just races with all that I have to do.  I try to be at the house by 7:00 as to get started before the workers get here.  I usually read my scriptures and write in my journal and then get ready but, this morning I felt impressed to just go to the house and start working.  I  not only have the house I am working on but there are many boxes of pictures and family history that need to be sorted through so this morning I listened to conference on the internet and worked.  I got a lot done and tried to fill the house with the spirit.
  I try to keep the house cleaned up after the workers as it drives me nuts to have a mess.  Jared has been a tremendous help with this and given him purpose and meaning in his life.  He has truly been my guardian angel while we have been here.  The only problem with Jared being my mortal angel is that he has to eat and he wants it on time so I have to really work around his stomach.  This is not entirely bad because it has made me keep eating when in reality I would rather not and I cant afford to loose any more weight.  I know that may make a few of my friends mad but finding dead rats and a dirty enviorment don't do much for the appetite!!
  I have had so many tender mercies from the lord that I cannot begin to even list them all to you but I have recorded them in my journal.  I realize that I cannot do this without his help and guidance and I feel it on a daily basis.  I will try to add a few more pictures today and then I hope to start showing you all the people that have been a help in my life (tomorrow).

BTW  I moved out of the house about a month ago as I gutted the last bathroom.  I live at Woodside Terrace (the same place as Bob)  I eat with the 80 plus gang and really enjoy it.  This has been a blessing as well as on mornings like today when I need to leave early I feel Jared is very safe. He goes swimming with grandpa and they eat together  when I can't.  I almost rented a studio apt and that would have not been near as good (another tender mercy).  I feel safe and comfortable.  I am grateful.

  Have a great day!

To start things out you can see the current state of the deck in the back yard. At first we thought we would have to replace it, but Bob's brother Dale came down and told us he thought it could be salvaged. He power washed it and showed which joists and posts we need to replace in order to do so.

In yesterday's posting there was a picture of Mike in tight quarters in the attic. He and Jared pulled out at least 150 bottles filled with water. They were in the farthest, tightest corner of the attic and probably had been there for over 40 years (since before Bob bought the house). Mike would roll them 20 something feet to Jared and then they would hand them down to me and they would go outside and we would empty them. In this post you can see a picture of Jared putting them in the truck. We were going to recycle them but the glass was too old so we ended up putting them in the dumpster.order to do so.

Another fun demolition project was the removal of the overgrown tree in front of the porch. It completely covered the house and ruined all the planter boxes.






After returning from the Saturday Priesthood Session of General Conference, Mike changed his clothes and attacked the tree with the Sawzall and cut it down. (We didn't have a chain saw.)
It felt so good to wake up the next morning and have a little more sunshine in the house.

After cutting down the tree we hired someone to come and trim all the trees and clean up the yard. Shortly after this work was done a neighbor lady walked by and said, "Wow! There's a house in there!"

The Gutting Starts!

We did hire some day labor. Not sure how I feel about that. I tried the ward first but no one wanted the work, and since we were in a tight time frame we went to the Home Depot parking lot to find some laborers. We had about 50 individuals to choose from. I will say this much, I have never seen men work like these guys. I have no idea how they do this hard labor day after day. I tried to feed them lots and pay them a little more than they usually get. I felt bad because the first day we had 4 Guatemalans the first day and they worked really hard and I really felt like I should have paid them more.

 

When Mike was here he worked just as hard if not harder than them showing them how to do some difficult things. I tried to work hard along side them so that they didn't think I thought I was any better than them. Work is work and it is good for each of us. I can honestly say that I felt great at the end of each of these hard days.

 

We had one boy from the ward (a big Tongan) who could lift 1-2 huge rolls of carpet at a time and throw them in the dumpster. Enjoy the photos!

Ok I am really trying to figure out this blog stuff. Trying to edit etc. is not my best quality sorry.. I hope you liked the pictures I will send more. As you can see from the few I sent there was a lot to do. Most walls and doors had holes in them. A few choice dead critters were found in the garage and attic. I am going to try to download a video of me cleaning it up. Hope it works!! there have been some lets say discouraging days but one day as I was feeling kind of down I was cleaning up Bob's truck and found this old piece of wood. I turned it over and there was a "Thought for the Day" It read....

No-one can choose your mountain
or tell you when to climb....
It's yours alone to challenge
at your own pace and time.

I really felt like this is what I am suppose to do and it gave me a lot of strenght to forge ahead. When Mike and I decided to do this we really felt like the house needed a new life kind of like being reborn. At night after we would tear apart walls and put lots of stuff in the dumpster I could hear the house make all kinds of noises it was like it was saying you are hurting me but I know it is for my own good. I have found so many spiritual analogies through my experience. anyway it is getting late so I will post a few more pictures and try to write more tomorrow.

How did I end up here!!

Many of my friends and family have wanted pictures and information on how the heck did I end up in California remodeling my Father-in-laws house. So I decided to create a blog spot and tell a story. I am not the best at writing or taking pictures so I hope you can feel the spirit of my story through my imperfections. I say the spirit because this has come to be a very spiritual time in my life as I have felt there are three main objectives to accomplish I am here.

1. Remodel a house (yes it consumes most of my time).
2. Share the gospel--This is where I served my mission and I feel like I am coming home and trying to reach people I may have missed while I was here before.
3. Help encourage my Father-In-Law (Bob) to get back to the temple. Actually this is Jared's purpose and mission as Bob basically doesn't want to listen to any of my ideas. its ok I can take the blows for his frustration of moving and throwing out most of his things. Someone had to do it. Better for him to keep good feelings with his sons. (Mike is next on his hit list)

So starting with remodeling---
In the book Good to Great it talks about successful companies and how they get to be great. One of the principles is to get the right people on the bus and the wrong ones off. I have had to really rely on the spirit in this as I have a budget(don't we all) and so I am trying to get the best prices and the best people. The Lord has really helped me in this. I have made a few errors but for the most part I feel pretty good about who I have working on the house. I will introduce them a bit latter but I want to post some before pictures so you can see where I have been. Look for photos to be in next blog posting I have to get busy!!