No fist fights broke out and the turkey tasted great!

Well the big turkey day has come and gone. With 13 people total in the house, it all worked out great. We had a couple of friends in from Oregon and California, with the remainder of folks coming from West Virginia and South Carolina. It was really nice to have the house so full, with so many people eating and drinking while carrying on so many conversations. The best part was the fact that we had 3 or more cooks going in the kitchen while some of the rest of us hung out in the dining room, but were still able to talk and socialize with those in the kitchen.

No Wall=Good Idea!

Everyone that stayed seem to have a good time, I know that everyone ate way too much and possibly made too many trips to the cooler of ice cold beverages that was on the back porch.

Now that is all done and the crowds have come and gone, we are going to start breaking down plans for the master bedroom and bathroom for the second floor. What this means is building a new wall, hanging some doors, installing sun tube sky lights, redoing the drywall, and creating a master bathroom in an old kitchenette. Now this is going to be way too much fun. My goal is to be totally done in 4 months. YEP! 4 Months. I really don't want this to drag on into the summer kayaking season.

I guess it's time to start digging out all of the tools that I just put away in the depths of the basement. It's time to fire up the XRP drills, plug in the recip saws, find a new pair of work shorts, and get busy with a new project. Till then.....

Grout! Grout! Let it all out!

Everything grout. I applied the sealant to the bar tops (looks great) and then Sandy worked the grout onto the backsplash. It really is fun to complete a project. Just some caulk, some sealant on the backsplash, and a little bit of paint and the kitchen will be 100% done. March 18th to November ?? Not bad....could have been better, but not bad. We really have learned a lot on this one project.

• How to take down a load bearing wall
• How to refinish a wood floor.
• How to do plumbing
• How to do tile
• How to do concrete countertops
• How to use caulk to hide things.
• How to salvage old trim.
• How to wire can lights.
• That HD nor Lowe's Have everything.

Now we are working hard to make sure that everyone that is coming up or down to our house has a good time and a full belly. We have Plenty of places to put em, now we just need to make enough food to make them all happy. With 9 other people coming for turkey day, we have a lot to figure out. Sandy started testing some recipes tonight ( I love taste tasting unless it involves green vegetables) Here are some pictures from todays work.

Live from Raleigh....it's Saturday Night!

Your guest host---Fosters Flooring----

John and Al came and finished up today with the final coats of Bona poly and the stuff looks Great! I guess they wrapped up today around 4 ish and now the fans are running while we are camped out upstairs. We will let it all dry for another 24 hours or so before we even think about putting our stuff back in. Till then it's Mtn Biking, shopping, and maybe just maybe a tackle on the basement shop area!

Some of you might be getting tired of seeing lame ol pictures of floors. So below are a couple taken from around our block today. Since we can't be just sitting here waiting for Poly to dry, we have been taking some nice walks See below

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The Rose Garden at the end of our street>

I just love progress

Sealant on......the rest to come tomorrow!

Thank Goodness for the Pros!

So we are down to the wood, done with all of the sanding, and the guys are buffing up the floors with a 180 grit. Next they are going to put on a sealant. We are going with the natural stuff, something that allows the floors to be "natural" and no funky tints or color. And this stuff is suppossed to be UV protected so that it won't change color over time....We will see. We plan on being here for a very long time.....we should be here for a long time with as much work as we have done on this dang joint! So the sealant will go down here in just a bit (It's 5:30 on a Friday evening and they are just now finishing with the sanding)

Here are some before and mid-way pictures for those of you keeping track. They were all taken under the same lighting conditions, give or take an hour in the day. If you click on this picture it should enlarge and give you a better view of it all.

I'd be pulling my hair out about right now....

But lucky for me we have decided to pay the pros to do the floors. They showed up around 9am this morning and at 1pm this is what has been done.


It appears that the previous owners used wax to treat the floors. And according to John Foster, this is just one of the worse things you could do. And it is making for some hard work for them.

They are taking the time to get it up with scrappers and blades, but it is still going to be an uphill battle.

Bring everyone up to speed-

• 1939 stone house built by Ralph Butts ( Fire Chief of Raleigh NC from 41-47?)
• We are the 3rd Owners. Most everything is original. Glass door knobs, skeleton keys...
• New Electric ( Carrington Electric )
• New Plumbing
• New Central Air
• Totally New Kitchen
• New Back Lawn
• New paint in every room downstairs
• No more wallpaper in the upstairs bedroom
• ------Now for new floors~

We have moved out, moved up, well this isn't the Jefferson's for crying out-loud! It's just time for the original old oak flooring to be redone. They haven't been touched in something like 66 years. That is longer than my dad has been around. So we have moved things around in the old stone house and are awaiting the fine folks from Foster Flooring to show up in the morning and start sanding ! Now I know that I COULD have done it myself, but I just don't have the bloody time. Besides, this is what John and his guys do everyday. It will look much much much better than anything that we could have done ourselves, and in the end.....well come back on Friday night or sometime over the weekend to see what happened. Till then....Here is a pic of our original stuff...