Pictures on the way from Reno
Reid: A New Chapter
13 years ago
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Week 4 of Renovations
I dropped my mom off at the airport at 7:00 AM on Saturday, May 15th, and booked it back from Reno to get back in time for my first Water Canyon Event which started at 9:30 am. Thanks to my friend Elizabeth for helping me stay awake the whole trip. The event was unsuccessful. My co-worker was the only one to show up but we did have the opportunity to herd some cows. I didn't accomplish anything this weekend on renovations. I went home after my event and took a much needed three hour nap. It rocked! Cory was out of town this weekend till Saturday night on a training expedition. On Sunday we were super lazy and didn’t accomplish anything and loved every second of it.
Pictures on the way from Reno
Pictures on the way from Reno
Week 3 of Renovations
This week we really kicked it in gear with the help of my mom. She is a miracle worker I swear and came to the rescue when we had really reached our low with home improvements. With her help we accomplished painting the kitchen/dining area/living room. She also helped paint all the woodwork trim and doors down our hallway. We also were able to paint our huge back closet and organized the crazy backroom where the movers put all of our boxes.
Living Room/Kitchen Before
Back Closet Before
We did have some hardships painting the kitchen/dining area/living room and got off to a rough start. It seems to me that my mom after painting her whole bedroom and master bath forgot some of the basics of paining. For example, once you have painted the ceiling you need to be careful when you are trimming the walls not to get paint on the ceiling. Unfortunately, for her she learned this at the end of painting all the way around the room and had to go back the next day and fix this mistake. She also had a hard time painting the right color on the right part of the wall. We had decided to paint our kitchen a nice sage green and the ceiling a yellow/whitish. She was in charge of trimming and was painting away with the green and I looked up to discover that she was starting to trim in the ceiling with the green even though the ceiling was completely already painted the right color and that color was not green. Needless to say, it was lucky I caught her early on in the process and only a small portion had to be covered up. I blame it all on her giving up drinking wine while she was visiting.
The Workers
Painting Back Closet
Kitchen/Living Room After
Even with our little setbacks it was sooo nice to have her here and be able to celebrate Mother’s Day with her. This was really great since we haven’t been able to celebrate Mother's Day with her in the flesh for the past 3 years. Thanks so much for your help mom you totally helped make our home finally feel like home to us!! I am sorry for all your battle wounds you received while you were here. Did we ever get a total count on the number of bruises?
Matt's mother's day present - It isn't mother's day if there isn't rock invovled
In the midst of the painting we discovered that the dryer was taking three times the amount of time it should to dry things. Cory went into our crawl space below the house and discovered that our dryer piping goes under the house and below our guest bedroom and out the side of the house (probably 15 to 20 feet of piping) instead of it going five feet to the right of the dryer and out the furnace room. Cory took apart all the piping and found that each pipe was half full of lint. Can you say Fire Hazard! Cory spent most of Saturday afternoon trying to get new piping and when that failed he resorted to having to clean out the old pipe by blasting them with water. Now, after the whole fiasco I can say that our dryer works much better and I feel safer. We will hopefully be fixing the dryer vent soon though and having it go out the furnace room.
Living Room/Kitchen Before
Back Closet Before
We did have some hardships painting the kitchen/dining area/living room and got off to a rough start. It seems to me that my mom after painting her whole bedroom and master bath forgot some of the basics of paining. For example, once you have painted the ceiling you need to be careful when you are trimming the walls not to get paint on the ceiling. Unfortunately, for her she learned this at the end of painting all the way around the room and had to go back the next day and fix this mistake. She also had a hard time painting the right color on the right part of the wall. We had decided to paint our kitchen a nice sage green and the ceiling a yellow/whitish. She was in charge of trimming and was painting away with the green and I looked up to discover that she was starting to trim in the ceiling with the green even though the ceiling was completely already painted the right color and that color was not green. Needless to say, it was lucky I caught her early on in the process and only a small portion had to be covered up. I blame it all on her giving up drinking wine while she was visiting.
The Workers
Painting Back Closet
Kitchen/Living Room After
Even with our little setbacks it was sooo nice to have her here and be able to celebrate Mother’s Day with her. This was really great since we haven’t been able to celebrate Mother's Day with her in the flesh for the past 3 years. Thanks so much for your help mom you totally helped make our home finally feel like home to us!! I am sorry for all your battle wounds you received while you were here. Did we ever get a total count on the number of bruises?
Matt's mother's day present - It isn't mother's day if there isn't rock invovled
In the midst of the painting we discovered that the dryer was taking three times the amount of time it should to dry things. Cory went into our crawl space below the house and discovered that our dryer piping goes under the house and below our guest bedroom and out the side of the house (probably 15 to 20 feet of piping) instead of it going five feet to the right of the dryer and out the furnace room. Cory took apart all the piping and found that each pipe was half full of lint. Can you say Fire Hazard! Cory spent most of Saturday afternoon trying to get new piping and when that failed he resorted to having to clean out the old pipe by blasting them with water. Now, after the whole fiasco I can say that our dryer works much better and I feel safer. We will hopefully be fixing the dryer vent soon though and having it go out the furnace room.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Week 2 of Renovations
We completed painting both our master bedroom and guest bathroom the weekend Cory got home. Our guest bathroom was a deep dark blue. Both the ceiling and the walls were painted this color. I am not sure why they chose this color since this room is an interior one and receives no direct sunlight (talk about cave like). We had more motivation to get things done since my mom was coming the next weekend. We wanted one bathroom put together so we could all use it. Our master bathroom is a nightmare. I refuse to use the shower because it wasn’t cleaned for so long that the stains in it are there for life, and the bottom of it is starting to peel off.
Before
After
My favorite shoddy workmanship (because there was a lot of it in our house, as our previous owner thought he was a do it yourselfer) was the master bathroom, and the hanging of our bathroom towel bars and toilet paper holder. For starters, we found the matching set at Walmart for $10 (two towel racks, a toilet paper holder and a towel hook) so these aren’t items that are suppose to last a lifetime or anything. Second, since they aren’t suppose to last a lifetime, do you think that they really needed to have anchors set in the wall (of course finding studs is too much work!), be wood glued to the wall and be set with 3 inch screws. Once those were set they then glued the wood covers over the screws so it makes anyone who would like to remove these eye gems from the wall want a huge sledge hammer so that you can start really going to town because you already have some huge holes you have to fill why not add a few more for the fun of it. Cory ever so graciously had more patients than I did and filled all the holes, textured them, (did you know you can buy texture in a spray can for $10 bucks? Who knew? But it seriously is miraculous stuff!) and primed them. So the master bathroom is truly in a state, it has jungle green walls that only goes up 98% of the wall because they had an amazing palm tree border then I had to unfortunately take down at my earliest convince and now has polka dots of primer on the wall where the fixtures had previously been.
Master Bathroom
Before
After
My favorite shoddy workmanship (because there was a lot of it in our house, as our previous owner thought he was a do it yourselfer) was the master bathroom, and the hanging of our bathroom towel bars and toilet paper holder. For starters, we found the matching set at Walmart for $10 (two towel racks, a toilet paper holder and a towel hook) so these aren’t items that are suppose to last a lifetime or anything. Second, since they aren’t suppose to last a lifetime, do you think that they really needed to have anchors set in the wall (of course finding studs is too much work!), be wood glued to the wall and be set with 3 inch screws. Once those were set they then glued the wood covers over the screws so it makes anyone who would like to remove these eye gems from the wall want a huge sledge hammer so that you can start really going to town because you already have some huge holes you have to fill why not add a few more for the fun of it. Cory ever so graciously had more patients than I did and filled all the holes, textured them, (did you know you can buy texture in a spray can for $10 bucks? Who knew? But it seriously is miraculous stuff!) and primed them. So the master bathroom is truly in a state, it has jungle green walls that only goes up 98% of the wall because they had an amazing palm tree border then I had to unfortunately take down at my earliest convince and now has polka dots of primer on the wall where the fixtures had previously been.
Master Bathroom
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Week 1 of Home Ownership
We moved into our home on Thursday, April 15th. The moving company came on Friday, April 16th. We spent our first night in our new home sleeping in sleeping bags. Our first weekend in the house, we focused on cleaning and painting the house and our master bedroom. We succeeded in prepping for painting and taking down the ceiling fan. We learned some important lessons from our ceiling fan experience:
Do not try to take the fan down by disconnecting the rotating part from the part that is attached to the ceiling – all you achieve is exposed wires and a bigger challenge for you and your wife in removing the fan.
Always have a ladder before deciding to take the fan off the ceiling, as having a ladder helps to facilitate the process. Bar stools do make great alternatives, but just beware of some balancing issues.
Lastly, never ever, even when you are really frustrated cut the wires when you have not turned out the power. This didn’t happen but it was very, very close to happening.
The first week of living in our new home, I was by myself. Cory was attending a conference in Elko, Nevada all week. The first week was like a bomb went off in our house. I spent night after night unpacking boxes for our kitchen and hand washing everything. There were five large kitchen boxes that weighed over 50 lbs each and they were the craziest packed boxes I have ever seen. Each box contained at least two garbage bags full of paper that had wrapped all items in the box. The movers defiantly loved their paper, but would wrap the items that weren’t necessarily the ones that needed wrapping and didn’t wrap the items that needed it like my beloved popcorn machine! And you wonder why they got a poor review… hmmm
Before
After
Gracie's Favorite Hiding Spot
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Road Trip
The journey from Fairbanks, Alaska to Winnemucca, Nevada was an eventful one. We started on March 27th and drove to Tok, Alaska where we spent our first night on the road. Our first night Cory almost got our Prius stuck in a huge snow bank. He thought that this area covered with snow was ground but really it was a ditch. Needless to say I wasn't a happy camper but after 10 minutes of going back and forth he was able to get out of the snow bank.
The next day the plan was for us to drive to Haines, Alaska and have a day there before the ferry departed. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans for us and instead we were snowed in and forced to spend the night in Haines Junction, Canada. The road from Haines Junction to Haines was closed due to white out blizzard conditions. We were fortunate the next day because the Canada DOT opened the road just to those of us that were travelling to catch the ferry out of Haines. We made a huge caravan and followed a Canada snowplow. The first half hour of the drive I was thinking that it was ridiculous that they had closed the road because there was just a little slush in the road. Once we really got driving though, the roads were horrendous at one point all you could see was white and couldn’t see hardly the car in front of you. The sides of the roads had snow packed on either side higher than the snow plows. I was so grateful to finally drive out of that mess and reach the Canada/US border crossing. The rest of the drive to Haines was uneventful, but was finally a relaxing drive that we got to enjoy instead of being focused on staying on the road.
We made it to Haines, and found the ferry terminal after a couple of tries and checked in and received all of our paperwork for the trip. We decided since we had 6 hours on our hands that we would take Gracie to the beach and go out to eat. Grace absolutely loved being at the beach and out of the car. She had her first taste of sea water and it wasn’t a good one, but she did enjoy playing ball. Next, we drove around and tried to decide on a place to eat dinner. After driving through downtown twice we drove through the outskirts to discuss if we saw any place that we wanted to eat at. While we were sitting there a family walked by with their dog and we asked for their recommendation. They recommended this really cute Mexican Restaurant called Mosey’s Cantina which had great food. Once we were finished with our meal we took Gracie back to the beach and then went back to the ferry terminal and waited to be loaded on the ferry.
Loading the ferry was interesting, Cory was the first car on and so he was way at the front of the ferry in the point almost. I was in the middle to load so I was on a side wall which worked out well with Gracie. Once loaded, we were allowed to go upstairs and check in to get assigned our room. Our room consisted of two built in bunk beds, a window, bathroom with a shower, and then our own sink. It was actually really nice. The boat we were on was called the Malaspina. We spent most of our time in our room. We ventured out for dinners in the cafeteria and tried out the movie room once. The movie room wasn’t has cool as it sounds. It only consisted of two large flat screen TVs that they played somewhat recent movies on. We watched a whole season of 24, thanks to Buck and Barb for lending us 3 seasons, and read basically. Every four hours or so depending on the sea conditions we were allowed to go below deck and let Gracie out to go to the bathroom. Gracie has problems going to the bathroom normally so it was a nightmare on the ferry and we felt so bad for her. She did so well on the ferry boat and was quiet the trooper for us.
We were on the ferry from March 29 till April 2. We did have stops along the way that we were allowed to get off the boat. This was a huge blessing for us with Gracie. We took every opportunity to get off that we could. Our stops included Juneau, Kake, Petersburg, Wrangell, Ketchikan, and Metlakatla. My favorite stop was in Ketchikan where Cory and I got off with Gracie and took a hike through the rainforest. It was so pretty and peaceful since we were the only ones on the trail. Halfway through our journey, we were suppose to switch boats and were to be downgraded in cabins (where we wouldn’t have our own bathroom and had to share the communal one) which I wasn’t excited about, but the other boat we were to get on had engine problems so we had to stay on the same boat to continue our journey. We only had one really rough day at sea and that was Thursday while we were traveling through the open water on our way to Bellingham. That day we only got to go down either every six or eight hours to let out Gracie.
On April 2nd we arrived in Bellingham two hours late due to the rough seas. We unloaded and took Gracie to a park to give her some exercise before we continued on our 13 hour drive to Winnemucca. The roads through Washington were horrendous. I have never thought I was going to die so many times. The roads were really slushy and icy and there were tons of semi-drivers which made driving even more difficult. On the plus side there were tons of cute quaint towns in Washington that I would love to go back to and explore. On our journey we stopped and spent the night in Pendleton, Oregon. Fun fact we learned about Oregon is that you aren’t allowed to pump your own gas, very crazy. The next morning we got up early and drove the rest of the way to Winnemucca. I have to say that driving through eastern Oregon and is very uneventful and monogamous driving. We did get to see our first live cowboys rounding up cows so that was very exciting. We arrived in Winnemucca at 5 PM and got to check into the Best Western that would be our home for the next 3 weeks till our house closed.
Gracie's 4th B-day
The next day the plan was for us to drive to Haines, Alaska and have a day there before the ferry departed. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans for us and instead we were snowed in and forced to spend the night in Haines Junction, Canada. The road from Haines Junction to Haines was closed due to white out blizzard conditions. We were fortunate the next day because the Canada DOT opened the road just to those of us that were travelling to catch the ferry out of Haines. We made a huge caravan and followed a Canada snowplow. The first half hour of the drive I was thinking that it was ridiculous that they had closed the road because there was just a little slush in the road. Once we really got driving though, the roads were horrendous at one point all you could see was white and couldn’t see hardly the car in front of you. The sides of the roads had snow packed on either side higher than the snow plows. I was so grateful to finally drive out of that mess and reach the Canada/US border crossing. The rest of the drive to Haines was uneventful, but was finally a relaxing drive that we got to enjoy instead of being focused on staying on the road.
We made it to Haines, and found the ferry terminal after a couple of tries and checked in and received all of our paperwork for the trip. We decided since we had 6 hours on our hands that we would take Gracie to the beach and go out to eat. Grace absolutely loved being at the beach and out of the car. She had her first taste of sea water and it wasn’t a good one, but she did enjoy playing ball. Next, we drove around and tried to decide on a place to eat dinner. After driving through downtown twice we drove through the outskirts to discuss if we saw any place that we wanted to eat at. While we were sitting there a family walked by with their dog and we asked for their recommendation. They recommended this really cute Mexican Restaurant called Mosey’s Cantina which had great food. Once we were finished with our meal we took Gracie back to the beach and then went back to the ferry terminal and waited to be loaded on the ferry.
Loading the ferry was interesting, Cory was the first car on and so he was way at the front of the ferry in the point almost. I was in the middle to load so I was on a side wall which worked out well with Gracie. Once loaded, we were allowed to go upstairs and check in to get assigned our room. Our room consisted of two built in bunk beds, a window, bathroom with a shower, and then our own sink. It was actually really nice. The boat we were on was called the Malaspina. We spent most of our time in our room. We ventured out for dinners in the cafeteria and tried out the movie room once. The movie room wasn’t has cool as it sounds. It only consisted of two large flat screen TVs that they played somewhat recent movies on. We watched a whole season of 24, thanks to Buck and Barb for lending us 3 seasons, and read basically. Every four hours or so depending on the sea conditions we were allowed to go below deck and let Gracie out to go to the bathroom. Gracie has problems going to the bathroom normally so it was a nightmare on the ferry and we felt so bad for her. She did so well on the ferry boat and was quiet the trooper for us.
We were on the ferry from March 29 till April 2. We did have stops along the way that we were allowed to get off the boat. This was a huge blessing for us with Gracie. We took every opportunity to get off that we could. Our stops included Juneau, Kake, Petersburg, Wrangell, Ketchikan, and Metlakatla. My favorite stop was in Ketchikan where Cory and I got off with Gracie and took a hike through the rainforest. It was so pretty and peaceful since we were the only ones on the trail. Halfway through our journey, we were suppose to switch boats and were to be downgraded in cabins (where we wouldn’t have our own bathroom and had to share the communal one) which I wasn’t excited about, but the other boat we were to get on had engine problems so we had to stay on the same boat to continue our journey. We only had one really rough day at sea and that was Thursday while we were traveling through the open water on our way to Bellingham. That day we only got to go down either every six or eight hours to let out Gracie.
On April 2nd we arrived in Bellingham two hours late due to the rough seas. We unloaded and took Gracie to a park to give her some exercise before we continued on our 13 hour drive to Winnemucca. The roads through Washington were horrendous. I have never thought I was going to die so many times. The roads were really slushy and icy and there were tons of semi-drivers which made driving even more difficult. On the plus side there were tons of cute quaint towns in Washington that I would love to go back to and explore. On our journey we stopped and spent the night in Pendleton, Oregon. Fun fact we learned about Oregon is that you aren’t allowed to pump your own gas, very crazy. The next morning we got up early and drove the rest of the way to Winnemucca. I have to say that driving through eastern Oregon and is very uneventful and monogamous driving. We did get to see our first live cowboys rounding up cows so that was very exciting. We arrived in Winnemucca at 5 PM and got to check into the Best Western that would be our home for the next 3 weeks till our house closed.
Gracie's 4th B-day
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