New Project

What can we do that won't take much money or time? I can't sit still if I know there is something that can be done. Let's start the office in the West Wing. Very little cost because we are reusing what we are taking down.  Sutton and I started the demolition of the existing rooms and Bill couldn't figure out how we were taking down sheet rock and not totally wrecking it. The dry wall  had been put up with nails instead of screws. If screws had been used no problem just back the screws out and be on our way. This past weekend Bill was taught how to take down drywall and save it. Slow and steady wins the race. He became frustrated because it took time but helped me a lot with the extra long pieces. Most pieces will be 8 feet long and these were 10 feet.

 All the sheet rock nails have to be picked up after they are pulled out from the studs. We are saving any dry wall crumbs and will be putting them in the pond, take make it water tight,when we have time to work on it. I have been picking the nails up one by one. A spark of inspiration! We have a nail magnet to clean up after roofing jobs our guys do. Saved my back and fingernails by using this guy.

 The Previous Owner did not put the walls all the way to the exterior wall. These are stand alone walls. Very strange. But what else is new.

Look at all that extra footage we will add to our space when we move the walls back. It's only 5 inches but when you add that to every wall it adds up quick.

 Not only is there no insulation behind these walls there is all kinds of gaps and holes in the metal.

    

This electrical wiring will be dropped down and reused. All the plugs and switches just need to be moved from the front side of the wall to the back side or lowered. Just un-nail the box and turn it around. the wiring doesn't need to be messed with. Super easy; I can say that since I won't be the one doing the work.

 Bill checking out the attic space to see what we can use and what he will need to add to raise the ceiling.





All kinds of gross stuff between the walls. Shop Vac got a work out. Only one dessicated mouse body, not bad.

Love Hallways

Our hallways seem to be the only things we are getting finished. That's because they are small and easy to do.
This week with all the rain we have received I could get the painting finished.. We have had enough rain to take most of the state out of the worst drought ever to normal conditions. Unfortunately that means flooding and lives lost also. Praying for those who have been adversely affected.

 Hallway from the West Wing to the garage.

The start of Bill's decorating. His south Beach painting will be hung on the wall. The paint is still tacky from all the moisture in the air. The hall table is from my Grandma's house, Bill loves all things family related. The book ends are ones he got on his one Spring Break trip while in University. He and some friends drove to Mexico.The book they are  holding was a gift and is an album with some of his African hunting pictures. South Beach, Florida is one of his favorite places. He found this artist painting on the beach and bought this. It shows hotels we have stayed in and the News Cafe he likes to go to for coffee and a paper. Then some antlers from some of his animals. Not many of our decorating items have been unpacked; these are just the ones that were easy to get to.

Winter Wheat

More little projects getting done. The rain has been coming down like crazy; nothing is happening at the rock yard so I took off early and went home to paint. Bill is wanting to do all the decorating choices himself in the West Wing Trophy Room. The first decision was paint color. He chose Winter Wheat as the color. Needed a color his trophy animals would look good against and one that would make a South Beach Florida painting stand out..

First step was to silicone around the window. Hadn't r realized that hadn't been done yet. I siliconed first then went and changed clothes, got out the painting equipment and painted the hallway. We have had so much rain that the silicone still wasn't set up by the time I got all of that done. When I do the second  coat of paint I can edge around the window.

Before silicone

After silicone. I am a silicone fool. Love the crisp lines it gives everything.

Painting ceilings requires a long handle on the paint roller so you aren't up and down the ladder all the time. You just stand on the floor and roll.

So pretty. The paint is still wet in the picture so it looks suede like. Suggested to Bill he maybe think about a suede finish in the ell of the Trophy Room. We won't be putting trim on until we are doing the whole house.

I didn't paint all the way to the end because we will need to blend the texture from the parts of the walls that  aren't finished yet. Cant' wait to get the lights in, the painting hung and the hall table put in.

I Want the Jack Hammer

Three of the grandkids were coming over for the weekend and I told them we were going to do some demolition. Sutton, the seven year old, is in the back seat and he hollers, "I get the jackhammer!" He was disappointed when I told him that it wasn't that kind of demolition.

When the rock yard sells we will be moving all of our other businesses out to the West Wing. To do that we need an office. Bill says not to worry we can start out with a desk in the middle of the room and then do the build out. Sorry, that won't work for me. He will have very little reason to ever go into the office space so it won't be a big deal to him. I will need to go into the office almost every day from the first day forward.

There are two rooms in the West Wing with seven foot ceilings. They are too small for our purpose and we want taller ceilings. So the first order of business was to take out some counter top and some overhead cabinets we hadn't got rid of yet.

 We are taking out the wall that separates these two rooms and making one large room with a half bath and storage. The storage room will be for all the files you have to keep forever. We will be making it fire resistant. There isn't much too burn to begin with being in a metal building but better over cautious than sorry later.

Sutton did get to rip boards off the walls.  Mallory helped and Brynnlee cheered them on.

 Next he got to pull drywall off both sides of the wall.

Bill will need to take the rest of the wall down. I'm just not strong enough to knock those studs off the bottom and top boards.

It's the Little Things

Not every project is big and important. Some are just little and important; or at least important to me. The part of the garage between the Residence door and the West Wing door is being treated as living space. The floor will be tiled, like the back hallway and the walls are painted the same as the inside. There is one wall that I decided to put shelving on. This is some shelving from one of my parents outside buildings. It is very nice heavy duty wire shelves. It had been in unconditioned air; so it was little worn looking. In the garage a shelf needs to look substantial so I wanted a big shelving unit and this is perfect.

 My dolly and I took the shelves outside. Then I pulled out my handy dandy can of spray paint and went to town. This project used up all of my partial Rubbed Bronze cans and I had to buy two more. Not much area to paint but the paint just blows away.

 You can see the light and dark of whats been sprayed and what hasn't been hit yet. I went with the Rubbed Bronze to match our hardware and to take the shiny away.

 Here is my new "Recycling Center" . Close to the kitchen when they Residence is finished, yet out of the way. Pretty enough to walk by every day and not be offended. Yes, things that don't look really nice offend me.

 

Right now Bill is using this to hold his to do lists and stuff he is using in the building process.I don't know what else will go on these shelves. I am thinking maybe some pretty baskets with extra hats and gloves in them. My bins are labeled with what recyclables go into each one. Mallory the 3 year old "reads" them each time she goes by.  Her teacher may wonder why her best words are Paper, Plastic, Cans, Foil, and Glass.

Determination

What can one determined woman with two tools and one hour accomplish?

These were my tools. A dolly and a strap. We have a large pile of red rock left over from building the retaining wall. These rocks are too small for the wall but too good to toss into the pond.

 I used the strap to help lever them onto the dolly and then put them down as tree rings.

We will be adding two inches of good top soil to this area of the yard. Once that is down they will look very natural.

 Got a couple of free trees from the City of Edmond. I planted them on a hillside and need to make sure everyone knows they are there until they get big. So I built a couple of retaining walls around the trees. Now I will add some compost and mulch and we will have some very happy trees.

Porch Time

We are into our really busy season at the rock yard so we don't want to get any big projects started with the building process. We have three small ones we can work on in our spare time, just need to decide which one to do first.


We decided to do the front porch next. We think that will really give us a sense of satisfaction. When we are outside and even just driving up the drive we will see that something is done.
 
Bill started off laying a course of a building stone that compliments our other rock to raise the front step. That rock is called Aztec Gold and is a super cool rock. You ultimately won't be able to see these but we will know they are there. Brynnlee is checking out Pa's handy work.

 Next he needed to float some concrete to fill the void and make the floor level. There is a five inch drop from the front door to the edge of the porch. Have to watch out for the sewer clean out it is right in front of the door. Don't understand why it placed there, but there it is.

 Wyatt is learning how to finish concrete. This kid never stops asking how to do things.

Now to decide what rocks to put on the floor of the entry. We have them spread all over the parking area to pick through.

Benefit of owning a rock yard we can scour through pallets. Customers are not allowed to do that or we would have a big mess on our hands.We found these; they have curves on their edges and are the right color and thickness. The issue we are facing is that we want a thick stone at the edge for aesthetics.This is a big area; so the edge needs to look substantial. But, the flagstone can only be an inch thick under the door and that is without any mortar. Finding thin and thick stone the same color is not an easy job. Also the thick ones are larger because the thin break during transport. We don't want just a few pieces at the front edge and then a bunch of little ones by the door.  One of the problems of retrofitting a site. We are forcing changes into an area that was made for a different purpose.

Bill doesn't see the problem with the front of the porch having big pieces and around the door having little pieces. I have a problem with it. We had one piece of flagstone that was absolutely beautiful but too large and too thick for the area. We saw that it had a fissure that appeared to go all the way through it. So we stood it on its end and used the impact hammer along the crack. It came apart wonderfully. You start the separation and then let nature take over. It just pops off. When the rock came apart it was really hot between the two pieces. The stone had obviously been soaking up the sun's rays. The interior of the stone is so pretty.

 Now doesn't that look good with all big pieces? The one we broke apart are the pieces directly under the door and the one to the left. We used the outside for one and the inside of the other.

 The flagstone has been laying on the drive for awhile. When we moved the rock we discovered that June bugs had set up housekeeping under all of them.

Now that we have all the flagstone located that we need; the next step will be laying them. Starting tomorrow we are going to have rain for the next five days so we won't be putting anything down for a while.

Sow's Ear Into a Silk Purse

In front of the West Wing there is a section of concrete that is plain ugly. The rest of the concrete is nicely done. The previous owner must have poured this himself and concrete finishing was not his forte. It has rolling hills and sharp edges in it. Probably like if we tried to do it ourselves.

 There is nothing about this area that is pretty. We see this every time we come and go down the driveway.

Mallory helped my spray paint some old metal yard decorations to use here.

 The white chairs were on my parents front porch for years.

3 parts sand to one part mortar. I am mixing small amounts since I am doing this after work. Don't want to have a huge wheelbarrow full of mortar and it be past dinner time. I am using a brown mortar since you will be seeing it instead of just plain grey. That would look like concrete and I don't want that. 

 

Such a pretty color of mortar.

 

 
 Rains were scheduled to come in over night. I forgot about covering my work with plastic until One o'clock in the morning. Got up then and laid plastic in the dark. So glad I did because we had a lot of rain.

In the dark all I could think of to hold the plastic down was metal chairs and a red wagon. Oops, forgot about the rock that will be on this wall. Shouldn't have mortared the first rock in place. It will need to be chiseled out when it is time to do the rock wall. Oh, well at least I will think to not mortar the other end rock in place.







Time to start placing placing the decor in the space. Need to figure out where the landscape rocks are going. They need to go down before I spread the Decomposed Granite around.

The area has two of these things in it. They are bolted to the concrete. The previous owner must have been thinking he was going to cover the area and these would have been post holders. This will be a job for Bill. I have tried and do not have the strength to budge the bolts.











We have had this rock set aside at the rock yard for almost two years now. We think it is just too cool to sell. Didn't know where it would go .It needed to be close to foot traffic because you really should to see the top of the rock. This area is perfect for it. Loaded it on a little trailer and off to its new home.

What else could possibly go into this area that  says Bill and MaryBeth?  Of course, a fire pit. But not just any fire pit. The fire pit is made from Granite that would ordinarily be thrown in the landfill, we are such environmentalists. This granite company takes the scraps from jobs, use a press to make the correct shape and they stack beautifully into a fire pit. One man's trash another man's treasure. When this gets home it will take about 15 minutes to get it set up.

This fire pit will probably never be used for its intended purpose, it will just be for looking at.


These are our two moss boulders to add interest to the project.

Look at the cool heart in this one. There was iron in the ground and these shapes were made.

 Finished patio. Took the equivalent of three Sundays to get it all done. Had to be careful and not get ahead of myself with mortaring because of rain coming in. Had to get product brought into the middle before mortaring the east side. You need to use your imagination now. Imagine a six foot window in the wall behind this. A three foot rock wainscoting and then siding above the rock. It is really going to look good when it is finished.