Will it or won't it???

That's the question I'm asking myself right now. All I can say is that it had better be.

My parents are hosting a family get-together here in a couple of weeks where my older bro and his family are coming down for a visit. Now, my younger bro and his family are also coming over so that their kids can meet his kids. And, I think it'll mark the first time in a very long time that all of us will be together. So naturally my mom is gonna make this the Photo Opportunity of the Century.

So, the question to us is, can we get all of our home improvements done in time to show them off to everyone? What's left, you may ask? Our sun room (AZ room), at the time of this writing, still needs to be stucco'd. I need to finish painting the house. And the screens for the sun room need to be installed.

So. Cross your fingers for us. The race is on to get this house looking fantastic when everyone arrives!

Oh, by the way, donations gladly accepted for the Get Jeff out of Painting the House fund. Thank you for your support. :)

More home improvements

Ok, we have finally started painting. Well, that would be Gary pretty much forcing me to start painting. And I'm glad he did. Our house really needs it.

So, Gary is working on the trim and I get the roller to do the big main stuff. Giliane & I picked out some really good colors that work great with our house. The trim is a medium gray, called "pewter cup". The main color is "moon mist". It's a nice, white color with just a touch of gray in it.

So, let me tell you a little story about what Not To Do on a rainy day. On Saturday, we decided to do some painting, so Giliane was working on the trim and I was working on the front of the garage. I then decide to take the house perimeter lights down 'cause we have our nice, new replacements. So as I was pulling them down, I wasn't being too careful with them and therefore broke a few as I tossed 'em in the garbage.

We then painted those areas and after it dried, we pulled out our new lights. But guess what? The blasted things don't fit. We have a stucco "groove" that is in the way of the lights. The lights are too big. Ok, so now I can't put the old ones back, and I have bare wire showing.

Now, it rained really good the day before, with a decent chance of raining the day we were painting, but nothing had shown up. However, the rain clouds were on the way. We threw everything in the car and hauled ass over to Home Depot to get replacements for our replacements. It started raining long before we made it to the store. Luckily our house is in the southern part of town, so we had a little while before the storm got there.

We made it home just as it started raining. So, standing in water, handling bare wires that will be wired in to our nice new lights, with it raining harder and harder, fingers starting to go numb, lightning flashing, thunder getting closer... All we wanted to do was do a little bit of painting!

Hey, needless to say, we got them wired and turned on. They look great! The only drawback now is that we need to get the rest of the house painted and swap out the other lights 'cause we look a little WT at the moment. :)

Kitchen is completed!

Thanks to my grandpa Bill, our new wood floors are in. They were put in to place in the kitchen, dining room, hall, laundry room, and guest bathroom.

Trust us, it looks great!! Thanks again Bill!

No more ugly-ass linoleum with holes in it. No more "speed bumps" separating the kitchen and dining room (for those that have seen our house, that should totally make sense!) and the dining room from the hallway.

Okay, seester, it's finally in place!