Weekly Mileage #116 and the One Mile Race

Unlike last week, this week was not boring and we had several experiences of note.

Monday Sunshine went to the orthodontist. After five years, 11 teeth pulled, and two retainers, she finally has enough adult teeth to get braces. We'll put the top brackets on at the end of July, after we return from our road trip. We'll have to wait till her teeth move a bit before the lower brackets can be put on- right now her upper teeth would run into them. She does need two adult teeth pulled- there's just no room for them in her mouth. She'll also get an expander put in on top (I had one when I was in elementary school- I'm not sure why she didn't get one sooner- not enough adult teeth, probably).

Tuesday the kids and I went to the lake with our homeschool group and I finally logged my first kayaking mile of the year. I paddled Ocean around the lake, and then River paddled Sunshine's kayak for a bit. He picked it right up and did a great job!

Wednesday we had nature group and the kids had fun playing in the stream at a local park.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I worked on the RV. I painted two walls white and I put white shiplap wallpaper on the walls of both slides. I'm not done yet, but it's amazing how much brighter the RV is just with those changes. Well, those and taking down the window valances that blocked 1/3 of the light coming in. The interior of many RVs can be cave-like because most manufacturers use a lot of browns (to hide dirt probably). Our trailer had white cupboards and light tan walls and felt quite airy. Our RV didn't have anything light colored in it before I started. I'll share before and after pictures once I'm done.

Saturday River and I also ran a 1 mile race. This particular race has been on my radar since I was working on my 40 by 40 goal, but it was always held on Sundays, so I'd never run it before. This year I noticed that it was on Saturday, so it was in the back of my mind when River asked if there was a 1 mile race we could do (he now wants to do a 2 mile race :).

walking back to the parking area

We walked a bit more than a quarter mile from where we parked to get to the start line, ran the race, which was all downhill, then walked back to the parking area, which was more than a mile and a quarter away and uphill. I wasn't expecting so much walking, but it was a good race and the walk back was actually really good for stretching tight muscles that have not seen nearly enough mileage lately.

beautiful scenery. can you see the log cabin off in the distance?

It was a gorgeous day for a run- partially cloudy, not too hot, beautiful surroundings. River and I ran the whole race (9:41 finish) and he placed first in his age group!

-----

I had the thought last night that one of the reasons I have my new calling (there's always many) is to help me grow a thicker skin. I tend to take things too personally and to worry about what others think and say, even though I have no control over such things. We're in the midst of a bit of kerfuffle involving parental expectations versus actual responsibilities of the leaders. Nothing major, and it's been an on-going issue, I just got dumped in the middle of it right off the bat.

In any case, thankfully my counselors are much better than I at letting things roll off them so I can learn from them, and we can spread the kerfuffle amongst us all, so no one person bears the brunt of it. I know that having a thicker skin is definitely necessary, especially as I venture into advertising my businesses. I know I will encounter trolls along the way, and hopefully it will be easier to ignore unknown people than people I know.

Weekly Mileage
Tuesday- 1.25 miles kayaked
Wednesday- 1.90 miles hiked
Saturday- 1.00 mile run
Saturday- 1.72 miles walked
total- 5.87 miles

12 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
1.25 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

63.15 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
15.87 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
80.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
160.27 miles total

Basement Blackout Curtains

The first basement progress post can be found here, and this is the second post in the series.

what this end of the basement currently looks like

Like I said in my first basement progress post, the main room in our basement is a multi-purpose room: the kids' play room, my sewing and craft room, and our home theater.

We don't have a TV upstairs because we have a projector in the basement. Well, that and we don't have cable and can't pull in local channels with rabbit ears because of all our tall trees. We don't mind since Amazon Prime and Netflix are cheaper than cable. Whether we're watching DVDs or streaming tv shows, we have a much better viewing experience than we would with a run-of-the-mill TV.

The only problem is if we want to watch a movie while it's still light outside: there's two glass doors that lead to the patio I built and that face the setting sun. All that sun is great if we're playing or creating, but not so good when we're trying to watch a movie. Several years ago I bought fabric for curtains and two black sheets to line the curtains. I wasn't in the sewing mood, mostly because I knew I'd have to lay everything out on the floor and I wasn't looking forward to it, so the roll of fabric has been shuffled from my sewing table to the guest room closet to the-under-the-stairs closet. I threaded the hem of the sheets on the curtain rod as an interim solution and tried to ignore the fact that the too-long sheets only kept out some of the light.

too-long, too see-thru, and sagging because of the loose bracket

A few weeks ago I noticed that one of the brackets holding the curtain rod was pulling out of the wall, despite the fact that I'd used anchors to install them. I'm guessing the anchors were just no match for small kiddos pulling the sheets back and forth across the curtain rod.

Since I had to take the curtain rod down (and remove the sheet curtains) to fix it I decided it was time to buckle down and finally sew the curtains. I sewed the lining to the curtains so it was a little fiddly, but overall the project wasn't as bad as I was afraid it would be and only took a few hours.

light tan fabric with a darker tan leaf print

The fabric is thick, and with two panels there's a fair amount of weight for the curtain rod to support. I knew I couldn't depend on anchors in the drywall to support the weight, so I had to find a stud to screw the brackets into. While the stud was closer to the door frame than I wanted, at least I was able to find one close to where I wanted it placed.

I used rings with clips to hang the curtain panels. The rings are great because it's easy to adjust the height a little without having to re-hem the whole thing.

The result: the curtains look good and are much more effective at blocking the light than just the sheets. One more project that I really didn't need to delay for so long.

it's a sunny afternoon out, but you can't tell with these curtains

I also made a curtain for the other window in the room. I'd rigged an old, too-long tab-top curtain to cover the window, but it was old, unevenly faded, and rather ugly. As I removed it I realized that this particular curtain panel was purchased to cover a window in our very first {very tiny} apartment 14 years ago. Apparently I never got rid of it in any of our moves or purges in the intervening years since then, though the rest of the curtain panels from that first apartment are no longer around.

the ugly old curtain

There wasn't enough fabric left over from the other curtains to make another curtain, so I looked through my stash and found a tan pillowcase that I bought at IKEA that was too large for our pillows. After cutting the seams, there was enough fabric that when I combined it with the leftover piece I had just enough to make a single curtain panel for this window. I lined it with part of a brown sheet that was also sitting in my stash, waiting to become a dust ruffle on the guest room bed (but won't be since I changed to gray bedding in there).

this window looks so much better with a nice curtain

the stained glass is one of my projects from a class I took in college

Both curtains do a terrific job of darkening the room. They also help with insulation. The basement stays cooler in the summer than the rest of the house, but it's also cooler in the winter, which isn't nearly as desirable. I'm hoping the basement will be a bit warmer in the winter than it has been in the past.

Up next: painting the LEGO table, which is the last of the projects I built while pregnant with River that still needs to be painted.

A Calmer Week

Hug ambush courtesy of River

Last week was crazy busy, but this week we didn't have too many things on our calendar and it's been so nice. Of course, next week is busy again...

Monday we did some spring cleaning/organizing, which mostly meant we cleaned out closets and took winter gear to the basement. Our coat closet was out of control, so it was definitely necessary.

Tuesday we actually made it to park day, which we haven't managed in awhile since it usually interferes with River's nap time. River decided not to take a nap though, so that wasn't an issue. I think he was looking forward to going to the park, which I made the mistake of telling him would happen after nap time. Sunshine had fun flying her kite and River had fun walking all over the soccer field- he thought he was such a big kid.

River warily approaching Sunshine- he got attacked by her kite on more than one occasion

Wednesday there was nothing on the calendar, so after schoolwork, we went to Lowe's and purchased the first round of materials for a ground-level patio outside the basement door. I've gotta take advantage of the nice weather (i.e., not hot, muggy, and buggy), so I got started right away getting the  deck blocks in place. Yesterday evening I also made River a new tie to wear with his Easter sweater- I'll post pictures next week.

I meant to take a before picture, but didn't remember till after the deck blocks were in place. There was no way I was moving them all out of the way just for a picture, so this is as good as it gets for now. I know I have a better picture somewhere, but I'm not going to dig it out right now.

I got half the deck blocks dug in on Wednesday

Today I finished the digging in the deck blocks and cut the wood to length. I didn't quite get everything as level as I wanted, but I ran out of time because River woke up from his nap, so I called it good. We even had time to help a friend pick up a freezer. Since we didn't have anything else planned, I didn't stress about how long it took (longer than expected, of course).

Deck blocks dug in, boards cut to size, and everything mostly level.

Lots to do still, but a good start.

Tomorrow I'll finish leveling everything and use brackets and joist hangers to attach all the wood pieces to each other. As long as it's not raining when River is sleeping, anyway. Scattered showers means it's inevitable that it will be raining when I can actually be out working.

After how stressed I've been lately, this week has been a refreshing change. Sure, Tuesday was our usual busy day, but it wasn't terrible, and while there will be several hours tomorrow where we'll be running all over, for the most part, this week has been nice and non-stressful. I've been so much more productive (working on projects) this week than I feel like I've been in awhile. It's a good reminder to me why I shouldn't cram our schedule full, though I can't always control what ends up on our calendar.

Kitchen Island Lights

When we bought our house, there were some hanging cupboards in the kitchen that had lights dangling down from the center portion.

The cupboards over the sink blocked light and made the kitchen/dining area feel small and cramped. I took down those cupboards two years ago and it looked like this for awhile:

Before we got the can lights installed I removed the last of the wood from the ceiling and started painting it. After the can lights were installed, it looked like this.

I patched the drywall holes from the old light and the wood that supported the cupboards, then finished painting the ceiling. At that point I kind of pooped out and the lights looked like this for the last year or so:

I couldn't decide for sure if I liked the light, so I didn't want to finish installing if I was just going to replace it.  The metal edges left gray marks on the ceiling, so I draped wash rags over the ends to protect my paint job.

Recently I was in Lowes and decided to stop in the lighting aisle to see if I could find any lights I liked to replace the upside-down martini glasses (tell me that's not what they look like), and I saw this:

 A little shiny, but kinda cute, and I like the shape a lot better than the upside-down martini glasses. I bought one to see if it fit on the fixture and if I liked it at home also. Things don't always look as good at home as they do in the store.

It fit, and after some deliberation, we decided it looked good and we'd keep it. I went back a couple weeks later and bought two more. They're on the pricey side, so spacing out the purchases helped our budget. We had them hanging like this for awhile:

I finally found time to climb up on the counter, peel off the old painter's tape, and screw the light base into the ceiling. Doesn't it look so much better? I'm kind of sad it took me so long to finally do this, especially since it didn't take that long to do. We've been missing out on having a light fixture that looks nice and is properly installed :)

We haven't finished all the kitchen projects yet- they're more expensive and more involved then just painting walls and putting up crown moulding. It's taking awhile, but we're slowly making progress.

Our New Trex Staircase and Porch

The deck that leads off the kitchen and down to where we park the cars has been having problems lately. The wood had started to crack and split and part of one of the stair treads had even come off. The wood was only nailed down (why didn't they use screws?), and some of the nails were loosening and popping up.

It was rapidly becoming a major safety hazard. We thought about replacing the old wood decking with new wood decking, but given how this wood has fallen apart (it's probably original to the house, so about 14 years old), how high-maintenance it is (constant power washing for mildew, plus regular re-staining), and the fact that we want it to look nice for when we sell the house (no idea when that will be, but we know this isn't our forever house), we decided against that. Even though it's more expensive, we decided to switch to Trex decking, as well as Trex posts and railings.

Mr M started the project a week or two before his mom arrived, hoping to be here when The Little Mister was born. We thought it'd be a quick and fairly easy job and he'd be done before she arrived.

Yeah, right.

We had to order all the Trex railing components, but only found out two weeks later that the order hadn't been placed because they needed more info but hadn't bothered to call us. We finally got that snafu straightened out after another week of phone tag, trying to get a hold of the right person.

In the meantime, Mr M tore out the old wood decking and railings and discovered that it hadn't been built to code and the stair stringers also needed to be replaced.

looking through the screen door as Mr M demos the stairs and deck

demo in progress

After tearing out everything that needed to be replaced (just the posts were left), Mr M started rebuilding it, placing the beams closer together so they'd be within code and adding a fourth stair stringer for better stability.

LMS and Mr M's mom helping him build the deck frame

He also ended up cutting the posts off flush with the deck. We thought the post sleeves would just slip over them, but the largest post sleeves fit 4" square posts and our posts were 4"x 5.5". Cutting them off enabled Mr M to use metal brackets to attach the posts to the deck.

frame built and stringers in place, getting ready to start attaching the Trex planks

I didn't take a picture of the decking installed without the posts up, but we ended up using it like that for awhile.

In between starting the project and finishing it, Daylight Savings ended, Mr M had drill out of state, Mr M had to work extra hours to make up for those missed while at drill, it rained on the few days Mr M actually had time to work on it, and we had to wait for another order to come in because when they ordered the railing pieces they neglected to get the bottom pieces.

Without the bottom railing pieces, you can't install the balusters or the top railings. It was pretty much a comedy of errors that you just have to go with the flow and do the best with what you've got.

posts installed, waiting for railing pieces

Mr M eventually bought a work light on a stand, which worked better than using the truck headlights, so he could work in the dark. Not the preferable way to go, but at least he was able to get the posts installed. And eventually the missing railings were delivered and he was able to install those as well.

installing the railings 

LMS was concerned about people falling off the other side and put up rubber band "railings" :)

Christmas Eve he was finally able to pronounce the project finished! 

Three months after starting what was supposed to be a quick and easy project. At least now we know what to look for in the future when ordering materials, and we know to plan on it taking longer than we think it will, especially with Mr M's work schedule.

isn't it pretty?

We love how it turned out! It's no longer a death trap, waiting to bring us a lawsuit, and it looks soooo much nicer.

There's definitely a learning curve to a project like this- especially the railings that go down the stairs. Practicing on this little deck and short staircase was good practice for the larger decks and long staircase of the front and back decks. We'll eventually re-do them also, but will have to save up since Trex is not cheap, unfortunately.

Have you replaced a deck? Was it easier or harder than you thought it'd be?

edited to add:
Mr M thinks I should have included a side-by-side comparison of the before and after, and he's right. So, Babe, this one's for you! :)

I can't believe it took us so long to update- it's so much nicer now!

Master Bath Reveal

 Here's the master bath in all it's apple/lime green glory before we bought the house.

The paint looks a little more muted in this picture, but believe me, that's not what it looks like in real life.

Hideous light fixture, massive boring mirror, boring vanity with no knobs or pulls (just like the hall bath).

I painted the ceiling (flat white), walls (the same blue gray I used in the master bedroom), vanity (white), and medicine cabinet (white). I switched out the light fixture for a much nicer one. Then I installed knobs and pulls on the drawers and doors. Seriously, a few pieces of hardware make such a difference! I also replaced the toilet paper holder, since this one was also like the one in the hall: constantly getting bumped into and knocked to the floor.

I also installed a row of hooks on the back of the door where a towel rod had been.

The most recent step (and actually one that's not quite finished) is framing the huge mirror. It's 5 feet long and about 3 feet tall and definitely needed something to make it more finished. 

However, for some unknown  reason, there's an outlet a few inches from the lower right edge of the mirror. There was a glass faceplate over it (scroll up a couple pictures and you'll see it), but I knew if I framed the mirror the faceplate would have to go.

After some thought and some measuring, I chose some 6" pine boards (the nicer, more expensive ones) and cut them to the sizes I needed. Anything narrower than 5" was going to run right through the outlet, so standard moulding was not an option here. After using my Kreg Jig to put the pieces together (more on that soon), I used my Dremel to cut the holes for the outlet. That took some patience, but I eventually got it right.

I need to paint the frame and then adhere it to the mirror, but for now it's wedged into place with a piece of scrap wood, and it already looks so much better.

we have a squatty potty in this bathroom also

It looks so much better than before. Unfortunately, we recently discovered a leak in our shower head that has affected the wall and will need to be taken care of. I have visions of this turning into our tearing out the shower stall (it's a one piece liner thing) and ripping out the affected areas before rebuilding it. If we do that, we'll probably tile the shower area and make it look nicer.

Needless to say, I've lost motivation to do much more until we find out just how bad (and expensive) the damage is.

Have you had to fix water damage in the bathroom?