Our last post was when?!!

What?  When was our last post?  March 19th?!  Are you sure?!!

Yep.  Our last post was on March 19th.  These past couple of months flew by, and strangely have not resulted in a ton getting done around 'ol Shangri La.  We've accomplished a couple of things, but nothing truly exciting.  Rather than bore you with a bunch of jibber jabber, how about we go with some pictures with a tad bit of commentary.  Cool?  OK...let's push on with getting caught up.

These will be in darn close to chronological order, and I'll break it down for you by month.  :)

April

These next few pics are of areas Shelly cleared and cleaned up.  :)

Before Shelly kicked butt

After!

Before Shelly went all medieval.

After!

Before Shelly opened a can of whupass.

After!

Our first northern MI garden.  In later pics you'll
see that Mother Nature is laughing her butt off at us.

The last update had the first section of basement
insulated and framed.  Section 2...done!

Cut up and split some deadfall, to supplement the load
of firewood we'll need to buy.  Got to feed the beast!

May

Not too bad of a grading job, for an upside down plow with a
cinder block on it being towed behind a garden tractor.

Ten cord of firewood being delivered and stacked by
a really cool truck.

Ten cord of firewood...delivered!  That should get us
through two seasons.  

Our new tractor being delivered by another cool truck.
This one is cool only because it's delivering our new tractor.

That's me on our new Kubota BX1860.  That smile?  It only
looks like it wraps all the way around my head.

These next pics are befores and afters for the painting of our son Michael's room.  :)

We really have nothing for June as far as activities around here.  It was a crazy month, which included a trip to Arizona for a campus tour for our youngest son's new college.  Yep...June was a blur.  :)

July

That picture of the freshly tilled garden-to-be?  Yeah...this
is that same space.  Did I not tell you that Mother Nature had a good laugh on us?  We left for a
week, and came back to a lawn where a garden should be.

To add insult to injury, what little we've been able to grow is
feeding the local bunny population...which by all accounts is quite
extensive.  Apparently they really do multiply like, well...bunnies.

So, Shelly toned down her ambitions for this year.  She bought
a few plants, and commenced to make them bunny-proof.

That's about two cords out of the ten, cut and stacked.
We're going to wait for cooler weather before we tackle
any more of that pile.  WHEW!

The third 1/4th of the basement, with the walls caulked
and Dry Lok'd and two coats of paint on the floor.  It's all
ready for framing and insulation...after some rerouting of
plumbing, anyway.

So, that gets us caught right up to today.  Literally, to today. I put the second coat of floor paint down just this evening.  

Looking back on it all, I'm going to take back what I said at the start of this post...about not a ton getting done.  We actually did accomplish some stuff around here since March 19th.  I'm glad I did this.  I'm feeling much better now.  :)

Talk to you all soon!

Honest! It's not another basement update!

Sunday's projects were all about staying out of the basement.  After finishing up the framing of the first section, we decided to take a break before plunging headlong into the next section.  A couple weeks ago we bought a new ceiling fan for the living room, and new faucets for the kitchen and bathroom.  Eureka!  These will keep me busy, and keep me out of the basement!

The old ceiling fan looked like something from that 70's show, and would spark when pulling the chain for the light.  Long story short, we didn't use it.  Pretty, isn't it?!

Existing Ceiling Fan

Here's the new and improved fan.  Five larger blades, plenty of wind, and no sparks!

Replacement Ceiling Fan

With the house sitting vacant for so long the seals on the faucets in the kitchen and bathroom are leaking.  They're not just dripping...they're also leaking around the handles.  Also, the sprayer is completely non-working.  We had a similar issue in Ohio and I replaced the faucet, and Shelly got used to using the sprayer.  See what I get for spoiling her?  ;-)

The existing kitchen faucet.
There's water everywhere!  AAAAAGH!

The existing bathroom faucet.
Yeaaah...it's gotta go.

Now, for the big reveal...all dripping with enthusiasm!!!  What, you'd prefer some watered down update? ;-)

New kitchen faucet.  Dry and wet where they're supposed to be,
and a working sprayer!

New bathroom faucet.
Soooo much nicer.

This was a nice deviation from the basement project, and all three improvements were immediately felt.  The ceiling fan immediately went into service, what with the freakishly warm temps.  March...northern Michigan...80 degrees?!  

It'll likely be a few weeks before our next update.  I'll be traveling for work this week, and then for the weekend we're out of town visiting with friends and then visiting our son Kyle.    So, we'll talk to you all in a few weeks!

Blueing Up The Kitchen!

While Michael and I were in the basement framing walls, Shelly was busy upstairs...very busy!  She tackled our kitchen, giving it a fresh coat of paint and some updating.  Mike and I pitched in a little...very little...and installed two new light fixtures.  Shelly did all of the heavy lifting on this project, and she ROCKED it.

The old color was yellow, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  But...and you knew there'd be one...we're pretty sure that it was the original paint from when the house was built in the 70's.  Couple that with the soot from long time use of a wood stove, and I think you get the picture.  If not, I've posted some before pictures below.  :-)

Lovely sooty yellow, isn't it? 

Over the stove and refrigerator.  That shelf isn't going to make
the final cut.  ;-)

If you're wondering why the electric outlets
are sideways, so are we!  Convenient, though,
having them so close to a water source.  :-p

This light fixture?  Yeah, it's going with that shelf you saw.

That lovely green light hanging over the table?
It's also not making the cut.  While you're looking,
check out that floor.  No, that is not an optical illusion.
We really do have two different floor tiles.

Okay, that's enough for the before shots.  Let's get on to the GOOD STUFF!  Shelly went with a pale blue for the walls.  She's also going to be painting the cabinets, but that'll be for another day.  Check this out!  :-)

Stunning difference, huh?  Shelly rocks, no doubt about it.

I told you that shelf was a goner.  ;-)

It all looks so clean.  Sooty yellow never looked clean. 

Our little dining area.  Check out those open windows.
March in northern Michigan, and we have the windows
open.  Bizarre weather, but we're enjoying it!

The new light fixture over the table.  The green chandelier would have
clashed...well, with everything.

The matching, but much larger, light fixture over the sink.
This one was a PITA to install, and there just might have
been some profanities uttered.  OK...a lot of profanities
were uttered.

I really can't wait to see what it's going to look like with the cabinets painted.  As good as this all looks compared to how it did, it's strange to think that all of this is temporary.  After we're done with the basement finishing project the kitchen is going to get gutted and redone.  But, knowing that the basement is probably going to take us a year at the pace we're able to go, we knew we couldn't live with sooty yellow, a green chandelier, and a fluorescent shop light over the sink.  Shelly is creating something for us now, that will be easy to live in until we're able to make like we really want it.  :-)

Until next time!