OK, I did give the kids one whole week to be complete slugs, and then we established some very loose guidelines.
We got a new roof on both the house and the garage.
Andrew enjoyed his early Father's Day salmon fishing and his spot-on Father's Day gifts (we are currently working our way through his Ken Burns baseball movie, and I'm learning a TON). As always, we enjoyed visiting with my family on the actual day of Father's Day.
As part of the roof project, we discovered that the gutters on one side of the house were poorly done. THIS was the reason for the moisture problem we've had in Thing One's room and, to a lesser degree, in our room. We had already planned to re-do Thing One's room by fixing the ceiling, painting, getting better storage options, but then plans changed. Once our friend Brian got the two affected walls of drywall down, he found:
- Old termite damage (we fumigated when we first bought the house, before we moved in), which was also letting in moisture and cold air
- Black mold
- That the insulation had been done incorrectly, too (Hey, I didn't think there even WAS any insulation!)
So, her room project became:
- Tear down the thrashed blinds.
- Kill the black mold.
- Address any gaps from the termite damage.
- Upgrade the wiring in her room as long as the walls were open (the outlets were so old they weren't grounded).
- Do the insulation properly.
- Put fresh drywall up.
- Put trim back up.
- Texture.
- Fix the ceiling, which had been affected by the moisture problem.
- Install a new, pre-hung door (our interior doors are all a couple of inches short b/c the previous owner had carpeting over the hardwood floors).
- Paint.
- Separate out the bunk bed back into two normal twin beds, which both girls have requested.
- Choose, purchase, and put up curtains on her two small windows.
- Get and set up another "dresser" cubby thing.
- Get and install new shelving for her impressive library.
In order to do this project, we had to move the ENTIRE contents of her room - furniture and all - into the living room, and she has been sleeping on the couch.
Now, imagine me, introvert that I am, living the with clutter and craziness and having a very extroverted guy (he's a friend who would take a bullet for any one of the four of us in a heartbeat, but still) in and out of the house 57 times a day five or six days a week ever since May.
Yeah. It's been like THAT.
Meanwhile, I FINALLY got to spend most of a day with my friend Abby before she moved to Portland. It took us a whole year to pull this off! We had a game feed with the hunting guys, plus a couple of other people. Thing Two left for camp on Sunday. Thing One left this morning, and Thing Two comes back this afternoon. Thing One comes back on Saturday, and the goal (one I fear is a bit of a pipe dream) is to have her room all ready for her when she gets back. When her room is done, we'll take a break from home improvement.
And then we'll do the same to our room.
Sometimes, ya just gotta throw your hands up in the air and shout "Wheeeeeeeeee!"
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