Prep is everything

Preparation is everything when you are remodeling a house. It's painstaking at times. It's a step that is easily skipped to cut corners, but it will come back to haunt you in the end if you don't do it. We have a lot of  "I wish we  would have" comments. There is a fine line between perfection and efficiency, finding the balance is the key.

We put the finishing touches on the walls and ceiling in preparation to receive paint. The ceiling was sprayed with drywall mud and we did the "knock down" method to finish it off.

We have to "tape and drape" so we can paint the walls and ceilings and then make sure the floor is as even as it can be. Hardwood flooring will be the next step. 

we rented an industrial paint sprayer to make the job go a little faster. You would think this would be an easy task. Go to the rental place, pick up the sprayer, and come home and paint....well it went sort of like that. Mike and Mike's friend Marv picked up the paint sprayer brought it home and it didn't work. For the next hour, they tried to "fix" it. Finally after they talked about vacuum, pumps, ect... they just took it back and got another one. The paint sprayer, in the long run, did not save us time and definitely didn't save us money. The walls did get painted so all was good. 

We picked out a Thomasville mahogany engineered flooring from Home Depot.

Mike and his dad nailing in the wood floor

The floor was easy to install.

The call of the fairway

Mike working on the reach in pantry

This house did not have a pantry. With two teenage boys and a hard working man around, I needed a good size pantry. We decided to take the full length of the wall in the old dining room area and added a reach in pantry. We installed wire shelving and are very pleased with the amount of storage we have. 

Pantry doors installed. No case molding yet

Mike and his dad installed the doors. Not exactly sure what happened that day because I wasn't home. I just know a job that was suppose to take a couple hours took 8 hours! They said they had to re-frame?  HUH? I don't know, but I was happy I had doors on the pantry when I got home from work. 


The pantry was door-less all summer long. As soon as golf season started, all construction stopped.  That is why I'm making a strong push right now. It's my only chance to get things done. Golf is right around the corner 
and once again my house will play second fiddle to the call of the fairway. Many wives can relate in one way or another. If it's not golf, it's hunting, or fishing, or football season, or many other things that cause the "honey do" list to collect dust on the fridge. It's a pull more powerful than gravity. It's a law that Newton forgot. An energy that can not be created or destroyed, it just changes form. So what's a girl to do? We join them, of course!! I learned to play golf. Never touched a golf club before then. With determination and a little "I'll show you" attitude, we hit the driving range. Michael was my coach and as with most coaches, it was a love/hate relationship. All kidding aside he was a very good coach and I was playing decent 1st year golf by the middle of summer. We went from house renovation to the golf course, but we still spent time together, learning more about each other, falling more and more in love. He was happy to be able to balance his love of golf with his love for me and I was happy to see him pleased. We had a fun summer. The house? well... it could wait :)