Where have you been?

Ok, so I have not posted since August 28. I have been busy and have not had a chance to update the page. I plan on making some updates this week. I will eventry to back date everything to align with when it happened.

Keep your eyes open.

2 years and counting

2 years ago today, Katrina hit many of the Gulf Coastal cities. One of them being Perdido Key were my parents have a condo. A condo that the family has not been able to use for 2 years and will probably be a few more months before it is even ready. Should I mention that it should have been complete this past March.


There is some progress on the condo, but it is still not complete. I look forward to the day to be able to take a long weekend and head on down there.

Photo is from August 28, 2005.

Leukoplakia

Ok, I am not talking about "cancer of the mouth", but referring to the scene in Lucas . The specific scene I am referring to is the one with the locust. Having many trees in my yard I see 3 things; locust skins, dead locust, or locust flying into everything. I have never really seen them in the act of leaving their skins.

Well, this week I finally got to see one in the act and took a few photos. So enjoy more of the photos at Flickr.com. You can also see the Praying Mantis that was close by to try and catch the locust in it vulnerable state.

To do list

Lots accomplished on the house and still more to do. Below is a small list of items I would like to accomplish prior to the end of the year.

• Prime and paint living room.
• Prime and paint main entrance.
• Prime and paint formal living room.
• Drywall garage
• Replace garage door motors.
• Squirrel proof attic prior to winter.
• Finish Master Bedroom Closet.
• Install recessed Medicine Cabinet in Master Bathroom.
• Paint Garage Floor with Quikrete Garage Floor Coating.
• Install Garage Cabinets.
• Re-seed yard in spots.
• Replace attic pull down steps.
• Eventually replace carpet in Dining Room and Formal Living Room.

I know is seems like a lot to do, but the delay is mostly on the funding for the projects I have listed above. I need to learn to not go into Lowe's and spend more than I really need.

Peru Earthquake

For those that may not know, my family is from Peru where they just encountered a huge earthquake that pretty much leveled the city of Pisco and Chincha (my parents hometown) earlier this week.

Please go to the Red Cross and/or UNICEF Children of Peru to dontate to "support emergency relief efforts and help those affected by the earthquake in Peru".




Good news is that no one in my family was injured.

Wallpaper removal has its ups and downs.

For those that have not seen the house yet, I have 2 rooms with very bad wall paper. One room was the formal dining room and the other was the main entrance hall way.

I started by going to Lowe's last weekend to see what all they had for wall paper removal. I purchased a Wall Scraper and 3 spray bottles of DIF. I then when home to see what kinda of damage I could cause. I would highly recommend these products.

I started with the main entrance hallway, assuming that since it was smaller it would not take me a long time. I ripped off the top layer of the wallpaper and sprayed the DIF on what was left. It when pretty well, except the previous home owners did not properly prep the wall prior to putting on the wall paper. It took me about 4-5 hours to strip the wallpaper and probably another hours patching up any holes or uneven areas.

For the Formal Dining Room, I took a different approach. I purchased a gallon sprayer and filling it with DIF. Then ripped off the top layer and saturated was what left. Good news for this room was that the wall were properly prepped and that wallpaper came off like butter. The room took me about 3 hours and was a lot larger than the entrance hall way.

I plan on painting both rooms, but have not decided on any colors yet. If anything, I will just paint them with primer until I can chose some colors.

Below are some photos of what the wallpaper looked like prior to the removal.

Image 1 is the hall way. I took picture after I already started. Image 2 is the Formal Dining Room.

Updated Closet

I meant to post this a few weeks ago, but I have been busy with the new crib.

I did a little modification on the Master Bedroom Closet as you will see in the photos posted below. I could have gone with the pre-fabricated Closet Maid pieces, but they just do not seem sturdy enough to me.

So, I took down all exisiting selves and hardware and doubled up on the back wall and built some shelves. Overall it took me a weekend to complete. I only did half as I wanted to make sure it was going to work 100% before going to far with the project.

Check it our from start to finish in the photos below.

I will try to take a better photo of the finished product later. I do plan on replacing the light fixture to brighten it up.

House Update

This past weekend I kept pretty busy at the house. One of the projects was installing new faucets in both bathrooms. I purchased them about 2 months ago, but had been putting it off. So this weekend the work began.

I purchased 2 Peerless faucets at my local Lowe's and proceeded to work on installing them. The old one in the master bath came out rather easy which made it even easier to install the new one. I did however have to clean up a bunch of gunk. The old one in the second bathroom was not as simple. The copper tubing was all bent out of shape which almost made it impossible to take out. Once I put my Dremel tool back up I proceeded to install the new one having some minor problems as there was a minor offset between the valves and the faucet.

All in all they turn out pretty good. Had a tiny leak which has now been fixed due to a problem with a worn out valve. Below are some photos of the new versus the the new.

Image 1 is the old faucet and image 2 is the new faucet.

House Update

It has been over a month since my last post. As you guessed it, I have been very busy on the new home. So here is the update along with some nice photos before and after.

The bathrooms have been painted and are fully functional. The pink bathroom has been painted with a light tan faux finish and the light green has been painted a different color green. The faucets being changed out is a future project, as is installing a ceiling vent. The rigged up shelves in the bathroom were a painted pine and have been replaced with 1 piece laminate.

The hunter green bedroom has been painted to a blue on the bottom and a light grey on the top. The vents were replaced as they were nasty.

The kitchen and laundry rooms are finally complete. The countertops finally arrived and were installed the past Friday. It made a huge difference.

Still have not put up the dry wall in the garage or installed my cabinets and drawers. My goal is to try and have that complete by the end of the summer.

So far I am still moving things into the house. I plan to have everything moved soon.

Below are some photos of the kitchen. The first shot is a before, and the next 2 are the after.

Spices and everything nice...

For the past year, I haven been driving in the Carefour Mall on Poplar and Kirby. The other day, I fininally stopped by to take a look. The store I popped into was Penzeys Spices. They have every kind of spice and herb you could imagine for cooking and they are much fresher than the once at the local grocery store. I believe I spent close to $70.

My favorite so far is the Sandwich Sprinkle. Go pick up some herbs and spices.

Project Update

It was a busy weekend. Lots accomplished, yet lots more to do.

Friday and Saturday daylight hours was spent tearing down fencing and buidling it back up with fresh treated pine. I even rebuilt the gate with new hardwear and made sure it actually opened and closed. I took the old Fence Company sign off polished it up and put it back up on the new fence. Below are some pics of my work.

I also replace 2 ceiling fans with Hunter Westminster Fans. The are high efficiency and brag to save over 40% off of my air conditioning cost. We will see.

Nico Swimming

Nico came over this weekend for a little dip in the pool. He had a blast. He will definitely be back to have some fun in the pool. Of course, his pops was in the pool swimming with him and having just as much fun.

Blackberries

After 2 years of sitting in a flower pot, my blackberry bush actually has blackberries on it. Well, they are kinda red and green at the moment but they will soon be ready for eating. I tried getting a few more, but the on and off weather we had last month killed them.

Wet Dog

This morning Ramona fell in the pool while my dad was swimming. He got her out pretty quick, but as you can tell from the photo she thought she did something bad. She has a little bit of a guilty look. Of course, it did not help that she hid in the flower bed covered with dirt. She got a nice rinse off with the water hose.

Window Tint

Well, last week I mentioned that I would post photos of the job I did on the garage windows. So, here are a few snap shots of the window tint.

Windows and Blinds

This weekend I added a few Levolor Blinds and also added some Frosted Window Tint.

The Levolor Blindswere very simple to install as I have done them before and have had the practice. I added them to what will be the computer room, garage, and living room. I will more than likely add them to the kitchen windows and a few bedrooms later. Lowe's will cut the width to size and you can adjust the lenght to your own window.

You are probably going, "Frosted Window Tint, why?" I added the Frosted Window Tint to the garage windows. The tint makes the garage a little more private. I do not really want anyone looking in my garage to see what I have in there. Anyway, the Frosted Window Tint was very easy to install and does look good (photo to be added later). It took me about 1hour:30minutes to install the Frosted Window Tint on the 8 little garage windows, which included measuring, cutting, and installing. Light still comes in, no one can look in.

More house photos.

Here are some more shots of the crib. Pictures are of the front and the back of the house. The backyard has a huge deck which just needs a little bit of lawn furniture. That will happen after the inside is pretty much complete. Good part about the house is that the yard is actually in great condition. I just need to do some watering.

I will try to take a better picture when the sun is not too bright.

Super Model

I know Tony Roy is into fashion, but I never knew he would take it this far. He worked at Franklin Covey as the Director of eCommerce Marketing. I never new he was a model on the side while he was working there.

Below is Tony Roy in his breakout as a Super Model on the cover of the Franklin Covey catalog. I wonder if this photo was taken while he was at South Beach or in LA.

Buy or Sell your house

Looking to buy or sell a house, contact Jackie Treat with Crye-Leike at (901) 754-0800.

She did a great job in helping me find the home I needed. Give her a call as she will take the time to work with you and find a home that meets your needs. She will also help you sell your home to get an upgrade.

When or if you contact Jackie, tell her I sent you.

Alarm System

Looking for an alarm system contact James Bordages with Instalert at 901-335-3441. They do a great job and take the time to listen to you and your home security needs. They will also work around your schedule to find the best time.

Give them a call and tell him I sent you.

Change Over

As you may have read, I purchased my first home recently and have started making some minor changes. Last week I started changing my mailing address with every company I have an account with that is mailed to my current address.

It was all very simply. All my miles and points programs were very easy to change. All my credit cards and other accounts were easy to change with a minor confirmation. Even easier was changing the address to my drivers licence online at Tennessee Drivers Services with a renewal fee. Of course, you know they could not all be easy. I had one difficult one and am still waiting on that one.

Yes, you guessed it. Time Warner which was bad before now replaced by Comcast. They took about 5 very long phone calls before someone was even able to get me set up in the system. You would not believe how many times I had to repeat the same information. Even after the 5 calls I will not even be able to be hooked up until May 12th. All in all it will have taken me over 4 weeks to get hooked up.

Kitchen

This week I was planning on going to http://www.lowes.com to purchase my stove and over head microwave. Bad news, after they came to measure the hole for the stove they found that the hole was to big to accommodate any other stove. My only option is to get new counter tops that can be cut to fit the stove I want. I am also adding a sink to the equation since they will be custom cutting the counters. It is cheaper that way in the long run.

Of course as listed on other post, photos will be posted once they install everything. It would have really been great to video tape the entire process.

Painting

This weekend was spent painting the kitchen and the laundry room. There is still some minor trim work to be done, but I would say it is almost complete. 1 paint can down, and one to go. Picture to be posted as soon as the kitchen and laundry room is complete.

Dead Fox

This morning on the way back from a meeting I past by the Fox Crossing I mentioned on the previous post and saw on of the Foxes dead on the side of the road. It looked like the mom fox from what I could tell. Not sure how the pups will do. Hopefully, someone was able to save them and take them somewhere they could be taken care of and released into the wild again.

Car repair.

Had to put the old Jeep in the shop the other day. It was making a nasty knocking sound. I got lucky and my new neighbors suggest a place down the street. He said they are very good, but a little higher that the average place. Good part, they only fix what you ask them to fix. So, you do not get any extra charges.

Got my Jeep back last night and the knocking sound is gone. The cost was $220. Labor in that number was only $70. My front link Pins and and my stabilizer link pins were cracked.

They are great people, so give them a try.

Brasfield Auto Repair on the corner of Quince and Ridgeway at 6110 Quince Road. They can be reached at 767-5890