Sunday, March 30, 2008

March Madness is in the air

Somehow Leo knows that Aunt Tres is a cat person







Life is good in Tobin Hill with Bill Miller Barbecue and Blue Bell




Trim work on the stairs made Frank, the floor man's, job complete

Frank, the Floor Man


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Bo helped several neighbors with the demolition of a nearby house









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Finish Carpenter, Charlie, has rebuilt 4 of the 8 windows in the "Phase 2" rooms .




.There is much window replacement to be done

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.Adding chair rail trim in the Mud Room





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.Sean and Leo say "good morning!"
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Maddie is prettier than our new hall tree (that's her pretty mama Michelle in the mirror)
.Stacey brings the Austin music scene to Tobin Hill
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Pat's ushering friend requested a picture in the clawfoot tub

Rachel, Mark, and Baby M take the tour



Leo and another of his many admirers, Danielle .
.Daniel, Darian, Minnie, and Danielle make the room brighter

Sabinal Cousin Nettie and her friend, Nell, were in San Antonio and stopped by
Katy and Buck with OSHA Gran at the presentation of the heirloom cradle that Buck's Great-Grandfather Johnson made for his arrival in 1976
















For the week ending March 30, 2008

What can I say? It's March. The Spurs are on. We are down to the Final Four. My blogger has a lot on his plate. But this is a good start. More details and captions to come! We promise.
HIGHLIGHTS:
1. Another significant milestone has been reached with the beginning of work in the "Phase 2" rooms. P2 is basically 2 rooms that were added on to the back of the original house that have had little done to them over the past year and a half. With so much needed in the original house, we decided to leave those rooms alone until the rest of the house was closer to being finished.
. When we began working on the windows in the P2 rooms, we found that 4 of the 8 window frames needed to be totally rebuilt due to water damage. Finish carpenter Charlie has done a meticulous job building new frames and has already installed 2 of the 4 new frames. You can see from some of the pictures above that this involved leaving gapping holes in the house between the time that the old windows are removed and the new ones installed.
. After the windows are installed, there is supplemental framing that needs to be done, electrical outlets to be reinstalled, cabling to be pulled for tv and internet access, sheetrock to be hung, tapped, floated, and textured, painting, floors refinished, trim installed, and furniture to be placed. Other than that, we're nearly done.
2. Speaking of trim work, it is already going on in other parts of the house. Although it doesn't seem like much, adding trim is the final touch that takes a room from being 95% complete to 100%. The picture of the trim at the back of each stair is a perfect example. My working on the chair rail in the Mud Room was just one of the other trim efforts recently completed. On your next visit, we will show you the trim around the pocket doors and the new baseboards (complete with quarter round) in the master closet. If that thrills you to no end, I have one small suggestion for you --- get a life!
3. Does Little Leo (the cat in the first 2 pictures above) look like he has a rough life? Despite evidence to the contrary, he is an outside cat. However, he does have a taste for Blue Bell ice cream and Bill Miller BBQ sandwiches. Leo got into Charlie the carpenter's truck recently and found the half sandwich that Charlie had not eaten and took care of it. He was noticeably disappointed the next day when all he got was dry cat food. But someone has to remind him that, contrary to his feline opinion, he really is a cat.
4. We love having visitors and apparently, they love coming. Since last blog entry, we have had -
- Nephew Stephen with wife Michelle and kids Sean and Maddie from Houston,
- Niece Stacey from Austin
- Friends Mark and Rachael along with their soon-to-be-born child
- One of Pat's ushering friends from the Majestic Theater
- Church friends Daniel, Minnie, Darian, and Danielle
- Cousin Nettie and her friend, Nell, from Sabinal
- Son and daughter-in-law, Buck and Katy, and their soon-to-be-born daughter, Lily
Who's next? Maybe you?

NEXT STEPS:
1. Speaking of Lily, that granddaughter should be here any day now. Mom-to-be, Katy, is hanging in there. I think that she is ready. They do have bags packed and waiting by the front door for the trip to the hospital.
2. There is much Finish work to be completed around transom windows, baseboards, windows and doors.
3. There is always painting and scraping to be done.
4. After all the windows are installed in the Phase 2 rooms there will be wiring, sheetrocking, painting, finish carpentry, and floors to be done.
5. I want to enclose part of the carport that is behind the house and use it as a workshop/storage area. So far, my efforts to find someone to build it on-site have come to nothing. We will keep looking and get there eventually.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

No longer a Construction Zone




It's Sunday night and I am trying to upload some pictures to show you that getting the floors finished really makes it finally look like a house, and not a construction zone. But Google is having some sort of server problem so the pictures will have to wait til morning. Maybe I can get Bo to sit down then as well and tell the story of the progress that has been made the last two weeks. For now, I will just thank him publicly for how hard and diligently he is working. The labor is so tedious and time consuming! He scrapes and sands and paints and stains hour after hour to turn this old house into a gem. Thank you, my love!