Trim and Finish Work Part 1 of Many

We are all about utilizing spaces.  Pop built a drawer for under stairs.  Right now we use it for shoes.  He spent a long time getting it right.

But he needed a little bit of help from a friend to complete the installation.

Speaking of help from friends, we had a Sunday painting party recently where everyone got involved.

Max and Lucy decided to have races while Pop and I worked one Saturday.

Pop and I have spent the last 2 long weekends putting in the electrical trim and various other things that need to be done.  In the evenings, I have been putting together ceiling fans and painting with Toby.
We are getting there, slowly but surely.

Comic Strip Siblings

Max has started drawing comic strips.  Lucy was inspired yesterday to do one as well.  This is one of her and buddy Emma going to Vons, the shopping mall, the hair styler and the candy shop.

Max has created a character named ‘Phony’ who is based on Shaggy from Scooby Doo.  Here’s his strip of Phony’s search for some food at a strange diner.

Here’s a zoomed in clip of one of the squares – of a van liked Scooby and Shaggy’s Mystery Machine.

Halloween Fun

Max was a not-too-scary skeleton (with ribs that lit up in green) and Lucy was Ariel (among a virtual sea of Ariels in our town).  We had fun!

Max and his long-time buddy Mac (dressed as a pro-wrestler).

Lucy loved having sprayed-on red hair for the day!

Lucy and her best buddy Emma (as Belle with wings?).

Our good friend Lyndsey and Lucy (in another outfit!) as an Indian princess.

Max Baseball Drawing

Even though we don’t have cable TV, we’ve been able to see a bit of baseball playoffs/World Series and Max has been intrigued.  Here’s his latest homage to the great American pastime:

All the sprayer painting is done

Finally.  All the primer is on, and the painting that needs to be done with the sprayer is finished.  Now it is up to me and Toby to get the color on the walls.
Pop had agreed to come over and work on Friday (I would take a vacation day) and get this painting finished.  He drove up Thursday evening and we spent almost 3 hours doing last minute painting prep.  (It never seems to end.)  We got started early Friday with 3 goals : For all the unpainted areas (kids rooms, bathroom, laundry room, office) primer, ceiling finish, and baseboard / crown moulding high gloss finish.
Primer went relatively smoothly.  We used the airless sprayer that Kevin S. let us borrow.  This time, though, Pop had bought a set of goggles that has a roll of plastic that can be advanced when the spray fogs the lens.   


No more stopping every 5-6 minutes to wipe his glasses.

The ceiling went on easily as well.  Then it was time for the baseboard/ crown moulding.  We masked off the walls and the ceiling with a nifty tool that Pop had bought.  It was much faster than what we had done before, but still took a looong time.  It was 6:30p before we began to paint and 9:45p before the equipment was clean and we could call it a night.  All in all, the painting itself was maybe 3 hours, maybe.  The rest of the time was the prep, the masking and the cleaning.  The kids and Toby helped pull the tape and masking paper off the walls.  Max wrapped himself up in it, and became ‘Tape Boy’.  The picture below doesn’t do ‘Tape Boy’ justice.  It was taken in the early stages and we didn’t get a picture of the final tranformation.


An early stage of Tape Boy

Saturday, Kevin S. came over and performed a miracle.  One of the doors that we had bought came with the wrong swing.  But since it was a special order door, it couldn’t be returned.  I thought we were going to have to hang the door upside down to get it to work the way we wanted.  Kevin did his magic and in about 45 minutes the door was hung and swinging the right way.  Hooray.  While Kevin and I worked on installing more floors, Pop installed a drawer under the stairs.  I helped a little bit with some of the tricky work.


Finished floor in the Laundry room.


Helping Pop out of a tight space.


The drawer that Pop installed.


The door that Kevin saved.