The Wood's Secret Garden

Thursday night we spent three hours visiting with Lori Eaton at Mercy San Juan, (a 82 year old friend that has attended Michael's Services at Atria for the past 2 years).  It was an unexpected change in our schedule; but, we were blessed to have been given the opportunity.  Michael sang and read passages from the Bible; Deni held her hand; and I rubbed her feet with lotion as she laid in bed.  They had given her a strong pain medication, so she was half-in and half-out of consciousness; but, she would occasionally open her eyes and acknowledge us.   The sweetest thing was to see her hand moving, as if leading a choir, while Michael sang her favorite song, "Holy, Holy, Holy." While working on the house all day Friday, my day was filled with thoughts of Lori laying there in pain and suffering, and prayers for her peace and joy.   I knew that she loved Christ as her personal Lord and Savior and her prayer was to be with Him, not to stay here. He answered he...

As many of you know who have been following our progress, I am taking every Tuesday and Friday off from work to get the house ready to move in.  Tuesday morning we would be moving the 7 foot tall solid oak bookcases over to the house, which meant that we had to spend 5 hours Monday night getting them ready to move.  They were screwed to studs in our bedroom, due to the fact that the bedroom was carpeted which is not a stable flooring for 7 foot book cases.  We also had to move them out into the living area and determine the best way to get them onto the landing and ultimately down the flight of narrow stairs in the morning.  We finally went to bed with these towers looming over us as we slept. Deni and Yvonne (a lady that lives on Deni's block) arrived each with a truck and we actually managed to get the three bookcases down the stairs and onto the truck without incident.  We had previously loaded the table saw onto Deni's truck knowing we would need it to ...

Michael and I arrived at the house bright and early on Saturday morning.  The plan was for me to prime and paint the dry rot repair area under the living room window and work on the bathroom.  The bathroom vanity back splash was painted apricot orange.  Michael was going to work on sealing the living room window with plexiglass in preparation for covering it with wall-to-wall oak book cases. As I got to work, Michael grabbed the camera and disappeared.  Unbeknownst to me, he had noticed that the single rose bud, on our only rose bush in the garden, had little dew drops covering it and wanted to capture a picture.  He re-appeared after a few moments and started taking measurements and making preparations to seal the living room window. Our First Rose!    After Michael finished the preparation work, he went down to a family owned and operated, Plastics Shop, to purchase a piece of custom cut, Plexiglas and I proceeded to prime and paint the wall ...

Waiting at the light at Sunrise & Zinfindal - Starbucks in hand - 6:45 a.m.! We found a wonderful contractor named Don to do a few of the "Out of our League" projects.  Today the team showed up (His friend Bill "the plumber" and his son Ryan "the Hulk") Wonderful thing #1:  New water heater installed! It took approximately 5 hours to install!  Why?  Because 1964  Mobile Homes are not normal.  In other words, a lay person cannot just go down to Home Depot, purchase a water heater and think they can just install it.  Bill was a seasoned plumber who has installed more water heaters than you can count and yet he had to do some creative stuff to make everything fit.  Thanks Bill! Wonderful thing #2:  Don fixed the dry rot in the window seal!  The damage had not gone very far and for that we were really relieved.  We were also really encouraged to see that our little home has been constructed with 2 by 4's!  Most moble ho...

With my new Tuesday and Friday off from my day job schedule (Thanks Sergeant) we are able to spend 4 or 5 hours each Monday and Thursday night at the house. Well this was our Thursday night.  I had finished re-doing the border on the hand painted plywood sub-flooring and polyurethaned it last Tuesday night.  Here are a few shots of our new faux antique hardwood living room floor.  Although this only cost approximately $40 in supplies, it took 3 days of 10 or more hours a day of back breaking, knee destroying labor from start to finish and that is not counting the ripping out of the carpet and padding and removing the tack stripes and all the staples from the padding. A Close-up! A Fuller view - Notice the "Love" Painted on the right side wall panel! We are really, really pleased with or faux painted sub-flooring.  It could use another coat of polyurethane - but that means sanding, cleaning, coating and waiting another 20 hours to walk on it.  That m...

Michael and I arrived bright and early Tuesday morning, after spending 4 hours the previous night.  (I forgot to mention, I am taking every Tuesday and Friday off to work on the house.) We had decided that today would be:  1) finish the living room floor, and 2) finish painting the bedroom. I decided to totally change up the border on the hand painted sub-flooring and spent 3 hours, masking taping the new design while Michael removed all the drawers and doors from the built-in's in the bedroom and discovered that he also needed to clean the cubby holes from where the drawers had come---50 years of dust and dirt.  Yikes. New Border Design - I will post the finished floor on Friday ! I was able to polyurethane the finished floor tonight and will post pictures after it has dried.  We love how it came out.  Really vintage looking.  In fact, we are tempted to tell people that "this is what we found when we pulled up the carpet". The innards! ...

No fancy pictures on this update, just two very tired, 50 something, husband and wife.  We took off at 7:00 a.m. and headed to Lowe's to pick up another gallon of paint and a few other needed items for full day of painting.  We arrived at the house at approximately 9:00 am this morning because we met a young man named Jack on our trip to McDonald's for a couple egg McMuffins.  Jack was sitting near the doors and asked if we might be willing to buy him some breakfast.  Michael said, "Of course.  Come on in with us." While standing in line, we discovered that Jack was 22 years old and had been on the street (on and off) since the age of 12.  His dad had committed suicide and his mom was a Heroin addict who lived in Reno.  Jack was also diagnosed with bi-polar and found that smoking pot helped keep him mellow and kept his manic swings in check.  He was actually a very bright young man and extremely polite. We spent some time talking with him abou...

I had taken Monday and Tuesday off and thought we would be able to 1) pull out all the carpets and padding (which were 14 years old and rather disgusting); 2) remove all the tack boards and the padding staples; 3) clean the floor; 4) paint the bedroom and living room; and polyurethane the living room sub-flooring (which I knew was 4 inch sold plywood - not particle board or low end ply wood. We had taken a peak under the living room carpet when we first say the house and were delighted with the quality of sub-flooring. The bedroom had the original oil based linoleum glued down to the sub-flooring, so we were going to clean it and live with it since our funds are limited right now. Pulling out the carpet and padding was really disgusting. There must have been an inch of fine dust which would have accumulated over 50 years. What would have taken a couple hours turned into a day and a half and we never got through the list above. Everything ended up with surprises. The linole...

Well, I guess it is really happening!   Today we get the keys. After doing much research, we discovered that several of the items in the house are actually the ones that were originally installed when the home was manufactured, which means that they are celebrating their 50 Year Anniversary this year!  Should we hold a party?  Probably not. For example:  The furnace is a Mueller Climatrol. The Furnace:  Louis J. Mueller, Sr. began the manufacture of furnaces in 1857 in a small hardware and tin smith shop.  By the 1880′s he had developed the first patterns for warm air units.  L.J. Mueller Furnace Company was producing steam and hot water boilers.  L.J. Mueller Furnace Company merged with Worthington Corporation to become Mueller Climatrol Division of Worthington Corporation on August 1, 1954. Here is an ad from a Newspaper dated December 1964.  Our little home was manufactured in 1964. As much as we love "retro" and as well ma...

Things have taken a bit of a turn.  My excitement has been checked by the reality of more practical issues.  We had a home inspection on Monday only to discover that there is much more that will need to be done before "pretty" takes place.  Yes, we are still buying the little house; but our focus (and our budget) has been shifted from decks and enhancements to practical things; like a new water heater, gas lines, wiring, plumbing, etc. We are so blessed!   My husband is the most wonderful man.  He left me a voice mail at work where he simply read a few verses from Proverbs 31, which reads: An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant; she brings her food from afar. She rises while it is yet night and...