Well, maybe I should rephrase that -
We have a sub-floor!

The long over-due ductwork arrived late Wednesday -

and by the end of the Thursday, the floor was just about down.
Todays is just finish up around the edges, and then it’s on to the walls! And then…….cab-i-nets!!!!!

And just in case you were worried -
All the cats are accounted for!

(the other two cats moved out last week, so it’s been much easier to keep track of them! )

Well, we’re getting there.
We’ve been busy collecting all the pieces of the puzzle -
The cabinets have arrived -

and the stove and dishwasher have been delivered -


The new water heater is ready to be installed -

and after much deliberation, Lara decided to go with wood flooring instead of tile -

so that’s getting acclimated to its new environment (as all new wood flooring should ).
Today, the new refrigerator arrived -

and after just squeaking through the front door, has joined the other appliances in the dining room.
.
And everything is waiting for a missing piece of the puzzle.
Because even though the floor has gone from this

to this

to this


(isn’t it purty?)
to this,

for lack of two pieces of duct work,

all work on the kitchen has essentially slowed to a crawl. The truth of the matter is, it’s really hard to install a kitchen when there isn’t a floor.
Sigh.
But Gary’s been pretty productive even though his main task has reached a speed bump.
He installed the old stove in the screened in porch and took two of the old cabinet bases and made them into a rolling work station.

Viola! A summer kitchen! (or a pretty nice temporary kitchen at the moment!).
Then he took the long base cabinet

and cut it down to fit in the shed -

Isn’t he a clever dude?!?!

So while I think Gary was hoping to have the cabinets at least in place by now, he’s been keeping busy trying to get everything as ready as possible so that when the ductwork arrives (tomorrow, we hope) we (he) can get right back on track.

I, on the other hand, have been busy finishing up some Christmas sewing, documenting all the kitchen work and shopping online for the grandkids! Hey, somebody has to do it!

continues to revolve around the Kitchen Remodel.

However, we have found a few opportunities to check out spots in Waco that didn’t involve the word “Lowes” or “kitchen”.
The day before the official demolition began we were joined by friends Jo and Roy as we checked out the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum.

It was a great little museum that was filled with not only the history and art of the Texas Rangers,


but also how the Rangers have been treated by Hollywood! We put together our own little troupe of Texas Ranger wannabes with our very own bad guy!

Check it out if you’re ever in Waco. It’s definitely a fun POI (point of interest).

We shared a lovely Thanksgiving Day with housemate Katie and her parents at their friends Steve and Jenna (and adorable son 3 year old son Henry). Jenna went over the top with spectacular food, the fellowship was sweet, and we were all reminded of how very much we have to be thankful for. It was a great day.

And while Gary did get to Home Depot at 5AM on Black Friday (while the rest of us slept in!) to pick up a shop vac, the rest of us stayed far away from the shopping mayhem. Instead we all (including buddies Jo and Roy) went to the Homestead Heritage Fair.


It was full of beautiful handcrafts, lots of demonstrations and opportunites to make items, wonderful homemade food, and great music!
We really enjoyed the baby chick/duckling barn -


and naturally I couldn’t stay away from the quilts!

It was really a fun (and yummy) day!

But of course, most of our focus has been on the kitchen (or lack of at this point!).
We did get all the floor cleaned out so it was all ready for the new floor joists -

Gary picked up the floor joists (now that was a fun ride through town)-

and the re-construct began -


Once the floor joists were in, it was time to run the new plumbing.

And then there’s the rest of the water lines, the drain lines, the gas line and the electric. And THEN he can put down the floor for “real”. He has a busy week ahead of him!
Meanwhile, the design team (that would be Lara, Katie, and I) has been busy trying to figure out wall colors, floor options, countertop choices and backsplash possibilities. Any and all suggestions are welcome, as we are pretty much brain-dead in these departments.

I think Nali has the right idea!

PS – if you’d like to see some additional pictures of our progress without having to see ALL of them, here’s a link that should take you to closer to the end of the set!

Honest, that’s all she wanted. Lara really liked her kitchen, but the one thing that was missing was a dishwasher.

And that made entertaining (which she loves to do) a real pain in the neck.

Installing a dishwasher was well within the Daddy Can Do list, but try as we might we couldn’t figure any way to install a dishwasher that didn’t require changing her sink.

And if you had to move the sink, you had to replace the counters.
And if you had to replace the counters, you also had to reconfigure the cabinets.
So before we knew it, we were at sitting at the Lowes kitchen design center talking about doing the whole shooting match. Because really, if you’re going to do your kitchen, you might as well DO your kitchen!
She lined up her financing, got a really good deal on some gorgeous cabinets, shopped around for the best deal on appliances (hey, no point putting an old stove next to a spankin’ new dishwasher in a new kitchen, right?), and hired Dad as her General Contractor (because he’s just that kind of guy!). All of this happened when we were hanging around here off and on in October, and we made plans to return after our November project and hang around until the job was done – probably through Christmas anyway. And now that we’re back, and the job has begun, we’re really glad that we’ve got LOTS of time to get the job done.
Did I mention that her house was built in 1919? Never underestimate the number of surprises you will uncover when you start tearing up floors and removing walls in an almost century old house!
First the floor -

We were hoping that underneath the quarry tile floor would be the original wood floors (that are throughout the rest of the house) and they would be in good enough shape to refinish.
First sign of trouble was this huge patch in the middle of the floor -

And then there was the fact that under the quarry tile was a blue and white linoleum tile, a layer of backer board, a layer of red linoleum tile and then tar paper.

Yeah, the “refinishing the wood floors” was rapidly becoming “let’s go tile shopping!”
Deciding not to worry about keeping the floors in one piece did allow for easier removal of the floor in general, and would allow Gary the opportunity to make sure the floor was good and level. But more on that later!
Once the tiles were removed, it was on to the (what we thought was) the real demolition – getting the cabinets out and removing any extraneous walls. Our good SOWER buddies, Roy and Jo Butler, were kind enough to join us for the demo, and with the addition of the housemates and a friend or two stopping by, it was quite the productive day!

Stove out.

Counter disassembly.

Sink out.

Just what IS holding these cabinets here?

Pulling, pulling……

At last! And just what is behind those cabinets?
Once the cabinets were out it was on to finish removing the partion wall, get the rest of the tile up, remove the drywall and cute backsplash tiles and get ready to pull up that floor!


Ah, yes, the floor.

You can’t really see it in this picture, but most of those joists aren’t even attached to the side wall. Pretty much the weight of the floor and cabinets kept the joists on the sills, but it helps explain why the floor tiles were cracking in different areas.

And while it will make certain electrical, gas line, and water line changes easier, actually rebuilding the floor from the dirt up wasn’t exactly in the budget. Somehow the “miscellaneous” column just ballooned!
But then again, you never know what you might find when you expose those ancient walls -

The sink plumbing could certainly use an upgrade, and will benefit from all new flooring.

Uh, my computer was plugged into this outlet.

I think this connection could be handled just a little bit neater.

Hopefully we’ve identified all of the trouble spots (“hopefully” being the operative word here!), and tomorrow Gary will begin work on the floor joists. Today he hooked up a utility sink in the laundry room – a great addition to our “temporary kitchen” (um, an electric frying pan, a crockpot, and a George Foreman Grill!), and he was even able to reuse one of the kitchen cabinets for a base!

There is a long way to go – and I’ll try to keep you’all updated as work progresses. If you’d like to see more pictures, there are several more HERE!

Oh, and Lara wants me to make sure to note that the red checked apron was functional only. It was the only thing she had that had a pocket in it for all the nails she was pulling out. What’s a girl to do!

As a “sewing SOWER” I have often been asked to make curtains. Sometime the host gives me a credit card and tells me to go to the store and get something really nice. Cost is no object.
OK, so that NEVER happens! Occasionally we do get to go to the store (usually a Wal-Mart) and shop like you and I shop – trying to get the nicest fabric we can for the least amount of money.
Sometimes they say, “We got this bolt of fabric on sale. Do you think you could make it into curtains?” Or sometimes it’s, “We just found this box of curtains. Do you think you could make them into curtains that fit the windows in the cabins?”
This time it was – “We’ve been given a couple of boxes of fabric. Do you think you could make curtains for our dormitories from it?”
Well, let’s see what we’ve got!
Turns out the fabric was from a local (closed) bedding factory, and it consisted of pieces measuring 108” x 96”, with one finished edge. And I mean lots of pieces!

In their previous lifetime I think they were going to be king-size bedspreads, but my job was to make them into 26 pairs of curtains for Palmer Hall.

Better get to work!
There was lots of ironing,

measuring and cutting,


(Never underestimate the value of notes when you’re doing production line cutting/sewing!)

And after three days it was all cut, pressed, and ready to sew…..

And sew I did!
I found I could crank out a pair of curtains in about an hour, so my goal was 4 pair per morning. That would leave me with time to get them hung with a little wiggle room for the inevitable “man, I didn’t count THAT window!”
(Yeah, that happened.)
But when all was said and done, what had looked like this –

Now looks like this –

OK, so it’s not Martha Stewart, but I think it’s a start. It might not keep the morning sun out too well, but at least the boys won’t be peeking in at the girls (or vice versa!).:)
Since we are here on this SOWER project by ourselves, my best friend while making these curtains was this –

Thank you Chris, Bebo, Andrew, Tim and all the rest for keeping me company and not minding as I sang along!
Gary’s jobs here at Bethlehem Family Camp have been a little more diversified. He’s cleaned and serviced A/C units,

did a fair bit of work in the bathrooms , including boxing in sewer pipes and making partition walls for the showers –


And installing handrails in all the toilet stalls on campus (about 24) but the photojournalist failed to take pictures of those!
He also built a fire door/wall in one of the dorm’s stairwells -

It needs a little bit of work before it actually IS a firewall, but it’s a pretty good start for a guy working alone.
And when he ran out of hammer and nail (or should I say saw and screw) stuff to do, he picked up a paint brush and got to work on the Tabernacle –

He was one productive boy this month!
We’ve worked extra days this month since we wanted to get an early start on our December Project. In fact, we’re already in Waco, TX (leaving Lizzie there in Bonifay) where we’ll be helping DD Lara with her kitchen remodel. We plan to be here through Christmas, so it was pretty interesting trying to figure out how to pack for our extended stay. We got it all in the truck – now we just have to make sure we remember to get it all back.

Even the dashboard plant came along for the holidays!

And Gary has already started making a mess in the kitchen!