Disaster Recovery

We have tested our disaster recovery plan when we first moved over here - running on the generator for a month. (If you don't remember that, read the posts from October 2009 and November 2009).

On Wednesday I thought we were going to have to pull the generator back out. Rod called CEMC on Tuesday and told them we had passed the electrical inspection. At this point, they will move the meter from the temporary pole to the house. This causes us a problem with our power to the camper that is run under ground from the camper to a breaker on the temporary. We expected them to come on Thursday at the earliest.

But on Wednesday, I was sitting in the camper working from home when I hear the truck pull up... They were there and after about 15 minutes, I had no power. It was still early in the morning and I couldn't wait for Rod to get home, so I had to call Dad. I'm sure this isn't up to code, but he was able to get us power to the camper and the well in about an hours worth of time.

New Meter on the house


The only "hot" outlet in the house was the laundry room. The black extension cord is plugged into a powerstrip, then a makeshift connector is connected to the cable that is run underground to the campers.



Here is the 240 to the well. (like I said, I'm pretty sure wire nuts exposed laying on the ground isn't codes)

Floor tile

We have paid to have the tile laid in the Kitchen, Foyer, 1/2 bathroom, master bathroom, laundry room, and Dining room. The guys came out and did it all in about 3 or 4 days and they did a good job. The first step was to mortar down the backer board, then they screwed the backer board down, next was to mortar and lay the tile. Then they waited at least 24 hours for that to set before they came back and did the grout. We paid them $2,000 to lay all of this tile.

This is the inlay that we put down in the foyer. Since the house faces due North, we had them orient the arrows to point in the directions of a compass with respect to the front of the house.

Busy Kids

Lately I have not had too much time to post on the blog.... I am going to try to do better this week with putting updates out here. Just to help explain.... Rod and I work every day, come home and work on the house. Tori and Tina are still involved in: Tina - 3 softball games per week; 1 additional practice; Tori - just finished competing in a Bible Tic-Tac-Toe competition; Dramatic monologue competition; (The tic-tac-toe quiz had practices every week); Performed in the Spring Concert/Drama school program; gymnastics once a week... and now Tori made the competition cheer squad and that will start next week with multiple practices each week; ... No wonder I am ALWAYS exhausted!!!! So if all of this wasn't enough, Tina woke up this morning with a fever. :-(

The front door

We have needed to stain the front door for weeks now. It has been hard because it has to be dry, clean, no one sanding, cutting wood, etc. Seems like every time we would have a chance there would be a reason that we couldn't get it done. The forecast was calling for more rain and it just had to get done. So late last night Rod decided to just get a coat of stain on the outside before this rain came. It makes the door so much more beautiful to have this polyurethane on it.


While he was out there before the big rain, we went ahead and set another round of construction trash on fire - made for a nice looking bonfire.

Retaining Wall

We need a retaining wall built around the patio out back. So the brick layer were back again. These guys have been the best. We have been extremely pleased with all of their work. The built the bottom part with 12" block and then did a finish with matching brick with the house. Jim, the foreman on the job, negotiated with them to build me a planter box as well as bricking all 4 columns over there for $1,000. After they finish all of this, they will have used 19,000 bricks on the house.





After they finished the wall, they put a water sealant on the block that will be underground.



After they finished, there was leftover sealant and Rod had Tina paint it on the inside of the planter box.



They came back out today to try to brick the columns but the rain started so they could not finish. I will post pictures of the finished product when they get it complete.

Shelli's Bonfire

A very good friend turned 40 on Saturday. We had a few people up for a bonfire to celebrate. Normally bonfires are started around some item that needs to be burned such as the construction trash pile or a tree stump. Since we had a new smoothed out back yard we had our first one in the middle of the yard. It was a relatively laid back get together with simple hamburgers and hot dogs.

A new back yard

The bull dozier was at the house on Saturday. This was the same guys who dug all the trenches for the septic tank. He moved a huge amount of dirt around. There were 2 trees that were dead and leaning the wrong way, so Rod had them push those down as well. Rod's grandmother and grandfather were up for several hours on Saturday. Mrs. Maynards truly enjoyed watching the bull dozier work on the back yard.

Trim and Doors

Saturday morning started with hanging doors and cutting trim. The trim that was delivered included all the items for the interior doors, stairs, banisters, baseboard trim, baseboard shoe molding, window and door casing, bead board for the outside decks. The total package cost was $4586. We think we got a good deal on this.

Saturday morning we had help from Rod's grandfather, my Dad, my Mom, Rod's Dad, and Mike. They were able to get over 1/2 the doors hung in both the upstairs and downstairs.





On Sunday we had more help arrive. Our friends Bobbie, Scott, and Charles showed up as well as Rick. Of course the normal staples of Mom and Dad were back as well. The remainder of the doors were hung, lots of the trim was cut, and we had to move the piles of trim around yet again because the flooring people were coming on Monday.



And our standard payment for all of this cheap labor..............

Wow what a long week

It has been almost a week since I posted something. We have been so busy I almost don't know where to start.

Friday - Rod and I both took off from work to do the painting. We had help from Rod's step-dad Shelton, his step-mom Annette. By Friday evening, we had all the downstairs complete and most of the upstairs done. My Dad had already been coming over daily to help with the painting downstairs.

Friday afternoon - all the trim, bead board, and doors arrived. We all helped unload the truck and it was full. We unloaded it all onto the deck.

Also, on Friday all the brick was complete.

Saturday - We started out early with a run back to Porter Paints - we have now bought 59 gallons of paint. Later in the day, Shelli, Zac, and Hayley came up. We did more painting with Mom. Rod and Dad worked on putting up the bead board under the small deck. We camped in the house again on Saturday night.

Here is a picture of the bead board. It is hard to tell this is a ceiling, but it is.


Sunday - We didn't do too much work on the house.... Tori and Tina worked on the posters (see the post below)

Monday - Work started on the septic tank. They have done lots of digging for the field lines and have really moved some dirt. They finished to the point of being ready for an inspection on Wednesday afternoon


They also started on the vinyl siding for the eves and over hangs. On Monday they put about 1/2 up; on Tuesday they put up about another 1/4; and on Tuesday afternoon.. they took it all back down. They had put the wrong kind of siding up (vented) and we are supposed to have solid because of our insulation system. So on Wednesday they put the right kind back up.


On Monday evening Rod, Rick, and my Dad did more of the bead board on the front deck. It is hard work and there is still so much more to do.

Tuesday - Remember all the trim I said was delivered on Friday? Well on Tuesday we got the news that the concrete guys were going to be back on Thursday to repair the deck... meaning all that wood now needed to be moved. So when Rod got home, we started moving all that into the house. Oh boy was that tiring.






That meant that Rod couldn't get anything else done before Tina's softball practice, so at 10:00 when he got home, he went over and grouted the girls bathroom. The tile job looks great, but it was extremely time consuming. We are going to pay to have the upstairs shower done. Rod's time is too valuable to be spent on that and we will leave it to a professional.

Wednesday - They are trying to get done with the digging so that they can move the heavy machinery out of here. They took care of digging out where the retaining wall will be as well as where the footers for the patio are going to be. That only left 1 more item - to dig the trench from the temporary service to the house.



Rod had been worried that they would hit the water or electricity that he had run underground to the well house and the camper. He was supposed to mark them and he had not gotten around to it. I can't imagine how he didn't get this done since he never does any work (surely you can hear the sarcasim). Anyway, anyone that has followed the blog knows what the next picture will be...

you guessed it - they hit BOTH power and water. My Dad was nice enough to come fix the electrical since Rod was not going to get home until after dark, and now it is 10:15 p.m. and Rod is finally home and over there doing plumbing. Since we have lived in the campers, this is not the first time for him to be working on plumbing after 10:00.

Poster Contest

Tori and Tina decided to enter a poster contest. The theme was anything to do with America, Liberty, the Constitution, etc. So here we go again in the campers working on crafts. After we took a trip to Hobby Lobby and getting my scrap booking supplies back from my friend, the girls were ready. They spent many, many hours this weekend in the camper taking turns at the only table for crafts we have.

Tori did her poster as a puzzle and each piece was something different. She had everything from the armed forces, Disney, picnic food, Washington monument, an eagle, a flag, vote button, holidays, sports, etc. It looked really great and she won 1st place in her age group.

Tina has just finished studying the constitution and she decided to do one on the 19th amendment. She did a voting booth and decided to put the presidential candidates that were on the ballot the first time women had the right to vote. She also took some buttons that we got from Hobby Lobby and made "campaign buttons" and put them on the side. She did an excellent job. She actually did so well that some of the people voting didn't believe that a 10 year old did the poster and so she didn't win a prize even though I have been told that hers was the best in her age group. She was extremely disappointed and there were tears. Tori decided to split her winnings ($100) with Tina. I told Tina that she really needs to understand that is just a compliment to her talents as an artist and to look at it in that positive way.

Watch Out BELOW

The vaulted ceilings are high and they are vaulted over the stairwell. So Rod borrowed a ladder from Donny, a friend at work, and started painting. Just to make sure he was safe, he was wearing safety equipment.. ok, not really, but if he got the urge, he could quickly jump off the ladder and right onto his mountain bike!



Notice the boards that are over the stairway that he has supporting the ladder.

Brick Pictures

The brick is not finished yet, but it is getting close. We are extremely impressed with the work of the brick layers.

Here is a picture of the back of the house with the brick almost complete


I think they will finish either tomorrow or Saturday and I will take pictures of the front. Here is a picture of the deck outside the Living Room.

Weekend and Painting Update

As you can see from a lack of posts, this week has been busy both at work and at home.

The weekend was unseasonably hot. Like I have said before, we can not run the A/C in the campers so we opened the windows and left the doors open. Tori and Tina's camper has a screen on the front door, but mine and Rod's does not. So only at my house can you say " We had a chicken in the camper".. Luckily it didn't leave us any presents :-)

From the pictures below, you can see we started painting. We have had help throughout the week from many different people including Shelli, Zac, Hayley, Logan, Paige, Mom, Dad, and tomorrow Laine, Shelton, and Annette. Not to mention Jason from Rod's work coming to help with the tile. It is great to have people willing to help us out.

So far we have bought 51 gallons of paint!! Yes that is 5 and a 1. We are all very tired of painting. With the exception of the 1/2 bathroom upstairs, all the rooms have at least a coat of primer on them.

Tina's room is completely finished. She wanted something wild and she got it. Here are some pictures of her finished room.

Interior painting

Tile in kid's bathroom

We began our first tile job in the kid's shower area. We used inexpensive snow white 6" tile. The walls were fairly straight and square, but now I know I would hate to get into remodel jobs on my first attempt.
We put in a 16"X16" recessed shelf for shampoo and cut tiles to put a diamond design using 1" blue glass tiles in one row. This definitely added time and complexity to the job, but it is turning out nicely. We even had Mr. Vector show up fresh from a tile class he took on Saturday morning. Everyone helped place at least 1 tile. Helps spread the blame around.