Three more days until the two week holiday break.  Paul and I had lofty goals.  Or, rather, I had lofty goals.  My dream was to surprise the kids Christmas morning with PROGRESS.  In the house.  My dreams included finding the Christmas tree, putting down the floor in the back room, and putting together Will’s bed.
Instead, [...]

For some of us, we were up — literally.  Too bad he’s not up there admiring the view.  He had a great helper, though, which sped things along.

Wait, helper… where is that helper?  Helper?  HELPER?

Oh, there he is.  Hi Helper.

Say, Helper, can you…

…wait, where are you going?  Helper?  WILL?

Um… what are you doing, Will?  Dad [...]

There is a very distinct chance we will not have a Christmas tree this year.  And I am blaming it all on this:

The Man Palace that demanded attention and took away from the progress in the part of the house we actually live in.  (No, no, no bitterness here.  Just don’t get me talking about [...]

We have lights in our bathroom!
Behold.  A chandelier.  In the bathroom.  On a dimmer switch that turns the lights low, WAAAAY LOW.  Honestly, it’s so romantic and beautiful that I’m afraid to share it.  Really, I am.  You walk in, the light goes dim, and you’re filled with the urge to strip down and dip [...]

We head home tomorrow, after the two days of monsoon rains have moved on.  Will is complaining of sore throat and an ear that hurts when he swallows… we may not be done trading viruses quite yet.  Progress on all fronts continues to painfully crawl forward.
The outbuilding work will continue when we get back.  Here [...]

The outbuilding is falling down. Or, was falling down. Part of the roof had sort of caved in and the need to replace the leaking roof became imperative. So our home renovation focus had to shift to the outbuilding.
Luckily, though, we had hired Cien, one of the students who was in last [...]

It’s 2 days until we leave for yet-another-trip.  Which means that we’ve picked up a time sensitive renovation project that must be finished before it rains OR ELSE.  Because we are predictable like that.
While we picked pumpkins and played in corn mazes and rode on hay, a student from the summer’s Peru course took the [...]

Here is project d’ jour… fixing the run-off problems in the front of the house.  The house next door is built approximately 18 inches higher than grade.  Pre-Katrina, we talked to an inspector who was going to recommend remediation for the builder/new home owner to mitigate the problem.  But then Katrina happened, the new owner [...]

Those Damn Tiles, indeed.
Paul and I are perfectionists; we know that our expectations can be a bit much.  With that in mind, when my Dad saw the tiles (thinking that possibly we were exaggerating the extent of the problems) he said, “Wow.  This is much worse than I thought.” Our lesson learned: never hire anyone [...]

Plumbing for master bath sink (wall mount). The black pipe to the left is the vent for the sink, tub, and shower. The shower plumbing will be in the same wall.
Looking up over the tub. Paul framed this out so that there would be room for the venting for the A/C and [...]