Steve and I are tired. It's only been 2 weeks of work on the house – not long as this sort of remodel goes. We've made progress. But as the list of things still to do keeps growing we are trying not to fray under the pressure. And we are both feeling the pressure to do our actual jobs.

It's really hot – day after day of temps over 100. I was driving down our street yesterday and it looked like someone had layed a flaming torch by the curb. I slowed down, looked more closely, and saw that it was the business end of a weed whacker that was on fire. The owner was running for a hose. I should have taken a picture but was too slow. See – it's hot! I get cranky when I get hot so it's good that I'm mostly working inside. It's still hot, but not as bad as the garage where Steve has been working.

I'm in Lawton, OK, now and will teach a 2-day class beginning tomorrow. Then I go on to Duncan, OK, to teach and lecture there. Steve is home, still toiling away. This is where I left it:

I've got the priming done on the base cabinets. This kitchen doesn't look that big, does it? However, it has hundreds of cabinet doors! I'm exagerating, but as Steve was stripping them and I was painting them, it felt like hundreds. Here are many of them with the primer coat. We're putting on the finish coats when I get home.

These are the last of the drawers. Steve was stripping them as I drove away…

I got the base cabinets in the bathroom finished! If you look closely above the sink you might see pne of the little mirror brackets. I lost an hour this morning because I bought a great mirror – 24 x 30 and 1/4" thick. With a decorative groove! I got the brackets up, opened the mirror and saw that it came with it's own hanging aparatus that did not work in this bathroom because of the hole for the old medicine cabinet. Darn!

I took the mirror back to Lowe's, hunted for a replacement. There wasn't one. Went to Home Depot. Nothing there. Finally called the local glass company and will pick up a mirror next week. No decorative groove but it will fit and be nice. And the brackets are up and ready to go. Simplicity is good.

That's the update. I do hope that when I get home on Tuesday night we are both feeling better.

The walls and ceilings are all painted! The new 2" blinds are up on all the windows, and they have been shortened to fit the windows. Here's Christy's bedroom before,

and now…

Mom's bedroom before,

and now…

Jeff took out the broken front step and built the form for the new step…

I spent the afternoon cleaning the bathrooms, scraping out caulk, and cleaning the kitchen cabinets. I still have to paint cabinet doors, the louvered closet doors, the base cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms, and some of the doors and trim.

Steve is almost done stripping the kitchen cabinet drawers. He's going to change the electrical outlets and switches and hang the ceiling fans and lights. Then he's going to start laying the Pergo flooring. I leave for Oklahoma on Friday to teach – it's going to be nice to think about quilting again!

That always makes me think of Richard Dreyfuss in the movie "What About Bob."

Anyway, we made progress today.

I got the ceiling painted blue in Christy's bed and bathroom. Tomorrow I'll paint the walls a clean, bright white.

I got the cabinet bases sanded and the formica backsplash taken off.

I got Mom's room painted yellow. It used to be red, really really red.

I got mom's bathroom painted. It used to be beige and the far wall was red. Now it is a soft apricot which looks good with the tile floor.

This is the stack of Pergo for the floors. Two pallets, 86 boxes. Steve is sore from bringing it in.

This is where Steve is working, stripping the cabinet doors. It's hot work and he's wiped out by the end of the day. That's my bike on the right. We've been riding bikes between houses. It's been a long time since I've been on a bike and I'm enjoying it!

I found this paint stirrer at Lowe's and it is wonderful. I put it in Steve's portable drill and it works like a charm. The white bucket has water in it. After mixing the paint I put the stirrer in the water and run it to rinse it off. I use an inexpensive brush to brush off the paint that doesn't rinse off. This tool works better than a traditional stirrer.

I realized today that I hadn't shown you any photos of the outside of the house. That pile of carpet, etc., will get hauled off on Monday. The blue trim is going to be painted a more neutral color and the yellow front door is likely to end up a deep blue. Mom wants the concrete to go back to 'concrete' color. We may see about renting a sand blaster to take the paint off.

This is the last of the statues in the front yard. The previous owner had lots and lots of these and they are not my mom's style. That said, I don't mind this one. They might be better sand blasted.

The backyard is small. That red barn is mom's and she is not keen on keeping it. I think Steve is going to do something with it. Christopher is on to build a new fence and I'll be working in the yard once it cools off in October or November.

The screened-in porch is nice and mom and Christy are looking forward to using it when it cools off.

Tomorrow I've got errands to run and then it's back to painting. I had hoped to be done tomorrow but it's more likely that I'll finish painting on Monday. As I said, baby steps….

I didn't bother with my ABCs today – they are all A's. Here's how I started the day. And what's not on here is swimming with Laurie at 6:00 AM. (Oh – after re-reading this post I thought I should say that the ceilings are not orange and red, that's the color the rooms were to start with. Same with the red and blue bathrooms.)

And here's the end of the day:

The bottom things I knew that I would probably not get to today but I had hoped to get the formica off of the kitchen backsplash. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

In other news, Christy's nose is really broken. Dr. Selz, the physician who has worked on my sinuses and plugged tear duct, is setting her nose first thing on Thursday morning. At least she'll be out while he does it. You know how in the movies they just yank it into place? That sounds really bad.

It's after my bed time now so I am signing off!

We worked through the weekend on the house with a couple of small breaks for fun. We had dinner last night with friends. As the sun went down Karen was talking about how much fun it would be to watch a movie out by the pool. At last, my projector can be used for more than work! We had a better-than-drive-in experience watching Star Wars, A New Hope while paddling around in the water!

I spent a day and half doing prep work for painting. I had thought I would use the spray gun for a lot of it until I figured out that I'm faster with a brush and roller on the walls and ceilings. But I did prepare this bathroom vanity for spray painting.

Steve has been slaving away on the kitchen cabinets. It's taking a very long time to take off the doors because the screws have been painted over so bad that he can hardly turn them.

He's using chemical stripper and the belt sander on these. It's going to take days.

This morning I washed the louvered closet doors. They need a new finish coat of paint. I knew they were dirty but I hadn't realized how bad they smelled until they were in the garage overnight.

Dave, who has been outside a lot so as to avoid the baby cat, sat out by me. I think he was enjoying the water splashing around as long as it didn't hit him.

The bad news is that just after I finished cleaning these doors I got a frantic call from mom. Christy had a seizure – fell flat on her face. So in addition to having to deal with the fallout from the seizure, she has a very bruised face, her nose is possibly broken, and she broke a bone in her hand. Amazingly enough, after being taken to the hospital in an ambulance, they sent her home after a few hours. She was much better, all things considered, and she hates being in the hospital. She had dialysis this afternoon and I really hope she's feeling better tonight.

After taking Christy home, Steve and I went back to work. I've begun painting! I love seeing ne paint go up.

Today's task was washing the walls to get ready to paint. I thought I would breeze through that by noon and begin painting today. Boy, did I miscalulate! It's going to take as long to clean the walls as it did to scrape off the popcorns. If I'm lucky I'll begin painting tomorrow. But all is not lost – we have made a lot of progress.

This is my sister's room, before.

And later:

Wallpaper gone. The stuff on the walls came off easily. The border that you can still see here took 4 hours to remove – with stripper!!! I was not happy. Notice that the carpet, pad and tack strip are gone. As is the light fixture and all the switch plates – everywhere in the house. Steve will replace all the plugs and switches with white ones.

Below is the dining room, before.

There's oh-so-much going on color-wise in this room, before. Below you can see that the carpet (and the vinyl tile below it) is also gone, along with the curtains and the (bad) ceiling fan. The wallpaper border is gone as well but you can't see that.

All the ceiling fans are out, all the carpet, pad and tack strip are out. The vinyl flooring is out. Most of the walls are washed. I seriously hope to be painting on Monday.

I also spent 1.5 hours at Lowe's this morning with Mom and Christy ordering the countertops for the kitchen and bathrooms. They're getting the LG version of corian. It'll be lovely – and no seams. I want the same thing for our kitchen one of these days. Mom and Christy are pretty excited – this house is going to be so cute and fresh and new.

I should mention that the previous owner smoked in the house. I've been really surprised at the grit and black residue on the walls. The stench is about gone now that the carpets and curtains are gone, the ceilings are scraped and many walls have been washed. I'm so glad I quit smoking back in the day. If the walls look this bad goodness knows how her lungs look.