Happy 4th Anniversary in Payson

On 7/22 we will have owned our Payson house for four years.  We both thought we would be much further along with its renovation, but we have come a long way and had many reasons for the delays in the last year and a half.  We have been very happy with the house, the location, the neighbors and being in Payson just feels like home.  Cannot wait to be up there full time.

Laurie started her week at the house with a visit from the Tub Guy.  She had talked to him quite awhile ago (probably over two years) and had him do a quote to refinish the guest tub - it was in sad shape.  He had recommended that we take care of the tub enclosure first before he did the tub.  So now, many months down the road, we have finally redone the enclosure and are ready for the tub.  We had hoped it would be completed before our guests came for the 4th of July, but he had a full schedule and couldn't fit us in.  It took two days for him to complete the work and the tub looks amazing! It was much cheaper, and less hassle, to have the tub fixed this way rather than to have tried pulling it out and replacing it when our walls were out.  A very good choice.

It's a shiny new tub - no nicks, dents, scratches or discolorations. Thanks Tub Guy!

Laurie found some shower curtains at Goodwill to use for the den closet that have the right colors to match our walls.  They are a little short, and the rod we have needs to be painted a better color, but the curtains look very good in the room.

Colorful curtains for a colorful wall

Since we installed Matt's router over the 4th of July, Laurie has had a few connection issues.  Plus, we knew that the router had a bad connector for the main ethernet port and the power connection easily comes loose, but the router was still working well in Mike's opinion.  While Laurie was on a thrift store run one day, she just happened upon a Netgear router for $5 that currently sells for $80 on Amazon.  She decided to buy it with the thought that, if we ended up not needing it, she could resell it.  Mike prefers Netgear routers over the brand Matt gave us and so he installed it at the house.  Now we do not have to worry about connection or power issues.  Thanks anyway Matt.

This $5 router can be bought brand new for $80 on Amazon - great find Laurie!

Laurie wanted more cabinet space in the kitchen, as well as a cabinet that could be closed off.  Having all the dishes in the open on the white shelf unit did not appeal to her, plus we found the dust accumulation on the dishes was a big pain.  So we found a bigger cabinet at Big Lots in the Valley during the weekend of their 20% off sale.  Laurie brought it up in the truck and we unloaded it and put it together when Mike came up on the weekend.  We had to rearrange some things in the kitchen to make it work, but it looks very nice and holds much more than the old shelf unit.  We hope to find a couple of more shelves to add to it.  In addition, Laurie had bought a rack that is used for holding aluminum foil/saran wrap rolls and Mike installed it on the side of the microwave cart.  A very efficient use of space.

Mike was amazed at the improvements that have been made to these put-it-together yourself kits

Had to relocate the microwave cart to make room for the cabinet's height

Still could use one or two more shelves, but there is free room as it is

Rack installed on the hidden side of the microwave cart

The kitchen changes allowed Laurie to move the white shelf unit to the den for books and games.  She also spent a lot of time putting the den back into office mode after having been used for guest sleeping quarters.  She exchanged the rolling plastic cart used for her nightstand with the one used for storage in the den to give her more room for clothes. Mike has found that Laurie loves to research deals online, shop at thrift stores and rearrange everything.  He is always having to look for items because, where they were last week, is not where they are today.

White kitchen cabinet moved to the den

Laurie took over the wider cart from the den. . .

. . . and gave the den her nightstand

Awhile ago, Laurie had bought some other hooks and racks to use in the house.  Two of them are supposed to be attached to doors and Mike decided he did not want to put holes in the doors for hooks.  He knew we had some 3M tape hooks in the Valley and would check before buying more.  But two hooks she bought are for her towels in the master bathroom and would go into the wall.  She picked a spot and Mike put them up.  He had trouble at first as it seemed the hooks had been around awhile (a swapmeet purchase) and the wall mollies included in the packages started to completely fall apart.  Luckily it came with a different set which worked much better.

New hooks for Laurie's towels

As we were sitting one evening, Mike noticed the room was a little darker and found one of the ceiling fan bulbs was out.  This was a special type of bulb and we did not have spares.  We found some fluorescent bulbs at Walmart the next day that we thought would work and they did.  We bought the day light bulbs instead of the soft white and the room is much brighter now.  We also cleaned out the dead bugs from the celing fan and the entry lights.  They sure do accumulate in those glass domes.

Changing light bulbs and fixing how the glass dome attaches

During our 4th of July get-together, we wanted to make some home made ice cream.  We bought the ingredients, but just never found time to do it.  Mike took some time to make the mixture (it is a cooked milk recipe), but then remembered we had never bought ice for the maker (another reason we did not do it before).  So we put the mixture in the fridge overnight and got ice the next day.  After about 45 minutes in the maker, the ice cream was mostly done and we placed it into some plastic tubs for the freezer.  Later that night we tried some and it was very good.

Home-made chocolate-chip ice cream and it was gooood!

Late one night we heard some groaning from our pipes and there was no water running.  We have a known issue with our pipes that, when water is running, they groan a bit.  We are not sure if we want to fix the groan because twice it has shown us that we had a leak somewhere.  It is still necessary to find the leak, but at least we know there is one and can fix it once found.  Without the groan, we would have never known (poet and do not know it) and would have ended up with a lot of damage to our walls and flooring.  So in the dark we were running throughout the house looking in cabinets and then running outside to listen for running water and found nothing.  However, as Mike ran out the master bedroom french doors to the patio and then turned to come back in, at the entrance was a large tarantula.  Mike had seen one at a neighbors house a couple of years ago and they said they get them all the time, but this was our first.  In fact, one of our new neighbors across the street had just told Laurie that week about finding them in her yard/house.  Mike was too concerned at the time about the water issue and killed the tarantula instead of keeping it.  He regretted that later on.  He hopes to find another one, but Laurie does not.

The tarantula Mike crushed from the night before, almost looks alive

Mike has an electric toothbrush and an electric waterpik in the master bathroom.  They both stand so tall on the counter that they must be moved to open the cabinet over the sink.  Laurie found that she could adjust the cabinet shelves to make room for the units inside, but the power cords would keep the door from closing.  Mike was able to drill a hole in the side of the cabinet to run the cords through and allow the door to close.  Less clutter on our small counter now, which pleases Laurie.

New cut-out for cables

On the last day of our weekend, we took the quads out for a run since we had not been on them in many weeks.  We took them out to the trails behind our neighborhood because Mike wanted to scout out where the shooting area was.  We have heard shots from that area and had seen a big pit one time on a hike.  When we got to the open pit place, there were some boys shooting arrows and we saw many targets and shell casings all around, so that must be the place.  Mike hopes that he can go there some time to shoot his guns instead of going to the range at the southern edge of town.  When we took the quads out of the shed, Mike noticed some bolts in the enclosure were missing nuts.  When we got back, he found some of the nuts on the ground and some of the other bolt/nut combos were loose.  He went through the whole enclosure and tightened all the connections before closing it up.

Securing all the nuts/bolts in the quad shed (the green thing is a bungy cord)

To avoid a lot of dead grass like we had last year from all the rains, Mike sprayed weed/grass killer over the whole back yard and in the ditch in the front.  It took quite awhile with a 2 gallon sprayer, but he got it mostly covered and should be able to see where he missed next time we come up.

Spraying the weeds and the whole yard to prevent new growth

While Mike was working in the yard, Laurie started working on a project to put a fabric seat on an old director chair frame. She got the base at - you guessed it - a thrift store and thought it would work well as a luggage rack in the spare room for guests to use.  Then she thought it could also be used as a stool/chair if we used fabric for a seat instead of straps (like a luggage rack has).  So she found some fabric and Mike found a dowel he had at the Valley house that fit the slots in the chair.  Before the day ended, she had measured and pinned the fabric; hopefully the chair will be finished before we have guests again.

Laurie's new luggage rack/stool project

That is where our weekend ended and, though we had planned to take it a little slower after the fast pace we had been on before the holiday, we still got some stuff accomplished.

Stats: 1 Home Depot trip; 2 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 7/06/14-7/21/14: $436
Remodeling expense to date: $41,796