Thanksgiving 2011

Last year, I decided to use some vacation time and extend our Thanksgiving holiday to a full week in Payson.  This year we only had the Thursday and Friday off due to Laurie's new job.  The weather was not as cold as it had been just a few weeks before when we got snow; however, there was a threat of rain, but it luckily held off for the few days we were there.

We gave our thanks on Thursday for deciding not to work and met my Dad and his wife at the casino in town for their Thanksgiving buffet.  We had dinner there last year after a full day of work on the house and thought the spread was just fabulous.  My Dad and his wife live in Pinetop and they drove to Payson that morning to join us.  We had a great meal and came back to the house to talk and I worked on his computer.  After they left, the big meal kicked in and we spent a very lazy late afternoon and evening.

On Friday, we decided to tackle painting two rooms in one day and moved everything out of both the guest and master bedrooms.  We had just started the priming when Laurie got a call from her Dad and went to meet them in town as they drove through returning to Phoenix from their place on the rim.  He wanted to give us some fish they had just caught and then Laurie decided to stop by Walmart for a couple of items.  When she returned, I was almost finished with the rolling part of the job and she finished the trimming.  Laurie had to run out again to meet with Cindy at the Home Depot pro desk to put in a new bid for the materials we needed for the new workshop Craig and crew are going to build for us.  While she was gone, I cleaned up and put the rooms back together.

The master bedroom primed and. . .

. . .ready to be put back together

Have not shown anyone working in awhile - here is Laurie painting

The guest bedroom primed and. . .

. . .back together

Saturday was an easy morning as we did some reading, paperwork and other odds and ends.  We had plans to meet some friends in Prescott to see the electric light parade that night, so we did not get too involved at the house.  With the new programmable thermostat, we decided to set it to its minimum temp of 45 degrees and put it on hold until we come back up.  We will see how much heat we use in our absence.  We then winterized the place around noon and hit the road to travel up through Pine/Strawberry and Camp Verde, then over to Prescott.

We had reserved a room at the Best Western in town which is listed as pet friendly since we had Zena with us.  It was a decent hotel with a big room.  We got settled and cleaned up then met our friends to do some browsing and shopping before getting a sidewalk space for the parade.  The parade was good and the best part was three ATVs that had used recycled parts to build each cycle into a lighted object (sorry no pictures - forgot the camera).  One was a rocking horse, another was a sailing ship and the last was a teddy bear.  They were very creative and fun to watch as they went weaving down the road.  I am not sure if this parade was any better than the Payson one we went to last year, but the road was much bigger and open.  As soon as we saw Santa, we ran to a restaurant to grab seats before too many people got up and going.  We had a great dinner at the Prescott Brewery Company and then walked our friends back to their hotel and drove back to ours.

The next morning we wanted to hit the road early in order to miss most of the holiday traffic, but had time to stop for breakfast with our friends at the Waffle Iron in Prescott.  The breakfast was decent and the atmosphere very quaint.  After we were done, we said goodbye to our friends and made our way to Phoenix.  Traffic was not bad at all and we made good time back home.  It gave us plenty of time to get things settled at the house before the new work week began.

Stats: 1 Home Depot trips; 2 Walmart trip
Remodeling expense 11/21-11/27: $1,136
Remodeling expense to date: $35,301

Never On Sunday

The Payson Roundup has started a new daily deals offer (think mini-Groupon) for the Payson area.  Their first offer was for Cardo's, an Italian restaurant we have been to before (and, more importantly, liked) so we bought one.  After arriving in town and unpacking, we decided to use our coupon; however, the place was packed.  We aren't sure if that was the normal Friday night crowd or if every person living in the town of Payson (and all surrounding areas) bought the same deal, but all the tables were full.  The waitress shooed us into the standing room only bar promising a table would be available soon so we settled in to wait.  We listened to the band, a group of three older guys with two guitars and an electric violin, play Devil Went Down to Georgia.  They did a fairly good job, but after the song was over it was still too crowded with no indication it would get better EVER so we decided to go to Pizza Hut instead - might not have the ambience, but lots and lots and lots of available tables and the pizza is actually pretty good.

Saturday started with a trip into town for returns to Home Depot and Walmart (seems to be something we do a lot of because someone, we won't name any names, can't seem to make up their mind) and a new 5 gallon can of primer from the paint store.  We returned the formerly live Christmas tree we got last year that died not too long after we planted it. If you didn't already know it, Home Depot has a wonderful return policy on plants.  You can return them up to one year, no questions asked.  The clerk was a bit hostile, demanding a receipt (which of course my packrat wife had), but we got a store credit which we plan to use for our live Christmas tree this year.  If it dies, we'll just return it and get a new one next year.  If our luck holds, we may never pay for a Christmas tree again.  While we were in town we stopped at the consignment craft store that just opened in the Swiss Village.  We had met the owner at the Pine/Strawberry craft fair back in September and she has a business where she makes pictures using people's names.  We decided to order one for our nephew for a Christmas gift and, when we contacted her, we learned that she was opening this new shop.  It is really small, but packs in some pretty cute goodies so check it out if you're ever up that way.

After spending all morning running around town, I did not feel like painting in the afternoon.  I did manage to be industrious enough to take a look at the back door because, whenever it rains, I've noticed  some water spots on the kitchen floor on both sides of the door frame.  When we replaced the back door, we put the old trim back up and did not secure it well or caulk it. Guessing that this was the source of the leak, I removed the old trim and filled the outside gaps with spray foam.  We let that sit overnight while we cut and painted the new trim.  The next morning I trimmed the excess foam expansion and nailed the new trim in place.  I then caulked all around the trim.  Hopefully all that effort will pay off and we won't see any more water spots in our kitchen.

New foam in door gaps

Trim cut and painted

Excess foam removed

Door trim nailed and sealed

We also purchased online a new thermostat for our A/C and heating.  The one provided to us was not programmable and we wanted some flexibility on configuring our temperatures to help reduce some costs, esp. with the heating.  The unit we bought was the same maker as the previous one and had all the same connections and configurations.  It was a very easy swap.  Now we can play with the programming to see what works best for us.

New thermostat will help costs and allow us to set heat in advance

I had some time leftover on Saturday night to caulk all the corners of the pantry.  When our taper guy finished his work, he realized he had forgotten this room and I told him I would do it for him.  Doing it tonight will give it time to dry before we paint tomorrow.

After finishing the door trim Sunday morning, we were able to prime the rest of the kitchen.  While we were painting, we had a visit from a guy who gave us a quote on installing our flooring. He came highly recommended by Gene Neumann (of Neumann's Paint) and he didn't mind stopping in to measure our house on the weekend.  Laurie spent quite awhile with him going over what we want done and getting ideas from him. We think he will do an awesome job, but the price is quite a lot more than we expected so we may be waiting a little while longer for our floor.  With that interruption, it took us longer to finish the priming work and we didn't get finished until about an hour before we had to leave for the valley.  In the past we've had a rule that we won't do any work on Sundays. After breaking our rule this time, we won't do that again.  It made for a long trip home and two very tired, grumpy people come Monday morning.

Finished priming dining room area . . .

and kitchen (pantry done too, but not shown)

Stats: 2 Home Depot trips; 1 Walmart trip
Remodeling expense 11/13-11/20: -$162
Remodeling expense to date: $34,165

The Big Room Primed

Laurie was off work for Veteran's Day on Friday, but she had scheduled to spend some time in the morning with a company she does contract work for so I put in a few hours at my job.  Even so, we were able to get on the road by 1pm.

We spent some time once we got to town talking with two flooring companies.  One of the companies we had already talked to about what we could do.  A couple of weeks ago, the person who was supposed to come to the house and measure had called Laurie about other ideas and we needed to stop and look at the flooring he had suggested.  We want to stick to one type of flooring through the whole house, but it is hard to find something that is not tile (too cold) and will work in areas which could have water issues.  This guy suggested we go with a stock rolled vinyl for now (cheap) and then later we can put another flooring over it. The vinyl would act as a vapor barrier under the future flooring as well as provide a softer underlayment than the subfloor.  The only problem is that it will add to the total flooring cost, even though the other flooring wouldn't need to be paid for until the future, and that is always a problem for Miss Practical Laurie.  We also had a great discussion with another local flooring guy and now may be leaning towards an engineered wood.  I have no idea which direction we will go, at least we have a few months to work it out.

We almost did not keep to our plan of doing a room every weekend (the weekend with my Mom was not in the plan).  With the cold and rainy weather, motivating ourselves to paint was a struggle.  But by Saturday afternoon we got ourselves going and were able to complete the task.  Now we have the hallway, laundry room and great room completed.  We even extended to a wall in the dining room.  We had time to go farther, but the paint supply was running low and the paint store is only open until noon on Saturdays (ahh - small town living).

Priming is complete on this wall. . .

. . .wall and ceiling. . .

. . .this wall. . .

. . .and a little left for this wall

The weather was even worse on Sunday, but I took some time to work on the hall bathroom flooring.  After about another foot or two, the floor started coming up easier and the adhesive was not as strong. It took less time to finish removing the rest of the floor than it had to do the first few feet a couple of weeks ago.  It looks like one part of the floor had been replaced as the wood is different than the rest of the floor and seems flimsier.  I will need to spend time evaluating if this will need to be replaced before our flooring goes down.

Tile all removed

With the rain continuing, I thought we might as well hit the road early so we could take care of a few things in the valley.  After winterizing the place, we were on the road around 1pm.  Almost as soon as we left, the rain stopped.  Isn't that how it always is!

Stats: 0 Home Depot trips; 1 Walmart trip
Remodeling expense 11/7-11/13: $0
Remodeling expense to date: $34,327

Snow before Thanksgiving!

This weekend was different as we had asked my Mom if she wanted to come up and stay with us for a weekend.  She was supposed to come on our last trip, but other plans happened and she couldn't make it until this weekend.  We had set up the guest room on our last weekend, knowing she would be with us.  What we had not planned on was the cold temperatures that the weekend had in store for us.

I had been checking out my sister's pickup truck to make sure it was in shape in case she decided to sell it and thought a trip to Payson would be a good test run for it.  So the three of us and the dog piled into her crew cab truck and went up north.  The truck rode very well and we had no issues with it.

That night we went out to our favorite Mexican food place, since my Mom really likes that type of food.  We had a great time and it was very cold getting back to the car.

The next morning we were greeted by snow on the ground and some rain/snow falling.  You could see the snow, but It was mostly slush. We decided to brave the weather and went up to Pine to have breakfast and take Mom to the thrift store we like up there.  As we started to climb in elevation, there was a lot more snow on the ground.  The snowplows had been through the area so we had clear sailing all the way to Pine.  Breakfast at the Early Bird is always good and Mom enjoyed her meal.  Now it was off to shopping.

A little bit of snow and a lot of wet

More snow could be seen on the back patio

We spent a few hours at the thrift store and each of us found things we could use.  Due to the unexpected cold weather, my Mom did not have a very good coat and we found a long heavy one for her for only $6.  She was quite happy.  She also found a number of shirts that she could use, most of which were $.33 each.  Not to be outdone, Laurie found her fair share of clothing items and shoes for her work wardrobe.  I too found a nice leather jacket to leave up in Payson since I never wear coats in the valley.

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing with games, reading, movies and other individual items.  We thought we would paint another room, but decided against it.  Before leaving, we did winterize the house by draining the pipes and adding RV anti-freeze to the traps since the temperatures were now getting down to freezing during the nights.

We had a wonderful weekend with my Mom and she enjoyed our place, though we have decided that we will wait until the hall bathroom is completed before we ask anyone else to stay over.  If we all shared the hall bath, that would be easy, but it is more of a task when you are sharing a bath for which the only way in is through the master bedroom.

Stats: 1 Home Depot trip; 2 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 10/24-11/6: $15
Remodeling expense to date: $34,327