Remodeling - Day Eighteen

Today Harry and I got a late start. By 11 am we were done packing up my truck and headed out to our house. While we were on the road our contractor called and asked us to pick up another box of tiles at Lowe’s. So we stopped by Lowe’s and picked up the tiles, then picked up some lunch and headed to our house. By the time we were done with lunch and unpacked the truck it was about 12:30 or so. Our contractor had started framing up the fireplace and we will have to pick out a stain for the wood that goes best together with the hardwood floors. Guess we’ll be stopping by Home Depot this evening again. Our contractor Danny still has some tile work in the Master Bathroom to do but the fireplace needs only grout. Danny picked out the grout for the fireplace, but he asked that Harry and I to pick out the grout for the master bathroom.

The first room Harry and I ended up painting today was the Office. While I taped off the trim Harry was busy painting the walls. We made pretty good progress and were finished with the first coat of paint in the office way earlier than we expected.

After the office we started with the Master Bedroom. Again I started taping off the trim, while Harry started painting the walls. Apparently our master bedroom is larger than the office as it took us a lot longer to finish the first coat of paint. We were done with the master bedroom by 6.30 pm.

After a short break we went back to the office to start with the second coat of paint. The only problem with that was that we were slowly running out of daylight and we had no light in the office. So we took our contractors construction light and started painting the office. Shortly after we had started the second coat in the office we were sweating like we were out in the direct sunlight, as that construction light gives off a ton of heat. But we knew we had to finish the second coat of paint regardless. So this time I painted the majority of the walls while Harry painted the trim.

While painting the office I got a call from Living Spaces informing us that they will be delivering the furniture that we purchased two weeks ago tomorrow between the hours of 9:30am and 11:30am. That put a wrench in our tomorrow plans. Danny asked up to pick up a few finishing things for the house and we had planned to pick them up in the morning before heading up to the house.. but when I say morning I mean around 10am. But now we had to be at the house by 9:30am which meant we would have to leave our rental by 8:30 and be up even earlier.

So we got home from a long day of painting, dropped off the dog and then turned around and went to home depot to pick up some supplies.

We finally go home around 10pm and were exhausted. And tomorrow we will be getting up early to get to the house before the delivery truck.. with our luck the truck with show up right at 9:30am.

The adventure continues....

Dinner and a Movie

Tonight I went out and had dinner, at Islands, with my buddy Christopher. It's been a while since we hung out so it was alot of fun catching up on our lives. After dinner we headed to AMC to catch the movie "9"

This movie looked interesting so I was happy to hear that Christopher wanted to see it as Harry didn't really have any interest. I won't go into great detail but the movie was good, not great but far from bad. I liked the story it was simple. I did wish they went into more detail about the 9 creatures, why 9 was there any significance? The machine monster were pretty sweet, especially the snake type one... very creepy stuff. This movie had some top notch actors and was animated beautifully. I look forward to watching it again.

Knights of the Guild Podcast Ep 8 pt1

Knights of the Guild Episode 8 Part 1

Show Notes:

Here it is Episode 8 part 1 of Knights of the Guild. We hope you enjoy it.

Today’s show features:

• First up we have our monthly Vorkism.
• Our location today is at Gamestop as we wait in line for the new expansion game The Spiers of Dragonor.
• We talk about Season 3 and have some fan reactions to the first 2 episode that have aired.
• We have some Guild news about the two season box set and the comic book.
• We interview crew member Jay about his experience working on season 2 & 3.

• We find out what the actors and crew are up too.
• We have a special report from Dragon*Con
• We thank our Donors
• Mention important links
• Mention our recent Contest winners
• Then we have our final words and we say goodbye.

Please send your audio or written comments to knightsoftheguild@gmail.com or you can leave your comments in the comment section of this site.

Thank you again for all your support, we do this podcast because we are fans and more importantly for the fans.

Kenny & Jenni

Other Important Links

• Knights of the Guild Feeds/Downloads http://knightsoftheguild.com
• Knights of the Guild Daily Blog http://knightsoftheguildpodcast.blogspot.com/
• Knights of the Guild Fan page on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/group
• Knights of the Guild Group on Watchtheguild.com http://community.watchtheguild.com/group
• Knights of the Guild Livestream Channel http://www.livestream.com/knightsoftheguild
• Follow us on twitter @knightsofguild

• Knights of the Guild Cafe Press Online Shop : Where you can buy KOTG T-shrits, magnets, buttons and so much more. http://www.cafepress.com/KOTG

• Robin on Movie Mobs http://www.reelzchannel.com/moviemob
• Legend of Neil http://www.effinfunny.com/legend-of-neil
• The Guild http://watchtheguild.com
• Geekerdome Network http://geekerdome.com
• Between the Lines Studio Podcast Network http://Betweenthelinesstudio.com
• The Variants http://thevariants.com
• Melts in your pocket http://meltsinyourpocket.com
• The Night is a Child http://www.pasadenaplayhouse.org
• Conquest http://www.youtube.com/Conquestguide
• Sacramentjoe http://sacramentjoe.com
• Memories of the Futurecast http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/books/memories-of-the-future-volume-one/
• Memories of the Futurecast http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/09/memories-of-the-futurecast-episode-one.html

Podcast Promo’s played during the show this week:

• Waffle on
• Tuning into Sci fi TV
• Anomaly
• Take Him With You
• Treks in Sci Fi
• Worlds of Wayne
• AppyTimes
• Turning Left at Albuquerque

Remolding - Day Seventeen

Today we got up early, packed up the truck and headed to the house. Once we were done unpacking the truck we went inside house and started to clean the new floor, we did the TV room first and started to lay down brown paper over the work so nothing get's on them. We then cleaned the dining and living room floors and noticed that they still looked white and sure enough it was dust, so we cleaned them for a second time and ran our finger across them and still got dust on it. We think we need a better mop as it's going to take a few more cleaning before we finally get them looking great. We then moved onto painting. While I taped up the rest of the kitchen Harry went into the office and sanded down some spots that he had spackled yesterday. Once he was done with that he went back into the kitchen and started putting a second coat of paint on the window area in the kitchen, while I painted the walls above the ledge. After we had finished that we pulled out the fridge and painted behind the fridge as well. Now the kitchen is completely done !!!

Next on the agenda was the Entrance. After I taped off the walls Harry started painting the remaining wall the same blue accent color that we had used in the dining and living room. While he did this I was busy with some touch up work in the kitchen and started taping off the beams in the living and dining room. After Lunch Harry put a second coat of paint on the accent wall in the Entrance.

Once we were done with that we turned our attention to the 2 beams. While I painted the major surface of the 2 beams with the roller, Harry used the ladder to do the trim. But all our hard work paid off.. we finished painting the living and dining rooms, both hallways, kitchen, pantry, entrance, TV room and Guest Room.

Tomorrow we will be taking a day off, but on Wednesday we’re back painting !!

Remodeling - Day Sixteen

First thing we did today was head to Home Depot... We had to pick up 15 more boxes of laminate hardwood flooring, 1 can of paint for the living room, paper to protect the hardwood floor, painters tape and some cleaning supplies. We spent another 1100 bucks at Home Depot. Once we were done shopping it dawned on us that we had brought my Jeep instead of Harry's pickup truck. We managed to fit all the stuff we had bought, but it was quite a tight fit. Once we got back home we put all the supplies in Harry's truck and used the remaining space to fill it up with stuff that had to go to the house as well. We got to the house around 2 pm.

Once we had finished unpacking the truck we checked on the progress that our contractor had made. They had managed to get about half of the floor in the dining room done and it was looking AWESOME. We then had a quick bite for lunch and then jumped into painting.

I first taped off the remaining walls in the Kitchen. Once that was done I then started painting the remaining walls above the ledge while Harry started painting the walls around the window in the kitchen. We really like the color and it’s already hard to imagine what the kitchen looked all white. While we were doing that our contractor made a lot of progress with the floor and had sanded down the texture wall in the office.

After finishing up with a few minor touch ups in the kitchen Harry and I went to work in the office. By the time I tapped off the one wall and windows we were only able to get a little bit of paint on the walls as night was falling and there is no light in that room. Danny and his helpers stayed a few hours late so they could finish laying down the laminate hardwood flooring. They got about 99% of it done, still have a few things to complete but it looks great. We now have a beautiful hardwood floor in the TV-Room, living and dining room.

Tomorrow Harry and I are back for more Painting!!! We are sooooo over painting..

I will keep you guys posted on the progress !!

Video Blog - Flooring goes down

Remodeling - Day Fifteen

Today Harry and I got an early start. We got up around 8 am and started packing up the truck. After that was done we headed to Home Depot to pick up more paint and a new painting poll, since Harry broke one yesterday. By 10 am we had reached our new house. The first thing we saw was a little out of the ordinary, the garage door was open. So as we got to the front door I asked Danny our contractor if he had opened the door.. he said yes..because he had brought to more worker and they wanted to start working on the hardwood floor, which is in the garage. This was unexpected news as we didn't expect the floors to go down until next week. So we quickly went inside to see the progress.

They had pulled out the carpet in the TV-Room and started laying down the Hardwood Floor. Our contractor had also made some progress in the Office and the Master Bedroom with re-texturing the wall and he had made substantial progress re-tiling the fireplace.

After checking out all the new construction work, Harry and I started putting up a second coat of paint in the Pantry. Once that was done we started painting the kitchen. When we opened the paint can I wasn’t quite sure about the color. This is the color that Harry wanted on the walls. So we put a little of paint on one of the kitchen walls. I looked at it from several different angels and still wasn’t quite sure if I liked the color or not, neither was Harry. When the color finally started to dry we were happy with it. But it's defiantly not your typical kitchen color.

For lunch we ordered pizza from a local pizzeria and expected that what you usually get in LA. There were 2 surprised with that. First one pizza was about 25 bucks and the second surprise was the size of the pizza. That thing was huge. All five of us barely finished one pizza and we had ordered two, so there are plenty of leftovers.

After Lunch Harry and I finished up painting the first coat on the kitchen walls between the counter top and the ledge. Once that was done, we pulled the tape off the pantry and inspected the quality of our paint job. There were a few places where we had to do touch up work. Once that was accomplished we checked the paint job in the kitchen as it was already dry, so we started putting up a second coat of paint. While we were doing that Danny, our contractor started ripping out the tile in the Entrance. By the time Harry and I were finished with the second coat of paint in the kitchen our contractor had almost completed laying down the floor in the Entrance.

After the the contractor had left we pull tape off in the kitchen where we no longer needed it. Not quite sure what happened, but we had to do quite a bit of touch up work. After that we finished the final wall in the dining room (at least the first coat).

It was around 8pm and we were exhausted so we headed home for the day.

15 days of painting and not an end in sight.

No Painting Today

Today we stayed in our rental as we had Bill (owner of our rental) bringing over a few people who are interested in renting the house. We still have quite a bit of packing to still do. So attempted to finish packing up my toy room. I have done a few hours here and a few hours there but only made a dent. This time I jumped in and packed up about 98% of it. All that is left are some books and that room will be done. We only have a few more things to pack. Most of it is daily stuff that we use and won't be packed until the day before we move.

Our Family Got Bigger

Today in Austria our family grew. My sister-in-law, Harry's sister Greda married Bernd. I wish them all the best.












Herzliche Glückwünsche

9/11

Eight years ago that horrible event took place that changed The United States forever. Today I will take a moment of silence to remember all those we lost.

Remodeling - Day Fourteen

Today we headed out to our house around noon and got there around 1.30 or so. First on the agenda was the a short video for Harry's sisters upcoming wedding (tomorrow). We had come prepared with a speech, but that didn’t make the video any easier. Harry got a kick out of the screw ups, especially me trying to say Congratulations in German. Harry thinks that the ‘Making of the Wedding Video’ is way funnier than the video itself.

Once that was done we continued painting the pantry which went fairly quickly. After that I put a second coat of paint on the trim in the hallway, while Harry started to put the first coat of paint on the remaining wall in the dining room. He couldn’t finish the upper half of the wall since he had broken the long painting pole. So in order to finish the rest of the wall we will have to buy an new pole first and more paint.

Will this every end!!!!!

Video Blog - Paint, paint and more paint

Remodeling - Day Thirteen

Today we went to Home Depot to pick up a couple of supplies. We needed 1 additional can of paint for the living / dining room, 2 cans of paint for the Office. We also picked up more paint rollers. Once we were done with that, we headed to Ralph’s since we needed some lunches and soda for the house. After Ralph’s we headed back to the rental in Reseda. We packed up Harry's pickup truck with another load and headed out to our new house.

Once there we unpacked the truck and checked how much progress our contractor had made. He started to lay out the tile in the Master Bathroom and was dealing with the texture of the one unfinished wall in the dining room.

I started taping the trim of the Pantry area. When our contractor Danny went to lunch Harry put a second coat up in the Hallway. The only thing that needs to be done in the hallway is, the trim. It needs another coat of paint. That’s was something Harry didn’t get finished before our contractor came back from lunch and started dealing with this wall again.

By that time I had made some progress taping up the trim in the pantry area (did I mention I hate taping trim) so Harry could start painting the trim. By 4.30 Harry had painted all the trim in the pantry and I had almost finished painting the shelves. We had to leave at 4.30 pm, since our current landlord wanted to show the rental to prospective customers. Tomorrow we will have to finish the first coat of pain in the pantry area, and then put a second coat of paint on the trim in the hallway and maybe we can start with unfinished wall in the dining room.

Contractor will finish the office windows today, hopes to finish the master bedroom and start to work on the fireplace tomorrow and finish the fireplace and start the master bathroom and then finish the master bath and trim in the entire house on Saturday. He will then do floors on Monday and should be done by Wednesday.. at least that is his plan.. if it happens that would be great as I really want to move in next week... guess will wait and see.

Remodeling - Day Twelve

Today we went to Home Depot to pick up the Laminate Hardwood Floor. If we have measured the rooms right we need about 1.000 square feet. That would be roughly 60 boxes. When we got to Home Depot we only saw only 24 boxes. The next thing we did was to look for a sales associate. He found us another palette that had 26 boxes. So we ended up with 50 boxes. We decided that for right now that’s enough and if we really need more we can always go back and get another 10 boxes.

After that we waited for the guy to do his magic with the forklift and bring the palette down from the top shelf. Once that was accomplished I went and paid for the floor while Harry went and got the truck and drove the truck to the loading dock. The forklift guy put the hardwood floor into back of Harry's pickup truck and man that stuff is really heavy. Once we were done with Home Depot we drove back home to pick up Daisy and tie down the flooring with the cargo net that Harry had recently bought. After that we headed to the new house. All in all the hardwood floor cost us, so far, 3.500 dollars. If you add what we’re going to pay our contractor to install the hardwood floor, the entire thing will come to about 5 Grand. Luckily we don’t redo 1000 square feet every day !!!

Once we got to the house we had to unload all 50 boxes of laminate flooring, We put them in the garage for the time being until the carpet is pulled up in the living/dining and TV rooms.

After we were done with that we had to paint again. Surprise, surprise !! First we put up a second coat of paint in the Entrance. We then had to put a second coat of paint on the pillars of the Kitchen. While Harry was busy with the second coat of paint on the pillars in the kitchen, I started taping the trim in the Hallway to the guest room, bathroom and office. Once the majority of the trim had been taped off, Harry started painting the majority of the walls, while I painted the trim. We didn't have a lot of time but got quite a bit done. We're getting closer to finishing and that's good.

Video Blog - The Remodel So Far

Figured out that I can take video with my still camera and can upload to my blog.. so this is the first video on the remodel.

I take you on a tour of our remodel Day 11.

Focus goes in and out.. but what can you expect from a still camera.

Remodeling - Day Eleven

Today we got a early start as well. We packed up the truck and headed out. We got to the house around 10 am. We checked the paint job we did yesterday and we did a fairly good job. But we knew that we had to put a second coat on, since here and there the white still was coming through.

First we finished the two small spots in kitchen that we couldn’t finish yesterday. After that was done we started with the second coat of paint in the living room. I painted the majority of the walls and the upper trim, while Harry did the lower trim and then moved over to the kitchen walls that are exposed to the living/dining room. Around noon we were pretty much done with the second coat of paint in the living and dining room, took us about eight hours to do the first coat yesterday and only two hours to do the same thing today. Shows you how much time taping off trim and ceiling takes.. After lunch I started taping off the entrance way, while Harry finished painting the wall leading to the laundry and did some additional touch up work in the TV-Room as well.

When I was finished taping the trim/ceiling in the entrance way, Harry started painted the majority of the walls. We then turned our attention to the last 2 pillars in the kitchen. While I taped off the trim ( btw I was hating life, taping off trim is not my cup of tea) Harry started painting the pillars. We were done around 5 pm and decided to call in the night, since we both were quite tired. Who knew painting was so physically and emotionally exhausting !!

Tomorrow we will put a second coat on everything we painted the second half of today. Then we have the living and dining room painted as far as we can, since our contractor still has to finish one of the walls first, before we can paint it.

I will keep you guys posted on the progress !!

KOTG Microcast #7 Quest for Blizzcon

Last Month Jenni and I were lucky enough to volunteer for The Guild booth at Blizzcon. We were also lucky enough to record some audio from our days at the con.

• We start with my intro as I head to Blizzcon.
• I find Jenni and we hear what she did the previous night with the Guild cast, crew and fans.

• We then go behind the stage as the Guild cast wait to go on stage for their panel, both Jenni and I interview cast members.
• Then there are some Q & A from the Panel
• After that we hold a raffle, we gave away 4 Zunes

• And finally we are done and head back to our cars.

The audio is okay, we were using our portable recorder.

Hopefully we brought a little Blizzcon to those who could not make it and for those who did, hopefully we brought back some fun memories.

Thanks, Kenny & Jenni

Other Important Links

• Knights of the Guild Feeds/Downloads http://knightsoftheguild.com
• Knights of the Guild Daily Blog http://knightsoftheguildpodcast.blogspot.com/
• Knights of the Guild Fan page on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/group
• Knights of the Guild Group on Watchtheguild.com http://community.watchtheguild.com/group
• Follow us on twitter @knightsofguild

• Knights of the Guild Cafe Press Online Shop : Where you can buy KOTG T-shrits, magnets, buttons and so much more. http://www.cafepress.com/KOTG

Podcast Promoted in this cast.

• Tuning Into Scifi TV
• Turning Left at Albuquerque
• Upsidedown Happyland

Remodeling - Day Ten

Today we got a fairly early start. We got up at 8.30 am and started packing up Harry's truck. We then headed out to our new house and got there around 10 am. We unpacked the truck and put all the stuff in the garage. First things we did was some touch up work in the TV Room. Our contractor Danny fixed the drywall so we could finish the walls. All we have left in there are the window frames and baseboard.

After the TV Room we put a second coat of paint on the accent walls in the living / dining room. And we have been lucky enough to only have to do two coats on most of the walls, so the accent walls should be good to go.

After we were done with the accent walls, we went to grab a bite to eat at Taco Bell. Then we were off to our new favorite store… Lowes. First we checked out some vanities/sinks, since we are looking for a new one for the Guest Bathroom. We found one or two that we both liked. Guess we’ll have to go back and look at both of them more closely when we are ready to buy. After that we went over to the Hardwood Floors. We went through all the samples they had. The ones that were nice looking and that we really liked were way too expensive and out of our price range. The Laminate Hardwood Floors that were in our price range looked way too fake for our taste. Guess we will be getting the Laminate Hardwood Floor from Home Depot that we picked out a few days ago, which cool with me since I liked it from the first moment I saw it. Not entirely sure when we will be picking up the hardwood floor, but it has to be before Wednesday as our contractor might be bringing a floor guy along.

After Lowe’s Harry and I went back to the house and I started taping some of the walls in the living room while Harry started painting. We both really like the color that we picked as main color. By 6 pm we had painted the walls in the hallway, the wall of the fire place, underneath the breakfast bar and 2 walls in the dining room. We were very happy with the progress. But we decided to keep on painting. So we painted the wall that leads to the pantry as well. Then we hit a snag. Since the kitchen will be painted in a different color than the living / dining room we weren’t quit sure were to make the transition between the colors without making it look funky. We discussed several scenarios and then came up with a solution that we think should be working best. All the pillar, that are visible from the living / dining room, will be painted in the main color of the living / dining room. The ledge on the other hand will be painted with the color that we have chosen for the kitchen. By 8.30 pm we had painted as much as we could for the day.

It was a great day of painting and I feel like we are getting closer to being done.

Stangers in the House

Today we had to take a break from fixing up our new house as Bill (Rental owner) was coming by to fix the toilet and to bring some possible renters. So I spent most of the morning trying to clean up. It's strange having strangers walk through you home, going through closets and drawers. But we have four groups of folks come through today. After that it was too late to go up to the house so Harry and I just hung out at home and watched some TV... so it was a nice break.

Remodeling - Day Nine

Now that we had our paint we got up early and headed to the house around 10am. Once we got there Danny was hard at work. He was finishing up with windows/holes in the office wall and also working on the fireplace. We chatted for a few and then got to work priming the two accent walls in the living/dining room and area under the bar. All were a southwestern orange and we figured it was best to prime first but before we did that we had to fill in all the nail holes and man were there alot. The previous owners really liked hanging things on the wall. Once the holes were filled and the walls were primed we started to paint both accent walls in the steal blue color. One good thing about replacing the carpets is that we didn't have to worry about laying down a tarp or anything, which saved up time. Danny finished patching up the TV Room walls as well as the outside office walls so this weekend will be spent panting the living/dining rooms in the sandy brown and steal blue colors. Lot's a painting to be done but this weekends painting will be dramatic because it's such a big part of the house.. can't wait to see all this come together.

Danny also laid some tile down on the fireplace so we could see what it looked like.. it's going to be beautiful. Stay Tuned!!!!!

Furniture Shopping

After we got home from the painting sample adventure we headed to Living Spaces. We already lost out on the dining table and bed that we had seen a few weeks prior so we planned to buy this time. A wonderful sales person Heather approached us and with her helped we managed to pick out a dining table (pictured to the left, only the table) and four dining chairs.




She also checked and that there was one more bed that we really liked in the La Mirada store so we got that.






We picked out a love seat and a very funky accent chair and matching pillows and finally we had picked out two very comfy recliners but found out that they only had the one (floor model) so we had to choose another one. Which we did and purchased two electric very comfy recliners for our TV room. After two and a half hours we were done and spent roughly $4500 on our new furniture. We still have to buy two desks, accessories, a day bed, side tables and a couch table.. oh and a new mattress for our new Cal King bed... We were hoping to not spend more then $5000 in new furniture but it looks like we are going to go over a bit.. but hey how often do you buy new furniture, well for me.. never.. so it was so much fun.

After Living Spaces we then went to Home Depot and purchased the paint that we liked for the rest of the house. We also checked out more Laminate flooring and I still went for the one I saw a few days ago and I think Harry is coming around to it too.

Remodeling - Day Eight

Our contractor Danny was out today so we knew nothing had changed from yesterday construction wise.. so we headed up to the house fairly early. When we got up there the sky's were pretty good. There was a haze but i think it was just your typical SoCal haze. There wasn't much smoke in the air and to be honest it looked as though the fires were gone (of course we knew they weren't) but they weren't much of a factor today.

We first pulled off all the blue tape from the Guest Room and of course there was bleeding of the paint as we expected. Some spots were worse then others but for the most part it was all fixable. So Harry and I did a few touch ups here and there. We then went to the TV room and pulled up the tape in there and again the paint bleed through some areas so we did a few touch ups. Both the Guest Room and TV Room are done with exception of the window trim

We started with our main living room/dining room colors. We choose a sandy brown color and a stealy blue for the accent colors. We painted them on the wall and both Harry and I knew these were the colors we wanted. They looked great together and gave the feel that we wanted for those rooms.

We then put up the two kitchen colors that we choose.. it's a bold color for a kitchen but we opted for the brighter of the two (the one on the right) and then we painted the living room colors to see if they would all match since the rooms open to each other. And the all looked great together.

Next was the office, my buddy Greg is going to paint a Star Trek mural for us on one of the walls and it's going to be in space meaning a black wall so we wanted a bright color on the rest of the walls. We choose this blue but once on it felt too baby blue and I couldn't imagine that color on all the remaining walls. So we selected another more grey/blue and will get a sample for that later tonight.

Our master bedroom colors were the brown on the right and the wine as an accent and we liked the colors together but we felt that both of those colors would make the room much darker then we intended so instead we pulled the taupe color from our master bath room and made that our main color for our bedroom with the win accents.. and we really like that combination.

The guest bathroom already has the yellow.. which we like but we wanted to bring in an accent color and I don't know what we were thinking but the purple was so not what we wanted and we felt it would look to feminine.

So we took the light blue color that we didn't like for the office and the wine accent color from our master bedroom and painted those on the yellow to see if we liked any combination of those.. and we did.. we liked the yellow with the wine color so that will be the accent color for the guest bathroom.

Last and the hardest room to choose a color was our master bathroom. We had bought the taupe but really didn't like it with the tile and counter of the room. We took the brown that we intended for the master bedroom but that too didn't work with the tile and counter. So we tried the sandy color from the living/dining room and didn't like it.. so we are at a stand still when it comes to paint in our master bedroom. We want to keep the tile and counters because we like them (and cost) but we just need to find the perfect color to compliment them.

So out of all those colors we liked the majority of them and will be buying gallons of paint tomorrow and starting to have fun painting again.

It's All About the Color

Today we spent most of it at home because of the toilet thing and we wanted to pack up some stuff here at the rental. We did get up to the house around 2pm at which time our contractor was leaving for the day. We didn't have really anything to do up there because we had finished painting the day before and we couldn't paint any other rooms because construction was happening in them and we hadn't picked out the paint yet. So that is what we did. We went through each room and selected paint colors that we liked. We already made several mistake by buy a gallon of paint and then realizing you don't like it or it doesn't fit the room and wasting money.. so this time we planned on purchasing small sample paint to see if we like them first. So it took about three to four hours to go from room to room and select what colors we liked.

Once we got home we dropped off Daisy at the rental and then went to Home Depot to purchase samples of all the colors we decided on. Will paint samples on the walls tomorrow and see if we really like the color combinations that we choose. While at home depot we also checked out sinks and vanities for the guest bathroom and the Bamboo flooring that we really liked. Unfortunately we wanted a darker floors and the Bamboo only came in the light wood color (though you could strip and stain it). So we started looking at Laminate wood flooring and most of it looked fake but there were a few that we thought would work and one that I really loved that was darker and more rustic looking. Harry wasn't convinced but he did like it.. will have to keep looking. Oh forgot to mention we are re-flooring out TV room as well since it's kind of opened up to the living and dining room.

Surprise!!!

Well it's 7am and like most morning I have to get up and use the bathroom. As I leave the bedroom I hear this high pitch sound, of course I'm half asleep and I'm trying to figure out what is going wrong but it only takes a minute before I step into the bathroom and into two inches of water. Suddenly it's like being woken out of a deep sleep.. I spring into the action and walk over to the toilet and notice that the tube that goes from the wall to the back of the toilet has come off and water if firing out hitting the wall and bouncing up to the ceiling. I quickly turn off the main water and survey the damage. Besides the two inches of water on the bathroom floor the entire hall carpet is soaked. I quickly grab some towels and drop them on the carpet to try and pick up some of the water. I then attempted to take a cup and bucket and gather the water off the bathroom floor but soon discover that this is pretty useless. So I run to Ralphs to rent a wet vac and vacuum up the water. So about 45 minutes later I'm sucking up a ton of water from the carpet and bathroom. Of course alot of the water went through cracks in the floor and started bubbling up the laminate floor. But I did my best to clean it up. It's still damp and it's starting to smell musty but I'm hoping everything will work out.. it's not how I imagined starting my morning but life sometimes throws you curve balls. Our toilet is operational but you have to turn on the main valve to fill it up every time you flush and when it's not in use turn it off because the tube is back on but is loosely fit. The owner of the house will be coming by this weekend to fix.

Remodeling - Day Seven

Today we got a rather late start. When we left our rental in Reseda it was completely overcast / smokey, but considerably more humid than the past few days. The increased humidity should help the firefighters battling the Station Fire. When we were driving up north the smoke was so thick that you couldn’t even tell that there were foothills around. On the 14 the air quality got so bad, that we had get our air through the AC only. When we got off Sierra Highway exit air quality started to improve. Once we got to the house the air quality was sorta acceptable. You still could smell the smoke in the air, but there were no billow’s of smoke visible, and that's always a good sign.

We talked with our contractor Danny about the way we wanted to have the tiles in the bathroom and on the fireplace. We also were talking to him about having the the carpet in the Living and Dining Room torn out and replaced with Bamboo flooring. Yesterday we found some nice Bamboo flooring at Home Depot that we liked for a really reasonable price. We haven’t made any final decision about that yet, but it looks like we will end up doing bamboo flooring in the Living and Dining Room.

Later we dealt with some touch up work in the Guest Room (Green room). While we were doing that the air quality got worse and worse. You barely could see the ridge in front of our house and Sierra Highway was nearly invisible. It pretty much looked like as if the entire Western Angeles National Forest was on fire. But I knew that wasn’t the case since Harry was keeping informed about the fire situation online. It’s great having a working Internet at our new house. The sound of Super Scoopers and helicopters flying back and forth to the fire line and dousing the flames helps to keep your mind somewhat at ease. The reason that the smoke got so thick was that we got the wind out of the south east during the afternoon hours (Acton area) where currently a lot of the active wildfire action is happening. Once the helicopters had completed a lot of their water drops, the air quality started to improve significantly. But we persisted and finished painting the nook in the Guest Bedroom the same color of the accent wall.

By the time we were done for the day, the air quality had pretty much returned to normal and no smoke billows were visible anywhere. We still didn’t want to take the chances so we packed up Harry's truck with more of my toys that we wanted to bring back to our rental in Reseda… just to be on the safe side. When we got home Harry checked the latest Fire Perimeter Map and it turns out the the north flank of the fire appears to be pretty stable and that the Northern Fire Perimeter is still south of Soledad Canyon Road. In essence that means that there are still at least between 10 and 11 miles between the Station Fire and our house. That certainly puts our minds at ease… But you never say never with fires.. could change at any moment.

Ok time for bed.. remodeling is hard work.

Remolding - Day Six

Today didn’t quite start out the way that we had initially planned. We had planned to leave around 9.30 am but when we checked out the Station Fire conditions allegedly the Sierra Highway had been closed. According to that Info there was no way for us to get into town. Shortly after we had found out that our Contractor (Danny) had gotten there via an alternate route. So Harry checked with CalTrans and got no info about road closures, so we decided to drive up to the house and see if we could make it. Turns out that the story about the road closures, that we had read online, was greatly exaggerated. We got to the house without any problems and it looked even better than the day before. There was hardly any smoke visible, most of the smoke was to the northeast (Acton area). Of course here and there you could see dark smoke rising but you could see the large fixed wing air crafts as well. Certainly makes you feel better.

When we got to the house we saw that our contractor had made a lot of progress. He had started prepping the 2 holes in the walls of the office, removed the tile from the fireplace that we want to have refinished, taken the carpet out of the bathroom and dismantled most of the built in’s in the bedroom. I was very impressed with the progress he made. While our contractor was working on other stuff Harry and I put a second coat of paint on the accent wall in Guest Room. And later we put a 3rd coat of paint on the remaining 3 walls in the Guest Room. After that was done we painted the closet doors in the color of the accent color. I have friends who ask why we continue to paint and have a contractor doing work when the house could possible burn down. But both Harry and I look at is as we have to keep positive. The house is currently in no danger and we have to move by the end of September. Positive thinking will lead to a positive outcome... But just in case it doesn’t we brought some of my toys and some of the stuff that is irreplaceable back to our rental house in Reseda. Tomorrow we will assess if we take more of the stuff back to Reseda or not. That will depend on how the wildfire is behaving.

By the time we left there was no smoke visible. Apparently the firefighters have made some progress. Additionally the wind had been blowing all afternoon long in a north east direction. That means it had been driving the fire away from our house and we are very happy about that. On the other hand there are still 11 miles between the fire and our house and the fire is still in the hills above Acton.

I guess that's it for today report.. will keep you updated on our house progress and the wildfires.

Panic

Today when I got up I was reading on twitter that Agua Dulce was under mandatory evacuation. My heart dropped and I immediately went online to find out more info. The "Station" wildfire is out of control and is moving closer to Acton and at a slower pace it's moving north west and that is where Agua Dulce is located. The closed the Agua Dulce off ramp on the 14 freeway so the only way you could get into the city was through Sierra Hwy. It seems that the east side of the city is under mandatory evacuation but where we live is not. So I spent the morning cleaning and continuing to pack up stuff but checking the news often to find out the status of the fire.

Around 2pm Harry and I decided to go up to the house and check everything out. When we got up there is actually looked better then it did yesterday but there was alot of smoke north of us (in Acton) but our place looked okay. It eased my mind a bit. The fire was still 11 miles or so away from us. We didn't do any painting and we also didn't bring anything else up to the house (just to be safe). We cleaned up the place a bit as the contractor will be starting tomorrow.

We headed home and I continue to clean and pack. We plan on going back up tomorrow and start painting once again. Of course I listen to the evening news and it made me worry about the house again.. but to be honest there really is nothing we can do.. just hope the firemen stop this fire before is reaches us.

But I guess living in the hills we need to get use to this.. but I don't think I ever will.

I'll keep you all posted.