The Irony is NOT Lost on me

but ironing is a whole different story.

Saturday rolled around (I'll get to the rest of last week later) and thus begins Operation Move In.

The walls were ready. Office furniture, wall tiles, work surfaces, wall rails, panels, etc were inventoried.

Then comes prepping to hang everything.

See those wooden strips? 3/4 inch plywood cut down to 2.5" widths, by at least 8' lengths. Thank heaven for the table saw.

Each one is anchored into the wall studs where a screw for the wall rails have to go. That's 10 screws per rail for the tall ones. There is close to 300 screws in the walls of the office now. But better screws, than drywall anchors which we all know bite big time - especially when putting stuff with lots of weight up. And work surfaces aren't light.

By the end of Sunday, Ken had his office mostly done ( we need more tile adaptors to hang the rest of the panels (I know honey - tiles - but they look like panels).

And mine was actually looking pretty good though you cannot tell due to the fact that I really cannot focus the SLR we have.

The irony here being that we went through all that trouble with the paint job, just to cover half of it up.

We got network and phone functional so hubby could start Monday in his brand new space.

At least one dog is very confused because every morning when the other two (who cannot be trusted out and about) go back in their room, he heads to Dad's office in the house. But that room is empty now. So this morning he went and stood outside our bedroom door just waiting for 'Dad' to emerge.

Unseen in my space is the floor just to the side of that separate wall (with the paper towels on it). There would be to two doggy beds all ready for the boys when they go hang out with 'Dad' at the office.

Dare I ask hubby when the gutters are going up since rainy season is just around the corner?

T and I went to the California Wool and Fiber Festival in Boonville yesterday. You'll get to see the new additions to the stash tomorrow. Right after I figure out how to make my Flickr photos display on this stupid thing.

In the home stretch

The walls and ceiling are finished (except for the clouds - your imagination is still required for that).

Faceplates are on the walls. Data and phone have been sent out to the new server closet, from the old server closet.

Looks like hubby is ready to start moving stuff out there.

He finished the ceiling and baseboards yesterday, as well as cleaned the floor and ran the data and phone up and through the attic and out through the well room, into conduit, up into the shop attic space and down more conduit to the new server location. From there a patch panel will route cables to assorted jacks in the two rooms.

Doesn't the paint job on the walls look nice? We did that Saturday.

I like how the baseboards separate everything, so you can admire the floor or the walls without overwhelming yourself with the color variations between the two.

Wanna know what I did yesterday?

This is what happens when Jenn decides she needs to clean out her car and all the bags she's carting around creation.

There's that iPod cable I keep misplacing. And I found three tape measures, three pairs of scissors, my number 2 bamboo DPNS and a bunch of tylenol.

Then when I got all that cleaned up I played with my beads. They are supposed to be stitch markers.

Which ones do you like best ( and yes I know the peachy one would look better with a copper crimping bead but I cannot find mine, so silver it is)?

Click on the pic to see more detail. I don't have Romi's lightbox, so bear with me. I'm NOT a photographer.

Let me know what you think. I'm new at this.

For my RFO Docent counterparts

Two posts in one day.

Pics of the shirt samples as promised. Click on them to see a bigger (much bigger - consider yourself warned - pic)

The T-shirts

A closer look at the artwork

The sweatshirts (the sweatshirt type with the blue lettering is the only one available, the other was used simply to show the black artwork).












Check your email for more information.

Pick a stone. Any stone.

Except that one. Or the couple hundred stacked up behind it in my front walkway.

Called hubby before I left work yesterday to let him know I was getting more ceiling paint.

He was kind of down about the stone that I had okayed earlier this week. Turns out it wasn't really prepped for inside use, in that all the holes and pits and caverns hadn't been filled with a resin and then buffed to a lovely shine.

I happened to pick outside stone. Sigh.

He also wasn't happy with the way the floor was going in or the 'glue' the guy we got to do it chose. I don't blame him. It hadn't set in 24 hours, which is just insane.

So, I told hubby to swap the stone. Go back to the original one we wanted and see if we can get it in the thickness we want - 1/2 or so, rather than the monstrous 1" thick babies. Those things are heavy.

He hits the Home Depot site and says go check this and call me when you get there. So I go to my favorite Home Depot out of the 4 that are within driving distance of my work and home. Murphy strikes again.

Out of the 4 choices I had, I had to pick the one that had completely gutted their flooring display for newer models that weren't set up yet.

So I head to choice number two, but not before seeing choice number one had a bunch of Travertine on clearance up front, but not enough for our floor. Keep looking.

Hubby meets me at the second HD. I point out a couple of ceramic choices I like. Then I tell him that the first HD had a bunch of the Travertine that he was then drooling over at the current HD, but I didn't think they had enough of the right shade (turns out there are 3 shades of the Tavas and I have to pick shade 1).

So find someone that actually works there to call around and see which stores what what quantity. It also turns out that those three shades all have the same SKU number. Gr.

Hubby heads to choice one after we bought all that choice two has, 4 boxes (36 square feet) and I head south to see how much choice three has. My store only had 6 boxes (54 square feet) of the stone. But choice one actually had 48 boxes (9 sqft per box, you do the math - I'm tired) so we may actually have enough.

So we're back home taking care of animals and knowing I need to get more paint on the walls.

Thusly the wall painting begins. The basecoat had to get up on the main room walls so I'm not working around hubby while he's laying the floor, after ripping up the stones that were laid yesterday.

This is what happens when you are doing something you usually enjoy but are so tired and beat and your hands and arms are dead from everything else. You ignore a clock of any sort and just go till you are finished.

We now have a really nice base coat on the main room walls all ready for the first faux top coat. Right after I finish the ceiling that hubby started.

And no I didn't go all the way to floor. There will be mortar, and stone and grout and baseboards to cover that up. But it is primed.

Yes the ceiling is blue, very blue, lots and lots of blue.

Windjammer blue to be precise. Now just imagine lots of fauxed fluffy sponged on clouds all over it.

That's the tech area ceiling that I painted Wednesday night. Hubby finished the install of the skylight yesterday while I was at work.

The main room lights (full spectrum indirect natural light) are on back order for now, but the skylights and portable halogens are doing the trick.

Considering I crashed at 1am, no knitting happened, heck dinner didn't even happen. Sleep happened, but not nearly enough.

Maybe I'll get caught up on that next month.

So close and yet still so much to do... (pic heavy)

Or How I Spent my Summer Vacation...

Heads up, this is long and has lots of pictures

That one little open door is the entrance to where 75% of my time was spent the past week or so.

Day one Wednesday:

Well the day started out on a really really bad note, in that Mother Nature decided that 2 years of trying and 2 surgeries later, I am still not worthy enough to be expecting. So lots and lots of tears. I'm fine or at least I will be.

The rest of it was a huge blur of deciding what needed to be done to finish Operation Shop as far as county permits went, followed by my ten millionth trip to Home Depot, followed by seeing just how hard it was to hang sheet rock on a ceiling when you are

1. 5'2"
2. Severely lacking in upper body strength
3. In lots of pain due to Mother Nature's early morning punch

It wasn't as bad as it could have been since hubby did most of the lifting and I fought with the drywall screw gun.

Day 2 Thursday:

Sheetrock and more sheetrock. Sheetrock the ceiling, sheetrock the walls. Can anyone tell me why the walls couldn't be done with the board oriented vertically, rather than horizontally?

Hubby also wisely decided that hanging the sheetrock over about 1100+ square feet of space ( that includes the ceiling folks - the shop ain't that big) requires at least another person so we had help. He and the helper lifted and screwed everything into place while I cut sheetrock. The stuff is evil and there is still white dust everywhere.

Day 3 Friday:

Inspection of said sheetrock hanging. Gr. Blasted county guy throws a wrench in the plan by arguing about use space and fire protection and you name it, so we have to wait and we don't get finalled.

So we start mudding and taping the seams. After Thursday I hated sheetrock. After today I despised the mud - though it cleans up real easy.

I ran a couple of errands while we decided if we were throwing clothes in the RV and driving as fast as we could to Tuscon for Ken's reunion. Keep reading...

Then we realize we have to pick a floor. So it's off to WZ for me to pick up stone samples since the owner of said place is hanging out at my place today using my driveway to do something or other related to stone. Ask hubby if you care for details. lol

Anyway we only finished mudding and taping one room, before I boycotted and collapsed into a chair.

Day 4 Saturday:

In an attempt to save his marriage ( and he quite possibly succeeded ;-) ), my hubby utilized Craigslist to find professional help in the mudding and taping of said walls.

So I got to start playing with paint samples (since we picked the stone for the floor) and had yet another trip to Home Depot while our new friend John played with mud and tape and trowels.

Back home to create said paint samples so we could pick a color. We decided to go with the Bellagio Faux Technique from Behr, even though it means there will be a ton of paint on the walls.

Wanna see what we picked?

The one with the fan will be the main office space color. That is Sunporch base with Italian Opera TopCoat and Luxurious villa Top coat.

The other one will be the tech area.

That is Clamshell base with Amalfi Fantasy Topcoat and Sunset Riviera Top coat (see the theme yet?)

Day 5 - Sunday:

We have to have the walls ready for the top coat of mud. What kind of texture do we want? Yes I'm still playing with paint samples trying to get everything right.

Our guy John finishes at noon and heads on home while I fight with paint. He comes back later with a sheetrock sample that he's put 4 different textures on to help us decide. Does this guy love his work or what? So hubby says, paint the sheet rock sample and then we'll decided. So that's what you see in the pics above, one side in one color set, one in the other, we chose both.

Day 6 - Monday

We have to finish electrical today. Period. Because tonight we call for our final inspection. We also have to have the mud finished so we can start painting tomorrow.

Which means ANOTHER trip to Home Depot (I am so sick of that place) for more mud and a ton of paint. The lady behind me in line wasn't too happy since I ordered 9 cans of tinted stuff. She should have perhaps stopped letting her cart run into me and I would have been more inclined to let her go in front of me.

Our friend Nathan and his gf Tina came over to help. I asked her to tackle the outside trim while I ran errands and Nathan helped hubby start the office panel inventory so we know if we have enough stuff to set up our cubicles in the new space.

Then I'm back and after a quick run to the grocery store (we're having tri tip!) it's up in the attic rafters to pull the electrical wires done the rafter to the sub-panel box so we actually have lights and electricity out there.

There has to be an easier way to lose a couple of pounds rather than baking in 10' high attic rafters in 90+ weather. Did you know that your knees could sweat?

Got eletrical pulled and started the grill. Tri tip really is just so good.

Spent the rest of the evening putting on faceplates and outlets and switch.

Call for final. Eep

Day 7 - Tuesday:

Last day of vacation for me. Hubby is hooking wires up to the subpanel. I'm buying faceplates and more breakers. Inspector shows up early. Sigh.

Missed it by that much. Wouldn't sign off with the panel hot and not finished. Said he'd come back at the end of the day.

Scrubbed the floor (all that dust and mud), finish the electrical, remove all the faceplates. Start taping for the priming job. Find out we can get 500+ square feet of stone for the floor super cheap if I go and take a look at it and okay everything.

Inspector comes back and signs off on the shop. Woo hoo! No more county. The permit is closed, no more inspections. It's ours to do as we please.

Back to WZ again to fight with pallets of stone and track down a guy to actually install the floor. Back home with 6000 lbs of stone - did I mention I have a really big truck? - and the installer guy and floor starts to go in.

You better ooh and ahh over that door. It caused endless fits picking it out.

Hubby primed the space with the paint sprayer while I was at WZ. I simply came home and finished up any spots he missed while they started playing with all that stone.

500 square feet of stone is a lot of stone.

Look at all that, and that's only two of the pallets worth.

We spent the rest of evening doing clean up and finishing the Herman Miller inventory and laying out all the panels and how everything look in the new space. It's gonna be gorgeous.

Addendum:

Saturday the light of my life was kind enough to realize that if I didn't get an outing that didn't involve, dust, dirt, mud, paint, stone or landscape yards I was going to hurt somebody.

So I got to go up to Windsor to the Knit group at the LYS and I finally got to prove to Rosemary that I really do exist ::vbg::

Where I worked on this.

It's a hat in RYC Cashsoft Aran in dark grey with some very subtle color work in a lighter more steel grey color. Gotta love a yarn diet if for no other reason than it forces you to go through your stash and remember the cool stuff you have and what it was for.

More on Operation Shop tomorrow. While we aren't finished, we are making progress. One ceiling got painted last night. Can you guess what color?

There's yarn in my house....

who knew?

Not me, that's for sure.

Another weekend spent on the construction project. I really must take some pictures. I have a feeling Romi thinks it's a figment of my imagination so I don't have to do something scary like meet new people.

We finished running all the smurf tube for the electrical conduits for all the outlets and lights and ceiling fans.

A ton of insulation was purchased on Saturday afternoon.

Nathan and his girlfriend Tina came over on Sunday bright and early to help. I was relegated to wielding paint brushes and sprayers, in an effort to keep me a mile away from the insulation (just thinking about that stuff makes me itch). We do know that all exposed wood on the outside of the structure must be covered (at least primed) to get the permit finalled. So off with primer and the sprayer I go.

Here is where I am very glad I do NOT have pictures. Note to self when using a paint sprayer, especially to do eaves over one's head, is to wear a hat. At the end of the day I was covered in paint and primer. Hair shellac in bright white and copper coin dots, with some actual drips thrown in to drive me nuts.

Never have I been so grateful for my tankless hot water heater. I think I got all of it out. It's only took an hour. Sigh. I'll be taking sponge baths for the rest of the week to make up for all the water I used.

Tonight hubby finishes the insulation so we can get inspected tomorrow and find out what else has to be done to get the thing finalled.

Then my 'vacation' starts Wednesday, in which we will spend at least two days attempting to knock out everything required to pass the final inspection.

We almost might still be making quick (ha) jaunt down to the Arizona for hubby's 20 year reunion.

Since I had the paint out yesterday, after priming I managed to get about two thirds of the entire garage structure eaves painted in the CORRECT color. The really big thing was the trim on the front of the garage. A couple of years ago when we got a WORKING garage door opener installed we thought we were going with a different color scheme.

So the trim ended up a really really really dark brown.

Last year we finally finished the final paint job on the house and the main part of the garage and realized the brown had to go. So on the front of the garage you could see the ugly brown trim with some of the right base, where plastic had been put up to protect the garage door itself.

I got tired of the front of the garage having a split personality, so I tackled that yesterday too. It needs one more coat of paint, but still looks WAY better than it did. Once the eaves are done in front, it will be ready for the pic a friend of ours wants since we used his stone panels for part of the front.

Either way, a lot got finished. More could have been done, but sleep is a general requirement these days as well as cleanliness.

On a knitting note. A friend down the street is expecting. I wasn't supposed to know yet, but I'm observant and noticed the motion sickness wrist bands she was wearing the other day and asked about them. Unexpected, unplanned, she's older... so they are waiting to announce until the ultrasound this week, but all the blood work was fine, so all of our fingers are crossed. This would be baby number 2 for her and I have no idea what to make. Let's just say I'm tired of booties.

Any ideas?

Why couldn't I just say 'Hi'?

The fact that I am horribly shy seems to escape most people. Kind of like my fear of ladders. I'll get up on them because I have to, but I spend every minute absolutely terrified.

Meeting new people is the same way. I like to, I want to, but I am such a complete and total wuss (I think my hearing problem plays a big part here) that it is very hard. You have NO idea how difficult it was for me to just simply show up at Knit Night at the local Borders back in January for the first time.

You may be wondering what my point is.

Last night after being rescued by my husband (turning off your car and watching MASSIVE amounts of steam roll out from under the hood is NEVER a good thing - and I like my car, don't want another one in spite of occasionally drooling over a Mini Cooper or a Z3), we headed to the new Staples to get more ribbon for his label maker.

I saw someone during my wanderings in the store that I swore was Kathleen, so I admit to kind of stalking her around the store while trying to decide if it was her or not. Telling myself (I have lots of conversations in my head - don't you?)

"No it cannot be her."

"She doesn't live in Santa Rosa."

"Why would she come to the Staples when I think the Office Depot is much closer?"

"No it cannot be her."

"Stop talking to yourself."

"Ooh, I wonder how much the 4.0GB Sandisk thumb drives are here?"

"Where the heck are the label ribbons?"

"Where the heck is my husband?"

Hubby and I ended up in the checkout line behind her and her two darling daughters. That would be the point at which I KNEW it was her (recognized her youngest from the blog) but I still didn't say anything.

So Kathleen, you weren't being stalked at Staples last night by a total weirdo in a Grumpy t-shirt. Just a minimal weirdo that was too much of a dork to say anything.

One of these Saturdays I'll make it up to the Saturday morning knitting group at A Good Yarn in Windsor and actually get to meet you and Rosemary (Taunya cannot have all the fun) and I might even say something then. :-)

My evening of dorkiness was rounded out by finally trimming the front roses (our house is actually starting to look habitable) and then dragging Oscar the dog around the neighborhood behind my bike. I then proceeded to tear the house, RV and all vehicles apart looking for a little slip of paper hubby had some notes on that he needed. I haven't found it yet, but I will, since it will bug me until I do.

No one has yet to guess what yesterday's picture was going to be. I guess I either need more people reading my blog, or I need to make more of them and see if someone gets it then.