Floor and Roof and Vacation...

We have 5 coats of floor finish varnish on our floor. Now we are just waiting for it to harden, so we can freely walk around on it.

Yesterday the roofers showed up at 9:30 and very slowly worked on our roof. They got about half of it done and were gone before 5 when my husband had gone back over to check on them. Hopefully they will finish it tomorrow. I have never known a roofing crew that started later than seven am. Generally they like to get an early start so that they can avoid some heat. We are getting 30 year architectural shingles, dark grey/black. They look really nice on our roof.

Tomorrow we are leaving for South Lake Tahoe, CA for a week. My uncle has reserved a timeshare for us there. I am looking forward to relaxing by the lake, hiking and taking tons of pictures:) When we first decided to go there I was checking on the local activities and apparently there is a car show during the time we will be there. Everytime we go on vacation there is a car show. Maybe on our next vacation there will be a quilt show...

Dust

We got the keys to our house on Friday. Thirty minutes after we arrived the carpet and pad were all rolled up and in the driveway. Our home has old growth red fir floors. We were quite surprised to find the condition that they were in. In the living room they had only finished the edges about two feet out from the wall. It didn't look like the center had ever been finished, but it is 60 years old, so that may not be the case. In some spots they had spray-painted black on the floor. It was really weird. The bedrooms were both all finished. At some point someone had painted inside and didn't bother to put down a drop cloth so near the walls it was all white with over spray. We pulled all the staples (from the carpet pad) out of the floor and made sure it was ready to sand the next morning.

Saturday morning we got to work with the floor sanders. We had a total of 6 people working on it and eight different types of sanders to use. We sanded all day Saturday, my husband stayed there until 3am working on it. Sunday morning we were up and at 'em again. The people who had attempted to refinish them before did not know how to use a sander and there were deep groves all over. After two straight days we were able to get it all flat.

Monday, I had to work, but my husband and my parents went and wiped the ceiling and walls down and vaccummed up all the dust so that it would be ready to put the finish on. We decided that we like the color of the natural wood without stain. Today my husband has been putting coats of varnish on the floor. He has been sending me pictures via camera phone and it looks beautiful. He said it looks like my hair in the summer sunshine. I am excited to go "home" after work and see it tonight.

I have taken pictures of each step and will post them soon.

Our First House

This is our first house. We sign papers today and get keys tomorrow! The important statistics are:
772 square feet
2 bedrooms
1 bathroom
.17 acres
irrigation water
garden space
oversized single car detached garage
large concrete driveway
storage shead
big mature trees
mature landscaping
on a circle drive (no thru traffic).

A friend of ours gave us a wood burning stove for the living room, with the pad that it sits on. So we can finally have wood heat. That is so exciting!!!

Right now it has carpet in it, but under the carpet hides hardwood flooring. Right after we get the keys on Friday we are going to tear out the carpet and see what shape the hardwood flooring is in. It looks like it has been painted from the corners that we were able to peak at. I am not sure if they painted the whole floor or if they just got a little carried away with the trim paint. I have secured a floor sander for Saturday so that we can get right to work.

After we finish the floor we will move onto painting the interior. (I thought it makes more sense to do the paint first, but since sanding the floor will create so much dust it is best to do that first and then wash the walls to prep for paint then to get dust all over fresh paint, cause you can't wash it for a few weeks.) I am so not a color person and we are really struggling with color choice. Right now we are leaning toward a light tan for the living room and bedrooms. Maybe a blue shade for the kitchen and green for the bathroom. Any thoughts?

Tomatos

Some of my tomatos have blossom end rot. I have been reading up on it and apparently it is caused by lack of calcium in the fruit. Often because the plant grows so fast it can't get the calcium to the fruit. Generally it only affects the initial fruit. I am really sad because it really got my roma tomatos, which I was going to use to make a ton of salsa. Hopefully they pull out of it. Everything else in my garden is happy. I got a start from my grandpas rhubarb and is is growing like crazy, after it died. My basil is so beautiful. I really need to cut it and dry a bunch. Pretty soon here I am going to have more yellow pear tomatos than any two people really need. It is so much fun to start stuff by putting a seed in the ground and see how much fruit it will produce.