My week off

This last week, Brent and I took time off from work. I always have plans for my vacation time to accomplish a big project or two but rarely does it happen. This time, my plans were to finish the hall bathroom and clean out the garage. Last year in November, I decided it was time to get rid of the ugly wallpaper in there and paint. I tore off all the wallpaper and did it on my lunch hour. A couple of days later, I had asked Brent to sand down the walls because the original paint was oil based. So, he sanded and then called down to me to come take a look. As I was on my way up the stairs, he said, "you wanted to get rid of the lineoleum didn't you?" He had torn up all the flooring. Yes, it was my intent to eventually put tile down. It was also my intent to get a new countertop. The marble look laminate really needs to go. Needless to say, it's been a year and the only thing finished before this week was the paint. About 4 months ago, I took the oak cabinet apart to sand everything down. It was originally stained a honey oak but I wanted it white. It's been sitting out on the deck all summer waiting for me to have a Sunday to myself to take care of it. Those Sunday's never seemed to come along. This week, I finally finished it. We never did pick out any tile or granite for the countertop. Brent said he wants to call the guy that did the countertops in our basement but he has to find his business card first. That was 5 years ago, I don't think he's going to find the card after all this time. It may be another year before the rest of it gets done.

Another project that I have had in my mind is to make a frame for my bed to go around the box springs. Most people will use a bed skirt to hide the box springs. I can't. I have a dog that rebels when Brent leaves the house and will mark against the bed. Years ago, I covered the box springs with plastic so that "it" wouldn't stain or stink. Pretty smart of me except it's real ugly and to have to put on and take off a bedskirt that often is just too much work...so I came up with this ingenious idea to make a wood frame. This week, we bought three pine boards and I painted them black. I also bought two "feet". As soon as they get nailed together, I will take a picture of it. Now, I am making a coverlet for my bed to match the headboard I made a year ago. The master suite is almost finished. Even though the bathroom isn't finished, I still feel like we accomplished a lot more than I expected.

By the way, Brent got half of the garage cleaned out. He has more time off in November and plans on cleaning out the other half. We have some peg board on one of the walls of the garage and I finally bought some hooks to put on there and he announced to me yesterday that we need more. I finally got him to realize the benefits of organization with his tools.

Oh, I forgot to mention, I also made 10 batches of plum jam (that ended up being about 60 jars of various sizes)and another batch of salsa.