Raise the Roof

We have had 5 hail/wind storms since April 10th. There have been quite a few roofs being replaced in the neighborhood. So we decided to call a few roofing contractors to see what they said. All three contractors agreed we had damage to our roof shingles, roof vents, gutters, windows/screens and A/C unit.

Monday, I called and filed a claim with our homeowners insurance (Farmers Insurance).

Thursday, the insurance adjuster came out and met with the roofing contractor we selected.

The result was a roof replacement! We did upgrade (more money ~ of course) to the 30 year shingle and a different type of roof vent system. No more mushroom vents on the top of the house.

I will post more pictures (and stories) of the roof replacment process.

We've never filed a homeowners claim before, so hopefully there won't be any surprises!

Jackie's room painted

It took Doug about an hour to do all the cutting in of the paint and an hour to paint the room! So long flowers ~ hello neutral walls!

A Tasty Treat

We tried this new Wells Blue Bunny treat: Birthday Party - Ice Cream Sandwiches

A party in a sandwich!
Creamy white birthday cake flavored ice cream with colorful confetti sprinkles
and swirls of blue frosting between two vanilla wafers.
10 sandwiches per box.

It tastes just like cake and ice cream combined !!!
NO SPOON OR FORK NEEDED

Weekend Painting

Saturday morning, Doug painted the kitchen island. Since he had his painting tools out,
I asked him about painting over Jackie's flowers in her room. This is the only bedroom
that has not been painted within the last 12 years that we have lived here.

So...a new project has been "born". Jackie's room will now become the "Parent Room". This room will have the bunkbeds re-stacked and we will eventually add a queen size bed.

Wallah!! A room for the future Elliott Mom, Dad and Baby to stay.

This is a before shot of Jackie's room in 2006 when she first painted her flowers on her wall.

This is the after photo of the same area with the flowers painted over using KILZ tintable paint. We had the KILZ tinted to match the neutral wall color we chose Behr "Natural Linen". Home Depot is currently having a paint rebate/sale. $5.00 off each gallon of Behr paint or $20 off each 5 gallons of Behr interior or exterior paint. FYI - The sale is good through July 4th.

This is the before photo of her closet / window area - July 2006

This is the after photo of the flowers painted over (it only took 2 coats to cover them)
Now Doug is shown painting the window sill and then will paint the door and floor trim.
Future completion photo - COMING SOON!

Saturday - Shopping & Salmon

It has been in the 100's almost every day this week, so we decided to get our errands out of the way in the morning.

Our first stop was the Container Store. We needed a replacement lid for our toothpick holder that sits on the counter. I just love walking around this store. I love organization so I'm in heaven in this store!

Our second stop was World Market. We needed to stock up on some Illy coffee. We just opened the bag of Caribou Coffee that Jackie brought us back from MN. We gotta make sure we don't run out of off "morning mud"!

Our third stop was the store next door - Michaels. I needed some more 12 x 12 scrapbook paper. I've been in a scrapbooking mood lately, so needed to make sure I didn't run out of some essential colors.

Our fourth stop was Barbecues Galore. We needed some more cedar planks as we plan to grill some salmon for supper.

Our fifth stop: Lowes Home Improvement store. We were looking at decorative glass pantry doors. We didn't find what we wanted so we traveled across the street to Home Depot (our sixth stop). There we ordered a pantry door from Feather River doors. It should be here in about 3 weeks. Below is a primed/painted version of the door we ordered, except that we ordered our door in maple veneer ~ so that we could stain it to match the kitchen cabinets.

A quick bite to eat at Taco Bell and we were off to our next to last stop - Sam's Club. We purchased some fresh Salmon from Chile, a bottle of 2007 Robert Mondavi Chardonnay and a cantaloupe.

Our final stop was Red Box. We rented "True Grit" and will plan to watch it after dinner. This movie is the newest remake of the 1969 movie of the same name starring, John Wayne. The previews looked excellent and we've been waiting for it to come out on DVD.

Below are a few photos of our wonderful dinner

Cedar Plank Smoked Salmon, Fried Rice, Green Beans

and a bottle of chardonnay

It's a Stretch

Sunday morning, we moved furniture out of the family room in preparation for stretching the carpet so that it could be tucked in to the freshly grouted tile floor in the kitchen. Home Depot rents carpet stretchers for $18 for 4 hours and a $75 deposit.

It's a lot of hard work!
And you have to be careful not to rip/tear the carpet.

June 11th

Today is June 11th, the 162nd day of the year...only 203 more til the end of the year. So can't keep putting those projects off. We were up bright and early this morning to beat the heat. It has been between 97 and 100 degrees for about 8 days in a row.

Doug was doing some touch-up staining on the interior of our cedar fence.

I made a pasta salad, vacuumed upstairs & downstairs, mowed the yard and called my mom.
I did all my other cleaning earlier in the week :-)

Afternoon plans are up in the air as we have a graduation party this evening. Tori, is the daughter of Doug's friend ~ Maarten Jans. We haven't seen him since the ALS Walk in October. Looking forward to a great time, the Jans family always throw a great party!!

1960's Classic

Now that you've reached that vintage age, you are considered a real classic.
So take time to relax and enjoy your special day.

Happy 51st Birthay Doug, you are a real 1960's Classic!

Another 1960's Classic
1960 Ford Galaxie

1st weekend in June

Friday afternoon, Jackie's car and my truck were packed up with Jackie's stuff for her move to Conroe, TX.

Friday night, Doug finished grouting the dining area of the kitchen. We are now at a "stand still" until we can decide what we want to do about the floor trim, shoe moulding and door casing trim.


Saturday morning, we were up early and left the house by 7:20am. We stopped in Huntsville and picked up some more of Jackie's belongings from Sandi & Phil's house. We arrived in Conroe about 11am and we all (Doug, Dee, Jonathan, Jackie & Josh unloaded the truck....Jill was excused from carrying boxes up the stairs since she's pregnant). The move didn't really take very long. Jackie and Jonathan had arrived ahead of us so their vehicles were already unloaded when we got there. We had lunch @ McKenzies and then headed back to the apartment to assist in the un-packing process. Later in the afternoon, we would go to Josh & Jills for dinner and to stay overnight. We left for home late Sunday morning.

It was an busy weekend...Sorry I didn't take my camera so I don't have any photos to share.

"The Man"

Wednesday night, I was cleaning out the refrigerator and put some old leftovers down the garbage disposal. Now mind you....I hardly ever use our disposal ~ but I did this time.

Well the disposal worked fine at the time and I followed the use of the disposal by running lots of cold water down the drain and using alot of ice cubes down the disposal to make sure it was cleaned out well.

Apparantly, the drain was not cleaned out very well. I went to do dishes several hours later and when I was running water, water was backing up on the other side of the sink. The water eventually drained out but took quite a while.

Doug had been out changing the oil on Jackie's car and did not come in the house until 10pm. So he checked the pipes underneath the sink and there was no clog there. He tried using a plunger, but that did not work. The clog was much further down the drain system.

So time to call "THE MAN". I researched plumbers on Angie's List that evening. I did not place a call for service that evening, because I didn't want to pay the emergency dispatch fee. So I waited to call for service on Thursday morning. I called a couple of plumbers. One called back around 9am and said they would be out before noon.

So the photo above is of the service technician from C&W Plumbing "snaking" my kitchen drain.
He was at the house for an hour (10-11am)
Cost: $239.67 YIKES!!