What a blur of a weekend!
Let’s see…. Friday night kicked off with a Costco pizza for dinner, then I took the girls to Karate from 5:45-6:30. Home, started reading a book while Jim ran on the treadmill, we watched the movie “Looper” and then had a relatively early bedtime.
Saturday morning we decided to get our 3rd karate class in for the week- it was a 9:00am class. Jim came along to watch (his first time), and it was a good thing because we ran into one of our old FCNB co-workers that we hadn’t seen in 8 years or so. He looked great! Says he’s been doing karate for three years now and was definitely thinner and in better shape than when we used to work with him – says karate will do that to ya! I can see how.
Once home we were in a lazy mood and we weren’t sure if we should just kick back and relax, or actually knock off some of our to-do list projects. Up for discussion the previous night was taking down the closet door in our bedroom and FINALLY staining it and/or purchasing the necessary lumber to trim that door jamb and staining it as well. Or cutting the carpet out of the playroom door area and putting laminate floor down. Or doing yardwork- clean up the dead winter stuff. We agreed that we should do SOMETHING, so we opted to get the playroom floor finished.
We checked our inventory to see that we had all the necessary pieces- we found a couple of baseboard pieces that I haphazardly set up against the armoire in the pass-thru area when I realized how perfectly it filled that space and would “finish” the armoire- but the piece we had was about 4″ short. But guess what? It filled in the dishwasher gap nicely. Not quite killing two birds with one stone, but sort of. A couple non-listed tasks were wiped off the list, though!
Kitchen Base Before
Kitchen Base After
Well, to the naked eye it looks like it matches a lot better than that. In both cases!
Armoire Before
Armoire After
Back to the floor project….we didn’t have the transition pieces we thought we had (transition where the carpet and laminate meet) so we headed to Lowe’s to pick them up, along with some new carpet tack strips. We went to Lowe’s and there’s NO in stock transition pieces that come close to matching. I was prepared to settle for the metal trim instead….
But Jim said no. I didn’t really want that either. I much prefer to keep both patio doors identical…..our back door is trimmed like this…..
And we both wanted the playroom door to be trimmed the same.
We tried Home Depot next….nothing. So we went back over to Lowe’s to custom order two pieces….but they just weren’t quite right. Even the custom ordered stuff wouldn’t match exactly because the flooring was purchased from Costco and made by a company that doesn’t sell to Home Depot or Lowes. Unfortunately this means now we have to order direct from the manufacturer- to the tune of NINETY BUCKS for two pieces. Egads! Are we sure we don’t want to just spend $20 and do the metal trim? Ugh. There’s a price to pay for doing things the right way.
Back home Jim set up the garage for our cutting station. It took us about 45 minutes just to figure out the best way to DO the project (do we go left to right or right to left and how far out should that first piece go and where should those first seams be and how far into the playroom should it go and blah blah blah). And then we had to cut the carpet out and pull up the pad and pull the staples and vacuum the area. Once we started making the laminate cuts we had the whole thing done in about an hour.
Then I saw this….
Well that ain’t pretty! And there’s no way we’re pulling twenty feet of baseboard trim up to lower it to accomodate the 30″ of wood flooring we just installed!
Hmmm…..
So I went through our scrap supply and found a piece of quarter-round that works perfectly to fill that gap!
Ta-da!
We’re currently in a holding pattern waiting for the transition pieces to come in. In the meantime Jim secured the carpet to the floor (since there’s no tackstrips beneath) because we don’t want to install the tack strips until we have the trim in place to ensure the carpet was cut back correctly.
So 90% done I’m guessing. Stay tuned.
This brings us to 5pm on Saturday. Jim and I had been craving Five Guys burgers for about a week and had pre-determined that we’d go out to dinner Saturday and satisfy that craving. Trevor wasn’t home so we took the girls with us. After we got home we decided to watch the movie Aliens. I had the girls watch the 1986 trailer for it first, they decided it looked OK enough, but halfway through Brooke fell asleep and Riley decided it was too scary so she went to the front room to watch the Disney channel. (Side note- she tried watching it again on Sunday but Trevor chickened out so she still hasn’t seen the ending).
Sunday. We rolled out of bed around 8am. Breakfast was those yummy German Apple Pancakes (from the Original Pancake House) made at home, though. After breakfast I tackled a bit of laundry, waited for the sun to blast the frozen fog out of the area so we could do some yard stuff. Jim assembled a storage unit that we bought last summer while I pulled out all the old lily stalks and leaves, cut back the clematis, pulled out the dead grasses and chrysanthemums and other spent summer blooms. I raked the raised flower beds and dumped several buckets worth of decayed/dead plants. Probably spent just over an hour outside- it really felt nice in the sun. Chilly, but nice! Also spent a lot of time picking up dog bombs- the bad part about having TWO dogs- especially two that poop twice a day! Geesh!
Sunday evening was kick back and relax. Jim watched football, I worked on reorganizing the playroom (I’d made a daycare furniture trade with Kelli on Saturday morning- trading her play kitchen for my train table) and when I finished the playroom I finished reading my book.
We ate hamburgers AGAIN for the second night in a row. (I made them this time, no going out to eat)
Monday I got up with Jim (what a nice wife). Used the first part of the morning to type this up and take the appropriate pictures needed to finish this entry. Then got the girls up and we went to Skate World. My how that place has NOT changed at all in 30 years.
Lessons learned though…..
1) Get to Skate World as soon as they open.
2) Bring your own roller blades, or just wear the regular skates.
3) Go on a full stomach or sneak in snacks. DO NOT GO HUNGRY.
We had already planned on eating lunch at Costco, but I thought I might treat the girls to a snack while we are at Skateworld. Um, no- uber expensive and very few options. We were there for almost 2 hours I think.
Headed to Costco- they were letting me return our 2 year old flooring without any problems- so I took three full boxes back. Grabbed lunch there, then stopped at Lowe’s to return the non-matching transition pieces we’d picked up hoping & crossing our fingers that it was close enough. No go. Then I dropped the infant swing off at Kelli’s house, came home and re-colored Brooke’s pink stripes in her hair. We had karate at 4pm (it sure is nice to have the day off and get my kids into earlier classes!). Back home, rush to get something ready for dinner and I was out the door at 5:30 to go to a daycare training class in Gladstone. Class was over around 9:15, I was home just before 10pm. In bed and asleep by 10:20. Geesh!
I’d like a nap now, please.
Elisa's Ramblings 