world's worse home owner...

the title of this entry is singular. i'll claim the "worseness" of the two. i just don't care enough to do stuff. i feel secure enough say that i spend most of my time loving people in my home than loving my house and taking care of it. that's my personal rational. yes, i realize that loving my family means taking care of the roof over our heads, so from time to time, after family, work, and espn... i'll use some of my time to do house repairs.

i'm not that good at it in the first place - just ask kory phillips. we almost called 911 in the middle of replacing a ceiling fan last summer. now that was exciting. turn off the switch before you grab any wires, in case you are going to try that type of repair soon.

so anyways... back in june when it rained for a week while me and the girls were in mexico on our mission trip... our roof leaked in our living room... causing a sagging sheet rock to break and leave a mess in our floor. the sheet rock had been sagging for about 6 years... how about that for home owner. well, i put another coating of tar on the outside in june... and in august finally did the sheet rock. charlie farrell, my dad, and i did the sheet rock, cindy did some painting, and i repainted the entire ceiling (it could still use a second coat if you are a pro... but i'll see how long i can make it on this one).

here's the way the ceiling looked. how do you like that black mold action? we bleached it and it cleared out.

puttin' the mud in...

after the mud and sanding and mud and sanding and one more time... mud and sanding. then we started painting. i did the ceiling in the kitchen, living room and dining room... sure wish i had an extender.


dad painted the edges and cindy painted the walls and the cabinets. the wall right where my dad is used to be the country blue checkered you see on the other wall. so cindy primed and painted it. then she had to all the dining room walls (the bottom half) and aggravated her sciatic nerve. this is the only pic i've got on that...



all of this done of course under the great supervision of charlie farrell... here you see him working hard while my dad uses the paint brush. actually, charlie came over several times during the week to show me how to do things and get me started on different parts of the project. he also loaned me some tools and materials... thanks charlie!

here's the ceiling... vuala (sp?)

but wait... i'm not done. nope, today i finally replaced the ballast (sp?). i've actually talked about "replacing the ballister" all week. what a geek.

i had a trusty little helper ... and not a bad photographer, huh? she's got a mouth full of apple.

hey look... we made light! ok, maybe we just fixed an electrical artifact that produces light by channeling an charged current through a glass tube...

well, i just finished my last project for a while. we changed a plug outlet. that was quite the task (don't worry, i pulled the fuse this time). aubrey and lolo helped me with their flashlights (the rechargeable ones that they get to wind every 2 minutes). they even got to screw in part of it. we went from a two prong to a three prong (one with a ground on it).

so there you go. all the work has been done over the last month. the next project is the fascia board and the sophet (sp?) too. but rand said if i help him, he'll help me and dad do ours. that's it for now. no major work to do in diego's room. we wish we would have put the wood laminate down the hall way of the house... but that's way beyond my learning curve. that's the house front.

on the home front, i'll get you up to date on the girls school and soccer here in the next week. cindy is currently looking for a job, since the only way to keep her hospice nursing job at "southern care" was to become what they wanted: a full time nurse. cindy and i feel good right now about two days a week. so... we hadn't planned on this happening until december, so... pray for her job search. keep our whole family in your prayers as we continue to search for God's will for us. more posts to come...