'Round and Around and Around We Go!

Well, between the holidays, our sweet niece’s wedding in Hawaii, and the KC Chiefs, our productivity has really fallen by the wayside these past few months. We’ve had a wonderful break, but now Greg is cracking the whip to get this place finished, so we are “back to the salt mines,” as my mom used to say.

We’ve still got a long way to go, but now are to the point that we can visually measure our progress after each weekend pulls to a close. For so long we worked on internal elements - plumbing, insulation, electrical wiring – each of which was obviously critical, but none of which was particularly exciting. Now we’re painting walls, installing wood ceilings, finishing tile work, installing lighting, etc. It’s the fun stuff, and we’re motivated.

During the week when we’re back in KC, I like to peruse local estate sales, antique shops and flea markets to check for bargains. One of my best “catches” recently was this awesome boomerang coffee table for the living room. It should work great with the mid-century recliner chair and two side chairs that were nabbed at previous estate sales, so I’m psyched. The place is starting to take shape.

I also check the local online auction sites, and that’s where I spotted this little gem. Can you believe that NO ONE bid against me on this? Wait – you’re saying that you CAN believe that?! That’s how Greg felt about it, too. There’s just no accounting for taste, I guess.

Well, so I got this sweet thing for $14 all-in, and was thrilled. This auction company has its warehouse just 10 minutes from our “real” house, so this was going to be the best deal ever - or so I thought. It wasn’t until I received confirmation that this swing was mine that I finally realized my folly. THIS item had been left at its original site on a farm out in the country, waaaaaaaay north of downtown Kansas City. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??!! My cheap-o bargain quickly threatened to become an overpriced piece of junk! It needed to be picked up within a 4-hour window on one specific day. Time to re-jigger my schedule and make the best of it, I guess. A quick call to an adventuresome friend with an afternoon to spare (thanks, Ellen!) resulted in a fun day of lunch in Liberty, MO, followed by an incredibly circuitous tour of the nether-reaches of northern Missouri, and great conversations with two locals at least a mile apart from one another, neither of whom had any idea what their OWN house numbers were, let alone the house number we were trying to find on their country lane. They could have easily helped us if we’d simply known the swing-owner’s NAME because that’s how they identify all the homes and farms up there, but all that we had was a house and street number. Meh – we kept driving and miles down the road we finally spotted the swing set up as a helpful sign, we disassembled it with help from the owner’s son-in-law, and now it’s all set up where it should be. I think I’ll boost its colors with some spray paint, but otherwise it’s perfect.

Greg is making hay with the ceiling project. Each individual board has to be measured, cut at the proper angles, nailed, then re-measured for the next board – and on and on it goes. Greg has logged miles and miles of steps in a single day – all within a radius of about 50 feet! He’s got it down to a system and is actually going up faster than we had anticipated.

The miles walked don’t seem so bad when you have an amazing weekend like we had a few days ago. Our temps perked up to the mid-70’s, so Greg was truly enjoying his outdoor workshop.

One family member who struggles mightily with his days with us is our sweet 14-year old rescue greyhound, Bo. He has always been a sensitive soul who becomes skittish being in the same room during a football game, so you can imagine his fear of our air compressor and nail gun. We tried putting Greg’s ear protection on him, but that didn’t work too well. He is good at finding a quiet spot in the house each day or if he gets too ruffled he simply goes outside for a walk, so he has learned to cope. But Bo is always exhausted by the time we return to our real lake house for the evenings.

You may be interested in knowing the ingenious method Greg devised to line up the initial curved board to start the series of wood for each section, as each initial curve is slightly different. There would be 16 sections of pie-shaped ceiling in the house if we chose to use this ceiling treatment throughout the home. Though most of the house will have pine ceilings, a few areas – specifically the small entry, the utility closet, all storage closets and both bathrooms have drywall ceilings, so that cut about 4 sections or so from the total. For all others, here is Greg’s handy-dandy method for creating the arc cut that begins each section from the outside to the center. He simply taped a Sharpie to the corner of a box we had on hand, and he uses this “tool” to trace a mirrored line onto the board. Cut along the line and VOILA! We have our outer board for the new section.

Innovative, right?!

Meanwhile, I’ve been plugging away on the paint-by-number mural in the living room. This view out the adjacent sliding glass door served as its inspiration. Watch this short video. See the cedar trees, the hills and the lake below? That’s what I hope is evoked with this mural as well, so we can bring a bit of the outdoors into the room.

My tools are more mundane than Greg’s - just an array of paints and my “cheat sheet” for second coats and touch-ups. Once that number on the wall has been painted over there’s no looking back, so my cheat sheet allows me to color-match the section in question and select the corresponding paint for another coat.

It’s been a fun and relatively fast project – especially with help. Steve, one of our neighbors along the street, was sweet enough to join in and grab some paint and a brush. It was great to have his company for the afternoon, along with his kind assistance.

This week, a wonderful college friend came down from Nebraska to help me put the finishing touches on the mural and provide helpful direction and advice for the overall décor.

Karen, known by all of us “sisters in the bond” as KB, drove down from Unadilla, NE to Kansas City and hopped into my car for the rest of the journey down to Shell Knob. Myopic me was so intent on completing our projects that I didn’t stop to take a picture of KB in action while there. Or maybe the photos didn’t happen because I simply could not keep up with her. (The photo above was taken previously, on yet another paint by number mural.) So, together we were able to finish the round house mural in record time. Following that, our attention turned to the overall look of the room.

Months ago Greg and I hung white-washed, highly textured paneling around the perimeter walls around the house, while smooth sheetrock walls comprise all interior dividing walls With the advent of the new wood ceilings, the mural in the living room and the soon-to-be cork flooring, it was easy to see that the décor was going to clash because there was so much happening, visually. Our eyes need to have a place to “rest,” as they say in the interior design world. (I know this because I am an HGTV-aholic!) But can you see how the washed treatment on the paneling gave the walls a striped effect? Ugh. Not a good look next to the knotty pine ceilings.

So KB and I quickly settled on the idea of painting the paneling white, and she was game enough to shift gears and help tape and paint both the living room and one bedroom. Given that we were only painting the exterior curved wall in each room it went pretty fast, though the living room required two coats. Here is a Before/After view. It feels much fresher and brighter now - even with all the trash and junk in the way.

That’s the latest, for now. Next steps include tiling the smaller bathroom, followed by cork flooring and kitchen cabinet installation. More excitement to come!