Ned wants some face time.

Ned wanted some face time. He was feeling left out. The beastie is doing well. His hair is growing back from his annual summer shave. His day consists of lounging around the house.

Susie's annual bike crash

As is tradition, I crashed on my mountain bike again this year. The funny part is that at the mid-point in my ride (atop Dimple Hill) I called Shannon to say, "Hey, I'm riding...wish you were here." That was my fatal mistake. As all or most of you know, I am imfamous for crashing when I am riding with Shannon. Needless to say, about 1, maybe 2 minutes from the end of my ride, I ate it. My front wheel hit soft gravel and it was Susie on the trail. This the one of my best war wounds. smile.

Adding onto the kitchen

The kitchen is a pretty decent size, but one section in particular is really small - the area between the fridge and the pantry. It measured about 17 inches wide; about all we would put there was the coffee machine, and even that was tight.


When we decided on putting new countertops, we thought it was the perfect time to add some countertop space. We closed over the existing door (again, i have Josh to thank for his help there) and then had some new wall and base cabinets made (done by Santiam Cabinets in Albany, Oregon - good people).

While the cabinets were being built, Susie painted the kitchen a great blue color.


We had the cabinets installed on Thursday and the countertops on Friday. I don't recommend having the two installs that close, but i'm glad it worked out.

I'll save the finishing touches for a later blog entry ...

Refinishing the cabinets

One of the things we really didn't like about the new house was the cabinets. They were too much of a honey color for our liking. We did some research into having them chemically stripped, but it was going to be a bunch of money and they couldn't guarantee that it was going to take all the finish off. So we decided that we could do it ourselves.

We rounded up the usual suspects (Josh and Jess Smith) and started sanding like fools. Susie and Jess took the doors outside while Josh and i worked on the cabinets themselves.

It didn't take long before everything was covered in sawdust, but amazingly, we finished sanding in one Saturday.

After the first sanding the oak looked great.

So i put on some wood conditioner and the first coat of Varathane Dark Walnut stain. The first cabinet turned out just like we had envisioned, but somewhere along the way they got darker and darker.


To be continued ...

The breakfast nook - phase 1

This house has an interesting breakfast nook just off the kitchen and dining room. It seemed too small for a table and chairs, so we decided it should become a seating area with a bookshelf. These pictures are art of phase 1, hopefully to be followed by various other phases in the not-too-distant future. I would wax eloquent with the work that i did, but basically it's plywood boxes put on the level and painted white. The interesting part of it is that there was a register right under the middle window. We didn't want to lose that air, so there's a wood-cutout vent in the front and the sides are setup so that air can escape there. Hopefully it will never become a fire hazard, or at least if it does, it won't be while we own the house. The next phase (which i'll have to take pictures of) is the lighting for the nook. We have some of the lighting in place now, but i'll add the finishing touches once we have the bookshelf in place. The bookshelf is the next phase and i already have the base finished.

House Improvements

As you know Mike & I are making changes to the house. The three big ones were a paint job, yard, and kitchen. The path was my vision, and it is almost done. It needs the shed at the end to complete the idea. (Hopefully a Fall construction), and the kitchen is Mike's main project this summer. He is 99% done. We are both very happy with the outcome. Mike did a lot of work (with help from friends), and it is nice to be able to use the kitchen.

Superhero Susie!!

start of a blog

Hi all,

Since Susie has been patiently waiting for us to start a blog, i thought i'd better get on it.
I will probably use the house projects we have going as a basis for the blog, but will try to add some pics of vacations, friends and of course Ned.

I'm going to have to figure out 1. how to modify the size of pictures on a Mac, 2. how to add to a blog ... so pictures later.

back in a bit ... mike