Typical Van Haren Project

Wow!! What a whirlwind the last month and a half has been. The trip to AZ was better than anticipated - really enjoyed seeing everyone and wish in retrospect that I had been able to stay longer. Then on to RI for two weeks of spoiling my favorite nietas.

Followed this by a trip for Mother's Day to Devil's Tower. That was wonderful - we went out early in the morning and were able to do a leisurely walk around the tower having the place to ourselves in the nice crisp air.

Then back to real life and due to a management shakeup at the mine, JW gets to be retired for a while. All we know is that we don't plan to move - may need to tighten our belts a little (that will be a good thing) and then we'll see what happens.

So now that JW has nothing better to do with his life, it's time to put the honey-do list up as a top priority. First on the list was finish the basement flooring. 700 sq feet of dura-ceramic tile later, that was starting to look good - especially since it had been just concrete since early-2003. However, it hasn't been quite warm enough to put down the sealer in the seams so that part remains. He also put a new toilet in the downstairs bathroom - yes, no more short avocado green toilet woo hoo.

Second on the list was the recessed lights in the ceiling - this according to JW was going to be fairly simple. We figured out how many lights we needed and purchased them. 12 in all along with a Tuscan Bronze Ring to put around them as I didn't want white or silver. At last my downstairs world was going to be well lit.

Last Wednesday morning it started raining and raining and raining. JW spent the day finishing up the trim around the walls by the floor. Thursday morning, he came down to the basement intending to cut 12 6" circles in the ceiling and get those lights up - would only take him a couple of days.

By 10:00 a.m., he decided that he was going to have to cut too many holes in the ceiling to drill through the cross beams so it would be best for the ceiling to come down. At 11:00 am, he brought in the sawz all and started cutting through the drywall. WAIT STOP - never mind that I was sitting at my desk in the corner working and was being showered by dust. I convince him that OK - first, he needs to cover up the TV, the two chairs that are in the room (we moved everything else out when we started working on the floor) and I needed to move my computer upstairs to the dining room table for his "3-day project of installing lights".

By 12:00 I am safely moved upstairs, we've eaten lunch and he is back downstairs ripping out a 15' x 30' piece of ceiling. I notice that white dust is drifting upstairs into the kitchen. I open the doors thinking that will clear the air. I get off work at 2:00 and head downstairs to help. My job is to pile the cut pieces of drywall outside (keeping them out of the rain though or we'll have a mess). Later I am allowed to use the hammer to break smaller pieces of drywall off where it is nailed to the cross-beams but being a woman, i'm definitely not allowed to touch the power tool.

5:00 PM, we have finished taking down this part of the ceiling (we decide not to do the 2nd 8' x 36' piece as it is getting late) and we want to finish the one side and get the lights up before we delve into the other side. We spend the next hour cleaning up downstairs - as JW is finishing up the last bit, I head upstairs to start warming up dinner. Upstairs is a nightmare - there is 1/8" of white fine powder on everything. I clean off the counters, grab the dust mop, give the floors a lick and a promise and decide to head to the shower.

By 7:00 we have eaten and settle down to watch a little tv before heading off to bed. As we sit in the basement with the exposed cross beams, I comment on how I like the look of wood compared to a painted drywall ceiling.

Friday morning, get up and I go to work. JW sits down for breakfast and starts looking on the internet to see what he can find to put up on the ceiling. He comes up with some pickwick paneling. We decide to go that route. I call Lowe's and they have 38 bundles of this but I need 50 so we decide we'll go in Saturday morning and check it out before we order more. JW spends most of the morning mopping downstairs and cleaning white powder upstairs. We decide that we aren't cutting any more drywall until we put up plastic sheeting to keep it from coming upstairs.

Saturday, we go into town and find what we need at Lowes. They have a generic brand that is quite a bit cheaper and will actually look more rustic so we decide to go that way. (At the cost of that 1/4" thing stuff, I can't imagine how much the thick tongue and groove knotty pine we got from Alexshuman would have cost). We also buy a light green and dark green paint for the basement so that I can get it painted.

Sunday, JW spends the morning staining some of the pickwick to put on the ceiling. Late in the afternoon, he comes down and starts putting up plastic sheeting so he can start doing something. He informs me that he isn't taking down the rest of the ceiling until he gets done with the other side. I inform him that we need to because I don't want fine white powder all over my newly installed ceiling so it is coming down first. For once, I get my way and we work till 6:30 taking down ceiling. We get about half of that side done.

Monday morning (the last day of what should have been an enjoyable 3 day weekend), we have a nice breakfast and then decide if we get downstairs, we can get that ceiling down in about 2 hours and then we can do something fun - maybe go for a drive in the rain (6 days it's been raining - almost 6" so it is going to be gorgeous when that sun comes out and things really start growing). Anyway, as we are tearing down the rest of the ceiling, I make the comment that "since the ceiling is down, we should look at a theater system and get some speakers installed" as it is something we had wanted to do for the past 7 years.

By 10:30, we have the ceiling down, cleaned up the mess, cleaned up ourselves and are heading into town to look at a surround system for the basement. We go to one place and are amazed by what they have and they say they will come out and help us determine how many speakers we need and where they should be placed. We head for home, another fairly cheap project is going to end up costing us 10 times the original price of the lights, take 3 weeks instead of 3 days and JW comments "Maybe we should....... "