How did you spend your easter weekend?

Well I can tell you how Kelly and I spent it... laying some tile. It's been two day and we still not quite finished. We have been trading out laying the tile to give each others back a break. We finally are to a point that we have getting the right consistency in the mortar, placing, cutting, and setting the tile.

I think we both thought that the tile would go down a little faster than it is. But as we go we are learning (trial and error) and we are starting to cover some square footage. 

But since we didn't think just spending the weekend tiling was enough we added a couple other projects. The first was helping out some friends of ours with designing and building a dance floor. The school their children go to is having a dance. To save the charter school some money they volunteered to build a dance floor to put over the gym flooring. 

 A little shopping trip to gather all the material

Track saw makes breaking down sheet goods a snap 

Its all coming together...  

 Screw this!

I don't know why Kelly took a picture of my ass... she likes it!

Meanwhile back in the house... So one of my projects on the list to do is to redo the laundry room. It is a small room that is in desperate need of some TLC. Since the washer and dryer are in the garage while we tile it seemed like a good time to slap a fresh coat of paint on. 

All in all it was a very busy but productive weekend. Tomorrow Kelly goes back to work and I drive to go pick up my kids and put them to work while they're here next week. I was able to get some time off work next week so hopefully I'll be able to make a serious dent in our little remodel. 

Once again... a bigger project than we thought!!!

Me and Kelly have a habit of going big when it comes to projects (or just about anything). We don't realize the full extent of the project until we are to far in to back out. I had a four day trip for work so Kelly wanted to start ripping up the floor while I was gone. I showed her how to pull up the baseboard and vinyl flooring and like the subcontractor of my dreams off she went.

As my day job kept be away from home, Kelly was busy coming home from her day job to labor away at the vinyl floor. I think she put it best when she said "It's not the vinyl floor that gets you... it's the glue". Each night as I lay in my bed in my hotel I would receive a pic of her progress.

By the time I returned home she had removed most of the old flooring from the Kitchen and Dining Room. Now there is close to 472 different ways according to the Internet to remove the glue from a cement floor. Let me tell you that each of the ones we tried suck.

So to add to our little glue removing adventure we discovered a little crack that is less than an 1/8th of an inch wide and over 12 feet long. Why not add patching a crack to the list of things to do. Now I'm sure by now you are asking yourself why would anyone attempt something so daring... so crazy? I'll tell you why... I love it (Not sure if Kelly fully agrees with me). I love to see the transformation that is the result of your labor. You can't pay a contractor for that. So as Kelly continued to rock out the flooring demo. I started to demo the upper cabinets in preparation for the new fridge surround.

 We are going to refinish the lower cabinets and replace the counter tops but all the upper cabinets are going to get replaced. The first of these to get built will be the fridge surround with upper cabinets. Due to it's size I built the carcass in the living room and then set it in place.

 With the carcass in place we call it a night. There will be plenty of fun and excitement for tomorrow and then some. So far I think we are making some pretty good progress.

Not sure if I mentioned it... Vinyl flooring glue sucks!!!