I have tried to take all these photos approximately from the same position, both before and after.

Kitchen on fridge side, before

After

Kitchen, stove side before

After

Becca's bedroom, before

After

Master bedroom, before

After, yes, this is the same camera angle as the before shot!

Front bathroom, before

After

The living room fireplace, before

After, I built a new mantel (all by myself!) and painted it.

And here are just some general pics of how things look now, from other perspectives:

The dining room. We have since added a rug under the table.

The laundry room

Looking from the den, toward the kitchen and dining room

Kitchen, looking into dining room

Kitchen, seen from dining room

Next, I hope to share some pictures of what we have done outside.

Here are the first set of good before and after photos I have taken on the house, to give you an idea how much it has changed:

Kitchen Cabinets Before                                                After

Yes, there are the same cabinets!

(Left) Before, as I found it when Gene moved out

(Right) Cleaned, new door hardware, and staged

Master Bathroom

We not only changed out the mirror and vanity here, but we moved the door, so you didn't see the toilet first thing as you looked in, it is now to the right, facing the vanity and the door opening have been moved about 3 feet to the left.

Fireplace in master bedroom. We cleaned, removed the old brass face, and cleaned and cleaned.... We will probably try to get the soot off the stone work from previous fires.

Yesterday we rented the largest U-Haul possible, 26 feet of moving power! I got to be the designated driver, can you say Wheeeee? It was an old 70's era thing that was so old it only had lap belts! No shoulder seat belts! And it was stick shift and diesel. Anyhow, Joe and I and a couple of guys loaded it with all the trash and debris that has accumulated in the side yard from our work. This was the second debris purge, so was not even the entire lot since we started in August, if you can believe that! Anyhow, we completely filled the truck and took it to the dump. Everyone was impressed by the weight, even the guy at that dump that weighs you before and after. We loaded, hauled and dumped OVER 5,000 pounds of stuff! Yep, that is not a mistype, there was over two tons of junk to throw out. And as I said, this did not include the old carpets, baseboards and the first round of junk Gene left behind!

Needless to say, we were filthy and exhausted by the end of the day, but hopefully that was the last major job. We were back today, working more on finishing up the staging details, like cleaning light fixtures, taking painting overspray from painting off windows, cleaning ash and soot from the fireplaces, etc. We hope to have the first open house a week from this friday. More pictures to come! I am so glad we are almost done. I am so sick of working there!

We are not totally done with re-doing the kitchen in the old house, but we are close enough that I could not resist taking some photos to show off the before and after...

This is what the cabinets in the kitchen looked like when Gene moved out:

As you can see, they were encrusted with dirt, grease and food. I literally spent hundreds of hours stripping them down so they could be repainted. And it goes without saying, that this old hardware had to go!

We are still missing the outlet covers and new light over the sink, but it looks pretty nice! I also had to do major cleaning of all the appliances in the kitchen, they were also filthy with food and black grease (I think automotive oil and such).

And here is the new kitchen, the cabinets now painted a soft green with new hardware. What a difference some paint makes, huh? Well the new hardwood floors probably help as well.

Here are a few more photos of the new floor:

Here you see the new hardwood floor, new carpets in the den, the addition of a ceiling fan and the railing sanded and repainted black (it had been a dirty, chipped off white). I will be adding a nicer mantel to this fireplace, which will be black to match the trim.

Another view of the same room and new ceiling fan. We also changed the corners of the opening so they were rounded, rather than sharp corners. I think it looks nicer and softer.

New vanity, mirror and light fixture in Becca's old bathroom. There is also a matching storage cabinet on the wall over the toilet, but you can't see it from this picture

So that is it for now. I hope to have some better before and after photos soon. Overall, it is all looking really good. Like a completely different house, really!

Christmas break is over and the girls are back in school. Back to homework, projects, picking up kids at various times depending on after school activities and of course Girl Scouts.

For the second half of the girl's break we drove up to central California to see my grandmother, who is now 102, and doing darn well considering. Do you know she does not have arthritis anywhere in her body? Nor does or has she had cancer of any type? Beyond occasionally repeating herself and getting tired out very easily, she is amazing to me. I asked her how she met my Grandfather (who passed on many years ago) and she said the Boy Scouts were using their backyard in Council Bluffs, Iowa for a campout and set up a tent. My grandfather was one of the boys at the time and was 16, if I recall correctly. He saw my grandma and went home and told his parents he had met the girl he would marry! She was only 14 then! He waited till she was 16 to propose and then they waited till she graduated from high school to get married. She graduated on a Friday, they were married on that Sunday. Can you imagine?

So back to our overall trip. We decided to break it into two days travel, since 400 miles in one day with two kids can be painful! So the first day we drove up to Santa Barbara and spent the night. The next day, before leaving the area, we visited the Santa Barbara Mission. It is probably the best kept and prettiest of the mission today and it was interesting to learn about the history of California while there. Before California was part of the US, the Spanish sent Catholic missionaries up the coast to set up churches that were supposed to be spaced so there was one days travel between them. Once established, their goal was to convert the native indians to Christianity and teach them trades and skills.  Megan is learning all about the history of California this year in school and Becca did 2 years back, so both of them found it interesting to see in persons some of what they had read about in books.

As typical, I had my trusty camera with me and took photos. Here are a few you might enjoy:

The front of the mission

A covered walkway

This was a long stone basin that would fill with water from the mouth of the stone bear, and was used by the people to wash laundry in.

This is the door from the chapel to the cemetery

Beautiful, moss-covered fountain

An old wood fence on the property with some winter foliage

Anyhow, life is busy, as always. The floors have been put in at the old house! *Hurray!* And it looks SOOO good! Today we spent the day putting back the cabinet doors and drawers in the kitchen. We are almost done and only have maybe 30 minutes more on that part. Then I will clean up all the construction dirt and take pictures to share. You will be amazed by the before and after.

Tonight I have a parent's meeting with Girl Scouts to go over what we will be doing the rest of this year. A week from Saturday is the start of the annual cookie sale, always a busy time! So I best run off and get ready for that. I hope everyone is well and having a great new year so far!

Christmas is almost here. The other day, my Girl Scout troop went and did Christmas carols at the local senior home. It was a really nice facility with all sorts of activities going on. They even have an 'in-house' dog and cat who are spoiled beyond belief!

Megan and Becca are in there, but in the back row where you can't really see them!

The seniors seemed to really enjoy it and the girls shared cookies with them afterwards. We also took the girls over to a local coffee shop and they all had hot cocoa with whipped cream on top. It was a good day for everyone.

We also gave each girl a little 'goodie-bag' as a Christmas gift. The other leader bought little soaps shaped like snowmen and mini candy canes. I made a clothespin Santa ornament and added a few candy kisses to each bag. I think it went well. It was amusing as I was making the 14 Santas, was like an army of zombie Santas!

Here is one of the Santas

Today was baking. I made each girl a little chocolate cake in the shape of a Christmas tree and then they iced it in green and decorated them with candies. Then I made a batch of spritz cookies, a butter type cookie. It is my favorite. My always made it at Christmas. Tomorrow I will work on another Christmas tradition here, making bear claws for Christmas breakfast. Bear claws are a Scandinavian breakfast danish with sweet dough, filled with raisins, dates and cherries. Other than that, all I need to do is wrap the gifts. I will work on that tomorrow, while the girls are with Gene.

Hope everyone has a wonderful and happy Christmas!

Next semester, Megan will be studying rocks and minerals in science. So last week, her class took a field trip to the Gemological Institute of America. The institute does a really cool Junior Gemologist program where the kids get to work, hands-on with various gems. Joe and I went and enjoyed it very much.

The GIA is the birthplace of the modern day international diamond grading system as well as many other innovations in gemology. The teach all sorts of programs in everything from jewelry design to gemology and have a huge library of every type of book on the subjects you can imagine, including at least one book from 1497! They also have a large collection of gems and jewelry that are exhibited all over the facility on a rotating basis, along with a small museum.

Here Megan works with a classmate to look for special inclusions in stones that create desired attributes like the bending of light in a cat's eye stone.

This is a bird in their museum that is entirely made of precious metals and gems . If I recall correctly, I believe most of the gems are sapphires in various colors and diamonds. The bird is about 9" tall.

These two roosters are about 4" high and are carved from tourmaline, a crystal that goes from pink at one end, to green at the other.

And this is the pride of the GIA, Bahia, a 4-foot, 7-inch-tall, 602-pound quartz sculpture, was carved from a mammoth piece of transparent rutilated quartz found in the region of Brazil. Believed to be the world’s largest gemstone sculpture – and the largest pendant. The GIA is a nonprofit institution, so is trying to raise the funds to buy this so it may be kept in their permanent collection.

Anyhow, we all had a great time and I hope to go back again soon to enjoy more of there collection when I will have time to really enjoy it and not be busy herding a group of kids around.

Also last week, my Girl Scout troop made candy cane reindeer to pass out later this month when we go to sing Christmas carols at a retirement home. It's a super easy craft and the girls had fun with it.

Today, Joe and I were back at the old house, working away! Joe installed a ceiling fan in the living room which took forever because the instruction were terrible and he had to make sure there was a supporting beam for the weight. While he did that, I put up a new medicine cabinet in the front bathroom, installed a new toilet seat and hung a toilet paper roll holder. I also put in several door stops, so we don't get holes in the newly painted walls!

Our painter was busy in the kitchen masking counters and built in appliances so I took the opportunity, while the fridge was in the living room, to finish cleaning it up. It virtually looks like new now! I also took two ceiling exhaust fan covers and repainted them. The old plastic had yellowed with age and they looked really sad with the newly painted ceilings. This is the first time I have tried this spray paint made just for plastics. It seems to work well but goes on in very thin coats, so you have to do several coats to get good coverage.

Next visit, I plan to clean the tub in the front bath (it has paint and wall texture junk splattered all over it from the work) and install a new shower head and towel rack and then that bathroom should be done! Yeah! Oh, and I called the flooring people and told them they can start on the carpet and wood floors next week! The inside of the house should be basically done before Christmas! Hurray!!!

Anyhow, I am off, I need to get to work on Christmas cards or they will never get to people before the holidays!

Wow, less than 3 weeks till Christmas! It doesn't feel like it can be so close already! As usual, we are busy here. Thanksgiving was on the quiet side, but nice. I only did a turkey breast, rather than a full turkey, since there was only four of us. Following Cook's Illustrated, I brined the turkey this time and put butter between the skin of the breast and the meat. The combo made for a fantastic turkey. The brining makes it SO much moister and the butter gives the most delicious and crispy skin!

The girls made turkey cupcakes that really turned out cute. We stole the design idea from a cookie ad I saw in a magazine.

The week after Thanksgiving, Joe and I went up to Julian for a weekend to do a belated birthday celebration. We stayed at a wonderful Bed and Breakfast, perched on a hill, over looking the town. Our cottage was cozy with a lovely fireplace at the foot of the bed. The bathroom also had a lovely whirlpool tub. We lazed the weekend, window shopping, sleeping in, taking walks and enjoying some lovely meals. The B&B did a dinner on Sunday night that couldn't have been better! Here are some pictures I took:

At our B&B, I think it is an old water tank

The walls and ceiling of the dinner room were painted with amazing murals. The is the moon and stars on the ceiling.

A cute grey stray cat getting a drink from the bird bath outside out cottage.

Beautiful sunsets!

The porch of the lodge

Joe decided to wear his kilt the first day. It was very amusing watching him trying to get back out of this hammock!

The last of the wild winter apples

Meanwhile, the old house is coming along, I think there is a light at the end of the tunnel (and it isn't a train!).  The interiors walls have been painted, the baseboards are all up, the vanities and sinks have been installed in the bathrooms. Monday we are going to start finishing work, such as putting in light fixtures, putting on cabinet hardware, door stops, hanging bathroom cabinets and mirrors, etc.

We do still need to put in floors, repair termite damage and paint the outside of the house. We also need the kitchen cabinets and walls painted. Otherwise, I think everything is done. We had to drop the asking price almost $90K due to dropping home values, that part really sucked. We have hope to have an open house right after the new year. I will post some pictures once rooms get finished and put them side-by-side with "before" pics.

Hope everyone is well and having a nice holiday season. Merry Christmas!

Here is a photo of the swap I will be giving out to my mini group this weekend. The individual items are not glued into the basket, so the new owner can keep it as-is or put the various pieces where they wish.

Wasn't The Money Pit the name of a movie where a couple goes to refurbish an old house and the expenses keep piling on, as they find more and more things?  I am starting to identify, more and more with the movie! But, on the bright side, we are making progress.

Joe and I are putting in long days, generally 5-6 days a week. We finished emptying the last room this week, the room we had used for computers. Joe pulled up the carpet and took off the baseboards to find more problems with the way the original cement was laid. Like in the bedroom, the rebar is popping up, due to rust and causing the cement above to crumble. To save money, Joe decided to try to patch the room himself and ended up doing a fantastic job, despite our general contractor trying to talk him out of it. It definitely isn't simple, but Joe worked it out and did it in the end.

Meanwhile, every wall and ceiling in the house has needed to be vacuumed to remove dirt, ash and cobwebs, followed up by the patching of nail holes and all that good stuff to ready the interior for paint. That has been my job also took several days total, but it saved us paying the painter to do this prep work. Now I am working on stripping the remaining kitchen cabinets. Another slow job, as each door or drawer takes about 30 minutes to totally de-gloss of varnish as well as remove the thick mess of grease and dirt that has accumulated.

The heating and cooling is all installed now, including a smaller system for the computer room. (That room used to be so cold in winter that I had to do my computer work with gloves on!) We also have a new front door installed, a new door off the garage (The old one was an interior door and was not only illegal per code standards, but was ruined from rain and weather.) The door on the master bedroom bathroom was moved just 2 feet, so create a better layout. Now the first thing you see is the new vanity and not the toilet. We have also fixed it so the drawers of the vanity don't hit the toilet when you open them, as they did in the old layout. Monday, the tile guy will start work on the tub tiling.

Oh and two of the three bathrooms have been painted now too, so they are ready to have flooring put in and then the vanity cabinets.

So, things continue to move along, but the housing market here, as in most the US, is horrible. I heard most houses sit on the market at least 6 months now, and of course we are also entering the dead period for house sales, between Thanksgiving and the Super Bowl. Oh well, we can only do what we can do.

Meanwhile, the girls are off of school on Monday for Veterans Day and are happy about that. Today we took them to a mini-golf and arcade place that was having a fund raiser for the library at Becca's school. Becca had her first Girl Scout meeting, so now both girls are busy with Scouts. Megan's troop just finished up making birthday gift boxes for kids from troubled homes, till they can be found foster families. I did my three hours of Girl Scout leader training on Wednesday, so now I am officially a leader.

This weekend I am trying to relax a bit and catch up on stuff at our house. It has been neglected with all the hours at the other place. And for my own sanity, I am doing some mini work too, making tiny baskets of 'goodies' for the ladies in my mini group. We have our annual holiday meeting next week and I will be giving them out as gifts. I will try to post a picture. The gift baskets will include dollhouse sized bottles of honey, cooking vanilla, jam, a box of candies, and three decorative metal tins of whatever you might imagine in them. (I vote for candy of some type!).

Hopefully we will be wrapping up the house in the next two to three weeks. I vote for two, so think good thoughts and pray we don't find anymore expensive or nasty surprises! Have a great weekend!

Things are getting back to normal here and we are trying to get work going again on the old house starting next week. Everything had grounds to a halt with the fires, since we had contractors coming from all over San Diego County. Unfortunately, at least one, is still having problems. His home is near Palomar Mountain where there is still an active fire and he is still under evacuation. But so far, his home is okay.

Unfortunately, we have learned that the schools here will not open again until Tuesday. Apparently they feel they should use Monday to clean ash, replace air filters, etc. Another day for the kids to be bored silly! Oh well!

And now for the funniest story of our fires...

On Monday night, at the height of our firestorms, Joe and I were taking turns staying up to watch the news, since we were under advisory evacuation orders and we had no idea if they were would have time to notify us via the reverse 9-1-1 system in time, if things got really bad. So at some ungodly hour, I was watching the exhausted new anchors who had been working for something like 18 hours straight when the female anchor said, "We have been receiving reports that some people, seeking information about the fires have been dialing 1-1-9, trying to reach the reverse 9-1-1 system. This will not work so PLEASE stop doing that!" It gave me a huge laugh at a time I really needed one!

Anyhow, I am catching up on cleaning and trying to get the layer of ash off everything and get the house back in order. We have unpacked the car and are putting things back where they belong and I am busy getting ready for a Girl Scout meeting this coming Thursday.

Hope you are all well and life is good for you!