The room is almost done

I have been taking my slow sweet time on this room but it is almost done. I skim coated the walls and painted. I am letting the flooring acclimate before I glue it down this Saturday. The picture here doesn't look like anything but a blank wall. That is exactly what it is supposed to be! no bad patch jobs, no holes, no cracks. The skim coating worked wonders. Here is a view from the south wall facing in to the room. And now looking back the other way toward the south. The closet look very nice too. With the wood down I am getting really excited to finish this thing. See how excited I am!

Anyway, my next project will most likely be a bathroom just on the other side of the wall from
this room. I need to start figuring that out. I think I will probably make a model in Google Sketchup and show around to some friends for feed back before I start. I hope I can get that done faster than the six months it has taken on this room.

I'm too lazy to stop the car

I keep thinking about taking pictures of houses I pass around town. When I see certain houses I think "I should stop and snap a few" then I think " ahhh I'll do it later" Here are a few of my own house to try and get things rolling.

My Paternal grandfather passed away in 1994. In life he was a real renaissance man. He was an engineer, a musician that could play almost anything and a true craftsman. I have a hand made rocking elephant that he cut and carved out of wood. He made it when I was born. There is a carved plaque on its tail that says it was made by him for me.

I was in my dad's basement helping him move some things around a few weeks ago. I saw a piece of stain glass I knew that my grandfather had made. I told my dad that he should hang it up and that if he didn't have a place he wanted to hang it that it would look fabulous in my 5'x5' plate glass window in my front room. He then gave me the stained glass. I feel such an honor to have it. It is really a family heirloom and one of the few remaining pieces of craftsmanship left from my grandfather. It will definitely always have a place of prominence in my home. Here it is from the inside and then the outside.

My first remodel project for my house is the basement bedroom. I'm turning it into a master bedroom. I've torn out all of the carpet and ripped up some water damaged areas and cleaned them up. Two weekends ago I poured a self leveling quick setting concrete down to get the floor nice and flat so I can put hardwood down. Yesterday I ran some electrical cable for new outlets and lighting. Here's where I'm at so far.

This is for Houses

I don't know if anyone else does this, probably not, but there are certain houses I see on a regular basis when driving around that hold a certain penchant for me. Many of them aren't attractive or architecturally innovative or anything, they are just houses that stick in my mind. I look forward to seeing these houses when I drive on certain streets. Sometimes they are houses I dream about how it would be to live in them others I wonder about their history or what the name of the style they are designed in is. I end up thinking about these houses a lot when I drive. I'll probably crash my car into the back of some poor unsuspecting parked vehicle one day because I will be too busy day dreaming about the houses I pass.

I thought it might be cool to post some pictures of a few of these houses and write down why I like them. I think this might help me understand my sense of style a little better. I think it also might help me say specifically what I like about houses in general and who knows, it may help me to make a better decision one day when I decided to buy another house.

This blog will probably also include some pictures of my current house as I go through an unhurried renovation of it over the next year or so.