April 12, 2013 - Inheritance of a HO Scale Train Setup

My dad loved his trains.  He had a 8x12 shed he dedicated it to.  All the decorations were created by hand or came from a kit he put together and painted. The walls were painted with a cool mountainous scenery, the waterways were made of a clear poxy that looks so realistic, and the trees and bushes if you look closely, are made from grape stems.

Three years after my father passed and the shed is falling apart, so my mom and I hunkered down in the cold weather and dissembled the handmade table he put up to hold his scenery and transported it to my house.

Once dissembled,  my mom and I put it on the back of a Penske Truck along with the rest of the stuff I inherited from my Grandmother.

Now it resides in my Garage awaiting a new home for it to be resurrected.  Hopefully it will not be too long before that happens.  There is no room to move around in the garage.

April 1, 2013 - Spring Clean Up!!!

This year we are having a later start on our garden compared to last year.  I'm OK with that.  I love the snow!  Nevertheless, I am ready for our garden to get going and get us out of this dreary brown state.

It is interesting to see what has survived:

Kale and Arugula is growing on the backside of the raised garden.

On the inside of the Raised Garden, Leeks and Green Onions are growing beautifully!

In the Butterfly Garden, the Day Lilies and Lamb's Ear is coming back.

Here is a nice close up of the Leeks.

Baby Carrots anyone?

After a good clean up inside the bed, I rearranged the soaker hose to insure that everything gets a good dose of water in the summer heat this year.

The Mint had grown all over the garden, into the walkways, the main bed and even over to the Butterfly Garden.  I cleared it back as this will take over anyone's garden if it is not tended to properly.

It won't be long before the grass next to our yard is taller than the fence and ours will need to be mowed more than I want to.

Panda is definitely enjoying the nice April weather we are having as I clean the garden.

February 26, 2013 - SNOW!!!

It's a beautiful morning to wake up and see this!  The temperature out side was on the freezing line and it had been raining the night before, so the snow was sticking to everything.  If you can tell by the snow plow scraped snow, the city had finally cleared our street less than 6 hours before this all fell. 

 Evan managed to have a cook out today as well.  Not really.  =]

As the snow melted off the trees and things that hung over the snow, it left a really neat pattern in the snow.  It sounded really cool when it fell too.

February 21, 2013 - SNOW DAY!!!! Plus Office Makeover - Update!

Kansas City is shut down!  I have an official snow day from work with 9 inches of snow to keep people of the street - well, most of them! Ha!

After playing in the snow for a while, Evan and I got to work on the office.  We were anxious to get the tile put up after we had put in the sink.

February 16, 2013 - Office Makeover - Update - NEW SINK!!!

Our special order counter top finally came in at Home Depot.  Our vanity is an inch shorter than the industry standard size of 49".   We did not want to try and cut it to size either.  This old laminate counter top had done it's job well and was ready to be torn out of our house.  Originally we had decided on the Indian Summer color, but decided on a darker top and a brush chrome fixture.  The color option we decided on was Volcano.  It has specks of the Rustic Oak paint color and brushed chrome with an overall dark bronze finish color of the mirror frame and hardware we painted.  This color option has saved us some money on the faucet choice, too.  The darker faucets were so expensive, so overall it just made sense.

There were lots of options for a new vanity top for our bathroom/washroom.  With all the different types of bowls and facets, we decided to stick with the same style we had since it was most practical.

To our surprise (not really), it was harder to get out than we expected.  The side splashes were nailed in and we had to figure a way to get them out before we could get the top off.  We used a chisel to break the finishing nails that were used.  My chisel was wrecked after we accomplished this.

Once it was off, all that was left was a flimsy frame.  Scary to think that I was standing on this to paint the ceiling and the wall behind the mirror prior to removing the top.

The new top fits like a glove!  So much anxiety built up that it would not fit since it was special ordered.  It is so pretty.  =]

Evan got the hook ups on the sink set up and it works!

Now all we need is the tile set up on the back splash and we are done with this project!!!

Here is why we need a back splash.  We have a fat finger's worth of space between the counter and the wall at the corner of the vanity on both sides.  The back wall sags in at the middle and we did not want to figure a way to flush this out.  We decided on a back splash to help protect the wall from water and make it look really cool with all the fancy colors.

The new facet is nice too!  I love this style, I can turn the water to hot or cold or warm with one hand.  I am not a huge fan of two separate handles.  Call me lazy, but it takes a lot of adjustments to make the water temperature just right with the separate controls versus the single.