Moving Up

The floors are done and the cabinets are in! The countertop person will be here Tuesday to measure. So it may be a couple of weeks before we have a complete kitchen.
I have to touch up the baseboards and other nicks and dings from the floor installation. Since the floor is done, we can move a few things upstairs. So, we are slowly moving up from the basement. Exciting!!!
I have to make curtains for the master bedroom tomorrow so that we can start sleeping there tomorrow night. I pulled out all of the fabric I kept and took it upstairs. I don't really have anything that matches purple.

Everything went smoothly with the cabinets until today. They were ready to put in the pantry next to the fridge area but it sat back too far for my liking. I questioned the cabinet guys and they pulled out the plan and sure enough, it showed the cabinet sitting back and not flush with the wall. They could put it in the way I had it pictured in my mind but with a cost. Of course, more money. I told them yes, do it.

So now I have to think about the built in hutch. I was planning on painting it either gray or white, or maybe even black? Mike suggested we leave it wood, so there wouldn't be so much gray and white. We  will have to think about this. The base is gray so we have another decision to make. I am open for suggestions!

Some pieces of the flooring are very unique with variations and knots. We all call it character. It just happens a very unique piece ended up in the middle of the kitchen. It is the light piece in the middle.

Every time I walk by and see it, I think of Molly. She would snack on raisins as she stood at the cabinets in Athens. I would always find stepped on raisins on the floor. This is actually a knot in the wood, but I will always think of her.

Here are other pictures from today. Notice the huge fern in the window! These came from the greenhouse my brother-in-law and sister have in their back yard.  I will write about that when I go up to Wisconsin to visit them.  That is the dishwasher sitting in the dining area.

The fridge and stove are still in the living room. We are sooooo looking forward to cooking a heathy meal, not in the living room though.

What Was I Thinking???

I had always heard you should paint the front door your favorite color. Green has always been my favorite color but I think that might be changing to the blue hues. Especially after I painted the door peachy green. I love this green  but it didn't go well with the yellow house with brown trim.

The next day I painted it again. This is from the same paint can I used in Athens to paint our doors there.

Floors should be done today! These pictures were taken last night so they are a little dark. I will take more once the sun is out again. That might be a few days yet. We woke to rain and 38 degrees.

As you can see from the above picture, I am still painting doors.
Yesterday was exciting because  the cabinets were delivered. We had to make room in our garage for the boxes. Mike isn't happy about keeping his car outside. There were many cars broken into the other night.

The cabinets are being installed at this very moment.

More updates to come!

They Built It, So We Went

I am quickly learning there are a lot of meat eaters in Iowa and it is hard to find non-meat items on a menu. I am getting tired of breaded cod which has been my go to.
This past Saturday my sisters and I met our cousin Sandy in the small town of Dyersville for lunch. I decided to order the rueben without the meat. You should have seen the face of the waitress when I ordered that. The sandwich was very good. I should have requested the meat on the side because they charged me regular price. I am sure one of my sisters or Sandy would have eaten it for me. I took pictures of my sandwich but forgot to take a picture of Sandy! Next time.

Dyersville's population is a little over 4000. There are  exciting places to see in Dyersville if you ever go there!
After lunch my sisters and I decided to visit a couple of these places. The first stop was the Basilica. There are only 69 Basilicas in the United States and to have one in such a small town is amazing to me.

We were not able to go inside this time because there was a funeral going on but I have been inside and it is amazing and beautiful. I will take picture next time, or you can Google it.

We then headed to the Field of Dreams.

We were surprised at how many people were there. People still come 25 years after the movie was released. There wasn't any corn in the field but that didn't stop the girls softball team from running  way out into the cornfield. The acted like they were playing a game too. I guess it is a big thing to run the bases be we didn't do that. 

Dyersville is ten miles away from my Mom's hometown Earlville, so we went to visit Mom and Dad.

As you can see, Mom didn't live much longer than Dad. I will write about that later, probably in May on her one year anniversary of leaving us.
I then remembered that I had just bought a plot here and decided I had made the right choice. It is a beautiful cemetery. I will be cremated and my family always wondered what to do with my ashes. My daughter Molly once mentioned she would throw me down a mountain. Now they won't have to make that decision. The picture below shows where mom and dad are and that my ashes and maybe Mikes, will be either next to Mom or next to my sister Jo. She bought a plot there too.

It was a great day spent with my sisters. It felt good to get away and not worry about painting!
The floor is slowly going in.

Still Living In Organized Chaos

We are still in the basement.
We are still painting! Yesterday we opened our 12th gallon of paint and our 2nd gallon of primer. We should have primed these walls before painting but, oh well. I have been priming the wood trim. This has taken me forever and every time I turn around, I see more wood.  The master bedroom below is almost done, as far as painting. Hopefully we can set our bed up soon.

My goal was to get all the painting done before the floors went in but we didn't make it. They started the floors this morning.  I had to take a day or two off from painting because my body was telling me I am not used to so much work! Good news and a life saver, our neighbors let us use their hot tub. It has really helped our backs and we enjoy the colors!

This past week the drywall guys came. I was amazed how well they patched and matched the ceiling. I have never heard of a knock down textured ceiling but he was able to match it.

The drywall took four days. They started on Thursday, came back on Friday to find the mud had not dried enough to sand. Monday was sanding and then Tuesday was touch up.
This gave us extra days to try to finish painting. As mentioned above, we didn't make it. The knock down ceiling is extremely hard to paint and we missed a whole bunch of places. Now we will have to do the second coat with the wood floors in, since they are starting in the kitchen.

Mike enjoyed a day off from painting too!

And these are in our front yard. Just in time for Easter this past Sunday. Mike went to his parents farm for the weekend and I stayed home to paint (and to go to Church with my sister, Mary).

This most exciting part of  today was this, the flooring going in!! That first row took an hour to get in to make sure the rest of it goes in straight in this crooked wall house.

My Sisters

I have three sisters.  I love them all and have been hanging around with them lately.  Before we moved to Iowa, my sister Mary, from Davenport and my sister Sherry, from Wisconsin came south to stay with my other sister Jo, in South Carolina. I drove up from Athens to be with them. We were busy helping Jo and her boyfriend Gary with their very large garage sale. What we really met there for was our niece Alison, Jo's daughter, was having her baby Presley baptized. Did you get all of that? Here we all are with the baby.

When we woke that morning, this is what we found in Jo's backyard. Her swimming pool was  surrounded by snow.

The snow had melted by the time the baptism was over.
The night before, we had a great time with a facial mask party. When Jo was in Korea with my niece Meredith and daughter Molly, they picked up free facial masks made out of crazy stuff.

So now that I am here in the Midwest, I get to hang out with Mary and Sherry more often. Yesterday Sherry came to Davenport for a visit. We were heading to the Putnam Museum to see the Magical History Tour of the Beatles. We decided we needed to eat lunch first but couldn't decide where to eat. We just hopped in the car and headed towards the museum and would stop somewhere on the way.
We ended up here.

And they were selling this tee shirt. Most of you know I am a vegetarian. I had the macaroni salad and french fries for $2.50. My sisters went all out and had the pulled pork sandwich with mac salad for $5. I don't think this place ever had a vegetarian eat lunch at their three table restaurant.

When we got to the museum, we were excited to see that Mad Max was there as well.

We had a great time at the Beatles exhibit. There were some interesting facts we didn't know about such as at the beginning, their manager paid fans to greet the Beatles wherever they were. He didn't have to do that for very long.
We were sad that Jo wasn't with us. We really needed her here, to be the fourth Beatle.

But then I see where she was there in spirit, or else that is John or George with us. Look closely and you will see.

In 1968 when I was seven, our family was in Washington D.C.  My dad was a junior high science teacher so we would always travel in the summers. It turned out the Beatles were playing while we were there. My sisters were excited so Mom took them to see he Beatles. I was upset when they decided I was too young to go. I LOVED the Beatles. Instead, I had to go see  President Johnson with my Dad :)
When we left the exhibit, I had to take a picture of this poster because it looks just like my sister Jo and I when we were young.

We then decided to visit a friend of ours. She was actually my parent's neighbor and would have been ours but they just moved to a beautiful apartment over looking the Mississippi.  When we got to the building, we noticed many people were coming and found out there was an open house and we could just roam the place. It was built as a family mansion in 1912, so we really enjoyed going through it. I wish I would have taken more pictures but this one shows the view from the apartments. Our friend wasn't home so we will have to visit at night, to see the night view. Of course I won't be able to drive so Mike will have to. :(

I am looking forward to spending more fun days with my sisters here in the Midwest but, I will miss hanging out with Jo in the south.