Happy Halloween

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Happy Halloween

Happy Birthday

Mom Kowalski's birthday was the other day. 

I never had the opportunity to meet her and it made me kinda sad.  Walt Kowalski has told me such great stories.

But then I realized something.  I have the best example of her...Walt Kowalski. 

Ok, so I might be a little biased.   

Happy Birthday Mom Kowalski. 

Leaves Leaves and more Leaves

I realize I post the same things at the same time every year.  The good part is that I (and my audience) don't always remember the post from the previous year.  Click here to see the post from last year. The leaves haven't changed.  I swear there were even more of them this year! 

Here is the scene:

Armed with my trusty leaf blower, I spent 4 hours yesterday afternoon corralling leaves into to the steps.  They were deep.  Filled the steps to the top.  Ankle deep, knee deep, waist deep, chest deep. Deep, DEEP leaves. 

When Walt Kowalski returned home from work, he said "Holy pile of leaves!" He hadn't seen the other pile of leaves in the field yet.

I used the leaf blower to direct the leaves in his direction.  He raked.  I directed.  He mowed over and mulched the leaves.  I directed them to him. He raked some more. 

Only about half of the leaves have fallen. The tall oak trees are the last to drop.  We still have many days of leafing ahead. 

Backwards Day

Normally I blog in the morning during the world news and then get ready to go work or run errands for the day. Today was different.  I did my work at the little house first thing this morning so I could come home and rake (corral) leaves all afternoon. 

I got one coat of paint on the kitchen walls and sanded the new drywall and painted the doors.

 
The mud wasn't completely dry so I couldn't paint this wall yet. 

This is a wonderful blurry before photo (gosh!).

 
After looks just as bad. 

Question: Why are you painting the walls if you are just putting cabinets back up?
Answer: Just in case the cabinets don't cover completely and to "clean it up."

The walls were dirty.  The second coat will really make it shine.

Now out to corral. 

Whole lotta

...nothing to see.

We got a lot accomplished this weekend.  Small stuff, but important stuff.  Nothing picture worthy.

Walt Kowalski traced and rewired an outlet in the kitchen, added an outlet in the basement, I painted the registers and a bathroom fixture, finished the ceiling in the bedroom, cleaned up the dripped plaster on the bedroom floor, ran the shop vac in preparation for laying the laminate, we picked out and purchased the tile for the kitchen, cleaned up the garage, and did laundry.

Today I need to finish the bits and pieces of small things. Painting and floors is next on the list this week.

Oh and the big thing we did this weekend was raking leaves.  I shouldn't say rake. More like corralling leaves. More, LOTS more, of that to come, too.

Recharge

Everything needed recharged this morning.

Laptop battery: Low
Phone battery: Low
My battery: Low
Kittycat batteries: Extra low

Everybody was sleepy on a Friday morning.

There are two beds, two pillows, and an entire cat tree full of blankets.  But the girls love to sleep together in this round bed.  This is Mama and Cocoa Fluffy.  Some days it's Oreo and Mama. If there was room, I might even crawl in with them.

Kitchen Floors

The Little House will be our third house remodel. Remodel four and five coming soon.  On each of these remodels, the base floors have been in terrible condition.  I knew the Cat Ranch didn't have fancy floors under the carpet, so when we lifted the carpet and padding, it wasn't a surprise to find plywood.

House #1 and the Little House both had wooden floors that once upon a time were nice.  The current condition was this:

 
This is the condition of hard wood floor after years of wear, then an installation of linoleum, and then the installation of carpet on top.

Who are these people that say "We took up the carpet and padding and the floors were perfect." These people are on the made-for-TV home improvement shows. 

After working for days (weeks) sanding and detailing the steps in House #1, I was not about to tackle the floors in the Little House.

Walt Kowalski and I installed a cement backer board over these awful floors.  This secured and stabilized the existing floor. Now I can tile.  Tile is new.  Tile is clean.  Tile is easy to clean up.

Same with laminate in the other rooms. 

Maybe if someday one of these houses is a hundred-year-old-historical, then I will consider working those original floors.  Maybe.