Project Manager

There is this crazy, insane side of me that LOVES home improvement. Maybe it is from way too much HGTV. I don't know, but I love to change the look of things. I'm full of ideas. I've almost always got a paint sample in my purse.

It's something that drives my family crazy. I'm known to move the furniture around, a lot. Rearranging whole rooms, switching whole rooms. In our Ocala house, the dining room was in three different places over the 2 1/2 years we lived there. I just like to switch things up. It's a quirk, I know. The boys call it a disease. Mark just lives with it and is thankful he's not blind or else he'd be running into newly placed furniture.

Here's an example...in the Ocala house, the toilet in the master bath needed to be replaced. I thought...hum...while we are at it...(famous last words)...let's replace the tile on the floor. Now that the tile on the floor and wall don't match, let's replace that. I've always wanted to tile a shower...let's do that, "while we are at it". By the time Mark was home, Joseph and I ripped out the shower floor, walls, toilet and were trying to figure out how to get the vanity thru the doorway. It's a curse! By the time it was finished, it was outstanding and we loved it.

Now, I've got another house to work on. Luckily this house if only a couple of years old and needs only "minor" touches here and there. Some people like to dive in and get it all done at once. Not me. I have to contemplate. I have to think, invision what we should do. Most of all, I have to save the $$$. Then we act.

For this house the big projects are in the planning stages. I've have my list, but needed to wait until we were without two mortgages. Now that we have our renter...bless you Kevin, I'm ready.

For starters...paint. I love paint. I really love oops paint. The $5 mistakes from Home Depot and Lowes. The former owners went with this tan, but it has a peachy undertone that is making me crazy. Slowly, I've been making my way through the house, room by room and painting. My last rooms are the master bed/bath, bonus room and the staircases. I have two, one to the bedrooms and one to the bonus room. Over the Christmas break I decided to tackle these.

Here's the staircase to the bedrooms. Looks great. I was so pleased. We painted the hallway as well. But, I encountered a problem. You have a remember I'm a Florida girl, not many staircases in FL.

From the top of the stairs going down. See the new paint vs the old paint. I couldn't reach, and even though APM would say "paint a black stripe where the kids and the dogs touch the walls" I just couldn't do it. I couldn't "paint as far as I could reach and call it a day." So what is a gal like me to do?

I went out and bought the longest extension pole I could. Almost there. I stood on a bucket (on the stairs) and almost got it. Now, I have to ask Mark to help me finish it.

So since I was at a standstill on the painting project, I thought let's build the chicken condo.

Here's Joseph getting ready.

Jonny's job was to make sure all the staples were hammered in securely. You can tell he's mine...see the crocs...I was wearing flip flops.


Here's the run part. I've give more details on the condo once it's finished. Hopefully Tom and Moe will move in this weekend.

So there's a wrap-up on the ongoing projects. I've got more planned. A giant thank you to my boys who put up with all these crazy ideas and for spending their "break" working.