Jerusalem Judds: May 2018

On our return from England, we found everything ready for progress on the outside of the house.

The roof had been stripped back to the "truss tails" and a huge 40 foot I-beam had been brought in and fastened to supports.

Then rafters were connected to the truss tails and covered with plywood.

The switch for fan and lights is ready.

Shingles were delivered.

While the roofers were working outside, I was planning how to finish the windowsills inside. This required several trips to Grandpa's workshop and several tries.

Finally it all fit together--a layer of PVC over the old sills, with vinyl molding below.

Now the paintings are back on the walls! The inside is pretty much done!

So fun to wash dishes in the new sink and sweep the new floor!

Here is the outside with soffit partly done.

Meanwhile, Emily was in the 5th grade patriotic production, "Hope of America."

Emily is in the front row of yellow shirts, about 1/3 of the way over from the left.

More "Where's Waldo"-- Lisa played in a Band and Orchestra concert at Mountain View. See if you can find her in a red blazer not looking at the camera.

This post starts a month ago, when we were a month into the renovation. By April 13, we had cabinets, paint, lights, and flooring. I was anticipating a trip to England on April 28th and hoping my family would have a kitchen while I was gone.

Week 6: Things started happening quickly. On April 16, the laminate desktop was installed in our office area. We chose a color which would be similar to the granite but darker. We love the color--stray sharpie and pencil sharpener dust will blend right in.

A few days later, the microwave was in and working. It has a fan which vents to the porch. It took a while to get used to the microwave being in the kitchen again. We kept walking out to the pantry where our old microwave has been for a month.

Our heating guru says we really need this return air vent in the middle of the great room floor. I eventually painted the grate a darker color so it is more camoflaged. Now we ignore it except when we say, "The old wall used to go right through here!"

My niece Annmarie came to stay with us while she did her CNA, and she didn't let lack of an oven keep her from making cookies!

The next day the oven arrived. But it didn't get installed immediately, so Annmarie's cookies ended up being baked at our next-door neighbor's house.

That same day I started setting the tile border over the laminate desktop. I was really slow at first!

I put off renting the tile saw until the granite arrived, so this corner was a little rough. The handheld tool for scoring and snapping tiles kept chipping corners or going askew, so a lot of superglue and sanding went into this corner.

Week 7: The walls were still in the same ragged condition as the day I pried off the old tile backsplash.

I worried about making the new tile look flat and even with that crazy surface, so I spread on some spackling putty, slapped on some paint to prime it, then sanded the paint just a bit. Now I just needed those granite countertops to come in, and I could do the backsplash before going to England!

The counters were supposed to come Monday, but instead arrived Tuesday. The timing wasn't great, but the counters themselves were very beautiful and were a huge step toward a finished look.

Now it was time for the backsplash, but this happened to be the same day I had a final for a BYU class. Flashback to the midterm which fell on the same day as my first mammogram.... Which proves education does not get more convenient as you get older! That perfect opportunity to invest in education will never come again, so might as well plunge in and tackle it a little at a time!

So on the way home from my final, I rented a tile wet saw from Home Depot. It was about 4 hours from closing time, so they said I could return it at 9 am for the same 4 hour price. I thought I'd be fine with 4 hours, but at 8:00 pm I was still prepping and dithering between a diagonal or square orientation.

Then my amazing friend Emily happened by and offered to help, so I decided to go for diagonal. Emily cut dozens of tiles into triangles and got the momentum going by slapping the mortar on tiles ("backbuttering") while I made the wall mortar all groovy. Here's how it looked by 10:30pm.

I was having so much fun that I just couldn't stop,

Then the saw started getting flaky (probably because of all the water splashing everywhere.) So here's how it looked when I went to work at 7:45 the next morning.

So after work I marshalled the troops for a final push: Emily came back and cut out intricate shapes for the outlets, Amy started grouting the tile by the desk, and my tall nephew Connor squeezed behind the stove and backbuttered like a pro.

The saw was getting tricky again, and we nursed it through the final few cuts with prayers and a hair dryer.

With no time for second chances, we threw on the last few edge pieces, Emily washed off the saw, and I raced the saw back just before the deadline.

The windowsill would need some serious TLC, but that would have to wait.

The next day, I slapped grout in the gaps, and it looked pretty good! Especially from a distance.

Happy 25th Anniversary! My sweet and patient husband gave me a new kitchen, plus time to learn a messy and time-consuming new skill, plus a trip to England with my two oldest daughters to see Grandma and Grandpa. Said daughters were frantically helping me caulk the seams of aforementioned kitchen just minutes before we revved up the car to drive to the airport. Good times.