One Crazy Weekend

We had a full weekend at home which is unusual and so we decided to make good use of our time.  We managed to remove the railing at the top of the steps and frame out a new wall, create a new flower bed (minus the flowers) along the driveway and in front of the new fence, and tear down the ceiling in the family room.

 Old railing.

 Floor exposed.

 Securing to the wall.

 Securing to the floor.

 The weather was so nice we decided we should finish a few outdoor projects while we still can.  One of those is this grass area between the fence and the driveway.  With the new fence in place it is a pain to mow.

 We planted some daffodil bulbs for the spring, covered the grass areas with newspaper and added mulch.  It needs more plants but that will probably wait until the spring.

 Finished!  And less grass to mow makes me very happy!

 With most of the plumbing and electrical work done in the new bathroom we need to frame out the new closets so that we can hang drywall.  But before we can finish the framing Andy needs to re-route some baseboard heat.  We already removed part of the tile and styrafoam beam ceiling to access the plumbing for the bathroom.  We thought about just removing sections and rehanging the old ceiling.  A little more thought and we finally decided to remove the entire ceiling and replace it with drywall.  We will hang the drywall but hire someone to tape and mud it so the more we can get done with the bathroom, the better.

 This is the area to the front of the house and under the new closets.

 He loves a good demo project.

 But this one led to the first renovation injury.  When he was almost finished he stepped off the ladder and right onto a nail.  STOP READING IF YOU DON'T LIKE THESE TYPES OF STORIES.  I would stop reading -- but unfortunately, I was there.  I heard the scream and ran downstairs to see what was wrong.  I found something similar to the picture above (don't worry -- I didn't just start taking pictures).  He was in the process of removing his sock and said "Come here.  I need you to tell me how much it's bleeding".  Now, if you know me, you know that I would rather clean up the mouse poop that fell out of the ceiling than look to see how much his foot was bleeding.  I was afraid I was going to have to sit down so that we didn't end up with two injured people.  Luckily for me there really wasn't too much blood.  Andy was is terrible pain as we discovered that the nail actually went entirely though the bottom of his large toe. 

He survived and didn't even need a trip to the ER despite my pleas.  And I still got to clean up mouse poop.