Day 44: Floor and Hummingbirds

Two pictures of our little hummingbird mama in her nest! I have to bring over my hummingbird feeder for her.

And of course here's the progress on the floor:

Outside of the house

Here's a picture of the outside of our house. It's really yellow, but it was a sunny day.

Day 43: Tile...

So today Gene spent a lot of time ripping out tile in the foyer so we could lay down either new tile or hardwood there. I think we've decided on hardwood. That tile was tough as it was really stuck to the floor.

I finished painting the hallway touchups and yellow room so Sunday will be floor laying.

Exciting news on the bird front--we have lots of hummingbirds, but yesterday Gene found a little hummingbird nest with a little bird sitting in it! We might have baby hummingbirds. However, we do have two nests in our eaves with birds in them so we'll have other babies as well--but they're near our doors and the birds fly out angrily whenever we go in and out of the house. But we can't remove the nests until they're done having babies.

Day 37: Floor, glorious floor!

Today we were finally able to lay floor and finished most of it in the master bedroom. We'll just have to continue on out into the hallway and make sure it connects and flows. Here's a picturs of what we have done so far with lots of little spacers to give us room away from the wall.

In the pictures the floor looks darker than what I think it looks like in real life. However, it does have variation to it. I can't wait to see what it looks like with all of our furniture in it.










Notice in the second picture how shiny white that closet is--that's due to my brilliant paint job. Or less than brilliant as I think the closet will quickly not be seen from all the stuff in there. But it does have a new coat of paint.

And here's one last up close look at the floor:

I think this approximates the color much better.

Below are our adventures in gardening (which means here's what blooms each week)

We have a sort of lily that has bloomed near our rose bush. One of our other trees we discovered is a red bottle brush tree with beautiful magenta blooms. We also have tons of birds in our backyard and saw a male hooded oriole on one of our trees--it was a beautiful bright yellow with just a little bit of black on it.

That's the update from this weekend!

Day 36: Trying to get to the floors

Gene and I spent the day at the house painting trim and and closets in the master bedroom. This touching up and detailed work took us much longer than expected. (Added by an extra trip back to Home Depot to exchange Swiss Coffee for Ultra Pure White.)

We got the layer of Elastilon (this magic stuff that will make our floor all stick together) down, but didn't yet get the wood down. We stopped so because we needed to start cutting stuff and Gene didn't want to make mistakes because he was tired.

On the way home, Gene stopped and saw tons of boxes being thrown out by some of our apt neighbors, so he took them and now we have a lot of packing to do.

Day 29

Here's what we got accomplished last week. Painting the living room Gobi desert.

Then after we did that, Gene was able to prime the kichen and we were able to start painting it on Thursday night.

And here's some pictures of our lilac, rose, and loquats:

There isn't more to say really as I'm just catching up on last week's work. I'll have more after this weekend.

Day 22 and 23

So on Friday, Gene took the day off work and we went to pick up our washer/dryer and dishwasher from Whirlpool pick up in Santa Fe Springs. While it took awhile for them to get everything, we finally got it all packed into the back of the truck. Here's what it looks like from the rear window.

We then got the house and unloaded our appliances--good thing we got ourselves a hand truck (or a dollie if you're like me and call it that) to help move this around. Gene then painted the master bedroom blue while I cleaned and prepped other rooms to paint. Here's what the bedroom looks like after we were finished.

I also started pulling up the kitchen floor last night.

Today, we were back again after a trip to Home Depot for some more paint supplies and scrapers for the floor. I continued on the floor and completed that and Gene primed the living room and hallways.

It was a long day of work, but the fllor is finished and soon will be ready for hardwood!

However, my exciting news it that our two lilac bushes are starting to bloom and have thousands of buds all over them. The lilacs smell beautiful and I can't wait until it's in full bloom. In other gardening news, when I went to water yesterday, I found another lizard. However, Gene tells me they'll keep bugs away. We also have a lot of gnats and mosquitos--any good tips to get rid of those?

Day 21

Gene has been at the house the past two evenings painting and working. We're slowly getting the house in to colors vs. the white. But there's a lot of white walls. We'll be spending tomorrow and the weekend really getting through all of that. Tomorrow starts with a trip to get a washer/dryer and dishwasher and then back to the house to install and paint away.

Here are some pictures from last weekend's work:

Here's the piles of wood flooring we brought in from the truck. And rolls of Elastion to lay on the floor first. And there's more piles in each room! 

This is what our wood floor will look like eventually. Or a small square of it at least.

Gene painting the office wall Melted Butter yellow. Mmmm melted butter. But it's a pretty yellow, it's only taken us three coats. I think we've decided to do some primer first and then the color.