Sans' summer

I'm going to take the liberty to post what Sans has been up to while we've been visiting family in Washington. He is very happy that we're back, not only because he has company again, but he doesn't have to survive on noodles, zucchini, and ice cream anymore, and he can stop working on crazy house projects! At least for a while, anyways.

The main project he did was the kitchen. He put in new cabinets and painted; I love it! He kept scaring me that it was too bold, but it's great. We have tons more storage and I love the colors. It has a whole new feel. I'm doing my best to keep it clean. It helps that we have a dishwasher now, even if it does make awful grinding noises. :)

Sans also painted a few other rooms. The playroom/laundry room is "nectarine fizz." I was a little nervous, but it's a great color for the space. Notice the new reed shades, too? He put those up all over the house. Again, I love them! They filter out the heat but still let lots of light and fresh air in.

Paint project #3 was our bedroom. It is probably the most relaxing room in the house now; the color is really calming. It was a good choice.

Sans also did a surprise project for me - he put in a new bathroom vanity, sink, and cabinets! Other than some major leaking problems (caused by a split valve) (not due to the installer's abilities), it's been great, too. I love the big sink and more storage! It's funny how we try to live a simple life, yet it's always nice to have more storage. Isn't there something wrong with that?

He also did other projects that are great and were lots of work, but not quite as picture worthy. The ceiling texture he blogged about turned out great, but would have made a not-very-interesting picture. He finished the shed, hung the bikes up in the shed, and got one of my favorite pictures framed and hung in our room. He installed our new fancy-schmancy under the cabinet radio (thanks, Grandma!), which allows our kitchen to be more streamlined and frees up precious counterspace.

I feel somewhat guilty talking about all these new things Sans did over the summer, when we're trying to simplify our lives and live with a small ecological footprint. While we do our best on those things, I also believe that having a home that is comfortable and welcoming that you want to be in is important, too. It is easier for me to focus on the things that are truly important in life when I can feel at peace in the place where I am. Thanks, Sans, for all your hard work.

Here are a couple bonus pictures for those of you who are itching for to see those kids! While in Washington, we went to the King County Fair and the kids were in a cowboy skit. Mugwump was a singing cowboy and Sixpence was a cow.

How to paint a popcorn ceiling

Happy birthday to my wife! For her birthday I painted the ceiling in the bedroom... Now I have some questions. How do you paint a popcorn ceiling?

First off, does everyone know that a popcorn ceiling is one of those highly textured ceilings that I think were popular in the 70s (my wife wouldn't know about such things, she wasn't alive yet).

So I went to the hardware store and I bought white paint and a high texture roller. Then I started painting. My intention was to end up with paint on the ceiling so that it looked clean and white. That is not what happened.

I dipped my roller in the paint and I rolled it across the ceiling. The "popcorn" texture stuck to my roller and the paint dripped on my head. I continued, thinking that eventually paint would have to stick to the ceiling. It didn't. The more I rolled, the more I tried to apply pressure and get paint on the ceiling, the more that fell or stuck to my roller. Sure, I got some paint on the ceiling. It may even look better than it did before (or then again, it may not). I did some mathematical calculations to find the exact results of my efforts.

If I include the large areas of ceiling that never took to being painted and the fact that I couldn't get the paint into the deep texture (the little that remained), I calculated that I have paint coverage on 14% of the ceiling.

I then calculated the surface area of my body that was covered with paint, etc. The bottoms of my feet were covered. Head, face, and shoulders were also pretty much covered. My arms were heavily splattered, but I would not call them covered. My legs and body that was covered with clothing was not harmed in the least. I calculated that 17.4% of my body was covered in paint.

The final calculation that I did was to find the amount of popcorn left on the ceiling. Based on the fact that the roller would no longer pick up paint because it was covered in texture and the amount of texture on my head, face, shoulders and feet, as well as the texture that ended up in the paint I was trying to get onto the roller and the texture that has now dropped all over the floor in our bedroom, I calculated that 6% of the original popcorn is still on the ceiling.

The big flat parts and streaky paint job don't look especially good, but I did get some paint on the ceiling. For less of a mess and lower cost, I think today I will buy 20 gallons of paint on the way home, take the lids of and throw the paint at the ceiling. I think I will have better success that way.

Happy Birthday Dear!!

A recap of the week

It's time for another family post. I have some pictures that family will enjoy. Maybe someone else will like the pictures of my kids, etc., but I don't know why you would come to this site to look at pictures of a stranger's kids.

Friday I built a shed, Saturday I went for a bike ride and roofed the shed. This week I will put siding on the shed. Earlier this week I read on Fatty's blog he announced a bike ride to leave at 6 am Saturday morning. I got permission and decided to do the ride. Now this isn't just any ride around town, this was going to be nearly 100 miles with LOTS of climbing. Since the longest bike ride I have done this year is not much longer than my 12 mile commute to work, I was a little nervous about this ride. It worked out though, I premeditated my quitting point so I didn't look as weak as I really am. I left my house at a little after 4 am to ride the 30 miles up to American Fork. Then I waited a few minutes in the parking lot for the rest of the group to arrive. First we climbed to the Tibble Fork camp ground, which was a spectacular ride. I felt strong and it was fun to finally ride with a group.

We descended and immediately turned to climb the Alpine loop. We climbed for a long ways... I was alone for much of it because I couldn't keep up. Near the top of the Alpine loop we turned to climb to the Timpanooke camp ground. I'd never been up there and since I met the others on the way down and decided to follow them, I have still never been up there. At that point in the ride I could tell that I wasn't going to make it. So while the others turned to go to Cascade Springs, I descended through Provo Canyon and returned home (I was home before 10am). So I missed the climb up from Cascade Springs, Squaw Peak and the back side of the Alpine loop. I think that may have killed me had I tried it. It was one of the most beautiful rides I have ever been on... Someday I'll be strong enough to do the whole thing.


I'm sorry, I forget that people don't come to read my writing, they come here to see pictures of my kids (notice how the writing came first so you had to wade through it?). So here are the pictures.

This is Six-pence. He likes to pose for the camera. How did we get a little kid that is blond?

The Mugwump was climbing a dead tree. He's turning into quite the climber.

That is the shed that I built. It was quite the learning experience. (Thanks Jim for the previous experience that made this possible!!) I wish I had used more "green" building techniques, but this was all that we could afford. I do think that we will add a gutter and start collecting any rain water that doesn't leak through the roof.
That's a different angle of the same shed. I simply attached it to the carport. That second window is most definitely level.... maybe it's just the picture? Or it's an optical illusion? Or, in fact, that installer of the window could not measure accurately and therefore the window is at a slight angle. (This is not a quiz, so please do not respond with which of the options you thought was correct).

My wife and kids are leaving this week to visit family in the Northwest. They will be gone for 6 weeks. I will be studying and getting done the mother of all "honey-do" lists. There will be no pictorial updates on my side until my wife gets back since she is taking the camera. She may hijack the blog while she is away and post kid pictures, but we'll allow for that. Most will actually prefer that, in all likelihood.