Finisned at last

Just a few more pictures of the hard wood floor project, It took longer than I would have liked but the outcome was worth it. Our floors were prefinished but they had to sand the subfloor for some reason. We had saw dust everywhere. As I said we painted before the floors were installed, we now have to go back and touch up. I think they touched every inch of wall below the waist.

Peg, we painted most of the walls a light gray. It looks like blue next to the dining room and picks up the green around the kitchen. The trim is the same kaki as the kitchen. We reversed the colors on the wall with the fire place. I need to be careful, if I keep up all of this decorating talk, I may end up with a cable TV show.

Now we are ready for Thanksgiving. Hope everyone has a happy holiday.

Construction Zone

We are in the midst of having our hardwood floors installed. The material was delivered last Monday so it could acclimate to the house. We chose Australian Cypress because we liked the color variation as well as all the knots.

As you can see in the pictures we were not let down. Today they did the hall and started on the stairs that is the most cutting and hardest part. Deb and I have put felt pads on the feet of all the furniture to keep from scratching the new floor. They should be finished on Wednesday, a little longer than I thought but the steps are tricky. We finished painting last Saturday and I can see we will have some touch up when this is over with

The pictures in this blog are from my old floppy disk Sony camera. The newer camera has taken a dump on me. It started acting up in Chicago and has gotten worse over time. I will post some more pictures when we are finished.

Well as you can see by the picture, fall has come to Newton County. Deb and I planted the trees in this picture in 1994 when we moved in to the house. Hard to believe they have grown so much. We started out the weekend having dinner with mom and dad, to celebrate Deb’s birthday. We went to a great Mexican joint dad knew of.

Deb had started to paint the entryway last week so on Saturday I got the ladder out and we finished that. Our entry is like the one on Edinburgh, 2 stories and hard to get around in. In true Debbie fashion the entryway lead to the hall and that lead to the living room, on and on.

Back about four years ago we were looking at hardwood floors but put it off when Debbie’s job went under. Well as we finished the paint in the entry we noticed the flooring on the landing was really worn so we went to look at new flooring for the landing. Well in true Debbie fashion the landing lead to the steps, the steps lead to the hallway and that lead to the living room and dining room. We wound up choosing “Australian Cypress” in 5 ½ inches wide by 3/4 planks from Lumber Liquidators. It will be delivered Tuesday and has to acclimate for one week, then will be installed next Monday. That is the plan and I hope it works out because we have 12 people coming over for Thanksgiving. Micah’s future in-laws are coming. I have met them already and Deb has met Christina’s mom but not her dad. We may be eating off boxes of wood if the timeline gets messed with. I’ll let you all know how this thing works out.

I should have pictures of the newly renovated Covington abode by the bext blog. In the words of “Kenny Z damn it” “ I long for one more night on Kensington Ave” I’m with you Kenny and I got the amo.

Another Weekend

I had another great weekend. I was invited to be the Gun Caption at an AKC hunt test. The Welch Springer Spaniel club held the test at Circle W Hunting Preserve, in Heflin, Alabama. The picture above is the view from the club house. The weather was absolutely perfect. The mornings were in the 50’s and the afternoons were in the low 70’s.

The gunners at the test go in the field with the dog handler and the judges and hunt for birds. They use people like me who have a lot of experience shooting a shotgun for several reasons. The first is safety, with all the people at a test and very expensive dogs in the field you need to be sure of your shot. The next is each dog has a limited amount of time to find, flush and retrieve 2 birds. We have to make sure the birds are dropped so the retrieve can be made. If you miss too many shots you don’t get asked back. There is a long line of people who want to take this job away from me.

We shot over 20 dogs on Saturday and 21 on Sunday. There were 12 different spaniel breads represented this weekend. The official photographer for the AKC was at the test, and below are some of his pictures. You can see more at AKC.ORG then look on the right side for the Welch test.

Deb and I just got back from the Thanksgiving dinner at Camp Sunshine. It is a gathering place for families of children with cancer. It is one of the charities we support each year. This is our 4th year to serve the families. We fed over 100 people this year; unfortunately the bigger numbers are not because the food is so good. This is the start of the holiday season for us each year. It is that time again.