Summer

What a summer. I have been at my mother's since the end of April and have only been home for one weekend (Father's Day) and most of that was to try to grab things I may need. (Hubby is a very patient man).

Have you ever had a suspicious noise in your car and you take it to the mechanic to get fixed and it purrs like a dream and he is sitting there looking at you like your nuts? Or you have the plumber come in to fix your screaming pipes, that won't scream while he is there? Well, that's what is going on with me. I have been here so I can get to the doctor right away when I have a flare up, however they have all been so minor lately that it's not worth taking the time/gas/money to go in, or is something we already have done and know whats going on (sort of). Aaarrgh!

But a lot of diseases have been ruled out. Thankfully. And I am not completely blind yet - so all good.

Just updating. Boring stuff. Take care everyone and hopefully sometime soon something that resembles normalcy will happen. Maybe.

:)

Oh - and I should be blogging about Chickens soon....

Wordless Wednesday

Not Lung Cancer!

Wow. I found a new doctor last week, who seems to have some ideas on how to help me. I have had SEVERAL doctors over the years, and they all start out gung-ho, but then fizzle out of tests and treatments.  The new doc has ordered some tests that even the tech drawing my blood had never seen before. Doc is doing the most likely culprits first, and one of which is lung cancer. Somehow, if you have lung cancer it can effect your eyes and vice-versa. Considering I was smoking 2 pack of cigarettes a day for 30ish years, that was a real concern. Can you believe I haven't had chest X-rays in almost 20 years?

And no lectures, I have cut my smoking to less than 15 a day! And now I have a Nicatrol inhaler, tastes AWFUL, but I am willing to give it a shot. (and no, I wont be smoking at the same time)

No lung cancer!!! No lesions. Woot!!!

We also found out a few other things with those X-Rays that we didn't know before. The more we know, the better we can narrow things down and maybe make some progress.

And all because I splashed almost boiling water into my eye, a small flare up, and my sister saying we are going to urgent care... EVERYTHING just seemed to fall into place. All new doctors/specialists, bloodwork, X-rays, the whole she-bang in a one block area. AND TAKING NEW PATIENTS.  Really what are the odds?

Hehe, who knows, maybe there is some treatment for me where I won't go blind and be able to get rid of my wheelchair.

There is always hope... right?

Wordless Wednesday

Playing

Got to play with tools over the weekend. It has been MANY years since I have been able to "play" with tools. This week it is the Miter Saw and a Jig saw. FUN FUN FUN.

We started working on installing the trim for mom, but would have to spend 15 minutes just arranging things in the workshop just to measure something out, then another 15 to re-arrange so we could cut... We said ENOUGH. and decided to spend yesterday straightening things up and see what we had to build a cutting table. Which I guess turned out to be a good thing as we found out that the wood in the rafters that we thought were good 2x4's were not exactly what we had in mind - they were only about 15" long! Which would make for a SHORT table ;) We racked our brains and was in the process of planning a trip to Home Depot or Lowe's when it occurred to my son there were all the leftover posts and 2x4's still in the back from building sister's deck. Woot! SCORE!!!! There were 3 good sized 4x4 posts and several useful lengths of 2x4's. and we found an old 3/4" plywood cabinet door that we can cut in half and use as the top of the table.

So today will be cutting and assembling... along with mopping and laundry :D

Floor Hints part 2

Now for the last hint that was invaluable to me, and of course the "ahah!" moment didn't happen until pretty much the whole house was done, but still - I WILL remember for putting in the trim! A wonderful lady over at Sew Many Ways does a write up on some nifty gadget or thingy she has found and what she uses it for - not necessarily what it was intended for! She calls it Tool Time Tuesday here is a link to one of her thingy's ;) a pull tab from a creamer carton into a pincushion ring! Way too cool - you gotta check out her blog (and her craft room!) Anyway, she reminds me all the time to think outside the box, and it must be working, cause I thought of this:

A skateboard to use as a caddy for the tools I always leave at the other end of the room!!! Now I have no problem whatsoever on getting down on the floor (I fall all the time!) getting up on the other hand is tricky business. 

So this whole time we have been working on the floor I would sit down and STAY down. Son &/or daughter would do the running for more tile or to take the tile to be cut etc. etc. And son would even pull me from one end of the room to the other - whhhheeee!!!! (just take note not to do that on the sub-floor, make sure you are on the tile! ouch!) 

Well, it never failed that I would forget half my tools, mainly pencils, all the way on the other side of the room, when I FINALLY thought of using my nephew's skateboard! I Kept all my tools on the skateboard, and when I was done with the cutting and fitting at the start of the wall I would roll it on down to the end of the row (not too hard as I didn't want to mark the wall) and it would be there where I needed it once done laying all the other tiles for the row! It worked great!!!

So that's it for the floor tiles I think. Next "big" project is the trim. 

Now if any of you are going to be doing this, really and truly the change is amazing and SOOOO worth doing it yourself. It may seem scary and overwhelming (it was to me!) but it really wasn't that bad :D I know I complained about the unsquareness and things, (yes I know that is not a word), but I did enjoy the challenge of trying to figure those angles and curves, it was by far the biggest puzzle I have ever done :)

So let me know if you try this, and I would be happy to answer any questions on it! I am by no means an expert, but I think momma's house threw up so many different scenarios that I can safely answer a lot of questions! 

And just cuz I get so few pictures of my kids together:

My sweet helpers!

Floor Hints part 1

Some hints for you if you decide to lay your own floor:

These tiles had 2 patterns on them, sometimes the glue strips would be reversed, but still only the 2 patterns. Now because I have OCD, I used a minimum of 3 boxes at a time, which had 8 strips of tiles, and stacked them to match in their own piles; I did this for several reasons.

First I will try to show you the patterns:

See the two marks?

Well this one doesn't have those marks, it has this distinguishing feature though. You will need to zoom in to see (at least I did ;) )

Here is what I mean saying the glue strips are reversed

It has the same exact markings but notice the glue strips? If I match the markings, then the glue strips didn't match.

So I made four stacks as to me it was easier to make sure first I had the right piece in the right direction THEN make sure the pattern wasn't going to be side by side :) This is only 3 stacks, because I had already gone through 3 1/2 boxes! So as you can see not all the boxes switch things up.

I would open at least 3 boxes so I could have a good selection and not repeat the patterns so obviously, also staggering or stair-stepping the joints helped to not repeat too. 

See how it is stair-stepped?

Another reason to use multiple boxes is because sometimes the dye lot is not exact. Kind of like when buying yarn, you need to get it all the same dye lot or it may not match perfectly. It’s the same for the flooring, the colors may be off by just a hair, but if you use multiple boxes and switch them out etc., you won’t have a darker or lighter patch of floor.

So if you stack your tiles according to pattern & the glue strips etc., then as you’re laying the floor it can be a no brainer and you just get one from each stack at a time. And with stair-stepping you REALLY don’t have to worry about repeating yourself.

Starting the floor.

My uncle started laying the floor at the beginning, now I am not bashing him, as he admitted he had never done this before either; however, he didn’t even try to read the directions for the floor! So our starting point was where he had left off (he had been called back to work) and we then had to work around those issues. We DID pull up the floor just laid in the dining room and kitchen as I showed in this post. And I keep kicking myself for not going ahead and pulling up the floor in the den – which was basically completed so we worked the rest of the floor off that.

The problem was he had squared up the floor using the outer walls, when we should have used the longest inner wall. Then the wonkiness of the walls would not have been so obvious. But mom is ok with it and is happy with her floor… but it’s my OCD kicking in ;) So when you start laying your own floor use the longest inner wall to lay your chalk lines to guide you (there are all kinds of tutorials on how to do that).

One of the glaringly obvious issues that happened because of it, is having to put a threshold where the hallway meets the kitchen. I can’t believe I did not get a pic of it, but den leads into the dining room which leads to the kitchen that then leads back into the den – it makes a circle… which didn’t meet well J hence a threshold.

Also another issue that popped up is the tile was laid long ways, the trailer is rectangular. This is also a double-wide, so the seams of the two halves run straight down the middle long ways. The tiles are also rectangular and they were laid to run the length of the trailer. It would have worked MUCH better to run them crosswise instead. It would have laid better over the seam of the two halves of the trailer and also would have been able to avoid using a threshold.

Enough about that, just if you should decide to do this, please really sit down and THINK about layouts and such!

On to other hints…

DO NOT throw out your “waste” until you are DONE with the floor!!!! When you “stair step” your seams sometimes you have to follow a wall and cut off portions of your tile to line things up correctly. 

Starting a row and trying to line up grout lines while trying to stagger seams

Same row, finished and in place - note seam from previous row

What you cut off of one end or side of the tile may be able to be used at the other end of the room! 

The rest of the tile from above to start a row was used to finish the row

Or you may need just a bit of the glue strip for a very small section – these tiles are expensive! You don’t want to waste a WHOLE piece just cuz you need a 1 inch strip!

For example:

This is a bit larger than one inch - but still to waste a whole piece of tile for that little bit to finish the row? Also see how there is only half the width of the tile along the wall?

Now just need to mark where to cut for the wire coming up and will fit right in place

Here are our piles of “wasted” tile, you also get an idea of why I said when you order your tiles, get about 15% more:

Mom ordered 80 boxes of the tile, kept one box along with some of the “good” “wasted” tiles and returned 4 boxes. Each box covers 24 sq. ft., which means 1800 sq. ft. was either used or trashed. Her house is 2028 sq. ft. including the deck and approximately 1750 sq.ft. of living space... So we did GREAT on keeping the waste to a minimum! At $52 a box, WOOT!!!!  She was going to be charged about $10,000 for installation because they charge for each angle and cut they have to make plus the square footage, and as you can see in the pictures, there were a LOT of angles to cut! Also when she returned those four boxes, she got $220 back, which paid for her new trim. Altogether, she is very happy :) 

Tomorrow I will show you one hint I am really proud of… besides figuring out to use the dremel for cutting, actually laying the floor, mom and sister not noticing there were only 2 different tiles, measuring without being able to see a tape measure, and not killing myself in the process!

So check in tomorrow for this new use of something TOTALLY not intended for this purpose!