Insulation — someone’s got to do it

Today is the day that we (I supervised) took on the dreaded house project, insulating the floor. As most of you know, Bade and I live up a canyon, so we are already pretty shaded from the sun for the majority of the day and are always at least 10 degrees cooler than the valley.  We also have many mature trees around our house which provide shade through the sunny parts of the day.  All of this adds up to a very cold house.  We never have to turn on our air conditioning, in fact, we occasionally need to turn on the heat in the summer because our house is frigid. The worst of it is that when I wake up in the morning to a 50-and-below degree house, I go downstairs to make breakfast and my bare feet have to stand on a 40-and-below degree floor. So today we finally insulated our floors.

Bade’s friend, who is renovating an entire house by himself, volunteered to come to our house and work on our insulation instead of doing the same job at his house.  Keller was a HUGE help, and made the work much quicker and way more enjoyable. Bade’s little brother came and helped for the last hour of insulating, also a nice help :).

The boys were even able to fit in a 5 hour afternoon/evening ride to the top of some of the mountains that make up our canyon.

Pay It Forward Demolition

After an evening fishing on the Provo river in the middle of some beaver dams, we spent our Saturday helping a friend completely gut a house he just purchased in preparation for his huge remodel.

Work And Play New Year’s Eve

Saturday – homemade pizza

Sunday – water fight before bed.

Monday – made Chicken and Biscuits for dinner for my parents. We slightly over kneaded the biscuits.

Tuesday night was New Year’s Eve.  We spent dinner time with Bade’s friends, eating and playing games. Then spent the remaining few hours of the year with Bade’s brother and his family, playing games and eating junk food.  The first day of the new year was spent demolishing the main floor bathroom at my parents house, and re-tiling the floor. This remodel is a Christmas gift to my mother.

Wednesday – Started bathroom remodel.

Snakes and Holes

Lately Bade and I have been so busy with wedding planning and getting the house ready to live full time in, as well as winterized, that we haven’t had much time for play.  However, we have had time to save a snake who got stuck in a metal hole, and dig some new holes to move rocks and fix leaks.

New Laundry Room

So one of my requirements for my fiance’s house was that he remodel his laundry room before I move it.  I enjoy doing laundry and I like having a room I can store things in an organized way.  Both of those will be so much more enjoyable if Bade’s laundry room was shaped differently.

The Original: The laundry room is essentially a long hallway with a giant closet in the middle, that when opened, you can’t see down the laundry hallway.  The big issues with this are usability, and light.  The closet blocks most the light coming in, and it is difficult to get anything out of this closet.

The Remodel: Removing the closet, replacing that area with a counter and some narrow wall cabinets. More light, more usable storage space, and a counter area to fold clothes, iron, and place groceries, etc.

Here is the progress:

I Love Project Weekends

This weekend Bade and I made pillow covers for the pillows on his couch, started yard work such as checking and fixing his sprinklers, mowing his lawn, and digging a new flower bed. Bade has great soil around his house, so it was nice to dig in, other than that fact that this is Utah, so there are rocks everywhere!

We also started the second bathroom floor.  Bade had to lay mortar, hardy-board, more mortar, then the slate tile. All I did was help pick out the tile to use. I’m excited to finish this bathroom with a tiled shower, new vanity and toilet, and fresh paint.

DIY Pillow Covers

Simple no-closure pillow covers in just a few easy steps. These steps are to make covers for 20″ pillows. Start by getting a yard (or 20 inches) of fabric that’s around or more than 44 inches wide.  Cut the fabric to 20 inches wide.  If your fabric is around 44 inches across, then you don’t need to trim.  If it is much more than that, trim a few inches off the end to be down to around 44 inches.

Next, hem the two short, 20 inch ends so that they have nice finished edges and won’t fray.
After your 2 short ends have been hemmed, you can fold the fabric down and iron the fabric to prep for your final stitches. lay the fabric right side up, and fold one side up 10.5-11 inches. Iron that fold. Then fold the other side down so that the fabric makes a 20×20 inch square. Iron all sides, then sew a 1/2 inch seam around the entire square.

Last, turn the pillow right side out through the slit in the overlapping back side, and insert a 20×20 inch pillow.  I used the 20×20 inch pillows from IKEA.

Big Fish Sunday

I think Bade caught the biggest fish from his little pond today, and he was only fishing for about 2 minutes!  Look at this monster! (Oh and yes, we were painting all morning…that’s what’s all over his hands.)

House Work On Your Head

Bade and I have been hard at work on his house all day today. From caulking EVERYWHERE (caulk seems to be our answer to any tiny gap or misalignment) to painting closets (yuck, I do NOT suggest painting closets unless you can delegate that job to someone other than yourself) and even painting bead board to put in the back of the glass front kitchen cabinets.

Bathroom Remodel

This weekend, while listening to LDS General Conference, Bade and Z installed a new slate floor in Bade’s main floor bathroom.  This slate is MUCH better than the gross carpet that was in there before! We also switched out the vanity for a half vanity, the toilet for a new elongated white one, a new light fixture, and a giant (48″ wide by 36″ tall) mirror to span from the wall to the shower.  We left the wood walls and ceiling (it’s like a sauna when you shower). And even though it doesn’t match, Bade had to keep that jetted tube; super strong jets. The best part, when you open the window you can hear the river really well :).

Another Wood Floor

Bade’s brother-in-law was so kind to help re-plumb Bade’s entire house, so Bade wanted to help his brother-in-law lay his wood floor. We spent this weekend up at Mike’s house working on the floor.  We got a good chunk laid, and it looks so good! I can’t wait to see the completed floor.

Looking Back At Progress

So looking through all the pictures I/we/Bade have taken along the way of fixing up his house, I am surprised that we don’t have more of the pictures I want for before and after.  Always different angles, some before’s without after’s and some after’s without before’s, but here you have two areas that I was able to scrounge up some pictures for, the kitchen corner, and the living room looking from the kitchen area.

Full Day Of Work

Woke up this morning with Bade making be breakfast.  Still no wood floors in, so still no appliances in (even though there are now a few appliances just chilling in the garage waiting to be used). So breakfast is once again being made on our handy griddle. Doesn’t it looks delicious?!

After a yummy breakfast, we spent the entire day working.  From sun up until way past sun down. I spent the day painting doors, windows, door frames, and the bathroom.  Bade spent the day doing everything but painting.

Parental Recruits

My parents pseudo volunteered to work on Bade’s house with Bade and I today. We made fajitas on a griddle, then painted for hours!

Parmesan Zucchini

I wanted to spice up zucchini, because it is so good for you and rarely my vegetable of choice. So I mixed 1/3 c Parmesan cheese, 1/3 c bread crumbs, garlic salt and Italian seasoning in a bowl.  Then I dipped zucchini wedges (I cut mine in half and in 9ths and let them air dry for an hour) in a mixture of 2 large eggs and a little (about 1/3 c) egg beaters, then rolled the zucchini wedges in my cheese and bread mixture.  Then I cooked them in the over at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, turned them over, then another 15 minutes.  They were delicious! I ate them with ranch dressing.

Jalapenos Popper Chicken

Love jalapenos poppers?  Want to have a yummy, spicy chicken dinner?  Jalapenos popper chicken is the answer.  I made these tonight and they were a hit.  I modified the recipe from Cassie Craves. Here is what you will  need:

4 chicken breasts (I got thin cut ones)
1 8-oz cream cheese
cheddar cheese
bacon
jalapenos
bread crumbs
eggs

1. Pre-heat oven to 375-degrees.
2. Mix 8-oz cream cheese, about 5 cooked and diced slices of bacon, 1/2 cup cheddar cheese, and 2 seeded and diced jalapenos.
3. Spread mixture onto thin chicken breasts and fold in half (or roll).  Secure with toothpick.
4. Dip chicken breasts in eggs, then roll in breadcrumbs and place in backing tin.
5. When chicken is half done (about 15 minutes), take tin out and add more cream cheese mixture to top of chicken.
6. Bake chicken fully.  When serving, garnish with a smaller piece on bacon on top.

This is NOT a Kevin Bacon House

Kevin Bacon, the man who is connected to every other person by a series of small links, is in no way similar to Bade’s fixer upper of a house, which takes over an hour and a half for a simple home depot run. That said, this house IS awesome, or at least WILL BE awesome; the home projects continue.

This week, Bade and I have gone up to his house at least 3 times with paint samples, 2 the first time, 3 the second and 5 the third, in hopes of picking a paint that is unique enough to not be boring, but boring enough to go in 3-4ish rooms in the house. This is no easy task, especially for two very indecisive people. Friday was the 3rd night with paint samples and we planned to stay the night so that we could assess this last round of paint samples in daylight and make a final decision. Saturday morning came, we saw the samples in daylight, and we still hadn’t decided after working in the house for a few hours and decided that we would defer deciding until after lunch. We didn’t end up going to lunch, but straight to Lowe’s. However, we had decided on bone white by Olympic. Yeah, not an exciting color, but a lot could be done with such a versatile choice. We get there, ask the girl there to mix up the color for us, and she says “have you checked the mis-tint section?” No we have not; we chose bone white.  But Bade, being his father’s son, cannot pass up an offer of 75% off, so we check the mis-tint section.  There is a 5 gallon bucket that one, Bade, could argue is a much darker by slightly akin color to one we had already tried and didn’t hate.  So we got it :).

We spent all day filling in holes, sanding walls and doors, taping, edging and painting. Now, the house looks SO much better and we love the color of the mis-tint paint. Goodness, 3 days of deliberation only to be undone by a good deal.

Oh and the final, random pictures from this weekend are below. We made a french toast and bacon breakfast at a house in the middle of no where with absolutely no appliances. We found a dead bird in the backyard in the morning.  It really was a gorgeous bird.

Pesto Baked Chicken

I fixed baked pesto chicken for dinner tonight and it was really yummy.  Below are my pictures, with the picture from kalynskitchen.com as the last picture (I forgot to take a picture before we ate dinner). Here is what is needed. Tip, don’t skimp on the pesto sauce.

• 4 chicken breasts
• 4 Tbsp pesto
• 4 Tbsp sour cream
• 4 Tbsp mozzarella cheese
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup Parmesan
• 1/3 cup almond wheat

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Pound out chicken so that it is as flat as possible.
3. Mix 4 Tbsp pesto, 4 Tbsp sour cream and 4 Tbsp mozzarella cheese. Spread the mixture on the 4 chicken breasts, leaving a little room on the edges.
4. Roll chicken breasts and stick a toothpick in to hold in rolled position.
5. Dip rolled chicken in egg mixture (I used 4  eggs and it was more than enough), then in a mixture of 1/3 cup Parmesan and 1/3 cup almond wheat.
6. Place on greased baking sheet.  Cook for around 40 minutes, or until hard and golden brown.

RePlumbing Made Easy With Mike

Bade recently bought a new house.  This house is a halfway gutted cabin-house, that has been vacant for a year. The good things: it has a nice basic setup, it is located in a secluded area but still has close neighbors, it has a river in the backyard and front door access to dirt bike trails and snowmobile runs, and since it is halfway gutted, Bade gets to pick the majority of the interior (flooring, paint, cabinet hardware, etc). The big negative, all the pipes have burst.  Getting into this house, Bade didn’t know that the pipes had burst but he was aware that could be the case.  He expected that he would need to re-plumb some of the main pipes, but did not expect that he would need to re-plumb 100% of the pipes and valves.  Mike to the rescue.  Em’s Mike comes in and without stress or worry, leads the charge in re-plumbing the ENTIRE house in a day and a half! Mike, you rock! Now, all the plumbing is brand spanking new, with better pipes that won’t burst like the last. This was one huge headache avoided :)!

Fun Day, Flat Tire

Here we have the boys changing a flat tire on the trailer after a long fun day of snowmobiling.