Winter Eventually Gives Way to Spring!

The long winter months are over. Or so we think. It is Colorado, after all. Officially, according to the calendar, spring is here so we are just going to go with it and start work again on this house project. We'll deal with whatever Mother Nature throws at us as we go along.

What have we been doing during these last few months while we put our project on hold?

Well, Glenn organized his garage better and moved most, if not all, of the supplies we have for the new house into the extra container we bought last summer. That made room in the garage for Glenn to be able to fix his compressor and rebuild a welder.

We replaced the garage door. The old one was in pretty bad shape:

The new one makes the garage look so much better!

Glenn lost his job in August of last year so he decided to retire. He has been the main breadwinner for most of our married life. He worked 2 jobs to put me through college. He worked when the boys were little so I could stay home with them. So we decided it is my turn to support him. In October, I became an independent contractor for VIPKid. I teach English to Chinese children. It is the coolest and most fun job I have ever had. And it frees Glenn up to be able to work on the house.

Glenn took some odds and ends that were laying around and he and the boys built this table:

The table is upside down in these photos so they could paint the legs.

This is the finished table.
He didn't have to buy anything to build it. All of the parts were leftovers from other projects. The legs are pieces of an old shelving system. They were in Glenn's metal recycle pile for a long time but he just couldn't bring himself to get rid of them. So now they have new life as table legs.
This table will be a great work surface this summer.


The first project we used this table for was rebuilding an old bench swing that we've had for years. Glenn picked it up on the side of the road about 10 years ago. It needed new wood and paint and we finally got around to doing it. The only "before" pictures I have are when we were disassembling it but you can see how rusted the metal is and how worn the wood is.

The boys helped with the sanding and painting and the complaining (lol):

 Almost done:

 Finished! We love the bright colors! Brianna said it looks like it belongs at McDonalds but I like it!

We also had this old, wood rocking chair that Danita McDonald gave us, so we decided to paint it to match the bench.

That about sums up the projects we worked on this winter. This was in addition to regular life that happened:

We had to cover the old house windows with plastic so all our heat didn't escape through them.

We had to cover the underside of the house where we had already removed the skirting.

The kitchen faucet died and had to be replaced.

Our hall bathroom toilet had a tragic accident and the tank had to be replaced. (Sam doesn't want me to tell this story online, but you should ask him about it anyway. heehee)

Our deep freezer stopped working so we had to dispose of it, get Brianna and Hank's freezer out of storage and set it up in the mud room. (We got 18 years of use out of it, and it was used when we got it, so we can't be too upset about it dying with no warning.....)

We weathered a few wind storms (see what I did there?) and had to repair the fence and the roof and the red shed's doors.

Now spring is here and we are ready to get started on the house. But first we have to get the motorhome ready, which means fixing or replacing the faucet.

The missionaries came over and helped Glenn remove the motorhome's sink so that we could see where, hopefully, the last water leak is. We pulled out the faucet and, sure enough, there was a 1/4" split in the copper pipe. This is Glenn's current project. Repair or replace....that is the question......