5/25/25

 This was a challenging week for progress with high school graduation on Friday night and both Michael's and Keila's families coming into Lubbock on Saturday. We arrived together late Thursday afternoon and headed back early Saturday morning. Although our time was short, we got a lot accomplished. We finished the door trim throughout the house (a few places will need a little more work), and I filled the nail holes. We also removed all of the doors Saturday morning and brought them back to Lubbock to be painted in Rick's shop. We'll work on cabinets here Sunday and Monday rather than packing everything back up and returning to Benjamin for 1 1/2 days.

We ordered the bathroom vanities last week, and they were delivered Thursday afternoon right before we left (we actually delayed our departure until they arrived). We got them unpacked and the boxes taken to the Benjamin city dumpster on Friday. We think they're going to work great in the bathrooms. We also purchased the floor tile (it's a vinyl plank) and will get it installed fairly soon. Next weekend we'll possibly be installing baseboards and painting the door frames and baseboards. The upper and lower cabinet bases are mostly finished, and once the drawers and doors are built and everything is painted, we'll be hauling them down and installing them in the kitchen and bathrooms.

3rd bedroom door trim finished and nail holes filled

Master bedroom and 2nd bedroom doors finished

Main bathroom door finished (also a sneak peek of vanity and floor tile)

Front door finished

3rd bedroom/laundry room door--original trim removed

New door trim on 3rd bedroom/laundry room door and rehabbing the door frame

2nd bathroom vanity with floor "tile"

2nd bathroom vanity and vinyl plank floor tile

Kamryn's graduation

Brooke, Kamryn, and Devon

Lincoln, Holden, and Hadleigh

picking wildflowers

5/18/25

We both arrived Saturday morning. The weekend was short but productive. We installed the remaining 6 doors/frames, got trim up around most of them, and made good progress with solving issues and getting ready to put trim on the remaining ones. I also sprayed weeds around the buildings, trees, etc. all over the property to make mowing easier. Speaking of mowing, Becky has been mowing our yard when she mows my mom's yard, but she's been out of town for over a week for 3 state competitions (OAP last Monday, state tennis with Keegan and Tallon on Thursday and Friday (they won 1st in boys doubles!), and Kamryn competes in poetry tomorrow). Some very kind, but unknown, person mowed our yard last week!   

This coming week, we'll be continuing work on the cabinets here at home, finishing trim on the doors, and possibly starting the baseboards. 

These nifty little door dollies made it much easier

Master bedroom and 2nd bedroom doors

Master bedroom door looking across to main bathroom

Main bathroom

Main bathroom and 2nd bedroom doors

Looking down hallway from 2nd bedroom

3rd bedroom door and closet

3rd bedroom (hot water heater closet, door, closet)

Hot water heater closet

2nd bedroom looking down hallway

Master bedroom

Master bedroom closet

Master bedroom closet looking out

2nd bedroom and master bedroom doors

Same doors/almost ready for trim 

3rd bedroom door almost ready for trim

5/13/25

It was a short trip to Benjamin this time. We arrived together on Saturday morning in my car, so our resources were limited. The Benjamin group was performing Monday in Austin at the State UIL One Act Play competition, so rather than driving back to Lubbock, we drove to Austin Sunday morning from Benjamin. 

Saturday we installed 3 door frames/doors, re-sanded and vacuumed the floors, and put on another 1.5 coats of sealer, so the floors are now complete. The door installations were complicated by not having all doors at the house yet (and my Rav4 is too small to take them), having limited tools available, and needing to install doors on several very complicated doorways. 

Next weekend, we'll hopefully finish the door installations and not sure what's next. The baseboards will be installed soon, but they'll probably be painted here first, and that probably won't happen in the next few days.

The Austin trip was great. We left early Sunday morning, ate BBQ in Brady, and stopped by Luckenbach for some live music and beer before arriving in Austin. The play was Monday afternoon and Benjamin went 2nd in the first session (there were 8 total schools with 4 plays in each session). They really killed it! We hung out with Becky, Kemp, Devon, Blake, Tori, Brooke, Matt, Wyatt, Landreigh, mother, and Susan all day at a couple of restaurants, the auditorium, and the hotel lobby and bar. 

We finally got the results at almost midnight. Benjamin was first runner-up/2nd place! Kamryn won one of the two Best Performer awards, and was then awarded the top acting award--the Samuel French Outstanding Performer. We're really proud of her and the rest of the group!

5/4/25

Benjamin had a terrible storm late Tuesday afternoon that made national news with baseball size hail, 100 mph winds, and a tornado a few miles to the east. Most west and some north facing windows in town were broken and roofs were destroyed. My mom's west windows were broken out and some north windows were broken. Two very kind high school guys cleaned up the glass in her house and then helped Becky and Kamryn get her windows covered Tuesday night with some left over materials from our storage. Rick made a trip to Benjamin early Wednesday morning with plywood and helped cover windows for several people and for the church parsonage. Our new west windows somehow survived, but the screens were torn up. The roof and metal siding on the west side took a beating. A big thank you to Becky for mowing the yard not once, but twice, this week. Also, a big thank you to our neighbor for hauling off another pile of trash and junk to the city dump.

We both arrived early Saturday morning with the goal to finish sanding and sealing the hardwood floors. Rick ran the belt sander, and I ran the orbital sander for many hours on Saturday. It's not perfect, but we did the best we could without dragging it out into another weekend. The floors are around 80 years old and have seen some stuff. Most water and other spots really can't be sanded out.

Rick started the final vacuuming and started putting down the sealer while I worked my way through the house touching up the worst areas. We got the first two coats of sealer down (and did another round of sanding and vacuuming between the 1st and 2nd coats) on Saturday evening. The product recommended 3 coats, but the first coat took much more than expected, so we were a little short and only had enough for about 1/2 of the house for the 3rd coat on Sunday morning. The sealer needed more time to cure before doing heavy work such as putting in doors/door frames, so we left earlier than normal and replaced some of the window covers at my mom's house with OSB/plywood before heading home. Rick continues working on the cabinets in his home workshop.

Next week we'll start putting in door frames/doors and will probably put down 1 1/2 coats of sealer at the end of the weekend (we'll end up with 4 coats rather than 3).

Photo of the Tuesday storm from a storm chaser

Not looking or feeling too great after about 8 hours of sanding and vacuuming on Saturday

First coat of sealer going down in the living room

First coat in the hallway

Front door

3rd bedroom

Looking through kitchen into living room from laundry room

Kitchen (cabinets should cover dark areas on sides)

Living room (baseboards should cover most of the dark on the edges)

3rd bedroom

Hallway from 3rd bedroom

Hallway into 2nd bedroom

Hallway from 2nd bedroom

Kitchen

Living room

Master bedroom

Living room and kitchen looking toward laundry room

3rd coat in living room

3rd bedroom

Hallway from porch after 3rd coat

Back door (even rougher after storm)

Many dents on metal siding on west side of house

Large dents near window

Lots of large and small dents

Large broken branch in backyard tree

Back of shed from neighbor's house

Northwest window at my mom's house (we left the tarp in place)

Southwest window at my mom's house (replaced paneling and tarp with OSB)

Both storm windows busted through by storm

OSB

Top cabinets for kitchen

Bottom cabinets for kitchen

Cabinet in progress

Future main bathroom cabinet