Jim Goings

Oooh Ahhh, originally uploaded by jimgoings.

Our new deck is finally completed! It turned out great! The deck is made of Westar composite material and the railing and lattice is vinyl. 100% maintenance free deck. No sanding or staining! The deck will fade a little in the first couple months of sun, but after that it stays the same for many years. The under side of the deck is rain proof with a long lasting plastic material as well. We also got a new spa, new furnace, and a new A/C unit. You can see the pictures of our remodeling project on flickr.

Whacka-chicka-bow-now… the spa is here and we’ve used it twice. No, not *used* it, just used it. Get your mind out of the gutter! It’s very nice and relaxing and fits perfectly under our new deck. The deck isn’t quite finished yet, so pictures will have to wait until next week. The new AC, Furnace, and water heater are all welcome improvements to the Goings house as well.

Oh yeah… Happy Birthday Kyle! Kyle’s real birthday was a few days ago, but we went to his party earlier this evening. He’s 30 years old and already balding like he’s 50. Way to go!

I finally decided to do something about those ugly 70’s brown kitchen cabinets. We can’t afford to remodel the kitchen and replace them entirely, but a fresh coat of paint can do wonders in the mean time. 3 coats of Killz and 2 coats of white did the trick. We used the same hardware and althought the brass hinges don’t exactly match, they don’t look too bad either. New hardware would mean rebalancing all of the doors and I didn’t want to deal with the hassle. We touched up the window sills and fixed some of the paint damage that happened over the past year. I also spackled and sanded the area behind the stove to make it smooth. It took about 9 hours total between yesterday and today. I bought some vinyl tile to make a poor man’s backsplash, but it didn’t stick very well. I decided to abandon the idea and perhaps revisit it on a warmer, dryer day. We’re very happy with the results of the paint job though. The floor needs work, but that’s for another day…

Girl’s Room

We finally got around to remodeling the girls room. Steve, Kelly, and Dad came up to help out too! We decided on the Disney Cinderella theme. We put down a new 12′ x 9′ rug, painted the walls with four colors (pink. 2 shades of blue, and white trim), installed new sliding closet doors, painted the dresser, and put up some Disney princess wall border on two walls. It came out awesome. Rebecca even made the curtains from fabric we picked up at Joanne’s. We also moved Monie into this room so all the girls are now sharing the princess room. Needless to say the girls love it.

Front of the Class

This is old news, but I want to post it for posterity. Rebecca and I remodeled the great room downstairs that we were using as a classroom. We made the room completely dedicated for use as a classroom and playroom for the kids. We were very happy to paint over the urine colored walls with a nice blue color. The single light bulb ceiling fixture was replaced with a 4 tube flourescent fixture that makes the room almost glow with natural looking light. In fact, when you’re upstairs looking down at the lit room, it makes you think the door is open and the sun is shining in.

We also mustered the courage to actually put down carpeting. Since the room as a sump drain in it, I wanted to use carpeting that wouldn’t be ruined in case of a flood. It’s indoor/outdoor carpeting that is glued to the floor. There is no padding so it will be easy to vacuum up and dry out if needed.

For color theme, we made use of a lot of primary colors and painted almost everything from the TV stand to the picture frames. The end result came out great, although I don’t like the tables and chairs. As soon as something comes up on Craigs list I plan on buying some real school desks for the kids. I might even just buy new ones if I can’t find any used ones. Alternately, I would be happy with some matching tables that fit the theme of the room. The brown folding tables just don’t match. I also want plastic school type chairs.

All in all, the room is awesome and the kids love it.