One of my goals is to have the office, now turned guest room, finished by the end of the week. I want to have this done and off my mind. This meant that this week we needed to get the room painted, clean out desk drawers, dust, wash the floor, pick up a new-to-us dresser, make a bed, bring up a wardrobe from the basement, and rearrange furniture. Could we get it done in five days?
Since this house is now our own, part of my goals is to teach my lad house maintenance skills. It’s important to know how to take care of house, so my son has been swinging hammers, cutting wood, learning to spackle and this week learning to paint and to put up baseboards.
Mom-in-law was a doll and came up last week and washed floors and walls for us. She was impressed with the cleaning we had done already, but like always, when she was done it just looked better. I DO NOT KNOW how she does it, honestly….. this lady has SKILLS.
The Dresser
I picked up the dresser on Thursday. It needed to be thoroughly cleaned and the previous owner gave us the oil for polishing it. She gave us a tremendous deal AND threw in the oil too. Isn’t God gracious to us? I’ve not owned GOOD furniture before so it’s kinda neat having a pretty dresser in the house. Polishing it wasn’t very difficult either. Hopefully any tenants or guests we get will like it.
Painting!
My son did an excellent job of painting. He did his research about how to paint (need to learn those research skills as well), for this it was easy, he talked to his dad who spent a few months painting apartments and learning to paint well.
Putting up the baseboards turned out to be an experience. Neither of us has ever tackled baseboards before and we were tired of mom-in-law commandeering tasks that we knew we could do. So we found out where dad stored them and then the lad set to work. I left him to it as he assured me he could figure out it out on his own. He learned an important skill. SOMETIMES the work teaches you as you go! Just so you know, when you put in baseboards you have to put the nails in at a bit of an angle. If you don’t, the board will pop out of the wall again! I was glad I was down in the basement to avoid those sounds of frustration! 🙂
The Wardrobe
While he did that I tackled another project… getting the wardrobe cleaned out, and path made to the basement steps. Not so easy to do when the basement holds much of what the office used to hold! On a positive note I finished listening to Dragonvein: Book One. I enjoyed it enough to get book 2.
It took the two of us (using Mom-in-laws .. the thing that you use to move furniture! trolley?) to get the wardrobe up the stairs. I have to admit, I almost lost it on one step and was scared to death I’d drop it on the lad, but WOOT WOOT I held on and we got it up the stairs. I was so pleased with the lad’s help and determination to assist his momma. 🙂
He helped get the sticky tack off (I used to use it when the lad was little for pinning up charts for him when we played in the basement). Then we set it up in the corner when the old router cables used to be. Good to cover those up eh?
Finishing Up
We managed to get the bed made, floor boards on, floor swept and the teak dresser all oiled. I also got all the desk drawers emptied and dresser moved to a new location. The only thing I have left to do is find a home for the things on top of the desk! On a positive note, the room is basically done and I’ve almost met my goal.
I have to admit, we laughed at the cats. Literally as soon as we left the room, in they came, wanting to make themselves at home.Milo creeping up on the just made bed (how do cats know?) and Lizzie sniffing around the corners (checking for mice maybe?) I nodded at the lad and pointed and BOY did those cats move! The lad leapt up hollering at them, he does have his grandmother’s genes in him! They scattered. The door was shut. We want the room to stay clean after all that hard work. 🙂
Another thing we started this week was talking about monthly finances, things like how Dad is responsible for paying the mortgage, hydro, cable, water and all that. We talked about I am managing the groceries, household and rabbit expenses. This led to us talking about ways we can cut expenses, how to plan out expenses, and using the sales flyers for good (instead of just liners for the bird cage).
I think, as we go through our studies this year, I’ll be adding Money 101 from SchoolhouseTeachers.com into the repertoire. At least I’ll use it for ideas as we go through our World Wars Studies. OH, and speaking of money, guess what? SchoolhouseTeachers is on sale.. by one year, get the next for free. HUGE savings that eh! On til August 31.
Linking up with Tots and Me.
He did his reading. Right now he’s reading “Playing Atari with Saddam Hussein”. He tells me “it’s good”. I think for his next “school reading book” I’ll give him 
