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Today we went to pier one. We had a gift card from my coworker (thanks Sherry!). We bought lamps. Matching lamps for our respective nightstands. Mrs. Ham House thought it would be nice to have matching lamps. For some reason this seems like a wierd step in life. Buying matching lamps for our bedroom. sigh....

Prime This!

So after a week of light tinkering in the bathroom my dad returned on Saturday to do a little more plaster work and inspect our spackle job. Today resulted in a little more sanding, application of sealer for the new primer areas and finally some primer. We went to Home Depot on Saturday to purchase some painting supplies, paint, and tinted primer and finally got to do some paint work. Mrs. Ham House snapped this lovely picture while I was doing a little painting.

We managed to put up two coats today and it looks pretty good. Though, I am having second thoughts about the color... maybe it'll look better once we get the trim in there.

HHMIL

Last weekend I wrote about the HHMIL (ham house mother in law), however she wondered why she didn't get one of her pictures posted. SO... here is a picture of Jackson, his nino (aka HHMIL), and her two Bichon's Charlie and Obie (read more about Bichon Frise's)(or if you don't like Bichon's - read about Greyhounds, cause our neighbor Carolyn has six apparently.)

Last Sunday - More Project

(it took me a while to finish this sequence because I got tired of writing. Why doesn't someone else write??? ahem... Mrs. Ham House I'm looking your way!)

So last Sunday brought more plaster work, more tile work, and more sanding. The room needed some additional plaster work after Saturday's plaster work finished drying. Thankfully the Ham House's father came back for another day to help out.


Unfortunatley, during one of the work intermissions I thought I could use some of my dad's tools to reset our thermostat into the wall. I didn't have the right tools when I installed our new digital thermostat so I had to attach it in a less than ideal way. However, after we reset it in the wall, the thermostat didn't turn the furnace on. So when I took the thermostat off again I discovered that the wires for the thermostat had fallen back into the wall. At this point I had visions of tearing the whole wall apart to dig the wires back out. Fortunatley my dad knew how to handle it. He just lowered a nail on a string into the hole and went to the basement to search for where the wires went up into the first floor. Brilliant! When he found the wires he tied them up to the string and we pulled the wires back up into the wall. Easy! Thank god he was there.

Eva- This one is for you, Chris made a specific effort to take a photo in the daylight (and the snow). The fabled "Ham House". Stay tuned for more installments...

Saturday Afternoon Project - Night

Well, a lesson learned about tearing down wallpaper - do you really know what that paper is hiding??? In our case it was a lot of large bumps and dents in the wall, large gaps, failing caulk and plaster, poor crown molding and frightning electrical work.

Lets elaborate.


The only electrical outlet in the bathroom was in a box that was sitting in an oversized hole in the wall and only half attached to the wall with two screws. By half attached I mean the screws were in the wall, but not really supporting the box. The previous homeowners had cleverly wallpapered over the hole concealing it from all unsuspecting home purchasers.

Above the vanity it appears our previous residents decided not to finish filing in the wall and left a gap of varying heights across the top of the vanity, ranging from a 1/2" to 2". We probably could have ignored that gap, but the vanity needed to come out in order to move the electrical box to a proper spot and fill in the old hole.

Further, the top of the showerhead wall was not really finished off and the people that put the wall together never considered straight lines a priority.

And to top it off, the wallpaper covered a couple of cracks in the plaster above the bath. But a crack is really only the beginning of a problem, so the cracks became full on plaster patch repairs.

I do have to report that the reason that this project moved along at all was due to the appearance of the Ham House's Dad. He was able to move the box, reinstall the vanity, replaster the vanity, grind down the bad parts of the wall and replaster.

And to top it off, he came back for more on Sunday. Oh yes, there is more to come. To be continued ... (when I have a little more time to write it up)

Saturday Afternoon Project - During

Well MHH, How much fun is it to tear down wallpaper??

Saturday Afternoon Project - Before

So, the Ham House Mom-in-law (HHMIL for short) visited this weekend, which was lovely, and also brought the dogs which is always a treat. There wasn't really much of a schedule for the weekend, but Mrs. Ham House (MHH) and HHMIL came up with a plan.

They thought that it would be a nice Saturday afternoon project to tear down the bathroom wallpaper and put up a fesh coat of paint. Great Idea!

So I took a few "before" pictures, so that we could remember what it had been:

Finger Paints

Ah, the magic of finger painting with friends!

Three Day Weekend

It was so lovely to spend the three day New Year's Day weekend with the family. Here are a couple of pic's of things we did this weekend.

Here is a photo of Sarah carrying a cranky Jackson who refused to walk. We were taking a walk with our neighbors Charles (large male) and Griffin (small female) at Delaware Park in Buffalo. Griffin also did not care for walking. Though it should be noted that a short while later everyone was walking. It should also be noted that a medium length while after that everyone was walking in the field getting muddy.





This second photo is of Mom Ham holding doing a little reading with her grandson. We were over at the Ham's house in Hamburg for New Year's Day Dinner.










Lastly, here is a photo of Jack looking quite dapper. "Mmmmm... I look good. I mean really good. Hey everyone... come and see how good I look!

Arrested Development Cancelled?

How can the Fox Network have cancelled Arrested Development???? Don't they know what happened when they cancelled family guy? People still watched and still bought dvd's. If anyone out there stumbles upon this blog please do a small part.... I'm not sure if this website's info can really help, but I tried....

www.saveourbluths.com

I went to it after they showed it on the episode for last night. It doesn't seem to be updated much, maybe its too late. Please try.

At least check out the news articles about it:

'arrested development' parodies its own demise

Buffalo Ball Drop

After the first night party we wandered around downtown Buffalo for awhile. We watched the ice skaters in the rotary rink for a little bit while we were waiting for our train. We even took a picture in front of the ball drop. Though when you have a two year old this is the time that you go past the tower

First Night Buffalo

So we went to the First Night Party in Buffalo last night. It was a pretty fun time, there was a lot of stuff for the children's to do.

Jack was really into the train, Thomas the Train.