Oh what a week....

Well - life is crazy in the hollow as always.  Youngest left at 4 a.m. last Saturday headed to OU's Summer in Santa Fe .  Her boyfriend's father is the professor in charge, so she got to go for free!!  They had a wonderful week of  "studies" - touring Santa Fe.  But of course in our household we were frantically running around Friday gathering what she needed for  the trip.  Always the last momnet for us!  Today she and boyfirend's family spent the day with Rudopho Anaya  - one of their family friends.  She loved to hear his stories and he gave her several of his books, took them on a tour of UNM where he was a professor, and a tour of Albuquerque - including the school named after him.  But out of it all she loved his house, maybe I can sneak some pictures from her.  He is an avid gardner and loves hummongbirds.  They are so used to him that they come into the sun room and land on him - she was thrilled!!

Tuesday night - the day after our air went out - we received a surprise phone call from Honey's aunt and uncle.  They were in the state and would be at our house for dinner Wednesday.  Uhhmmm.. for the.first.time.ever.  Really!!??!!  Do we all remember what this blog is about - my newfound love of DIY and the fact that my stairs are in various pieces throughout my living room.  Can we say - Big Gulp!!  Not to mention that Honey and I decided Tuesday after work that we must have a new mattress - after reading so many bloggers love of their tempur-pedics, we bought one.  Must say - LLLOOVVVE it.  But our soft side water bed was in pieces in the bed room.  What to do!!  It sort of went like this - post ad on craigslist - free if  you can get it within 2 hours, frantic run to grocery, back to meet nice man from craigslist - who insisted on paying us something.  Wow!!  Finish gluing down treads.  Collapse in bed.  After work on Wednesday bribe oldest daughter to help me clean - hide the DIY mess that was everywhere - cook dinner.  MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.  We had just finished when they pulled in and we all had a wonderful evening!!  Of course now that I am getting back to the stairs - I cannot find all the stuff that we hid from company - Augh!

But the stairs are progressing!!

All the treads are down

We were able to use shims to level the upper stairs as the stringer was actually in really good shape - shocker, I know - and was not near as unlevel as the lower. The upper base rail is primed, now I am working on spackling any damage,  the baserail on the lower is painted, but I need to touch up a few places and caulk the inside.

The riser bead board is cut to fit and painted

They are painted artist's canvas by behr.  Looovve that color.  I am a creamy off white type person.  I know most everyone does a beautiful crisp white and i thought long and hard about it, but the true white just was not me.

Hopefully tomorrow we will get those glued in - we are attempting contact cement - yikes! But we also have a birthday party to go to tomorrow, so it is looking iffy on any work on the stairs.  Sigh...

The "outside" of the lower stair section is done - woo hoo - the tape is even down

I am lovin' it!! 

Now I am overwhelmed with all the little stuff - caulking, touching up where we have oopsed, taping, more painting - well you get the idea!!  Once agian it is the little things that take a ridiculous amount of time.

Oh and for those of you wondering - we set 2 more record highs this week.  Thank God for air conditioning!!

Happy Diy'ing

Susan


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