Latest Projects...

First things first.
Doug recently finished the project I posted about a long time ago.
He was building bookshelves with pillars to divide the living room and dining room in this house.
He did a great job and the finished product looks AWESOME. :) Way to go honey!

And in even more recent news, Doug finally got a cap and ladder rack for his truck. It looks good and it will make carrying things with the truck a lot more practical. :) Both Danika and I are thrilled that we can get in the truck now without unloading 50 tons of tools. :)

Well...we are off to Thanksgiving!

Have a great day everyone!

Bookshelf Progress

I mentioned earlier about the bookshelves Doug is working on as a side job. Some have asked what they are going to look like. This is a really, really rough drawing, but it will be something like this:
The bookshelves serve as a divider between a very open living room and a big dining room. The bookshelves will be only "half" walls that come from each wall halfway out into the room, allowing a "doorway" between them. The only thing on the upper half will be a pillar on the end of each shelf. Also, because they are in archway between two rooms, both sides of the bookshelves will be visible. One side will be bookshelves, the other side will be the back panels.

I think that Diane (the homeowner) did an amazing job designing and placing these....when they are complete they will make both rooms look awesome.

Doug has been working a ton on these. I wanted to post some recent pictures of how they look. Check it out...

This first one was taken over the weekend when he was gluing them up and had them all clamped together while they dried. This is a view of the back of both sections. The inside panels are already stained, but the outside trim had not been stained yet.

This was taken this morning. The trim has all been stained now on one section and he is working on the second.
The unstained portion facing the camera in this picture will be the side against the wall.
This is the view of the other side of the same shelf...thie is the side that will actually have shelves in it.

Pretty cool, huh? I think he's doing a great job. :)

Custom Bookshelves in Progress

Doug has been working on several side jobs lately. The current job is a set of custom bookshelves. I thought I would post pictures of them as he makes progress.


This is where he was at with them on Saturday morning:



This is the "box" of the bottom part of the bookshelves. I don't understand how it all works, but I remember that this is what our bookshelves started out looking like and I thought they turned out GREAT. :)
Oh yes....this is Doug's "side kick". :) She was given a new hat and she LOVES wearing it around.
Have a great day!

House Flipping

July - 2008

As most of you know, Doug is currently working with his Dad flipping houses. The project they are finishing up right now has been quite the undertaking. Thought I'd share a few pictures.


The Beginning: Jan 2008



The house was in ROUGH shape. The pictures don't do it justice. Close your eyes and imagine one of the worst smells you can think of. Then imagine stepping inside and having to follow Dana and Doug's footsteps EXACTLY or risk falling through the rotten floor. Imagine animal urine and feces visible on the floors. Imagine holes in the walls and collapsing ceilings, and general gross neglect everywhere. Okay...open your eyes and look at it again. That is what they started with. You could barely see the house from the road because of the overgrowth of trees. When Doug would come home everynight the clothes went STRAIGHT into the wash and he went straight to the shower, seriously afraid he might bring something home with him.




Early demolition phase -

Things were still pretty gross, but tree guys came in to remove a lot of the overgrowth, the roof was starting to take shape, and somewhere around when this picture was taken, the insides were finally completely gutted, which was the cause for MUCH celebration. It was a happy day in our home when Doug declared that the house was "fecal-free"!



Reconstruction phase:

Doug and his Dad working on window frames back in April or so.






At this point, all demolition was over and they were starting to build things again. You can see the roof is finished, windows are in, and they are making preparations to start siding soon.

Internal Phase:

The outside is looking more complete. Not "done" yet, but near it. The inside is another matter. At this phase, they are wiring, dry-walling, etc. This is the phase when things get more exciting every day. Stuff happens fast now and each day the insides look more "finished".

Most recent picture:

They are in the final stages now. The house should be finished in just a couple weeks. The inside walls are painted, the kitchen cupboards are in, the light fixtures are starting to be hung, and the carpet guy will lay carpet next week. The project is almost done!

Picture taken 7-28-08 @ 8:00pm

I'm so proud of them. Dana is a miracle worker with "lost cause" houses, and Doug is really loving all that he is learning and doing. It has been awesome to see the transformation. And as often as they do this, I never cease to be amazed at the final product. The finished product is always an adorable "brand new" house with tons of love poured into it. How fun.

The Crib

My husband amazes me. Last October when I was pregnant with Danika, we went to BabiesRUs to look at cribs...and Doug just looked at me and said, "I can build that." I thought he was joking for a second, and then realized he wasn't. He looked at the cribs on display, I got him a picture of one of my favorites and he went to work. It has been so fun to see him working away out in the garage on this beautiful gift for our daughter.

So....here we are. This weekend was the great final assembly of the crib. The timing is actually perfect. Danika is so tiny that it was only 2 months ago we took her out of the bassinet in our bedroom. For the last two months she has been sleeping in a PackNPlay in the living room. She made that adjustment well, and we are finally ready to move her upstairs to her own room. I helped him carry the pieces up the stairs to Danika's nursery (which thus far has only been used for storage) and he put it together. It is BEAUTIFUL! He did such a great job!!!! It looks exactly like the picture...and it is even more fun because he built it himself just for her. I just thought you might like to see it!

This is Doug working trying to assemble the final project.

It is possible that my picture taking, the cat sitting in the chair, and Danika crawling under his hands were slowing him down just a bit. :)

I wanted to get some pictures without any bedding so you could see all the detail in the crib.

I love it!