Flopped Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Yep, this Turkey Day is one big flop for us this year. Steve has been suffering from a cold all week long. Now he has passed it on to me.  We're both coughing and hacking all over the place and sneezing as well. We aren't sleeping good and have stayed in jammies the last 2 days. Not the type of company you would want at your Thanksgiving family gathering is it?

So we have forgone the invite to our wonderful Pfundtner Family Event down at brother Pete and sister-in-law Cindy's house in Menasha. 26 people (minus 2). We stayed home and dished up some homemade chicken veggie soup instead. Good for what ails you.

I did manage to whip up a couple pumpkin pies the day before to send along with our kids and grandkids. That was our promised contribution to the meal, so I managed to get them baked and didn't cough on a single one!  LOL   I kept one pumpkin pie for us here at home for Sunday. We are going to roast up a bird on Sunday and have the kids and grandkids come over and watch the Packer game. Hopefully by then we will be feeling better??

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Since my last blog, I will catch things up on the status of the grandkids playroom. Remember, this is the little office that we removed everything and are making it into a playroom and sleepover room for the grandkids.

We got the room all ready with rosin paper on the floor and taped down a pathway back and forth to the front door. New drywall went up and we were ready. Our plaster guy Paul could walk back and forth on this path with buckets of plaster or drywall compound that he mixes outside at the faucet. The paper really helps to protect the hardwood floors during the work. 

There wasn't much to photograph during the process of working on the walls.  I wanted to stay out of Paul's way.  Steve helped and they got everything prepped and ready. Paul did the plastering in layers, going back and forth for a couple days. The one wall to the South (the one with the door and the light fixture) was in the roughest shape. We decided to forgo sheetrocking or plastering it, and instead used the beadboard paneling we had originally bought for that purpose. So it's our "Feature Wall" as they say on HGTV.  But the other three walls and ceiling were all done with fresh plaster.

After 2 days of drying, I felt it was ready to get the painting done.  We had three different partial cans with three different slightly different colors of taupe / beige from the previous owner. I think each time they went to the store for more paint they just picked out something that was close to the room before it. I decided to take all of the partial cans of taupe / beige color in the basement and mix them together.  So we dumped those three cans into a big bucket. Then I dumped in two partial cans of white paint that I had. Now that would lighten it up a bit.  We mixed it all together and it made the perfect color for that room. I had more than enough to paint the entire room and ceiling with two coats.  Didn't even need to go to the store for paint, by using up what we already had. Yay! 

After it dried, the first thing I did was put up the lace curtains. It looks so nice and finished now. It's hard to take a decent picture of this room because it's very small. It's only 6 ft by 10 ft. So I have to use the wide-angle feature on my phone which kind of distorts it a little bit. It was nice to pull up the rosin paper and have the floors in perfect shape underneath. Even with all the punishment of the plaster and the sanding and the workboots and shoes, damp grass and rainy weather, carrying the buckets in and out added with the paint rollers and trays, the floor stayed in good shape, thank goodness.

Three of the grandkids didn't have school this week so they came to spend a day at our house and help us put together the playroom.

Now that the room was finally getting done, we knew the door had always been crooked and didn't fit the space well ever since we bought the house in 2019. Now that Steve has the electric planer he borrowed from his dad, it was time to straighten off the top of the door. Once he had it planed off then he used the sander to finish it and make it smooth. Clayton held the door tight between his legs while Steve worked up over head. Clayton really didn't mind the snowfall of wood saw dust falling down on his head...  silly kid. 

Now the door can shut correctly and fit into the frame properly. That was another one of those things that "bugged" Steve and he wanted to get around to fixing that door.  

Clayton got out the vacuum cleaner right away and started cleaning it up before sawdust got tracked all over around the house.  Give him a power tool or a motorized machine, and he is all for helping out. 

Now it was time to wire up the light fixture that we had bought last week from the local hardware store. (see my last blog about that). Steve gave a thorough explanation to nine-year-old Clayton about electricity and what they were going to be doing. Yes, the electricity was turned off when they were doing this. Steve taught him which wires connected together and what a ground was all about. Then how the wires went back down to the switch on the wall.  He showed him that the power comes to the switch first, then how the wires are inside of the wall leading up to the light fixture.

He very carefully helped to connect the wires and twist the wire nuts tight. Then they taped them securely. Once it was all done and mounted into place then Steve went back down to the breaker box and put the power back on.

Clayton was so proud of himself that he successfully helped wire a light fixture up! He will remember this (I hope) for the rest of his life. Learning that he needs to be careful and respect electricity, and double and triple check all of his connections before turning the breaker on.

While the guys were doing that project, Chelsea was busy labeling little plastic totes with various toys so the shelves could be a little more organized in the toy room.

As she labeled each box, it was little Claire's job to stack them up and to let us know what order they were in and what was in each box. These girls work together very well.

Now it was time for the big stuff to get moved into the room. The guys set up the frame for the full size box spring and mattress that would be going in the room. We needed to put the frame up on risers a little higher so it would clear the vent to let the heat and the air conditioning into the room. This is a really tight squeeze because the room is only six feet wide and that is where the bed is going to go right up against the walls on all three sides.

The kids helped Grandpa carry in the box spring. Everybody had to get their hands on it and help lift. It is actually pretty light. But it's nice to have the help. They sure enjoy being a part of it all.

Clayton kinda got on the wrong side of the box spring while guiding it into place. So then he had to crawl over the top of it before we could put the mattress down. I don't think he minded one bit.

Littlest Claire decided she needed to start dragging in the oriental rug that goes in the middle of the room. Look at that little girl dragging that great big heavy rug! 

Big Sister Chelsea and Big Brother Clayton helped out because that was a pretty heavy rug. Between the three of them, they were able to get it dragged in and rolled out and into place. That was an accomplishment of itself.

Next came the tall bookcase that the toys would be arranged on. The kids worked together to carry it all of the way from the corner of the dining room into the playroom. They had to be careful not to drag it on the floor or bump into any of the furniture on the way.

Soon it was time to fill the shelves with all the special toys that stay at Grandma's house. Claire arranged and rearranged them a couple of times until they were in places that suited her preferences. She arranged them in order of the things that she liked to play with the most on the top. Okay, that makes sense.

Chelsea and Clayton grabbed the big heavy Treasure Chest. This is a super heavy wooden trunk and it is full of DVDs of movies for the kids. That is going to set under the window and it can double as a seat for reading books. 

After they got everything into the room, 

all three kids had to collapse on the bed! 

Good job kids!

We sure appreciated their help. Now we will have this room available for sleepovers or for company. Steve and I hung up the Grandkids sign with all of the little names hanging underneath. This was a gift from our son-in-law Waylen and daughter Erin one year for Christmas. I think it's just totally adorable--- they made it themselves. The word GRANDKIDS is actually little nails wound with colored art wires to create the letters.

Again, I had to take the picture with the wide-angle feature which distorts the room. We still have to put the trim on around the inside door frame and mount the new door knob when it comes. The order has been back-ordered twice. I'm ready to cancel it tomorrow and order a different type of door knob if it doesn't come through. The company keeps sending me tracking numbers, but their boxes never arrived even at the post office or UPS to even get shipped out. They have my money, and just keep delaying the actual placement of the box at the UPS office (first invoice)  or the post office (second invoice) Something's getting stinky with that company. But I did find a backup set of similar door knobs directly from Amazon that I like just as well. So if I cancel this first order (who was an Amazon sub seller)  I will order the second set and hope they come. If I could find them locally, I would do just that.

The two stuffed sheltie dogs were brought in and stacked up on the little ottoman. The kids play with these a lot and sleep with them all of the time. I spread a quilt on the bed for now and added a few more things to the room. We have a couple more artwork items to hang on the back wall yet. Haven't gotten that far. We ran out of energy and that's when we got sick!

So we are just going to lay low here for a couple days and see how we feel by the weeknd. Today we didn't do much of anything, except watch football and lay around and sleep. That's totally not like us. We need to get feeling better before Sunday, so we can have a second trial run at our Family Turkey Day. 

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On a serious note, let us be thankful for all that we have and hold tight in our hearts those who cannot be with us on such a special day. Many of us are missing family members, and it hurts our hearts to think of our loss on our first holidays without our mother.