Newsletter: November 2002 Archives

11/25/2002 Newsletter

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Yay!, Drywall...
Yay!, drywall...
No more squeaky floors!
No more squeaky floors!

View more pictures of our kitchen remodel

November 10-17

Dear Family,

I can't believe that it is half-way through November already. James and I have been so busy that the time has just flown by. We completed the tear-down of our kitchen and framed up a wall in one of our bathrooms. We have been waiting impatiently for the drywallers to show up and put the drywall up in the kitchen so that we can move on to other stuff. They are supposed to come this Wednesday and I think I will scream if they don't come on time again. Our plan is to paint this weekend so if they don't come, we will be another week behind. I suppose that is one of the hazards of remodeling though.

My work has been in an uproar lately because the girl who did all of the scheduling and purchasing quit without giving two weeks notice. I have been given a bunch of her responsiblities and am a little swamped with it all, not to mention that my computer keeps bugging out so the pile of work grows ever higher.

We went and saw the new Harry Potter movie this weekend with assorted members of my family and Jenni. The movie was quite good and followed the book very well. We all enjoyed the evening of pizza eating and movie watching.

James left this morning for Las Vegas with a friend from work. He is going down for the biggest computer geek conference in the United States, COMDEX. I'm sure he'll have things to tell about his trip in next weeks letter. I hope he has a good time.

Today in Primary Jenni helped me with Sharing time, and it was fun for the kids to have a visitor. We talked about being grateful and Jenni told the story of Jesus healing the blind man. Then we colored thanful turkey's, the kids seemed to enjoy the coloring and the story. I was grateful for Jen's help, because I felt very under-prepared and she did a wonderful job.

That's it for this week. We are grateful for all of our family members who give us so much help and support. We love you all!

Nov 25

On Monday and Tuesday (18th and 19th) I was in Las Vegas for the yearly Comdex conference. Comdex is a computer tradeshow. I went down with three friends, Jason, Ben and Adam. We enjoyed seeing what is up and comming in the computer world. We also went to several good resturants and generally had a good time.

On Wednesday the drywallers showed up. By the end of the day the kitchen and bathroom were finished. On Thursday and Friday, the mud and tape went up. We are hoping that the drywall will be finished and ready to paint by Tuesday.

On Saturday we tore up the floor in the kitchen and spent the day screwing down the subfloor so that it wouldn't squeek anymore. We are really enjoying the silence of the floor!

I think that about wraps it up for last week. I think that the next week is going to be crazy! We have to paint and get the floor down, plus fit in Thanksgiving before our new cabinets are installed on Monday (dec 2nd).

Love,
James and Miekka Lance

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11/08/2002 Newsletter

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One Cabinet Gone! Two Cabinets Gone!
One Cabinet Gone!Two Cabinets Gone!
All the Cabinets are Gone! Wiring and Insulation Done
All Cabinets Gone!
(laugh like the count on Sesame Street)
Wiring and Insulation finished

View more pictures of our kitchen remodel

11-08-02

Surprise!.. another late letter...

Well, we are well into our kitchen renovation now. Two weeks ago Grandpa and Grandma Baerwaldt came down. Grandpa and I spent two days rewiring the electrical system in the kitchen. I decided that it would be good to put in an addition breaker panel. That took most of the first day. Then we spent the rest of that day (Friday) and Saturday rewiring the west wall in the kitchen. There were several things that we had to do that I wasn't expecting. First of all, all of our outside walls are only 2 inches deep which makes it hard to put in the correct kind of wiring boxes. So Grandpa and I went to Home Depot and bought a bunch of 2x2 boards to tack on top of the existing furring strips. That made the wall the same depth as a wall framed with 2x4s. The good part about having to do this is that I can put R-13 insulation in the walls now. That will help alot I think. Anyway, I think both Grandpa and I were wiped out from that weekend!

The two weeks after that miekka and I spent fixing up our downstairs so that we can use if for a impromptu kitchen for the next month.

This week was spent frantically trying to tear out our cupboards so that Grandpa could come and help us finish rewiring the rest of the room. Grandpa showed up on Friday (the 8th) around noon. Grandpa and I started on the east wall. We were about an hour into the project when we decided that it would be a whole lot easier to work if all of the dry wall was torn down. I tacked up some plastic around the doors and started tearing down sheetrock while Grandpa worked on the wiring. We worked until about 8 o'clock at night before we decided to stop for the day and eat some dinner. Andrew (Miekkas younger brother) called and wanted to go to dinner with us. We picked him up and went to eat at Chuck-o-rama.

Saturday Grandpa stayed and helped us finish the wiring in the kitchen. He was there until after 1 o'clock in the afternoon, but we finally got everything done. After he left Miekka and I went on another Home Depot run and bought all the finishing touches for the wiring. We installed the insulation on the back wall and cleaned up the huge mess from the drywall. We didn't get to bed untill after midnight and we both slept like the dead and were almost late for church.

Upcoming on the kitchen is the drywall and the flooring. We are on a pretty tight schedule so we may have a few more late nights before we're through. Check out the pictures for the latest view of our work. Also new this week are some Halloween photos, check out my costume (no one else dressed up except for the nieces).

Also this week we went to the Salt Lake Temple for the first time to a live session. We had a miracle happen there too. I had lost or misplaced my temple reccommend and so when we got to the temple I couldn't find it. The worker at the front desk offered to call our stake president to see if he would okay me, but as it was stake temple night we figured he was there in a session already. The worker paged him and we sat down to wait. It was not 10 minutes later that our bishop came walking out of the temple unaware of our situation, but there none the less. He talked with the temple recorder and we were able to go in and do a session. Live sessions are very interesting and much more interactive. We were impressed by the beauty and workmanship of the Salt Lake temple and were blessed to be able to do the work that night.

That's about it for these last two weeks. We hope you are all doing well.

Love,
Miekka and James

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