Monday, March 8, 2010

Updates on the Rehab

Lots of work taking place on Norwood Street.  Cynthia and I finished the kitchen cabinets.  Tough job!  Took about three or four coats of white paint for each drawer and door.  Those ugly white circles which were from the original hardware were the toughest to remove. But here are some pictures of the finished product.

Of course our buddy "Hazard" was there to supervise!  He's adorable isn't he??
 
                                                   WE DID IT!!!  Drum roll please!

Saturday, February 6, 2010







Some before and after pictures....amazing results in the kitchen. This is the really yucky floor before Avi and Joel worked on it with the new tile.

 
Beautiful job!  They laid the tile on the diagonal with some really professional looking results. Cannot believe the difference this made!
 
Another view of the floor.  You can see the kitchen cabinets here too.  We removed all the cabinet doors and are in the process of sanding them down for painting  The drawers are done here and are just a preview of what the rest of the cabinets will look like.  We also found a Rustoleum product for painting formica so we decided to try that for the countertops.  Anything on the formica would be a big improvement.  If we don't like it, it can be tiled.


Sanding and then repainting cabinet doors.  We ran into a snag with the area around the old hardware.  After several days of sanding, we had to go back and redo that area as it was showing the lines through the white paint.

This is "Team Norwood".  Avi and Joel, and Mrs. V. and me!  Hard at work on many different projects here.  The boys are carrying out the cabinet doors.  We girls are doing the cleaning and the sanding of the cabinets

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Rehab in the Hood!

My son-in-law bought a house a few years ago as a rental property.  Cute, solid brick home with lots of charm and character.  When he left for his deployment to Iraq, the house was left to his buddies to care for....NOT!  We are in the process of rehabbing it and it is coming along beautifully!


Isn't this an adorable little house?  It is solid brick with a really nice yard.  Here are the outside pics:



 Side yard with driveway to garage.
Back door to the house.  We must get rid of these awnings! 

And a nice back with a....uhhhh BLUE fence.  Paint the fence or tear it down???







 And the inside pics:


Marble surrounding the fireplace.  Walls were painted about two years ago in a soft gray tone.  Still very pretty.

Very large room with the fireplace at one end, entry way at the other.  Redoing the ceiling in this room.


  

 Taking off the cabinets doors in the above photo for sanding.  Tentative plan is to paint the cabinets white, redo the flooring and then paint the walls and ceiling.  New range hood maybe, the range itself is almost new. And a new lighting fixture for the ceiling would be nice.


  
 



Of course Avi is superb as the handyman/craftsman.  We (my friend and I) are only the directors and advisors.  We are having a blast at the advising part.  We're also doing a little of the grunt work, sanding cabinets, tearing out baseboards, cleaning and repainting the kitchen.  We get to do the fun jobs like choosing colors for all the walls and making selections on flooring and countertops.

Three nice size bedrooms upstairs, all hardwood floors throughout the house.  Avi tells me this was a former "Parade Home" back in the day!





My Helper  ~ "Hazard"  ....it's his name, really!

Tearing out the baseboard!

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Goodbye Summer!

Goodbye Summer....it has been fun. Two weeks at the beach with our family. Two weeks in Greece celebrating our 25th Wedding Anniversary. Awesome trip by the way. Then...the downfall...saying goodbye to our college students...little girl of our dreams and the young boy who has turned into a man, seemingly overnight!..I love you both so much. But why did you have to grow up so quickly??

My Blog!!!

Well....hellooooo old friend! I forgot I had you. Maybe it is time to start writing again. Lots of updates but for now....just hello!

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Nail Biting Crusader Game

Great blocking Nate!

We won! 9-6 score against C4 in a hard fought battle.

Random Photos

The end of the summer bounty from our garden.

Abby's first watermelon of the summer!
Love this photo.....
and this one too!

Sunday, September 30, 2007

New Market Day and then The Girls visit Aaron!

Christian, Aaron, Megan, Bekka & Leslie
Pretty girls at the VMI Game

Isn't he handsome?
New Market Day


The family photo is from the New Market Picnic where the VMI Cadets reenacted the Battle of New Market. We had a picnic with Aaron and the rest of the cadets and family.

A week later the girls (Megan, Bekka and our friend Leslie)and I went down to Lexington to watch the football game and spend the weekend with Aaron. We picked up Christian Roden and went out for pizza.


SEPTEMBER 29, 2007


Well, it has been so long since I last posted and there has been so much happening! First of all the birthday kids, Megan who just turned 21 on September 20 and Aaron who turned 19 on September 22.

Jeff and I went to Oxford to celebrate the big day with Megan. We surprised her with a lovely pair of diamond earrings. After all, it's not every day that you turn 21!! I think she liked the earrings. What girl doesn't love diamonds?? Took her and roomie Elisha out for dinner and met Aunt June and Uncle Gene who came along for the birthday dinner! We took the pictures with her camera.....so if you are reading this Megan, you are in charge of birthday pictures!

We then left on Saturday morning, Sept. 22 to drive to Lexington to visit with the other birthday kid! We arrived on post around 2 p.m. and picked up Aaron. We stayed at the Natural Bridge Hotel for the night. Just wanted to get him out of Lexington for a little break. Hotel was just "okay" but the restaurant was fabulous! After Aaron took a much needed nap, we had his birthday dinner there and we all loved it. It was so nice to just relax with him and get an update on everything that has been happening at VMI. We strolled down the path to get a view of Natural Bridge, which by the way is breathtaking, and then stopped for ice cream to go with the birthday cake that I baked for him. It's hard to get him any presents since he just cannot use a thing while still in his rat year. So the cake was much appreciated. We took him back to the barracks for the night, and picked him up again in the morning to take him to church! He attends a wonderful PCA church in Lexington. Felt like we were home when we walked in and saw the Roden family! They were in Lexington with Christian celebrating Tim's 50th birthday. Christian is doing well at W&L. (Funny, that rhymes!) Lots of other cadets were there worshipping which was wonderful to see. Had lunch at a cute restaurant there....can't remember the name. But again, a great visit with Aaron. So hard to say goodbye, since we won't see him again till parent's weekend in October.

We found out yesterday that the VMI football team won their game against Robert Morris, 40 - 13! Hurray Keydets! Aaron called today and said the coach was buying pizza for the team to celebrate. This is only their 2nd win so far but what a win it was!

Megan came home over this past weekend and we had so much fun with her as usual! Spent Saturday shopping of course! This time daddy went along and bought the clothes for the little princess. She of course needs clothing for her job :) To go along with the diamond earrings?? Love you Meg!

Will try to post the latest pictures of everyone. We have an undefeated season for Nate's Crusader team. Was a VERY close game on Thursday with our team winning by 3 points. Nate did a great job of blocking for the quarterback. Final game is on Tuesday and if we win this one we will go on to play the Championship Game with Fairfield Christian. Great Job Nate!

Bekka is loving her Sociology Class at CState. She is surprised that she likes it so much since she was totally prepared to hate it! She's very busy with her classes at Veritas and CState and with her new job. She is a receptionist now at an Optometry office in Delaware. She said it is stressful but she loves it. I think she loves the freedom of having a driver's license AND having her own car! Pretty independent too.



Abby got to go shopping with Daddy too and managed to get her own little stash of clothing and jewelry on Saturday. Quite the clotheshorse! She's getting ready to start the basketball team at the YMCA. Our superstar basketball player and we are expecting great things for her again this year. This is our first year for the Y team but she has played the past three years with UPWARD which has been a great experience for all of us. The second cooking class begins next week at Veritas!! Abby has become the cook extraordinaire! I love it! She helps me so much with the cooking. With our hectic football practice schedule, eating has become last priority in our house.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

VMI Parade & Football Stadium

This is the view of the cadets marching down the hill in formation to come into the football stadium.
On the field, in formation, ready for the National Anthem.







The Band, with the Pipes and Drums! For some reason, we couldn't convince Aaron to take up the bagpipes!



Pictures of the cadet parade before the football game. About 1600 or so cadets take part in the parade.