I just can not believe that everytime I fix something, five more things break. I was done with Cheryl's honda and was almost done with her sequoia. All I had to do was the back brakes and changing out the gear lube in the two differentials and the transfer case. Easy peasy maybe a few hours.

Laura went out to start the thing on mothers day and it was spewing smoke. I know engines and it is blown. Plugs fouled valve clatter. Bad news. This is the same car that gave me so many problems before. i have had toyotas all my life but this one is a piece of shit. I think that I will never buy a toyota again. They just lost focus. Before you were guaranteed quality. Now there is some certain percent that you will get a POS. My general feeling is that toyotas before 00 are good but after that maybe 5% chance of crap. Maybe the market is 5-2%. In my head Malcom is telling me that is too wide and to may a real market. so it is probably realy 1.5%-0.5%. Still a high percent but I stand by it.

I didn't realize that the car was f-ed until I had the whole front end torn off the 4runner. 250k miles means that it was time for a total brake rebuild and new front bearings. So I worked until about 10pm tonight to get it back together. Seems we can't live with only 2 cars. I still have a long list for the 4runner and the other honda needs a tune up.

As for the sequoia, I am taking it to the korean. He is the man. Minimum $2k if it is just the value seals but more like $5k for a rebuilt engine. I may need to get a job to pay for all this.

Meanwhile the deck is calling and I am not making alot of progress. Trioba is ramping up and requires my attention every day.

I am beat. I just completed an expedition legth floor tiling session.

Wednesday night:

Floor tiling gal named Leslie came by and gave me some advise on laying tile and the specific layout for my kitchen. I have been struggling for a week to sort out the pattern and had come up with some complex layout that was just way to busy and would have been unbelievably difficult and who knows how it would have turned out.

She cut straight to the chase. Wlaked right in laid out some tile and said I think this would look and work the best and would be easy to pull off. Completely not complicated but nice pattern.

The money advice; pull out the dishwasher and tile under so that I would tile it in permanently.

Thursday morning:

Drop off Cheryl, Sarah, Mathew, and Kevin at the airport. They are going to the national orienteering interscholastic championships. On the way home stop by pops for a large drill to mix the thinset and then home depot for 10 1/4 inch cement backer board. Home by 9AM and pulling out the dishwasher.

Itquickly became clear that the contractor that built the island with the dishwasher, built it too low. Even though I told them that I would be laying a new floor, they didn't build in enough clearance to add an inch of flooring. I spent a few couple of hours looking at it and trying to make it work. I called the contractor and had my neighbor come over for a look as well. There were two options, rip out another layer of flooring or rip off the new countertop and redo it.

I paid the contract over 15k to build the island and now I have to rip it apart? You ahve got to be kidding. My neighbor pointed out that I should just get the floor done and rip out the counter top later. He was correct. If something goes wrong with it I can remotely shut off the water and not use it. And since the family iss gone this weekend, it is best to make progress and get the floor done.

Last week I was pissed that the contactor overordered the countertop tile by about 80sf. I pulled my ad off craigslist as I will be using it now.

I spent the rest of the day putting done the cement backer board. That stuff is nasty. I must have put down 500 screws. I also got some practice mixing and spreading thinset.

Friday

Tile time. worked about 10 hour and got just over half the tile laid. Mknees are sore and my back is sore. i took some vitamin I and ordered a pizza

3 layers of floor have been ripped up. 180sqf of slate have been washed and sealed. The backer board is sitting alonside the dlate on the back porch. My neighbor came by and suggested that I lay out out some of the tile in our proposed pattern to identify any problems.

That was a real good call. We have five entryways into this room that is L shaped and we planned on doing a diagonal pattern. I looked at it for hours last night and no matter how I spaced them, I just couldn't get it to work. We are going to call in help and get a consult from a pro. I can lay the stuff, I just need to get the pattern dialed.

These two are the finished job.



Below, the wife got home and decided to help out. I was working on my 5th beer and was just supervising at this point. notice the racing stripes. This was the first linoeum layer over the original harwood floor. circa 1920-30?

Laura pulling nails. I have never seen so many nails

I kinda liked this pattern and it matched the paint but Cheryl wouldn't let me keep it. This was the second layer circa 1950

Existing layer circa 1980s?

I thought maybe probation was in sight. Mention was made of possibly reordering priorities. something about fairness in required duties. it was a passing thought. Got a full 12 hours in today. Started with painting the final coat of the kitchen ceiling. Painted trim. Sprayed moss, schrubbed down the kitchen, painted cubboards, went to costco and now I'm done. Three or four sheets to the wind. I work all day radio as a my friend. the list is getting longer and not smaller. Yesterday the 100 year old pipes backed up. I got to spend the afternoon in the nasty crawl space with disgusting pipes. the water looked great for a paddle today.

Tomorrow is another full day. 900lbs of slate arrived today. The kitchen floor is calling and I'm going for another beer.

Sometimes the wife is right. The deck has needed to be rebuilt for the past 10 years and we have only lived her for 9 of them. A few before pictures. Some don't look so bad, so show the real problems.









You may be asking yerselves: Why start the deck when the kitchen isn't finished? Well there are days that I can't work in the kitchen. Right now the mud needs a few days to dry so it is on hold and I don't want to open another can of worms inside the house. One room at a time.


















































This is a disaster. The whole superstructure is like this. I only hope that it didn't get into the house.

I have been sanding and applying a second coat of drywall mud in the kitchen. It took me most of the the day including clean up. I am working on the my third Guiness so blogging is probably not the best idea. I am tired of this. I hate drywall. I hate sanding. I would most prefer to be spending the day with my boys, paddling, running or riding. David just watches videos while i work. We should be out at the park or the pool or exploring the world.

My options are very limited. I am expected to do all the housework since I am home. I am expected to do all the guy house requirements. I am expected to work full time remodeling the house. There is no consideration given that we now have 5 kids and not 3. That those kids are older and create continuous wear and tear that requires repair. We now have 4 cars instead of 1. And the house is 100 years old and requires continuouse maintainence. The fact is that my old salery provided ample $$$ to hire any repairs that were needed but now since we have only one smaller salary my time is taken up in always fixing broken things.

I have no time. How can I ever expect to have free time to run, paddle or ride.

I think I will get a job. I makes perfect sense and no sense at all. David will at least get day care and exposure to other kids and activities. But any job I get, will not provide much funds beyond daycare. But maybe I can save a bit to hire out the repairs. Maybe the housework will be split. Maybe I could run on my lunch hour. Maybe I will have another beer.

Working on the kitchen Thought I could just patch this wall but it turns out that I needed to clean it down to the wood wall. Notice the wood planks that the walls were build with. then then just wallpapered over them. Four or five layers of wall paper and paint. And that was before they hung drywall on top of that probably in the seventies or early eighties.














Took half a day to clean it down. Didn't get a before pic just a work in progress pics.















Mathew and I hung the new drywall. This place is a freekin funhouse without a square angle or wall in the place and nothing is level. rombus or paralellagram if you are lucky but most often just a quadralateral. I'm making Mathew and Sarah practice their geometry.

One more wall and I can start the nasty job of sanding. Only bits and pieces at a time as we need to use the kitchen every night.