Saturday, March 9, 2013

Breakfast with Blogger Friends, Highlight of the Week

I finally have something to write about other than the work we are doing on the house!

The highlight of this past week was whent we took a few hours off and met a couple of other bloggers for breakfast.




Smiles all around.  Craig, Kate, Russ and Donna. Kate is local and is also in the process of clearing out a house.  Russ and Donna are from Oregon and are "any-timers". They call their rig Therapy because that is what getting away from time to time is for them.

It was very nice to spend a few hours with people who understand what we are doing.  We discussed the stress factors, and the challenges of running up against unexpected delays.  I felt good after being with them.

Now some boring stuff about work on the house.  

In the post that I wrote early Friday morning, I said nothing had gotten finished this week.  But by afternoon I had finished working with the WATCO Danish oil on the kitchen cabinets.  It is amazing what a difference this stuff makes!  Had I known, I would have done this five years ago for myself.


The same cabinet door before and after WATCO.  I used the oil that also has some stain in it.  For the kitchen I used Golden Oak. For the worse scuffs I did dab on some additional stain before using the oil.

One odd thing about this house is that there are six different baseboard and door frame wood treatments.  The place has been remodeled or added onto a couple of times.  For each improvement, different woodwork was used.  Craig has done two of them. The original woodwork is a rough cut wood that was stained with a black oak stain.  It was very common in the 60's and 70's in California.  Much of it has been replaced, but not all, and that which is still up is faded and scuffed.  Craig is in the process of staining new wood for around his new doors and the areas where we are getting new carpeting installed.   If the house lingers on the market, and everything else is done, he may continue replacing the woodwork throughout the rest of the house. Until then I have taken on the project of giving the old black walnut a fresh coat of stain.  

After and Before
WATCO to the rescue. 

 The result is not perfect, it is still the rough cut wood, 
but it's fresher. I'm almost done with it and then I will go back to working on more  doors with the clear restoration oil.


Craig has also been very busy, but his projects are harder to describe and take pictures of.

 So, I will end this post with an image of a recent sunset. We don't see as much of them in summer when the trees are full of leaves.









15 comments:

  1. It's great to meet up with other RVers. Great job on the kitchen cabinets, why is it that we wait until we are selling to do that kind of stuff?

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  2. It was fun to finally meet Craig, and the breakfast was good, too! Sure glad you were able to take a break and see us before we had to head back home.

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  3. I'm going to have to get some of the WATCO stuff. Some of the cabinets in the MH are drying out already and I want to keep up with it before they get bad. The difference in your kitchen cabinet is amazing.

    We sure enjoyed having breakfast with you and finally getting to meet Craig.

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  4. Your house is going to look so great with all you are doing you just might decide to stay. No, I didn't think so.
    What fun having lunch with fellow bloggers I can't wait to have that experience.

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  5. GREAT sunset pic!

    Your woodwork stuff sure is amazing how it cleans up. Good job!

    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
    Karen and Steve
    RVing: The USA Is Our Big Backyard
    http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com

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  6. Great job! I used the WATCO formula also. We found that the wood need another round about 4 months later. Just to let you know to be on the lookout.

    What fun to meet with friends that you have not know in person.

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  7. Your cabinets look great and that is a fabulous sunset picture.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Colleen (longdog2)
    Traveling with the Longdogs
    http://travelinglongdogs.blogspot.com/

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  8. Great product for your woodwork and much cheaper than replacing all those cabinets. Hope all this hard work will be rewarded with a trip in the Alfa again soon!

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  9. All the blogger friends you met look great except for the "sketchy guy" in the corner in your first photo!

    Watco's a great product, I use it all the time - nice job!

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  10. I can't believe how much you two get done - you have motivation beyond belief :-) Think how much simpler life will be once you are on the road!

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  11. Wow, that WATCO is amazing! I'll have to keep that in mind when we're moving out!

    Kris

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  12. That change in the cabinets is great. What a wonderful product. Beautiful sunset too.

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  13. Great job Merikay! It always amazes me & I just want to stare at my jobs like that. You did good! And how fun to meet up with fellow bloggers! Did Russ eat anything weird? He's been known to do that ;-)

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  14. Saw your dream on the Bayfield Bunch's Blog. Hope it means you will be in their area next season.

    You have worked so hard on your house it sounds amazing.

    We are off on adventure in a couple of days.

    Thought I'd let you know we are heading out to Hawaii in a couple of days. We arrive in Honolulu Thursday morning to be exact. I've set up a separate Blog called Hawaii 2013 which you can find here http://matarangigirl.blogspot.co.nz/ should you want to follow this New Zealand couple abroad. Most of our time in Hawaii will be on Big Island including a few days on a coffee plantation.

    Blessings

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  15. I am really liking the look you got from the WATCO Oil.

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