More on Big Bend January 2012

Jeeping at Inks Ranch - February 5, 2012

 

Here are the photos, if you click on the pics above, it will
take you to the site where they are stored and you can then
click on them to enlarge them and download or print them.

Big Bend Cabin is growing!!!

I really need to update my pics of our cabin in Big Bend!!! So here it goes!

love,

Tanya

A view of "The Mummy" from our property! My family owns the head, yikes!!!

A view from my cabin of "My Thumb"!

This is what I call "My Thumb". It is the peak called "El Pico" in the Sierra Madres of Mexico. I can see this from my back deck in Big Bend! It's my FAVORITE view!!!

A typical sunrise in the mountains over Mexico!

A view through our front gate, looking up at Mt. Williams.

It's a quarter mile driveway up the hill!

A view of the front porch area with the mountains in the background!

Our ANNIVERSARY Today - 11 years!!!

So we went to Hudson's on the Bend in Lakeway! Got the Chefs menu! OMG! I am so stuffed!

The food was AWESOME!!!!

See all my pics on facebook!

Tanya

ps. happy anniversary to me!

Invest in me???? what?

{EAV_BLOG_VER:ba2cdc8068dd4992} So I am learning how to play this online investment game, it's like learning the stock market. I enjoy it, but sure haven't figured it all out yet!

Wanna Play?

tanya

Well that's a big smile on my face and a thumbs up! It doesn't get any better than this!!!

Cancer Sucks!!!

November 19, 2010 ~ my baby Britania's 23rd birthday ~ the doctor called us to tell us she has thyroid cancer. (stage 2, since it spread to a lateral duct on the left side) Yuck!!!

On that note we head in to go SKYDIVING and celebrate a life long dream of jumping from a plane!!!! Wheeeeeeee!!!!

Whow is that a one of the Bee Gees in my kitchen?

or

maybe the "wedding singer"?

The floor is dry now

Then we rinse with water and vacuum it back up.

Once it's dry, it looks pretty great!

Leaf prints, left on purpose! I love these!

Pretty floor in the drying process, looking into dining room from the living room.

Here is the finished floor in the kitchen, looks good with our wall colors out there!

Staining the floors

I realized I didn't get the final photos up on the staining part and show you the finished product, so here goes. The pics go up in reverse order for some reason, but first you spray the dark on, then you spay some darking spotting areas, then after it all dries, you start washing it off, which is what I am doing below:

DAY FIVE - THURSDAY

I went to Benjamin Moore Paints and bought the material we will need.

We determined that for a 1600 square foot job, we would need:

2 gallons of Neutra Clean for steps 1 and 3
5 gallons of Cola acid stain for step 2 (dilute to 50% and stain twice)
8 gallons of gloss sealer II for step 4
3 gallons of easy shine mop and go (to protect the sealer from kids, furniture, dogs, etc)
------------------------------
18 gallons = $706 incl tax.

(none of the Kemiko products can be exchanged or returned, even if unopened)

Now to continue the work of scraping, buffing, vacuuming and mopping!!!

Tanya

DAY FOUR - WEDNESDAY

First we removed carpet and pad and tack strips, then we continued work on the scraping in the 3 bedrooms. When Chuck came home he rented a floor buffer again and buffed in the 2 smaller rooms. I go in behind and wet vac, followed by mopping with water.

I took some pics of where we are so far.

Will post soon!

Tanya

DAY THREE - SUNDAY

So we hired the two guys to help again. They will scrape and strip on the edges of each room/closet/etc. while Chuck uses the floor buffer and I use the wet vac and mop behind him.

The key to buffing is LOTS OF SOAPY WATER!!! We also started adding TSP (tri-sodium-phosphate) to the soapy water. You can buy this at Home Depot.

We found that the buffer couldn't really get all the way to edges, so the guys hand scraped and scrubbed the edges, Chuck buffed the centers and I was on cleaning detail.

After 3 days of hard work, we had the kitchen, living, dining, and hallway ready. We still have to work on the two bathrooms and empty the 3 bedrooms so we can do them.

Now we need moving boxes.

Night! (exhausted)

T

DAY TWO - SATURDAY

1. So we hired two workers to work with us on the scraping!

2. We used a JASCO Premium Paint and Epoxy Remover, it is in a gel solution. You paint it on, let it sit 5 minutes, then scrape it off. It's a miracle worker. (most important is it's water rinsable)

Now that we had help, we started in the other rooms. Living, dining and kitchen.
Scrape and scrub! Elbow grease! We felt overwhelmed till we hired day help, we were talking back and forth about just using tile, but we persevered! Once we had the paint remove, things started looking up. We could see areas of beautiful concrete, very nice smooth floors under all the crud! This is when life started to seem bearable, there was light at the end of the tunnel.

Then it started bugging me that even the scrubbing takes so long. I told the guys to stick to the borders/edges of the room, but that I wanted to look into renting a floor buffer! A new tool!

Went to Home Depot and rented a floor buffer! We came home and tried it out! It's a MIRACLE worker, now you can really see the beauty of the natural concrete once it's cleaned! We played for about and hour then went to bed EXHAUSTED!!!

T

DIY: How to go from carpet and linoleum to BEAUTIFUL stained concrete floors!!!!!

I am going to try to journal about going from rags to riches with my floors!!! We have 6 kids and 4 dogs and carpet and linoleum just can hold up to that beating, trust me!!! Well NO more shampooing carpets, we are done with that! Out with the old and in with the new!!!

DAY ONE - Friday

STEP ONE:

Emptying the house. This is the hard part, moving out of a house you live in. We moved the dining room first, then the kitchen, then most of the living room. We also did the master bathroom and closets, then the hallway and 2nd bathroom. We left the 3 bedrooms since that was going to require KID HELP! Ugh!

STEP TWO:

We thought we would start in a room that had BOTH carpet and linoleum, just to see what our floors look like under both. Oh, it was horrible!!! The painters oversprayed everything!!! I don't know how we'll ever get all this paint off the concrete!!! Help!!! Under the linoleum is a layer of glue or mud or half the thickness of the sheet of linoleum. (what is this crap?) Once you pull up all the flooring (carpet, pad, and linoleum) then we had carpet tack strips to remove. We used a small pry bar and a hammer. Note: when the nails come out of the concrete, they pull up some of the concrete, too, so you get little holes or gouges in the concrete. Now we have to figure out how to fix those, too! You also have to pull up the quarterround, over all the linoleum BEFORE you try to pull up the linoleum. We used a razor knife on the caulk lines to separate the quarter round from the baseboards.

STEP THREE:

Soak the floor in a soapy (dishwater) solution. Then use scrapers to peel up the paint and junk under linoleum. (putty knives, joint knives for sheetrocking, etc) The soapy water soaks into the surface of the concrete and makes it MUCH easier to scrape up. Get down to as smooth and clean a surface as you can. Use a wet vac to suck up the water. (way easier than a mop) We got down to a smooth surface, but it still had paint everywhere. You can scrape the paint, but it takes LOTS of elbow grease, so we decided there must be an easier way.

1. hire help
2. find out what kind of "chemicals" can help you accomplish the job. (beware of any type of acid cleaners, they will ruin the cement for staining)

Went to bed a little discouraged and exhausted!

T

Happy Halloween!!!

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/ux14CzNmWyMWawAS ~ clicking here will play a video of our family in a halloween fun video!

tanya

Getting Stuff Done

Okay, I have placed a new exchange student today! Yeah! (lucky girl, too)

I have finished the newsletter for the POA Board in Terlingua Ranch, my first! Yeah!

I have sent my hubby off for a Jeep Jamboree Wheeling Weekend with the boyz! Yeah!

I ate breakfast! I am going to lift weights again today, third day in a row! Yeah!

I finished the website for the Austin Jeep Club! Yeah! http://www.austinjeepexclusive.org/

I have washed a LOT of clothes, etc! Yeah!

I cleaned out my husband's closet! Yeah! (he is such a darn slob!)

I have a new book to read, starting today! The Shack by Wm. Paul Young! Yeah!

I am posting on my blog! Yeah!

I am going to rent some chick flicks for the weekend! Yeah!

My girlfriend is going to hang out with me, it's her birthday! Yeah!

We are going roller skating! Yeah! (i think? my knees think ooooh!)

We are going dancing! Yeah!

I can't wait!

love,

t

Wow is it March already????

So here we are in 2009 and I am so busy, life is flying by at 10x the speed of a normal year. It's practically xmas again! yuck!

I have had some cool stuff in my life lately!

A trip to Germany and Slovakia to visit my exchange students from last year!

A trip to Santa Fe to work for Geoteaming and I got to take a sweet friend with me!
Spending more time in Big Bend on my land now, it's really coming along!

Life is good, I just wish it would slow down a little bit, so I can enjoy it!

love,
t

ps. I added a pic, for those of you (including her) who don't know my sweet friend I took to Santa Fe, who then took me to Taos!