chapscheats

this…

rummimort

this…

bearcub987

this…

clubpenguindrake678910

this…

omni warrior

this…

bolderdash

and this…

npfansite

But hey!  Guess who decorates her igloo looks like this…..??

Yep, Big Kid Jannie!!

Took me over 40 hours to “win” coins and decorate my igloo like.  Ahh yes, summer 2009 — when I temporarily went insane and joined Kelly in the Club Penguin craze.

So friends, you can imagine that while our Real House kinda looks like this…

and this….

(the 2 above of the room that once looked like this like this …)

and…

our Final Living Room (up over our new garage) looks like this…

this…

and this…

and the view from our front door looks like this…

… I’ve always got my igloo haven to run to for sanity!

Actually, I’m no longer a CP member — but I could renew any minute to find my igloo with every last palm-treed pixel in place!!  I could even pile 100 giant speakers to my little respite if I were so inclined.  Or 37 TVs!!! How’s that for some life control!!  And all for only $5.95 a month!! No contract required.

How would YOU (do you?) decorate YOUR igloo?? 

Have you ever played computer games with your kid?

Oh, Kelly wants you to see her new igloo…

toodle-ooo!  xoxo

In autumn of 1993 God came to Jim in a dream and told him to build planter boxes in front of our humble bungalow.  And Jim did.

God told me to splash our bungalow’s dull grey trim with Bermuda colors, then try my hand at filling the planter boxes. And I did.

Spring bulbs came up!

Little birdies sang.

We drank much beer.

In early 1995 God sent Jim visions of a terra cotta / dark green paint combo for the bungalow. And it came to pass.

God told me to paint the door white. That too came to pass.

The shrubs flourished, I planted others. And trees!  I dabbled in summer flowers.

We drank more beer.

In 1994 we started building our first addition, then a second in 1996. And later, a third — glimpses of which I showed you here.  Sometime during the years of those first 3 additions, God also had us gut and remodel our kitchen and transform a spare bedroom into a dining room.

At some point the front door went green. (God likes to change things up.)

He saw that things were very good.

He gave us The Child. This one…

Sweetest bloom our entryway has ever seen.

Then…

God smiled and said  “Jim, my son. You have done well with your own two hands.  But you must build a 4th and final addition to the bungalow. Begin by taking out the planter boxes you built on the south side of the front yard. There you will build a whole new entry into a breezeway connected to a 2-car garage with a media room up over it.  Build a half-bath at the top of the stairs. (A lean-to shed off the end of the new garage would please me too.)

Make sure a gilded wooden pineapple decorates the very pinnacle, that you take at least 8 years from start to finish of said project in your spare time, and that you also build this for The Child while you are working on Addition Four!

Oh — and paint the entire abode again (I like that new “Navajo White” with dark green trim I see folks using.)

But, Jim my son, please finish the interior of Addition Four by December 1st, 2010.  Even though Jannie will one day find respite in something called “blogging,” which will ease her wailing and moaning over what she will come to dub “this fricking never-ending house remodel,” she’d really like the Christmas tree in there for 2010!”

So it was decreed.

Yesterday God told me to go out with my iPhone and take a photo of the exterior of the very lovely-but-still-unfinished pineapple-pinnacled addition.

And one of our entryway.

Yes, the Old Door is still where it was in 1994! The New Door is in the breezeway addition.  We’ve had both doors for 5 or 6 years now. (We use the new one.)

The “tree” you see to the left is actually the one-same little pittosporum that was behind the tulips above!

God says that one day the Old Door will be magically replaced with a beautiful new window, one with finished stonework all ’round.

Fairies will dance and glazed donuts will pour down our street like tumbleweeds.

Yes, there will be beer for all!

And our sweetest bloom will continue to grace our every breath.

What’s your sweetest bloom (or blooms) in life these days?

xoxoxoxox

Jim Darling!!  I realize that as I unveil more and more of your extreme talents, the sheer wonderment of you is likely to start making my blogging buddies puke. But that’s a chance I’m willing to take.

For instance, this room you built with your own two hands, the first of our 4 additions to this once-humble bungalow — how sweet is this space!?! Even tho it’s now a bit torn up as we morph it into a master bedroom, its all for the greater good.

(Stained glass window install, 1995)

And how sweet are your model railroad buildings!!

Yes, peeps, directly below is a MODEL, one of many Jim has scratch-built since I met him. From sills to roofcap, his H.O. scale “M. Chase & Sons” abandoned general store stands about 5″ high. Jim named it after Kelly’s godfather. He also named another little structure after my dad!

(Puking yet?) 

Alas, Jim, the unveiling of your Uniquely Jimmy Disco Steps will have to wait for a future post — too much too soon might send readers running in disbelief that any one mortal could be this awesome.

Happy Birthday, Sweet Jimmy!!!  We love you more than anything.

Jannie and Kelly.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoox

(San Diego, 2005)

How do I even start this whole series?

The old fireplace seems a good spot. Guess I’ll just jump on in.

But let me douse the flames first. Ouch!

Above was Christmas Eve 1992 with our now deceased friend, Nick. Gee, this is off to a cheery start.

Anyway…

We enjoyed that fireplace for quite a few years until we demolished it.

I think the photo directly below must’ve been from about 1997, because the one after it was from 1998 when Mom and Dad visited.

And there was the fireplace…

… Gone!

That’s Dad standing on the ladder in the corner where it had been. And I see we’d already started on the new kitchen, as per the white cabinet off to the left. (Much of the remodeling projects on this house have overlapped over the years!)

Then… Dad and Jim knocked that wall down, thankfully not a supporting one!  Thus, our old master bedroom (that area with the one little window) became part of the front (entry) room too.

Then… we busted out from the old master to a new addition at the far end, making the whole shebang one room, with the archway for style, of course.

And — Ta-Da!  Finished room here below…

Judging from Kelly’s toddler toys off in the distance, I’d say the directly above was from c. 2003.

I’d show you a photo of the area now but I want to de-clutter it a bit first — I’ve furniture and a dozen big storage bins full of Kelly’s stuff there, hanging out while her room gets the penguin update. So, you’ll need remodeling patience too until I show you these wonders, all no later than 2014.

The carpet on the other side of the archway Jim built?  That’s the stuff our pets so enjoying puking on!!!   (We don’t even have that dark green area rug anymore, the pets did not treat it kindly. )

Sooooo, that’s one view of our house as you walk in our front door!  Except said door will actually become a window, because we’ve built a breezeway with a new entryway at the front of the house, with the breezeway connected to a new 2-car garage with a living room up over it.  That will be our “final” living / theater room — started over 6 years ago, but not yet finished.  Hey, why rush into finishing these additions, we say?! Mind you, Jim does this house stuff in his spare time.  And he does tend to have a few projects on the go simultaneously.  Never a dull moment here with my wonderful Jim! 

Did I mention the plan is to sell this house, move back to Canada and start the whole remodeling thing all over again.  Oy!

But back to this house….

As you can well imagine, there was a fair amount of ruckus involved in our front room remodel, over the approximately FIVE YEARS it took for this project from start to finish!!! 

These next two photos depict just a bit of said ruckus.

There is a lovely new fireplace in the back corner, I will showcase it some day. (Have a little de-cluttering to do there too!)

Lots of fun!! 

And remember a few paragraphs above I told you we added a piece onto the old master bedroom, which then became part of the whole front room scenario?  Here are a couple shots of that addition during construction…

Framing…

And even earlier — me helping Jim level the first floor joists.

Oh, and check this out! The adjacent room (with the circle-top window over French doors) was actually the very first of the 4 additions we’ve made to this house. (And I’m not even including the tree house in those 4.) Said first addition was erected between c. 1994 to 1996 — a room to be featured in upcoming posts. It was originally planned to be our main living room, but will be the master bedroom when it’s finished — yes, we’re even now remodeling the remodel!  But it WAS a completely finished living room indeed for a good few years, which was joyful beyond compare!

hoo-woo!

So that’s it!!

Did I lose you, anywhere, Sweeties??

Oh, and I must add that once Jim gets the calling and tells me he MUST build something else, we basically design these additions together, and go for them. I generally plan the room lay-outs and features and he builds them for me, with me helping, and usually with not too much grumbling on my part!    I so pine to live in a finished house,  Friends. I really do! And have pined for some years now.  I mentioned we’ve been working on this house for 17 years, right??

Btw, Jim does ALL this woodwork himself  (remember our dining room, which used to be a bedroom?)

He does hire helpers for slabs, framing, drywall, plumbing and electrical.   And I do a lot of the painting. And all the decorating!

Oh, and a couple of you newer readers have asked why I’m called “The Queen Of Remodeling Patience.”  That was Patricia Wisdom’s entry in my Jannie Funster tagline “contest” some moons ago. Patricia ended up being one of the five top finalists, with Lance the grand prize winner for his entry of “Singing For Beer And Donuts.”

Well, if you still have an atom of energy left after getting through this whole post, have you any questions?  Comments?

xoxo

The day Jim took that polaroid of me, I took the above of him.

Notice that Kelly did indeed have a window treatment in her room at one time!  But sadly, that blind and valance went missing the same day as my good can opener, my blue Sharpie and all my freshly-knit kelp tube socks. I still think it was the butler, but he’s too long-gone to Mexico to ever know for sure.

Anyway… back to the above fuzzy photo!

Chance, the poochie at Jim’s feet, was our firstborn — a puppy Jim surprised me with in 1992. And the poochie in Jim’s arms is Chance’s firstborn, Peach.  Beloved Chancie died from complications of an attack by either a coyote or large dog when Kelly was 2. But Peach is still with us!  She’s 12 now, and sweet as ever.  Still very active.  And still excellent at puking on carpet instead of tile.

Directly below, flash forward to January 1st, 2010… Not so tidy of a corner.

But… January 5th saw things looking better in the olde clearing-out-and-making-over-Kelly’s-room plan!

And yesterday saw the room as below (’cept I’m not happy with the lighting in the first photo, boo hoo.)  Oh well….. I’ll survive.

But this one is nice, I think!

So there you have it!  The current state of Kelly’s closet corner, as we embark upon ousting the decor I so lovingly prepared during my pregnancy to usher in the new Club Penguin era.  Are you excited!?!?!?

Can I get a whoopity-whoo, or two ?!?!

Have you ever wall papered a room?  Or decorated one?

Have you ever had a can opener go missing, even if just a manual one?  Quite frankly — I like manual can openers, have used them exclusively for years.  They are best overall, don’t you think? Or do you?

Well, by golly — let’s do up a poll and find out just what Jannie Funster readers think!

And don’t forget to come back and see how your can opener life experience compares with your peers, as more and more votes pour in.

xoxo