Sunday, February 8, 2009

Weekend

No construction on the house this weekend, but Jay did get the primer on the storage building. (Exciting stuff, I know. Please try to contain yourself.) That was about the extent of the action at the house, so I thought I'd share a couple pictures of him in the action. It's too windy today to do anymore painting, so that will have to wait until next weekend!

Hope you all had a great weekend!




Friday, February 6, 2009

Demo Day 2

More demo today. Actually, a lot more demo. As you can see from the photo below, the dumpster is now full, and we don't even have the roof off yet. It's weird seeing your house down to the bare studs. I thought it was bad before. It's just really weird now. No bathtub. No toilet. No backsplash in the kitchen. No closets in the office. No floor in the back room! Just a big hole full of dirt. But I knew it was going to get a little worse before it got better (I also thought I was prepared for what I saw in my house after Ike hit...)

This is the dumpster. Full.

Jay trying to find out what exactly is behind that darn attic fan! Turns out, there's two roofs there. Yep, you heard me correctly. Two roofs. Plus the existing roof. That makes three roofs on the house. One metal. One that has gravel. And the existing with shingles.

Kitchen with no walls whatsoever.

The kitchen looking into the pantry and into the guest bedroom.

Standing in the middle of the living room looking into the bathroom, kitchen, pantry and guest room.

This is the view of the guest room from the office. No, that's not the door to the garage. That's the second bathroom. Yes, you will have to step up to the bathroom.

The guest room.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Pictures from Demo Day 1

Today was a day I'll never forget. The first day of demo at the house. Yippee!

No more kitchen cabinets!

Check out the awesome wallpaper that was on the wall underneath the door trim. And, it was still sticky on the back. Gross!

There used to be some really ugly cabinets up top. They are no more. Wahoo!

The ceiling is going to be very cool when they're done!

Dumpster! I've never been so excited to have one of these in my life!


D-Day!!!

We just got the phone call at 7:30 this morning that they're going to start working on our house today. Our contractor's demo guys are going to start this afternoon. D-Day! YIPPEE!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

RIP Baby Grace

Those of you who aren't from around here may not have heard about this story, but it's been on the news in this area for about the last two weeks. A little over a year ago, a blue plastic tub (Rubbermaid style) washed up on a little island out in Galveston Bay. A fisherman found it. Inside was the remains of a toddler, roughly two to three years old. This story was all over the news for weeks after it happened. Police were able to derive a sketch of what they thought the toddler looked like, and she was affectionately known as Baby Grace. Several weeks (or maybe months, I can't remember) passed, and the identity of the little girl was finally revealed. Her name is Riley Ann Sawyers. Here is her pic next to the sketch.

Her mom and stepfather beat her to death (and I use the word "beat" lightly... the things they did to her are so incredibly horrible and unimaginable). Her mom was finally put on trial last week, and a jury found her guilty (thank God) of capital murder on Monday. The only bad thing about this, is that the mom will spend the rest of her life in prison, and is apparently going to be segregated from other inmates and put on suicide watch.

And here's were I get really mad. I was already plenty pissed off at the fact that they beat this poor defenseless girl to death for no reason. If you don't want your child, there are people out there who do (like, maybe, her father who lived in Ohio). But now we, the taxpayers, get to pay for her dumbass to sit in a cell for the rest of her life. She needs to be put in prison with the rest of the inmates who don't look upon these types of crimes favorably, and let them beat her to death like she did her daughter. Why should we have to pay for scum like her to have three meals a day, a hot shower, clothes on her back and a place to sleep? HELL NO! Let me beat her and stuff her in a box so she knows what it feels like. Jay wants to beat her (and her no good husband) with a hammer from the toes up. That would work, too.

I'm sure there is relief on the part of the Sawyer family (her father's side). I know there is relief on the part of the detectives and citizens who put in countless hours of work in putting her mother away for life (the stepfather goes on trial in about a month). Many people took this personal, and it was heart-wrenching to watch unfold on the news. So hopefully once the stepfather's trial is over, many people will be able to find an inner peace knowing that the people who did this to her can't do it again to anyone else.

After the box and body were found, the island where the box washed up was renamed Riley's Island. A permanent marker was placed on the island, and it got washed away during Hurricane Ike. However, from what I hear, plans are in the works to have another marker made and installed on the island. It's the least we could do for a little girl who didn't deserve to die so early. RIP, Riley Ann.