I am so tired of doing kitchen stuff and tiling that I decided to take a day and do some paint stripping among other things that needed doing. The stairs are oak, which I really really dislike, so I have chosen to go with a dark mahogany stain. That should make it look about as good as it can I think. lol. It has been a pretty productive day. I have all the tile for the backsplash and will do that next week. After that, we'll just need to install the hood vent, put all the finish trim on the cabinets, put my mural up on the wall, baseboards, and the kitchen will be, dare I say, DONE! Maddy and Will play with this kid 2 houses down a lot. Maddy was crying today because Sam said she couldn't go hunting. I guess their family was going hunting and I asked Maddy if she even knew what hunting was and she said no. haha

Progress

I tiled all day and am exhausted. Hopefully we can get the kitchen table back in there beginning of next week. Woot

A different kind of progress

Today was supposed to be the day I cleared out the dining area and ripped up the rest of the linoleum.  I started moving stuff out of the room, but got side tracked and ended up putting up a light fixture with Dave, clearing all the tools off the island so we can actually use it, and putting knobs on the cabinet drawers. I'll probably clear everything else out tonight and rip up the floor on Monday.  We rented a floor scraper from home depot for the other part, but it was a hassle to bring home since it weighed like 200 pounds, so I'm hoping it won't be super hard to just use the hand scraper.  The last few days have been a pain.  When I grouted the first tiles under the appliances, I just did what the youtubes did and everything turned out good.  Well, Dave decided to read the instructions which said to leave the grout in for 15 minutes before sponging off the tiles.  By the time we tried getting all the grout out of the nooks and crannies, it was dried up.  I was trying to get grout out with a toothbrush, it was midnight, and both of us were sore and had hurting backs, so we had to call it a night.  Our bodies just couldn't go anymore.  The next day I tried using different things I read that should soften the grout, but none of it worked.  Then, I tried using a steel brush, what everyone said would scratch up the slate and you shouldn't use.  Well, it did not scratch the tiles, except for one, which was a lighter sheen and thinner, but even that was easily buffed out.  The grout just came right up, but I've been scraping tiles for days and it still didn't get everything.  I got some concrete dissolver to help it along, but it's still a long process.  I'm taking a break since my fingers hurt.  Pictures of the kids having a contest of who has the biggest smile, new knobs, and a fly strip which a nice lady in my ward gave me after I told her we had hundreds of flies due to doors being open from renovations.  The fly strip has over 120 flies on it.  I got more and they have a bunch on them too.

So tired of laboring. Feet and hands hurt. Not close enough to being done. I sealed the tile tonight in the kitchen and will grout tomorrow. I absolutely love slate, but I will never use it again. Since it is natural stone, it's not 100% square, the thickness varies up to a third of an inch, and oh the maintenance...so much sealing... I had hoped to have the tile done, but hurt my foot last week and couldn't walk, so I had to take a break. The pictures are of me sealing the tile and the cabinets that are in, but have no trim up yet. It's going to look great with the hood vent and backsplash when we finally get to it. The kids are loving school and I am just trying to keep on keeping on. I've been pretty depressed lately. I'm afraid wellbutrin isn't working like it used to.

Will had a night terror tonight. I heard him wake up and start talking like he was scared, so I went in to see what was going on. He was up on the top part of his bed and when I tried to hold him and ask what was wrong, he started walking all around acting very confused and talking incoherently. It was starting to freak me out. He looked very frightened, but when I asked if he had a bad dream he said no. He said no to feeling sick or having to go to the bathroom also. I asked him if he wanted me to say a prayer and he said yes and actually folded his arms. I gave the prayer and afterwards, Will laid right back down,I got him a sip of water, and he went right back to sleep. Not knowing about night terrors, I looked it up and it says they aren't fully awake and he likely didn't recognize who I was. I am so glad that he did comprehend what prayer was and that my prayer for the prayer I would say to Will to be able to calm down and go back to sleep was answered.

The granite people finished with the counters this morning and then I got a little bit of tiling done. I now see why it costs so much to have tile installed. Very time consuming. I'll do some more tomorrow.