House Update: A Little Closer On The Inside

We made some encouraging progress on the house while we were home for the wedding last week. Odie was tied up with her responsibilities in the wedding but KJ and I devoted most of each day to the house. 

Thursday I posted pictures of the doors being trimmed.

Those are all done and I also installed all of the base that could be finished in the house too. I did neglect to take a picture of the base though. The good news is that I did manage NOT to nail into any pocket doors while installing the base. All the pocket door walls require shorter nails and I scolded myself into remembering the shorter nails every time. I definitely surprised myself!

We used the same primed 1x4 pine for base that we used as casing to give the house the simple beach cottage look that Odie is after. I squared all the corners as I did on the casing. It looks good but my father-in-law will make it look marvelous with his caulk and paint expertise, as he has everything else.

There are a few small base pieces that need something else in place before they can be nailed and none of the trim in the garage is finished. The garage is being used as a staging area so the walls have not even been primed as of yet. That can all be completed later.

I had some PVC board that I cut for a backing board for the light next to the front door. Dad installed all of that on our last day at home. Kelly Jo and Odie picked a great light and Dad put it up perfectly.

I mentioned last week that Dad hung two of the pendant lights.

Friday Dad and I hung the last three pendant lights over the kitchen island. They really look nice. Kelly Jo and Odie found these at Home Depot. They are very light weight and seem well designed, at least hanging them was pretty simple. They will have LED bulbs like everything else in the house.

Kelly Jo and I went to Menard's after wedding rehearsal Thursday night to buy the LED can light trims we wanted for the living room/kitchen area. We needed 18, but they only had 12 in stock. We purchased the 12 they had and ordered some more. These trims are rated for 50,000 hours, 925 Lumens, light up instantly, are 3000k warm white and only use 14 watts each. Plus they were on sale for just under $10!

14 watts per recessed can light and there are 18 can lights in the kitchen/living room. That is 252 watts for all of those lights. To put that into perspective, only three 75 watt lights would be 225 watts and all 18 lights would 1350 at 75 watts each. LED's really make a big difference in energy costs.

Our goal for the day was to finish all the high work so that we could remove the scaffolding once and for all. 12 trims allowed us to complete all the can lights that required the scaffolding.



The picture below is looking up at the peak of the ceiling. 



I had built a wooden box around the certified fan box but I really did not like the look of it. Once my father-in-law was finished working his paint magic, I liked it a whole lot better. You will see the fan mounted on it a little farther down the page and that makes the box look great!

The ceiling fan is the project that Dad and I conquered next. Odie had picked out the fan a few months ago and Dad and Mom had purchased it. It was not fun to put together but we finally did it. I told Dad that we would have to charge $1000 a fan if we were going to make any money putting up fancy ceiling fans.😊

The fan, the pendant lights and cans look fabulous. The fat guy on the scaffolding with ripped jeans from running base that morning, not so much!

We reached our goal that day, finishing all of the high work. Kelly Jo and I disassembled the scaffolding and took it down. It had been up since early June when we began the electrical rough in.

A bunch of folks have asked how long it will be until the house is completed. Time wise, I can not answer that. We are trying to avoid major debt so the timing is dependent on a lot of factors.

However, I can tell you what remains to be completed. The inside needs heating and cooling units purchased and installed, plumbing fixtures purchased and installed, counter tops, flooring, painting touch-up, window treatments, camera system, closet systems, appliances and a little more electrical.

The outside needs siding installed, gutters, porches and drive poured, septic system and finish dirt work.

If you say all of that real fast it does not seem like much.😀 Praise God we are as far along as we are in this. Bro. Shobanke tells me, "What God has started, He will finish!"

Thanks for dropping in today.

Davy

An Assorted Update

Hurricane Nate
We are grateful that God helped so many of our friends on the gulf coast this past weekend while Hurricane Nate was passing through. Some had very strong winds, heavy rains and some of them lost power for many hours. Praise God there was no major damage for any of them that we know about.

We are also thankful that Homecoming at Tanner Williams was October 1 instead of October 8. We would have been headed out of that area at high rate of speed! Thank God we missed it by a week.

Revival
Revival this week at Junction Hill Pentecostal Church is going very well. I am very thankful for God's help and the response of the people. Revival has been a joy so far and I am expecting it to get even better.

Nigeria
Bro. Shobanke sent pictures recently of the building progress on the new church that I have written to you about. This is the church on the same property as Good News Christian School. The church building had to be torn down before it collapsed. 

I wrote a few weeks ago about the reconstruction and now I have more pictures for you.

The church now has a floor, walls and roof. It is a long way from being finished but they are able to have church in it. He called me yesterday and told me they started the new school term so they needed all the classrooms. The roof was completed so they moved the church services from the school into the uncompleted building.

He also said some money had been given that will almost cover the expense of the ceiling so they will start on that next. They are hoping to have money to do the electrical, windows, doors, painting and all the rest and finish by mid December.

Bro. Shobanke would love to dedicate the church in late December. He would love for us to be there for the dedication but both the completion of the church and us being there would require nothing short of a few miracles. It is in God's hands.☝

Thank you for reading today.

Davy

Our Traveling Safety Net

The picture below is hard to look at but it also very difficult to ignore. This is a 1964 GM 4106 bus/motor home that was on a two lane road when it was hit by a small car that crossed the center line. The bus was moving at 53 MPH.

The driver in the car was tragically killed. Although the bus was totaled, the man and the woman in the bus walked away without major injuries. The bus lost its steering and braking capabilities and ran off the road but it remained upright. It was a terrible accident but it could have been much worse for the bus owners and other innocent bystanders.

The bus handled the impact remarkably well. It could have easily flipped or hit other traffic or buildings after the initial crash. If it had been a normal RV it probably would have come apart when the car hit and there most likely would have been three fatalities.

The man who owns the bus spent a year or two searching for the right bus and then many months and many dollars converting it to a motor home. The accident happened on their first big trip if I understand correctly. 

May God help them and help the family of the young man that crossed the center line. You know they are all dealing with unthinkable heartbreak.

This is why we ask you to pray for us on a regular basis. Some one moving four feet out of position at 60 MPH would change our lives forever and possibly end lives. We do not like to think of it, but the picture above and the truth that goes with it, forces us to examine the reality of the possibilities.

We do our best to drive safe, smart and keep our equipment in top shape. I keep my eyes on the road and drive at reasonable speeds and probably overcompensate toward safety in traffic, bad weather and erratic acting drivers. However, some things can not be avoided. The bus above is proof that some things can not be avoided.

We have had two or three near misses on the road in only the last two weeks. We do absolutely everything we can but prayer is our traveling safety net!

We depend on God to help in all aspects and especially areas that we can not help ourselves. Thank you again for praying. God hears and we appreciate it!

Davy

Weekend Woundup and Weview #42

The weekend has been work, wedding, wayfaring and wevival.

Work

We will cover most of the work in a post later this week but Kelly Jo and I were well pleased with the progress we made on the house the few days we were at the Ranch. We are especially pleased with how things came together Friday. We have some great pictures to share with you later.

Wedding

The word of the week is wedding. All weddings are a big deal but this wedding was a really big deal. Deidre, my oldest niece, married Ben Shoemaker from Mississippi. She is the first grandchild in our family to marry and it was a beautiful wedding.

I think everyone in the family had a job to do and every one performed their assigned duties very well. I am sure there were hiccups along the way but they were certainly not noticeable to the rest of us. The wedding began at 6:30 and at 10:20 there were still a lot of people standing around visiting. It was very comfortable.

Deidre spent four years at Bible college and a year running a Christian school, but before that she spent several summers traveling with us. Many of you remember some of those summers as she visited a bunch of churches with us during those times. Those were precious weeks and I see that even more now.

Ben and Deidre are now married. May God bless them with great years together as they serve HIM as a team.

Here are a few pictures before the wedding. For MANY more pictures you can check out Odie's post from Saturday.

Cousin Reva and Lynn were up from Kentucky for the wedding and they wanted to see the house. They came over with Dad and Uncle Jerry and Aunt Garnetta for the first post wedding tour. I say first tour because I think Kelly Jo gave tours for about an hour or more after that!

We only took pictures of a few visitors but we appreciate all the interest in the house we are building for Odie to live in.

This precious sister is Ben's grandmother and goes to Little Rock Assembly in Waynesboro. The church sent an offering toward the house so we were very glad for them to be able to have a representative here to see the house in person!

Ben's mother.

Ben's father and mother.

Ben rinsing off the car after the groomsmen had finished their job.

Late Saturday night Kelly Jo was carrying something in and found these two cute little turtles. She fell in love but she is committed to catch and release when it comes to pets!

Saturday morning Kelly Jo had quite a bit to do in order to have the bus ready to ride. I had some work to do to get the house and barn ready to leave. We were up early and did not leave until after 11:00 AM but I think we might have ended up with most things in the proper place.

We did take time for a few pictures. This is Kelly Jo and Lisa below with a makeshift table for Odie's dining area.

Who needs a table? I ate my breakfast enchiladas in a pie plate in her dining area.

Wayfaring

I think we left the barn about 11:15 and hit the road. Traffic around Cincinnati was fine but as soon as we turned northwest on I-74 the wind picked up. It became worse and worse the farther we drove and caused me to remember how miserable it can be to drive a bus on some days.

When we turned west on I-70 in Indianapolis the wind was slapping us broadside from the south. We did not see any wrecks but lots of large trucks were drifting and often jerking violently to the right because of the wind. We were only averaging about 60 MPH but we were using a bunch of diesel and muscle to stay on the road!

We were headed straight into a storm so we decided to stop in Effingham, Illinois for a nap and supper while the storm passed. We had only driven 277 miles but my shoulders were very tense from fighting all the wind. The break did me good.

We were hoping the wind would die down after the storm and it did. The temperatures dropped about 20 degrees too. That was nice.

You can see in the picture below that after the first storm band passed us, we had a break. The second band was only rain and mostly dissipated as it approached us.

As we opened the blinds to leave there were several people in the parking lot taking pictures of the bus. What? It sure looked like they were taking pictures of the bus but once we turned around we could see the rainbow.

It was large. It was bright and it was completely visible from side to side. Several people in Illinois have a picture of the BoggsMobile surrounded by a rainbow.😚

It was late in the evening Saturday by the time we skirted around St. Louis so we had no traffic slow downs to speak of. We pulled into a rest area off of I-44 in Missouri about 10:00 PM eastern time and then converted to central time for the next couple of weeks.

We rested pretty well in the rest area and then pointed the BoggsMobile once again toward West Plains, Missouri Sunday morning. We had one stop at Flying J to empty our holding tanks and the rest of the drive was uneventful. That is how we like it!

Sis. Galiher took this picture as we were driving to the church from town and sent it to Kelly Jo.

We unhooked the Green Machine in the gravel parking lot across the road.



Revival

Kelly Jo parked the BoggsMobile and we spent most of the evening loading in equipment, setting up and sound check.

Soon it was time for revival to begin and we were excited to get started. We have always loved revivals here and this one is off to a super great start. We are expecting wonderful things all this week.

Davy and Pastor Dwain Galiher

That wraps up our weekend! Thanks for stopping into sit a spell.

Davy