Mother’s Day | West Virginia Mountain Mama

Posts Tagged With: Mother’s Day

Slate Tile Floor and Ceiling Work Almost Finished

Posted on May 5, 2015 by jolynnpowers

The floor is almost finished, yahoo! If you have been following along you already know about our remodel and the adventure we are having working with the Barnwood Builders and their TV show. If not take a look at where this mess all started and here is the idea we have for the future. The slate tile floor is about finished and the repaired ceiling is looking better than ever. It has taken about a month of weekends to get this far and we need about two more real good days to finish up the last couple boxes of tile and get about 10 cut and set in the hard to reach areas. Then grout will be the final step. I am not looking forward to spending 8 hours on my hands and knees trying to get grout to set up in between all this tile.

Family room floor with slate tile in place

Slate tile missing from entry area and stairwell

One of the unexpected things we have learned is that you need a tile saw, even if you do not buy one and only rent one they are wonderful and save you hours of work and worry when dealing with slate. Slate is layers and layers of sediment pressed together over thousands of years making it flaky and brittle and it is not as stable as ceramic tile. We tried several ways to cut the tile before finding that with delicate stone a tile saw saves you hours of headaches. Tom and I bought this portable one from E-Bay. This is what the company does best, selling used equipment that is still in great shape but not new! Tom and I found this same saw at Home Depot listed for $ 235.00 we bought this used one that was complete in the box with all the paper work and blade for $ 106.00 including shipping. We will use the saw at least 10 times this coming week and again when we redo our bathroom and kitchen making this a wise 100 dollar investment. Tom just set the saw on a piece of plywood over two saw horses as our work area. As shown the saw did a wonderful job of cutting a hard to fit piece of tile for the cross over between the family room and entry areas.

Used tile saw

Then while Tom was at work my oldest son Cody came over to help with finishing up the mud and tape that we added to the old ceiling. The old ceiling looked like this and was in rough shape. The 4 x 4 trim across the ceiling was loose and pulling away from the drywall in places and the lag bolts that you see are not hooked to anything and are not holding the ceiling up. The trim around the room was 2 x 2’s and did not fit well at the corners. All the trim just needed removed and the ceiling just needed a traditional finish.

ceiling was decorated with 4x4's and 2x2's and lag bolts.

ceiling with 4×4’s and 2×2’s and lag bolts.

So in the process of removing all of this from the ceiling we also removed a sheet of paneling from one wall. The paneling made the wall surface uneven and lumpy. It was white so you would not have noticed it until the barn wood was up and the boards were uneven. So here is what we found under the paneling.

Paneling removed and ceiling exposed

For a couple of days Cody and I worked on taping the ceiling, sanding and painting. The amount of glue you see on the wall is not bad so the paneling came down without ripping any huge holes in the walls. We did fill in some nail holes but over all the wall would just be painted white again and covered with barn wood to give it a uniform appearance.

Cody Powers doing mud and tap repairs to the ceiling

Then a fun photo of Christopher and I after sanding the ceiling and getting ready for paint.

Christopher and I after sanding the tape on the ceiling.

The with two coats of paint on the wall and ceiling we are only left with removing the single board that holds my light fixture/fan up. This board has my only light source attached to it so I am guessing that it will be in place for a long time.

Ceiling repair finished for now and wall painted white

Tom and I are so happy with the over all appearance of the floor that I am sure we will be doing this flooring in the kitchen in the future. It may take a little more time then rolling out linoleum but the results will last a life time and are so much nicer in quality. I just can’t wait to see it polished.

In the next couple of days I will likely be moaning that my hands and knees hurt from crawling around getting the grout cleaned off and the floors polished. I will complain that my mother’s day is at a restaurant instead of at our house because the kids can not play on wet grout. I will fall in to bed that night knowing I have just created not only a lovely home but wonderful memories for my kids.

Categories: Barnwood Builders, Home, Home Decor, home improvement, Memories, Mothers Day, slate tile | Tags: Barnwood Builders, Home Decor, home remodleing, Mother's Day, Slate tile | 9 Comments

My Mothers Hands.

Posted on April 29, 2015 by jolynnpowers

Funny, today I noticed that I in fact have my mothers hands, and I look a lot like her. I know you would think that at 46 I would have thought about this long ago. I think because my mother was 46 when I was 6 I have really clear memories of her at that age. Ironically, I am starting to see her presence in myself. It just started to sink in that the woman whom I call mom is here with me everyday and I am finding great comfort in it.

Veda Lowrey, with children Vernon Lowrey, Becky Lowrey Conda, JoLynn Lowrey Powers, 1976

I am a hands person and any one who knows me very well knows that I can tell a great deal about you from the stories you hands tell. I this case I was slipping on a pair of sandals this morning and really looked at the hands that were putting on my shoes. I stopped, and looked at the short natural nails, the nearly transparent skin, the scratches from working with the bushes and the age spots. “Oh, those age spots”, I thought “Those are my mothers hands not mine.” Those are the hands that I spent 21 years looking at each time she put on her own shoes. The hands that were always so soft and tender. The hands that got covered with scabs in the spring when the roses and other bushes needed trimming. The nails that were never long or painted. The paint was never allowed when you spent most of you time cooking and washing dishes at you very own restaurant. Those hands spent hours mashing up meatloaf and tearing apart salads.

JoLynn Powers’ hand working with transplants

As I sat back and started to look even harder, I saw my age spots that looked just like hers. Big round freckles of brown that always get worse in the summer time from working in the yard. None of my friends moms had freckles on their hands and nether did I at 6. I did not like them very much then and I don’t like them now that I have my own.But, this summer it will be different, those spots will remind me of her.

My mother always had rings on her fingers, she worked with them, slept with them, gardened with them and some day will pass them on to me. One is a ring that she had made when my father passed away almost 40 years ago with a mixture of diamonds and another was a gift of a beautiful tigers eye set in gold. The rings should fit as I have reached a size that she was all the years of my youth. But if I wear them,will I cry when she is gone or will looking down and seeing her hands and her rings make my heart fill with joy that she has not really left me at all? That part of her lives on in me.

The blessing is that hands that cradled me as a baby and rocked my own children are still here to show another generation the tenderness that I remember about her hands. That those hands worked at home to teach me how to read and write properly even if I still can’t spell. They made brownies for birthdays and candy for Christmas and even let me eat the cake batter off the beaters. Those hands were strong as steel when they spanked me when I needed it and sometime stung my cheek for being disrespectful. But, they LOVE ME, HELD ME and HUGGED ME when I needed it most.

I am proud to have my mothers hands and a little shocked that I just now noticed them. It seems that they have waited 46 years to remind me of how much influence my mothers hands have had on me. That somewhere in the future maybe someone will remember and say ” she hand her mothers hands” and smile.

Happy Early Mother’s Day Mom. I hope to send you a copy of this in the mail as you do not have a computer and hope that it make you smile. Know that I love and miss seeing you everyday JoLynn.