I have been very busy the last few weeks so blogging and writing have been pushed aside. My youngest daughter, Michelle, moved into her new townhome after a long summer watching it go up board by board. It was a joy to share the experience with her and be part of the excitement. Look at that smile right after the closing. And the refund they gave her meant one thing … SHOPPING! Dad suggested SAVING, of course!

Michelle’s car is named Max and he seems to like the new driveway. The garage is her “shop” and she has no plans to park Max there. I have a very long “To Do” list associated with that shop including helping her create a work bench and tool storage for the tools Michelle hopes to add. Perhaps these will be subjects of future blogs. She is already painting projects for her decorating theme.

Dad Mode is hard to exit. Dads want to grab the drill, move the boxes, and get it all done as quickly as possible. But I realized the New Homeowner needed to learn how to do a few things for herself, like hanging towel racks. This was an ideal teaching/learning opportunity. We started at Lowes where I bought her a “pint-sized” drill just like Dad’s. Don’t let the size fool you – that little rascal works and DeWalt did it right. It is light enough for tiny hands yet powerful enough to get the job done.

Nothing like getting your hands dirty and it always helps to have extra hands and kind words when learning a new job. Reading the instructions can be helpful, too. Michelle learns quickly and is a natural with that drill.

I am happy to report we installed all the towel racks but one. The local Lowes was out of that model so she bought it from another store a few days later … and she installed it by herself. Look at her technique for installing the shower bar in her new master bath. We only ran into a couple of issues where two towel bars had to be shortened to fit the wall.

I had to include this picture of the new bedroom. Uncle Jeff would be proud to know his deer head will grace the wall at some point.

From there it was home to start on a project that has kept Shawn and I jumping for a couple of weeks. We are remodeling our bedroom to match the bath do-over we completed earlier in the year. More on that in the future.

And Michelle went back to work at Sherwin-Williams to help other homeowners make their places as beautiful as hers.