Dallas Makerspace

There is an amazing place for artists, makers and tinkerers in the Dallas area.  It's called Dallas Makerspace and you've got to check it out! 

DMS is a non-profit organization based on collaboration.  Artists, inventors, and tinkerers share a building space.  Monthly dues of $50 go towards building and utilities expenses as well as equipment and supply costs.  As a member you can go to DMS 24 hours a day and use any of the equipment, usually with no additional cost to you. Members can also teach classes here to help others learn about different hobbies and crafts. 

Here is a basic layout of the building and I'll show you some pictures of just what all you can do at DMS.

We mostly come to DMS to use their 3D printers.  Today Nicholas is making a puzzle box on the printers.  He uses a website called Thingiverse to find plans developed by other 3D printer users and uses those plans to create the items on the 3D printers at DMS.  You can bring your own filament to create your item or pay a very small price per pound to use the filament available at DMS.

Here is part of the 3D printing room.  There are several nice sized 3D printers around the room.  They work well and are very popular.  Unfortunately we often have to wait for one to come available.  And once you start your project on a 3D printer, you can't leave the building - even if the project takes 10 hours to print!

This is the electrical room.  I'm not really sure what all happens here but there is a lot of electrical stuff in here.

And lots of small electrical supplies like wires, clips, LEDs, resistors, etc.  Nicholas loves working with electrical circuits but so far we haven't done anything in this room yet.

My favorite room is the Creative Arts room.  Here is a cabinet of sewing machines and sewing supplies.

I love the leatherworking supplies.  We have a few basic leatherworking tools at home but here we can experiment with lots of other tools and supplies.

There is even a whole cabinet on fiber arts complete with spindles and looms.

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A big wide-format printer.

Drawers full of different kinds of art paper and cutting mats.

Pens, paper cutters, stamps, sticker makers, clay tools.

So many fun art supplies!  Paint, button makers, laminator, and more!

More supplies...pastels, colored pencils, hot glue, stencils, engraving tools, wood burning tools.  It's like paradise to a craft-a-holic like myself!

See this cool picture of Marilyn Monroe?

It is made up entirely of lines drawn by a robotic pen contraption!  It's always fun to see what amazing creativity can be found here at Makerspace.

On to the workshop area.  This is aquaponics...plants growing up top, fish in a water tank down below.  Fish waste products are broken down by bacteria and transformed into nitrates that are beneficial to the plants then the water drains back down into the fish tank.

They actually have 2 levels of plants growing in this system.  I signed up for a course here that someone was teaching on how to get started in aquaponics but once I realized that we really don't have space for a set up like this I decided to back out of the class.

There is a whole corner dedicated to pottery including these 5 pottery wheels.  Someday the kids and I will take a class and make something on these cool things!

Now we get into some of the bigger tools in the workshop area.  Many of these I don't really understand but Stuart is excited about having them available to use.  This is a sandblaster.

A CNC mill.

Bridgeport manual mill

They even have an ammunition reloading station.

They have a giant laser cutter that can follow a program to cut out wood and foam board to your specifications.

A CNC plasma cutter

Welding tools and blacksmithing forges.

 CNC router

Dallas Makerspace is an amazing place where creative minds can come together to learn and create cool things!  What would you create here?

Dallas Makerspace is located at 1825 Monetary Lane #104 in Carrollton, TX right off I-35 E.  Check out their website at www.dallasmakerspace.org.  They offer monthly tours for people interested in finding out more about membership.

Progress on Floor Repairs

Although there are workers in the house all day long doing repairs, we can't help but stop by at times to check on the progress.   Stuart told me that our contractor had called him with an update that the kitchen tile was complete and needed to set up overnight so we couldn't walk on it if we came to the house.  Well, I couldn't wait another minute and we headed over there as soon as we thought the workers would be done for the day.  

When we moved into the house, the kitchen was pink.  I mean all pink.  Pink wall paper, pink countertops, and even the vinyl flooring has some pink tones in it.  Ugh!  We quickly painted the walls and Stuart replaced the countertops himself but we never did get around to tackling the kitchen floor.  This year we had actually made the plan for Stuart to take a whole week off of work and the two of us would work together on replacing that vinyl flooring with tile ourselves.  But that task was a little daunting since we have never worked with tile and there are so many nooks and crannies that would have to be covered including the bathroom, 2 closets, and the laundry room.  So when I walked into the house and saw that we had a new beautiful porcelain tile everywhere that used to have pink vinyl flooring, I was truly overwhelmed.  

Our contractor is such a blessing to us.  Insurance paid to replace the vinyl flooring with new vinyl flooring but Richard was able to find us a great deal on this tile and he helped us decided on some other items that we would repair on our own in order to put that money into the tile upgrade.

I just can't help but do the Happy Dance as I look back at these pictures!  I'm so excited!

Some of the laminate flooring is in as well.  Here is our school room.  They will replace the base boards next.

The playroom that the kids are standing in used to have old builder grade carpet in it but now it has the same new hard surface as the rest of the downstairs.  It will be so much easier to clean.  I pray that getting rid of the dust-collecting carpet will help Nicholas and me with our allergies and asthma.

As we see our new kitchen coming together it is really hard to look at that builder grade stove that is 23 years old and doesn't work well.  Insurance has paid us to replace some of our personal items that were damaged in the flood but we've decided to not replace those and put that money into getting a new stove.

We have been doing really well about eating breakfast and lunch in the hotel room to try to save money.  We have a little fridge in the room so we keep milk and sandwich meat and a few frozen items there and it has gotten us through great.  But we decided to go out for lunch today and I let the kids pick where they wanted to go.  I was craving a big salad so that was the only requirement that I gave for the restaurant.  I think that gave Nicholas the idea for picking Souper Salad. They have a full salad bar as well as pizza, pasta, baked potatoes, soups, tacos, etc.  And it is all-you-can-eat so the kids loving going back to the bar as often as they want.

After our lunch, we went to many places to shop for stoves and even to look at kitchen cabinets because that may be another blessing our contractor is working on.  Insurance has paid to replace the insides of the lower kitchen cabinets because they absorbed water from the flood but our contractor said that the cost to do that will probably not be much different than just replacing the whole cabinet.  He is working with the numbers to see if he can find a way for us to replace the upper cabinets as well and still stay within our budget.  The kids did a great job and behaving well after hours of shopping.  So I didn't feel too bad when we left our last store, Home Depot, and we all got a little treat.

Demolition Day

Today is Demolition Day at our house.  All of the flooring in the downstairs of our home is coming up.  Stuart left the hotel this morning and got to the house for about 9:00 to let the workers in and give them a key.  They started by putting up plastic sheeting everywhere to help control the amount of dust that would have to be cleaned up.  Then they went to work pulling up the vinyl floor in the kitchen and the wood floor elsewhere.

By the time the workers left for a lunch break, most of the flooring was up and this is what the living room looked like when I was standing at the front door.

 

Here is the entry way with the stairs in front of me.  This part of the floor is higher than the rest and was not affected by the flood.  However, our insurance is replacing all of the other wood flooring so they agreed to replace this small piece as well just so it all matches.  The black tile "landing" that you see below is just inside the front door and it is also coming out.  It wasn't part of the insurance claim but we want all of the flooring to be the same and our contractor is working with us to try to get this included in the work and still stay within our budget. 

Still in the entry way, looking to the left into the school room/formal dining room area.

This picture below is of the living room and playroom from the back door area.  I never noticed how "peachy" those walls looked.  I'm going to repaint them all with the same neutral color we've started using in other rooms that we repaint as needed.  Eventually all of the house will be probably be that same color.  It is a very pale tan color and will lighten and brighten this area more.  I'd love to do the painting before they put in the new floors so I don't have to worry about drips but that would mean working through the night when the workers aren't here and I don't know if I have the energy for an all-nighter these days.

Insurance is covering replacement value of the flooring that we had as well as some other repairs.  We decided to do some of the work ourselves to save some money to put into upgrading some repairs.  We also wanted to be sure to find flooring that was extra durable and wouldn't scratch easily because our kids are still young enough to be destructive.  We decided to not use same wood floor that we originally had but chose something more durable and a little less expensive.  It is a commercial grade laminate that looks like wood.  Click THIS LINK to see it.  It is called Old World Florence and it doesn't scratch or dent easily.  It is a floating floor so it isn't glued down which means that individual boards can easily be replaced if they do get damaged.  Our contractor said that we can actually replace the carpet in the playroom (which isn't part of the flood claim) with this laminate flooring without effecting our budget since it is cheaper than the flooring that insurance paid us for.  I love this.  Not only would all of the flooring have the same consistent look but I would like to get rid of all of the carpeting in our home so this would be a small step towards that goal.  Carpet is impossible to get completely clean and I worry that it is contributing to the asthma and allergy problems that Nicholas and I have.

We are trying to do some of the repair work on our own in order to upgrade the vinyl flooring in the kitchen to tile.  Our contractor laid out a few choices in the kitchen for us to decide on.

We have been a bit overwhelmed with choices.   We want it to meet our needs by being pleasing to us but also durable for our kids.  However, we may sell the house in the next two years so we want to be sure that we make choices that will be selling points for houses in our area.  So we contacted a friend of ours who is a realtor to come by and talk with us and the flooring guy.  It was actually fun going through options with them. 

 

She helped us make the decision between the wood flooring and the laminate wood.  She said that buyers will love the look and durability and the fact that we can get it at a cost within our budget to allow us to cover the entire floor with the same thing is great (i.e. removing playroom carpet and black tile at entry way). 

The laminate we chose is on the top of the porcelain tile that we've chosen for the kitchen.  The tile will also go into the half bath, laundry room and little hallway that goes to the school room.

The tile is definitely an upgrade over the vinyl flooring that we had so that will be over the budget that insurance is paying for.  There are several other things that need to be done that aren't included in the insurance payment.  There needs to be some leveling done before the new floor goes in and some of the baseboards need to be replaced that insurance didn't say were affected by the flood. Also insurance is covering partial replacement of cabinets in the kitchen but we might need to put more money into those to make it look consistent.  But our contractor is doing a wonderful job to try to work with us and help identify projects that we might can do on our own or that don't really need to be done right now so that we can put that money into these other areas.  I'm sure we will still owe money in the end but what a blessing it will be to have new flooring all over the downstairs of our house.

Moving in to Great Wolf Lodge

**This post and a few others to follow are a little late in getting published.  I started them in the hotel but couldn't get pictures uploaded so I wrote the text while we there but gave up on publishing them until we were settled back in at the house.**

We are now out of our house and we have moved into a hotel so that our downstairs floor can be repaired from the flood damage.  The contractor has given us an estimate of 10 days to do the work but it could end up being longer. 

Fortunately, Stuart has spent a lot of time talking with our insurance company and with the manager at Great Wolf Lodge to try to work out a way for us to stay at a place that would be fun for the kids so they don't go stir crazy being cooped up in a little hotel room for 10 days.  With all of the repairs that are needed and the insurance deductible looming over us, we really don't want to have to come out of pocket for the hotel stay.  Thanks to a great deal that Great Wolf Lodge offers to families that homeschool and the generosity of the management at the resort, we will now call Great Wolf our home for the next 10 or more days, at no cost to us!

From the parking lot you can begin to see the awesomeness of this hotel.  Those are water slide tubes and a giant water slide funnel.  There is just so much fun inside that it couldn't be contained within the walls!

The kids couldn't wait to get inside.  Of course, the sound of howling wolves greeting us as we approached the door was just the perfect touch.

Here's the view from our room for the next week and a half.

This is such a major event for our family but we are holding to our faith that all will work out well in the end. "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28.  I have packed up all of the kids school books and supplies so we will try to continue to work on their homeschool studies here. But we will also make sure that they have lots of time to blow off steam with all of the fun activities there are to do here.  I want them to feel like this is a fun staycation and not feel the stress that Stuart and I may feel as we deal with the issues around the house repairs.

Of course the kids are saying their own special prayers thanking God for helping Daddy to let us stay here for the the next 10 days!

Packing Out

It has been a challenging few weeks as we have been working on the long process of getting our house back to normal after The Great Flood of 2014. we dealt with giant drying machines, digging our stuff we need on a daily basis from piles created in a mad dash to save them from water damage, finding a general contractor for repairs, and then the regular craziness of our lives on top of all of that.

Lately my anthem I sing to myself throughout the day is Hillsong's new song called Oceans.  I think the name is quite fitting considering how water has had such an impact on our lives lately.  Here's a video of the song I found on YouTube:

Today we start on the next step in the recovery process.  It's time for "Packing Out" in order to get our stuff out of the way so the flooring crew can tear up the old floors and put in the new.  Movers are here now and they are packing up everything in the downstairs of our house.  That's half of our house!  They will move everything into a storage pod that was delivered to our driveway this morning. 

The unit seems a little small to me.  It will need to hold a couch, washer, dryer, sofa table, long school table and chairs, kitchen table and chairs, china cabinets, multiple book cases, plus boxes and boxes of school books, board games, pots/pans, etc.  I'm not sure if they are packing out the dishwasher and stove too but that might need to be in there too.  And this list only includes the things on the affected floor area.  The playroom is a step higher than the rest of the floor so it didn't get water damage but they are talking about packing it out too in order to keep everything from getting dirty during the demolition process.  Apparently removing wood flooring that is glued to concrete can be a very involved and messy process.  There was talk about chunks of concrete coming up with it and having to level things out before putting in the new flooring.
The kids were quite excited watching the whole delivery process. I had to get this quick video of how the truck moved the unit into place:

I called the town yesterday to see if the storage unit could be on the street but they said that is against the town code.  The lady said it would have to go in my driveway yet even then a code enforcement officer could give us a warning to have it moved in some time frame.  Hopefully this will be a quick process and it won't cause any problems with the town.
Insurance is putting us in a hotel starting tonight.  It could be up to 10 days so we've been hoping to get a hotel with a pool so the kids can have something to do during school breaks (Yes, I'm bringing all of our school stuff with us!  The school year isn't over just yet.)  We have really been hoping to stay Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine because their amazing water park is available for guests to use. There have been issues with insurance covering it but Stuart has been on the phone with insurance several times this morning and he is at Great Wolf right now with the kids trying to work out the details.  I literally just got a text message from Stuart that said he worked it all out.  He said the kids are very excited.  He's amazing! That will make for a wonderful "staycation" for the next 10 days...and I can tell you we could all use a little down time right now.
The movers are busy bees downstairs.  They discovered that a wet box had been on our dining room table (aka school table) and after sitting there for a few weeks now has a moldy spot on the wood.  Most of it wiped off but some has gotten down into the wood. 
I think I heard one of the movers say that it might take them 2 days to pack it all out.  And I think there is a concern that it won't all fit in that storage unit after all.  Just another bump in the road but I keep reminding myself that Jesus is with us and He's got this all under control. 

Water, Water, Everywhere

At about 8:00 this morning, we woke up to Nicholas running up the stairs shouting that we needed to come downstairs quickly because there was water everywhere.

He had left his room to go to the bathroom and heard a weird noise downstairs so he went down to investigate.  He found the standing water and instead of freaking out like I probably would have done, he went forward to investigate.  He followed the sound into the downstairs bathroom which is right off of the kitchen.  He first looked at the sink but didn't see any water coming from there.  Then he opened the door a little farther and found the water pouring out from the supply line of the toilet.

We don't know how long the water was pouring out but here is a picture of a baseboard in our kitchen.  It is hard to see the actual water but you can see where the water line is by the reflection on it.

This is a picture of the kitchen floor taken from the school room.  Yep, there are ripples on the water! I'm around the corner in the kitchen sucking up water with Stuart's wet/dry vac.

Here is the school room.  This is the most upsetting room for me because important things are here like the kids' school work, school books, and all of my scrapbook and craft supplies.

More ripples on the water as I continue to work with the wet/dry vac in the kitchen.  Thank goodness we had that.  We called insurance and they called a water restoration company but no one could get to the house to help for a couple of hours.  I can't just sit still in a crisis so it felt good to at least be doing something to help the problem.

The kitchen floor under the table.

Lots of water everywhere...under the refrigerator, stove, dishwasher...up against the base boards of the walls and cabinets.

Once the standing water was gone I started sorting through things.  My favorite leather purse had been on the kitchen floor so it is ruined.  Unfortunately my cell phone was in my purse.  It is currently sitting in a bowl of rice to help absorb the water from it.  

The school room was sad because of things like this...mini books that the kids had made during their study on Pilgrims that they were going to put into a big lapbook.  Ruined.

Serv Pro water restoration showed up and helped us start emptying shelves so they could move everything away from the walls in order to start drying out the baseboards.  Lots of school stuff ended up in boxes and piles upstairs in the already crowded office.

The table, chairs and all the other school stuff ended up in the playroom downstairs which is a step higher than the rest of the downstairs so it was mostly unaffected by the water.  Things that were clearly water damaged went out to the garage where we will later have to take pictures and inventory those items for the claims adjuster who will be out here on Friday.

I was doing my best to handle the stress but it got to be overwhelming at one point.  I was still discovering things that had been damaged but trying to stay focused and work on clearing things out of the rooms for the guys to work on drying things out.  One guy started trying to move things and I went to help him because he didn't realize that the box he just picked up had crystal glasses in it but then another guy started moving the wire cubicle shelves in the school room to get them away from the wall and the cheap things started coming apart and things started falling and spilling out so I went to help him.  I couldn't keep up with where I was supposed to be working.  

Then the first guy started going into the little closet under the stairs which still had standing water in it.  There isn't a light in there except for a little tap light stuck on the wall but it was jam packed with school supplies, science equipment, camping gear and more.  I knew they wouldn't know what was what so I stopped to try to help unload the closet.  I got some of the stuff out at the front of the closet and started working my way to the back where the ceiling slants down under the stairs.  I was trapped into the weird little spot, in the dark, where I had to duck under the short ceiling, squatting in standing water, and found our beautiful pendulum wall clock in the back of the closet, sitting in water.  Stuart's mom had given it to us years ago and we had never gotten around to hanging it on the wall.  I was getting anxious but then realized I couldn't even turn around because the water guy was inches behind me with his wet/dry vac sucking up water.  It was just so overwhelming.

But the guys were really efficient and nice and very gung ho about their job.  We just have too much stuff crammed into our little house so it made for a stressful clean out process.

  

They set up blower fans and dehumidifiers to try to dry out the floors and walls.  The downstairs air will be really dry and hot (about 80-90 degrees) so they put up a barrier at the bottom of the stairs.  It's just a tarp with a zipper in the middle of it but it limits the amount of air that the dehumidifiers have to process and it keeps the hot dry air downstairs and the cool comfortable air upstairs.

There are 23 little green blower fans set up around the downstairs.  They look like little pods.  There are also 2 of these tall dehumidifier machines.  They will run non-stop for about 3 days.  They run at about 80 decibels which is pretty loud like a busy street or an alarm clock.  You definitely have to raise your voice to talk over them.  Therefore we will be spending the next 3 days in the upstairs of our house.

Tubing running from the front door into the living room.

Our living room.  That darn old couch will probably survive fine but the wood floors will probably at least need refinishing.  The black pads have vacuums on them to try to suck up water and the tall thing is the other dehumidifier.

Our little green pod family that has come to stay with us for a few days.

This is looking down the hallway from the kitchen to the school room. The fridge is pulled out from the wall with a blower behind it to dry the wall.  Fortunately we can just barely still open the fridge door.  Here there are also fans pointed into the pantry, the washer/dryer closet and the closet under the stairs.

It's hard to get around in the kitchen with our pod friends camping out here but we will manage.  We may need to make a few fast food runs but we'll get by for a few days like this.

Serv Pro will come out every day to check the moisture readings to see how the progress is going.  The blowers are drawing a lot of electricity and a couple of fuses have blown but I think we've got things adjusted and situated so the power stays on even though we have to deal with some flickering lights from time to time.

It has been a very stressful day but God is good and somehow He will use this for His glory.  We don't know what the damage will actually be until a few days from now.  Some things will improve as the air dries out but other things may just continue to swell.  The insurance adjuster will be here Friday so we will know more then.  Just keep us in your prayers that dealings with insurance go smoothly and repairs can be done quickly and in the most cost effective way.

For the kids, they will have a relaxed school week.  We can get some things done upstairs but I will be dealing with other pressing issues, like finding some of their school books in the piles of stuff, so we definitely won't have full days of school this week.  But I have a peace about things that it will all work out in the end.

Scriptures we are holding close to our heart this week:

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." John 14:27

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-7

"God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and mountains quake and with their surging." Psalm 46:1-3

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and mountains quake and with their surging.” Psalm 46: 1-3