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After 3 weeks of working my butt off remodeling the house, I treated myself to a day at the lake with some friends. It’s the perfect time of year in Arizona because it’s warm enough to want to go swimming and the lakes are cool and refreshing. On the way to the lake, we passed by a chopped Chrysler 300 near downtown Tempe. I scoured the Internet and found a crude photo. Even though it’s not the most flattering shot, you can see that the car is pretty sweet.

Sweet.

We went to the lake to ski, but I spent most of my time admiring the scenary. Here are a few photos from the afternoon.

That’s Four Peaks in the distance, made infamous by our license plates and a brewery.

Candyce enjoying the sun.

Danny (striking a pose), Lauryn (confused), and Candyce (confident)

Grillin’ and Chillin’

Most of the day on the lake was serene, but the final hours was nothing but surreal. We finished skiing and pulled up to a sandy beach to grill some dinner. There were a half-dozen other boats there, each the main stage of a their own little spring break in September. Big speakers on their boats echoed “Party Like a Rokkstar” around the canyon walls. Males were drinking, yelling, and insulting each other. Females were strutting around in their bikinis showing off their new tattoos. It was a bizarre scene in the middle of the desert. I lit the grill and started cooking. One by one, they backed off the beach and cruised out of the cove. The last boat left leaving a trail of music bouncing through the canyon: Will.i.iam’s “I Got it from my Mama.” Then all we heard were birds and bugs at dusk. Humans really are an unruly species.

Rock the Boat

Before I move on, I should explain that Saguaro lake is the fourth and lowest lake in a series of four. Roosevelt feeds into Apache, Apache into Canyon, and Canyon into Saguaro.

I was flipping the chicken when our placid lake began to ripple with a strong current. This is bizarre, because lakes don’t “ripple with a srong current.” We were all staring into the distance trying to make sense of this, when I looked down and saw a pair of flip flops (left by a party girl) float off the sand and into the water. Within minutes our sandy beach had become smaller than my kitchen.

We hopped up onto the boat and ate dinner and listened to Jason describe his plan for sailing from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia. Before we knew it, it was dark and it was time to go. Unfortunately, the water level had lowered, and our boat was a beached whale. The guys got out and rocked the boat for ten minutes until we were finally floating again. It was a funny scene because the girls were in the boat and it looked like we were harrassing them I read in the paper earlier this week that they were lowered the water level in Canyon Lake by 20 feet to repair the dam. They opened up their dam upstream and flooded our picnic.

The cruise out of the lake was magical. It was dark and we were the only boat still on the lake. You couldn’t see the canyon walls, so we had to drive slowly. The sky was illuminated by a full dome of stars. It’s been so long since I’ve seen so many stars like that.

We stopped for twenty minutes and just floated in darkness, staring up the the sky. In the distance a camper was staying warm by a fire of mesquite wood, filling the air with the smell of autumn. It was such a calm moment at the end of such a severe three weeks of remodeling.

I slept for 14 hours last night. Twenty days ago, my dad and my brother Pete, a carpenter, made the 1,913 road trip from Athens, Georgia, all the way to Tempe, Arizona. Their mission: remodel the first floor of my house. An hour after they got to the house, we went out for dinner and we began sketching out ideas, refining lists, and making priorities. 450 hours later, the three of us swept up the sawdust in the garage and packed up their truck.

Here are some photos from the project…

Me and Matt O. knocking out the lower cabinet that divides the family room from the kitchen. Although we’ll have to be creative about finding new storage space, it was worth getting rid of this barrier so the house would feel bigger. (Notice the red retro TV on top of the new, larger TV.)

The Pergo, carpet, and linoleum were all pulled up and tossed out in the dumpster. We are ready for tile. The doors were removed in the foreground, and the lower cabinet is all gone in the floorplan feels more open. Shortly after I moved into the house, I removed the upper cabinets. So standing in this space, this is the first time you can see the fireplace.

Pete spent most of his time in the garage cutting up wood. He’s quite the talented carpenter. I never though I could make 15 trips to Lowes in 20 days. You would not believe the sawdust that built up on my driveway.

Dad was a soldier. He knocked out this tile and then spent the rest of the day chipping out thinset underneath. On the left used to be cheap carpet. It’s all covered with beautiful travertine now. (More photos to come later.)

This is the 2nd time in my life that I’ve rented such a huge dumpster for my driveway. If you ever do a remodeling project, it is wise to get the dumpster on the very first day. It’s hard to demo a house if you don’t have a place to put it. This dumpster was 20 feet long and 6 feet deep.

Candyce is pretending to use a nailer. She’s so cute. Pete built 60 inch judge’s paneling all around the kitchen and family room. In this photo, you can see the bare MDF (medium density fiberboard) and wood filler. This eventually got sanded, primed, and painted.

I would say we’re about 3/4 of the way through the project. We started a lot, and we finished a lot, but we didn’t finish everything. I think that realistically, I’ll have weekend projects for the rest of 2007 and probably into 2008. I’m too tired and delirious to think about that now.

My brother and father poured their heart and soul into my home. I have never witnessed other adults working so hard for so long. It’s the kind of thing only family would do for one another. I’m just in awe of how much we got done.

Thank you Pete! Thank you Dad!