The avatars are very easy to upload at this site. On one or two sites that allow avatars, the avatar has to be put in as a very small file which requires photo editing in advance. DGF takes your image and automatically crops it down to the right size.
I'll share a little more into for anyone who is interested.
Retired about 9 years ago. Since then have mostly occupied my time by remodeling house for my daughter, my sister in law, and now our own home. My daughter's house in Greensboro was the repo from hell. We thought that changes would be cosmetic but when we first went into the wall and found loose wire splices with just a little tape, we knew their were problems. There was also a drop ceiling in the sun room, and that was covering significant structural issues. Five years later, we have re-engineered the sun room, which was probably the worst project in the entire house. We have gone throughout ten rooms, stripping everything down to the studs and replacing the wiring and the plumbing throughout. The house had 3.5 baths. The half bath was converted to a walk in closet and the other three baths were totally gutted with everything replaced. My wife, my daughter, and I have tackled almost all of this construction ourselves. It has gone slowly, but the daughter has had long periods suffering from construction burnout, when we didn't really do anything much. Thankfully during the main demolition/construction phase, she was able to live in the upstairs portion and cook in a makeshift kitchen which was also sealed from construction. We have worn so many hats with this project: demolition crew, electrician, plumber, sheetrock hanger and finisher, framing carpenter, finish carpenter, window and door replacement, hardwood flooring installation and finishing, install ceramic tile in kitchen/dining, in baths, over fireplace, construct and install support beams in two rooms, shingle part of the roof,...........The list of tasks is mind boggling. That first year and a half was quite a challenge, especially when having to drive 3.5 hours each way to work for two or three days per week. Now we just go up a few times per year and work on whatever task is ready for attention. All that is left downstairs is to finish some sheetrock, finish a full bath, and lay some flooring in two rooms. Other than that, there is a little finish work to install some trim.
About three years ago, my daughters house was winding down, so we took on my sister in law's house. That was a much easier job which only took 6-8 months. That drive is only about 1.5 hours and we averaged a couple of days per week for most weeks. There we gutted the kitchen and then when from room to room replacing doors, flooring and repainting. We gutted her two baths and completely remodeled them including nice tile flooring.
So both flower gardening and vegetable gardening, combined with pretty ambitious remodeling projects have occupied most of my extra time since retiring. The rest of the day seems to easily get filled with monitoring the market/on line activity, daily house chores, exercise, and light recreation. One thing for sure, there has been little time for being bored.
Here are links to before during and after for my daughter's house, but do not include any recent finished views.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aghenderson...552435188/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aghenderson...023066876/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aghenderson...953845302/
Wow, didn't realize these were such early reconstruction photos. Will have to take a few shots of the finished rooms in the near future. You wouldn't believe how proud we are of that ceiling in the suns room as it turned out almost perfect.
