The Craig and Jo Show…

It’s been a long time since I’ve done a blog post called the Craig and Jo show. For anyone new here, Craig is my son-in-law, married to my daughter Kalissa.  Craig is a great guy.  He honestly is like a son to me and we’re super close.  He is handy and happily, he doesn’t mind helping me.

Craig used to work as a mechanic at a farm implement dealer.  After my husband Kramer died, he ended up switching jobs and started working for the same farmer Kramer did.  Craigs hours have changed dramatically and he isn’t around to do some of the jobs he used to.  That’s one reason why there aren’t as many Craig and Jo Show posts.

That’s totally okay.  I have fewer jobs to do.  But still, some jobs still add up.

Craig was here the other day…Kalissa was home sleeping after the overnight shift and Craig asked me if there were some jobs he could do for me.  Well…why yes.  There were.

Craig rolled up his sleeves and said, “Well let’s get them done.”

Oh, my word.  Joy to this girl’s heart!!!

Here are the little jobs Craig tackled.

I have a bathroom in the basement.  It’s not finished.  When Kramer was still living we hired someone to put texture on the walls and paint it.  The person did a horrible job.  He didn’t put any texture behind the toilet and the paint job in the the bathroom is embarrassing.  No joke…a 12 year old who has never painted before could do that well.  The guy didn’t even paint behind the toilet.  For real…no joke.

Well that has always bothered me.  So Craig took the back of the toilet off and he textured that area.  Now I need to go through and paint the walls.  But I’m so happy.  The project is one step further along just by having the texture on the wall.  I’m hoping I can get this painted before Christmas.  The bathroom is small and it shouldn’t take long.

Previously Craig had done some other work in the bathroom.  He put up the wainscotting on the lower wall.  That jut out is there because of plumbing.  We thought the wainscotting and shelf would look good.  I’m debating on whether to paint it or leave it as is.  The walls are going to be painted gray.

Kramer put the built in here.  It has doors and it’s on our plan to get them installed and trim put in around the cabinet.  The bathroom is super small that the cabinet space is needed.

Craig also painted trim to go here.

Next… when I was at Kelli’s house in June, we were doing some cleaning.  She didn’t want this sign anymore.

I told her I would take in and donate it to Goodwill.  Then I got looking at it and decided if it was trimmed down to a perfect square, I could paint a quilt block on it.

I told Craig and he cut it down so it is not a perfect square.  Now I need to get it painted.

Next…I had these two color by numbers.  These have a fun story.  When Kramer, my husband, was in 5th grade he had his appendix out.  His aunt ended up getting him a paint by number set in an effort to get him to rest and not run around.  Kramer painted them and here they are…

Neither is completely painted but I love them.  They are blotchy and not even done the best.  I’ve had it on my list to frame them and hang them in the house.  I know…kind of silly but I’m an old sap and am very nostalgic.

I went online and ordered from an Etsy shop.  These are custom sized so needed custom frames.  I was so upset.  The frames came and there weren’t done well at all.  Look at the inside corner.  See??  They don’t meet.  I ended up measuring and one board was cut at 7/8″ and one at 3/4″.  I hate to be a pain but I paid for these and ordered in good faith that they would be cut right.

I ended up complaining.  The company apologized immediately.  They sent new frames at no charge.

I had stained them darker to match the bathroom better.  Craig hung them.

I am SUPER happy with them and am so glad I bought frames for them.

I need some better do-dad for the shelf and need to do more to make this all look better…but it’s a start.

I’m not worrying about the bathroom until the shower gets installed and my new cabinet built.

Another thing Craig did for me is to hand this in my living room…

It was so cute that Gannon ran and got my bucket of tools once he saw Craig with power tools.

I’m not really sure what this piece is.  It’s wooden…and had bars across.  My thought is that I want to hang a couple of mini quilts on it.  It sits away from the wall so there is room to tuck some behind it.  Making some mini quilts is on my to-do list now.

It hangs level…I took a picture at an angle that makes it look crooked.

As a gift a while ago Craig built me a squirrel house.  He hung it for me.

In all, these things took Craig about an hour to do.  Not a lot of time but wow…it sure made this girl happy!!  These were all on my list of things I wanted done but hated to ask for help with.

I am truly blessed to have such a great son-in-law.  I’ve told Craig, “you’re just like a son to me”…and it’s so true.