We had a very full weekend! Saturday morning we cut up the branches from the halloween storm and took them to the dump. Then we worked on the built-ins – first installing the bookcases and then building and installing the face frames for the bookcases. They look great and will look even better once the crown molding is installed across the top, it will really tie it into the rest of the room.
Bookcases with face frames installed!
The bookcases just need to be sanded and then primed and painted before we can install the shelves (which are adjustable and need to be ‘built’ still 
We ended the day by taking out the last 3 livingroom windows and getting them sanded/prepped and primed on both sides. This is a very tedious task and luckily with both of us working on this we got them done by 10 I think, just in time to pass out for the night
Last three windows installed after getting primed and painted!
Sunday I cleaned up the livingroom (since the built-in work gets kind of messy/dusty) and then put the first coat of paint on the outsides of the windows while Ryan bagged up some of the leaves in the yard (this is a huge project and needs to get done before it snows again!).
Then since I had the paint out and the driveway side of the house really needed a new coat of trim paint (some damage from a fallen branch and I believe 2 of the window casings never got a second coat last year), I first cleaned (with a wet cloth) all of the trim on the driveway side and then gave it a fresh coat of yellow paint – just before dark.
A second and third (depending on the part) coat of paint on the trim - ready for winter!
It was getting late so I couldn’t take too long of a break for dinner before getting the final coat of paint on the exterior of the livingroom windows – that itself goes very fast (about an hour I think). While I was doing all this painting, Ryan was working on hinges/doors for the built-ins. He created a jig and then routed out the spots for the hinges for the cabinet doors. He got 4 of the 8 doors installed although they still need to be trimmed to have a matching gap all around but so far so good!
2 of the 4 cabinets have doors installed!
We also looked up what we have to do to build all the drawers for these built-ins (10 drawers that we have hardware for). It’s a LOT of work and I think we want to order a jig that will save some time on installing the lock mechanisms at least. The drawers are inside the cabinets so at least we don’t have to line up the face frames or anything. The slides are Blum Tandem plus Blumotion (they have slow close and are full extension). If we like them we’ll use the same for our kitchen drawers when we do that renovation ‘someday’
We ended the evening by putting the windows back in. The best part was that between painting the final coat and putting them back in I ‘had’ to take a 5 hour break So I read – currently reading Tasha Alexander’s ‘Tears of Pearl’. I accidentally read the 5th in this series and this is the 4th so I had to go back and read it of course. Almost done and need to pick something new to read over Thanksgiving!
