Wow, October and it was in the 80’s!  Perfect for finishing up window panels!  So Ryan and I worked hard this weekend!

Friday night Ryan got home and started right away working on the built-ins!  He got the box for one of the bookcases put together so we could see what they’d look like installed – it will be so great to have the storage when those are done.  I know he wanted to work cabinets all weekend but due to weather he was compelled to get the outdoor work done before it got cold out.

Saturday we started by getting the rest of the panels installed, it was just a few vertical panels and we were done just after lunch!

Diningroom panels finished!

Back side of diningroom panels

Once they were installed Ryan got to work on finishing up the sanding of the cupola panels.  He was able to sand the last 2 of the cupola windows, the large diningroom window panel and we got the cupola windows all caulked.  We ‘ended’ the light hours of saturday by priming the first 3 windows of panels (it was pretty dark when we finally stopped).

Cupola windows - all sanded and caulked!

Main diningroom window all sanded

First 3 window's panels all primed!

We didn’t stop there though, we stayed up until midnight priming (inside and outside) of the 3 diningroom windows themselves!  They are exposed unlike the cupola so it was important we get these ones painted.  It  would be great to get all the windows painted but the cupola ones are at least under the porch during the winter and have been primed.

Sunday it was back to windows!  I finished hand sanding the last 2 cupola windows while Ryan finished sanding the diningroom windows and got the panels all caulked and ready to go.

Diningroom window panels, ready for primer

Before lunch I got the last 2 cupola window panels primed, including the post against the house which came out great after a good sand.

Cupola - primed!

After lunch we had some surprise company!  Ryan’s sister and her husband came up with the nieces for a few hours!  The girls were a lot of fun, after a tour of the house progress we went to the park down the road while the guys watched football 🙂

After they left we finished up the outside work, Ryan finished caulking the diningroom window panels and I put the second coat of trim paint on the front of the house (so that is FINALLY done).  I continued painting until dark, after dark moving inside to get a coat of paint on the diningroom windows.

Front of the house finally done! (window panes still need to be painted)

And started painting the cupola. We've decided we might do the cupola all in yellow with the red trim (still to be added) as an accent instead of green on the recessed parts. The all yellow idea is growing on me and it's definitely easier to paint that way 🙂

Window panes everywhere - drying!

The large diningroom window panes

Painting just one side of the windows goes MUCH faster than priming the night before so I actually finished up by 9 and went to bed early.  With the nice weather sticking around I’ll probably get the final coat on the windows tonight and let them dry through Tuesday before we put them back in.  I’m taking a 1/2 day today off of work to maybe get the diningroom window panels primed??  We’ll see how it goes, it’s hard moving the ladder by myself and they should be hand sanded still which is a lot of work.

Great progress for a great weekend though!  Almost ready for winter!  I still want to get the copper caps on but we can do that on a cooler weekend since it doesn’t involve paint 🙂