My last contribution

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This week marks my last contribution to work on the NH house.  I am spending the evenings/nights stripping and now painting the built in drawers/doors for the diningroom built-ins.

Monday and Tuesday I got the stripping and sanding done.  I also got them primed Tuesday night.  Now they are getting painted and should be ready to head back to NH on Thursday night.  I have to clean the hardware too and put it back on so Ryan can just slip them in place.

Monday night stripping progress

I’m glad to be done with the hard work, this week has been exhausting and hopefully starting next week I can relax in the evenings again – maybe even watch TV!  Friday night Ryan will be in NH and after movie night with the kiddo I’m either going to pass out or finally play with my new machine and do some quilting!  Can’t wait!!!

Wrapping Things Up

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This weekend was the last weekend I plan to go out to the house to work!  We’re busy the month of may and with the baby coming I won’t travel out there in June.  Ryan and Dad will go out next weekend to do the floors upstairs and Ryan will stay and finish a few more things.  We have our contractor back working on some things this week and next if we need him.  The house goes on the market on Monday next week!

Let’s try to recap the weekend a bit.

Friday night Ryan got the drawers installed in the built-ins so the tv-room built-ins are finally completely finished!

Built-ins are finished!

Since the doors are all painted I put the hardware back on all the downstairs doors and they look great.  Ryan hung the tv-room closet door too that I had finished painting last week.

Saturday we got an early start, the first thing I did was clean and mom the diningroom which was scuffed up from the painter, then I covered the floor with paper and a new drop cloth knowing we’d have people working in there still but wanting to minimize damage.  Our contractor came out (he’s back from Arizona!) and he did the crown molding in the ceiling over the weekend – it looks awesome!

Diningroom ceiling crown is done (just needs paint!)

His wife is actually going to do the painting for us, she painted the front closet on Sunday.  She’s also going to do some cleaning downstairs for us this week to get the house show ready (wash windows and such).

I got the built-ins stripped (just the front face) and sanded.  Ryan put up the last bit of trim on the built-ins and they are ready for caulking/prime/paint!

Built-ins are ready

My project at home here this week is to strip/prime/paint the drawers and doors so ryan can put those back in next weekend.

Maribeth and Dan worked on outside projects mostly for us.  First Maribeth painted the outside of the little upstairs porch!

Porch is painted

Then she and Dan scraped the old paint off the back porch and got it primed (the 2 sides).  Our contractor will do the siding on the back side of the porch this week and get the final paint on everything back there I think.

Back porch siding scraped/primed

Other side

A big project Ryan did with Dan’s help is getting the ceiling of the front porches done (the wrap around and upstairs porch).  They finished putting up the last pieces of paneling, then quarter round around the edges, then lattice, flat trim on the seams.

Porch has a ceiling!

Once that was done I could put up the ceiling fan on the porch!

Ceiling fan!

Speaking of fans, I got the back bedroom fan and closet light installed.  I also go the master bedroom fan installed and fixed the master bedroom closet light wiring which was flaky/not working for some reason.

Back bedroom fan!

Master bedroom fan

Ryan also got the hand rail on the front staircase installed (the second one) and finished the small railing by the side door which Maribeth then painted.  The one last back railing he got the hand rail and bottom piece installed, but has to do some sort of railing still, it won’t match exactly but it never did anyhow before.

Maribeth got the final coat of yellow paint on the little porch off the master bedroom.

Little porch all cleaned up and finished

Another view from the little porch

With a ton of help Ryan got the vanity upstairs, he had to cut the side of the vanity that sticks out further than the granite in order to fit it properly in the bathroom – (that was unplanned work) but it came out great!

Vanity installed!  And he could put in the last piece of baseboard on the right there.

Another vanity view

Another bathroom view

The bathroom list remaining is just : Paint touch ups (Last baseboard), hanging mirrors and bars, plumbing and glass.  Then it’s done!  That was definitely fast for a bathroom renovation!

Ryan and Dan also moved the washer and dryer upstairs on Saturday and I tested them out.  They are awesome!  Not too loud at all like everyone said, I ran a full heavy load through and you could barely hear it during the spin cycle.  The dryer noise was actually louder (and not too loud).  Man I wish we had done this particular project sooner so I could have enjoyed it!

Washer/dryer upstairs!

Finally one of the projects that was just waiting to be done.. the banister!  Everyone pitched in Saturday night and got the banister sanded.  Maribeth and I stained it and she waxed it on sunday as I was packing to leave.  It looks awesome!  We’ll have it covered with plastic next weekend while the floors will be done so it won’t need to be dusted and it will certainly be a showcase feature!

Banister – wax in progress!

Another view

What an exhausting weekend, everyone worked so hard and we were all sore after but so much is done.  My list of what’s left to do finally fits on a single page!  That’s amazing!  After this week I can focus on getting ready for the pig roast and then baby coming.  As we move more and more stuff out of the house (mostly attic and basement/tools left to move) we’ll have to find a place to store more stuff (another storage unit!?) like tools but it’s a good problem to have as it means we’re getting close to not paying a mortgage on a house we don’t live in (after 8 months already of doing so!), i’m hoping we can keep it to 1 year total.

Our house…. for now

Goodbye Nashua – hopefully I’ll see the house finished when we sell it if baby arrival works out well with that!  (She has to come a couple weeks before we close in order for me to deal with the drive out!).  I think that’s very likely.

Closet Doors

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This week has been a bit exhausting – at 31 weeks pregnant, once I’ve worked a full day and picked up the little one from daycare, then fed her (and us usually), I really just want to rest.  HOWEVER there are things to do!  This week I got the 3 closet doors that we brought home MONTHS ago finally painted.  We can get them installed this weekend, the painter is taking care of the rest of the doors which should be done when we get out there.  I’m excited to see the painting progress this weekend!

Next week is the last week like this, I’m going to be painting the drawers and doors for the diningroom built-ins once they are stripped, I got one drawer stripped last night and I can finish the rest maybe monday night then paint Tue, Wed, Thur nights (primer and 2 coats of paint).  Lot of work but going to look great!

Ryan and I are going out without Alex this weekend so I can finish up any projects from my list.  This will be my last trip out, I will be 32 weeks along next week and want to start taking it easy as I’m hoping to make it to 38 weeks this time (Alex came at 37).  Ryan will have one more tough weekend of doing floors the following weekend without me and then he too will be taking a break as he has other commitments for a while.

Another busy/long weekend

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Not really long as in longer than 2 days but long as in it felt very long.  We got an early start Friday, hitting the road at 5pm and getting to the house by 8!  I put the munchkin to bed and Ryan got started grouting the master bathroom!  I cleaned paint off the master bedroom windows while he started and then by the time he was onto the floor I could help (not much help in the shower).  We were up until 1am but got the entire bathroom grouted!

Grouted shower!

Floor view (next day when Ryan was doing trim)

On Saturday we couldn’t walk in the bathroom until after about 3pm so Ryan worked on various other projects throughout the house.  He put up some trim in the tvroom closet (door and a piece of baseboard) and he put the trim up around the top of our columns in the livingroom – they look great!

Caps on the columns

Now that the master bathroom is done we had our neighbor hang the last piece of sheetrock and start taping/mudding the last section of the house!

Taping/spackling in progress

Our painter had worked a bit during the week and worked all weekend again, trim is almost done, he’s coming again once this week and a bit next weekend and it should be done (what’s up already) – and if he has time we’ll add a bit more to his load after this weekend.

The stairway has paint now – looks great

I was pretty distracted with a toddler most of the weekend and never took pictures after this point (some time saturday afternoon) so the rest is choppy.

During naptime and kid free time I got the build-in drawers (tvroom) sanded and shellac’d so those can be installed (this is the 5 that weren’t in out of 10 total).   I worked on the doorbell finally but may need a new button on the front to get it working.  I got the back porch light installed and the back bedroom closet light wired up (needs a fixture but works as a light now).

Ryan worked on installing trim on the back porch using what scraps we have left once he finished all the trim in the master bathroom (3 windows, 1 door and baseboards) between Saturday and Sunday.  Aside from one piece of cap molding in the master bathroom the upstairs trim is finished.  The only trim really missing is the front hallway closet (inside) and some small baseboard in the back porch which Ryan will finish up next weekend.  Ryan also got the little porch off the master ready for a new ceiling (added some strapping) and cleaned it up – it looks really nice.  Once the ceiling is in and everything gets a coat of paint that porch will look great.

We stayed until 5:30 on Sunday, I got the last of the fragile kitchen stuff packed up while Ryan did a final cleaning of the bathroom tile with cheese cloth and we headed out with a truck load of stuff.  Next weekend is the last weekend I’ll go out, the plan is to go kid free if we can and make the most of it.  Then the following weekend Ryan will take a 3 day weekend and hopefully my dad can go out and they can do the upstairs floors – then the house is on the market.  So close it’s unbelievable really.

Some quick updates

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A mid-week visit up to the house for some appts and I have a few more pics to share and a tiny bit of progress updates as well.

First some more pics of what was done over vacation …

Another shower view

The painting continues smoothly and he will be finishing up what he has time for this weekend, anything left will be for us unfortunately but I think he’ll have almost all the trim done (that’s already installed).

Washer/dryer stand ready to carry those up and install

I still forgot to take an outdoor (front porch ceiling) picture – this weekend I will hopefully remember but I did get a pic of the floor in the master bedroom that Ryan fixed up (it had damage and a hole from the radiator).

Repaired floor in cupola!

And the electric in the bathroom is officially done – of course I forgot to take a picture of the ceiling fan but the outlets and vanity lights are in and everything is working/wired up.

Outlets and switches (need another double switch plate…

Vanity lights … so…

Turns out that when they say the vanity light is 24″ across they measure the edge of the metal NOT the glass!  Since our sinks are 12″ in from the sides and we wanted the lights centered I thought I was safe with a 24″ wide light.  Not so much it turns out 🙁  Luckily I think I can just buy different glass and change that out for a small fee instead of using this flared design.  I’d have to have to unwire and replace them completely as it was a pain to get up of course!

That’s it, it was a short trip and I mostly just worked remotely while there.  We’ll be heading up tonight for another weekend of work including grouting the bathroom, putting up the bathroom trim, spackling the last wall in the diningroom (me) and working on the banister maybe or hanging ceiling fans.  We are going up next weekend too so some of that may happen then.

April Staycation… in NH

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Well this was our last stay-cation at our NH house where we take a week off of work to work on the house, definitely not as much fun when it’s finishing a house that will get sold 🙁  Add to that my back has been killing me (sciatic) with this part of pregnancy (so much fun) but we got a ton done and we are on track to get the house listed in mid-may i think.  Let’s see if I can recap the vacation a bit…

We drove out Friday night (Alex’s birthday).  Saturday Ryan worked on getting trim installed, the painter was starting on monday so he wanted all but the master bathroom trim done if possible.  He got the back bedroom windows and doors trimmed, then the window by the washer/dryer…

Baseboards done … the old baseboard tops had to be stripped of paint and cleaned up a bit then the caps put on, plus a small piece had to be pieced in.

Doors trimmed

Window trimmed by washer/dryer

When i had time I focused on electrical.  These lights were done the last weekend we were out but I didn’t take pics so here are the lights i installed in the stairway and top of stairs.

These will have shades on top

Chandelier at the top

I got the back bedroom outlets all wired up at some point during the week (a naptime – there weren’t many naptimes).  So master bedroom and bathroom are really the last outlets left.

Sunday Ryan worked on the master bedroom trim (baseboards again) and also patched up the floor where the radiator had done damage.  The floors are officially ready to be refinished now (well when we have time!).

Over the weekend our neighbor finished spackling the bathroom and then sanded it on sunday so I could prime it and Mark could paint it Mon-Tue, we went with a light grey paint.

Spackled

All done!

Monday started the master bathroom project in earnest, Ryan had to get the shower pan installed which took some work and included putting the drain in, then the foam floor insert (Kerdi system).  Ryan’s dad came out to help Monday afternoon-Wednesday which was a huge help.  The kerdi system involved putting down the underlayment then letting it dry so working on something else until they could tile again.  It slowed down the project but hopefully is worth it.

The project they chose as extra was putting up most of the front porch (wrap-around) ceiling!  They put upstrapping to nail the new ceiling to and then put up bead board panels.  We’ll need to put up some trim on the seams and around the edges to make it look really finished but it’s a huge improvement and looks great.  Over the 3 days they got all but 2 panels installed.

In the bathroom on Tuesday they got the floor to the shower done AND the floor to the whole bathroom tiled!  All day on hands/knees as this is a large bathroom! Oh and Mark also painted the entire bathroom

Shower floor – charcoal – love it!

Starting the floor tile, simple subway layout of 12×12 on the floor.

Finished!

The bumpout part

Unfortunately they needed to give the tile 24 hours to dry so the shower project had to wait until Wed night before starting.  So that’s when they worked on the porch ceiling the most.

I got some lights in the master bathroom wired up so Ryan would have light in there at night if he tiled the shower.  I also worked a little on the banister project I have planned.  I’m sanding it lightly with 300 grit, cleaning it well, staining it dark so it hides any knicks then i’ll give it a wax.  Here is a section I did with just stain, no wax yet…

It darkens a bit but really hides the old knicks well and looks awesome in person! This section only took about an hour so won’t take too long to do the rest!

The painter started on Monday with prepping (filling holes and sanding) the trim we had installed.  Then he got to priming – he’s doing all the trim upstairs, some downstairs and all the doors we’ve had dipped.  I actually drove the last 3 doors down to Worcester on Tuesday to be dipped and they’ll be brought back this week when I make another trip out!

Painter got the trim all primed in the back bedroom

Hallway trim all primed

Trim at the top of the stairs primed

Master bedroom windows all primed

Some great progress this week… Alex, Mark and I headed back late Wednesday night so I could clean the house and prep for the birthday party Thur and Fri.  Ryan stayed through Thursday, tiling the shower!

Matching tile in 12×24 for the shower.

The glass guys came and measured on Thursday once the shower was tiled and Ryan also met with the realtor … about 4 more weeks and we’ll be listing hopefully!

We have a few big projects left and lots of little things.  We need to fit in finishing the floors, the painting is being handled so that’s not a concern.  The bathroom has to be grouted – this weekend! And then the glass can be installed in the shower.  We have to get the vanity upstairs and put in – that is crazy heavy and will be tough but hopefully soon.

 

Last Kid free weekend

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Well this past weekend was most likely the last weekend we’ll go out kid free – the next weekend we go out is for our ‘vacation’ so of course we’ll bring Alex (plus it’s her birthday weekend!).  After that we’re getting close to the end of what I can do anyhow as I get further along so we’ll bring her along.

We drove out Thursday night and both worked from the house on Friday so we could get the new vanity delivered.  Then we worked friday night from 6-11 with a break to go to Lowe’s for our tile!.

Bathroom tile!

Friday night was mostly making a new door frame for the master bedroom door and getting that installed.  Ryan also worked on some chair rail in the hallway and I got some outlets installed in the master bedroom.

New door installed!

Chair rail!

Saturday we started with another hard project and got the master bathroom fan vented out through the attic frieze board.  Ryan had to hang out of the half moon window to cut the hole for it, it was quite the ordeal but the fan is vented!

Fan vented! I didn’t take a pic outside because it was snowing – ugg in spring!

Other than installing lights (I got the front hallway lights all installed up the stairs and top of stairs!), I also took up the carpet on the stairs finally.  We can finally see these beautiful stairs that will look great refinished!

Stairs! the lower part of the wall just needs to be painted and this will look great!

Ryan got trim around the rest of the upstairs hallway (chair rail and door trim around the master bedroom door).  Then he did the other doors in the master bedroom (outside door and closet door).  The bathroom door is our last one in there that needs to be installed and trimmed out!

Trim around doors and some baseboards done too

I got the vanity light boxes installed (we were waiting on the vanity so i could make sure the lights were centered above the sinks properly and I think we are good here).

Vanity light boxes installed!

Our neighbor finished spackling the back porch and got that sanded.  It’s ready for primer/paint and trim!  Then he built the knee wall in the bathroom for the shower and put in some blocking for the glass door to hang on when we get that.

Shower walls ready

We headed back to NY Saturday night at 7 so we could have a family day with Alex on Sunday which was very a great idea and ended up being a blast.

I’m headed back to the house this week to get the master bathroom inspections done so that the next weekend we are out we can move forward on the bathroom (and our neighbor can start sheetrocking it).  Exciting!

Lot’s left to do but the inside is coming along nicely and if we hire someone to paint we are getting closer for sure!

Trim and Outlets

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This past weekend we went out to work on the house but had Alex so that left Ryan doing most of the work and I got naptime and tvtime to work a bit on electrical.   First Ryan started by attempting to install the master bathroom door however it doesn’t fit in the old frame without being cut down so he put that on hold with a partial install.  Once you clean up the old door frames and screw them together they get a bit tighter and the door needs probably 1/4″ taken off the hinge side which is fine, just annoying to bring down to the basement and needs 2 people to do well.

So he moved to trim while Alex and I went shopping at various lumber yards to buy what is hopefully the last bit of trim we need to buy.  We bought the rest of the window apron and baseboard cap trim in Brookline then over to Hudson to get the rest of the chair rail and shadow box trim (hopefully).  Ryan got the master bedroom windows finished up (just aprons really were left), then got the back bedroom windows trimmed out except for the tops – we leave the tops to last so we know which pieces of trim to cut/use as we are limited and need to use the longer pieces for doors first.

Baseboard cap in the hallway – top of stairs

Capped down the hallway

Other side of the hallway done too

He also installed the last door in the back hallway once we realized we couldn’t bring the washer/dryer up that way anyhow due to the basement door being too small, so they will come up the front steps – no reason not to install the door and get it trimmed out too.

Last door installed and trimmed out in hallway (minus the top of course)

 

Ryan put the trim up around the washer/dryer stand and I caulked and water proofed it with redguard.  It’s ready to be sanded (front) and painted then the washer and dryer can be installed!

washer/dryer stand waterproofed and trimmed out

Note the baseboard is capped all around the stand too – so the upstairs hallway is pretty much done trim wise.  The top of the stairs section still has to be done – we need to install our bedroom door and do the chair rail and boxes there so more work.

Back bedroom windows mostly trimmed out

Aprons installed on the last 3 master bedroom windows!

During my breaks I got the outlets in the upstairs hallway wired up/installed and hooked up the washer/dryer outlets to the panel box so the upstairs hallway is all wired.  The only electrical left is to wire up the master bathroom and install the rest of the outlets in the 2 bedrooms, then install the light at the top of the stairs.  Getting so close!

It was a pretty productive weekend, we stayed until noon on Sunday and then packed up the truck and headed home.  Ryan helped my dad on their new house for a bit and man were we all wiped out that night!

This weekend we are home and celebrating my nieces’ first birthday!  Then next weekend it’s back out to work on more trim, hopefully finish up electrical and work on cleaning up the diningroom built-ins if we can!

Plumbing!

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Last week my brother-in-law came out and finished up the rough-in-plumbing for our master bathroom!  It’s almost ready for inspections, we want to get the rest of the cement board down on the floor and I need to hook up the wires to the fan and probably hook up the exhaust pipe to the fan then it will be ready!

Double vanity plumbing all set!

Shower

Basement …. so nice!

Also while we’ve been in NY Ryan’s dad has been busy stripping trim for us.  We have a box of stripped and sanded rosettes ready to install as well as a little bit of leftover trim we had hanging out in the basement.  I got the door frame for our bedroom door stripped last night so Ryan can install the door this weekend and then finish up the trim in the upstairs hallway!

Looking forward to a hopefully productive weekend but we’re also bringing the Boo so we’ll get time with her too.  Oh and this nice weather – awesome… come on spring!

Kid-Free weekend again

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We are on an every-other weekend schedule going out to work on the house and this weekend Alex stayed with her grandparents so we could go out by ourselves and make more progress!  It was a productive day and a half for sure.

Saturday Ryan worked on trim all day – starting with the master bedroom, putting up window trim.  We need to buy more window apron trim but he got what we had up and the windows look great!

3 windows even have aprons!

3 without aprons (plus we need aprons for the back bedroom and master bath)

Next up he worked on baseboards.  He couldn’t finish the uptairs hallway shadow boxes and chair rail because the door for the master bedroom needs to be installed, and before that it needs to be stripped, so we packed it up and brought it back and Ryan will strip it here and we’ll bring it back ready to install.

Had to cut the old baseboard down to match and then put in a new piece.

Notice the blue rug at the top of the stairs is gone!  Floor looks great underneath.  We didn’t take it off all the stairs just this section so far.

Baseboards continue around the linen closet and down the hallway on one side.

And partially around the washer/dryer stand

This is the door to the attic trimmed out (no pic before) and technically there’s baseboard on the right side of it too…

I focused on ceilings and electrical this weekend.  First I hooked up smoke detectors so we now have all the smoke detectors hooked up and connected!  I also put a light in at the top of the back stairs and a bunch of the covers for the HVAC in the ceilings (and recessed lights have covers now)..

Light at the top of the stairs in the back and smoke detector all hooked up 🙂

Covers on HVAC and another smoke detector (had to do upstairs and downstairs but didn’t bother taking pics of all of them!)

Washer and dryer outlets and put the trim piece on the drain/water thing.

The washer/dryer stand is just about ready – we have to put a piece of trim around it and water proof it, then we’ll bring up the washer/dryer and then we can put the last door in place at the top of the back stairs.

On Sunday we worked a few hours on the master bathroom.  We had our neighbor clean up the ceiling in the bathroom and start sheetrocking a bit (just one section) on Saturday.  Ryan put in the ceiling fan/light box Sunday morning and then we ran all the rough electrical in there (outlets and lights).

Sheetrock on one small wall 🙂

Fan installed, just need to hook up that wire.

Wiring for lights and outlets by vanity

We drew out the plans for the vanity and the shower so we’re ready to finish the rough-in plumbing hopefully this week.  We’re going to order what we need for the bathroom this week too (need the vanity placement so we can plan the light boxes exactly).

So the master bathroom has been started, trim work continues nicely and electrical is going along.  I replaced a bunch of the switches with the nice rockers we are using and started putting in outlets in the upstairs hallway.

The next trip out we’ll have Alex so probably getting more trim done and I’ll get a bit more electrical done during naps and such.

OH – and we got the built-in doors hung – they need a tiny bit of sanding down to close nicer and then touch up painting in place, then we’ll put knobs and magnet pieces on and they’ll be done…

They look nice with doors on!