Long weekend

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Ryan and his Dad both had a 3 day weekend this weekend so they took advantage and went out to work on the house.  Alex and I joined them Friday night to Sunday afternoon to provide entertainment in the form of a 2 year old and so I could do a tiny amount of work while Alex napped or watched tv.

While we were gone, our neighbor has made some progress, the back stairway is now sanded and primed.  Also the ceiling over the front stairs was painted – ceilings done!

Back staircase

Sheetrock wise the only thing left is the back porch – Ryan’s dad installed the light box in there so that room is ready for sheetrock next!

Friday after getting some supplies, Ryan and his dad worked on the front entry trim.  The panels in the front entry were finished up on Saturday and all holes are filled and trim is caulked.  Ryan’s dad also painted the wall portion so all that is left is to paint the trim (considering hiring a painter to just paint all trim and doors when we are done).

This is with only 1 coat of paint but after we left Sunday Ryan’s dad finished all second coats of paint on the brown

Towards the front door

Coming soon.. panels up the stairs

Upstairs Ryan got the attic door installed, and trimmed out doors and windows wherever he could.  He made up the sills for most of the rest of the windows and I hear got the master bedroom windows sills installed!  Our neighbor stripped some rosettes for us too so we were able to trim out a few things completely and not do just the sides 🙂

Top of stairs – that’s the nursery and the archway – with trim finished!

The window at the top of the stairs trimmed – and that’s the stairway all painted (even cut in) thanks to Ryan’s dad! (We’ll have chair rail and panels up here too)

The hallway – closet and bathroom doors trimmed out and hallway painted!

Washer/dryer spot painted!

Back bedroom door trimmed out and attic door getting installed (and then trimmed).

My contributions were minor, I caulked the trim in the front  hallway and played with the toddler.   I can’t wait to go back and see the progress next weekend!  Pretty soon Ryan and I will do another kid free weekend and I’m hoping to get a bunch of electrical done then.  Progress everywhere.  Pretty soon we’ll be starting on the master bathroom, we just need the rough-in plumbing finished so we can get inspections before we close up walls and start tiling!

Quick/Short Day

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We went out to work on the house this weekend but had a holiday party to attend Saturday night so it was a short day of progress.  Still progress none-the-less.

Ryan started with installing the door for the back bedroom.  We’re using new doors for the 3 doors across the back hallway and the installation of a new door is so much easier than an old one 🙂

New door installed

I got the smoke detector in the back bedroom installed.  I need to order more smoke detectors and get them all wired up but it was nice to check one off the list 😉

smoke detector (covered from dust since it’s not even hooked up to the panel yet)

Ryan worked on trim in the upstairs hallway, plinth blocks, the sides pieces (need rosettes stripped to finish), and getting the wood installed around the arch so it could get trim too.  This moves along pretty nicely, faster if we had rosettes done!

Hallway closet trim started

Hard to get a picture of the arch but here’s one side (both sides are done).

Our neighbor got the first coat of tape/spackle on the back stairway last weekend, this weekend he finished sheetrocking the bottom area of the stairway.  I got the 3-way switch/light wired/hooked up so the stairs have proper lighting now!

Back Stairway with light

We have a lot left to do but a little here and there was good to get done.  I think it’s fun working on the back room because it has less trim to do so it’s so much closer to finished 🙂  Looking forward to next weekend!

Happy New Year

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The new year started out about the same as last year – a weekend trip up to the NH house to work 🙂  We had Alex with us so I mostly just spent time with her and Ryan worked.  He got the final coat of spackle on the upstairs hallway (above the staircase).

During ‘naptime’ – otherwise known as Alex screaming or talking in her bedroom time – we got the first coat of paint on the 2 bedrooms (the back room and master).  We are playing around with color, we bought white paint and we’re tinting it with the leftover orange from the gym to give it just a bit of yellow.  The back bedroom came out perfect, the master I think had a bit more orange so we’ll lighten the bucket a bit more before second coat time and then save the leftover for touchups.

Master bedroom – first coat of paint

Back bedroom

At this point I think we’re still planning on finishing up 2 coats of paint before we install trim so we only have to cut in on the trim painting.  The ceilings are done so we can install the heat vents and lights/smoke detectors when we have time.  One big thing holding us up right now is getting rosettes stripped.  We can’t install all the trim until we have rosettes and they need to be de-nailed and stripped – ugg.

We’re hoping to work the next 2 weekends – maybe even get a kid free weekend in there.  We’ll see.  Lot’s to do and goes faster if both of us can work!

 

Another work weekend

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This weekend we brought along the peanut and she was a big help 🙂

I found her like this when I came downstairs from doing something – she’s ‘making lists’ and has her tools ready.

Don’t ever change alex – you are too perfect 🙂

We had a busy day Saturday.  Alex and I ran to home depot while Ryan started with some spackling.  We have this tough to reach spot at the top of the staircase (ceiling and walls) that is taped but not finished.  Ryan got a good coat on that area.

Doesn’t this plank look totally safe?

We also managed to get 2 coats of paint on all of the ceilings that were ready – that’s the 2 bedrooms and the hallway (minus the stairway area).  Next time we’re out I can do smoke detectors and lights now!

Ceiling painted – 2 coats!

Back bedroom

Hallway ceiling

Our neighbor was over to work and he sheetrocked (which included some 2×4 installation) the attic stairwell – we are only doing the first section to the 2x4s they have up because the attic is unfinished but this way when you open the hopefully soon to be installed attic door, it opens to a seemingly finished stairwell.  We will probably leave this untaped since the rest is unfinished but we’ll see.

Attic stairwell – calling it done for now

All in all we had a productive weekend when you consider 6 hours of that is driving 🙁  Sunday we ran errands then drove home after packing up.  Attempted to drive during naptime (no nap).  All well.

Now it’s time to enjoy Christmas and family.  In the new year we’ll return to the home building 🙂

Front Hall trim

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Well we had a bit of a break on the house work with Ryan needing back surgery and then getting it.  His recovery is going great though and this past weekend we took a day to drive out and work on the house, leaving Alex in NY with grandparents.  We drove out friday night in the horrible ice rain, then back saturday night in slightly better normal rain 🙁  That left us one full day to work on trim in the front hallway.

First Ryan installed the rosettes and top piece of trim on the doorway that was missing it.  Then he firred out the front doorway so we could install the trim around that.  We have to strip more rosettes so the tops of the doors (front door and closet door) are waiting for that to happen.

Plinth blocks, trim up the sides of the doors and baseboards installed

The chair rail and the trim up the side of the door – the baseboard is also done in this section.

We managed to get plinth blocks in, baseboard, baseboard cap and trim out the strange section at the bottom of the stairs.  Then Ryan got some more chair rail in.  We need to buy chair rail and the trim for making shadow boxes up the stair well so we’ll need to get that measured and bought for a next project.

Baseboard cap started up the stairs and the cap for the section at the bottom of stairs is done

The tricky section with some angles that took a little work – to get the baseboard cap to wrap around nicely.

I think we were both happy with how that little section came out at the bottom of the stairs, it looks nicer from the tile side than the stair side but there isn’t much we could do on the stair way side as it’s just a ‘cap’ of wood over there.

The front hallway is getting closer, shadow boxes are the main thing left in there, then it’s painting and upstairs trim next!

 

Weekend away

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Ryan and I had our first kid free weekend since Alex was born!  And that weekend involved driving to NH to work on the house – and Ryan’s back is still out.  It was definitely worth it though, although the 5 hour drive back was horrible (it’s normally under 3 hours).

We drove out Friday night after dropping Alex over at the grandparents for a sleepover.  Saturday we slept in until 9am – oh so glorious!  Then it was time to start painting (for me, Ryan’s back was horrible).  We had our neighbor paint the last 3 windows (first coat inside) and I started by finishing up the bit of red molding around the porch (of course it rained!) – but the red is all protected so not biggie.

Friday, our neighbor got the yellow by the stairs and all around the skirting sanded and painted final coat! He also finished painting the last railing so we just have the 1/2 railing and the back railing we plan to rebuild still left!

Next I started on the little porch off the master bedroom, I got the last tiny bit stripped, everything sanded, cleaned up and then primed – priming until after dark!  Then I went in and did a coat of paint on one window that was lagging behind (it needed a coat of outside paint).  Then I called it a night!

Everything primed!

Sunday Ryan was feeling a bit better so after breakfast and a trip to home depot we both worked on painting the little porch.  He painted anything he could reach without bending at all – which was the red and then the posts in yellow.  I started by caulking and filling any holes that had been missed, then painted the green siding, then the rest of the red and yellow that Ryan couldn’t finish.  We were done by 1:30, then time to clean up and pack up and hit the road (and hit the closed i-90 resulting in a 5 hour drive).

And the porch is painted – the green is just primer but the yellow is first coat of paint!

Red! The ceiling will be a new drop ceiling, so that can be ignored.

Another view. The shiplap that’s white will probably be green, undecided still.

Good progress for a weekend where Ryan’s back is out.  We decided we’re going to have to have our contractor finish the back porch- no way we will be able to before it’s winter with Ryan’s back in bad shape.  So now we can switch to inside projects and if we get a nice day by chance we can do the final coat of paint on that porch but no worries, it’s protected for winter!

 

Painting Weekend

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Back to NH this past weekend and of course it rained on Saturday 😉  Ryan’s back is still out – worse this weekend than the last!  I was able to get some painting done though.  On Saturday I vacuumed the master bedroom ceiling/walls and then got them primed!  My plan in there is to save money and use some of the old paint we have that’s too dark and take it to home depot to have the colors lightened to more neutral colors.  I have a light brown (2 cans) and a dark green (tv room color) that I’d like to use up in the upstairs rooms to save some money and use up the paint!

Primed!

Sunday the weather was great, so after some errands in the morning I got the green painting on the outside of the house finished up while our neighbor painted some more railings for us!  The outside painting is winding down, next weekend we hope to work on the back porch, we still have the small porch off the master bedroom left and a tiny bit of red paint on a molding to finish up and we’ll be done.

Finally this section of green is finished!

This green wall by the side door is also finally finished. Only 1 last railing to paint, then the posts and frieze boards by the skirting.

Getting there, once the outside is buttoned up for winter we’ll be focused on getting trim installed in the master bedroom, front hall and upstairs hall.  The sooner we can get the master bedroom done completely, we can put our bed back in there and empty out the front livingroom again so we can paint that crown molding!  Lots to do!

Deck Stained

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(Edited to add pictures!!!)

With the rain every weekend really messing with plans and cold weather coming soon I decided a week ago to just do the deck anyway, it’s a covered porch so the majority of it would be just fine and hopefully the rain would hold off anyhow (spoiler : it didn’t).

Well I spent all day Saturday sanding the deck while Chloe watched Alex and Ryan painted the red molding on the porch soffit (and the tops of the posts).  That came out awesome!  Finally about 6pm I had finished sanding and cleaning up and started staining.  By 7 I had to quick for a few min to give Alex a bath and then finished up while Chloe read books to Alex.  I was done in time to do the rest of bedtime!

Old to new – hopefully the new darkens over the winter!

From the other side

The red molding under the soffit was painted all around

Up to this point (it got dark) – and notice the vertical frieze boards installed on this side of the skirting – there is only one more piece by the stairs to add and that will be done!

There wasn’t any packing to do because our truck was filled with our new bed (king size bed!) so we just relaxed after bedtime.  Of course at 6am I woke up to pouring rain!  Our windows were all out upstairs too (getting painted by our neighbor) but luckily the rain was really coming straight down so everything was fine (except the ends of the deck that got soaked!).

No idea how it really faired, it stopped raining for our drive Sunday and I’m heading up there tonight and I’ll get to see how it looks after a week of drying.

This past weekend we stayed in NY and I got the built-in doors primed finally.  They still need paint but the primer I could spray on since it was sanded after anyhow.  I really need to set up a better spot to paint – the primer had tons of bugs stuck in it 🙂

No pic weekends

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OK so the trouble with driving out to work on the house for a day and then driving back – means I always forget to take pictures!  Arg!  2 weekends in a row now!  I don’t want to forget what we did so I’ll update anyhow and hopefully next weekend I’ll remember pics.

We’ve been driving out Friday nights then Saturday Ryan is doing errands with Alex (dump runs etc).  The weekend before last I sanded the railings and got them stained after we went and bought new stain that actually matches this time 🙁  Then I went up on the roof over the porch and painted the red molding that was left and the green siding – and just as I finished it started pouring.  So the last 5 boards that weren’t dry all have to be re-painted as the paint washed off – yup!

We waited for the storm to pass before hitting the road and coming home Saturday night that weekend but last weekend we stayed until Sunday morning which worked better (rain again too).

So this weekend it was planning to rain again so i still couldn’t sand and stain the deck (UGG!!!).  But I had the morning rain free so I painted the soffit around the porch yellow (part of it that needed one more coat).  So the porch soffit just needs the red molding painted next.

After that Ryan and I worked on installing the last trim around the skirting of the porch (I believe there’s 1 piece left that needed an angle cut and hence a different saw) while Alex napped.  I got the nail holes all filled and caulking done while he installed those.  Georgia came over to play with alex for the afternoon/evening so we then built the small 1/2 railing that goes by the side door and got that ready to prime/paint before installing (so we brought it back home with us).  We’ll install it next week!

We took the doors off the built-ins as well, hoping to have time to paint those this week and bring them back to install.  The more we can do here in the evenings like that (painting big doors is next on the list) the better!

That’s it.  Next weekend Chloe is coming over to watch Alex (getting lots of cousin help!) so hopefully the rain will hold off and we can get the deck stained already!!!!

Sheetrock

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Been a while since I updated!  We were just very busy with working on the house, moving, vacation, moving some more.  The week after insulation we spent prepping for sheetrock.  The first day of our vacation I spent the first 1/2 the day finishing the electrical (wiring smoke detectors, washer, dryer, last light).  All the sheetrock prep we hired my neighbor to do, just filling in corners with nailers, fixing fir strips, removing nails etc.  So there wasn’t much else for us to do except the last bit of wiring.

While on vacation my neighbor and our contractor hung the sheetrock in the master bedroom, the hallway and the back bedroom.  It took 3 days to hang everything (and we lost a day because the sheetrock didn’t show up the first day even though I was guaranteed it would be there by 8am!)  Not a good way to start our vacation 🙁

Master bedroom

Another view

Our neighbor spent the rest of the week/weekend taping and when we got back on Saturday he had just finished taping all the seams.  He had 3 days the next week to spackle and he got the hallway and master bedroom all done.  The back bedroom is the only thing left (needs a bit of spackle) and it will be ready for sanding and painting!

Hallway

Hallway from the other end

Back bedroom – in progress

Back bedroom

The list of what to do next is long.  We need to focus on finishing up the bit of painting we have left outside, finish the porch/deck (stain the deck!) before the weather gets cold.  The rooms need to be sanded and primed, then trim installed, doors installed.  Lots of painting etc.

We’re going to get really good at the 3 hour drive on weekends to work on the house (out friday night, back sunday).  That means with someone watching Alex we’ll get 1 person working all day saturday (2 during naptime) and sunday morning.  We’ll probably drive sunday naptime so we get a little time to relax on sundays before it’s back to work.  We’ll see how this goes in September, by October we may be leaving Alex with the grandparents to take a weekend out alone and really make good progress.  Until we start to go out, it’s hard to say how long this will take us but our goal is by spring to be done!  Until then we’re living in 2 places 🙂