Back Bedroom

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Ryan has a couple of weeks off and is hitting the upstairs hard!  We have a crazy ‘list’ written out and we’ll see what he can get done so far he is on a roll as none of these jobs are easy!

Monday he jumped right into demo and got the back bedroom completely demo’d and cleaned up.  It still has some final work left like removing nails, cleaning the last bits of insulation from ceiling but it went well and Ryan did it all himself.

Back bedroom demo’d

Another view

The bedroom is now rectangular, no more diagonal cut for the door!

Tuesday he pruned our front tree in time for the dumpster to arrive.  Then he loaded the dumpster with everything from the back bedroom.  Next he started working on the back wall, he had to shift part of it back towards the 2 staircases so the washer/dryer will fit in there (then he has to shift the washer dryer over to make more room).  He got the 2 doors reframed out again.

The washer dryer room, expanded a bit

Wednesday (not over yet) he framed out the door to the back bedroom and cleaned some wood out of the basement (into the dumpster).  Then he finished up the washer/dryer stand (finished picture tomorrow!)

The start of the washer/dryer stand we had to shift over.

One big goal by the end of these 3 weeks is to have both bedrooms (ours and this back one) ready for insulation/sheetrock completely.  That means we have some cleanup and electrical to do in the back room, flooring too.  And in our room we haven’t even started yet!

Tomorrow the plan is to tile the front entry (yay!) since our contractor just finished installing the closet door for us.  He is now getting a start on crown molding in the livingroom (he has to make the base pieces).

I won’t even get into EVERYTHING else planned however we are renting a lift Fri-Sat so we hope to get the exterior painting finished and the siding off the back of the house with that.  And by we I mean ryan 🙂  Going to be a busy couple of weeks!

Bedroom porch

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We’ve been doing a lot but instead of covering the weekend I’m going to post by project.  Ryan is going to be working on the house for 3 weeks straight starting next week and I’ll try to keep up the documentation to follow that but this week I’m going to just try to catch up on some of the project updates.

We’ve had our contractor working on the little porch off of our bedroom the last 2 weeks.  First he rebuilt the little 1/2 wall entirely and repaired the roof around it (flashing/roofing) so that hopefully that fixes the leak in the porch roof below.

New walls and sill

View from the bedroom door

Then he put up shiplap bead board on the inside which I love the look of, built a new sill and then did the siding on the outside of the porch.

Hard to see from down here but new siding is up and ready for paint. Obviously those posts have to be stripped first. All is primed though so prepared for any rain.

The porch still needs works.  We need to scrape/strip the paint on the inside for all the original wood we’re keeping.  Then it all needs to be painted.  And then we need to put down new exterior carpet for the floor.  We also have to add in some drainage from the floor out to the roof – the flashing is there for it but any new floor will need some weeping holes or something to get water down to the flashing.

We are going to keep the screens off instead of refinishing them but we saved them so they could be refinished in future.  For now we’re keeping it an open porch because it looks nicer I think, and you can see more details on the inside that way!

Next up – the new wall in the upstairs back hallway Ryan has been building!

Floor is finished

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We put the final coat of poly on Sunday night! Ryan sanded when we got back from NY and I got it vacuumed and poly’d while he put Alex to bed!  It’s done!  And great timing, we can let it dry/cure for the week and we’ll definitely be using it a bit by next weekend!

Finished!

Just a few small things left to do (crown molding and trim paint) and the front livingroom will be done!  The front hallway has a bit more work and the diningroom is on hold because we have to do the bathroom above it (plumbing).  So excited though!  We can finally put furniture back in the rooms officially.  Here comes my new office (front livingroom), sewing room (diningroom) and playroom!

Second Coat!

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It’s not as shiny because it’s drying much faster.  It’s also a bit lighter after the sanding I think.

I don’t think the 3rd coat will get done before the weekend, maybe Sunday night.  This coat took a while with the sanding and vacuuming and it was just me this morning.  It looks very smooth and nice (the first coat was a bit rough).  Can’t wait till this one dries!!!

First coat of poly!

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The stain wasn’t quite dry enough last night to do the first coat of poly so I took an hour and a half this morning and got it done by myself and Ryan took Alex to daycare to save me some time.

Poly is on!

A view from the front door

It went pretty well, the first coat doesn’t need sanding/vacuuming before hand so the second and third coats will take more time.  The floor is somewhat protected now though with at least one coat on so I feel better about it.

Our contractor showed up today to start working on the small porch off of our bedroom.  He took out the screens and took off the sills and is working on rebuilding it a bit.  The porch roof leaks where the porch is since we took the siding off so he’s got to fix the leaks (flashing and shingles should help).  I think we may leave the porch open (no screens) for now, it looks nicer but there’s a lot of work to make it look really nice that’s for sure!

FLOORS!!!!

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This weekend was awesome!  Mom and Dad came out for the weekend and it was a very productive weekend!  We started with this….

Doesn’t look too bad but the cupola area had patched in flooring that was uneven and the floors are just worn and old.

The front hall had almost no finish left on it, just very worn

Dad and Ryan spent Saturday sanding the floors down … they came out great (and completely even)

Sunday we cleaned them up really well (all dust gone) and then Dad and I stained them Jacobean – nice and dark!

Jacobean stain – thinned out

We’re letting them dry a while and tonight we’ll start the poly coats.  3 nights of poly then a few days to let them cure and we’ll be using this room again next week for sure!  I’m so excited, the color came out perfect and once it’s done we’ll get the final white paint on the trim.  The windows in these rooms are all done (2 coats of interior paint completed in the last few weeks).  The last item on the checklist is crown molding – it’s always last for us 🙂

Our downstairs is almost complete – the front hallway is our last ‘room’ that needs a decent amount of work.  The rest of the downstairs just needs some paint here and there (or crown molding) 🙂  Getting there!!!!

Shelves in the Closet… Happy thought indeed

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That will never get old (from P&P).  We have finished our linen closet (the floor needs to be finished but we’re not doing the upstairs floors just yet so that has to wait).

Meanwhile – I got the final coat of paint on the trim this weekend and put in the shelves (and filled them).

Shelves in the closet!!!

The doors are now painted and waiting for knobs to be added and the doors hung back up.

Doors painted

I also managed to paint the trim around 2 doors in the kitchen Sunday night before it was too late to want to continue.  There is a lot of trim left to paint in this house but a little at a time moves it along!

first coat of paint on door trim (and the baseboard between them)

I’m VERY excited to have a linen closet, I was able to empty out a bunch of stuff from my bedroom and once the floors downstairs are done (this weekend???!!!!!) I can move my sewing area and desk/work area downstairs as well.  Then it’s on to the last phase of our demo – the last 2 bedrooms in the house!  Scary thought!

Linen Closet Progress

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Not a lot of house progress this past weekend because we were potty training and Ryan had to work most of the weekend.

I did manage however to work during naptimes and our neighbor came over on Friday and painted windows.  9 windows got a single coat of interior paint done (the exterior is already done on these).  These are the diningroom and livingroom windows.  Hopefully this friday the second coat can get on them!

I got the closet trim primed and a coat of paint done.  I also primed the closet doors.  Trying to squeeze in some time to do the final coat of paint and start painting the doors so I can start using my closet!  The shelves are just hanging around ready to be hung!

Nothing else exciting – next weekend will be similar – still potty training so can’t leave Alex too much but I may have my neighbor’s daughter come over to play with Alex a bit and get some time to do something or other around the house!

Linen Closet

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This past weekend (we were home on Monday only) marked some progress on the linen closet!  Friday my neighbor Pete was over working so he sanded, primed and painted the closet (then did some other projects like empty out the master bathroom area).

Closet painted!

Monday we went to home depot and got the closet system, then I painted the second coat on the walls and ceiling.   Once the paint was dry I installed the closet light, then Ryan installed the rails for the closet system (we’ll wait on shelves which just pop in until trim is done).  Then Ryan made and installed all the closet trim (baseboards and door trim) on the inside of the closet!

Rails and baseboard installed

Door trim and light. Since it’s the inside of a tiny (narrow) closet we’re just doing flat trim, nothing fancy. Once the shelves are in you won’t even be able to see the trim.

All that is left is to sand, caulk the trim and then prime/paint the trim and doors!  I’m so excited to have a closet soon  upstairs!  The only problem with working on it is that it’s RIGHT outside Alex’s room so I can’t do anything noisy when she’s trying to fall asleep, so we’ll see when I get some time to sand it (painting is quiet at least).

House progress is always fun, especially on a weekend when we also got to go back to NY and see all our family!  The Pig Roast was this weekend and we had a great time – the weather was really nice even though rain was predicted!

Alex and Jason had a blast, they both love tractors so first thing we went out (in pajamas) and let them sit on Grandpa’s tractor

‘Sharing’ 🙂

On Sunday Grandpa got his car out and the kids got to drive that too!

Cruisin

I don’t have my pics off my camera yet, just my phone ones plus I didn’t take any pictures at the actual pig roast, I was too busy talking to people!  It was a great turn out (anything is better than last year when we got rain AND cold!).

Upstairs Hallway

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We were home on Mother’s day weekend and got a little house work done!  Then we also had my neighbor over the last 2 Fridays so a little more progress.  All on the upstairs hallway.

Ryan got the back wall of the hallway demo’d so you can see the back staircase and attic staircase now.  The plan is to put a new wall in that goes straight across and will have 3 doors (bedroom, stairsdown, attic stairs), all that swing in away from the laundry room which is at the end of the hallway in the nook behind the bathroom.

A view from the hallway by the bathroom door. There used to be a wall there 🙂

Another view, this is the wall of the attic stairs.

My neighbor got our linen closet spackling done, it’s ready for sanding/priming/painting and a closet system to be installed!!!  Can’t wait!

My neighbor also finished the demo on the side wall so the whole back area is ready for electrical and a new wall.  Ryan and I got most (1 left) of the recessed lights in the hallway installed and I got the switches and lights mostly wired.  Next up is smoke detectors and outlets.

Recessed lights installed down the hallway. Linen closet at the end of the hallway.

I’m very excited, we’re starting demo on the very last few major projects (obviously we still have a lot to finish) but soon demo will be done and it will all be just putting back together instead of a mixture!