Monday Funday (and tuesday)

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We got a slow start on Monday, needing to sleep in (well Ryan slept in, I had to take boo boo to daycare at 8am), but then i settled in to read for a bit, sinus infection only a little bit better than the night before.

So we got up and did some errands, we went over to the lumber yard where we get our trim and stocked up on cap moldings for the baseboards and returned a bunch of stuff to home depot.  Then home to get back to work on the tiling project.

Ryan worked on the backsplash while I cleaned out the thinset between the floor tiles.  This is very slow work and grouting didn’t happen until it was time to pick up Alli boo.  So Ryan did the grouting while I fed Alex and put her to bed, in time to help with some of the grouting.

Backsplash progress – the bottom is done, just the top left!

By bedtime we had the floor completely grouted and managed a little relaxing time.

Floor grouted – I didn’t get a picture until this evening when we’ve been working in the area so I don’t have a complete picture

Tuesday started the day with a dump run (had to stay off the tile until 1pm), and some other errands.  Then I stripped a few rosettes (6 of 10 done) while Ryan worked on trim for the kitchen.  The archway is all trimmed out now, the apron for the window sill has been coped on the ends and the door frame that stuck out too far has been cut back flush with the drywall.  I primed some of the cap molding for the baseboards and started the long process of filling nail holes and caulking the trim (the window is done).  Pretty productive day considering we had to be done by 5pm to pick up Alli boo.

Archway trimmed out

archway and bathroom door both have trim now – two more doors to go and then some baseboards

 

Tomorrow will be a little different, Ryan has an appointment in the morning so I’m going to take the truck in for some service and do some work work.  I’m hoping we get back to trim work in the afternoon because come Thursday it’s time to start the cleanup process.

Tonight is for relaxing, I have a date with my sewing room, not sure yet what will come out of it.

More tiling on Sunday

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Ryan and his Dad got right back to work on Sunday and had the floor completely tiled by lunch time on Sunday!    Everyone needed a break by that point so we relaxed, giving backs a break (and nursing my sinus infection – perfect for a vacation!).

The back hallway finished! The blue tape marked tiles that were finished the night before and could be walked on carefully.

The bathroom hallway finished!

A view of the fridge area since I couldn’t get in there the night before

And a hopefully closer view of our backsplash behind the stove

After Ryan’s parents headed home we mostly just relaxed the rest of the evening.  Ryan was sore from tiling and my sinus infection was killing me.

Check back tomorrow for Monday’s progress!

And the tiling continues

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Ryan and his dad worked like crazy today.  The floor of the kitchen is almost done in one day!  Mostly the back hallway is left.  It was a lot of work, we went with a 12×12 surrounded by 6×6 tiles surrounded by 12x12s.  Seems simple, but it means a lot of cuts.

Kitchen floor, just looks amazing!!!

Also done today, the backsplash section behind the stove is done!  The design from the other wall will continue onto the rest of this wall and butt up against this pattern on both sides.

I don’t think you can tell in the picture (I couldn’t get close without stepping on the floor) but the 4 center tiles have a design on them, looks great!

The picture is a little blurry because I couldn’t stand on the kitchen floor to take it (obviously).  Tomorrow the rest of the floor gets tiled, just a small section in the bathroom hallway area (they did half of it so we could still get to the bathroom and tomorrow they’ll do the other half and we’ll walk on today’s tile to get to the bathroom.

The stove is in place, the fridge/freezer will have to wait to go back in until we grout because the pattern continues under the fridge.  This evening we went out to dinner (Alex did great, even with an ear infection – again – and being exhausted), then over to home depot to pick up more thinset and some grout so we are ready to grout on monday.  I’m really looking forward to having this week off, we’ll get the house ready for Alli’s birthday and maybe get to relax a bit too!

The tiling has begun

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Ryan’s parents came out this afternoon for the weekend.  We did a little clean up and prep and then went over to pick up miss alli boo.  A quick trip to home depot with Boo to get a few supplies and we came back to a pile of cut tiles, and a pattern laid out and ready to go.

Alli at her favorite store

A few hours later and the long wall of back-splash is completely done already!  Then they pulled out the stove and dishwasher and got the tile laid tightly under those (not in our planned pattern, just to fit tight), so we can put them back in place tomorrow and just tile around them (they’ll be at the right height).  That means we just have to move the fridge and freezer out tomorrow and get the floor tiled.  I think they plan to finish the back-splash first while the stove is out though, then the floor.

Look how long that wall looks now!

I was wondering if we’d get it all tiled in one weekend, there is no doubt now – it won’t be a problem.

A closer look

Under the window the apron will cover the blank spot that’s still there.

Under the stove

Come monday we’ll be grouting the floor, probably grout the back splash on Tuesday since we used mastic on that.

 

Been a while

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Yikes I guess it’s been a while since we did much on the house.  We’ve been a little busy with traveling to NY for Easter etc.  In the evenings we did manage however to get  the last 2 sections off the kitchen spackled and sanded and Ryan got the long piece of baseboard scribed and installed.

The back hallway, ready to be primed and painted!

The bathroom hallway off the kitchen, also ready to be primed

We still need to finish the trim installation in the bathroom hallway on those 3 doors and the arch but this weekend it’s time to tile the kitchen!  I think Ryan wants to get the plinth blocks installed tonight first but we’ll see.  Depending on what is being worked on I may get the priming done, that at least protects everyone’s clothes from getting plaster dust on them when they rub against the wall 🙂

Next week is our vacation week to work on the house so I’ll try to update with pictures more often and boo boo is turning 1 year old on Wednesday – unbelievable!  The little munchkin just amazes me every day 🙂

 

A 1/2 weekend

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We went back to NY last weekend to meet our new little nephew who is adorable!  He is also the quietest little newborn ever, didn’t make a peep the whole visit, just loves to snuggle!

We drove back home on Saturday night so we had all day Sunday to do regular weekend things.  We hit up our regular breakfast place where Alex is always admired and she loves to see the new decorations each time we go.  Then we did some home depot shopping (got our tile for the kitchen!) and a little work on the house.  Ryan got the kitchen window trim all made up and installed.

Window has trim!

The apron underneath will go on after tile.  Then he got the plinth blocks and the start of the trim around the archway done.  The rosettes still need to be stripped so we’re just waiting on me to have time to do that so we can move forward with the trim there.

Side pieces and plinth blocks are in

Also in on the back side

I started the process of cleaning up the tool area, it’s been a lot harder to organize tools without my back hallway and bookcase to store most of them.  So i’ve had to get creative and still keep track of where everything is.  For now our hutch is taking on a major roll in tool storage (actually both hutches, the built in one and the standalone).  With family coming up this weekend (and my almost 2 year old nephew), I’d like the diningroom to be usable for breakfast at least and safe for a toddler.

 

 

Wood

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Just a little vent… so a couple of weeks ago Ryan went over to Home Depot to get some more 5/4 select pine wood, we use it for our plinth blocks as well as for window sills on the inside.  He was actually buying it for a new door frame (which we’ve used it for before as well).  Turns out they stopped carrying it!  We called around and all of the home depots (we have 3) and lowes (we have 2) stopped carrying select grade, they only had knotty pine.  This does not work for us!

So in the mean time we decided to just buy a new door for the basement instead of making a frame and using an existing door – mostly because it would be easy and it’s next to a new door off the back anyway so it didn’t bother us. We really like the new door we picked and if we weren’t refinishing our original doors we would probably go with this door throughout the house.

This brings us to last weekend when we needed 5/4 for plinth blocks, no getting around it.  Luckily we had one small piece left that got us a few blocks (5).  We couldn’t make the kitchen window sill however which was another thing we hoped to do.

So I’ve called around and found one place that carries select 5/4 still – down in MA.  So hopefully i can ‘swing by’ on my way to work one day this week – it’s not open very long hours unfortunately but we’ll make do.  We’re stocking up that’s for sure!

Oh and that 500 board feet of poplar we bought way back when – running out already!  We use it for everything (our baseboards, our built-ins, our crown molding (base piece), our trim upstairs).  Considering we have the whole upstairs and the livingroom/diningroom still to do, i think we may need another batch!  I never thought i’d see the day!

A very productive weekend

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It’s been a while since we had one of those but we found ourselves home unexpectedly this weekend because Alex got sick again!  This is actually a secondary illness (ear infections) so she was feeling fine mostly, just couldn’t sleep at night but with antibiotics she is doing much better.

In the meantime, rather than spread our germs to our new nephew, we stayed home and worked on the house.  First Ryan finished the mixer lift (adding the shelf and adjusting the tension).

mixer lift done!

Next up he got the beam in between the kitchen and diningroom so that we can do crown in the kitchen when we have time and 2 people.

beam in

And then it was on to the back door and then trim.  He got the new back door installed, the last 2 pieces of cement board in and then trimmed out both new doors and started on baseboards.  The last baseboard piece in the back hallway needs to be scribed so we quit there.

New door and trim up

Trim around the basement door

It is amazing how much warmer it is in the kitchen with these doors in!  And safer for Alex of course.  The next big project will be tiling the kitchen floor, probably the first weekend in April.  I can’t wait – soon Alex can safely crawl around the kitchen and she will be very happy to not be cooped up in the livingroom.  She’s definitely learned that she can crawl out of the livingroom so we have to keep the doors shut or gate off a section of the kitchen she can play in…

She escaped the livingroom but alas the kitchen was walled off 🙂

That’s okay, she loves her wall 🙂

And Sunday we went to our regular breakfast place and then the grocery store.  Of course the time change through us off (we had no idea it was coming) so we just pretended there was no time change for the day!  We ended the day with a nice walk – it was a big chilly but Alex loved it, it’s been too long since we got outside!

A nice evening walk

11 months old already

 

 

 

Ryan’s mini vacation and Alex is crawling

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So Alex started crawling over the last couple of weeks.  On Friday she did the official hand/knees crawl but she still prefers the army crawl she’s been doing for a while.  Of course I can’t upload a video bigger than 1MB so I have nothing to share on that but some cute pics of Alex standing up.

Just chillin

caught ya! Sneaking into mommy’s work bag 🙂

 

She had a great weekend back in NY with her cousins.  She played with little Jason and he found it very strange to have another baby sharing his toys at grandma’s house.  He is obsessed with ‘Aahee’ as he says though, always asking where she is and pointing her out in pictures (or pointing to her high chair since they ate next to each other a lot). It was adorable!

Bouncing on the bouncy bike – she loved this thing and now bounces on her dragon at home 🙂

Oh the concentration

See ‘Aaii’, this is how you do it …

 

Over at Grandma and Papa Williams’ house she played with both of her cousins who just dote on her and give her tons of attention!.  She also bounced on her cousin who was still in the womb (hmmmm… maybe that’s why he came the next day!).

And Ryan took last weekend as a long weekend, taking Friday to Tuesday off.  He got some projects around the house done and took a much needed break (of course we also traveled to NY and it was nice to be able to leave friday easily because he was already home!).

New basement door installed (especially important now that alex is moving around so much)

Blocking in the ceiling of the diningroom, firms it up a little bit more. Next up is the fake beams.

KitchenAid mixer lift – it just needs the shelf to be attached. It would be good if that was after I got the outlet installed as this gives me more room to maneuver.

Ryan also made a much needed trip to the dump so the side porch is cleaned off now.  We have many more dump trips needed now that the snow is melting and piles are exposed 🙂  Getting there slowly!

 

 

House progress

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It sure has been a while, it was a nice break though after the craziness that was the majority of the kitchen renovation, then the month of illness – yikes!  This weekend was a nice relaxing weekend with a little house work – a perfect balance.

Saturday Ryan ran to the dump and the home depot to get some wood.  Evidently they aren’t carrying 5/4″ wood anymore that we use for trim, not sure what the deal is with that and how we will make our door frames and other trim now.  Around noon, our neighbor came over to help ryan and they worked on getting the beam/support up in the diningroom (to support what will be the master bathroom).  It came out great and definitely helps the upstairs stability.  We still need to put in blocking that will firm things up more but we’re getting very close to being able to jump upstairs and not see the entire ceiling shake/jiggle 🙂

New support beam in the diningroom

After the beam was done they got the piece cut for the back of the cabinet and got that installed.  This was a definite 2 person job to cut this large piece so it was a big help having our neighbor for a few hours.

Back to the cabinet peninsula finished!

The rest of the weekend was relaxing, we went out to breakfast on Sunday and then just played with Alex.  Saturday she decided to fight her afternoon nap with everything she had so Sunday afternoon was basically hours of letting her put herself to sleep (fail), rocking her (fail) and finally napping with her (success!) so that we didn’t have a Saturday repeat.  Today she is home to play with Daddy while I work from home so I get to hear their antics from a room away.  It is a nice treat!

And there’s alli boo eating lunch on sunday!