Bathroom done and floors all installed

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Work has continued at a crazy pace here.  We are still here every night and all weekend – basically until we move in!

The big things recently include finishing the bathroom (completely minus shoe molding which will all be installed at once at the end) and getting the hallway floor installed last week.  Trim work all weekend means that Bella’s room is almost all trimmed out and Alex’s room has been started!  Here are some pictures!

Bathroom all complete!

Another view

Vanity, mirror and light all installed

In Bella’s room :

Closet door and trim all installed

Baseboard and chair rail all completed (and I caulked it last night too!)

Closet door with chair rail installed too

In Alex’s room the trim has been started!

Beadboard ceiling in the dormer – not complete as we had to buy a bit more beadboard (tonight I think this is getting finished)

Alex’s door installed

The closets in alex’s room won’t have doors but we’ll have to make the jams for them and get those installed.

Our tentative plan now is to get trim all installed by the end of this weekend, get it all painted by the end of next week and spend next weekend (8/6-8/8) finishing the floors.  The week after will be finish electrical and shoe molding so maybe we can move in on 8/14.  This is optimistic and if it pushes to the 20th we’re good with that.  Here’s hoping everyone stays healthy and nothing major happens in the next couple of weeks that derails our plan!

In other news I am all set up at the new house to work from there each day now!  I’m in the diningroom for now but I have power, internet and phone and so far it’s working out great!

Lots of updates

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It’s been quite a while since I updated and a lot of progress has been made!  I’m going to just have to go by pictures in order!

Bella’s room got primed and the ceiling painted!

While Bella’s room got primed (thanks Brad) Ryan started working on the trim in the bathroom!

Door trimmed out!

Window trim done

Chair rail completed

Next up we handed the bathroom over to brad and he got the priming and painting done on all the trim.

First coat of paint!

I painted the first coat on Bella’s room – she’s going to have chair rail and white trim paint on the lower half of the walls (same as Alex’s too).

First coat done here

Ryan got the window in Bella’s room trimmed out!

Blurry pic but window is trimmed

Ryan finished sheetrocking Bella’s closet and I got it spackled.

Bella’s closet catching up

Ryan installed the door to Bella’s room.

Ryan used the ceiling paint to paint the closet – looks good

We worked hard to get Alex’s room caught up – spackling (me/brad), sanding (ryan), more spackling (me) and more sanding (me) then Ryan and Brad got it primed!

Alex’s room primed

Brad did the second coat of paint on Bella’s room and the bathroom trim.  Then on Friday during nap I prepped the floors for the new flooring.

Ready for flooring

Friday afternoon my dad came over and when Ryan got home from work the two of them worked on Bella’s floor.  Ryan stayed late and made great progress Friday night…

Cherry floors in varying widths

Saturday morning Ryan finished Bella’s room.

Done!

At naptime Saturday we did the prep work in Alex’s room and he spent the evening and night laying floor in Alex’s room.  We were up until 10:30 laying floor while the girls slept downstairs.  Then we spent our first night at the new house as a family!!!

Moved the flooring to Bella’s room

Prepped Alex’s room

Saturday night progress!

On Sunday Ryan got an early start and spent the whole day working on Alex’s room.  By dinner he had finished it up!

Alex’s room done

The best part is we have just enough wood leftover to do the landing outside the bedrooms!  Ryan spent last night taking up the sub floor in the hallway (we need the floor level to match the top of the stairs so we have to have only 1 layer of subfloor instead of 2 in the hallway.  The bedrooms will be about 1/2″ step up from the hallway to make it all work.

Hallway ready for flooring

While Ryan worked on the hallway Brad got the first coat of grey paint in Alex’s room.  Her dormer will be pink but the main part will be grey (her choice).

First coat of paint

And we’re caught up.  It’s been a busy few weeks for sure.  Usually one of us stays late at the house after dinner and the other takes the girls home to bed.  We don’t alternate, it depends more on what the task is that needs to get done and who is going to do it.  We’re getting very close to moving in now and here’s the rough plan we have…

  • Lay the floor in the hallway
  • Finish the bathroom (install toilet and vanity and mirror)
  • Install the doors (Alex’s door, Bella’s closet, door jams for Alex’s closets)
  • Install window trim in Alex’s room
  • Install door trim in both rooms
  • Install baseboards in both rooms
  • Install chair rail in both rooms
  • Install bead board on dormer ceiling and trim out archway
  • Sand, prime, paint ALL trim in both rooms

The goal is to have that list above done by the end of next week then next …

  • Sand and poly the floors (3 coats)
  • Shoe molding installation in both rooms
  • Install finish electrical and hardware

Move in!

The hardest part will be giving the floors some time to cure before moving in – once the floors are done we only have finish electrical and hardware and that won’t take long at all but we shouldn’t move in totally until the floors get some more time.  We’ll see how long we can wait 🙂  Our goal of before labor day is looking realistic for sure and if the above plan is real we can move in mid-august (1 month)!??  Getting exciting now!

Bathroom progress

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Bathroom progress and Bella’s room progress has continued.  The doors arrived so we got the bathroom door hung so Ryan could finish tiling the floor, then grout and finally seal all the grout!   I also finished the electrical in there (minus the actual vanity light since we haven’t purchased one yet).  The bathroom is ready for trim and trim paint and then toilet and vanity installation.  1 room with an end in sight!  We bought the wood for the trim this past weekend as well – we’re doing a bead board wainscotting in here and craftsman style trim throughout, a little different than the last house!

Bathroom door hung

Floor tiled

Clearly I need some more recent pictures 🙂  I don’t have one of the floor grouted or the door re-hung after cutting it to fit the tile.  It’s also sanded and priming has started.

Bella’s room – I got the sanding done (it took me 2 nights), did a few small touch ups then sanded those.  Since then Ryan’s cousin has gotten the room primed (no pic of that though) and I’ve installed the box for the smoke detector.

Bella’s room – sanding done

We need to buy paint for Bella’s room, hang her door, put up trim, install the floor and do the painting.  (Not in that order) 🙂  Another room that’s getting closer though!

Last Week Progress

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We made some progress last week before going away to Boston for the weekend.  Brad got the shower plumbing finished so we can officially shower and bath at the new house!

I got the spackling in Bella’s room potentially finished!  It’s ready for sanding at least and then maybe touch ups.

Ryan spent an evening starting the floor tile in the bathroom!

The doors arrive tomorrow so next up is getting the bathroom door installed so we can finish the tile floor and start the trim in there!  Sanding Bella’s room and touching that up or priming is also next!

Bathroom work continues

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Last week I got the first coat of blue (Behr Ultra : Sea Foam) on the walls.  On Monday Ryan got the shower grouted!  On Tuesday he caulked the shower. On Wednesday during naptime I got the second coat of paint on the walls!

Sea Foam is a nice light blue

Tile view

The other wall

The plumbing for the shower started going in last night!  We are waiting on the doors we ordered to arrive – once the door goes in we can do the trim and tile the floor.  Then paint trim and the bathroom is done!

The bedrooms are behind – they need spackling finished, sanding, primer, paint then doors, trim, floors installed.  Lots to do!

Bathroom Progress

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2 weekends of updates – I missed last weekend and we had started tiling!  So here’s a recap of progress from the past 2 weekends.

The weekend of the 15th –

Friday and Saturday Ryan got the Kerdi system installed in the shower after sanding the bathroom.  Once sanded I was able to see what needed touch ups in the spackle department and I worked around his tiling project (mostly last week).  Sunday the tile started going in!  We went with a grey porcelein tile and a marble mosaic accent tile to break it up.  The same grey will go on the floors too.

Last sunday’s progress

I got more spackling done (Ryan and I spackled late Saturday night), some electrical (got the outlets in Alex’s room figured out so now we have 3 working outlets and I just have to wire up the rest of the circuit.  The boat also went in the water officially that Saturday so we have been enjoying some breaks out on the Lake!

This past weekend…

We stayed late Friday night again after putting the kids to bed at the house.  We spent the night spackling some more – I finished up the bathroom touch ups and worked on Bella’s room while Ryan got one side of most of the corners in Alex’s room done.

We’ve actually gotten more done than this but this is a more recent picture of Alex’s room

Saturday Ryan finished tiling the shower!

The wet wall finished

The other 2 walls

The shower looks awesome!  We’re waiting to grout until some painting is done (paint comes off tile easily but not grout) 🙂

Sunday I sanded the bathroom walls/ceiling for the final time and cleaned up.  Then I got primer on the whole bathroom – it dries in 1 hour to recoat so then I got the first coat on the ceiling!  Monday night we returned and I got the final coat on the ceiling so that’s officially done.  We’re going over tonight so I can put the first coat on the walls!

First coat on the ceiling

Paint colors for future reference:

Behr Ultra paint used Flat Ceiling for ceilings and Eggshell for walls.  Colors ‘Swiss Coffee’ for ceilings and ‘Beach Foam’ for bathroom walls.

Once the wall paint is done we’ll tile the bathroom floor.  We can’t grout the floor until we get the doors (a few more weeks on those) but we can grout the shower.  We’ll also work on trim – we’re going to do bead board in the bathrooms so the bottom half of the walls will be white (Linen White Satin Impervo from Benjamin Moore for all trim just like our old house).

We’ll get another late spackle night in this week probably (one of us not both) hopefully as I’d like to get Bella’s room closer.  I bought fabrics for making curtains and matching pillows for the girls rooms as well as the shower curtain and window curtain for the bathroom.  So now I have sewing projects too!

 

Spackle Spackle

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The taping and spackling continue.  The bathroom is almost done, some of the corners need a side done or touchups but we can easily finish that up this week.  Bella’s room I think the taping is done now (maybe one small seam in the built-in area left) and spackling continues in there.  Alex’s room we’ve started taping, making good progress there in our 1 hour increments of work time with the kids 🙂

Latest bathroom progress

Latest progress in Bella’s room

2 walls in Bella’s room we left as the existing walls (plus part of the ceiling) -i’ll have to get a progress pic of the other direction so you can see the patch work and taping there too.  We’ll see how well they blend together but  the patch is coming out decent for a first coat.

Alex’s room latest progress

Alex’s room the first night we taped it

Since last night worked well putting Bella to bed at the new house and working upstairs while she slept we tried it again this friday with Alex and Bella.  It worked great.  We quit around 10:30 and brought the girls home and Alex loved it.  She wanted to do it again Saturday night but we were so exhausted from running errands all day with both kids we weren’t up to another late night spackling.

Speaking of errands – we got a start on ordering the doors (interior) upstairs – we haven’t finished the order but we gave him the measurements and we’re waiting on a final quote with timeline.  We also bought the tile for the small bathroom now that it’s getting close to tile time!

Alex learned how to spackle Sunday too…

Start them young!

And both girls helped out in the yard on Saturday:

Spreading some new seed

In other news the lake is completely up/filled!  This rainy week we had filled it right up.  Ryan got his new stereo installed in the boat and just has to install the speakers then we’ll put the boat in the water!!!

Taping and Spackling

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As I’ve mentioned we are focusing on 2 bedrooms (Alex and Bella’s) and the smaller bathroom at the moment, hoping if we get those finished we can move in before finishing the rest.  So we’ve started taping and spackling the bathroom and Bella’s room.  My pictures aren’t the very latest progress but show some progress in that area.  Ryan and I hope to spend Friday evening making more progress while Bella sleeps at the new house for the first part of the evening.  Alex will be having a sleepover with grandparents.

Bella’s room

Another view

That picture is the first day of progress on Bella’s room.  THe second day I got the ceiling long seam taped and the 2 corner seams.  Her closet still needs sheetrock but at this point we’re hoping to finish the rest of the sheetrock spackling before the closet because we need to put in a new attic access out in the hallway before we close up her closet (current attic access).  The hallway will make more sense because it’s closer to the air handler which is the only reason we’ll really go up there and we should be able to put a staircase in (pull down).

Bathroom progress

another view

The bathroom we ran out of mesh tape for so we need to get more before we can finish that up.  The tub area will be tiled so that just needs the ceiling and upper part of the wall finished nicely.

Progress!  Can’t wait to do more!

Staycation at Lake House

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We took our annual ‘birthday week’ off between Ryan’s and my birthday.  It sure is a bit different having kids though – and not living in the house we are renovating yet.  I haven’t updated in a while so let me just update by project.

We’ve been working on Siding before this week off … the dormers got new siding – the fronts and one side.  No progress over our staycation as we had inside projects to focus on but it looks great!

Siding matches the old stuff great!

Sheetrock – Alex and Bella’s rooms are both almost done with hanging sheetrock.  They both have small sections that need rock and then all the taping/spackling.  We held off on totally finishing as we knew we had to jack up Alex’s room and put in some better supports under the floor (we’ll do the same to the master).  So over staycation we did the jacking up part but before that we made good progress on the sheetrock:

Alex’s room has 2 pieces of sheetrock left to do (small sections)

I don’t have a picture of Bella’s room but hers is done except for her closet!

Over vacation we focused on some more heavy lifting type projects.  Kitchen ceiling project – jacked up and added to the main joist holding most of the weight …

Jacked up

New blocking and supporting that one floor joist and the floor upstairs is MUCH firmer!  And raised up quite a bit.

Blocking

Another project as the washer/dryer closet.  We had to widen the opening on a load bearing wall as well as build a new bathroom wall since we’re pushing that back to make room for the washer/dryer.   This is in what will be my sewing room/office.

New opening

Another view

All that demo (which was what we did on Monday) – also got trecked over to the dump – no dumpster this time around.  Cleanup is done though and looking good.  Not too much left to demo in our house – just a few ceilings, the rest of the kitchen eventually and the livingroom when we get to that.

Since we demo’d the kitchen ceiling and I had to move a bunch of wires around anyhow – I installed some new kitchen lights – functional but not pretty 🙂

Much better for cooking though!

Thursday was sheetrock day – the little bathroom!  Ryan and his dad got sheetrock hung on all but 1 small section that we are waiting on plumbing on (just moving the tub spout);

Bathroom rocked

We are in pretty good shape.  A tiny bit of sheetrock left to hang then taping time.  I’m hoping to start taping this week.  Our big goal is now to finish the 2 kids bedrooms and the small bathroom so we can move in to those and finish the rest once in – no longer trying to get the whole upstairs done.  Things will move faster once we move in (and slower too).  We’d really like to move in for memorial day – not sure if it will happen but hoping 🙂

 

 

 

 

Sheetrock time!

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Well we had planned to hire someone to sheetrock but they never got back to us and after missing our first appt we didn’t like the track record of having to re-schedule or re-reach out ourselves (I did reach out by email asking about the quote and got no response) so I guess he didn’t want the job and we didn’t have a lot of options around here.

So this weekend Ryan picked up some sheetrock so he and his dad could start the project.  I’m trying to get in the mood and excited about taping and spackling – I really don’t mind doing it, it’s just tough to find the time with the kids.

First up this weekend Ryan and his dad put down the new subfloor in the bathrooms – new plywood which really stiffened things up then hardi-backer.  They also built the stand for the tub in our bathroom since we have the measurements.

Master bathroom tub stand and floor done

Small bathroom floor done

Plumbing for shower started

Next up Ryan and his dad started hanging drywall in Alex’s room.  First they re-screwed the existing ceiling and then patched in the section we had cut away.  Then they did most of the dormer – until they ran out of sheetrock.  A good partial day’s work!

Sheetrock!

There are lots of angles in this room!

During one break (nap) I got the rest of the subpanel wired up so our closet can also be sheetrocked when ready.

No progress this coming weekend as we have family fun planned.  Ryan does plan to work a bit in the evenings at least tomorrow for sure.