Floor Prep and Room Progress

More progress on the rooms!  The ceiling in the nursery is now all scraped.  K was surprised at how nice it all came off-- much better than in the living room.  She thinks it will be really easy to mud and get cleaned up.

The hallway ceiling is also scraped.  This is the hallway that connects all the rooms on the first floor.  Just a small little space, but the ceiling looks a lot better already.

The trim around the living room windows has been pulled.  We'll just paint the inner wood parts, until we replace the windows.

Our floors are also accessible now, with the trim pulled in all the rooms.  We have some floor guys coming to refinish them in just a little over a week.  Can't wait!  K could do them herself, but she thinks it's just easier to have them do it, since it's such a messy process.  I'm excited to pick out the stain color.

These beautiful floors need some LOVE!

There are lots of little burns on the floors in all the rooms...   :-(

In our bedroom, the trim was painted with a black glossy enamel paint.  But not painted well-- just slapped on with one pass, with the brushstrokes showing on each piece.  And they got the black paint on the floor quite a bit when they did it.  Dummies.

Black paint from the trim

But it's all going to be good.  I'm so excited to see them all sanded, stained, and glowing.

Starting On the Bedrooms & Main Bath

I had no idea when we'd start working on the rooms of the house, but it's suddenly happening!!  K and her bro did a bunch of work on the house today-- pulling off the painted, wrecked-up trim and starting to scrape off the popcorn ceiling in the nursery.
... Did I just say nursery?  That's right, I did!!  K and I are expecting a baby, due at the end of June.  We're over the moon about it.  And so, the spare bedroom is now being prepared to be the baby's room, just as we hoped it would be someday.

Popcorn ceiling on its way out

K had also spent a large part of her day in her office, so by the time the evening rolled around, she was itching to do some wrecking!  Getting rid of those things in the house that she's so sick of.
So... she took a jackhammer to the bathroom on the first floor.  She pulled off some of the tiles, and pulled down the storage above the bathtub. 

We have wanted to improve this bathroom since we bought the house.  I think that it may be original to the house...?  Or maybe it's a 70s remodel?  Not sure, but it's never been very functional for us.  The worst is how filthy it was.  After years of renters, we never could get it clean.  The bathtub, though iron, is a typical size, so a tall gal like me can't take a bath in it without my whole torso or all my legs sticking out of the water.  And with the storage above the shower, I'm too tall to take a shower in here!  The storage up there also wasn't necessary because there's a spacious cedar-lined closet in the bathroom already.

Our goals for remodeling this bathroom are to put in a deeper bathtub, make the shower usable for a tall lady like me, replace the worn-out vanity and maybe even put in two sinks.

I did make sure to keep those chrome pulls on the cabinets!

Again, I'm not sure if this bathroom is original or a remodel?  Once K started taking down some of the storage and tile, we could see that the walls under the storage used to be painted yellow.

Garages Are the Best Things In Wintertime

There's not much else to say about this.  We have a garage with a garage door and security system, and it's keeping our cars free from snow and ice this winter.  It's incredible!!

Next year, K plans to run electricity to it, and she'll need to use an AC unit in there come summer.  We have some small finishing to do-- more painting on the trim, etc.  Little things that won't be a total pain to do when it's nice outside, and now that we're not rushing to complete it.

Sooo Close...

We're just SOOOO close!  Tonight we stopped because it was almost too dark to see what we were doing, but also because we got far enough that K just needs to stand on the scaffolding to do what's left in the middle and top. Tonight, I was up and down ladders on both sides, holding the siding and helping measure.  She thinks she will be able to finish the rest of the siding tomorrow.

And then we'll just have the aluminum for the soffit to finish this week.  We should be able to pass our inspection just fine.  And we'll add our address numbers to the front.    

Three Walls... And Apple Crisp

Three walls completed, as of today!  K worked her butt off all day today and got the 2 sides done-- siding and soffits.  So great!

When I got home today, we worked on the siding for the gable on the front.  We got a few more of the long rows up, along with the tricky first parts of the angle on top.  Then it got too dark and we had to stop.

Tonight I made a couple pans of apple crisp.  It turned out so good!  Tastes like fall.

It's totally vegan and really healthy, too, because I subbed organic coconut oil for the butter.  YUM!

The finished product...  And my breakfast tomorrow.

Wood Pile Party

We got our woodpile taken care of-- finally!  The only thing remaining is the main part of the root system.

On Friday, G came over and helped us build the platform for the wood pile.  We reused all the wood in the platform-- palettes and a big stack of pressure-treated wood salvaged from an old patio.  All free, and all saved from the landfill.

G!  What a pro!

Salvaged wood

On Saturday, we had our Wood Pile Emergency party.  We had put out an S.O.S. to our friends, asking for a hand in splitting and stacking all of the wood.  And they totally came through!  We had a bunch of friends sorting through the pile, running the wood-splitter, making a million trips with the wheelbarrows, and stacking wood for hours.

We paid them for their services with beer, pizza, heartfelt thank-yous, and a life-time supply of firewood.

Supplies for the party!

We rented a wood-splitter for the day, and it helped a lot.  We were able to split up the large logs into manageable pieces.  And it was really fun.  A couple of our buddies wanted to try their hand at the splitter, too, and they had a blast.

K used her chainsaw quite a bit, too-- which she was not sad about!  Lots of long branches to chop up.

We worked ALL day on Saturday.  I hurt my hand from the repetitive motions, which was not helpful when I was at my photography gig that night! 

Then K and I kept at it on Sunday, but had a lot less to do.  She was determined to get it all done by the time she needed to return the wood-splitter, and she totally did it.  We also realized that the wood-splitter can go vertically, too.  I don't know if that really made it easier, though...  When it's horizontal you need to hoist the logs up onto the platform.  And when it's vertical, you don't have to lift the logs as high, but you need to bend down each time to place them.    Whatever...  It was a lot of work either way.

 

Laboring on Labor Day

National holiday?  Nope, no day of rest for the builders working on their own home. 

Not a huge day for us today, but kept plugging away.  K and I installed the trim on the corners, around the garage door, and at the top of the wall.  We got a lot of the j-channel installed for the soffits, too.

Scaffolding is set up in the front now

I love how the light looks, coming out under the eaves!  For now...