Considering how long it has been since I posted last and how much house stuff we’ve been working on, I’m not even sure where to start! My last post was about us taking on the big task of flipping the stairs. My in-laws came over Easter and completed the actual physical flip. I would say that all went pretty smooth. The only thing I worked on was sanding, staining, and applying poly to the skirting. If you can recall (it’s been a long time), I went after the skirting with the heat gun the same time I did the upstairs hallway, which was over a year ago. My how time flies and projects pile up!

Taking the stairs down.

Putting the stairs back up in the other direction!

Now that the stairs face the other way we have a list of “projects” that need to be done in order for the main stair project to be completed. The walls going upstairs need dry wall in spots as the plaster is missing, the floor needs to be extended out by Brendan’s bedroom door, the old “kitchen” walls need mudd after taking down the rest of the wallpaper (I HATE taking down wallpaper btw), then comes texture and paint on all the walls, the wood floor needs to be refinished,  and last but not least a new railing and two newel posts. Whew! Did I miss any thing? I’m sure I did. In fact, I can already remember a few other things. That just means I’ll have to write another post or two!

Out of that list I would say Shane has accomplished quite a bit. I spent a Saturday afternoon taking off the last of the wallpaper so Shane could get working on the walls. My mother-in-law gave me the trick of using the back of a light switch cover to scrape off the paper after you sprayed it with vinegar water. This worked so much better than an actual scraper or some other tool. (Thanks Lori!)

Take note of the ceiling behind me. We are ripping it out and redoing the entire ceiling with stained beadboard.

As of right now Shane has almost all the dry wall patched in on the walls and most of it has had the final sanding. The area by the windows needs the last coat of mudd and sanding. Once that is done we will have our neighbor come texture. He is the one who did Brendan’s room. Have I mentioned that he is absolutely awesome?! He is!

Looking down from the top of the stairs.

Shane also has the floor extended out by Brendan’s room. This was of course a top priority, along with creating a temporary railing.

Speaking of the railing, it really is a bummer that the original pieces are garbage. There is just really no way to keep what is already there. The height of the newel post and railing are very low and not acceptable with kids living here. Shane and I have been exploring our options. We checked out the local hardware stores (yuck), searched ebay, and have called a guy for estimates who works with the old wood. I am really hoping to go with this guy as I have heard great things and seen his work (beautiful)…not to mention we would get the old douglas fir. What it will come down to is cost. I am not willing to put out a fortune since we don’t want to live here forever.

Brendan wanted to be in the picture.

Along with staying busy on this project we have also been getting ready for  Baby N. The nursery will be in the second bedroom upstairs, across from Brendan’s. This is the only room that still has the cracks, missing texture spots, etc. I swear I was fine with just touching up the room with new paint, but I decided to try my hand at mudding! I managed to get one wall done in double to triple the time it takes for Shane to get one coat done. Not only that, but my layer was way too thick (I thought it looked good)! So this last weekend we decided to skip skim coating the entire wall. Instead we are going to have our neighbor texture this room when he does the other areas upstairs. The room of course won’t look as great as Brendan’s, but we figure it will at least match up with the rest of the house’s heavier texture. Now I have to add, that our texture isn’t really that heavy. The painter, Andy, who did it claimed it was the finest he could do, an orange peel. Well when we had the awesome neighbor do Brendan’s he said he could go finer than that. His turned out to be what we were after.

The white wall behind the crib is the one that we put mudd on.

It sounds like we have been working non-stop on our house, but the truth is we really haven’t! We tend to go in spurts; especially with the weather here in ND being gorgeous the last couple weeks. With that in mind, we started many projects outside, but I’ll do a separate post on those! We’ve also been able to visit family. Here is a picture of Brendan having fun in the lake at my in-laws.

Yes, it was that warm out to play in the lake!

Some other random house stuff I’ve accomplished is refinishing Brendan’s bedroom and closet doors. We cheated and had both dipped. I can’t even tell you how nice this was versus stripping them ourselves. All I can say is that I have no desire to ever strip any thing myself again! Along with getting his doors done I had to get the hardware cleaned up. Pretty easy task using the boiling method. This last weekend I also boiled the window hardware for Brendan’s room. It now sits on the windows waiting for Shane to install it.

Brendan's bedroom door.