This last week I’ve been focused on getting Brendan’s room finished and ready for the painter. So in light of that I took a look at his closet. The closet ceiling had been sheet rocked at some point in the past, right over the plaster. The job looked horrible and you could tell it was done by an amateur. I knew the dry wall had been put up to cover something; why else would it be up there?! But never the less, I decided it needed to come down and be redone so it looked decent.

Once the first few pieces of dry wall was off I discovered the plaster was in bad condition. As I continued to take off the remaining dry wall the plaster caved in, er fell off, exposing the lathe.

It was at this point you could see there had been a leak and the previous owners cut a hole in the lathe, fixed the leak, and put in insulation. Oops, wait a second. How did  know there had been a leak?! I figured that out, because the lathe to the left of the hole was completely rotted and covered in the “m” word. What’s the “m” word?! Yup, you guess it, MOLD! My little project of taking down the dry wall turned into a big project that took us two days to complete. Two days doesn’t sound so bad but when you look at how many hours we put in you realize it was in fact a big, long project.

Since this was my project it was up to me to rip out all of the lath, deal with the nasty insulation that rains down, and of course clean it all up. As of day two I was so frustrated and crabby I decided to take it out by hitting the remaining plaster with my pry bar as hard as I could. All that did was knock off a few little chunks and put insulation down my shirt. At that point I had it. I went to Shane and whined. I wanted him to finish ripping it out and I would clean the mess. My whining worked and he finished the demo stage, as well as doctoring up a rotted out joist.

Once the closet was all cleaned out, Shane put up new insulation. I have to admit that while this was an unexpected project I’m glad we did it. I’m sure I seem crazy since this was a closet and I could have just tried to make the existing dry wall work, but there is a reason for my madness. While it may just be a closet, the right side of the closet is used as a small play room for Brendan. There are shelves full of his books and toys all over the floor. Brendan loves to go in there, shut the door, and play. I’m sure to small child it seems like a fort. Now with this in mind, Shane came up with an idea that we might as well change out the closet lighting  and get it up to code since we’re down to the rafters/joists. It currently has a single incandescent, exposed bulb literally an inch away from the angled ceiling. In our closet the electricians had to put in a florescent pull light to replace the existing one to get it up to code since they worked on wiring in there.

While I like the original lights it does scare me because it gets super hot and its butted up to the ceiling. Shane came up with putting in a light on either side of the door and instead of a pull chain, wiring in a light switch. I love this idea, because the light switch will be low enough for Brendan to control, yet high enough so it doesn’t seem off if we ever do sell this house. Now that I have written a small book  it’s time to get ready for church. Happy Sunday every one!

I am struggling with what I should do in Brendan’s bedroom. I ripped out the carpet with the intent of refinishing the hardwood floors underneath. However, the black tar paper is not wanting to come off. Shane and I have tried using boiling water,  scraping, and the heat gun. None of these methods worked very well. I have gotten a total of 6 tiles done and they aren’t that clean.

So after getting frustrated I decided I would just put new carpet in. I picked it out and about died when I tallied up how much it would cost me. I went to Lowes and I’m looking at $600 for the carpet, premium carpet pad, tacks, and installation. After talking to my mother-in-law she had me rethinking the carpet. She’s voting for hardwood.

I love our hardwood floors in the house, but I’m still unsure about having them in the bedrooms (especially in Brendan’s room). Brendan loves to play on the floors. He is all boy; crawling around on the floor, wrestling etc. I like the idea of carpet just for the fact that it would be easier to play on. But I could do the hardwood and find a nice 8×10 rug that is thick. I’ve looked at a few rugs and it looks like it would cost me around $200-$300.

To sum it up I need to make a decision and I could use some help! Shane helped me create a poll.  Your answers and comments would be greatly appreciated!

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Hello. It has been a long time since I posted last. I’ve been busy trying to wrap up my many projects and starting some more! Last week I decided it was time to get off my butt and get moving. In other words: I was finally motivated.

The first thing I did was putty the wood work in the bathroom with some help from Shane. From there I stained and applied the first coat of poly. It looks amazing. Crazy how having it all stained can make such a big difference.

Next I started sanding the hallway and the newel post. I’ve got some more to do, but I am making progress. I hope to have this done in the next two weeks.

The new project I started was Brendan’s room. I called our painter, Andy from Exquisite Painting, to come work on Brendan’s room at the end of July. He will be fixing a few of the major cracks in the plaster, skim coating the walls and doing an orange peel, and then painting. For paint I have a light blue that will go on all of the walls except the window wall. On that side it will be a light tan that will also go up on to the ceiling. My mother-in-law suggested that since I have navy curtain panels on the window.

With Andy coming to paint I realized I needed to have the top of the woodwork stripped and stained before he comes. I made the mistake in our hallway of doing this after he had painted and it made such a mess. Eventually I’ll have to go back and touch up the paint and have Andy edge it on the woodwork so we have a straight line. I am rather proud of myself, because in two days time I have heat gunned the tops and sanded them. They are ready to be stained, but I am going to wait until a few days before he comes to finish it. The reason for that is, because I have put myself on a deadline for all of the woodwork! My goal is to have all of Brendan’s woodwork sanded and ready to be stained in two weeks. If Andy is behind schedule and can’t start until the beginning of August I will extend my deadline to 3 weeks. Tomorrow my plan is to strip and sand the window.

Now today after talking with my mother-in-law I went ahead and ripped out the carpet in Brendan’s room. I debated about doing this, but it was stained with urine from the previous owners dogs (nasty) and in order to finish the wood work it had to come out as I couldn’t get to the bottom of the baseboard. Underneath the carpet is linoleum and then tar on top of the wood floors. Eventually we will have to scrape and heat gun it off and redo the floors like we did in the bathroom. This linoleum is different than the stuff in there and hopefully will be easier to remove.

Before I end this I’d like to thank every one who gave me some encouragement when I was feeling overwhelmed with every thing! Also, thanks to Liz for the rug we won!

I feel like I just got my house some what in order after having it pulled apart for 5 months  and now the mess starts again! Our basement is unfinished except for the bathroom down there.  It’s been in our “house to do list” to eventually finish it. The plan is to make an office/bedroom, storage, furnace area, and family room. Shane decided last week to pick up the sub-floor while we had a vehicle to do so. This last weekend and week he has been staying busy putting the floor in and framing the bedroom/office. He’s almost done except for framing the last wall. We apparently have two old knob and tubes there that Shane thinks goes to the upstairs bedrooms. The problem is they are too far down the wall so we will have to move them. Shane’s Dad is an electrician so the plan is to have him come and help and possibly rewire.

Once the last wall is framed in we will have the room foam insulated like we did the bathroom when it was demoed out. I am very excited to have this room done. My goal is to see it done by August as that is when our son’s birthday is. Brendan turns 2 and my grandparents are planning on making the trip for his party! Of course, it’s not me doing the work, it’s Shane! I’ll let him add the finer details of what all he’s doing in the basement at the moment. I will say this though. I hope he hurries, because the basement is trashed and I can’t even stand to look down there!

On an update with the rest of the house, its trashed! I love to have an organized and clean house and ours is any thing but that. Every room has unfinished woodwork that needs to be completed and windows that need to be cleaned. When my mother-in-law was here she confided that just looking at all the work we had left made her head spin or something to that effect!  (I can’t remember exactly what she said) Basically it’s overwhelming. My game plan is to pick a room and finish that room before moving on the next. I came up with this about two weeks ago and have yet to start! Shane and I have both super busy with work and Brendan. I also think it’s harder to want to work on it when the weather is gorgeous.

As for outside I have never really talked about the outside of our house. The actual house needs to be repainted We were planning on doing this next Summer, however, we will be building a new garage (hopefully). I also find it overwhelming when thinking about having to paint the entire house all at once. I am trying to convince Shane we should start now on one side and see how much we can get done this Summer, without feeling rushed. The yard itself isn’t too bad. We’ve planted some peonies and other plans around the house’s foundation. I’ve also taken out 3 trees that were planted in odd spots. I’d like to take out one more in the front, but I have yet to do it. I’ll try and get some pictures of the yard taken and posted!

Now that I’ve written this my head is spinning and I’m overwhelmed with how much we have to do! Of course we could stop starting new projects and finish the other ones first! But who wants to be inside when it’s Summer and nice out?! Well that’s it for now.  I hope every one has a great weekend!

Today I’ve managed to keep myself busy ripping apart the upstairs kitchen. I don’t remember off hand if we posted any thing on this room.  It’s a small room upstairs that was converted into a small kitchen. Shane and I used this when we lived in the upstairs during college. This was way before we bought the house! Here’s a before picture.

Last week we sold the cabinets and counter tops so Shane took all of them down last night.Last night Shane took down all of the cabinets. It looks so empty not having any thing in there any more.

This morning I decided to be destructive  *cough cough* I mean productive and continue taking apart the room. It took me approximately half an hour to rip down all of the wainscoting. When I was done I had a huge mess on the floor.

I was dreading having to carry it all down the stairs and then outside. Before I could start I was given the idea of throwing it out the window and from there loading it into the truck! I was a little nervous at first, but once I got into the swing of things I was chucking boards super fast out the window. I did manage to get a small board stuck in the gutter. Sorry honey!

The top window that is open is the window I used to throw out my mess.

My mess!

Yesterday we were able to start moving furniture onto the main floor. I can’t begin to tell you how nice it was to finally do this. Shane came home over his lunch and moved the couch, buffet, dresser, and room dividers in from the porch. Brendan and I spent the majority of the day rearranging furniture and then playing on the couch. Brendan seemed to have a blast! He was laughing almost the entire day!  All that’s left now is to hang pictures and lights. We also need to finish setting up Shane’s office. Hopefully tonight we’ll finish.  It looks like a rainy today so we might be stuck inside. So I might start unpacking our boxes that are left from when we moved in upstairs.

While I was busy with furniture yesterday the kitchen counter tops were being installed. They look amazing and I couldn’t be happier with the kitchen. Now if we could only use it! Still no word on when the electrician and plumber will be here. Tomorrow our painter will be here to refinish the bay window and closet door.After that he’ll be painting the kitchen ceiling and back entry. He will also be doing touch ups through the house as a courtesy. After all of this all that’s left is the cleaning work and the rest of the wood work being installed. I did find out yesterday that the duct work and duct cleaning will be done next week at the earliest. After that they’ll come back in to clean carpets upstairs and steam clean the tile floors in the kitchen and downstairs bathroom. I have to admit I’m not happy that we’ll end up waiting again. We’re just so close to being done that I’m getting impatient.

It has been quite a while since I posted last and I have a lot talk about, but I don’t have a lot of time right now. So I’m only going to focus on a few of the smaller details!

The first one is all of our heat registers and vents. They have been painted several times over the years so we decided we were going to try boiling them to get down to the metal. I managed to get one done and it was such a pain. Because they wouldn’t fit in a stock pot I put it in the sink and dumped boiling water in the sink.  I worked on this register for over two hours and then eventually quit.  I was able to get down to the very first and original layer of white, enamel paint. As you can probably imagine I was overwhelmed and frustrated with how I was going to get all of these cleaned up! Well I mentioned what I was doing to our main contractor and he suggested taking them in and having them sandblasted. Brilliant idea! However, I didn’t want to put out a ton of money on this at the moment. Fast forward a couple of weeks and our contractor offered to take them with him on his vacation to his in-laws and clean them up. In the process of him working on all of these we communicated via email. He ended up putting a ton of work into these as they weren’t coming clean with the sandblasting. There was over 7 layers of paint on them so stripper also had to be used as well as a wheel grinder and then sand blasted! I’m sure glad I sent them with him instead of continuing to use the sink method! Anyways, in the end I went with the contractor’s idea of painting them a pipe black in glossy to make the registers look like the old cast iron. They turned out amazing and I couldn’t be happier!

Second subject is light fixtures. Insurance covered the lights so I was able to have a little fun! I purchased a unique brass chandelier on ebay  and a wedding cake chandelier from our local antique dealer. Now here is my dilemma; I’m not sure where to put what light. One has to go in the back entry and the other in the living room. My worry with putting the brass chandelier in the living room is it’ll clash with what we have in the dining room. Any opinions would be great!

Last subject is kitchen hardware. Can any one recommend a place to purchase good quality hardware? I’ve looked at Lowes and Menards and they don’t have what I want. I’m after bin pulls, knobs, and latches. I did place an order from Van Dykes and while the style was what I wanted, the quality was not the best so I sent it back. I’m also debating between two styles of bin pulls so again, comments would be much appreciated!

Sorry that its been a while since we’ve posted any thing about the house (flood insurance doesn’t count)! Every day seems to fly by and I can’t even tell you what all we did…

Our painter, Andy, has finished painting every thing except the living room and dining room. If you remember, this is the area that requires the most work and time. Last week he finished the main floor bedroom which has ended up being my favorite room so far! I love the paint color and Andy did a great job getting rid of the cracks in the ceiling. If you remember, this is the crackle room that had to be sprayed with some nasty chemical. Andy also completed painting the upstairs. I chose a cream for that area and in all honesty I am still not sold on it! However, there is no going back now! I am hoping to put up wainscoting on the ceiling and stain it down the road. (Far far down the road honey! )

This is a corner of the main floor bedroom after the walls were painted:

This is the upstairs hallway which was painted a cream color:

Last night Shane and I found out that our kitchen cabinets will be here tomorrow! I am very excited, but laughing at the same time. When all of this mess started the upstairs bathroom was suppose to be the first room completely done so we could live upstairs and close off the main floor. Well two months later, the kitchen will be the first room completely done! Once the cabinets are in then the countertops will be ordered and those sould be in within 2 weeks. I am so ready to have my kitchen back.

Floor update! The floor guy showed up yesterday unannounced. I was still in bed and woke up to him outside my bedroom door. I was not happy. Anyways, in the end the guy left. Now he is scheduled to be here next week to start sanding all the floors (uptairs and main floor). Once he gets the upstairs done then we can finish the bathroom up here.

Basement update: The basement has water in it. We have decided to take out the foam board Shane put up and have his friend come spray foam the walls of what will be his office. I’ll let Shane make a post on this, but I figured I might as well mention it.

Well I’m out of time! I need to get back to stripping Brendan’s door I started…oh wait! I forgot about the stripping and all the wood we’ve been working on. Shane and I finished the window trim for the upstairs bathroom and are now working on the kitchen window. I’m hoping to start sanding and completing the upstairs doors next, but we’ll see. My newel post is still waiting to be sanded, but it’s not going any where!

There I think I’m really done now!

So today we are in a major snow storm. I really didn’t expect anyone to show up to work as it is nasty out. Schools were closed last night already and now today half the town is closed. Imagine my surprise when I heard the door open and close at 9:15! Our painter, Andy, was here to start the kitchen and bathroom. He was able to get the kitchen done and his helper got the downstairs bathroom ceiling painted. The main contractor, Roger, who has done the majority of the work also showed up!

Anyways, to sum it up. Tomorrow Andy will be back to start the upstairs since we need that done in order for the guy to come do the floors. His helper will finish up the bathroom downstairs. When he is done with that, Roger will be here patching in the tile, installing our pine baseboards, swapping out the toilets* and hopefully moving the washer and drier in there! Can we say finished basement bathroom any one?!?! In case you can’t tell, I’m very excited!

*I should probably explain about the toilets. In the upstairs bathroom we had a new one and the one in the basement bathroom was in the house when it was bought. In all honesty I hated that one, probably because I wasn’t used to it. Well all it took for me to change my mind was a plumber telling me it was old enough to be original to the house. So now I’m putting the “old” one in the upstairs and moving the new one down!  Funny how that works huh?!

To make my post complete here is a picture of the kitchen as of today:

Here is the actual floor plan for the kitchen:

Counter tops:

Cabinet door style:

And this paper will be applied to the ceiling (and then painted):

I now know that the fire alarm in my son’s room does in fact work!  Don’t worry, there was no fire!  I just happened to set it off while I was using the heat gun around his door frame! I have to admit it scared the buggers ouf of me when it started going off. Something I learned though, besides the fact that the talking fire alarm works, is that Brendan (our son) sleeps through any thing! It took me a while to get the alarm turned off and Brendan didn’t move a muscle.

So back to what I wanted to post about: my many projects. Key word here is many! Note to Shane: sorry honey, I know it’s driving you crazy! So I really tried to just start one project and finish it before moving onto another. However, in my defense it is hard to take the heat gun and sander after the wood work when I’m home all day with Brendan.

My first project, the newel post, is coming along. All of the paint is off and Shane started sanding it for me. All that is left is to continue sanding. This is definitely easy enough, however, it is on-hold until we can get Brendan out of the house since it makes a lovely mess and we don’t have doors up here.

My second project is stripping the doors which is why they are not upstairs! Shane took them downstairs for me so the fumes could be in the basement. I have the old bathroom door almost done. I need to take liquid stripper after the sides that face the frame. I tried to take the heat gun after it, but it started smoking. Whoever painted it, just painted onto the unfinished wood making it not so easy! I decided to put this off as I hate working with liquid stripper. Actually, let me clarify…I don’t actually hate the product, because whatever Shane bought me works super fast and actually does the job! What I hate is the smell and I refuse to use it in the house.

Now that this door is on-hold, let’s move on to the other door. The other door is the one we removed from the bedroom/office going into the kitchen. This will be the new upstairs bathroom door. I have one side done thanks to the heat gun and I just started on the backside. I would seriously be done by now, but the electrician showed up and I’m too nice of a person to make him smell the fumes. Actually, I didn’t want him to leave early because of the fumes. Hehe. The electric company was suppose to be here Thursday and never showed and never called. So needless to say I’m not taking any chances!

Last project (yes another one) is the wood work upstairs. I figured why not since every thing else up here was in the process too. I finished the bathroom framing and started on my son’s door frame for his room. I was doing great! I was motivated and eager to finish. Then the fire alarm goes off. *sigh* Now I have no motivation and am sitting here writing this. I apologize if I’m jumpng all over. It’s been too long since I posted last.

On a slightly different note. In our basement bathroom we’ve decided to paint the window trim and baseboards. I’m wondering what to do with the door. Should we paint the bathroom side of the door and leave the front stripped etc., or should I just finish the bathroom side? Would it look funny having all the wood painted, except the door? Or another option is to not paint the window trim or the door and just paint the baseboards? Any thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!