It feels like we have a million projects going on right now, which is close to true. One of them has been restoring the windows in Brendan’s room. It has been a long process. I put in 30-60 minutes a day for a couple months. We are finally at the home stretch.

The windows were in pretty sore shape, but it was hard to tell prior to working on them. When Casey decided to strip all of the trim in that room, I figured we should probably knock out the windows in the process as we wanted to get to them next year anyways. So I yanked them out and took the hot air gun to them. The side and top rails of both the lower and upper sashes were in pretty good shape. The bottoms of the windows were in pretty terrible shape. So bad, that one of the lower sashes had a large chunk of the bottom rail(?) rotted out. Thankfully the wood facing the front and back didn’t have any rot, it was just the wood between it. I had to clean it out and use the equivalent of maybe 3-4 cups of filler to build it back up.

The upper sashes’ bottom rail was also in pretty rough shape, but not rotted. It had slowly sagged in the center, pulling the muntins away by 1/2″ to 3/4″. This required lots of wood hardener and wood glue to get it close to where it is supposed to be. It isn’t perfect, but it is much closer.

Once I got them all stripped and stained, I shifted focus to the glass. One of the windows had a broken pane. I took that window into a glass and window shop and had them replace the glass and glaze it. The glazing job wasn’t as good as I expected so I decided to do the rest myself. It likely was due to the 3 hour turnaround they gave me. The windows I glazed I was able to wait a day or two to clean up the leftovers without disturbing the smooth glaze lines much. It isn’t perfect, but I think it is pretty decent.

This lower sash was the one that was in the best shape. Apologizes for the bad lighting in these, they were taken downstairs in my soon-to-be new office.

And here is the better upper sash out of the two. I didn’t intentionally take pictures of the better sashes to hide the bad ones, it just happened to work out that way .

I definitely rank window refinishing as one of the least enjoyable tasks I’ve performed so far. However, I’ll detail the number one least enjoyable task in my next post .

It feels like this week we have accomplished a lot. Some of the work we’ve done ourselves, but a lot of it we hired out (such as the foaming). In one of my last posts about Brendan’s room I mentioned the painter not showing up and how disappointed I was. I’ve since decided that every thing happens for a reason.

Shane and I have been getting to know our neighbors and I have to say it’s great! I’ve always wanted to be the friendly/neighborly type.  On to my main point. The gentleman across the street, Ron, is a painter! After talking with him about the projects we have going on he offered to come take a look at Brendan’s room. Well every thing worked out and he started Brendan’s room today!

Before

We had lots of plaster cracks and Ron really knew what he was doing. We know from talking with him and looking at his work that he has the experience. I am very excited in case you can’t tell! They are done for the day, but will be back tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday.

After

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I know I posted the blue color I was going to paint in Brendan’s room, but here is a picture of the two colors I decided to go with. The blue is going on all of the walls except the window wall. The tan is going on the window wall and up and on the ceiling. Do you think the brown color is too dark? This room gets a ton of natural light, but I am still struggling with if I should go a step lighter.

After the walls are finished in Brendan’s room we only have the floor left. I don’t think I posted on this, so if I have I apologize. Shane and I ended up going the carpet route. We tried many different ways to uncover the wood floor and in the end the wood floor was pretty much shot. Our options then went to ripping out the floor and putting in a new, old wood floor or carpet. Carpet was cheaper and required less work. Shane, Brendan, and I headed to Lowes to pick out carpet and we got lucky! The carpet I had picked out a while back was on sale and had two different promos going on.

The installers were here yesterday to take measurements and now they are waiting on us to decide what color we are going with. All in all it has been a very exciting week! I see an end in sight for Brendan’s room. Then it’s on to our room….but not for a while! Here is a random picture to end the post on. We have been making an effort to have more family time and do some fun activities. Last Friday we took Brendan to the races. He LOVES the races.

Things have been busy around here this summer. If you follow this blog at all, you’ve likely noticed due to the almost non-existent posting. It is just hard to put together a blog post when you’ve either got sunny, 80* weather outside, or a project here or there calling your name.

Another one of the reasons I have been so busy is I’m making a pretty big (and positive) change in my life. I’m stuck keeping it quiet for a bit longer as some key people are not aware of the change and they probably wouldn’t be pleased to find out via this blog. I’ll spill the beans in the next week or two.

But onto the work we’ve been doing recently. The basement bedroom/office is slowly coming together. All of the exterior walls are framed and wired up. Yesterday, the last key component was completed. Foam insulation:

This was done by the same company (Cullen Insulation) that did the basement bathroom. I absolutely love this stuff. My wallet, not so much. But it is the only feasible way to seal up the concrete and it quickly adds R7 per inch. I’ll be adding R11 fiberglass insulation over the top of this (my wallet really wouldn’t like 3 1/2 inches consider how it disliked the 1 inch). Ideally this would result in R18, but since the foam took up a bit of the room in the stud cavity, the fiberglass will get compressed a little bit and will likely lose a bit of its insulation capabilities. It’ll be more than enough for a basement though!

We also stopped by Menards last night to pick up some materials needed to continue on. We picked up some plastic for a vapor barrier and the necessary staple gun. We also grabbed another 250ft of 12/2 wiring. It is amazing how fast you can run through 250ft of wire! I also picked up more 2×4′s to frame in the area around the furnace. Did you know you can fit 20 7ft 2×4′s in a 4 door Grand Am, as well as a two year old and a wife (with the trunk closed)? It takes impressive skill, though .

It is amazing how warm weather seems to make the to-do list grow exponentially. I don’t even want to know how long it has been since I have written a post last. If I could find some great excuse as to why I haven’t posted an update recently, it would have been placed here. Maybe something like: “I thought of writing a post on my trip into outer space to save planet Earth from an incoming meteor, but time was of the essence.” Instead, all I can say is I’ve been busy, and the longer it was between posts, the more guilty I felt about not posting, which seemed to make posting even more difficult.

But anyways… the post, Shane. Focus. The most up to date, update, I can give you is on our fence. I came home for lunch today to find a friend of the neighbors out pressure washing their side of our fence. The aforementioned fence isn’t anything award winning, to say the least. It is a previous owner’s DIY job. Basic 1×10′s run horizontal, attached to 4×4′s every 8 or so feet.

It used to be your standard ~6ft tall, but at some point it seems one of the previous owners and the neighbor got along so great they chopped it down to 3-4ft and added a gate between the two yards. When we first bought the place, we were planning on raising it back up. Potentially replacing it altogether in the process. But we’ve gotten to the point now where we rather enjoy mingling with the neighbors over the fence. And they have a couple black lab puppies that are fun to play with:

Abby

Bella

Back to the neighbor’s friend pressure washing the fence… after finishing my lunch, we went out and asked them what they were up to. Their side of the fence is in pretty rough shape. Some of it has never seen paint, and the rest appears to have just been primed. They were finally going to paint it. After looking at it for a bit, we mutually agreed that it needs a bit more work than that. We pointed a couple dozen boards that needed to be replaced. Some were sistered where parts must have rotted out. While replacing them would probably have been easier and not that expensive, I can appreciate the macgyver spirit. Others were badly warped, and others rotting. They seemed on board (hah, no pun was intended, but it works!) with the suggestions, but they might be cursing me now that I’m back at work.

Neighbor's Side

In June we adopted a Siamese cat from the Humane Society. Brendan loves cats! We named him Toby and he was Brendan’s best buddy. After a while we noticed Brendan’s eczema was getting worse than normal. We ended up having him tested for allergies and sadly, he was positive for cats. Toby was adopted out to a great couple last month. Brendan has done a great job adjusting.

Last week Shane and I started looking at dogs. We knew we didn’t want a puppy, but rather an adult. We went back and forth a lot on breeds, but in the end it was mutually decided we wanted a Doberman. Shane managed to find a breeder 30 minutes from his parent’s cabin. Like I said, we weren’t interested in puppies, but the adults they were getting rid of. I was all set to go and check them out, however, they come at a high price. A price tag of $2,000+ to be exact. OUCH!

So we headed back to our humane society and spent some time with a terrier mix and two boxers. The boxers had a sad story. The female boxer you could see had puppies, but there was no puppies there. The pair was found wandering and it was thought they had been bred together and then dropped off once the puppies were old enough to make it. The lady also said that the mating pair were longing for each other. They were of course separated and put in two different kennels.

On Saturday Shane mentioned going to the humane society and taking the dogs out for a walk. We got there and the boxers were being quarantined and treated for something (can’t remember the name). I headed to the small/medium dog room and that is when I saw him! A 1 yr old, male, Miniature Pinscher. We took him out and he was perfect! An hour later and we were taking him home.

Today is day three of having our min. pin. He really has the greatest personality. He loves to play, be outside, snuggle, and best of all…he is great with Brendan.  He is also very social. He greets new people nicely and likes other animals. He is getting along great with our neighbor’s dog.

I am really bad at coming up with names. When we named our two Siamese cats, George and Toby, we just knew the names fit! So far I haven’t found our little doggy a name. We tend to like actual “human” names. I’m asking for every ones help for name suggestions. We’ll let you know what we end up naming him! Thanks!

As of late I have no motivation to do any thing! My to do list is a mile long, but I can’t seem to start working again. Maybe the reason for this is, because I managed to meet my self created deadline for Brendan’s woodwork. I have every thing except the door frames and bottom board of the window done! I just finished picking out the paint in the door frames today and my plan is to have them sanded and stained tomorrow. In all honesty I could have the last board on the window done as well. However, I’m getting lazier with picking out paint and I want make sure I do a good job. I’m hoping that I can convince Shane, who has the patience I don’t, to work on it this weekend if he can find time.

The next step in redoing Brendan’s room is having the walls skim coated, some spots fixed, textured, and painted. The reason I boogied on the woodwork was so the painter could come and do all of this. He was suppose to be here 3 weeks ago. I tried to get a hold of him a couple days ago, but so far I have yet to hear back. I think quite highly of our painter so to say that I’m disappointed is an understatement.

There use to be a small door here to get to the "attic" space. Shane took it out and patched it up.

Thanks to every one who voted and commented on our carpet vs. wood floor poll. We ended up deciding to go with the wood floor. We had a few different tips from other house bloggers who have dealt with linoleum and the tar. I tried them all. The one technique that came the closest to working was putting a towel down and soaking it in boiling water. I do believe it would have worked, except for the fact that our floor is a soft wood, douglas fir. The wood ended up gouging pretty bad. Shane has since tried using a floor blade we bought at Lowes. So far it seems this will work. We are waiting to officially start the floor until I get every thing out of Brendan’s room.

On a different note some other small things we have done with the house is touching up paint in the kitchen and bathroom. I figured I was quite capable of doing this! We also had the house sprayed for bugs inside and outside. Yay for this! I was pretty excited as it only cost us $75 and it is guaranteed for 2 months. I HATE bugs.  Shane has been working on Brendan’s windows, but I’ll let him blog about that. Um, what else?! With the nice weather the last couple of days I’ve been outside working on landscaping. I took out a tree yesterday! Now I need to figure out what to do with it!

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!

[poll id="3"]

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!

As I mentioned in our last post, we won a rug from Liz over at A Constructed Life in conjunction with CSN Rugs. We received the rug just a few days later. With this gorgeous weather we’ve been enjoying, our posting has almost been non-existent. We’ve got a few things to catch up on, but for now, I leave you pictures of a rug we won that looks like it was meant to be in our house:

Brendan approves:

Like I said, it was meant for our house! I couldn’t have picked out a better color, size, or style myself.

Thanks again Liz! If I can ever get back into posting regularly, we’ll have to do our own little giveaway.