Unemployment = Progress!

Now that James has had a few days off, he's back into the swing of things with home improvements!  We're gearing up to have our plasterer guy come next week to plaster around the built-in.  Then we can finish that up.  But we are sticking small.  We have lots of little things to do - and a lot of projects that are "almost done". 

Today's "big" progress was James finished putting in the baseboard in the downstairs bathroom.  I guess he's adding a little more moulding to it - but since he had to go to class tonight, he finished up for the day. 

Ooooh....

Ahhh....

The toilet seems to be leaking now too.  Always something.  I guess James noticed it a little while ago - but just thought it was Ben peeing on the side of the toilet.  It is not though.  He'll have to look at that this week.  It's not a lot, but still something...

He is also attempting to add the last of our classy backsplash...

Good-bye unfinished area above the sink!  You won't be missed.  Updates tomorrow since we have tons of time to work these days.

The Built-In: Some Success!

We've made some success with the built-in!  It's almost there!  I have to call the plasterer today to see if he can come and plaster up that wall really quick.  I don't think it will be more than $200 - so better spend the husband's paycheck while he still has one!  Once that is done, we can throw up the other moulding and paint.  I think James still has to put an outlet in there - but that shouldn't take long.  Hopefully it will still look like it is original to the house.  We tried to reuse a lot of the wood and stuff.  We did have to replace some stuff - but that is expected with 88 year old wood. 

Of course Daddy had a few helpers!

Touching Up Some Odds & Ends in the Kitchen

I've been busy in the kitchen - fixing up some odds and ends that most people don't even notice. But living here, I notice them and they bother me.

Before: No chair rail and beadboard not painted.

After: Chair rail installed and I painted it with the beadboard.

Before: I didn't paint a straight line to the ceiling because we were going to put up mouldings. But it's taking a long time to get that point and we're no where near doing that. So I threw up painting tape around the kitchen and made as best attempt as I could to make it look "normal" (the wall where it meets the ceiling is not in the best of shape. Unless you are staring at it though, you can't really tell).

After: A straight line of paint!

After Again: I did paint that beadboard too - it just gives the kitchen a more finished look.

Next Step: Putting the cabinet mouldings up. Nothing fancy. Just wood that matches the cabinets that have to be cut to fit. We might see how much it would cost someone else to do it. It might be worth it to just have someone else do this since James doesn't feel very comfortable with this task.

A New Refridgerator!

About a year ago, we went on an appliance shopping spree - a new stove, dishwasher, microwave and washer. We thought we were lucky since the refridgerator the previous owners left was pretty new and working fine. Well fast forward to this past week. The refridgerator started to not work. James took it all apart and figured parts would run us about $300 and we weren't even sure if that would fix the problem. So we figured we'd help the economy and just buy a new one.

"Old" refridgerator

New refridgerator!

We splurged on one with a water fountain thingy on it. It was $150 more than the one that we would have bought, but this one had a handy dandy $50 Energy Star rebate from our electric company on it. Plus, Crazy Cousin Tom hooked us up with a little discount. It justified the purchase...plus, having cold water at our disposable will hopefully make us more healthy. I'll just add the "hook the refridgerator up to the water pipes" onto James' extremely long list of things still to do.

Mouldings & Stairs

A long while ago, James installed the crown mouldings in the living room. I took a few pictures - but this is the best one!!! I don't know what I was thinking when I was snapping these shots!!!

Poor James isn't even in this picture! I must have been focusing on Ben.

Here are the mouldings - FINALLY painted! Thanks to me!

The furniture has been all in disarray with my painting. It's been so hot here. I put tape all around the mouldings and I can't begin to tell you how much sweat this generated from my body. I shouldn't do this kind of stuff in this crazy heat - but I can't help myself.

I started painting the balusters and the rest of the stairs. There are so many nooks and cranies on this staircase. It's crazy.

The Slackers Get Back To It

With James working so much lately, home improvements have taken a back seat a lot. Our big problem with everything is that we have literally started every project imaginable but haven't finished many. Oops. At least we are aware of our wrong doings.

James installed the toe kicks for the cabinets. Little details that take way too much time.

James is staring to work on the built in in the dining room.

Well there is some wood up. We debated about drywalling it or doing all wood. We went with all wood. It seemed easier. We'll see come the finished product...whenever that may be! ha ha!

We Have A New Electrical Service!

Well the day finally came on Friday to get a new electrical service! Most of it is done - the electrician was going to come back today to fix up some stuff - but I think he's holding off since we have some guys installing new gutters today. Gutter installer guys are pretty crazy.

Here's a friendly reminder of how we lived for the past year. We had 1 outlet in the kitchen (and it was hanging by a cord, resting on the radiator. Nice, huh?) Other rooms had either 1 or 2 outlets. Now, every room has 5 outlets and the kitchen has a whopping 8. I'm tempted to find 16 things to plug in the kitchen - but I honestly don't think we have 16 things that plug in.

Here's James' fancy wiring job. Dave the electrician thought he did a great job and told me if James is ever looking for work to have him call him. Many a hours were spent running these wires. I'm sure if you added up all the numbers of hours James spent on electric work it would be a good couple weeks, if not a month or two, of time spent on it.

Here's our new panel. Wow. Fancy. It has 40 slots in it. We currently have 22 filled. I asked James why needed such a big one. He said if we ever have plans like getting an addition, a hot tub or adding power to the shed we'd need extra slots. I like his future plans!

Wow! Lights!

I'm actually really happy with how the kitchen looks. We used these small recessed lights (they were on clearance at Lowe's) - James was mad at his position of them after he installed them. I thought they wouldn't provide enough light. But now that we actually have the means to turn them on, they actually look really nice. Unfortunately, they are so bright, I'm going to actually have to keep the kitchen clean now. Oh man!

Good-Bye Big Tree!

We got our tree removed today. Here I am to document it...

The tree in the winter.

The tree in the Summer.

Hello Mr. Policeman! You got some good money standing in front of my house for 4 hours.

Hello Mr. Tree Cutter Downer Guy. My little boys enjoyed watching you for 2 1/2 hours!

My front yard with tree debris all over.

Now with the tree gone, you can see our extreme lack of landscaping. Next week? New Gutters. Then we'll officially be poor. That's why I have my other blog. And yes, there is a piece of tree that grew around the wire there. I'm suppose to call that company to have them remove it. I think it's the phone company but I have to wait for the husband to come home to verify this.

The Boys' Bedroom - Before & Afters!

So. I finally finished the mouldings in the boys' room. I got the furniture in there. Well, for the most part. Here are some before and afters...

What the room looked like from the door when we looked at the house:

What the room looks like from the door now:

A corner of the room before:

The same corner now:

And just a bonus picture for fun! Woohooo!

Kitchen Mouldings Continue!

James has been really good at putting up the chair rail and baseboard in the kitchen. I think it looks really good. Unfortunately, we really don't like the blue and how it all comes together. I have to buy more paint for the dining room once the built-in is rebuilt - so we might just take the leftover paint and paint the kitchen the same color as the dining room. I told James I wasn't going to paint it again until everything is done in there. Which means I won't even consider painting again until about 2011.

Look how good those mouldings look!

Here's the back corner with the mouldings done. I'm just surprised at how much more the kitchen looks put together with this stuff done. We still have more to do and we think we'll tackle the living room crown moulding next. With those $10/$50 coupons Lowe's put out last week, we're in heaven!

Starting The Fine Details!

James had to work yesterday. Blah. It's Memorial Day Weekend! But he came home around 3 and we went up to Lowe's - we're going to try to knock out some of the small details left in the house. For instance, the chair rail in the kitchen and the crown mouldings in the living room and possibly dining room. See up there! He put the chair rail up last night!

Speaking of dining room, Here is our latest addition to our dining room. James and I have had many a talk about this. Last weekend, we found these 3 beautiful pieces at the clearance center at Jordan's. We decided to buy the chest and the "bigger" dresser (it's 6 inches bigger than the "regular" dresser we recently found out.) So the delivery guys came Thursday and it wouldn't fit up the stairs. I actually went back to Jordan's on Friday night - and luckily they still had 2 of the smaller dressers left (the chest was gone). So I bought it, but managed to smooth talk the salesman to waive the delivery fee. He was very nice. Joe at the Avon Jordan's. I give him 3 thumbs up.

Oh. So James is mad because he wanted to shimmy this piece up the house and bring it in through a window. I want to throw up a wall where the china cabinet was and just put it there. This is our compromise. It surprisingly fits really well in that little popped out area of the dining room. The only problem is that it looks so nice, it REALLY makes our table look really ghetto. I mean, I knew it looked ghetto before, but now it looks super ghetto. Good thing they make table cloths!

The Boys Room So Far...

So the walls are painted in the boys room. I have to do the mouldings and touch up a few areas. I still can't decide whether I like it or not. I liked the color on the sample. I liked the color of the wet paint and then it went up. I don't know. It's one of those shades that changes a lot with the light. When it's dark in the room, it's a really gross, pukey green. When it's light, it's very pretty.

Here's kind of a dark, gross picture.

Here's another view that I like a lot. The paint shade is very pretty with so much light on it.

So far, all we put back are the beds because I want to knock out the mouldings in the next few days. Both boys got extremely excited when I put the beds so close like this. Ben goes "So I get to sleep right next to Tommy?" We'll play around with it some after all is said and done.

Paint Prep In The Boys' Room!

The day has come to paint the boys' room! We said that we were going to let Ben pick out the color - but we've since changed that. Over the past few weeks he has mentioned a few colors -which we all boycotted. In a book, he picked out "Habanero Red" - which was a deep, fire truck like red. No. Then he was set on purple. No. Orange. No. We went to Lowe's and he picked a brown. Not a nice brown. A pupu brown. No. So I told him it had to be a green or blue. We agreed on a "Moss" color. Sort of a deeper green than what's in our dining room. I'm sure it will change by the time we actually go buy the paint.

We cleared out their room and did some prep work - fill in holes and cracks with joint compound. I'm hoping to whip out the ceiling here today or tomorrow and possibly start on the walls.

Our New Ghetto Fence and Sporty New Grill!

James finished our child entrapment device. Also known as our new ghetto fence made of 2 concrete blocks, some concrete, 2X4s and plastic net stuff. Pretty? No. Gets the job done? Yes. Not bad for under $100! We also got a new grill. Ooooooh! Ahhhhhh!

Building A Fence!

James has a new mission he's trying to complete - building a fence to keep the rugrats in the backyard. A certain little red head likes to run down the driveway - a lot. So to save us energy and aggrevation of chasing him all the time, we realized it would just be easier to build some sort of mini-jail for him. Here's what it looks like so far. It should be finished this week.

Back Bedroom - Before & Afters!

Okay. So I took some pictures of the back bedroom done. It's pretty much done. I guess I should hang some pictures or something and clean up the computer area. I'll get to that someday...

Here's what the back bedroom looked like from the doorway when we looked at the house and agreed to buy it:

BEFORE

Here's what it looks like now:

AFTER

Here we're looking at the closet door:

BEFORE

AFTER

Here's looking at the wall by the door:

BEFORE

AFTER

I'm happy with it. I think this is a good shot for people who need help envisioning a house when trying to buy. Sure, a house or room might look a little "not right" - but with some decluttering, cleaning, a new light fixture and some paint - it looks like a totally different room! I should work for HGTV!