Landscaping and Paint

I've been working like a mad lady the last few days.  James believes I recently became addicted to Speed, but I haven't. 

I started our "landscaping".  The following picture shows 5 hours worth of work.  It's really hard to move grass.  But now, James just needs to level the ground and throw down a walkway.

I've also been painting stuff.  I have more painting to do and touch ups around the house.  But I got the bathroom mouldings painted, half of the door and the dining room done.

This is a bad picture - but the mouldings are done.  Now I can finally throw up a blind and a curtain.

The built-in area is done!  Now I just have to clean it and have James install the pulls.  I scored some on clearance a while back - they are just longing to be put to good use!

Woodwork is Done!

Our woodworking brothers came over and did a bunch of stuff.  They finished off our cabinet tops, sides and some mouldings on the floor.  They finished the mouldings in the bathroom.  They finished the dining room built-in with the original wood from the original built-in.  They finished in 4 hours and did a great job - but now we just have to get back in the home improvement spirit to caulk and paint!

Built-In Before

Built-In After

Bathroom Window Before

Bathroom Window After

Cabinets Before

Cabinets After

Cabinets Before

Cabinets After

I was so very happy with their work - fast and good!  If anyone around here needs woodwork done - give me a call and I'll give you these brothers number to you.  They were outstanding!

Waiting & Woodwork

So, yeah, the siding for our house is behind on the shipping front.  Or maybe that's just what the contractor told me to stall coming back.  Either way, I don't really care - because once it's done, we'll have to worry about tackling that front yard.  Don't get me wrong, I'm excited to have a better looking front yard than the disaster that is out there now, but I really don't want to do any of the work to get to that point.  The siding should be in June 1st and they'll be over after that. 

In my spare time, I've been scraping the lead paint off the ceiling of the porch.  We're not in too much of a rush to finish it, but it will be nice when it's done inside.

On the flip side, we're excited that the wood guys are coming Saturday.  They are going to finish up our kitchen cabinets, our half bath moulding and some mouldings in the dining room.  Hopefully that will make a big difference and after some painting - it will be safe to say that everything on the first floor besides the front hall way will be "done".  And yeah, we're getting rid of the blue in the kitchen because it just isn't for us.  We're going to try a light brown.  We'll see how that turns out.

Plaster Time!

The other day, we had a plasterer come by to finally finish off the Dining Room and some misc. holes we had around the house.  Here are some pictures:

He said for the best outcome, wait at least a week to paint.  That's okay - we'll wait a week because we have to do the mouldings.  Actually - we're very excited because the plasterer we found knows some cabinet brothers.  They came on by and gave us a great estimate to finish off our cabinets and other misc. wood work around the house.  We only justify hiring these people by this simple rule:  If James works a Saturday (at the present time, he works every Saturday...), it's time being away from home and spent on home improvements.  So for every Saturday he works (there have been MANY)...we justify it in our head that as long as the job costs less than what he gets paid for a Saturday, the person or persons are hired!  This is a great mentality we have developed...

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!

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!

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!

Christmas Time!

Not Home Improvement stuff really, but it's very time consuming setting up these little Chirstmas houses!

Grrr! We Did The Unspeakable!

We hired someone! Ahhhh!!! We decided we cannot finish off the ceilings. Too hard. I'm sure we could, but it's cheap enough that we can just have someone come in and do it. Tomorrow, John will come to fix our downstairs ceilings! Yey! That means we just have to throw on some paint, have the new electrical service come up (the 30th!) and then we can paint and lay tile! I'm procrastinating on the tile because once the tile is in, the appliances come. I do not want a stove. Too much hassle. I also decided I do not want a dishwasher. I think I'm better at keeping house without one. Before and After Pictures to come!

Scrape Away!

I've been spending the past two week nights scraping paint. I have to wait until the boys go to sleep because obviously, they shouldn't be around paint chips. I'm pretty much done (as done as I'm going to be) with the mouldings in the living and dining room. I've primed about half of them and will do the rest maybe this week. This will get done!

I'm a True Desperate Housewife

Moving into this house that needs work has seriously cut into my internet time, my tv time, and of course, my bon bon eating time. What is a housewife to do?

Well today, I just could not stand the carpet in the dining room anymore. So it's gone. Here are some pictures. I've removed all the staples and the carpet gripper board. I cut my knuckle, but I have to say, it was all worth it.

James has no idea I did this. We said that we were going to pull up the carpets last - that is, after everything else was done (mostly painting). Well this carpet has apparently been down since 1980. It was time to get rid of it. I feel happy.

We Have a Ceiling!

James and Uncle Paul put up our dining room ceiling today! We didn't finish it off, but it's so much better already.

Still More!

I had the urge to buy stuff, so James let me go spend some of tax refund on sconces and overheads. They are now sitting in our basement until the time comes when we can actually install them. I like spending money.

We've been running wire during all of our free time - which isn't much. We've got the hallway done this weekend and the overhead lights in the living and dining room.



I started priming the Living Room and the Boys' Room. I have no method to my madness. I still have to finish it up - painting with 2 kids is virtually impossible. Who takes 5 days to prime a room? I do. For now, both Ben and Tom have made their beds in the hallway upstairs. They would go into the spare room, but all of their furniture is camped out there until I finish the prime job. James says I can't paint until the electrical is up and running which means I probably won't be able to paint until 2010. We'll be living in primer white for a while.



We also have to seriously think about buying our kitchen cabinets and knocking out more stuff. It's like this vicious circle we cannot conquer. We can't wire up the kitchen unless we have things positioned. We can't position things until we move the basement stairs. So we have to build new stairs. This will be great!

Also, we found some corrosion on a pipe in the upstairs bathroom when we ripped down the kitchen ceiling. So since the ceiling's down, we're going to have James' plumber friend replace the corroded pipe and see what else he might have for us.

Boring

I've been scraping away wallpaper paste in the dining room. A lot of work without much to show for it.

Getting There...

We spent President's Day Weekend wiring up the dining room, living room and hallway. Uncle Paul came over and helped with some of it and helped by watching the kids. Ben loves his uncles and Tom does too!

I've started taking down the wallpaper that was found after tearing down the dropdown ceiling. It's not that bad and I'm not going to put too much effort into this since moulding is just going to cover it anyways. As you can see, our downstairs is a scattered mess. It's a fun mess though.

The Drop Down Ceiling is Gone!

Since we're wild and crazy, we spent our Saturday night ripping down our dining room ceiling. We're not too happy with the original ceiling so we'll throw up some drywall after the electrical is updated. It did add about a foot to the room though by removing it.

The Dining Room Wallpaper Is Gone!

The Dining Room wallpaper is gone. We have to clean up the glue but we're happy so far. Tomorrow we'll rip down the drop down ceiling.