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We’re getting so close. This past weekend Sean and I hung the cabinets This Old House style and thanks to our neighbor Al, the counters are also installed in the kitchen. Everything is farm house straight:
We also spent a day attending to the yard and putting away materials in preparation for some more excavating work. We are extending our driveway along the house and adding gravel as well as preparing the site for our garage to be built next year. As it turns out, we are also having our septic repaired. (Sigh.)
The project list is shrinking, and we’re feeling the pressure to get the rest of it done… yesterday.
We need some help.
I didn’t have the walls ready to paint this past weekend because I’ve damaged my wrist (at least temporarily) from mudding and sanding. I’m going to keep it wrapped and pop lots of ibuprofen this week and do my best to finish the last coats of mudding in the living room, stairway, and one more bedroom so that all remaining rooms are ready for sanding and paint by Saturday.
If I can hang on and push one more week out of my arm, maybe our sweet little C. will not have to finish the rest of it up for me:
I’m feeling the burn to get this done. Can you help us!? For an hour? Or four?
Needed this Saturday September 26th
- Sanders (first thing Saturday morning!) and Dust Wipers
- Wall Painters (I know you’re all out there! About ninety-eight thousand people have approached me about helping with this in the past six months. The time has finally come.)
- Pressure-Washer Operator (for porch and window trim)
- Cleaning Helpers (to bravely take on The Dust. Vacuuming floors, walls, window sills; wiping cupboards, ceiling fans and light fixtures; washing windows and screens, steam cleaning the couch… everything is filthy. It just has to end.)
- Child Care! Okay A. and L. are too old to need this, but they are usually game for tagging along if you want to take the whole crew. Especially if it means getting out of doing yard work or other manual labor on the house. Or babysitting.
- Meal Preparation and Cleanup. Cook and serve food to our hardworking friends so that we don’t have to stop working except to stuff our faces!
- Roofer to finish installing ridge caps, top the chimney pipe and trim the valley shingle edges
Sean and I need to be able to finish installing floor transitions in two doorways and the wood treads and landings on the steps. The idea is to be ready for floor finishing during the week of Sept. 28 – Oct. 2, and to forge ahead full steam…
Next Saturday, October 3
- Exterior painters for porch and window trim
- Interior trim installers
- Gardeners/Grass planters
- Closet organizer installer
- Window insulator/sill-board installer/caulker
- Child care helpers
- Meal preparation and cleanup
- BONFIRE ATTENDEES! Yes, it’s time for a party. We plan to burn a huge pile of brush and junk wood. (And make merry drinking beer and pop and eating snacks. ) Fire starting around 7-8 PM. Bring your own chair and a song in your heart. Be sure to call us to let us know that you’re coming so that we can talk you into helping us at some point throughout the day too.
If arrangements work out, carpet will be installed upstairs between Oct 5 and 9… and we’ll be ready for the last wave of help by…
October 10
- LARGE ITEM MOVERS! The massively heavy couch (two recliners) is already moved, our giant living room armoire is sold and we are hiring out to move the piano… (“You’re welcome,” to everyone who has ever helped us move!) The bulk of what’s left will be managed in small bites as we go but we’ll need help with a few large items: stove, washer, freezer, desk, dressers…
If you can help with any or all of it, I can’t even begin to tell you how deeply appreciated it would be! We are SO aware that we can’t do it all alone.
If we were sane, we might have listened to the advice of our friends, who at several stages of the tear off said things like, “What I would do, is maybe look into some tile to cover this up.” It was excellent advice. I especially thought that as I nursed blisters on both hands from pulling staples.
When we discovered a few months ago that there was hardwood floor underneath layers of linoleum and plywood, we were determined to scrape everything off of it and restore it, to honor the home and its history.
Well, that and we have no money allocated for tiling another 300 square feet in the house.
So we tore it all out to get back to the original hardwood floor. It was there, hiding beneath layers of linoleum, thin plywood (complete with no less than 800,000 of the longest, most fragile staples ever installed), peel-and-stick linoleum tiles, and a quarter-inch thick layer of black, tar-like adhesive.
The best we could get it to look after scraping off the adhesive remover:
See the staple in the photo above? I saw a hundred of them every time I closed my eyes for days. Every time we thought we had finished pulling every single one out of an area, we would go back over the same area and find three more.
No fewer than five rounds of sanding. We gummed up countless drum sander belts.
I love the discolored, damaged look to the wood. Staple holes, minor water damage, even a few holes patched with tin cans. People pay big money for that “distressed” or “antiqued” finish.
We just had to sweat and bleed a little.
We debated about whether or not to tear out the kitchen. We’d probably be moved in if we hadn’t torn it out.
I can’t help but think we made the right choice, even though this is arguably the most work we’ve done in one room yet.
Behold, the wall transformation:
That’s brick-patterned wallpaper. Complete with soot from some past toaster fire or something.
I’m loving the red walls, complemented by a tasty brown.
This kitchen is going to be awesome.
Anyone remember where we left off in the bathroom? Filled with ladders and buckets of joint compound, that’s where. It’s now painted a lilac purple, and all plumbing and light fixtures are installed and operational.
I should have snapped a quick shot tonight before we left… but I forgot the camera today. We’ve now installed an over-john cabinet, toilet paper holder, towel bars, and shower curtain.
Of course, the fridge is now in the bathroom, too, filling in the footprint where the stacked washer/dryer will go… it will stay there until the wood floors are finished. The linen cabinet works well for food and plates while all the cabinets are AWOL from the kitchen.
We stayed overnight last night (Saturday) and I even got to be the first one to shower in the new tub! What a treat, truly.
Well, I realize I’ve disappeared from the blog world for awhile.
[Insert unnecessary apology here]
The progress on the house continues, although we are still living at our Spring Lake house. (Otherwise known as the “Spring Lake Estate” …and when you say it, you must do your best impression of Thurston Howell III.)
When asked, “When will you be moving?” our automatic response is: “Two weeks.” We wanted to move before school started, but the first day of school photos took place on the front stoop here for the last time.
I’m going to cover updates a room or two at a time. We’ve made so much progress! Here’s C and J’s room, walls and insulation torn out:
Somehow, I haven’t snapped a photo of the completed sheetrock in the room. Seams are even coated twice. A quick touch up coat and some sanding, and it will be ready for paint and carpet.
The next shot is from the last day of roof replacement. Going up the stairs, I could see right out the roof…
Making pictures of our house is going to be decidedly more boring when all the walls are up.
I’m a couple weeks behind posting photos. It’s a good indication that I’ve been too busy working to work on blog posts!
More to come from this past weekend! Windows are going in…
More bits and pieces as we speed toward moving day. I was looking at the calendar and realizing that we only have a month until our goal date.
I’ve had the inkling for awhile that we aren’t going to make that August 1 goal. But it’s okay. I would prefer to be living in the new place when school starts, but even if we don’t make that goal, it will be okay.
We can stay in our current house through December for sure, and it’s looking like that deadline may be extended to March 2010.
The header has been reinforced…
With Howard’s permission, the kids got to play in the large machinery. Howard fashioned us a driveway!
Eventually, the garage will be built attached to the house, with bedrooms above it, we hope. Doesn’t look like our initial budget will include enough to get it built this year. So we’re looking into getting remote car starters for the winter instead…
The next photo shows the path through the yard to the electrical pole. We are having the lines buried along with our upgrade in service.
Work on the roof has officially started, one section at a time. We are tearing off down to the roof boards–covered by layers of asphalt shingles and wood shakes–and putting all new plywood down.
To the left is my faithful and brave cousin Brian. He’s up for anything. I wonder if he knows how much we appreciate that. And behind him, yes, that’s Sean on the roof. (He hasn’t been cleared by the surgeon to go back to work yet.) Our crazy friend Andy is taking a break and watching here, but don’t let it fool you. He’s an animal when it comes to destruction.
I forgot to grab the camera the day that my cousin Neal joined the roofing crew. After he took a tour of our place and came up from the basement, he made a comment that I loved.
He said that our house was just like all the cars he’s ever owned. Crappy on the outside but totally rebuilt from within.
It made me smile, because it’s so true. And it felt nice to hear the genuine acknowledgment of all the hard work we’ve done on the house’s systems. So thank you for that Neal.
Little by little, we make progress in the bathroom as well. Here’s the framing for the dropped ceiling above the shower. It will make room for installing a vent and light as well as the dryer vent duct work:
Yes, it’s a toilet. It even flushes. Yes, it’s a door. It opens and closes. The simple pleasures.
Yes, that’s a container of screws sitting on the toilet tank.
Chad returned and worked his magic over the stairs: No more heads bonking! Woo hoo!
Is is a secret passageway into the bedroom? Or just a neat little slide?
Yes, Sean is updating the electrical for the entire house. I have much respect for this process. I’m grateful that he knows how to do it because I don’t have a clue.
My brand new, ten-inch-deep sink with a high-arc faucet. THIS is the sink you get when you have four kids and no dishwasher.
Hundred year old wood next to wood so new it’s weeping sap.
Uninhabited.
Spreading the grout felt a bit like what I imagine it’s like to smear poop all over the floor. Well, it sure LOOKED like poo.
One thing is done.
I think I need to do a better job of recognizing the small finished pieces that make up the whole. Soon enough, they will all add up…
