Day 325

Has it really been over 3 weeks since my past update!? Well, it is a busy time of year, getting ready for Christmas and all.  I've also been pretty busy with Oliver.  Trying to get him on an actual sleep schedule and also been working up at the house quite a bit.  The storage on my phone is full, so I haven't taken pictures while I'm up there and keep forgetting to take the camera for a video.  BUT I did remember to take it up last night when some how, all the vacuum cleaners ended at our house and I had to bring one back.

Two things about the video I didn't mention.  Josh and his dad ran cable for our TV and internet the other night (and didn't tell me).  I don't know if you can see in the video, but it's coming out of the living room wall.  As far as I've been told, the hard part is done.  They just have to cut it and make it nice and neat with the little outlet thingy.  And the video cut off at the end, but I was just saying that we have lights in our closet and a spotlight in our bookshelf.  In the future, Josh will turn the bookshelf into a gun safe. 

When we move in (soon!?!?) I'm going to have an open house because I know I have dedicated blog followers who are always asking me about our progress and curious to see it in person.  So at some point, I'll just have an open house when we're moving and people can pop in.  Then after we finish the whole downstairs, I'm guessing spring time, we plan to have a house party and cookout.  Celebrations are very necessary!

Day 301

Well, we are in the 300's now :/  Just trying to keep it under 365. 

Last night my mom and I went to Bed Bath and Beyond and Target to look for curtains and blinds.  Boy are nice curtains expensive!!!  I got curtains for the living room, upstairs bathroom and Penelope's room.  We still have curtains packed away from our last few houses, but I know that none of them will match now and Penelope has 2 windows instead of 1 now.  She also got new curtain rods and we got one for the living room too.  We aren't sure what to do with our bedroom.  None of our old ones will really match our grey and teal walls.  But I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on curtains and have like 8 old ones that we can't use.  We'll see.  I'm still really excited to get the carpet in in a few weeks.  Then I'll be itching to move in.  And we'll be able to add some furniture. 

Josh finished all the back splash last night.  This picture, however, is not the completed project.  Just needs grouted. 

My mom painted the living room ceiling and my dad worked on patching up the walls. 

Josh's dad, Danny, started framing the downstairs.  These pictures don't do it justice.  It's hard to tell.  

This drywall is all new and it a hallway to the basement.  The wall on the right is a bathroom wall and doorway. 

This is part of a wall that's the end of the little hallway that will be closets.  The laundry room will be on the other side. 

That's all to report for today.  I'm just waiting on the living room walls to dry to paint them.  I also need to finish that one cabinet door and could add another coat to the dining room if I get adventurous. 

Day 298

Not many pictures to show this time.  Yesterday felt like the weekend since Joshua and my mom were both home from work for Veterans Day.  Josh spent his time at the house working on the back splash in the kitchen.  It takes a long time to measure and cut around all of our outlets.  Still have more work to do. 

His dad has been working on plumbing our kitchen sink and we just needed to buy a few more parts, and bought the wrong kind... His dad also put another light up by our deck and hung florescent lights in the garage.  The laundry room is in the beginning stages of framing,  There is a half wall up.  Iv'e been working on sanding the drywall in the living room to get it ready for paint. 

My mom and I went out with the kids yesterday afternoon to look at carpet.  We started at American Freight, but they no longer sell carpet.  We headed over to Ollie's because we heard they did.  Josh didn't want really expensive carpet since we have 2 toddles, a dog and a cat.  But Ollie's just sold sections if you wanted to do one room, basically.  I wouldn't be able to to 3 bedrooms and a living room with all the different colors they had.  Well, it wouldn't look nice anyhow.  So Josh sent me to Menard's to look at bathroom counters.  We have an odd size at 39 inches and we are putting our sink to the right side to have more counter space and Josh wants a square sink.  It would have to be custom, so I checked on that and using sandstone, the associate said it would be around $1,000.  Um, no thank you.  Our kitchen counters only cost us $300 or so.  We will probably just get formica and cut it ourselves after we get a sink.  Anyways, we looked at carpet there and I decided to just go ahead and order it.  The living room will be tan, as well as the hall and the 3 bedrooms are gray.  They gray had to be special ordered.  When it comes in, I'm going to call the carpet installers and have them pick it up and install it.  Probably towards the end of the month.  So exciting.  so I want to get the living room done asap.  It needs patched in some spots and the ceiling needs done and the baseboards need laid.  

My mom started sanding a dresser for Penelope that was left at the house.  It's old but looks pretty cool.  I just have to buy paint and knobs for it.  I'm thinking lavender maybe. 

 Sunday family trip to Home Depot

Curtains in Oliver's room.  A little shorter than our last house, lol. 

So, plans this weekend,... more backsplash and more work on the living room walls. 

Day 287

 

 

 

 

Replacing stairs

 

 

Doorway to laundry room

 

 

 

Day 272

 

Since I'm going so long between posts now, it's hard to remember everything that is getting done.  We finally set a date that we want to be in the house.  Who knows how realistic it is.  I'm just going to imagine that we are getting evicted on a certain day and have no other choice to move in.  It gives everyone more motivation, I think.   

 

This is when I was trying to pull out rusty nails from old hardwood flooring.  Impossible.  Of course Josh tried and made it look easy.   

 

 

 

 

I painted the sides of the kitchen cabinets after we got the paneling up.  They need more coats and I forgot to do the ones on the bottom and we have to pull the fridge out to get the last one on.

 

 

 

Josh installing the door frame for the pantry.

 

 I sanded and spray painted the old canister lights for our living room. The middle one is sanded, so you can see how bad they started out.

 

I don't have pictures from last night, but Josh and I seemed to have gotten a lot done.  We put up 2 bedroom doors, but still need to work on their frame.  I put the final coat on the hallway and painted some more side panels of the cabinets.  Josh was cutting tiles for the dining room.  Since I wanted a herringbone pattern, he has to do a bunch of weird angles against the wall.  We also got out replacement vent hood (the last one was majorly dented after delivery) so he started mapping that out on the wall. 

 

Tomorrow is Penelope's 3rd birthday and she's having a party, so I stayed home and got ready for that.  My dad and mom went over to cut the base boards.  Then my dad put up trim around bedroom doors and my mom painted closet doors.  Josh has been working on smoothing out the kitchen counters.  He will finish that up tomorrow, hopefully.  I would like to go and work more tomorrow since it is the weekend, but it's also Penelope's birthday, so I don't know.  Maybe if I can get her to take a nap after her party ;)

Day 256

This is going to be a quick post because I have a lot of things going on at the moments, but thought it was high time for a housing update and some pictures.

 

Sometimes I take the kids over after dinner because it's their only chance to see their daddy.  They run around the deck, climb on lawn mowers and put stones in mailboxes.

 

 

The never-ending cabinet projects.  The ones in Penelope's room are "done" and the ones on the right, in Oliver's room still need more coats.  It takes at least a week for the paint to dry since it's oil-based.  The front of the doors have at least 3 coats and the back has 2.  Now you can see what a paint this is.

 

 

The fridge is in the kitchen!

 

Got the second coat on the bottom cabinet frames.  The top are done at 3 coats and the bottom just needs one more.

 

 

 

We had to get a part of our leaky roof repaired over out dining room.  Not cheap. We called A&J Home Improvements and from the time they came out to first look at it, to the time it was completed... it was like 4 days maybe.  Would call them again.

 

Our front yard view from standing on the garage roof.



 

A few nights ago, my dad and I went over and started hanging up doors that were painted.  We only got 6 uppers because the other ones need more coats.  Once they were up, I could see runs in the paint on the sides.  Josh suggested just wiping it with paint thinner.  I hope that works.  These kitchen cabinets have really been my big project and besides one coat (that Josh's mom and grandma did)  I've done it all by myself. Besides hanging them up.  BUT I am ready to be done with it ;)

 

 

 

 

Day 239

I know I've been slacking on posts lately.  Any free time I get on the computer I spend on my Jamberry business.  By some miracle, both children are sleeping right now and have been for over an hour.

 

So, last weekend, Josh finished getting all the boards down on the deck.  I keep saying, "He finished the deck!" But it still needs paint, rails and stairs.  But the hard part is done.  We also have our porch light hung up, but it's smaller than what I thought it would be, so I'll buy another one.

 

 

Josh put the vanity in the bathroom to make sure it would fit.  Not finished, but looks nice.

 

The cement counters have been poured!  Josh isn't taking the molds off for a week at least.  The kitchen sink won't go in for probably 2.  Did I talk about our sink before?  Well, we bought a white porcelain/cast iron kitchen sink.  I think it will look nice.

 

Last night I went over and helped Josh get one of the doors hung for our bedroom.  So the kitchen is kind of on hold while we make sure these counters turn out ok.  If anyone is wondering, it took around 20 bags for the kitchen counters.  So, while we are waiting, Josh would like to get the fridge in the kitchen so he can start moving things around in the garage.  Once he does that, he will take all his tools for the family room and put them in the garage so he can begin getting the drywall up down there. 

 

I put another coat on the backs of the cabinet doors last week and I want to say the backs are finished.  I let them sit for a while and the front hopefully just needs one more coat.  And one more coat on the cabinet frames and they can go up!  Once they are out of Penelope's room, we can start talking about carpet. 

 

So many things are dependent on so many things...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 224

I decided to do a video this week.  I can't figure out how to get it on this page, so just click the link to view it.  The video cut me off early, but I think I still got all the new stuff in.  Kitchen counters, deck and bathroom painting.

 

Click here --->Video update

 

 

Day 218

Josh got the backyard filled in and everything plumbed.  He just has to make a cement lid for one of the tanks.  Plywood is a temporary solution.  In the picture below, you can also see the deck construction.  It's going to be 18 feet out from the house and probably 12 feet wide.  We are going to have two sets of stairs, one on each side rather than right out front.

 

 

Josh was sanding the walls in the bathroom so I kept bust be sanding some cabinet doors that had been missed.  Most of the doors have 2 coats on the front and one on the back.  The front need at least 3 total and I'm not as concerned with the back of the doors, so probably 2 would do it.  That's about to be my next project. After I finish the bathroom.

 

Speaking of the bathroom.... it's purple!  We had a discounted can of super dark purple and added white to it to lighten it up.  We just kind of eye-balled it.  It is dark, but I think it will look fine since the bottom half of the room is white.  I don't think I would have ever painted it that dark from floor to ceiling.

 

 

 

The first coat of purple is on.  Then I need to paint the ceiling before the final coat goes on the walls.

 

Josh managed to get the dishwasher (and stove) in the house by himself.  The fridge is ready, but that is a two man job.  He finished installing all of the bottom cabinets.  

 

 

The cement board is going up and getting ready for our pour-in-place cement counter tops.  I ordered the counter molds the day after we bought the house.  He has most of the back molds placed.  Everything is just sitting there though.  The front molds still need measured and placed.  It is so exciting that we are getting close to having real counters! 

 

The counter tops are exciting, but not only for us.  We have had a few people ask about them or if they can help and learn how to do it.  I'm still toying around with what color I want.  I was just going to do a gray, but now I'm thinking of white with marble swirls of gray to make it look more like granite.  It's more work to put on Josh so it's really up to him, but I think he's ok with doing it.  He's quite the artist too, so I know he can handle it. 

And after the counter tops come backsplash!  Wow, things are really coming together.

Day 211

Monday-  Josh's dad, Danny, came over during the day and put up the posts for the deck.  He also cleaned up the downstairs "bathroom" and put in a toilet flange, so if we wanted to, we could install a functioning toilet at any time.  Then he started knocking though the cinder block wall to make a door for out laundry room.

 

Tuesday- My mom went over during the day and got the linen door hung and she cleaned some windows.  Part of Oliver's window will need replaces because a seal is broken.  She also swept the bedrooms and bathrooms.

 

 

 

Wednesday- Josh spent the time digging.  I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but while they were digging the post holes for the deck, they ran into a kitchen pipe.  It turns out that the pipe is just run out to the yard and not really going anywhere.  It wasn't hooked up to our septic.  So now he has been digging in the back yard to run pipes from the kitchen to the septic tank.

 

 

Thursday- I was able to go over during the day and touch up the blue in the kitchen.  I took the hinges off the lower cabinets to get ready for paint.  Josh told me not to paint until they were hung because he doesn't want to mess them up or wait for them to dry. Later that day, I bought knobs and pulls for the cabinets.

 

Friday- Josh was still digging.  I went over in the evening and put a second coat of white on the upper cabinets.  Josh sanded the bathroom walls to get ready for paint and we bought a kitchen faucet.  He said his dad has a kitchen sink that we can have and we are getting a laundry room sink from his step-dad, Eric.

 

Saturday-  There were a lot of visitors at the house.  The only thing Josh told me was that he finished digging and it's ready for pipe to be laid.

 

Sunday-  I'm not sure.  Josh went over for a few hours then came home to watch Nascar.  When he came back, the kids and I were napping.  After we woke up, he fell asleep at 7pm and was done for the night. 

 

Josh starts his college classes again in a week.  I really didn't realize it was coming up so soon.  He will work 8 hours a day, then have classes in the evening for a few hours.  So no working on the house except for the weekend.

Day 204

 

This weekend, while Josh was doing yard work, I started to paint the upper kitchen cabinets.  They will need multiple coats, just like the doors, but they are already looking more "finished."  Next time I'm over, I'll remove the hinges on the lower ones and start painting them too.  The corner cabinet was very annoying to paint because the door kept moving, so it was hard to hold.  They all need at least two more coats.

 

Josh laid out the bottom cabinets.  We thought we needed to buy one more, but it turns out, we don't.  They aren't get screwed into the wall. The fridge is ready to go in, now that Josh grouted that section of the floor.  We will still have to run water for the ice maker.  The stove needs wire ran to it and the pot filler needs installed too, along with the vent hood.  The hood needs cleaned and painted before it goes up.

 

Some spots of blue need touched up still.  Plan on doing that this week.

 

 

 

Josh and his dad started to dig the post holes for our deck yesterday.  I'm so excited to see what it will look like when it's done, but that's still a ways off. ;)