Day 40

We plan to start painting this weekend.  I'm going to paint the bedrooms and we are paying the wall guy do to the living room, dining room and hallway.  These are all Glidden colors.  The Thai Teal is going to be an accent wall in our room.  I hope it looks ok.  The rest of our walls will be Wood Smoke gray and Oliver's room will be too. It doesn't look so purple in real life.  Penelope's room is Sunny yellow and the hallway and living room will be Soothing Green Tea.  I'm going to do a tan color for the dining room, but don't have a shade picked out yet. 

 

 

The kitchen got cleaned up quite a bit last night.  Today the guys are supposed to be working on the wall that they are staring at in the picture.  The studs are rotted, so they need replaced.

 

 

In the picture below, you can really see the kitchen entrance now.  I mentioned before that it has been widened and the raised. 

 

The cabinets are all in the living room now.  Hope it won't be too long until they make their way to the kitchen.

 

Josh will also be painting the basement with a sealer.  We are supposed to get a lot of snow, then the weather will warm up and melt everything and start raining.  Our basement is prone to flooding since it isn't sealed properly, so hopefully that gets taken care of.

 

The dumpster was removed a few days ago so any other garbage had to be loaded in Josh's truck and delivered to the landfill.  It would cost $270 to have the dumpster returned.

 

We are quickly burning through our propane supply.  We have a 500 gallon tank and filled it on Feb 21 and I just had to order more today because we are down to 25%.  We have the house set at 60 degrees, so I don't know how we are going through it so quickly.  So now we have to decide if we are going to stick with propane, or convert everything to electric.  I'm hoping that the house just isn't sealed up very well and that's why we went through it so quickly.  Because getting a propane tank filled every 4-6 weeks is ridiculous.  

 

 



Day 35

Construction on the kitchen is still going on.  Last night, Josh and my parents went over and cut out some of the dining room wall.  This will give us room for our bar and they got rid of the door way to open it up and took the ceiling up to the kitchen ceiling. 

Today they were working on the ceiling and did insulation and dry wall.

Day 33

 

 I went over to the house today for about 15 minutes.  Just to look around really.  Josh wasn't there and my dad just finished his work for the day. 

Look at the kitchen! Not much is left.  It is nice that almost everything is torn out so we can start building.  I know we have so much more work to do, but I'm so antsy to move in already!

 

This is where the tool shelf was that is now relocated to the downstairs family/play room

 

Such a huge pile wood that needs burned once the weather warms up.

 

Progress from the wall guy.  He isn't finished but I think it looks great already!

 

I found this kitchen layout that Home Depot gave us when bought our cabinets.  Josh never showed me this and it's exciting to see.  The sink will be in the middle of the wall though, not off to the side.  The window is in the center of the wall, so I want the sink to line up with that.

I think the next thing they have planned is the ceiling and walls in the kitchen.  We are also knocking out the kitchen/dining room wall by the patio door to make a bar.  We are getting rid of the doorway and taking the wall off up to the ceiling of the kitchen to open it up more.

 

 

 

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Day 32

The hole in the dining room is no more and the subfloor is completed!  The issue we have here is that it is not level with the kitchen floor.  The dining room is perfect, but the kitchen kind of slopes down.  So it looks like we will have to do the same thing to the kitchen when the time comes.  The great thing about doing everything yourself is how little it costs.  To rip up the dining room floor totally, put new joists down and then plywood, I'm guessing it was under $100.  How much would a professional charge to do the same thing?

 

 

I haven't been to the house in a few days, probably like 4.  My mom went over a few days ago and took out the cabinets in the kitchen.  I haven't seen it yet, but the kitchen is pretty empty now.  And will need new drywall.  The kitchen will be the next big project.  Fixing the floors and putting up the drywall.  Then the cabinets can be hung and painted.  Or visa versa.  Then from there it's painting, countertops, back splash, appliances and flooring and voila! you have a kitchen! Easier said than done.

Day 29

I finally have pictures of the dining room, or lack of dining room.  They had to remove the joists because some of them were rotting.  The good news is, that the whole floor will be brand new when it's done.  I went over there yesterday and there wasn't much for me to do.  I cut strips of the green sheet thing Josh is holding in one of the pictures.  But that's basically all I could help with.  Well, that and holding down a board while it was being cut.  So, this is what will be going on lately.  Josh's dad is still plumbing and the drywall guy is still fixing the walls.  I hope the kitchen floor doesn't need replaced when we get around to that.

 

 

Day 27

 

A few nights ago, I went to Wal-Mart to look at paint.  Our drywall guy told us to go with Glidden, not Behr.  I think I decided on Soothing Green Tea for the living room and Wood Smoke for our bedroom.  Not totally sure with Oliver's room.  And it will still be a while before I start painting. 

 

 

Two days ago, the wall guy started going to work, so I took some pictures of the living room and the hall.  He still has a few days of work to do still.

 

 

 

Then I decided that we needed to get rid of the big heavy desk in Oliver's room that the seller didn't take with him, even though he was supposed to.  We found a lot of things in one of the drawers, including some negatives.  Those were fun to look at.  A few of some boys and of a parade and this one of a woman standing in her kitchen.  The envelope said 1980.

 

We tried to figure out the downstairs bathroom and laundry room so his dad can start plumbing it.  Did a lot of measurements and sketches.

 

The concrete board in the upstairs bathroom has been laid, so soon the tile will be up.  Then start painting in there.  And Josh might start on the vanity next week.

 

Last night, Josh and his friend ripped up the dining room floor.  I haven't seen it yet, but it's down to the joists.  You can see right into the basement.  So today Josh went out and bought joists and subfloor.

 

That will probably be all that gets done today because it's Valentine's Day and I asked Josh to hang out with the kids and me because he is so busy with the house and school lately. 

Day 24

The last two nights, I have gone over to the house around 9 pm and worked with Josh for an hour or two, so between that and showering when I get home, blogging is the last thing I want to do.  So this is what we have been up to in the last few days.

The wall guy is coming over tomorrow to start working, so we have been prepping the walls for him.  Josh painting the ceiling in Penelope's room and spot painted some of the walls there and in our room too.  It's just a primer/sealer.  I worked on the living room and dining room wall.  Turns out, this stuff is pretty good at taking off the wallpaper.  It started bubbling up under it, so Josh started scrapping it off.  He went out last night and bought an oil based paint instead of water, and hopefully that will work better.  As far as I understand it, the wall guy is just going to smooth out all the walls with plaster.  That way, there will be no wallpaper seams and we can paint over it.  I'm excited for this to get done.  We are going to stick with a green color for the living room and dining room.  Just going to go a few shades lighter.

 

Last night, it was just Josh and I putting up the wainscoting in the bathroom. It was fun though.  I love being able to see that something looks different.  Like, they can work a whole day re-wiring the house or working on plumbing, but nothing looks very different.  We have most of the wainscoting up, just two or three small pieces missing.  I am going to paint it all white.  Josh has trim for the top of it, but we still need trim for the corners, bottom and around the shelf.  But, I will paint the bathroom walls before the top trim goes up.

 

Josh also bought an insert for the tub.  It's a nice one and has lots of deep shelves.  We were going to tile it, but this is fine and we will be tiling the downstairs shower. 

 

Plumbing is still being worked on up there. That's what is dad his doing.  So my job to complete the bathroom is painting.  And Josh's is to finish the floor with the mesh-like heating thing and tiles.  He is also going to build a vanity.  The space is 39 inches and I'm not sure what, if anything, is available in that size.

 

 

So once the wall guy is done, I'm going to have a lot of painting to do.  Our room, the kids' rooms, the hallways, living room, and the dining room wall.  Everything in the house needs painted.  Glad the outside doesn't.  So after this is all said and done, I will either be a pro and open my own home painting business, or never touch a paint brush again. ;)

Day 21

In the last post, the living room wall was ripped out.  Now that has been insulated, drywalled, and spackled.  The walls in the upstairs bathroom seem just about done too.  Today Josh was thinking of putting up the wainscoting and maybe the floor tiles today.  We decided to heat the floors in both bathrooms, so that would be something he has to install before the floor tiles go on, obviously.
Then I get to start painting the walls.  Josh agreed purple.  He found a discounted can of dark purple for $9, so we are going to add some white paint to lighten it up.

Yesterday, he and my dad went to a Habitat for Humanity resale store in Medina.  They have many things for sale at discounted prices that they don't need for their houses.  Josh bought quite a bit, including some lighting and tile for the downstairs bath.  I didn't really like the fixture he bought for the dining room, so I went out to Lowe's to buy the one I was in love with and he is going to use the other one in the garage.  Fancy.  So then Josh put me in charge of buying all the light fixtures, which I thinks makes up both happy.  Today I ordered lights for the bedrooms and hallway from 1800lighting.com.  I still need to get lights for the kitchen and downstairs bathroom and recessed lights for the living room.  I'm not sure how large the vanity downstairs is going to be, so I'll hold off on that for a while. 

I think yesterday was mostly spent burning wood.  There was a large pile on the back porch for flooring and trim that had been ripped out.  I'm glad to get that cleaned up.  I like to have things clean and organized, but that is often hard to do on a construction site.

Here is something you can help me out with.  The color of our bedroom.  I kind of have no idea.  Our furniture is black and our bedding is bright yellow, gray and dark blue.  Penelope's room will be yellow and Oliver's will be gray.  I don't want anything too dark because the room isn't very big.  I also don't want any color that would be found in a nursery, like yellow or blue (or pink).

I hope to go over to the house later today and see what everyone is doing.  Maybe I'll take another video.  It's a lot easier than taking a bunch of pictures.  Plus, the captions are built in. ;)


UPDATE
I went to the house just before dinner and we cut drywall and spackled it out in the living room around the outlets and all.  It took about 90 minutes.  I also took a picture of the other side of the living room wall where it's finished.

Day 18

I haven't posted in a while, so I thought a video would be exciting (and easy).  Today I went up at 9pm when Penelope was sleeping and Oliver was content with my mom.  I spackled up the bathroom!  Woohoo! Finally doing more than removing wallpaper and sweeping.

It thankfully took me about two minutes to take the border down in Oliver's room.  It all came off in huge strips with no wallpaper remover.

 

 

Day 14

Two weeks already!  Feels a lot longer than that. It's great that a lot has been done.  We bought our kitchen cabinets.  We bought unfinished ones, so just have to sand them some and paint them white when the time comes.

 

 

The floor in the dining room is gone, along with the rails.

 

Living room floor is up too.  Well, the laminate is.  

 

The upstairs bathroom is really coming along and I'm really excited about the shelf.

 

They patched up the wall where they had to repair it.

 

This is the tile for the bathroom.

 

This is what I did today.  Ripped down the rest of the wallpaper in the living room and dining room.  It took about ten minutes.  It came off in huge sheets.

 

We did have someone come out to look at the walls.  He wanted us to take all the borders off the walls before he did anything.  I did that in our bedroom today and just need to do Oliver's room.

 

Ta da!

 

My dad was scrapping of chunks of paint, so I had to snap a picture. :)