In Love . . .

I'm in love. It's just started going up, and once again all I had was my phone camera, but I couldn't wait to show you.

Sigh. (in a good way)

So so so pretty, especially when we remove the protective cardboard on the counters. More, official photos to be taken today. It's time to go to work!

Decisions reversed!

Remember when the bid we got for painting our interior trim coincided with me losing my job? Remember how we decided that I'd have extra time, could help prep and that we should do the interior trim paint ourselves? Well, I'm here to tell ya that changing one's mind can be a powerful thing.

After the spray fail of earlier this week, and continuing problems with the sprayer, M and I came to separate, independent decisions to reconsider hiring our neighbor and professional painter to do the trim. What a relief! He came over Wednesday, confirmed the price (about $600 less than we were expecting) and told us the prep would start as soon as his crew had some extra time. Actual painting will start in about 2 weeks. What that means is that there are several items to be finished before the painting can begin:

Stair skirting completed
Casing on the beams and pillars downstairs
Casing on the pillar in the loft
Stair fronts (are they called risers?) installed.

There's more stuff for sure, and we'll work on a list of it today and tomorrow.

This is such a huge relief. It feels like the end is in sight. And Chris and his crew will do a much better job than we could.

Meantime, we I repainted the laundry room (a pretty pale blue) and it looks great. I EVEN DID THE CUTTING IN!  (you have no idea how proud I am that I conquered this skill) I lost my camera for a couple days, but now it's back, so I promise some photos. I did a good job for a newbie. This afternoon I'll work on another room that has the bulk painting done but needs that top part next to the ceiling finished.

We moved the fridge (more to come + a bunch of comical photos) and are assessing how to get it into the house. That deserves it's own post.

And now that the decision's been made to get the professionals in for trim painting, maybe, maybe this weekend we can set a move in date!

(not forgetting that the following is just a partial list of to be completed items:
Master Bedroom Built ins (partially complete)
Vanities painted and installed in master bath
Master shower tiles
Medicine cabinets found and installed in master bath
Lights assessed and installed in master bath
Closet hardware installed in master closet
Carpet for upstairs bedrooms
Vanity found for guest bath
Toilet installed in guest bath
Railing for stairwell
Door for loft
All door hardware purchased and installed
Lighting for over island
Island built
Island countertop picked out and fabricated
Powder room toilet installed
Powder room pedestal sink installed
Powder room lighting finished
Deck railing purchased and installed
Stairway from office landing built and installed.)

WHEW!

Spray fail

Late last week, after getting the laundry room all cleaned up, and ready to become our temporary "spray studio," I finished all the cabinet sanding, and we pulled all the pieces back in and M got ready to paint. It worked, but dripped. We adjusted, We tried again. Still dripped. Adjusted the thickness of the paint. Still drippy. Adjusted the paint sprayer pressure. Still got drips.

I didn't handle it very well. We've been expecting to paint so many of the final finishes (trim, vainties, cabinets in the laundry and mud room) with the sprayer to facilitate the process and speed it up. It just didn't give good results.

So we need to do some research, and see if we can conquer this. We have a DVD that came with the sprayer, so we'll watch that today. M is starting the caulking today. She's promised me that once the sprayer is mastered, we can then set a move-in date (the trim paint is a big big part of not finishing so once it looks like it's working, we can scope out all the remaining tasks and see if we can set a date. GULP!

In other news, we finally picked up the vintage fridge we bought months ago (for a display cabinet). More to come on that in the next post!

Rethinking the laundry room finishes

Remember here where we painted the laundry room floors with such a neat color scheme and pattern? Well, at that time, we thought we'd have white walls and painted cabinets that coordinated somehow. Well fast forward a few months. Our walls are white, but we had such a hard time coming up with a cabinet color we liked, that would go with the floor, and that was bright and fun but not too bright and fun.

And so we went ahead and primed the cabinets with the primer we had (gray). We kinda liked the color, but not for the cabinets. M suggested we swap our thinking and paint the walls instead and then painted all the cabinets and trim white (along with the washer and dryer which will be white). Ok! So then, what color to paint! We've been putting swatches on the wall, and not really liking any of them enough to choose them. We're currently thinking a very very pale color. More to come on that.

In the meantime, the laundry room has been my sanding studio. I've just finished sanding the master bath vanities (yes, I promise a post on those soon) and all the cabinetry. We thought since there's no permanent furntiture in teh laundry room yet, and since the walls will still need to be painted, we'd use it as our spraying studio. We're close to starting.

But then yesterday, I removed all the cardboard protecting covering the floors. There was a lot of sanding dust, plus much dirt and dried mud (is that different from dirt?) which had worked its way through the cardboard. And then just as I was about finished sweeping it all up (so as to provide a mostly dust-free room to paint) Willie ran through with muddy paws. ACK! I had a mini meltdown about the dirt and filth and the fact that the white squares are already not white. So we may be rethinking the color on the floors (the gray squares look ok) and the wall color, but maybe not the cabinet color. Sigh. I loved the color and pattern on the floors, but admit that the upkeep may be too rigorous. We will see what happens next!

Here are some thrilling (not) photos of cabinet work.

The uppers are getting painted. The lower is a new piece M built to utilize some drawers we were given. The laundry baskets are two of six that will live there on shelves.

 Uppers with doors removed.

Doors for uppers pre-priming.

 Boxes primed.

Doors in the process of priming.

 Primed on the outside, insides still to go

All complete.




Today's task (I think) will be trying out the sprayer. I think we're committed to white cabinets, regardless of other colors. Maybe. : )

Catching up

I just downloaded pictures from my camera and realized how much I have yet to report on! I actually have some more things to show!

Back in December (I think it was December) we bought the cabinets for the mudroom, and spent an afternoon assembling them with our "crew." M's Mom, Mary, loves assembling these Ikea cabinets, and we had a warmish day so chose to team up on the deck and get these built.

That's Mary in the white jumpsuit (I must take a pic of it and show you--it was her birthday present from us 2 years ago and it's funny!) assembling, with M looking on.

Large "wardrobe" cabinet on it's side, getting the back tacked on. Door in photo leads to garage.

"Wardrobe" cabinet in place. Window looks out at front of house (poor quality photo!)

Opposite side of the room. That middle cabinet is really a wall cabinet (on it's side). The cabinet on the left will hold the top of the desk that will mount to the side of the tall cabinet.

View from the Kitchen area--looking toward garage. Cabinets in place. These will likely get a coat of paint (gray, we're thinking) but that's another post.

In the meantime, when we went to Ikea to buy these, we found a Hemness dresser in the clearance area because of a damaged top. Hmmmm, would work for 1/2 of our kitchen island! And we'll be putting a new top on (marble) so the damage to the top of this dresser (why it was on clearance) doesn't matter. Yahtzee as my friend CC would say! Here's a rough mockup of the new island. Pieces are in place, but not yet mounted/attached correctly. You'll see once it's complete.

You can't even really see the damage to the top, but if you look closely above the 2nd drawer from the left, on top, you'll see some indentations.

These back cabinets will be raised up on feet, in fact, raised higher than the dresser side, to make a surface that's bar height on this side, and counter height on the dresser side. All will likely get skinned with plywood and painted so it looks like custom furniture.

I can't wait until it's built and topped! It'll be a few more weeks though, since we still have to go pick out our marble top and have it fabricated . . .

Hot house

I've been feeling healthy for a week. M, not so much. Between some kind of bug and several migranes (poor thing) this week has been less productive than we'd hoped. And, we've had a bit of a heat problem.

We had our furnace installed about a year ago, and just in the last few weeks, had everything finished and a new propane tank installed, filled and piped. Finally we had heat. Most day's we'd get to the house and the temps would be in the high 40's. Cold for work, even with several layers on. Then we started using the heat--just a bit. We still don't have our door hardware or weatherstripping, so we didn't want to make it super warm and have all the heat escape. But we'd warm it up to 55 or so, and it made things bearable.

Then on Sunday, I was working along on my spackling (every piece of trim has many nail holes in it, and ALL need to be filled before we can tape and paint), and noticed that the vents were blowing cold air. Uh oh. I tried to turn the furnace off but even on off, the fan kept blowing. M had the same issue (I was sure she could resolve it but even the zone upstairs--we have 2 zones that operate independently--was behaving the same way), and we finally had to flip the breaker to make it go off! She left a message for the heat guy (sidebar: his name is Pat Nell, but when you say it it sounds like Patinell. So we call him Patinell. Cracks me up. Yes, I'm easy). He finally came on Thursday, and wasn't sure what the problem was, but got it working. So today, it worked wonderfully--bringing the temp up from 42 (yikes, that's cold!) to a comfortable 55. But then after it hit the set temp of 55, it climbed to 56, and so on. Uh oh. At least we have heat, but there's definitely something amiss. Did I mention that the furnace was maybe the most expensive part of the whole house? I'm sure we'll get it working . . . but for now at least there's heat.

In other actual progress, I have primed all the cabinets in the laundry room, and we're narrowing down the paint for the walls. Originally we planned on white walls (they're done) and some fun color for the cabinets, but we've reversed that.  M has finished all the wainscotting and trim in the powder room, along with the crown moulding. It looks great. We're thinking of painting the white ceiling a pale pinkish with a pearlescent tinge. More to come on that.

We finally got the sample stair nosing (another blog post entirely) and so M has started working on laying the wood floors in the loft (they run directly into the stairs, so she needed to know how big it would be before finishing the upstairs and then laying the stairs.

Tomorrow, Melissa's mom and I will build the Ikea cabinets we bought last Sunday. They'll make up the window seat and built-ins in the master bedroom. I can't wait!

Let's get this party started!

When I lost my job on the last day of November, I thought it would lead to more time, more accomplished, more posts, more, well, everything. But it hasn't. I've been more absent than ever. I hope that will change.

Without further excuses, here is the kitchen with the BEAUTIFUL counters. I love them. M loves them. Though they look a bit underwhelming in the photos (and even in person) I know they were the right choice, and that once we have the appliances in, the island finished, and the island top installed (marble) it will all come together.  Photos via my cell phone, so forgive the less-than-stellar quality: