Month: March 2011

Deliveries

Today was full of deliveries.  Ryan was very excited that his new 58″ plasma TV arrived safely and he’ll have it to watch basketball all weekend while I’m away.

new tv

I was excited that our fan for the gym arrived.  We got a 52″ fan.  The only downside was that it came with a control module and a remote instead of using a regular control.  We had planned on using the Maestro control we purchased which included a fan module.  So after pulling out the fan and taking a look I decided to try unhooking the wireless control module they had and replacing it with ours.

A couple hours later and it worked!  I was very surprised this worked, I was sure I’d be plugging it all back in as best I could (I did jot some notes down).  So the fan is in and the fancy switch we like works!

Gym fan installed!
Maestro Fan/Light dimmer switch - and it works!

Considering I didn’t get home from work until 8pm and didn’t start fussing with the fan till 9, it’s not too bad that it’s midnight and I”m just now getting back to fixing our internet (router was reset) and heading to bed.  All in a days work.  Off to NYC this weekend with my cousin Hannah to see Wicked!  First up a stop to see my sister – and there will be pictures!!!

Front Hallway electric done

A quick sand and a second coat and the gym floor was done for the day this morning.  Still a tinted coat, the third coat will be a clear coat.

Second coat finished!
The gym floor with 2 coats!

Once the floor was done we dove back into the electrical.  Now that we had daylight it wasn’t difficult to go into the attic to wire the upstairs hallway lights.  A few hours later and we had both the stairway lights (sconces) and the upstairs light wired to their own 3-way switches.  Lights lights everywhere.

New switch at the bottom of the stairs
Switches at the top of the stairs
Switch by our bedroom door

After dad headed home I did cleanup.  I’m surprised by how much we got done this weekend.  Poor ryan is getting the cold I had last week so it’s going to be a quiet evening.  Maybe some sewing if I’m not too tired to do anything but read 🙂

Floors and more…

What a LONG day – we’re just now sitting down after a 14 hour day (of course we had breaks for lunch and dinner but not long)!  And the progress we made shows what a day we had.

First up – the gym floor!!!  Dad spent the morning sanding it down and we did a bonus section of the hallway outside the gym (leading into the kitchen).  By lunch it was ready to coat (so we headed to home depot to get some stained poly).

First pass with the belt sander
I helped with the vacuuming between sanding passes
This is the bonus section we decided to do, first we had to take up the linoleum in layers
Scraping up the felt stuff from the edges so dad can run the edge sander
Final time around the gym edge
A look at what the oak would look like with a clear coat (using mineral spirits)

At this point we broke for lunch and for a trip to pick up some poly and a paint brush.  Before I show the finished floors I’ll show what Ryan did this morning.

While dad worked on the gym (with some help from me), Ryan got an early start putting up the window trim in the tv room…

Just getting started.
First window finished
Finishing up the second just in time for a lunch break (and a home depot run)
And the windows are trimmed out!

And back from lunch, we decided to try mixing a tinted poly (minwax) with a clear poly (to thin it out a bit).  We didn’t like the oak with a clear coat and wanted a darker floor.  Here’s our new gym floor!

look at that color!
And 20 minutes later (or thereabout) the floor is finished! (Well coat #1 anyway)

While Dad did the poly, Ryan and I installed the outside lights finally.

Before...
And the lights are up!
Check out those front lights, now if only they had some electricity...

So while at lunch we decided we needed to plan another project for the afternoon since the floors only needed another 20 minutes.  We decided to work on the upstairs closet, not realizing what we were in for!

Hours later, we basically just got some wiring done – and undone.  First Ryan took out the baseboards and then I took out the insulation from the ceiling (that was a messy job!).  Then we took a look at the mess of wiring and tried to figure how much we could remove and leave the rest of the non-closet lights working.

Finally, we re-routed the original wires so all the upstairs lights still worked.  We also put in a closet light with a switch.

Closet light!

Then we dealt with having no electricity downstairs (in the front hall and livingroom).  We decided to actually wire the front hall off the planned feed that was run.  The livingroom which was tied to the hall light is temporarily staying on there but now the switches in the front hall all work!

Outside fan, porch lights and hallway light 3-way all wired!
New coat closet light wired up

The only lights we don’t have hooked up yet is the upstairs hallway light and sconce lighting on the stairs because we need to run some wires upstairs in a new run.  Just doing what we did took hours.  So no real closet progress was made but the electrical is in good shape!

That was a very long day.  Tomorrow the second coat will go on the gym floor!  Time to rest up!

 

On the mend

Well the cold hit hard but fast and I seem to be doing much better now.  I’ve learned from past experience that the cough that persists can be cleared up with my Advaire Rx if I start it once my cold subsides and it’s been helping again.  So I’m ready for the weekend (well after I get all my work done for today that is – got quite a back load from this week) 🙂

In other ‘mending’ news I did manage a little sewing.  I finally finished the second panel for my sister’s curtains!  2 more panels to go!

tab top curtains for window 1

And rather than start right on the next pair I decided to pull out the fun fabrics and get a start on the wall hanging.  There’s applique involved so I wanted to make sure to start early enough on this.  I got the rail blocks done (only 3) and I cut the matching strips for the crip quilt which is going to need 3 or so more fabrics before it can be pieced.  I also had to draw a monkey for applique because there isn’t one in the wall hanging, the zebra is going to be replaced.  You can see a picture of the wallhanging and crib quilt here along with my monkey and my blocks.

Wallhanging start for my nephew

This weekend we’re doing the floor in they gym!  I am So excited.  That room will be done very soon now!

Gym Ceiling is done

Monday night I could tell I was getting sick so as I usually do when that happens, I take some meds and try to squeeze in one last “chore” before I’m out for the count.  Since Ryan had to work late I made myself a pizza and then did the final coat on the Gym ceiling.  This was really just cutting in and then rolling the one corner we had patched.  The rest of the ceiling didn’t need a third (or fourth) coat 🙂

I ended the night by working on stripping the Gym door some more.  I’m just about finished with one side.  I figured since my neck hurt from looking up, I’d do the stripping which usually hurts my neck from looking down 🙂

Unfortunately taking Nyquil did not help me sleep at all, I was up most of the night, congested and with a headache (severe cold).  Around 5am I took some mucinex D which helped a lot and I was able to get a couple of hours of sleep.

I haven’t managed much more today than to watch a movie (Princess and the Frog finally).  Looking at the computer is not good on my eyes when I have a headache but I figured I should check some emails and make sure I wasn’t missing anything important.

I’m heading over to the store to get some juice since I haven’t felt up to eating much and need some vitamins.  I sure hope this cold passes quickly, I have a few more things I’d like to work on around the house this week.

Family weekend

Not a lot of house progress this weekend but we had lots of family time so it was a great weekend.  Friday night Ryan put up the rest of the door trim, although it’s only tacked in place with the nail gun, it still needs to be secured with a few more finish nails before I can caulk and prime it.

Door trim up!

Saturday we went to Ryan’s sister’s house, spent the day and night with his family (his parents came too).  We celebrated Ryan’s father’s birthday and spent the time playing with the nieces.  It was a great weekend.  Sunday we drove home and relaxed a bit, then I did some painting.  I got the ceiling cut in and painted – which was a lot of work and unfortunately definitely needs a second coat, at least of cutting in (which was the hard part) 🙂

ceiling painted (again) 🙂

Not a lot left to do on this room.  If I get a night or two to do some painting we’ll be just about done!  My goal of finishing the room entirely by the end of March looks very realistic now!  2 years and 2 rooms completed, not a bad goal 🙂

Some painting

Ryan had to work late tonight so after I got home and had some dinner I decided to do some painting.  First I sanded the crown molding and baseboards lightly.  After cleaning that up I put the second (and final) coat on the crown molding and then the first coat on the baseboards.

Crown molding finished
First coat on the baseboards

Once i cleaned up the paint brush from that, I pulled out the bathroom paint and did a coat on the spots we had touched up.  They probably need a second coat still, we’ll see how it looks once it dries.

Bathroom wall touched up

Tomorrow night is stitch night!  Twice in one month, definitely a record since I moved to NH 🙂

Gym Progress

This weekend we focused on the gym, Ryan only had Saturday off, having to work Sunday.  Saturday we got started with the baseboards, making the main part out of the poplar we have.  Then following it with a cap piece we bought at a millwork place in Brookline.

First corner finished
Baseboard installed all around
Baseboard finished!
All finished!

While Ryan finished up the baseboard I went around and primed all our touchups on the wall and ceiling and then caulked the baseboards.  Finally Ryan installed the two side pieces of trim for the gym door, not having time to put the top piece and corners on yet before we broke for dinner and to relax.

Sunday while Ryan worked I did a few projects.  First I sanded the baseboards and the window trim.  Then I cleaned the room really well before starting to paint.  I started with a coat of paint on the crown molding and window trim (final coat on the window trim).  Then I primed the baseboards.

Baseboard primed and door trim started
Wall spot primed
Windows with a final coat

After finishing up the painting I started on the door, I’m stripping it down to refinish.  I got a good start on the first side before dinner time.  Now we’re relaxing while watching Les Miserables 25th anniversary performance on WGBH – it’s awesome!

Quilt Time

My Aunt and I have a few quilt kits we bought together over the years and finally we’ve made one of them – it’s Japanese fabrics and I showed the blocks we did a few weeks ago.  Wednesday night we finished the blocks and put them all together with sashing.  All that’s left is a border and then quilting!  It’s a small little quilt and I love the colors.  I think this will have to hang in the tvroom when it’s finished (both it and the tv room finished) 🙂

Blocks all done!

The paper piecing really helped with the points not getting chopped off – but it took me 20 minutes to pull all the paper off the back when done 🙂

Today is kind of a busy day, between work, haircut at lunch time and a show tonight in Boston I’m all over the place.  My friend’s mother couldn’t go to see Mary Poppins with her tonight so she offered me her now extra ticket – I couldn’t be more excited about this last minute surprise but I’m sorry her mom couldn’t make it and hopefully she’s feeling better.

Then the rest of the weekend I’ll be working on the gym!  Saturday we’ll put up trim and baseboards and Sunday I’ll be painting while Ryan works!  In 2 weeks my Dad might come out to help us finish up the floor, that should be the last thing no the list besides a coat of paint on the walls by then – can’t wait!