June 2014 – nicole.groudasfamily.com

Floor is finished

We put the final coat of poly on Sunday night! Ryan sanded when we got back from NY and I got it vacuumed and poly’d while he put Alex to bed! It’s done! And great timing, we can let it dry/cure for the week and we’ll definitely be using it a bit by next weekend!

Just a few small things left to do (crown molding and trim paint) and the front livingroom will be done! The front hallway has a bit more work and the diningroom is on hold because we have to do the bathroom above it (plumbing). So excited though! We can finally put furniture back in the rooms officially. Here comes my new office (front livingroom), sewing room (diningroom) and playroom!

Second Coat!

It’s not as shiny because it’s drying much faster. It’s also a bit lighter after the sanding I think.

I don’t think the 3rd coat will get done before the weekend, maybe Sunday night. This coat took a while with the sanding and vacuuming and it was just me this morning. It looks very smooth and nice (the first coat was a bit rough). Can’t wait till this one dries!!!

First coat of poly!

The stain wasn’t quite dry enough last night to do the first coat of poly so I took an hour and a half this morning and got it done by myself and Ryan took Alex to daycare to save me some time.

It went pretty well, the first coat doesn’t need sanding/vacuuming before hand so the second and third coats will take more time. The floor is somewhat protected now though with at least one coat on so I feel better about it.

Our contractor showed up today to start working on the small porch off of our bedroom. He took out the screens and took off the sills and is working on rebuilding it a bit. The porch roof leaks where the porch is since we took the siding off so he’s got to fix the leaks (flashing and shingles should help). I think we may leave the porch open (no screens) for now, it looks nicer but there’s a lot of work to make it look really nice that’s for sure!

FLOORS!!!!

This weekend was awesome! Mom and Dad came out for the weekend and it was a very productive weekend! We started with this….

The front hall had almost no finish left on it, just very worn

Dad and Ryan spent Saturday sanding the floors down … they came out great (and completely even)

Sunday we cleaned them up really well (all dust gone) and then Dad and I stained them Jacobean – nice and dark!

We’re letting them dry a while and tonight we’ll start the poly coats. 3 nights of poly then a few days to let them cure and we’ll be using this room again next week for sure! I’m so excited, the color came out perfect and once it’s done we’ll get the final white paint on the trim. The windows in these rooms are all done (2 coats of interior paint completed in the last few weeks). The last item on the checklist is crown molding – it’s always last for us 🙂

Our downstairs is almost complete – the front hallway is our last ‘room’ that needs a decent amount of work. The rest of the downstairs just needs some paint here and there (or crown molding) 🙂 Getting there!!!!

Shelves in the Closet… Happy thought indeed

That will never get old (from P&P). We have finished our linen closet (the floor needs to be finished but we’re not doing the upstairs floors just yet so that has to wait).

Meanwhile – I got the final coat of paint on the trim this weekend and put in the shelves (and filled them).

The doors are now painted and waiting for knobs to be added and the doors hung back up.

I also managed to paint the trim around 2 doors in the kitchen Sunday night before it was too late to want to continue. There is a lot of trim left to paint in this house but a little at a time moves it along!

first coat of paint on door trim (and the baseboard between them)

I’m VERY excited to have a linen closet, I was able to empty out a bunch of stuff from my bedroom and once the floors downstairs are done (this weekend???!!!!!) I can move my sewing area and desk/work area downstairs as well. Then it’s on to the last phase of our demo – the last 2 bedrooms in the house! Scary thought!

Linen Closet Progress

Not a lot of house progress this past weekend because we were potty training and Ryan had to work most of the weekend.

I did manage however to work during naptimes and our neighbor came over on Friday and painted windows. 9 windows got a single coat of interior paint done (the exterior is already done on these). These are the diningroom and livingroom windows. Hopefully this friday the second coat can get on them!

I got the closet trim primed and a coat of paint done. I also primed the closet doors. Trying to squeeze in some time to do the final coat of paint and start painting the doors so I can start using my closet! The shelves are just hanging around ready to be hung!

Nothing else exciting – next weekend will be similar – still potty training so can’t leave Alex too much but I may have my neighbor’s daughter come over to play with Alex a bit and get some time to do something or other around the house!