March 2015 – nicole.groudasfamily.com

Last Kid free weekend

Well this past weekend was most likely the last weekend we’ll go out kid free – the next weekend we go out is for our ‘vacation’ so of course we’ll bring Alex (plus it’s her birthday weekend!). After that we’re getting close to the end of what I can do anyhow as I get further along so we’ll bring her along.

We drove out Thursday night and both worked from the house on Friday so we could get the new vanity delivered. Then we worked friday night from 6-11 with a break to go to Lowe’s for our tile!.

Friday night was mostly making a new door frame for the master bedroom door and getting that installed. Ryan also worked on some chair rail in the hallway and I got some outlets installed in the master bedroom.

Saturday we started with another hard project and got the master bathroom fan vented out through the attic frieze board. Ryan had to hang out of the half moon window to cut the hole for it, it was quite the ordeal but the fan is vented!

Fan vented! I didn’t take a pic outside because it was snowing – ugg in spring!

Other than installing lights (I got the front hallway lights all installed up the stairs and top of stairs!), I also took up the carpet on the stairs finally. We can finally see these beautiful stairs that will look great refinished!

Stairs! the lower part of the wall just needs to be painted and this will look great!

Ryan got trim around the rest of the upstairs hallway (chair rail and door trim around the master bedroom door). Then he did the other doors in the master bedroom (outside door and closet door). The bathroom door is our last one in there that needs to be installed and trimmed out!

Trim around doors and some baseboards done too

I got the vanity light boxes installed (we were waiting on the vanity so i could make sure the lights were centered above the sinks properly and I think we are good here).

Our neighbor finished spackling the back porch and got that sanded. It’s ready for primer/paint and trim! Then he built the knee wall in the bathroom for the shower and put in some blocking for the glass door to hang on when we get that.

We headed back to NY Saturday night at 7 so we could have a family day with Alex on Sunday which was very a great idea and ended up being a blast.

I’m headed back to the house this week to get the master bathroom inspections done so that the next weekend we are out we can move forward on the bathroom (and our neighbor can start sheetrocking it). Exciting!

Lot’s left to do but the inside is coming along nicely and if we hire someone to paint we are getting closer for sure!

Trim and Outlets

This past weekend we went out to work on the house but had Alex so that left Ryan doing most of the work and I got naptime and tvtime to work a bit on electrical. First Ryan started by attempting to install the master bathroom door however it doesn’t fit in the old frame without being cut down so he put that on hold with a partial install. Once you clean up the old door frames and screw them together they get a bit tighter and the door needs probably 1/4″ taken off the hinge side which is fine, just annoying to bring down to the basement and needs 2 people to do well.

So he moved to trim while Alex and I went shopping at various lumber yards to buy what is hopefully the last bit of trim we need to buy. We bought the rest of the window apron and baseboard cap trim in Brookline then over to Hudson to get the rest of the chair rail and shadow box trim (hopefully). Ryan got the master bedroom windows finished up (just aprons really were left), then got the back bedroom windows trimmed out except for the tops – we leave the tops to last so we know which pieces of trim to cut/use as we are limited and need to use the longer pieces for doors first.

Baseboard cap in the hallway – top of stairs

He also installed the last door in the back hallway once we realized we couldn’t bring the washer/dryer up that way anyhow due to the basement door being too small, so they will come up the front steps – no reason not to install the door and get it trimmed out too.

Last door installed and trimmed out in hallway (minus the top of course)

Ryan put the trim up around the washer/dryer stand and I caulked and water proofed it with redguard. It’s ready to be sanded (front) and painted then the washer and dryer can be installed!

washer/dryer stand waterproofed and trimmed out

Note the baseboard is capped all around the stand too – so the upstairs hallway is pretty much done trim wise. The top of the stairs section still has to be done – we need to install our bedroom door and do the chair rail and boxes there so more work.

Aprons installed on the last 3 master bedroom windows!

During my breaks I got the outlets in the upstairs hallway wired up/installed and hooked up the washer/dryer outlets to the panel box so the upstairs hallway is all wired. The only electrical left is to wire up the master bathroom and install the rest of the outlets in the 2 bedrooms, then install the light at the top of the stairs. Getting so close!

It was a pretty productive weekend, we stayed until noon on Sunday and then packed up the truck and headed home. Ryan helped my dad on their new house for a bit and man were we all wiped out that night!

This weekend we are home and celebrating my nieces’ first birthday! Then next weekend it’s back out to work on more trim, hopefully finish up electrical and work on cleaning up the diningroom built-ins if we can!

Plumbing!

Last week my brother-in-law came out and finished up the rough-in-plumbing for our master bathroom! It’s almost ready for inspections, we want to get the rest of the cement board down on the floor and I need to hook up the wires to the fan and probably hook up the exhaust pipe to the fan then it will be ready!

Also while we’ve been in NY Ryan’s dad has been busy stripping trim for us. We have a box of stripped and sanded rosettes ready to install as well as a little bit of leftover trim we had hanging out in the basement. I got the door frame for our bedroom door stripped last night so Ryan can install the door this weekend and then finish up the trim in the upstairs hallway!

Looking forward to a hopefully productive weekend but we’re also bringing the Boo so we’ll get time with her too. Oh and this nice weather – awesome… come on spring!

Kid-Free weekend again

We are on an every-other weekend schedule going out to work on the house and this weekend Alex stayed with her grandparents so we could go out by ourselves and make more progress! It was a productive day and a half for sure.

Saturday Ryan worked on trim all day – starting with the master bedroom, putting up window trim. We need to buy more window apron trim but he got what we had up and the windows look great!

3 without aprons (plus we need aprons for the back bedroom and master bath)

Next up he worked on baseboards. He couldn’t finish the uptairs hallway shadow boxes and chair rail because the door for the master bedroom needs to be installed, and before that it needs to be stripped, so we packed it up and brought it back and Ryan will strip it here and we’ll bring it back ready to install.

Had to cut the old baseboard down to match and then put in a new piece.

Notice the blue rug at the top of the stairs is gone! Floor looks great underneath. We didn’t take it off all the stairs just this section so far.

Baseboards continue around the linen closet and down the hallway on one side.

And partially around the washer/dryer stand

This is the door to the attic trimmed out (no pic before) and technically there’s baseboard on the right side of it too…

I focused on ceilings and electrical this weekend. First I hooked up smoke detectors so we now have all the smoke detectors hooked up and connected! I also put a light in at the top of the back stairs and a bunch of the covers for the HVAC in the ceilings (and recessed lights have covers now)..

Light at the top of the stairs in the back and smoke detector all hooked up 🙂

Covers on HVAC and another smoke detector (had to do upstairs and downstairs but didn’t bother taking pics of all of them!)

Washer and dryer outlets and put the trim piece on the drain/water thing.

The washer/dryer stand is just about ready – we have to put a piece of trim around it and water proof it, then we’ll bring up the washer/dryer and then we can put the last door in place at the top of the back stairs.

On Sunday we worked a few hours on the master bathroom. We had our neighbor clean up the ceiling in the bathroom and start sheetrocking a bit (just one section) on Saturday. Ryan put in the ceiling fan/light box Sunday morning and then we ran all the rough electrical in there (outlets and lights).

Fan installed, just need to hook up that wire.

We drew out the plans for the vanity and the shower so we’re ready to finish the rough-in plumbing hopefully this week. We’re going to order what we need for the bathroom this week too (need the vanity placement so we can plan the light boxes exactly).

So the master bathroom has been started, trim work continues nicely and electrical is going along. I replaced a bunch of the switches with the nice rockers we are using and started putting in outlets in the upstairs hallway.

The next trip out we’ll have Alex so probably getting more trim done and I’ll get a bit more electrical done during naps and such.

OH – and we got the built-in doors hung – they need a tiny bit of sanding down to close nicer and then touch up painting in place, then we’ll put knobs and magnet pieces on and they’ll be done…