On memorial day my husband and I drove out to the house to move a truck load of stuff out and for me to get a final look at the house and do some final packing up.
While there I got the last of the kitchen packed, he started on the endless empty the attic project and I organized the tools in the basement into boxes to get moved later. Finally we ended the trip with one last home project – painting the floor of the back porch to match the stairs.
A nice grey to protect the ‘mud room’
As I was doing it and seeing how nice that back porch looks I was wishing we had done it sooner and enjoyed it. It’s such a nice large room but alas – priorities, it all gets done just as we sell.
While out there we also met with the buyers who are SO sweet and excited about the house. It made us feel so much better about selling knowing it’s going to a family that will appreciate it almost as much as we do 🙂
And that’s it for me, Ryan is going out the next 2 weekends to pack up the attic and basement and the rest of the furniture, hopefully we can fit it all in our new second storage unit (yes we already filled one). I’m done traveling now that i’m almost 36 weeks pregnant and Alex arrived at 37.
Our house for the last 6 years !New front door, new decking, new railings, new ceiling. All made to look like the original. New front stairs too!Come on in to the front entry – check out that lovingly restored banister and staircase (no more blue carpet on the stairs!)Tiled entry, front closet and new wainscotting throughout the downstairs and stairway. New crown molding makes the house look more period.Walk through the large archway into the front livingroom with cupola.The livingroom opens into the diningroom with these knee-walls with columns that mimic the front porch columns.The diningroom has original built-ins, new coffered ceiling and opens into the huge kitchen.The kitchen… aaaahhhh…. new tile floor, all new everything. Access to the basement and back porch/mud room off the back.Fridge/Freezer and microwave built-in to the cabinetsDouble oven gas range with matching hood, huge sink with disposal. Tile backsplash.Full bathroom on the first floor – marble and stone tile throughout, original tub and new everything else.
Not shown – the small room we used as a gym.
TV Room with full custom built-ins including 10 slow closing drawers in the base cabinets! Original maple floor in herringbone pattern.Heading upstairs – new sconce lighting up the stairs, the railing wraps to the hallway upstairs. At the top of the stairs are 2 bedrooms.The master bedroom – cupola goes all the way up through the attic. This cupola fits a queen bed with 2 nightstands perfectly.The master bedroom has a full size walk in closet with cedar walls and a private porch!Porch off the masterThe private master bathroom has a tiled shower with glass walls and double vanity.Another view of the showerThe nursery near the master bedroom is a large room with a cedar closet.Heading down the hallway we have a full bathroom, also tiled shower with soaker tub, large vanity. Perfect for kids and guests.
Not shown is the second floor laundry at the end of the hallway on a custom pedestal that reduces vibration and noise very well!
Finally at the end of the hallway is another full size bedroom with closet.
There’s a back staircase down to the mud room and full stair up to the attic next to the washer/dryer. That completes our tour. Hopefully we’ll find someone to love this house as much as we do. Now that we’ve been gone for a few months, back just to work on it, it’s not as hard to say goodbye as I thought. It’s a beautiful house and if I could just transplant it I definitely would, I love everything about it except for the location and lot size! Someday we’ll have our real dream house, for now someone else can get this one and hopefully love it like we did 🙂
Not official yet but pictures were taken yesterday and we’re waiting just to see it go up on the MLS. Ryan finished up lots of projects this weekend but I won’t have a lot of pictures until later.
Mirrors were hung in the bathroom monday morning
Monday Ryan got the mirrors and bars all hung in the bathroom. A dump run, got some mulch to finish up the yard cleanup, the thresholds were all poly’d so they can be installed this week with the last of the shoe molding up stairs.
Diningroom->Livingroom
The house is cleaned up and ready for showing. There are minimal interior changes left to finish up – mostly the back porch is the large project left and thresholds and shoe molding upstairs (which were waiting on floors to get finished). A few paint touchups left and a closet system to install in the front closet. Very close and hopefully we’ll have people looking at the house soon!
Once we get the official pictures i’ll do an updated post with those, i can’t wait to see them!
Ryan and Dad have had a busy couple days already and the upstairs floors are looking amazing (from pictures anyway, they probably look even better in person). Dad is home and Ryan is still doing poly as I type evidently but the first coat they did was Shellac so this is already the second coat, last coat to go on tomorrow. Hopefully it dries fast.
Stairs sanded and scraped by hand — Ryan’s project while Dad did the sanding of the hallway and bedrooms upstairsPoly on the stairs – i love the colors – old wood!Back bedroom with tinted polyMaster bedroom!
Late night for Ryan, hopefully he can sleep in a bit tomorrow since he has to wait for the poly to dry anyhow. This is a big ticket item getting checked off the list – the list is getting pretty small now thank goodness!
Oh and Ryan sent me a picture of the Diningroom – including the built-ins put back together and the new section of wainscoting/shadow boxes!
Built-ins!Finished ceiling with crown is impressive!New wainscoting – just one small section of wall to paint there by the kitchen (I think that’s done by now actually).
Everything is really coming along, I wish I could be there to help but this weekend was my nephew’s birthday party and I can’t be by the poly fumes anyhow 🙁
The Shower glass is installed! The master bathroom is basically done (mirrors have to be hung and some bars). Yay!
Shower glassPartial wall of glass
I only get to witness it remotely but it sure looks nice in pictures! Dad is already out there sanding floors while Ryan works remote today. Going to be a productive weekend for them out there!
The master bathroom plumbing is finished thanks to Jason! All we have left is the glass shower install (tomorrow) and the master bathroom is done (time for final inspection!). I’ll call and set up the inspection for Monday.
Double vanity!Shower!Toilet!Full bathroom shot
I bet Ryan can’t wait to use the new bathroom in full view of the neighbors this weekend (no curtains up) 🙂
Jason also got a new hose line installed on the back of the house (the original hose lines had burst and we were running a long hose out the door of the basement this last year).
Hose!
I also finished painting the doors/drawers for the built-ins, I just have to strip the hinges of paint and put the hardware back on and Ryan can pop them in tonight when he gets to NH. He’s going to work remote tomorrow so Friday night he can get an early start sanding and working on the floors. I bought all the poly today, going to be a long weekend since he took Monday off and pictures of the house are going to be taken monday to officially list it!
This week marks my last contribution to work on the NH house. I am spending the evenings/nights stripping and now painting the built in drawers/doors for the diningroom built-ins.
Monday and Tuesday I got the stripping and sanding done. I also got them primed Tuesday night. Now they are getting painted and should be ready to head back to NH on Thursday night. I have to clean the hardware too and put it back on so Ryan can just slip them in place.
Monday night stripping progress
I’m glad to be done with the hard work, this week has been exhausting and hopefully starting next week I can relax in the evenings again – maybe even watch TV! Friday night Ryan will be in NH and after movie night with the kiddo I’m either going to pass out or finally play with my new machine and do some quilting! Can’t wait!!!
This weekend was the last weekend I plan to go out to the house to work! We’re busy the month of may and with the baby coming I won’t travel out there in June. Ryan and Dad will go out next weekend to do the floors upstairs and Ryan will stay and finish a few more things. We have our contractor back working on some things this week and next if we need him. The house goes on the market on Monday next week!
Let’s try to recap the weekend a bit.
Friday night Ryan got the drawers installed in the built-ins so the tv-room built-ins are finally completely finished!
Built-ins are finished!
Since the doors are all painted I put the hardware back on all the downstairs doors and they look great. Ryan hung the tv-room closet door too that I had finished painting last week.
Saturday we got an early start, the first thing I did was clean and mom the diningroom which was scuffed up from the painter, then I covered the floor with paper and a new drop cloth knowing we’d have people working in there still but wanting to minimize damage. Our contractor came out (he’s back from Arizona!) and he did the crown molding in the ceiling over the weekend – it looks awesome!
Diningroom ceiling crown is done (just needs paint!)
His wife is actually going to do the painting for us, she painted the front closet on Sunday. She’s also going to do some cleaning downstairs for us this week to get the house show ready (wash windows and such).
I got the built-ins stripped (just the front face) and sanded. Ryan put up the last bit of trim on the built-ins and they are ready for caulking/prime/paint!
Built-ins are ready
My project at home here this week is to strip/prime/paint the drawers and doors so ryan can put those back in next weekend.
Maribeth and Dan worked on outside projects mostly for us. First Maribeth painted the outside of the little upstairs porch!
Porch is painted
Then she and Dan scraped the old paint off the back porch and got it primed (the 2 sides). Our contractor will do the siding on the back side of the porch this week and get the final paint on everything back there I think.
Back porch siding scraped/primedOther side
A big project Ryan did with Dan’s help is getting the ceiling of the front porches done (the wrap around and upstairs porch). They finished putting up the last pieces of paneling, then quarter round around the edges, then lattice, flat trim on the seams.
Porch has a ceiling!
Once that was done I could put up the ceiling fan on the porch!
Ceiling fan!
Speaking of fans, I got the back bedroom fan and closet light installed. I also go the master bedroom fan installed and fixed the master bedroom closet light wiring which was flaky/not working for some reason.
Back bedroom fan!Master bedroom fan
Ryan also got the hand rail on the front staircase installed (the second one) and finished the small railing by the side door which Maribeth then painted. The one last back railing he got the hand rail and bottom piece installed, but has to do some sort of railing still, it won’t match exactly but it never did anyhow before.
Maribeth got the final coat of yellow paint on the little porch off the master bedroom.
Little porch all cleaned up and finishedAnother view from the little porch
With a ton of help Ryan got the vanity upstairs, he had to cut the side of the vanity that sticks out further than the granite in order to fit it properly in the bathroom – (that was unplanned work) but it came out great!
Vanity installed! And he could put in the last piece of baseboard on the right there.Another vanity viewAnother bathroom view
The bathroom list remaining is just : Paint touch ups (Last baseboard), hanging mirrors and bars, plumbing and glass. Then it’s done! That was definitely fast for a bathroom renovation!
Ryan and Dan also moved the washer and dryer upstairs on Saturday and I tested them out. They are awesome! Not too loud at all like everyone said, I ran a full heavy load through and you could barely hear it during the spin cycle. The dryer noise was actually louder (and not too loud). Man I wish we had done this particular project sooner so I could have enjoyed it!
Washer/dryer upstairs!
Finally one of the projects that was just waiting to be done.. the banister! Everyone pitched in Saturday night and got the banister sanded. Maribeth and I stained it and she waxed it on sunday as I was packing to leave. It looks awesome! We’ll have it covered with plastic next weekend while the floors will be done so it won’t need to be dusted and it will certainly be a showcase feature!
Banister – wax in progress!Another view
What an exhausting weekend, everyone worked so hard and we were all sore after but so much is done. My list of what’s left to do finally fits on a single page! That’s amazing! After this week I can focus on getting ready for the pig roast and then baby coming. As we move more and more stuff out of the house (mostly attic and basement/tools left to move) we’ll have to find a place to store more stuff (another storage unit!?) like tools but it’s a good problem to have as it means we’re getting close to not paying a mortgage on a house we don’t live in (after 8 months already of doing so!), i’m hoping we can keep it to 1 year total.
Our house…. for now
Goodbye Nashua – hopefully I’ll see the house finished when we sell it if baby arrival works out well with that! (She has to come a couple weeks before we close in order for me to deal with the drive out!). I think that’s very likely.
