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 🙁
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.
Not really long as in longer than 2 days but long as in it felt very long. We got an early start Friday, hitting the road at 5pm and getting to the house by 8! I put the munchkin to bed and Ryan got started grouting the master bathroom! I cleaned paint off the master bedroom windows while he started and then by the time he was onto the floor I could help (not much help in the shower). We were up until 1am but got the entire bathroom grouted!
Grouted shower!Floor view (next day when Ryan was doing trim)
On Saturday we couldn’t walk in the bathroom until after about 3pm so Ryan worked on various other projects throughout the house. He put up some trim in the tvroom closet (door and a piece of baseboard) and he put the trim up around the top of our columns in the livingroom – they look great!
Caps on the columns
Now that the master bathroom is done we had our neighbor hang the last piece of sheetrock and start taping/mudding the last section of the house!
Taping/spackling in progress
Our painter had worked a bit during the week and worked all weekend again, trim is almost done, he’s coming again once this week and a bit next weekend and it should be done (what’s up already) – and if he has time we’ll add a bit more to his load after this weekend.
The stairway has paint now – looks great
I was pretty distracted with a toddler most of the weekend and never took pictures after this point (some time saturday afternoon) so the rest is choppy.
During naptime and kid free time I got the build-in drawers (tvroom) sanded and shellac’d so those can be installed (this is the 5 that weren’t in out of 10 total). I worked on the doorbell finally but may need a new button on the front to get it working. I got the back porch light installed and the back bedroom closet light wired up (needs a fixture but works as a light now).
Ryan worked on installing trim on the back porch using what scraps we have left once he finished all the trim in the master bathroom (3 windows, 1 door and baseboards) between Saturday and Sunday. Aside from one piece of cap molding in the master bathroom the upstairs trim is finished. The only trim really missing is the front hallway closet (inside) and some small baseboard in the back porch which Ryan will finish up next weekend. Ryan also got the little porch off the master ready for a new ceiling (added some strapping) and cleaned it up – it looks really nice. Once the ceiling is in and everything gets a coat of paint that porch will look great.
We stayed until 5:30 on Sunday, I got the last of the fragile kitchen stuff packed up while Ryan did a final cleaning of the bathroom tile with cheese cloth and we headed out with a truck load of stuff. Next weekend is the last weekend I’ll go out, the plan is to go kid free if we can and make the most of it. Then the following weekend Ryan will take a 3 day weekend and hopefully my dad can go out and they can do the upstairs floors – then the house is on the market. So close it’s unbelievable really.
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!
Finished!
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!
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!!!
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.
Poly is on!A view from the front door
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!
This weekend was awesome! Mom and Dad came out for the weekend and it was a very productive weekend! We started with this….
Doesn’t look too bad but the cupola area had patched in flooring that was uneven and the floors are just worn and old.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!
Jacobean stain – thinned out
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!!!!
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!
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!!!
