Front Porch

Wrapping Things Up

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!

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!

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!

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.

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.

Once that was done I could put up the ceiling fan on the porch!

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.

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 finished

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

April Staycation… in NH

Well this was our last stay-cation at our NH house where we take a week off of work to work on the house, definitely not as much fun when it’s finishing a house that will get sold 🙁 Add to that my back has been killing me (sciatic) with this part of pregnancy (so much fun) but we got a ton done and we are on track to get the house listed in mid-may i think. Let’s see if I can recap the vacation a bit…

We drove out Friday night (Alex’s birthday). Saturday Ryan worked on getting trim installed, the painter was starting on monday so he wanted all but the master bathroom trim done if possible. He got the back bedroom windows and doors trimmed, then the window by the washer/dryer…

Baseboards done … the old baseboard tops had to be stripped of paint and cleaned up a bit then the caps put on, plus a small piece had to be pieced in.

When i had time I focused on electrical. These lights were done the last weekend we were out but I didn’t take pics so here are the lights i installed in the stairway and top of stairs.

I got the back bedroom outlets all wired up at some point during the week (a naptime – there weren’t many naptimes). So master bedroom and bathroom are really the last outlets left.

Sunday Ryan worked on the master bedroom trim (baseboards again) and also patched up the floor where the radiator had done damage. The floors are officially ready to be refinished now (well when we have time!).

Over the weekend our neighbor finished spackling the bathroom and then sanded it on sunday so I could prime it and Mark could paint it Mon-Tue, we went with a light grey paint.

Monday started the master bathroom project in earnest, Ryan had to get the shower pan installed which took some work and included putting the drain in, then the foam floor insert (Kerdi system). Ryan’s dad came out to help Monday afternoon-Wednesday which was a huge help. The kerdi system involved putting down the underlayment then letting it dry so working on something else until they could tile again. It slowed down the project but hopefully is worth it.

The project they chose as extra was putting up most of the front porch (wrap-around) ceiling! They put upstrapping to nail the new ceiling to and then put up bead board panels. We’ll need to put up some trim on the seams and around the edges to make it look really finished but it’s a huge improvement and looks great. Over the 3 days they got all but 2 panels installed.

In the bathroom on Tuesday they got the floor to the shower done AND the floor to the whole bathroom tiled! All day on hands/knees as this is a large bathroom! Oh and Mark also painted the entire bathroom

Starting the floor tile, simple subway layout of 12×12 on the floor.

Unfortunately they needed to give the tile 24 hours to dry so the shower project had to wait until Wed night before starting. So that’s when they worked on the porch ceiling the most.

I got some lights in the master bathroom wired up so Ryan would have light in there at night if he tiled the shower. I also worked a little on the banister project I have planned. I’m sanding it lightly with 300 grit, cleaning it well, staining it dark so it hides any knicks then i’ll give it a wax. Here is a section I did with just stain, no wax yet…

It darkens a bit but really hides the old knicks well and looks awesome in person! This section only took about an hour so won’t take too long to do the rest!

The painter started on Monday with prepping (filling holes and sanding) the trim we had installed. Then he got to priming – he’s doing all the trim upstairs, some downstairs and all the doors we’ve had dipped. I actually drove the last 3 doors down to Worcester on Tuesday to be dipped and they’ll be brought back this week when I make another trip out!

Painter got the trim all primed in the back bedroom

Some great progress this week… Alex, Mark and I headed back late Wednesday night so I could clean the house and prep for the birthday party Thur and Fri. Ryan stayed through Thursday, tiling the shower!

The glass guys came and measured on Thursday once the shower was tiled and Ryan also met with the realtor … about 4 more weeks and we’ll be listing hopefully!

We have a few big projects left and lots of little things. We need to fit in finishing the floors, the painting is being handled so that’s not a concern. The bathroom has to be grouted – this weekend! And then the glass can be installed in the shower. We have to get the vanity upstairs and put in – that is crazy heavy and will be tough but hopefully soon.

Weekend away

Ryan and I had our first kid free weekend since Alex was born! And that weekend involved driving to NH to work on the house – and Ryan’s back is still out. It was definitely worth it though, although the 5 hour drive back was horrible (it’s normally under 3 hours).

We drove out Friday night after dropping Alex over at the grandparents for a sleepover. Saturday we slept in until 9am – oh so glorious! Then it was time to start painting (for me, Ryan’s back was horrible). We had our neighbor paint the last 3 windows (first coat inside) and I started by finishing up the bit of red molding around the porch (of course it rained!) – but the red is all protected so not biggie.

Friday, our neighbor got the yellow by the stairs and all around the skirting sanded and painted final coat! He also finished painting the last railing so we just have the 1/2 railing and the back railing we plan to rebuild still left!

Next I started on the little porch off the master bedroom, I got the last tiny bit stripped, everything sanded, cleaned up and then primed – priming until after dark! Then I went in and did a coat of paint on one window that was lagging behind (it needed a coat of outside paint). Then I called it a night!

Sunday Ryan was feeling a bit better so after breakfast and a trip to home depot we both worked on painting the little porch. He painted anything he could reach without bending at all – which was the red and then the posts in yellow. I started by caulking and filling any holes that had been missed, then painted the green siding, then the rest of the red and yellow that Ryan couldn’t finish. We were done by 1:30, then time to clean up and pack up and hit the road (and hit the closed i-90 resulting in a 5 hour drive).

And the porch is painted – the green is just primer but the yellow is first coat of paint!

Red! The ceiling will be a new drop ceiling, so that can be ignored.

Another view. The shiplap that’s white will probably be green, undecided still.

Good progress for a weekend where Ryan’s back is out. We decided we’re going to have to have our contractor finish the back porch- no way we will be able to before it’s winter with Ryan’s back in bad shape. So now we can switch to inside projects and if we get a nice day by chance we can do the final coat of paint on that porch but no worries, it’s protected for winter!

Painting Weekend

Back to NH this past weekend and of course it rained on Saturday 😉 Ryan’s back is still out – worse this weekend than the last! I was able to get some painting done though. On Saturday I vacuumed the master bedroom ceiling/walls and then got them primed! My plan in there is to save money and use some of the old paint we have that’s too dark and take it to home depot to have the colors lightened to more neutral colors. I have a light brown (2 cans) and a dark green (tv room color) that I’d like to use up in the upstairs rooms to save some money and use up the paint!

Sunday the weather was great, so after some errands in the morning I got the green painting on the outside of the house finished up while our neighbor painted some more railings for us! The outside painting is winding down, next weekend we hope to work on the back porch, we still have the small porch off the master bedroom left and a tiny bit of red paint on a molding to finish up and we’ll be done.

Finally this section of green is finished!

This green wall by the side door is also finally finished. Only 1 last railing to paint, then the posts and frieze boards by the skirting.

Getting there, once the outside is buttoned up for winter we’ll be focused on getting trim installed in the master bedroom, front hall and upstairs hall. The sooner we can get the master bedroom done completely, we can put our bed back in there and empty out the front livingroom again so we can paint that crown molding! Lots to do!

Deck Stained

(Edited to add pictures!!!)

With the rain every weekend really messing with plans and cold weather coming soon I decided a week ago to just do the deck anyway, it’s a covered porch so the majority of it would be just fine and hopefully the rain would hold off anyhow (spoiler : it didn’t).

Well I spent all day Saturday sanding the deck while Chloe watched Alex and Ryan painted the red molding on the porch soffit (and the tops of the posts). That came out awesome! Finally about 6pm I had finished sanding and cleaning up and started staining. By 7 I had to quick for a few min to give Alex a bath and then finished up while Chloe read books to Alex. I was done in time to do the rest of bedtime!

Old to new – hopefully the new darkens over the winter!

The red molding under the soffit was painted all around

Up to this point (it got dark) – and notice the vertical frieze boards installed on this side of the skirting – there is only one more piece by the stairs to add and that will be done!

There wasn’t any packing to do because our truck was filled with our new bed (king size bed!) so we just relaxed after bedtime. Of course at 6am I woke up to pouring rain! Our windows were all out upstairs too (getting painted by our neighbor) but luckily the rain was really coming straight down so everything was fine (except the ends of the deck that got soaked!).

No idea how it really faired, it stopped raining for our drive Sunday and I’m heading up there tonight and I’ll get to see how it looks after a week of drying.

This past weekend we stayed in NY and I got the built-in doors primed finally. They still need paint but the primer I could spray on since it was sanded after anyhow. I really need to set up a better spot to paint – the primer had tons of bugs stuck in it 🙂

No pic weekends

OK so the trouble with driving out to work on the house for a day and then driving back – means I always forget to take pictures! Arg! 2 weekends in a row now! I don’t want to forget what we did so I’ll update anyhow and hopefully next weekend I’ll remember pics.

We’ve been driving out Friday nights then Saturday Ryan is doing errands with Alex (dump runs etc). The weekend before last I sanded the railings and got them stained after we went and bought new stain that actually matches this time 🙁 Then I went up on the roof over the porch and painted the red molding that was left and the green siding – and just as I finished it started pouring. So the last 5 boards that weren’t dry all have to be re-painted as the paint washed off – yup!

We waited for the storm to pass before hitting the road and coming home Saturday night that weekend but last weekend we stayed until Sunday morning which worked better (rain again too).

So this weekend it was planning to rain again so i still couldn’t sand and stain the deck (UGG!!!). But I had the morning rain free so I painted the soffit around the porch yellow (part of it that needed one more coat). So the porch soffit just needs the red molding painted next.

After that Ryan and I worked on installing the last trim around the skirting of the porch (I believe there’s 1 piece left that needed an angle cut and hence a different saw) while Alex napped. I got the nail holes all filled and caulking done while he installed those. Georgia came over to play with alex for the afternoon/evening so we then built the small 1/2 railing that goes by the side door and got that ready to prime/paint before installing (so we brought it back home with us). We’ll install it next week!

We took the doors off the built-ins as well, hoping to have time to paint those this week and bring them back to install. The more we can do here in the evenings like that (painting big doors is next on the list) the better!

That’s it. Next weekend Chloe is coming over to watch Alex (getting lots of cousin help!) so hopefully the rain will hold off and we can get the deck stained already!!!!

This and That

The last week and weekend has been a bunch of projects so I’ll just update using pictures on all the work that’s been done recently.

During the week we had a crew working on the siding on the back side of the house! They got the siding installed and the soffit stripped and all primed (new siding primed too). good progress. Our contractor is back today getting paint on the soffit and siding and when the crew comes back they’ll install the red molding and take down the pump jacks.

Progress from Monday – just our contrctor getting the base piece on, the tar paper up and the window cab on.

On Friday I got the front stairs sanded and stained in anticipation of rain this weekend (there wasn’t any of course) 🙂

The color is supposed to match exactly but it doesn’t – I’m pretty sure the deck used to be reddish like this and age just darkened it.

Also last week our contractor finished the front hall closet door – got the knob installed and the door fits very nicely now!

We had our neighbor help with demo cleanup and room prep Friday and Saturday so with that help and our time Saturday and Sunday we got the Master bedroom and back bedroom ready for insulation. Wiring is just about done (i’ll finish securing some wires tonight) and rooms are nice and cleaned up.

Master bedroom – light is wired, outlets are wired (from existing outlets) and rooms is ready for insulation and sheetrock!

Ryan framed out the new door that goes to the master bathroom

A few wires for me to secure tonight but otherwise this room is ready!

The back bedroom is a step behind the master bedrom, only because the light isn’t wired yet. The outlets just need to be secured (and existing wires need to be put into new boxes) – then that room is also ready for both insulation and sheetrock! These 2 rooms are moving along quickly. We are leaving baseboards in these rooms and sheetrocking up to them. Then we’ll just put the baseboard caps on.

Back bedroom – all cleaned up and ready to go!

I got the attic all cleaned up (the side that needs insulation still). I have some stuff that goes in the garbage but otherwise the attic is ready for insulation too!

A productive weekend, we also had a yard sale on Sunday to get rid of some stuff from the attic. Now I just have a trip to the library to get rid of some books and everything else stays/goes with us 🙂

I’m hoping to have a few nights this week to complete some projects. It’s our last week here officially so I’m hoping for it to be productive! After that it’s just weekends!

The porch has been moving along steadily since Thursday afternoon. Ryan got most of it demolished (leaving enough for us to use the side door for a while yet).

When Mark arrived they started right in replacing the first post bottom, and getting the decking going. By the end of the night they had the second post in (including the decking to that point).

Friday the decking and railings were done all the way up to the side door and the porch was demo’d ready to go for Saturday morning.

Saturday The decking and railings were finished up (besides the small back railing) first thing. A trip to home depot with the toddler and we had some wood and lattice to finish up the porch as well as some runners to do the front steps! That was an unplanned but awesome surprise.

My new paint sprayer arrived Saturday so I got the boards all pre-painted yellow (first coat) and the lattice was easy to paint once installed. On Sunday the lattice was all installed and painted first coat, the runners were installed, the concrete was busted up ready for new pavers and we had dinner out then ran over to buy some pavers.

Right back side just needs a railing – otherwise it’s done!

This morning we got the final coat on the lattice, Mark laid all the pavers into a beautiful diagonal pattern and Ryan did the vertical boards over the lattice. They are working on the stairs now and the paver set will be finished after the stairs are done (final sweep of it and then water it down).

New pavers and stairs ready to go! What an awesome surprise!

Got one side of my closet doors primed with the sprayer – it goes SO fast!

UPDATE:

The stairs are finished, the posts at the bottom are made up to match our posts on the porch. One hand rail is installed (the other needs some fussy cutting). The pavers are finished and watered down so we need to wait 24 hours for that to set (and 72 hours to cure)!

A morning view as the paver set stuff still dries!

Amazing! The caps on the posts are solar lights so that is neat!

We have a few projects left to really finish the porch

Finish the vertical boards on the left side
Finish the hand rails on stairs
Finish the railing by the side door (a small one)
Finish the railing across the back of the right side
Sand/stain the deck!
Ceiling (that’s a big one!)

We could not have gotten anywhere near this amount done in 4 days without Ryan’s Dad’s help – holy cow! And the pavers and stairs – what a bonus! The front looks great.

Wednesday

Wednesday was a very busy day. First Ryan did a bunch of cleanup/moving stuff to prepare for demo (out on the roof mostly). Then after lunch he started the actual demo with a break for dinner. After the little one was in bed he finished the last 2 walls and I helped with the cleanup of that and all the lathe that was out in the driveway (thrown off the roof). By 9:30 we had the wood all in the dumpster and Ryan has all the plaster bagged and on the roof/in the room ready to get thrown off the roof into the truck (and driven to the dumpster) later. (Truck was in NY at the moment).

I think the negative air machine worked well, it really helped keep the dust from escaping throughout the upstairs (man i hate demo dust!).

While Ryan did demo our contractor was here and he finished the crown molding in the livingroom (which is now our bedroom)! Only the front hall and the diningroom left to get crown!

Today started with driveway cleanup (sweeping for nails from last night), then cleaning off the porch. Next Ryan took off the railings and finally started the porch demo (pulling up the decking). By 4pm Mark (his dad) was here with the new railings and they are out there now getting a start on the porch project! I’m so excited about this one! (I guess i’m excited about all projects but I am looking forward to enjoying the new deck for a bit before we leave!)

Railings gone – this was before the deck was pulled up

I’ll have porch updates this weekend for sure! I am hoping to get some weekend time (naps) to work on the demo cleanup (vacuum out ceilings etc) and getting some electrical/lights installed in our empty rooms so we can work after bedtime too. Those rooms just need to be prepped for insulation and sheetrock and electrical has to be finished. A full week to go still (although admittedly ryan will need a couple days off too!)

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!