The new year started out about the same as last year – a weekend trip up to the NH house to work 🙂 We had Alex with us so I mostly just spent time with her and Ryan worked. He got the final coat of spackle on the upstairs hallway (above the staircase).
During ‘naptime’ – otherwise known as Alex screaming or talking in her bedroom time – we got the first coat of paint on the 2 bedrooms (the back room and master). We are playing around with color, we bought white paint and we’re tinting it with the leftover orange from the gym to give it just a bit of yellow. The back bedroom came out perfect, the master I think had a bit more orange so we’ll lighten the bucket a bit more before second coat time and then save the leftover for touchups.
Master bedroom – first coat of paintBack bedroom
At this point I think we’re still planning on finishing up 2 coats of paint before we install trim so we only have to cut in on the trim painting. The ceilings are done so we can install the heat vents and lights/smoke detectors when we have time. One big thing holding us up right now is getting rosettes stripped. We can’t install all the trim until we have rosettes and they need to be de-nailed and stripped – ugg.
We’re hoping to work the next 2 weekends – maybe even get a kid free weekend in there. We’ll see. Lot’s to do and goes faster if both of us can work!
This weekend we brought along the peanut and she was a big help 🙂
I found her like this when I came downstairs from doing something – she’s ‘making lists’ and has her tools ready.
Don’t ever change alex – you are too perfect 🙂
We had a busy day Saturday. Alex and I ran to home depot while Ryan started with some spackling. We have this tough to reach spot at the top of the staircase (ceiling and walls) that is taped but not finished. Ryan got a good coat on that area.
Doesn’t this plank look totally safe?
We also managed to get 2 coats of paint on all of the ceilings that were ready – that’s the 2 bedrooms and the hallway (minus the stairway area). Next time we’re out I can do smoke detectors and lights now!
Our neighbor was over to work and he sheetrocked (which included some 2×4 installation) the attic stairwell – we are only doing the first section to the 2x4s they have up because the attic is unfinished but this way when you open the hopefully soon to be installed attic door, it opens to a seemingly finished stairwell. We will probably leave this untaped since the rest is unfinished but we’ll see.
Attic stairwell – calling it done for now
All in all we had a productive weekend when you consider 6 hours of that is driving 🙁 Sunday we ran errands then drove home after packing up. Attempted to drive during naptime (no nap). All well.
Now it’s time to enjoy Christmas and family. In the new year we’ll return to the home building 🙂
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!
Primed!
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!
Been a while since I updated! We were just very busy with working on the house, moving, vacation, moving some more. The week after insulation we spent prepping for sheetrock. The first day of our vacation I spent the first 1/2 the day finishing the electrical (wiring smoke detectors, washer, dryer, last light). All the sheetrock prep we hired my neighbor to do, just filling in corners with nailers, fixing fir strips, removing nails etc. So there wasn’t much else for us to do except the last bit of wiring.
While on vacation my neighbor and our contractor hung the sheetrock in the master bedroom, the hallway and the back bedroom. It took 3 days to hang everything (and we lost a day because the sheetrock didn’t show up the first day even though I was guaranteed it would be there by 8am!) Not a good way to start our vacation 🙁
Master bedroomAnother view
Our neighbor spent the rest of the week/weekend taping and when we got back on Saturday he had just finished taping all the seams. He had 3 days the next week to spackle and he got the hallway and master bedroom all done. The back bedroom is the only thing left (needs a bit of spackle) and it will be ready for sanding and painting!
HallwayHallway from the other endBack bedroom – in progressBack bedroom
The list of what to do next is long. We need to focus on finishing up the bit of painting we have left outside, finish the porch/deck (stain the deck!) before the weather gets cold. The rooms need to be sanded and primed, then trim installed, doors installed. Lots of painting etc.
We’re going to get really good at the 3 hour drive on weekends to work on the house (out friday night, back sunday). That means with someone watching Alex we’ll get 1 person working all day saturday (2 during naptime) and sunday morning. We’ll probably drive sunday naptime so we get a little time to relax on sundays before it’s back to work. We’ll see how this goes in September, by October we may be leaving Alex with the grandparents to take a weekend out alone and really make good progress. Until we start to go out, it’s hard to say how long this will take us but our goal is by spring to be done! Until then we’re living in 2 places 🙂
Our last chunk of insulation is done! If you don’t count the windows – we’ll have to insulate around the windows ourselves with cans because their sprayer was broken but we weren’t charged for it so no biggie. Either way – we are very close to ready for sheetrock now!
Last section of the attic is done!Coming up the attic stairs we had them cut it back for more head roomBack bedroom done!Washer dryer room done!under the master bathroom windows (just the small space) had to be doneMaster bedroom done!
Hopefully this weekend we can finish prepping the hallway and get the windows sprayed – then we really are ready for sheetrock!
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.Tuesday progress – siding 1/2 way upSiding all the way up on the next dayEverything is scraped and primed now!
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!
Closet door done!
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 bathroomA 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!Another view
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!
Attic cleaned out
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!
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).
After demo!
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!
Crown installed!The rest of the 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!)
Work on the house continues this week. Maribeth and Dan came out for a long weekend and worked away on our small porch off the bedroom. They stripped all of the old paint and it looks great! Can’t wait to get this thing sanded and painted so it looks nice. We’re going to put new out door carpet in there, a new ceiling and call it done (once painting is done). Of course the door has to be stripped and refinished as well.
Posts and details all stripped, ceiling just scraped since we’ll cover it with a new one.One small section to strip on that top right!
Ryan got a bunch of things done the last few days. The vent for the upstairs dryer is installed.
New vent!
He worked on the back porch demo, we ran a wire from the switch to the basement when we did the back hallway so that wire is now fed up to the ceiling in the porch and we just have to get it to a new light so the back porch will have light again. All of the aluminum around the porch was removed and he recycled it with a few trips (getting rid of one last radiator as well!). A couple trips to lumber yards – got the decking we need this weekend, got some crown for the livingroom (our contractor is here today putting up more crown!). With all the errands needing to be run (we were sending our truck back to NY with Dan and Maribeth so it all had to be done), Ryan didn’t want to start demo in the late afternoon. Plus the heat/humidity was crazy yesterday.
Today he has cleaned up the little porch, the roof and gotten ready to start the demo in the master. Here is a before pic of what he’s starting with – the windows are already all new, so it’s just taking the plaster/lathe down. We’re saving the ceiling in the cupola since we won’t need a light there (doing sconce lights over the windows in there), we’ll just sheetrock over that ceiling. The big ceiling has to come down though (yuck). We borrowed this negative air machine so looking forward to seeing if that contains the dust mess.
Pre-demolition!
Demo and cleanup/prep work today and tomorrow. Friday starts the porch project!
Friday and Saturday we rented a lift to complete some up high projects around the house. First up Ryan got a coat of paint on the shakes on the driveway side and the molding up under the soffit. Some sections of that molding aren’t done yet but they are easier to get off a ladder so we waited – wanting to take advantage of having the lift. Ryan then painted all the green that he could easily get with the lift that was left (again what’s left we can get off a small ladder on the porch roof).
Red shakes done – green around the windows done! Almost finished with painting 3 sides!
Next up Ryan moved to the back and removed both the aluminum siding and the original siding from the back side.
This took about an hour and a half to get to this point!
That was all on friday, Saturday it was a second coat of red on the shakes and moldings, then he installed the last 2 windows in our entire house that we plan on doing! Our contractor is going to reside that back side (hopefully very soon so we can insulate) – so we’re done with that upper section, leaving just the back porch for us to deal with. The flashing for that porch was fine so a little ice shield to keep water from getting behind it until it’s sided and we’re good to go for now.
Last 2 windows installed! The attic one is just a vinyl window
We attempted to get the lift to reach the small section of green by the electrical wires that i couldn’t reach by ladder last year but it wouldn’t reach 🙁 So we’ll have to pull out the bigger ladder to complete that green paint. Finally we started pulling aluminum off the back porch which didn’t really need the lift but we ran out of actual projects that needed it!
Porch with most of the aluminum off. This siding is in decent shape, we’re going to patch the missing piece of sill and sand/paint the siding/trim as is. Not putting a lot of work into this porch as it really should just come off the house and have a garage attached!
Sunday we returned the lift, went out to breakfast and then I spent the day packing while Ryan was on Dad duty. I got our bedroom packed and ready to empty and the back porch emptied. These are the next 2 demo projects although the back porch is only getting partially demo’d. During naptime Ryan got the front area grouted so that tile job is done! The front hall just needs trim and paint to be completed!
Grouted!
Maribeth and Dan came out Friday night and spent Saturday morning stripping paint off the little front porch off our bedroom. They are back to it today and it’s coming out great (pictures coming soon!).
Today is a day of getting lots of small stuff done. We were hoping our contractor would come today and finish the crown in the front livingroom (he did the cupola crown over the weekend) so we could move our furniture down there and it wouldn’t be in the way but he has another job holding him up at the moment. The plan is to demo our bedroom Tuesday and Wednesday. Then get electrical done Thursday.
Cupola has crown! Just needs caulk, prime, paint!
Friday will be the start of the porch project – that is very exciting — a finished porch coming soon! I’ve had a hole in my porch for so long now! I wrote a list of everything I can see that needs to get done still and while it’s huge it seems manageable with the next 2 weeks of Ryan’s time so I’m excited. He’ll need a break next week for sure but hopefully putting up trim or doing some smaller easier tasks will be okay!
We’ve been doing a lot but instead of covering the weekend I’m going to post by project. Ryan is going to be working on the house for 3 weeks straight starting next week and I’ll try to keep up the documentation to follow that but this week I’m going to just try to catch up on some of the project updates.
We’ve had our contractor working on the little porch off of our bedroom the last 2 weeks. First he rebuilt the little 1/2 wall entirely and repaired the roof around it (flashing/roofing) so that hopefully that fixes the leak in the porch roof below.
New walls and sillView from the bedroom door
Then he put up shiplap bead board on the inside which I love the look of, built a new sill and then did the siding on the outside of the porch.
Hard to see from down here but new siding is up and ready for paint. Obviously those posts have to be stripped first. All is primed though so prepared for any rain.
The porch still needs works. We need to scrape/strip the paint on the inside for all the original wood we’re keeping. Then it all needs to be painted. And then we need to put down new exterior carpet for the floor. We also have to add in some drainage from the floor out to the roof – the flashing is there for it but any new floor will need some weeping holes or something to get water down to the flashing.
We are going to keep the screens off instead of refinishing them but we saved them so they could be refinished in future. For now we’re keeping it an open porch because it looks nicer I think, and you can see more details on the inside that way!
Next up – the new wall in the upstairs back hallway Ryan has been building!
