Home Renovations – Page 20 – nicole.groudasfamily.com

Sherlock weekend

Yes we spent most of the weekend watching series 1 and 2 of Sherlock and loving it 🙂 We also did some shopping on saturday for running shoes and a quick trip to the mall. On Sunday Ryan finished the baseboards in the tvroom and the closet trim (minus the rosettes – we have to strip 4 rosettes before we can officially finish the trim). Getting close. Next weekend he’s hoping to do the crown molding (he needs to use some tools outside so the rain was a problem this weekend and our porch is holding a couch) 🙂 Either way, hopefully next weekend we can get the trim in the tvroom finished up and ready to be painted.

Rainy days are lazy days here and unfortunately miss Alex slept most of sunday which meant she didn’t sleep well Sunday night (and she had been doing so well at night lately) – which meant I didn’t sleep much sunday night. So we spent monday morning catching up on some zzz’s and we’ll get back to a regular routine hopefully tomorrow.

Owl branch

Baby girl had a decent nap today and after I woke up from the start of said nap I decided to make some progress on the mural. Surprisingly alex slept quite a while and I managed to get the whole branch painted! Next up is the tree.

All in all i count today as a win.

Shelves in the closet

The nursery closet that is. On Friday I managed to finish up the nursery closet shelving.

That’s one more item off the nursery todo list. Just have to finish up the mural and paint the windows and doors now before it’s completely done. Squishy and I spend most of our days in the nursery now, it’s a very cozy room. And hopefully in a few weeks she’ll be sleeping in here too… working on it 🙂

Heat/A/C

Well today was a dud. We have decided to hire someone to install forced hot air heat upstairs and downstairs with an a/c unit for the upstairs. We found someone, got a quote that was reasonable. Then today they came to start work (first a walk through then they went to put in for a permit). Well during the walk through he mentioned that the boilermate we have would not hook up to the new furnace and that we would need a new water heater (not mentioned before when we discussed this). So Ryan called to clarify when I verified that his quote did not mention a water heater and he had assumed we were keeping the oil furnace for the hot water (which doesn’t make sense since in his quote he has taking out the furnace mentioned).

So the project is on hold, not sure if he will get us a new quote with a water heater or what. I believe he’s waiting to hear back from us at this point but Ryan is a bit busy at work so it will have to wait a few days for us to decide what to do. I’m totally bummed, I thought this was going to move forward and get done – now this set back. We have so many issues whenever we try to hire someone for work (we’ve been trying to hire an exterior painter to strip the porch and do some painting – no luck so far). Just so frustrating.

In other news, pig roast this weekend! I guess i don’t have to stay around the house today for the plumber, I could go to Bjs today and get the zitis made for the weekend.

Oh and Ryan cut the shelving for the closet so i can install the closet system now if I have a good break to do so. Baby girl is napping on her tummy right now so I can’t leave the room to do that kind of project but i might move her to her bouncy chair so i can take advantage of this nap.

Owl family

Today I started painting the mural Sarah drew above the crib. I’m pretty sure the picture is fuzzy because it’s from my cell and taken from far away since I was feeding the baby. I’m adding texture to the owls as I paint, making them feathery and I’m really excited with how they are coming out! Now I just have the branch, leaves and trunk to do but baby girl doesn’t take 2 full naps so maybe tomorrow I’ll finish.

Ryan has to work all weekend so this is probably the only house progress we will make but I’m secretly hoing he has time to just cut the shelves for the closet so I can put the closet all together if baby girl naps tomorrow.

I realized today I could watch netflix on my phone, much better than sitting here doing nothing while alex eats.

Putting Together the Nursery

That’s right, the nursery is just about done after this weekend! Let’s recap:

Mom came out this weekend to help with Alex, and of course to see her so ryan and I took full advantage and finished up the nursery.
Things accomplished saturday:
– she molding installed the rest of the way, nail holes filled, sanded for last coat
– fan/light and switch installed
– ceiling of closet sanded, primed and painted
– closet light installed
– outlets almost all installed
– rug put dow, crib put together, bed frame together and dressers moved in
– mural drawn (sarah came up in the evening and drew the mural for us so I just have to paint it now!)

On Sunday we finished everything up:
– finished outlets
– closet switch installed
– painted shoe molding
– mattress moved in and furniture all set up in final spots

It's hard to see since it's a sketch but here's the mural Sarah drew for us! Can't wait to paint this in this week!

More pictures to come once I have things more set up. We did move the rocking chair in last night so it’s getting close.

What’s left on the nursery?

– Installing the closet system
– Priming/painting the doors and putting them up
– Priming/painting the window sashes
– Installing cable/ethernet drops
– Painting the mural

What a great weekend and great first mothers day! I got to sleep in so in total I got 7 hours of sleep which is a first since alex was born!

The end of an era

Of fan trouble that is. It’s kind of crazy how this saga ends (see fan saga here).

After working with Lutron to get our Maestro fan/light double dimmer switch working, which failed by the way, they left me with one last idea. They said the way it’s behaving it’s acting like there’s interference from a CFL or plasma tv or something. Problem is that taking the CFLs and plasma tv off the circuit in that room did not help. So the last idea was to turn off everything at the breaker box except the one light circuit and then slowly add them back on until I could pinpoint the interference.
Well this is time consuming but finally today I had some time and wouldn’t you know it, it worked! The CFL on the kitchen circuit somehow was interfering (note that it’s a difference circuit). So I changed that to incandescent and boom – it all worked like a charm. Holy Moly that was a real project. So now I have to get back to the Lutron folks and they can send me some sort of filter so I can use said CFL again but until then, we have a fan!

Floor Pictures

On sunday ryan did start the shoe molding install, a couple of long pieces have to be trimmed and the saw isn’t set up at the moment but soon we can finish that up. The floor has to cure for 2 weeks before we can put the rug down and bring in all the furniture. I’m hoping to start the mural this weekend though and we can get the outlets in and work on the closet ceiling. Can’t wait for the weekend!

Nursery almost done

We’ve had a couple of long nights with a cranky Alex and today she was a bit out of sorts as well but we managed to make some good nursery progress and it’s almost done!

I did the cutting in on the walls while ryan watched alex, then we switched off and he rolled the walls (so they are done!) And put a coat of paint on the shoe molding so once that’s installed tomorrow we just have to touch up the nail holes.

After dinner aimee snuggled peanut while I did the final coat of poly on the floor (another tinted coat). Tomorrow the floor should be dry and we can finish up the room (the closet has a bit left including a molding and the ceiling but we can put the room togwther sans closet for now. Tomorrow ryan will install the shoe molding and I’ll do the outlets and we’re done!

Trim done

I was very motivated last night and while alex napped I got the second coat of paint on half of the trim! Then she was wide awake and hungry for an hour and a half straight, luckily ryan got home at this point and could help calm her when I ran out of ‘food’ for her 🙂
So while she relaxed with daddy I finished up the trim second coat! I still think the rosettes need a third coat but we’ll see. If I can manage it today it’s time to paint the walls!

We also have an errand to run (truck inspection) and I’m hoping to fit in a shower today so I feel normal.