Home Renovations – Page 29 – nicole.groudasfamily.com

Gym Progress

This weekend we focused on the gym, Ryan only had Saturday off, having to work Sunday. Saturday we got started with the baseboards, making the main part out of the poplar we have. Then following it with a cap piece we bought at a millwork place in Brookline.

DSCN0964 — Baseboard installed all around

While Ryan finished up the baseboard I went around and primed all our touchups on the wall and ceiling and then caulked the baseboards. Finally Ryan installed the two side pieces of trim for the gym door, not having time to put the top piece and corners on yet before we broke for dinner and to relax.

Sunday while Ryan worked I did a few projects. First I sanded the baseboards and the window trim. Then I cleaned the room really well before starting to paint. I started with a coat of paint on the crown molding and window trim (final coat on the window trim). Then I primed the baseboards.

DSCN0971 — Baseboard primed and door trim started

After finishing up the painting I started on the door, I’m stripping it down to refinish. I got a good start on the first side before dinner time. Now we’re relaxing while watching Les Miserables 25th anniversary performance on WGBH – it’s awesome!

Quilt Time

My Aunt and I have a few quilt kits we bought together over the years and finally we’ve made one of them – it’s Japanese fabrics and I showed the blocks we did a few weeks ago. Wednesday night we finished the blocks and put them all together with sashing. All that’s left is a border and then quilting! It’s a small little quilt and I love the colors. I think this will have to hang in the tvroom when it’s finished (both it and the tv room finished) 🙂

square_in_square_quilt01 — Blocks all done!

The paper piecing really helped with the points not getting chopped off – but it took me 20 minutes to pull all the paper off the back when done 🙂

Today is kind of a busy day, between work, haircut at lunch time and a show tonight in Boston I’m all over the place. My friend’s mother couldn’t go to see Mary Poppins with her tonight so she offered me her now extra ticket – I couldn’t be more excited about this last minute surprise but I’m sorry her mom couldn’t make it and hopefully she’s feeling better.

Then the rest of the weekend I’ll be working on the gym! Saturday we’ll put up trim and baseboards and Sunday I’ll be painting while Ryan works! In 2 weeks my Dad might come out to help us finish up the floor, that should be the last thing no the list besides a coat of paint on the walls by then – can’t wait!

Last weekend

A little late in the week for a weekend post however I was a little distracted this week with work and a new programming class I’m taking.

So last weekend, specifically Friday night, after Ryan got home I finished sandng around the edge of the gym while he worked on starting the baseboards. He got a decent start which we’re hoping to quickly finish up this weekend. This wall was the hardest wall because there is no way for the baseboard to float under the floor and the floor bows. The other walls have room for the baseboard to float a bit to help make it level.

2011-03-02_08-18-17_305 — Baseboard started in the gym

Saturday we loaded up trim to bring back to NY where Ryan’s sister and dad are stripping trim for us (a HUGE help!). Then headed back. We spent Saturday visiting with family and Sunday we went to see Lion King at Proctors before a long drive home.

As I said this week has been mostly a blur but I did some quilting last night – I’ll post a picture tomorrow and we have big plans for working on the house this weekend!

Sunday progress

Another early start today with the dreaded door hanging to do. The first step was selecting a different door (or hinges) that had the right in-swing we needed. Once we found one (that wouldn’t be needed elsewhere), I stripped down the edges of the door so it wouldn’t be a problem to hang it. I also cleaned all the paint off the hardware for the door by boiling it.

DSCN0955 — Door stripped around the edges, this went much faster than expected because there was no varnish under the paint!

(Note: we didn’t end up using this door because it was too warped. Instead we used the attic door which didn’t need to be stripped before hanging.)

While I was doing this, Ryan was working on the door frame, getting it ready to hang the door.

DSCN0957 — Ryan working on the door frame (making room for the hinges)

Just in time to help install the door frame and hang the door, Ryan’s parents showed up! It took a few hours and a few doors but finally we got a door that was straight and fit and after some sanding down it hangs nice and even. After the door was up Ryan installed the plinth blocks while we got ready to head to dinner.

I started sanding around the edge of the floor while Ryan and his Dad hung the door. Tomorrow Ryan will work on the baseboards since he has the day off. I’m working from home so I can see the progress of the baseboards but I have a lot of work to do so I couldn’t afford to take the day off. We are installing the baseboards before refinishing the floor because there will be a quarter round in front of the baseboard which we will add last after the floors are re-finished. I am sanding around the edge of the floor before the baseboards go in so we won’t mark up the baseboards when re-finishing.

DSCN0959 — Edge of floor (new patched space) sanded

I’m so excited to see the gym coming together so quickly at the end like this. After baseboards we’ll just have to put up the door trim!

Saturday Progress

We made some good progress Saturday, Ryan was up very early and started working on removing the pipe for the gym radiator so he could patch the floor. So the first thing I got to do after waking up was to bag up the asbestos – fun 🙂

Once the pipe was removed he worked to patch the floor while I finished caulking the crown molding and spackling. We had some leftover oak flooring he used to patch the floor.

After lunch we made the door frame after picking out a door (we have since switched the door we picked but the same door frame we made still works.

Once the door frame was made I sanded and primed the crown molding before cleaning the house. We spent the evening over at Uncle Pete’s to celebrate Maia’s birthday with the girls.

So here are some pics and my updated gym project list…

DSCN0947 — Radiator pipe and floor removed

Updated list:

Patching the gym floor (where we remove the radiator pipe)
Patching the floor all around the edge (no need – baseboard will cover it)
Installing the door frame (and making one or stripping one down)
Installing the door trim
Installing the baseboards
Finishing the ceiling (spackle the corner, prime it, paint the final coat on the whole ceiling)
Sanding and caulking the crown molding
Priming and painting the crown molding
Sanding and caulking the window trim
Painting the window trim

Almost weekend time

It’s about halfway through Friday which means it’s almost time for the weekend and we have quite a weekend planned! Lots of family to see throughout the weekend and progress to make on the gym.

Current projects include:

Patching the gym floor (where we remove the radiator pipe)
Patching the floor all around the edge
Installing the door frame (and making one or stripping one down)
Installing the door trim
Installing the baseboards
Finishing the ceiling (spackle the corner, prime it, paint the final coat on the whole ceiling)
Sanding and caulking the crown molding
Priming and painting the crown molding
Sanding and caulking the window trim
Painting the window trim

I doubt we can get all of that done this weekend but Ryan has monday off so he may continue to work on projects after the weekend is over!

Crown Molding – it’s up!

First – for future reference -be careful when buying moldings at home depot, these were marked at 53/37 angles however that’s not a standard spring angle (37) for crown molding, so we decided to actually measure the angle using some of the nifty tools Ryan got for xmas. Right on the dot it was 38 degrees spring. Which is standard, so that’s what we used.

We also decided to start on a different side this time around, leaving the crazy bowed ceiling side for 3rd instead of second, and helping to hide our last coped corner behind the door in case it didn’t come out great. And without further ado – here are the pictures to show our work for the day…

DSCN0928 — third and definitely the hardest piece

Just a quick note about the piece above the window … this is where our ceiling bows down and also where our wall bows a bit. So to accommodate these curves we had to scribe and cut the molding along the ceiling. Finally in the left corner we had to just leave a gap (we could only bend it so much) and decided to spackle the ceiling down to match the molding in that one corner. We were actually quite happy with this piece when done but it was a lot of work.

DSCN0932 — close up of what the molding looks like (and the corner coped)

After getting some cakes in the oven while ryan went around and added some nails and set them all to tighten it all up, I went around and filled all the nail holes and did some spackling (couple of dings in the walls to get too).

Since the spackle was out (for the ceiling corner and dings) we decided to touch up the bathroom a bit too. We got a crack next to the door so we put in a piece of wood behind the drywall and screwed along the seam. Then I spackled it to start the process of covering it up. Probably need 2 more coats on this seam.

DSCN0935 — fixing the seam in the bathroom

Now I’m off to work on my valentine’s cake project… if it’s successful i’ll post pics tomorrow.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming…

Finally back to working on the house!

First I had to re-vacuum the demolished area of the house to get up the rest of the insulation pieces scattered about. Then we took the leftover insulation to the dump (this time the insulation guy took as many bags as he could – we still have an attic full of bags of this stuff) – but the dump does take it for a small charge (and it turns out we can fit 7 bags in our truck at a time).

Once the demo area was cleared out we filled it up (with tools this time) – set up the saws and tables in the livingroom and moved the diningroom table out of the gym and back into the diningroom where it “belongs” 🙂

Once the gym was empty we got to work on the crown molding! We actually decided to change up how we were doing the molding entirely. Previously we were using a larger molding with a backerboard hidden under it to nail to. We decided to go with a smaller more flexible molding instead (the next size down) and use a piece of poplar as a decorative part of the molding and as a nailer. So the poplar is routed on one edge (the visible edge at the bottom) and it’s screwed in to the studs. Since the top is hidden it doesn’t have to hit the ceiling evenly, making it easier to keep at an even distance from the ceiling with our crazy bowed ceilings.

So it took all day but we got all 4 pieces ripped down to width, routed, coped and installed. Only one piece came out too small and we had to cut and route a 5th because of that.

DSCN0924 — Close up of the detail and the coping

Tomorrow we’re hoping to tackle the crown molding itself – oh goodie.

Insulation – Finally

I feel like this has been the focus of my life for the past 9 months or so – but finally it’s over – we have insulation in our livingroom, diningroom and front hall/stairway! That’s most of the downstairs completed now – everything but the kitchen and backporch – plus a tiny bit of the upstairs. What a relief! We should notice a big difference in how long the rooms downstairs retain heat now, I can’t wait – I turned it up to 60 immediately to find out!

So without further ado – here is a walk through of our downstairs 🙂

DSCN0909 — Bags of leftover insulation, they took most of them this time.

DSCN0911 — closed up window in livingroom now insulated

DSCN0914 — View of the front wall of the house

DSCN0919 — Closet wall and stairway wall at front of house

Wow – can’t believe that’s done. I have some cleanup to do, they were having trouble with static making it hard to clean up too well so I’m going to have to go over it one last time, then move some of our stuff around to make the space more usable again. Maybe we can get the gym cleaned out this weekend to work on it again. *big sigh*.

Just a little insulation

Well today did not go as planned unfortunately. We spent the evening last night clearing out the bottom of the driveway and taking nails/screws out of the walls for insulation today. We got the last wire run and everything secured. This morning we moved the radiators and I installed the last cable drop.

The insulation guys, after getting all set up however were having equipment failures. They couldn’t get the pressure they needed and need to do some repairs. So they sprayed just enough that we could put the radiators back and not have to move them again (can’t got days without the radiators in at all!). Then left to come back end of next week. UGG! At least we got the radiators in though.

I’m totally bummed that insulation is not done yet and we’re having some leaks from snow build up on the porch roofs. Ryan is clearing the front porch roof as much as he can. We’re more worried about the roof over the bathroom/gym but it so far has not leaked. We’ll try to clear it a bit but it’s really built up there.

It’s going to be a different weekend than I had planned, that’s for sure. Probably clearing snow and maybe doing some insulation in the basement but probably not putting up crown molding in the gym since we can’t move the stuff out of there into the other rooms yet since they are not ready.

Here are some insulation pictures – what’s done so far: