It sure is hard to do something like sand plaster when you’re pregnant. The exertion required (and movement) is draining. So I didn’t do much last night but get the closet prepped (hung a sheet and got the vacuum ready) and started some sanding. The wall that’s drywall wasn’t bad of course so that’s done, the left wall actually wasn’t too bad either so that got a decent sanding. What WAS hard was the ceiling/back wall that’s curved under the stairs. It got a start at sanding but that’s in. I think I need to do another spackle coat to make it smoother before giving it another try. I don’t have the energy to really give it a good sanding so I need to have done a great job spackling.
If i’m up to it tonight I’ll do touchups on the walls I did sand so those will be done and maybe get another spackle coat on this one back wall/ceiling.
After getting Fitz from daycare and getting home at a reasonable time I decided to get another coat of spackle on the closet while Fitz slept and Ryan was playing basketball. It was tiring but went pretty quickly and I think we may be good with the closet now.
Next up is to sand the closet walls/ceiling and see if there are any spots to touch up after that. It is JUST a closet after all and most of it will be covered with shelving or hooks with coats hanging.
Going to IKEA this weekend and hoping to get some shelving for the closet and some hooks for coats. So if I’m up to sanding the closet tonight maybe I’ll get it primed tomorrow night (waiting for my new respirator to come to protect me from the paint fumes, although the closet will be latex paint which is much less VOCs than oil based, the built-ins will be oil based paint so the respirator is a good safety precaution).
With the amount of work ryan had to do this weekend, he really surprised me when he said he’d do house work on sat and just work Sunday. I had not been getting my hopes up with the late nights he’s been pulling that he’d have time this weekend.
Saturday we got to work on the drawers, ryan hung the last bit of hardware for the drawer slides, then we built the last 4 drawers! Next we made face frames for them all with a nice routed top and attached them. All 10 drawers are finally done! Just doors to finish up and the built-ins will be done.
The right hand cabinet with finished drawers!The middle cabinets with finished drawersAnd the left hand cabinet with drawers - that's 10 total!
After that we put together the glider we got for the nursery (our first nursery purchase). For now it will live in our room because we don’t have a place for it and Fitz is not a fan when it moves 🙂
As if that wasn’t enough for a day, Ryan said he would hang one of the tvroom doors if I could find the door and door frame I wanted to use. Unfortunately this was harder than I though and he almost put in three frames before we found the real matching frame for the original door. (The frame was hiding). And we have a door (Fitz is also not a fan of this 🙂 )
Door to the front entry hung! This swings out into the entryway as it originally did.
After that we settled in for some chili for dinner and went to bed early. Sunday Ryan had to work so I decided I would do some spackling and then end the day with some sewing while he watched the big game. There was one section up by the crown molding that needed to be spackled so I got 2 coats on that (maybe one more needed) and I got the closet corners all taped and a skim coat on both the left side and back walls (including the ceiling).
I think in general I need one more skim coat on every surface and the closet will be ready to be sanded! Considering how this started I’m very impressed with it.
Corner taped and another coat on the seam of this wall. Taping that curved seam was HARD!Ceiling got a good skim coat as well as that left wall. This side did not get taped since it was in decent shape (not great shape) but didn't have a hole that needed taping at least.And a view of the back wall, after this I actually skim coated that whole descending wall so everything except the right wall has a skim coat or more now.
While I was skim coating I think Ryan was looking for a break because he said that if I got everything set up and found a door and door frame (for sure this time) he would install the other door in the tvroom! I dropped everything and went on the hunt. This door originally was replaced by a newer door so I had to go through the collection of ‘removed’ doors and frames to find one for this spot – and we were in luck!
Door from the tvroom to the kitchen area installed!A view of the built-ins and the door hung 🙂
That leaves only 1 more door (which I’ve already picked out) to be hung in the tvroom – the closet door. It’s kind of nice to wait until the spackling is done though in there first (almost!). We can start baseboards (which will make the built-ins look more finished) anytime now!
At this point I was going to caulk the built-ins but the game was about to start and I would have been blocking the tv so instead I went up to my sewing room and spent the next 4 hours making up a crib skirt for my sister’s nursery (hey it’s never too late – well it’s not too late yet – my nephew does still use a crib) 🙂
Pleated crib skirt, the main material is white with green stripes and the pleats are solid green that match the stripes nicely.A better view of the pleats.
The only reason that took so long is that I overlocked every seam so it could put up with harsh washing (not that it will but just in case). This probably wasn’t necessary but I had the time and it was good practice (i’ll have to make one of these for my nursery soon and being a dust fanatic it will definitely get washed a lot). AND I used up 2 spools of thread almost on this – overlocking uses a lot of thread! Me thinks I need a surger soon 🙂
What a great amount of progress we made! I can really see a finish in sight for the tvroom which is good since pretty soon we’ll be switching gears to start the nursery and focusing on that room!. I’ve planned out what I want to do storage wise in the closet in the tvroom which has motivated me to finish that soon so I can get some stuff stored in there (I currently have no closets downstairs at all!).
It’s been a while since I posted because we hadn’t done much around the house but this weekend we got a lot done.
First up on Saturday morning we went shopping. We went over to AcMoore and got the antique maps my dad gave us framed (well we’ll get them in a few weeks – but we picked out frames and mats etc). This was not cheap but we’re very excited to see how they look and they’ll be preserved now. One is an old atlas (1905) of NH and the other is a survey map from 1892, it has our street before our house was built. I’ll definitely show pictures when we get them back framed!
Then we headed over to babiesrus and bought a glider for the nursery (it has to be ordered) – so our first nursery purchase has been made! We still haven’t picked out a crib set yet but since the nursery hasn’t even been demo’d yet we’re not in a rush 🙂 We had a 20% off coupon, hence the purchase of the glider!
Finally we finished up at home depot, buying the hardibacker for the master bathroom floor. When we got home we got right to work, I moved all the oak flooring that was stacked in there and vacuumed, then Ryan put down the hardbacker. Then I put up some plastic over the exposed part of the ceiling to keep insulation from dropping on anyone in there (1/2 of the ceiling hasn’t been demo’d at all yet).
hardibacker laid down ... we still have to remove the radiator when we really refinish this room so we just layed enough to make the room usable, on the right where it's still exposed is where I've now stacked all the oak floor we pulled up.The ceiling coveredWe'll probably put the head of the guest bed up against this wall. Very classy guest room 🙂
Once that was done we moved on to working on drawers for the built-ins (7 left to do). This was quite a project, first we had to make the blocking for the hardware to hang on (so the drawers could slide out without hitting the doors), then we cut some of our poplar planks down to size and then planed it to 5/8″ (the hardware I bought only fits up to 5/8″ thick wood – oops). This took a LONG time but once that was done we dado’d the boards (to slide the plywood bottoms in) and I got to work cutting the drawer pieces to length and pocket hole drilling them while Ryan installed the blocking and hardware slides in the cabinets themselves.
On Sunday we started making drawers, unfortunately they didn’t quite fit where they were planned to fit but they all fit someplace so 3 are done. It’s possible we’ll have to cut the fronts and backs of one drawer fresh at the end from the one plank we have left. Not sure why since the measurements aren’t different but something is off with one of them (the blank space).
3 more drawers done and installed (still need face frames but we're saving those for last)4 more drawers ready to go!The last cabinet, ready for the hardware to be hung!
The absolute worst part about all of this is that we have to hang the drawers to make sure they all fit properly etc. However then we have to take off all the hardware so we can paint the built-ins – ugg! But we’re getting close now, only 4 more drawers to make and the hard parts are done.
The rest of sunday we relaxed (ryan had work to do) so we put on some movies (ending the evening with Emma!) and I stitched.
Royalty ABC - I had previously finished the large queen stitched diamonds and backstitched row below it so Sunday I did the long arm row and then scrolled...And this is the bulk of what I stitched on Sunday. The next part of the alphabet, a satin stitch design row and the start of the large flower. This is now page 3 of the design! More than halfway done!
I really love having some time to stitch again, it’s been so long and doing a piece like this where each row feels like a little ‘finish’ is really easy to pick up with just a little free time.
The only downside about this weekend was that poor Fitz got an eye infection (dogs can get pink eye evidently). Luckily not contagious to humans, I felt bad for him and after a visit to the vet this morning he’s on antibiotic drops a couple times a day for a week. It’s already clearing up and he’s definitely acting himself. I’m undecided about daycare tomorrow (i need to call them and hear what they think) but might just postpone and do daycare on Thursday this week instead of Tuesday, give him more time to fight it off. Even though he’s acting normal and definitely needs an energy outlet!
That was our weekend! With 4 drawers left to build, face frames for all 10, then the doors to finish the built-ins are getting closer! Let’s see what next weekend brings (besides the super bowl of course).
Last week (Thursday night) I managed to motivate myself to do a little spackling on the tvroom closet! Got a skim coat on the left side plaster wall and taped the right wall. The ‘corner’ has to be taped on the right and that’s going to be interesting with the curve but that’s for next time. The ceiling also needs a lot of skim coats (the left wall needs a few skim coats as well). This will be a slow project but at least progress was made!
Skim coat on the left hand wallTaped the right hand wall
Christmas came early to this Williams’ family. The main reason was that I wanted Ryan to get to use his main christmas present before christmas AND I wanted to give him all his gifts (since they all went with the main gift) at once. So ryan set my big gift up for the same day and on Saturday we had our mini-christmas.
We started out the morning with presents on Saturday, first Fitzy got http://groudasfamily.com/wordpress/wp-admin/post.php?post=2270&action=edit&message=6some gifts:
New toys for Fitzy-boy
While he played (he also got a new bed a couple of days ago) with his new toys and bone Ryan opened his main gift piece by piece:
New router table with accessories
I don’t have a picture of my main gift because you can’t really see it – my car got a remote starter! And I can start it from either a fob, or from my cell phone with an app (from anywhere), I can also track my car with GPS from the same app. (In case it gets stolen?). Very cool! I also got a Kindle Touch which I was up late Saturday night playing with (it has games unlike my second generation kindle which will go to Ryan now). I love how small it is and perfect for traveling next week with.
After presents (which included taking my car over to get the starter installed, and a trip to 5-guys!), we started working on the drawers for the built-ins. This was pretty intimidating, we bought the drawer slides and hardware a while ago (10 drawers total) but weren’t quite sure how to do the drawers to fit perfectly. We started by putting in some blocks for the slides, so the drawers could open even if the doors aren’t open ALL the way (on one side the door can’t open all the way).
Then we slowly planned it all out, starting with the left cabinet because it was very square and all 3 drawers would be the same sizes. We built one drawer and got it installed and working!
The first drawer installed! With slow close!
On Sunday we were able to get the other 2 drawers done pretty quickly now that we knew what we were doing (it took a while to figure out the drilling template the first time). So we have one cabinet filled with drawers! 3 down, 7 to go!
Slides all installedDrawers have locking mechanisms on the bottom, and cutouts for the slidesDrawers installedUndermounted slides so you don't see it on the sides at all.
All the drawers need are face frames, we haven’t decided how we want those to look (Ryan will probably route them to make them look a little fancy.). The drawers will fit our dvds hidden in the cabinets, at least the right and left most ones will be dvds.
Now it’s time to relax with Fitzy boy before driving him down to stay with Buddy boy for the week.
This weekend was quite productive, starting right out Friday night (I was working late upstairs but Ryan got home and started right in on the built-ins). When I came down later there were SHELVES in the bookcases! They were just plywood to start out but by Saturday morning he had face frame pieces glued and attached to each one so they were completely finished!
Shelves all finished!
Next up he made the side panel for the end of the built-ins. This is all sanded flush now and looks great!
End panel all finished up!
While he worked on this project I was in the basement giving it a good vacuum and organizing it a bit before winter. Just one more item checked off my list!
I have ordered a jig for installing the drawer hardware so we decided to wait on the drawers and instead do the crown molding to make the built-ins look more finished. I think we’ll try to get a start on the drawers over the next 2 weekends. By Saturday night Ryan had made and installed the bottom piece of almost all the molding we plan on doing for now (the rest of the room we are waiting until the steam pipe in one corner can be removed).
Crown molding base piece installed
While Ryan worked on that I stripped the wallpaper from the closet in the tvroom (the only plaster wall we kept in the house so far).
Sunday Ryan put in the last piece of base molding and then put up the crown. It really came out great. All we have left is doors and drawers to finish up then prime and paint!
Crown installed around cabines!
While Ryan continued with molding Sunday I got the durabond mixed up and patched the closet up as best I could. It will get probably 3 skim coats of joint compound but for now I wanted to get the raw plaster edges covered well and smoothed out at the ceiling where it meets the drywall. It’s still not dry (some very thick sections) but it looks 100x better all ready and next weekend I can start skim coating/taping!
Back wall (mostly just the edges of plaster needed sealing here)Side wall - this is where I stripped the wallpaper so the whole wall was in rough shape
That was our weekend, we also managed to relax and watch some movies (Water for Elephants as well as some cheesy xmas movies of course). Next weekend is an early xmas weekend! Plus the built-ins momentum will continue!
We had a very full weekend! Saturday morning we cut up the branches from the halloween storm and took them to the dump. Then we worked on the built-ins – first installing the bookcases and then building and installing the face frames for the bookcases. They look great and will look even better once the crown molding is installed across the top, it will really tie it into the rest of the room.
Bookcases with face frames installed!
The bookcases just need to be sanded and then primed and painted before we can install the shelves (which are adjustable and need to be ‘built’ still 🙂
We ended the day by taking out the last 3 livingroom windows and getting them sanded/prepped and primed on both sides. This is a very tedious task and luckily with both of us working on this we got them done by 10 I think, just in time to pass out for the night 🙂
Last three windows installed after getting primed and painted!
Sunday I cleaned up the livingroom (since the built-in work gets kind of messy/dusty) and then put the first coat of paint on the outsides of the windows while Ryan bagged up some of the leaves in the yard (this is a huge project and needs to get done before it snows again!).
Then since I had the paint out and the driveway side of the house really needed a new coat of trim paint (some damage from a fallen branch and I believe 2 of the window casings never got a second coat last year), I first cleaned (with a wet cloth) all of the trim on the driveway side and then gave it a fresh coat of yellow paint – just before dark.
A second and third (depending on the part) coat of paint on the trim - ready for winter!
It was getting late so I couldn’t take too long of a break for dinner before getting the final coat of paint on the exterior of the livingroom windows – that itself goes very fast (about an hour I think). While I was doing all this painting, Ryan was working on hinges/doors for the built-ins. He created a jig and then routed out the spots for the hinges for the cabinet doors. He got 4 of the 8 doors installed although they still need to be trimmed to have a matching gap all around but so far so good!
2 of the 4 cabinets have doors installed!
We also looked up what we have to do to build all the drawers for these built-ins (10 drawers that we have hardware for). It’s a LOT of work and I think we want to order a jig that will save some time on installing the lock mechanisms at least. The drawers are inside the cabinets so at least we don’t have to line up the face frames or anything. The slides are Blum Tandem plus Blumotion (they have slow close and are full extension). If we like them we’ll use the same for our kitchen drawers when we do that renovation ‘someday’ 🙂
We ended the evening by putting the windows back in. The best part was that between painting the final coat and putting them back in I ‘had’ to take a 5 hour break 🙂 So I read – currently reading Tasha Alexander’s ‘Tears of Pearl’. I accidentally read the 5th in this series and this is the 4th so I had to go back and read it of course. Almost done and need to pick something new to read over Thanksgiving!
Not as productive as some weekends, Ryan got very little sleep last week (getting up at 5am is definitely rough) and I was exhausted which meant I got a headache AGAIN on Sunday – fun times.
Anyhow, we did get some work done 🙂 Saturday we recycled half of the aluminum we’ve been storing, then drove over to my uncle’s house to get more scrap metal from him (including our old engine from the BMW) and recycle that – got back to the recycle just before it closed. So now the snow blower can fit under the back porch again this winter – yippee – instead of just out like it is right now.
I’m pretty sure that’s about all we did on Saturday unless you count catching up on lots of tv shows on Hulu and finding some new ones 🙂 Sunday we got a nice early start thanks to Fitz wanting to get up at 8am on a SUNDAY. Ryan got to work on his second bookcase and got it put together…
Bookcases in place, not yet installed and still need face frames. The shelves will be adjustable so those go in very last.
Then Ryan installed the copper above the diningroom windows (and even soldered the joints as best he could in the wind). While he did the copper I raked the side yard (had to stay close to hand him tools etc). I also raked the back yard but only the side yard actually got the piles bagged up – Fitz decided to play in one of my back yard piles and pee on another – lovely.
Copper on the windows, can't wait to do the panels above the windows...
The rest of Sunday we relaxed some more (headache) – I read Inheritance and finished it up! I don’t remember for sure but I think it’s better than Brisingr and definitely better than Eragon and Eldest were (and I enjoyed them all). The story is complete and satisfying and I didn’t have to stay up late reading at all since I spent most of sunday reading 🙂 So goodbye to Eragon and his friends/family, it was quite a journey!
Working from home today because headache yesterday turned into migraine last night and only sleeping late helped, so to make up time I skipped the commute and stayed home to get all the work done 🙂
I never did write about last weekend, we went to my sister-in-laws so Ryan could help his Dad and brother-in-law work on the roof and add a new dormer.
This weekend we had planned to work on the window panels however the rain kept us inside all weekend instead. While I puttered and did various things Ryan worked on the built-ins! First he put the backs on, then he attached them permanently. Then he made a counter top and installed it, it came out great!
Built-ins installed with backsPoplar counter top Ryan made
During this time I did some various electrical (a few outlets in the built-ins had to be installed and I started installing the ceiling fan which did not go that well unfortunately so it’s still not finished) 🙂
At dinner time I met up with the cousins and they came over for the night to work on Halloween costumes! While we worked on costumes Ryan continued on built-ins by starting the bookcases that will go on top.
Start of the bookcases
In preparation for the girls coming over I spent Friday night getting the patterns ready for Georgia and Chloe. Then I put together the skirt of Maia’s costume so it was done enough that she could try it on (it still needs a lining and a zipper but it’s close).
So Saturday night while Maia worked on cutting yarn for her Rapunzel braid and Chloe cut out her pattern pieces, Georgia and I made the dress for her costume. She’s going to be a witch and it’s a 2 piece costume, a dress and then a lined jacket. Georgia did most of the cutting and sewing of the whole dress and just before bed I did the final hem on it so it’s completely done!
Witch dress for GeorgiaAnother view
After the girls went to bed I helped Ryan move the tv lower finally.
TV lowered
Sunday morning was Chloe’s turn, we started making just the top of her costume, it’s a victorian dress but it’s a 2 parter, skirt and top. She helped cut out all the pieces and sewed most of the straight seams. There were a lot of curved seams so I did have to take over for those trickier parts. At one point we took a break and braided the yarn/hair for Maia with some ribbons so she could take it home and attach it to a crown or something. (I forgot to take a picture unfortunately). I did however take a picture of Maia’s costume so far:
Tangled costume, skirt is finished but top needs to be lined and zipper added still.
When we got about a 2 hour extension of time together I decided to continue Chloe’s top and we managed to get it completed! Grommets and all! I think it came out great and Chloe learned how to do Grommets!
Front of Chloe's top with the fancy sleeves and the lacy detail added over the seams.Grommets and lacing up the back with a few pleats at the bottom.
All in all a VERY productive weekend! And I ended the weekend by baking up some blueberry muffins that Fitz will NOT get to eat this time!
