We’ve kept up the momentum on getting the playroom really truly finished. Before the party we were able to get the painting fully done!
Finished painting!Ready for furniture 🙂
Since the party we’ve kept up the work – I finished up most of the electrical in the playroom (waiting on switches before I can install the fan but outlets and recessed light switches are done).
We finished painting the shelves for the built-ins! And I’m already filling those up!
Shelves paintedShelves getting filled! I got to pull 2 boxes out of the basement of things that have been packed since we lived in NH!
I’ve been painting the storage base to my craft table and just finished the second coat on that last night!
Craft table – ready to get set up this weekend!
This table is going to be amazing – more storage and a big space for both the kids to craft and me to sew! I can’t wait for that to get set up!
I’m waiting on some new bookcases I ordered for the playroom before most of the toys move in but once that is set up I’ll get more pictures. By then the room should be finished fan and window wise (I have to scrape the paint off the windows still maybe this weekend).
In other big news – Ryan and his Dad started work on a new basement project on Monday – cutting a huge hole out of our basement wall to put in a new double door. It took all day and they made good progress but it will be most of this weekend working on it before the door is installed I bet.
Cuts had to be made from both sides to get through the 10″ of concreteFull day of progress – next up jack hammering to get it down to the bottom
Still to go – clearing out the rest of the concrete, cleanup then putting in a new header and installing the door!
We have piles of dirt still in the basement from one of our very first house projects – putting new support beams with footers in – we’ve been waiting for this door before we get that dirt out (rather than cart it up a flight of stairs in buckets) – so I’m excited to finally clean out and organize the basement after this project!
The house is really coming together. Maybe we’ll even take a break from house work soon – hahahaha!
The birthday party is approaching and we’re trying to get the painting in the playroom finished up so that we don’t have to empty the room again after the party! We spent all day Sunday working on the playroom – sanding trim (primer coat) priming doors, painting the ceiling and all the caulking. I got the first coat of paint on the crown after the girls were in bed and started the trim paint (1 window and a bit of the wainscotting).
This is the floor finished with 3 coats – before we started our weekend work on the room.
Monday Ryan was off of work (mondays all summer) so he picked up the painting. He got the first coat on the rest of the trim (minus the baseboard and 1 window sash), second coat on the crown and 1 door painted. Unfortunately Monday night Bella got strep so instead of finishing up some work then some painting I was snuggling Bella who’s throat hurt until the medicine started working.
Yesterday was Bella’s 4th birthday! She had a sick day home but was luckily feeling better already and had a fun day playing while I worked. We had her favorite chicken and mashed potatoes dinner and cupcakes for dessert. She got to play with her new paw patrol stuff while wearing her new Elsa gear – her best day 🙂
After bedtime (and lots of reminding the girls to stop talking) I painted the baseboard all around and the last window sash. Then I switched and got the first coat of blue on the walls! The room now has 1 coat on everything except 1 door so it’s looking more finished. Next up we have to sand all the trim before we can start the second coat on everything.
1 coat on the room – paint is still wet in this picture
We are using the same ‘Ash Blue’ color in the playroom as my office as we really love it with the Linen White trim. I also picked out a Cobblestone grey color to paint my sewing table which is sitting in the middle of the room in that picture. That project will happen after the party but it’s ready for primer and paint (all sanded) at least.
It’s going to be another few long nights especially since I also have to clean the house for the party and maybe decorate and bake a cake ? 🙂
It’s been a quiet few months here … haha yea right! It’s been quiet on the house progress front only. We’ve had 2 birthdays (one party) for Alex and Evie. We bought a new piece of property (32 acres!) a short drive away and Ryan got a sawmill. The sawmill is related to the property 🙂 Ryan’s new hobby is everything wood. The property has some hard wood trees on it he hopes to saw down. He wants to build a barn to dry wood as well as store some of our larger tools and trailers over there.
Later on he hopes to build a woodshop into the new garage we will build so he can build furniture. He’s just planning for his early retirement at this point 🙂
In April we took a vacation week off an made some house progress. Ryan built the shelves for my built-ins and then he built the storage part of my new sewing table (happy birthday to me!)
Shelves – there are 14 total
The playroom was mostly done, I believe just the crown molding had to be finished up trim wise so he also finished that!
And I designed my new craft table for maximum storage and the proper height for cutting fabric (for me).
Sewing table base!
During this april break I got the trim in the playroom all sanded and primed.
Then Ryan got his new saw mill (new to him) and he’s gotten to play around with it a bit…
It’s over at Dad’s barn right now and I don’t think he minds at all
Another project was Ryan’s dad’s spring project – getting the back yard (lake side) all cleaned up, leveled out and seed planted. The grass came in wonderfully!
now it’s just a battle to keep the geese off of it!
And that catches us up to this past weekend. We had a very busy weekend – Ryan got the playroom floor all sanded down (it’s our last unfinished floor that’s been waiting for us to get to it). He got sanded and sanded and sanded while I sanded the shelves for the built-ins and got those primed.
14 shelves – all sanded, primed, sanded again
I used the sprayer on the shelves and they’ve been sanded after the priming but rain kept us from getting the first coat of paint on. Hopefully this week I’ll have some time to continue that project.
Finally Saturday night I got the first coat of poly on the playroom floor! Sunday I sanded it and got the second coat on – 1 more coat to go!
This is after the first coat
Final coat of poly will go on tonight – then next weekend (and any nights we can) we plan to get the painting finished in the playroom and have that room finished up for the next birthday party. Getting closer!
That’s our update – i’m sure it will be a month before I have another one (at least) 🙂
First off Ryan got a lot more trim done in the ‘playroom’ – all except the crown molding is done – but we immediately filled the playroom with everything from the ‘office’ which is twice the size of it so I never got a picture and now you can’t see the wainscoting at all. I’ll do pics once we empty that room again to paint/finish it. The reason we were rushing was that the main goal was to use the playroom as office/playroom while the floors got finished in the real office during the end of Ryan’s paternity leave (now over).
Ryan with the help of his dad got the new floors installed in the office, front hallway and diningroom – that’s it for our flooring. The kitchen and livingroom will be tiled. We had planned to have enough wood for the kitchen too but it didn’t work out that way and tile will be easy enough (no long delays and needing to leave the house like we did for the wood floors).
Office floors installedHallwayDiningroom
This is all Cherry just like upstairs and we did a clear satin finish. The finish was tough because we had to get the kids (and ourselves) out of the house for a week so on Monday I moved the girls over to my parent’s house for the week. Ryan sanded the floors with some help from my dad on the drum sander. He had finished by about 4:30 pm so we decided to test out Evie taking a bottle for the first time and he took the girls to gymnastics and then to mom and dad’s for the night. I stayed and vacuumed and put down the first coat of poly. Evie took the bottle splendidly.
First coat – still wet
Tuesday night we swapped and Ryan did the sanding/vacuum/poly.
Wednesday Ryan was back to work so we decided to tackle the rooms together late at night using babysitters for the kids. Luckily we have awesome grandparents on both sides that helped out with piano lessons and the baby duties. Ryan and I got the floors sanded, vacuumed (twice) and poly’d and back by just after 9pm (basically 3 hour job). Evie did great with her bottles again (and no issues going back to nursing – yay!).
We moved back in kind of on Friday but then we were away for 1/2 of the weekend so we really moved back in late Saturday night. We’re keeping the floors empty for now although we are using them, just no furniture – giving it until next Saturday when our new diningroom table arrives before anything heavy goes on. The office will stay pretty empty so Ryan can work on trim in there and we can hopefully completely finish that room! Once that’s done we’ll empty the playroom again and finish that room (including poly the floor in there which is still waiting). We shouldnt’ have to move out for that at least as we can close that room off and open windows to air it out quickly.
Lots of house progress and now it’s getting toward summer and yard work. Ryan got a new mower and has started the process of seeding the lawn to make it look nice this year. I’m going to clean up the gardens next to the house and use them as a veggie garden this year (just a little bit – nothing major) – maybe next year we’ll actually put in our real gardens but for now it will be good to have a little something as our kids LOVE fresh veggies.
I haven’t posted house progress in quite a while. Things have been slow but thanks to paternity leave Ryan has some more time and he’s started with finishing up trim in the playroom and the kitchen windows to start. This progress was just the last 2 days, prior to that was just recovery time from Evalina’s arrival/hospital stay/not sleeping 🙂
Door trimmed out in playroomplayroom windowsDoor trimmed outKitchen windows trimmed out
We also ordered our new sliding glass doors for the office and diningroom and they arrived so hopefully that project is next week!
We’ve had a busy month getting prepped for our kitchen renovation and hopefully it goes smoothly. This week Ryan took the week off and he and his dad are go-go-going with all the prep work. First a recap of progress.
Dad came out and taped/spackled my office -the large room. In the mean time Ryan spackled the playroom. Last week we got the office sanded and Ryan and his dad primed it on Saturday so when I got home sunday I could clean it and set it up as my office, craft room, music room, temporary diningroom and kids craft area. It’s a large room luckily because it is packed to the max! The table isn’t even moved in yet but will be.
Already packed but the office is primed!
Also over the weekend they got the old flooring up in the hallway and diningroom and new plywood down in both of those rooms.
Hallway floor – when the hallway is empty it’s so large!Diningroom floor replaced
Yesterday was a big day – we did a little re-wiring in the basement and Ryan and Mark put in some new supports (2x10s) under where one of the kitchen posts would rest to firm it up. Then they built and installed the beam in the diningroom which will be our replacement for the current wall that is there – we’ll have a nice open wall hopefully by the end of today!
New beam
This morning the guys brought all the cabinets in and stored them safely in the playroom. They’ve been inspected and luckily all of them are in good shape! No delay on the kitchen reno due to waiting for replacements or missing cabinets!
Cabinets! The blue ones are the island ones, the Dove white are around the rest of the kitchen
So prep work is all done – the last thing to do is finish emptying the kitchen. We’re moving the kitchen out to the hallway for now (a long galley style) and i’m packing up any non-essentials. The hardest thing will be having no sink or dishwasher – we have the bathroom sink right there but it’s quite small. We’ll be able to use the stove and fridge/freezer just fine and even have cabinet/counter room as we’re moving that out to the hallway.
I think the plan is between today and tomorrow to demo the kitchen and the floor and get the new plywood down. Thursday they’ll be starting to build it back up – put in the vent for the range hood, run electrical in both kitchen and diningroom. On friday i’m taking the day off to finish any electrical and they’ll be building the knee wall and doing any sheet rock prep thursday and friday.
The hope (optimistic maybe) is to be sheetrocking this weekend! Once sheetrock is up there’s the process of taping/spackling/sanding/priming before we can install cabinets so the sooner we can start that the better.
The other delay will be after cabinets are in, waiting for counters. At this point we’re ahead of our ‘worst case’ schedule to get counters in before xmas so i”m hopeful we’re going to be able to get our kitchen finished and used (minus flooring which is going to be a later on project) before xmas! Crossing fingers.
Work continues, we’ve had a few good weekends. Dad came over one weekend and helped Ryan hang all the sheetrock in the office. That room is cleaned up and empty now. The playroom is also cleaned up , ramboard put down and Ryan has been taping a little each night – getting all the seams and corners – i think he has 2 upper corners left to tape so that will probably be done tonight, then time for next coats 🙂
In other news we’ve officially ordered all our appliances now too for the kitchen – going with GE Cafe series and they have a rebate right now if you buy 3 appliances you get a free dishwasher – so that’s a great deal!!! Ryan has his vacation week picked out to do the bulk start of the kitchen renovation.
On my plate is to start cleaning out/emptying the kitchen a bit of things we don’t use often – get them packed up for the next 2 months.
It’s been a LONG while since I did a house update – we really took most of the summer off of house renovations but we are gearing up for a busy fall/winter!
The big project right now was emptying out the ‘office/craft room’ and the ‘playroom’. The playroom was already sheetrocked but not taped so now that’s ready to be taped -toys are distributed throughout the house (bedrooms and livingroom and diningroom) – nice and cozy ..ugg!
The office we had to do electrical (install lights), add strapping to the ceiling, build the walls in the closet for the washer/dryer, install the dryer vent and electrical for the washer/dryer (to be finished tonight actually). Sheetrock is being delivered today! To be installed next weekend and then hopefully start taping shortly after.
We built some shelves in the basement to hold the tools that were in the officeStrapping and lights added – we have temp lights strung right now to help work at nightNew wall and vent for dryer in the closetThe other thing that was being stored in there was our leftover flooring – we’re hoping this is enough we can floor the playroom with it and get that room finished next!
Ryan really wants to get our kitchen renovation done soon so our current plan is as follows :
Sheetrock office
Tape/Spackle office and playroom
Prim playroom and office
Set up and use office as is (move my office and maybe toys in there to unclutter diningroom)
Add flooring in playroom
Add doors and trim to playroom
Finish floors
Paint playroom
Set up playroom!!!!
Demo kitchen… yikes!
We’ll see – i’m thinking we’ll do kitchen after xmas – ryan wants it done before xmas … i just don’t see that happening!
I’ve really fallen behind on blogging! And it’s too bad since we took a staycation from work off in November to work on the house (tiling) so I should have updated then – it was a long week though.
So this post will just be a catch up of progress since the last one – based on pictures I have 🙂
The master bathroom was our main project if I go in order – we finished spackling and sanding, then installed water proofing for the shower and floors (Kerdi system)
Sanding doneShower system installedBathroom door installedBathroom ceiling painted (don’t want to paint after tile – ceiling painting can involve drips!)Getting shower tiles ready to go – Schluter Ditra on the floors
Tiling the bathroom was a long process – mostly because we were using big tile and that meant that most of the tiles had at least 1 cut. It basically went – 1 shower wall done 1 day, 2nd shower wall done 2nd day. Break on the 3rd day (other projects). Shower floor 4th day. 1/2 floor day 5 and finish day 6 (saturday after our vacation). The days were short because we had drop off/pickup at daycare and we were cutting outside until saturday so once it was dark we couldn’t see. We brought the saw inside Saturday and stayed up late to finish.
After day 2 – showerShower floor went pretty quick since we dry laid it first (and cut)Shower finishedFloor in progress!Floor finished!
These pictures I took today but they cover the projects since our vacation.
Tile with the spacers removed (not grouted yet)
So we haven’t grouted yet – 1 month later! The reason for this is that the tile turned pretty grey after being installed. (it started white). We had to wait for the thinset to dry out so the tile would turn white again (white thinset) – the floor is white now, the shower is still a light greyish tinge but I think we’re going to call it good now. I love it – it bothers ryan more (the color not being bright white) – but 12x24s take a long time to dry. So now we have to clean out grout lines, seal the tile, grout, then seal the grout. So plenty left to do!
Bathtub view. The wainscotting is going to go across the front of the tub surround (to tie in with the walls)
Other projects included more sheetrocking …
Master bedroom is sheetrocked (i think 1 sheet is waiting to get installed) – so just about ready for tapingSheetrocking the playroom downstairs – also there’s new plywood on the floor that you can’t see due to the rug 🙂
Obviously we couldn’t wait to start using the playroom! I finally have space in my livingroom – this was a must in order to put our tree up this year!
Organization in progress….
And then we did the tree!
It’s starting to feel like Christmas around here
This past weekend we started another new project – Garage organization. We have some new cherry wood coming that we need to store in our garage – but our garage was full!
Step 1 – empty the garage outStep 2 – take out the old shelf that was very inefficientRyan built new shelves!
We can fit more on narrower shelves than we could on that one big/deep one!
And one shelf for strollers… clearly I need to get rid of some strollers
We finally did some yard cleanup in preparation for snow so this time we were prepared for the snow that came!
The main thing not really shown was the new plywood on the playroom and office floors – nice and sturdy! The master bedroom will get new plywood next and we’ll start taping/spackling soon. We’re having flooring for the master made now too (more cherry).
That’s a long post, i’m sure more has been done i’ve missed but right now we are in holiday mode – getting ready for our first christmas here! The girls are excited – cookie baking this weekend and next week!
Hopefully the pictures all load, I’ve heard they don’t always load – I’m going to try to figure out a new way to show photos if these don’t work well but initial research was not promising.
We’ve been working on some projects lately so I’ll just try to recap some of what we’ve done.
Linen closet :
Done : The old shelving was removed, a new door installed
Left to do : Spackle, paint, new trim, new shelves
Playroom:
Jacked up the ceiling and put in new beams and blocking to support the floor of the dormer
Framed out and cut out a door between the playroom and the office (This brings in a LOT of light into the playroom!)
Master Bathroom
This weekend we got the bathroom prep work finished (just a few small things we had left to do) and then got the bathroom sheetrocked! We’ve started taping/spackling and picked out the tile (we just have to order the tile). We’re going to go with marble tile in the master!
Bathroom sheetrocked!Got a light in there too so we can work at night finally
Our focus is on getting the bathroom moved along and then we’ll sheetrock the master bedroom!
