Ryan had to work this past weekend so I was QUITE surprised when I got home to find progress on the tvroom! The first thing I could see was a baseboard across the front of the built-in – YES!!! Finally, no more Fitz toys stuck under there 🙂
The baseboards aren’t complete because he couldn’t find a cap molding (like we did in the gym) that he likes, so we have to head over to Brookline when they’re open over there to get the matching one. But for now I’d say the hard half of the tvroom has the main part of the baseboard completed!
The closet also has a door! And the two doors he previously installed have trim! I’d say at this point that the moldings/trim are about 1/2 way done since 2 out of 4 doors are trimmed out and baseboards go around half the room (as does the crown).
I’ll let the pictures show the progress I came home to!
The closet has a door - and the door to the front hall has trim!Baseboards in front of the built-ins (note that cap molding is just sitting there to see if we like it, not happy with it)And trim and baseboards over to the door going towards the kitchen!
We’ll see what happens this week and next weekend. I’m still working on the closet project in my free time (evenings) and next weekend Ryan is away and I’m having some friends over so progress will be limited but there should be some!
Then the following weekend we’ll be demoing the nursery!
Mom and I went down to visit with Aimee, Jason and little Jason this weekend. The other reason we went down is so that we could all do some IKEA shopping and then some Joann’s shopping. Little Jason came with us to IKEA (he was so good!), but unfortunately IKEA was a huge disappointment and none of us got what we were hoping to really find. The good news about that was that we didn’t spend much at all!
We spent the rest of Saturday evening playing with little Jason who was in a great mood. He is such a happy baby (when he’s not sick I hear) and I love his little giggles! He loves being tickled too and anticipates it 🙂
Sunday it was just the girls out to Joann’s to shop – and what a shopping trip. First mom and I stocked up on baby quilting fabrics (lots of flannels!), then some cottons too. Finally I picked out a curtain fabric for the nursery and a matching/coordinating crib skirt fabric so I can get to sewing on nursery items even if I don’t yet have a nursery 🙂
Back for some giggles with little Jason before it was time for the drive home…
There's a big smile!Action shot - he loves this football - most of my pics he's got it in front of his face 🙂
What a great weekend … and then I came home to an early Valentine’s Day surprise…
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).
Fitz is spoiled, he better enjoy it, i’m sure things will change once the baby comes! But over the past 9 months that we’ve had Fitz he has been spoiled almost constantly. The difference is that now he’s comfortable here and I think he’s starting to take advantage 🙂
Case in point: The couch. At first there was a definite no couch rule. Then occasionally Ryan would pull him up onto his lap for some petting. Then it was my turn and I dragged him up once or twice when Ryan was working late and I wanted some company. Finally last week after daycare he was whining (he wants to go up to his good bed when he’s tired) so I put his blanket (one of many) on the couch and ‘coaxed’ him up. It didnt’ take long and now he’s comfortable jumping right up if invited (although he does sit for you first if you’re inviting him to make sure you want him). So now he’s taking up 1/3 of the couch some nights between Ryan and I. Oh boy!
Second point: Daycare. It started to get him socialized (or keep him that way anyway) and he got agility class at the same place. But I never knew how he was behaving at that daycare, couldn’t tell if he liked it (he just whined when we got there and when we left – I have no idea what that means). So I found a nicer daycare (aka. more expensive) that he LOVEs (and I love because I can see how he is during the day – they send pictures) and I can spy on him when I drop him off/pick him up. He is much less whiny (I told them when he whines he needs a break and I suspect they are giving him breaks to relax), and he still sleeps the whole next day without bothering me (bonus for me!). Daycare once a week seems to be the key – again, once the baby comes this will stop (at least during my maternity leave – because the daycare is halfway to work).
Third point: Walks. We’ve always taken long walks with him, but when we got him it was spring/summer. As the weather got cooler (actually when I got pregnant) – walks got harder for me (I got sick after about a mile). So he got shorter walks but almost every day he got to walk at least to the nearby park to mark all the trees. There are days he doesn’t get to go and that happens more and more (freezing cold out/snowing/raining). But even on days when I don’t want to walk far, I usually put him on the lead and we play ball for 10 minutes or so. And lately I’ve resumed the walks even in the COLD weather because it’s good exercise for us both. He loves the snow – so he got 20 minutes in the snow with his ball today which means I have to stay outside with him because if I go inside, he just sits and waits for me (and starts shaking if it’s cold out). So again – spoiled.
That’s Fitz’s life. I think it’s a drastic improvement over his life before he came to us as a stray. We know we spoil him but he had 4+ years of who knows what so a year of spoiling is deserved – once the baby comes he’ll probably get a little less attention but hopefully he knows we love him (best dog in the world) 🙂
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
Yes our dog goes to daycare – once a week to get his energy out and he loves it. Well we decided in the new year to try out a new daycare – the Bark-o-lounge in Littleton. Today is his first day and he’s already had a busy day playing with new friends.
Hey Fitzy boyMeeting new friends 🙂Getting introducedAnd outside timeMore friendsActually pretty calmAnd more friends
He is going to be exhausted tonight (and hopefully tomorrow when I’m working from home). I really like this place, they send out emails with pictures during the day and have a facebook page to follow where they post some pics during the day as well.
What a strange weekend we had. Saturday I was feeling so much better from my cold finally so we worked on the house (knowing we had only one day this weekend since Ryan had a bunch of work work to do on sunday). First we ran to the dump to drop off the final loads from last weekend, then over to pick up our new windows from Marvin.
Home again we decided to continue the demolition in the upstairs diningroom so we could put up the new wall for the hallway. It was very messy demo due to the insulation in the ceiling and we only did half of the ceiling (just enough to put up the new wall), since the master bathroom will not be done for a long while and i’d rather get the floor down before we demo the rest (it’s not fun cleaning demo debri from the upstairs and downstairs due to cracks in the subfloor). The demo went pretty quickly (poor Ryan had to do all of it) but I helped with bagging it all up and now we have another dump load for another weekend waiting outside (hopefully before it snows!).
With that completed I spent about an hour vacuuming up the exposed insulation and the debri. Finally we started the new wall. We left a few of the studs out so there’s a makeshift doorway to get through for now (since we’re not finishing the bathroom for a while we’ll use it as our ‘guest room’ while we work on the nursery – need to put the bed someplace!).
Finally with the wall in and secured to both the upper and lower joists it was time to remove the jacks to see if the floor had any less movement or not. It has definitely improved, it still moves (the joists included) if you jump on it so we may need to take future measures but there was definite improvement over before.
Ceiling demolition
And the other sideNew wall started (still needs 2 more studs and blocking but it's enough for now).
Unfortunately on Sunday, even though we knew Ryan wouldn’t be able to work on the house I still had hopes to get a few things done but I woke up with a sore throat and headache (cold really doesn’t want to go away). The sore throat was probably due to not drinking enough water on saturday because staying hydrated sunday certainly helped. So while Ryan worked I crashed on the couch with some Pride & Prejudice and stitched as well as napped.
Stitching Progress update. Making good progress on this piece.
Then the stomach bugs came to our house. Kind of. Fitz was the first to go down. Sometime after dinner he got sick (right in his bed too), and it was horrible. He continued to get sick 4 times total over the next few hours and we were on high alert for any sign he might need to rush outside. I have a nice big load of dog blankets that need to be washed (waiting to see how today goes first). Poor Fitzy. I finally took away his water (since he was just throwing it back up) and he was okay through the night.
Of course then later in the evening I got a bit of a bug (or just an IBS attack). I was up till 3am with uncontrollable shivers every 20 minutes or so. Not fun. Poor Fitz and I are quite the pair. So I decided to work from home today due to my lack of sleep and wanting to be able to keep an eye on Fitz (who is acting fine but wants to eat grass now – can’t find any! – which makes me think he’s not better yet). He is allowed a little water (although he hasn’t touched it yet) and I gave him some yogurt with peanut butter for breakfast so we’ll see how that goes. If he doesn’t get sick he’ll get rice and chicken for dinner tonight. Hopefully whatever it was has passed and he can go to his new daycare tomorrow.
I myself am feeling better, I feel like I always do after an IBS attack so that’s probably what it was (from eating too much yesterday?). I’ll take it easy with what I eat today and stay hydrated. I should be able to work most of the day (maybe a short nap at some point). And poor Fitz is stuck in the room with me so I can keep an eye on him.
That was our weekend – so much fun 🙂 I am very excited about the house progress, we can now put down hardi-backer in the master bathroom area and make it into a temporary guest room with sheets for walls and the bed moved in there. Then the nursery clean out project begins and eventually we’ll demo that room and get it going!
