We really are still doing work

This is an older picture.....can't you tell?  But as we speak we are getting our fireplace worked on right now.  They are currently fixing the firebox and then we will be getting gas logs installed later today.  Finally we will have a fireplace we can use.  Now I will just have to work on refinishing the front, I have some ideas, just need to find the time.

 And again this is an old picture taken back in September, when we first started working on the stairs.  We have beens slowly working on them for the past few months.  They are getting close, and we hope to finalize the project over the Christmas break.

So maybe sometime soon we will actually have new pictures to show you.

On a separate note, we actually had a guy come out to give us quotes on helping us with a few projects.  Mainly focusing on the kitchen, and master bathroom.  Let's just say we overwhelmed him, and he won't be helping us.  I think his comment as he walked out the door was that we would be working on this for a very long time.

Well...It's Brown

Painting is Done

The painters have been paid.  We thought we were getting a decent deal, and while they had a lot to do with 3 different colors, we still had to stay on top of them to make sure they were doing what we had asked for.

We will be taking pictures tonight (they literally just finished up).  The house looks good, but unfortunately in the front since it was predominately brick, and still is predominately brick, there isn't a big WOW factor.   Which is kind of depressing since we just spent all that money.  And for all those curious people the total came in at:

$2600 - labor (they painted for 5.5 days)
$1100 - paint (we went through 28 gallons)
$600 cedar braces

Work in Progress

Originally we thought they would be done painting on Saturday.  It seems to be taking them longer than they thought, and now it looks like it might be completed on Tuesday.

I guess it's not just us when projects always go longer than they should, it's just our house!

Major Exterior Changes

Our house is being painted tomorrow.  This is the last time it will look like this with a peachy tan exterior and burnt orange trim.

We can't wait.

More Brace Work

I thought you might want to actually see what these braces look like that we have been installing for the last couple of weeks.

The top ones were easier to install, except the very high ladder needed to reach them.

 The second level was our soffit which was sloping terribly.  We needed to jack it up to near level and then install the braces.  Here was our 17 foot garage side where we had to create a column and use the car jack to get it up.

 Jesse in action installing a brace.

 And Elle, who no matter what project you are working on, likes to drop her ball and will patiently wait for you to throw it.  Even if you are 17 feet in the air, she will place it next to the ladder and wait.

The countdown is on for our house to get painted.  The painting crew is coming on Thursday, so it will be a busy weekend outside prepping for everything.

What do you do with ugly?

 

We had this old chandelier in our entryway that we took down a couple of months ago.  They still sell new ones similar to it at the home improvement stores for $200.  I tried to sell it on craigslist for $40.  And no one wanted to buy it.  So I decided to spray paint it black.

I took out the chandelier part and replaced it with a candle.  I added some fall foilage to spruce up our entryway.

As you can see it's a work in progress.

I bought the wreath last year before we stained the doors, and it looks like I am going to have to come up with something else, as it blends into the doors.  I also haven't replaced my summer plants with fall mums yet. I might not this year, as it's getting kind of late in the season.

Maybe some day my entryway will look like this for Halloween.

Outside Work

We started working on the exterior of the house this weekend.  And no, we are not finished with the interior stairs.  Our goal is the get the house painted before the weather gets too cold, so we need to get a bunch of things done before that.

Originally we thought we would be doing the painting ourselves, but that would take us about 2 months, so we opted to have it done professionally.  As it is it's going to take us 2-3 weeks to get the prep work done before they can start painting.  We have brackets to install, landscaping to remove, trees to trim, etc.

On Saturday night we joined our neighbors around a firepit.  Does anyone else get together with neighbors and complain about their houses.....for hours?  All the work that needs to be done, the questionable things the previous owners did, all the money everything is costing etc?  Okay maybe it's just us, but at least all our neighbors are in the same boat.

Working on the Stairs

It was time to finally start installing the new stairs.

It was a slow process removing the existing pine treads and replacing with the new oak ones.

The treads had to be shimmed, as the existing stairs were leaning to the left.  After we had replaced about half of them, we realized the new stairs were squeaking.  So we had to buy some lag screws and secure the stair stringer to the wall.

They were really long lag screws.

Once the white painted risers were attached the stairs looked much better.

We had a little time left over to start working on the newel posts.

Hopefully we can work on the railing this weekend.  It's a little unnerving to walk around and not have any railings up.  Especially since the dogs like to walk on the very edge every time they go up and down.

Working Overtime

We have been working non-stop, or so it seems.  All the little things that take up so much time, but aren't big enough on their own to even take a picture.  And unfortunately we have weeks, days, and hours left of work to do before we can do our big reveal of the entryway and exterior of our house.
I should be keeping track of all the hours spent painting and staining.  I'm pretty sure for the entryway and stairway alone I am nearing 20 hours, and I am only 1/2 done.

S#*%

Sorry for the explicit language, but I messed up big time.

See my husband saw this picture on the blog and called to ask me "Did you stain the wrong side of the stair tread, aren't the returns supposed to be on the right hand side?"

Oh S#*%

Yes I did stain the wrong side of the tread, and yes their are lines on the back side (now front side) of the tread that are going to cause big problems.  So I tried my best to fix it.  I have another coat of stain to go on it, but with the first coat I have two treads that I can visible see aren't looking the greatest.  Let's just hope it looks better after the second coat.  Otherwise I just have a very expensive and stupid mistake on my hands, and no one else to blame but myself.

Double Check

Let's see, before you spend hours upon hours painting spindles, and deciding you can strip the existing railing and re-stain it, you might want to make sure you can take it apart without damaging the whole thing.  Yes you see, it needs to be taken off, so that we can replace the treads.  Except we attempted tonight and could not get it to budge.
So tomorrow we will really have to tackle removing it, and I'm thinking there might be a few casualties. As in we might be buying a new railing and new spindles.  Well that will only add about $500+ to the project.  So let's all pray tonight that we will be successful tomorrow without doing major damage.  Okay maybe we should stick to praying for world peace, and we will just hope that all goes well tomorrow.
And at least if we have to replace the spindles we can upgrade to nice black metal ones, except that only makes the price go up even more.  But hey I'm trying to look on the bright side if needed.

Lots of work with no gain

First I have to show you my DIY mishap, except I'm not exactly sure how I got this very large bruise on my arm.  I believe it came from unloading and carrying the 14 foot ladder we rented the other weekend.  It looked bad, but didn't hurt much, until I made the unfortunate mistake of landing the edge of a 5 gallon bucket of paint right in the middle of it.  Now it's raised up, still ugly looking, and hurts at the slightest touch.  Here's hoping it goes away sometime soon.

On another note.  We have been busy the past week doing little projects for the entryway.

Things like painting the spindles a new lighter trim color, except you can't even really tell they have been painted.  In the picture the 2 spindles on the right are actually a little bit lighter than the 2 on the left.  Nothing like a 3 hour project that doesn't show any results.

I also had to paint all the trim, which meant 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of white trim paint.  It was a debate as to buy new primed boards that would need to be cut, or spend all the time painting the existing boards.  Even though it took 4 hours to paint, I decided not to waste the perfectly good boards just because I wanted a different color, not to mention it was money not spent.

We also received the new square newel posts from our friend Toby who has been busy putting in many hours making these and the new oak treads for the stairs.

I agreed to stain the pieces, and after 3 hours of staining and 3 more coats to go, I'm wondering why I said I would do it myself.

But the pieces are looking great already.

I still need to attempt to strip the old stain off the railing, so it can match the newly stained posts and stairs.  I have a feeling that it is going to be a very toxic smelly mess.  But we are getting closer to having the project wrapped up!

How long has this carpet been up?

We removed the carpet in the house before we even moved in over a year ago.  But we left it on the stairs since we were going to be changing them into oak treads.  Well we are finally getting around to removing the carpet.

Is it just me, or does the rough pine look better than the crappy carpet?

Entryway

How do you change a chandelier that hangs from a 17 foot ceiling?  How do you paint 17 foot high walls?  Well you have to borrow or rent a 14 foot step ladder, which basically takes up the whole space.

It took a full day to edge and roll the entryway with 2 coats of paint, and by full day I mean from 8am till 8pm.  We had just finished up the first coat of edging when we stopped for lunch.  We had picked up a 12 pack of Bud Light Lime, you need beer when you paint, according to Jesse.  I had two beers with my lunch, and by the time we started painting the walls, I was a little drunk (I guess it doesn't take much anymore).

So I got to hold the paint tray when needed on the ladder.

While we had the ladder we decided to change the chandelier.

We had to get up early Sunday morning to get it done in time to return the ladder and not accrue a late fee.

And replacing the chandelier went well, we got it done in time with only a little bit of sweat trying to hold it up as it got wired and attached to the ceiling.

Now we are about half way done with the space.

Bella's Room

In addition to working on the entryway and the exterior, I am also working on Bella's bedroom.  I bought the paint during Sherwin Williams paint sale, so now I need to get busy working on some details before I can start painting.  I need to prime and paint the trim, as hers in the only room with dark wood trim.  And then we also need to create a closet system, and install a ceiling fan or new light fixture.
We have also decided to upgrade Bella to a full size bed.  Her toddler bed has such a hard mattress that she has been using for the past 3 years.  And it seems so mean to keep her on it.  Since her crib changes into a full size bed frame, we are going to go for it.  I will be creating some kind of system to keep her safely inside the beds perimeter so she doesn't fall out.  But the new bed will also be a great place to change her, as it isn't quite safe to keep using the top of the dresser.  Not to mention the dresser is not so silently begging us to keep the 30 pound toddler off of it.

This is Bella's new color scheme, pink and coral.  The big question is whether to spend the $160 for the quilt or to take a big leap and try to sew one myself.  My sewing machine has the quilting guides, so I'm thinking I might go for it.  Of course finding the time is always the big setback.

Entry Way Tile

We finished our tiling project a couple of weekends ago.  It was a long 3 days of working.  Now we have all the finishing touches to do, to include: painting trim, painting the walls, adding batten board, and replacing the chandelier.  Not to mention refinishing the handrail, adding new posts, and changing the stairs to wood.  So in other words we still have most of the work left to do.  We hope to get the project finished in the next month or two.  Then after we paint the exterior of our house, we might take a break from doing home projects for a little while.  Well, until I just can't stand the bathroom anymore and decide to take a sledgehammer to it, that is.

A bright idea

Our family room when we first moved in.  So very, very dark.  We painted it back in September, but I wanted to call attention to the lights in the room.  Originally when we moved in there was an ugly ceiling fan and an old can light in front of the fireplace that didn't work.

We replaced the ceiling fan and added a new light in front of the fireplace, as you can see in the picture below.  The only problem was, both lights and the fan where on the same switch.  Which meant if you wanted the ceiling fan on, you had to have the light on in front of the fireplace.  Not so great for warm movie nights.

So I came up with the idea of buying one of the remote kits for ceiling fans.  I figured it would work with a light, and therefore you would be able to turn the light off with the remote, even when the ceiling fan was going.  The remote kits sell for about $20 at the home improvement stores.

And viola......the light can be turned off independently of the fan.

Unfortunately the room is still very dark.  There really isn't any natural light that comes into the room.  Which is great for watching movies, but hard for taking pictures.  I still plan on working on the fireplace wall, someday it will be brighter in there.

Living in the wild west

Or so it feels sometimes.  We have new creatures living in our backyard.


It could be a mole.

Or a vole.

But whatever it is, it's causing damage that looks like this.