Monday, May 22, 2006

Disappointed but busy



Well, none of our contractors have come through for us this week, but we won't talk about that right now ;) I'm not such a happy girl about all of that. In spite of that, I've managed to lay about 80 sq. feet of tile in the past couple of days and I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out. I'm just getting ready to grout, but thought I'd put up a few pictures of what it looks like now.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

It never rains but it pours

This is true both literally and figuratively around here lately ;)

After several stalled weeks on house progress we've had a flurry of activity yesterday and today. Yesterday we booked the company to do our hardwood stairs. We decided to finish them ourselves after seeing the exorbitant cost of labour to have someone else do it. Wish us luck! The installers will be putting the stairs in from June 12th - 19th, which means we will have to get two coats of polyurethane on them before that. We haven't heard when we'll be getting the pieces yet, but the guy who we talked to said we would get them in "lots of time." I'll let you know how much time in days that works out to ;)

In addition, our electrician called yesterday to say he's ready to come finish up the electrical work. Last night I spent an hour or so making sure we had everything well-marked for him as we won't be able to be there. Hopefully when we go home all the lights that are currently in boxes on the floor will be hung (in the right spots)! We're looking forward to being able to use the rest of the outlets in our bedroom and bathroom :)

Last night we also had an electrician out to get measurements for a quote on putting power to the garage. He should be ready to perform the work early next week. Yay!

And finally, the guy who's going to tile our tub surround is coming over tomorrow to do that. That will be very exciting. Peter has to get the plywood screwed on the surround tonight in order for everything to go smoothly tomorrow.

Whew! See - lots of progress, although not much work being done on our part! We did move quite a bit more out to the garage last night, and I did lots of clean-up inside the house. We moved the kitchen table over to where it will eventually sit for good - it looks so nice! It also looks really empty in front of the wood stove. We don't have any of the furniture we want to put there eventually yet so we'll have to figure something out there :)

That's about it for us. I'll let you know how everything goes over the next couple days (maybe even some pictures :) )

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Checking things off ...

Last night we actually had a good night of working on the house. Tuesday night wasn't so great for me. Peter got his crack-filling done that night, but all I managed to do was get the second coat of paint on the office door. I find it hard after having a break from working on the house to get back into the mindset of working after supper ;0)

Last night we were both moving quickly. Peter got another coat of crack-fill on the guest bedroom and it's really coming along. I washed the grout haze off the tiles in the back hallway (finally!) and got the second coat of paint on the top half of the hallway.

On the docket for tonight - get the doorknob on the office door, hang the half-bath door, clean out third bedroom. Those are the "must-do's" for tonight. Other things I'd like to get done include: hang drywall in third bedroom closet, paint bottom half of hallway, another coat of crack-fill on guest bedroom. Obviously we can't accomplish all of that tonight!

The reason I'm focusing on the third bedroom is that Peter has tomorrow off of work and he's going to spend his vacation day crack-filling (what a good man!). We don't want him to run out of rooms to crack-fill so I'm going to make sure that third bedroom is ready to get a first coat tomorrow (at least the main part of the room if not the closet as well).

Nothing much has been happening that we can take pictures of lately ... sorry! lol

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Weekly schedule ...

Our weekly goals are quite lofty this week after the dismal progress over the last couple of weeks.

Tuesday, May 9
  • Crack-fill 1 coat in guest room
  • Paint second coat on office door
  • Paint second coat on top half of hallway
  • Wash more grout haze off tiles in back hallway

Wednesday, May 10
  • Crack-fill guest room
  • Clean out third bedroom
  • Hang drywall in third bedroom
  • Paint second coat on bottom half of hallway

Thursday, May 11
  • Crack-fill guest room
  • Crack-fill third bedroom
  • Install doorknob on office door
  • Clean remaining grout haze off tiles in back hallway
  • Sand the bed in preparation for varathaning

Friday, May 12
  • Crack-fill guest room
  • Crack-fill third bedroom

Saturday, May 12
  • Varathane (first coat) bed
  • Hang door to half-bath
  • Move tools to garage (yippee!)

We finally got our taxes back, so we’re in the midst of scheduling the electrician to come out and put power to the garage along with finishing up inside the house. There are still a few things that aren’t ready to be done yet, but we can finish those up later. I can’t wait to have my light over my sink, as well as the lights in the master bath on a switch! Currently we have to go down and switch the breaker on and off every morning ;) Getting the tools out of the house will be a huge improvement in being able to get (and keep) things cleaned up.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Another day, another paint colour

Here is our main hallway / landing area upstairs with one coat of each colour on the wall :















I'm quite happy with the way it turned out, although it's not even close to what I had envisioned in my head. I did the top colour first and definitely wasn't convinced with just that colour, however when I added the lower colour tonight it started to grow on me.

I'll post our weekly schedule tomorrow - time to watch 24!

Thursday, May 04, 2006

I'm impressed ...

I logged in this morning to check our goals for the week and see how we're doing, and realized that we're doing quite well! Tuesday night we hung the rest of the drywall in the guest / front bedroom and I made a first draft of a list of things for the electrician to finish up.

Last night I grouted the floor in the back hallway and painted the ceiling in the upstairs hallway. Tonight the plan is for Peter to get the first coat of crack-fill on the guest bedroom while I get the first coat of paint on the upstairs hallway walls. I'm so excited - we're doing a chair rail and shadow striping, so lots of fun!

Peter also lined up a locksmith to come out and fix the handle on our front door (anyone who's ever tried to open our front door knows what I mean!) and install the lock and handle on the garage. Guess what that means ... we can start moving tools! I'm so excited. Now if our tax return would just come back so that we can get the power hooked up out there!

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Weekly Plan

I tried to post this yesterday but was getting errors from Blogger - seems to be a common occurrence lately :(

So .. this will be a short post as I have to get to work in 5 minutes.

Last week we didn't get anything done on the house unfortunately. This week we're still pretty busy with non-house-related stuff, but we'll try and make good progress during the time we do have. So, our goals for this week are:
  1. Hang rest of drywall in guest room
  2. Get a good start on crack-filling guest room
  3. Grout floor in back hallway
  4. Paint hallway (ceiling and walls)
  5. Make list of things for electrician to finish up
We should get started on our list tonight :)

Monday, May 01, 2006

Weekly Schedule

As much as I would like to catch up after not doing anything last week, it doesn't look like that will happen this week either. We should be able to make some progress, but not as much as we could with a completely free week and weekend ... Our goals for this week are:
  1. Hang remaining drywall in guest room (front bedroom with two windows).
  2. Get a good start on crack-filling guest room.
  3. Grout flooring in back hallway.
  4. Paint upstairs hallway.
  5. Hang door to half-bath? (maybe)
Ugh. It seems like so little when I type it out ;) Hopefully we can at least get that much done.

Weekly Schedule

As much as I would like to catch up after not doing anything last week, it doesn't look like that will happen this week either. We should be able to make some progress, but not as much as we could with a completely free week and weekend ... Our goals for this week are:
  1. Hang remaining drywall in guest room (front bedroom with two windows).
  2. Get a good start on crack-filling guest room.
  3. Grout flooring in back hallway.
  4. Paint upstairs hallway.
  5. Hang door to half-bath? (maybe)
Ugh. It seems like so little when I type it out ;) Hopefully we can at least get that much done.