No time for talk ...

... just pictures of Peter's progress over the last week :)

Getting back into it...

Unfortunately we've been pretty busy the past few weeks, leaving little time for the house (or anything else!) Although we're still pretty busy in the next couple of weeks, I *really* want the downstairs trim finished by mid-November, so I'm posting our plans on here for the world to see ;)

My short-term goal is the finish tiling the kitchen. It's half done and I should be able to finish it with one more day of work. Peter's short-term goal is the finish crack-filling the back hallway. So ... here's the schedule for the next week or so:

Saturday, October 14th

• Angela - tile rest of kitchen with help from Marsha

Tuesday, October 17th

• Angela - grout kitchen and two remaining tiles in upstairs bath
• Peter - coat of crack-fill in back hallway

Wednesday, October 18th

• Peter - coat of crack-fill in back hallway

Saturday, October 21st

• Peter - finish crack-filling hallway, build router table (needed for trim)
  
• Angela - cut out extra insulation around windows downstairs, measure for downstairs trim

If (and that's a big if) we can get that stuff done next week, which is a very busy week for us, we will be in good shape for finishing the trim on time.

Oh yeah, I've been "tagged" by Katie
So ...
5 Weird Things about myself ...

1. I eat all kinds of things I really don't like because I know they're good for me (by all kinds I mean things like bananas, yogurt, etc ...really normal stuff for most people)
2. I'm a devoted follower of Flylady , so much so that some family members think it's a cult!
3. I hate my food to touch, too!
4. I'm not that fond of chocolate.
5. I used to make Peter go to the movie theatre and buy their popcorn just so I could have some while we watched a movie at home ;) What a great guy!

That's all for today!

Long time ...

Long time no update! Peter posted some pictures of our new cupboards (and my oven! yippee!) last week, but other than that I've been pretty slack with keeping up to date. Unfortunately, over the next few weeks there won't be much work accomplished - Peter's pretty tied up with other commitments.

Last weekend I managed to lay over half the remaining tile. Once I get the rest of that laid (next Saturday, the 14th) we will have all our flooring finished! That will be a huge item off our to-do list. We also spent some time last week hanging most of the remaining drywall. We still had a couple of closets to do, of which we finished 1.5 - not sure why we didn't finish it all at once! Hopefully we'll have time to finish that in the next week as well. Peter began crack-filling the hallway by the back door last week. That's the last spot on the main floor that isn't painted. It will be great to get that finished!

Our short-term goal is to get the downstairs trim on (which means we'll be pretty much done downstairs) by mid-November - in time to decorate for Christmas! I'm so excited to get to really decorate for Christmas this year. Last year we had a tree and that was about it. Oh yeah, and the outside lights! This year my big decorating "purchase" is going to be some greenery garland to do the handrail on our stairs. Mom always does that with ribbon and lights and it looks soooooo pretty. Anyone have any ideas on where I can get somewhat real looking greenery without paying an arm and a leg??

That's about all that's going on around here. I've started making up my Christmas list (gifts to give, not get ;) ) and I only have 1.5 total gifts left to figure out. Not too shabby! Now to start actually buying some of them. I have two major shopping trips planned in the next month, so I should be able to put a big dent in my shopping by the end of October. Then November is decorating and Christmas cards, and December will be for relaxing and baking in my *new* oven! Have I mentioned how much I love my oven??

Oooo yes ... don't forget that Monday starts the official Christmas-music-listening season for anyone interested ;) I come by my Christmas excitement honestly ... right, Mom?

Until next time ...

More Cupboards

Well, we finally finished some more cupboards, and have them attached to the wall. Oh ... ya, and more more thing .... we can now use our OVEN !!!!! mmmmm cookies mmmmmmm :-)

Tiling Tips

I think I've figured out the problem I described here with the tiles lifting up. I believe it happens when the mortar has a higher spot in the middle than on the corners. The lifting always started as a hollow sound when you knock on one corner. Sometimes when spreading the mortar a high ridge can form between two passes with the trowel (similar to when you're shoveling your driveway ...). Sometimes this ridge will hold a corner of the tile up. Now that I've figured out what was causing it I can hopefully prevent it in the future.

Other tips I've learned while laying around 750 sq. feet of tile (only 150 left to go!):

• Mix more mortar than you think ... mixing mortar is one of the most time-consuming aspects of laying the tile. I always kick myself when I only mix enough for 4 or 5 tiles.
  
• After you lay the tiles, try and go over the grout lines (that don't have grout yet) with a wet cloth to clean them out as much as possible before the mortar dries. This saves so much time if you're messy like me.
• A guy I met who is doing his apprenticeship to lay flooring of all types said the best way to know if the mortar is the right consistency is to lay a tile, lift it, and check the bottom of the tile. I think he said somewhere around 80% of the tile should have mortar stuck to it. The method I use now is: when I'm mixing it with the drill and the drill hole mostly retains its shape when I pull it out of the mortar I know it's about right.
• Pay more for the good gloves :) Pick a set of clothes to tile in and expect that you will throw them out when you're finished. Likewise with the rags.
• Make sure to change water often when grouting - it really does save time in the long run. I always go back to the start after grouting and just shape the grout lines and scrub off the harder grout on the top of the tiles. Then the next day I'll go for a second wash and start working on the haze.
• The best thing I've found for shaping grout lines is dollar store sponges :) The ones sold in the home improvement stores aren't flexible enough to get the grout lines right (or at least that's what I've found).
• A good score and snap saw is worth its weight in gold. I think tile nippers would have been helpful, but we don't have any.
  

Anyone else have any good tips for laying ceramic tile?

On Saturday I got all the tile behind the stairs laid (yay!). Last night I got it grouted and washed it once. Tomorrow night my goal is to wash it a second time and get the laminate finished to meet the tile. I can't wait until that's done!

Peter has been working on the pantry and oven cupboard. Despite running into several glitches (we won't talk about those ;) ) he's ready to bring it into the house. He's going to build the section over the fridge in place as well as attach the face frame to the boxes. It will be too hard to move after it's all together.

I'll try and get some pictures - I think we've done lots of flooring since the last ones.

The monster list ...

Big Items Left to Finish

• Urethane on stairs
• Hang drywall in third spare room
• Hang drywall in back closet
• Hang, paint and install doorknob on door to half-bath
• Crack-fill, prime, and paint third spare room and second spare room closet
• Crack-fill, prime, and paint master closet
• Crack-fill, prime, and paint back hallway
• Finish laying and grouting tile in kitchen
• Build and install pantry and oven cupboards
• Build and install upper cupboards
• Build and install shelves and drawers in kitchen cupboards and master vanity
• Build window returns
• Install trim throughout

This is just a reminder for myself about what our "short-list" looks like for the next couple of months. Anything not on this list is just gravy. Things like telephone jacks, cable jacks, fixing little things that aren't quite the way we want them...

90 Percent!

Just a quick post before work starts for the day :)

The assessor came out last week at the bank's request to get an update on what we had finished. We knew going in that we didn't have the 98% done that was needed in order to get our third and final draw of money. The assessor echoed that sentiment as she was leaving, which was fine.

When we got back from vacation on Monday there was a message on Peter's phone at work that she had set us at 90% complete and the bank was offering to release 2/3 of the remaining money. I'm so excited! It was totally unexpected but will be very nice to pay down the line of credit.

Other than that good news, things around the house have been moving very slowly. It doesn't look like we'll get to do much more until Saturday this week due to various commitments. Last week I tiled the rest of the entryway (yay!) - it's waiting for grout along with a small section of tiles by the stove. I guess I'd better get some more grout. I'm going to try and get those two sections grouted before Saturday and then spend Saturday laying the tile behind the stairs. Peter is working on the face frame for the pantry and oven cupboards - the unit looks so nice even without them!

Paint Transition

I ran across a question from someone on the www.houseblogs.net forums about a way to transition paint colours between two rooms that share a common wall. Since we dealt with this issue last fall I thought I'd post a few pictures of the "finished" product. Please disregard the mess - we're still spending more time building than we are organizing and it shows!

The door in the first two pictures is the same ... it's impossible to get the whole wall in one shot...




I

Frustration

We managed to put a good night's work into the house last night. We cut the bottoms off the two doors, Peter put the wall up, and I started to clean the mortar off the tiles in front of the wood stove.

I got about halfway done the tiles when I noticed that one of them was cracked ... very strange. I figured I'd have to take that tile up, remove the mortar, and retile it on the weekend. Well ... once I got that tile up I noticed that the tile next to it was loose ... this spiraled into 6 loose tiles and more on their way. Has anyone ever had this problem or have any ideas on what's causing this? We laid it in the late fall, when the concrete was cold and before we turned the radiant heat on. I thought maybe we weren't mixing the thinset properly. I found some places online that said if the thinset is too wet or dry this can happen (they sound hollow when you knock on them). However, I don't think I've changed anything and all the tiles I've laid recently have been fine. Anyway, we got the 6 tiles up, we're just going to grout over a few others that we should probably lift (I figure it's not much more work to take them up after grout than it is now), and we're really hoping the rest of the tiles are good and solidly stuck. Our other thought on why this happened is that we didn't grout it right away...

So ... I didn't quite get all the tiles cleaned and ready for grout, but that's ok, because I'll spend Saturday replacing the tiles we took up as well as laying some more in the entryway. I'll probably lay some more tiles on Monday and then grout everything on Tuesday.

Enjoy your long weekend all you NBers!

Weekly Schedule

I was reading back over some older posts and I am completely amazed at what we managed to accomplish in an evening. I think this was due in part to having a plan posted so that we had to be accountable if we decided to just sit on our butts and do nothing instead of what was on the list ...

So here is our plan for the next few days:

Thursday

1. Cut bottom off doors to master bath and office (they are too long now that the hardwood is in place). Hang doors
   
2. Clean mortar off tiles by stove. Get ready for grout.
3. Paint 1 coat on door to master bath.
4. Finish framing closet in back hall.
   

Saturday

1. Lay tiles we removed and some in entryway.
2. Hang remaining drywall in spare room and back hall. That's all for drywall - yay!
   
3. Cut remaining panels for pantry and oven cupboards.
4. Start putting together boxes for pantry and oven cupboards.
   

Monday

1. Lay more tile.
2. Put together boxes for pantry and oven cupboards.

Tuesday

1. Grout tile.
   
2. Work on face frames for pantry and oven cupboards.

I have purposely made these goals very attainable so we can feel a sense of accomplishment by actually completing our list ;) Maybe we'll even be able to exceed our expectations!

Back in the groove

After a few unproductive weeks, Peter and I are ready to get back in the groove of finishing up the house. I've noticed we tend to cycle like that and I think it's necessary for our sanity!

We did manage to finish up the hardwood last week (yippee!) and we also cut out some of the panels for the pantry and oven cupboards before we ran out of plywood. We have an order in for 3 more sheets that will hopefully come sometime this week. We took some time on Saturday to clean up the garage and move the remaining plywood from the kitchen to the garage.

This week our focus turns to tiling downstairs and finishing up the pantry and wall oven cupboards. If the wood doesn't arrive on time I may be able to convince Peter to do some crack-filling. We shall see ...

Tomorrow night I plan on cleaning off some of our tiles that were never grouted in the kitchen (they were hiding under the plywood). I think just getting the mortar off will take all night. We laid these tiles before we got into the habit of keeping it neat in order to avoid the painstaking hours cleaning the mortar off the tiles ;) Thursday night the plan is to actually grout those tiles, and then on Saturday I'll get back to laying tile in the entryway. We're on vacation next week and will have several full days to work on the house - look for progress pics!

Eye Candy

Getting the flooring laid in our bedroom has allowed me to see the potential for finishing this house someday - what a difference! I love how bright our room is.

Our schedule for this week is sort of up in the air, but the goal is to finish all the hardwood by Friday night. We only have one complete room and a few end rows in other rooms to finish.

As for after the hardwood is finished, our focus will turn to our next big project - finishing the flooring downstairs. Not one I'm looking forward to, but it is the last really large "quality of life" project we have to undertake.

While I'm tiling downstairs Peter is going to build a closet organizer for the closet in the office and then get to work building the pantry and oven cupboards for the kitchen.

One day at a time ...

Flooring pics :)

Here are some pictures of our work over the long weekend!

Let's be realistic ...

So ... now that all of you who have actually laid hardwood before have had a good laugh at the progress we expected to make during our first attempt at installation, we'll revise our goals to more closely model reality.

What actually happened on the weekend was we got almost 2 sides of the hallway (our hallway is shaped like a U) done, we painted the front wall in the hallway, and burned some scrap lumber.

So ... our new schedule looks like:

Tuesday: Peter - finish laying hardwood on first two sides of hallway along with a few rows into the office and guest room. Angela - teach a friend how to lay tile.

Wednesday: Worship team practice. Possibly lay some hardwood once we get home.

Thursday: Lay hardwood in guest room.

Friday: Lay hardwood in office (finish guest room first if not completed).

Saturday: Hang door in master bath. Lay hardwood in office. Lay remaining tile in master bath and laundry room (just a few tile - maybe 10 total).

Monday (yay - holiday!): Grout tiles laid on Saturday and tub surround. Lay hardwood on third side of hallway.

Hopefully this schedule is reasonable. I'll let you know ;)

The Finished Product!

Aren't they purty?

What a great night we had. As you can see below, Peter got started laying hardwood while I got the first coat of paint on the guest room.

I realized that we were getting much more done when I was posting our schedule every week, so here's our hopes for the week:

Friday: Lay hardwood in hall. Second coat on guest bedroom.
Paint coat on front wall in hallway.

Saturday: Lay hardwood in guest room. Second coat on
front wall in hallway. Clean up :)

Wednesday: Hang door to master bath. Lay remaining tiles in
laundry and master bath.

Thursday: Lay hardwood in office. Work on tiling downstairs.

Friday: Lay hardwood in hallway. Work on tiling downstairs.



Saturday: Lay hardwood in master bedroom. Work on tiling
downstairs.

Monday: Lay hardwood in master bedroom. Work on tiling
downstairs.

I'm a happy girl... :)

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!

The Stairs ... With Treads!

Wow - what a day! When we came home this afternoon after work the stair guy (we should really find out his name!) had all the risers and treads on the stairs. It looks so nice!

There's not much else to say ... I'm enjoying having real stairs :)

The Stairs ... Before

Here is a picture of the stairs before the stair company started work on them ... as well as a picture of our balusters that we've come to know pretty well as we applied two coats of polyurethane to them.




The batteries on our camera died this weekend, but I'll try and get some pictures as soon as we get them replaced of how the work is progressing.

I'm getting sleepy ...

We are definitely not used to working as hard or long on the house as we did last night (unlike in the early days!), and my bleary eyes this morning are evidence of this fact. We got the wood for the stairs on Tuesday night, and after we got home at 9:30 we worked until 11 getting stands made for the balusters and sawhorses.

Last night we got right to work after supper finishing the pieces for the stairs. It's very easy to do, and you can sit and listen to tv or music while you do it, but it's very time-consuming. We worked until 1 a.m. and managed to get a coat of poly on: 86 balusters (yes, I was keeping track! - only 18 left), all 15 treads top and under the nosings, the nosing around the top of the stairs, half of the skirt boards, and all the handrail (except a couple of small S-turn pieces). As we had to get up at 5 this morning we decided we should head to bed at that point. Tonight's plan is to get the first coat on everything we didn't get done last night and then sand what we finished last night so it's ready for a second coat. Hopefully we can get a bit more sleep tonight, too. I don't think I'll make it tomorrow otherwise!

It is very interesting to maneuver downstairs through all the stair pieces as they dry - I'll try and get a picture tonight!

Finally!

You may remember a few weeks ago, when I actually kept this blog up-to-date, that I mentioned that a guy was coming to tile our tub
surround. Well … that guy ended up not working out (Mom always said if I can’t say anything nice … ;) ) so we finally got someone else to come
out today. This guy was a bit more expensive, so to save a bit of money we decided we would grout it ourselves.

You may also remember that I said our wood stairs place said we would get the pieces for our stairs in “lots of time” to get them finished before they come to install them next Monday, June 12th … Well, we finally called today after not hearing from them for a few weeks, and apparently “lots of time” translates to 6 days. Do they realize that we have day jobs?? Anyway, if anyone reading this is really bored, we’ll have about 100 balusters at our house tomorrow to get three coats of poly on before next Monday … ? Or, if balusters aren’t your style, can we interest you in some handrail, nosing, or treads? lol. After tonight that will obviously be our focus for the next week.

We have done a minimal amount of work on the house as of late for some reason. I finally got the guest bedroom primed on Saturday. We also got 4 coats of varathane on our bed and put the mattress back in its rightful place last night. Our bedroom looks so much bigger without two queen-sized beds set up!

A friend at church loaned us his pneumatic flooring nailer the other day, so we’ll have that to get started right away on the hardwood floor once the stairs are in. Exciting!

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.

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 :) )

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

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.

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!

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!

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 :)

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.

The Masterpiece

A long time ago on the blog I mentioned that Peter and his friend Bob were building us a four-poster bed. Well, tonight was the night that Bob brought it over and they set it up in our room. It exceeds all my expectations - it's beautiful! Take a look ...

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Despite being away for part of this weekend we managed to accomplish quite a bit with the time that we did have. Friday night Peter sanded the upstairs hallway / landing area while I laid the rest of the tile in the back hallway downstairs. Now that hallway just needs grout and it will be all set for flooring!

Saturday morning we got up bright and early and washed down the walls in the hallway. Peter drilled the holes for the pipes in the vanity, set it in place, and Derrick came over and helped him get the countertop attached. While they were busy there I primed the upstairs hallway - what a difference that made! Peter also got out and split some of our firewood - a good excuse to spend some time outside in the sun :)

This week is pretty much a write-off as far as housework is concerned so I won't really post a weekly plan. Our goals for the week are:

1. Call the plumber and get them to hook up everything that's left :)
2. Touch-up crack-fill in the hallway. There's very little to do here - mostly nail holes that aren't quite filled in.
3. Reprime the crack-filled areas
4. Paint the ceiling in the hallway
5. Hang the rest of the drywall in the front spare room
6. Get a first coat of crack-fill on the front bedroom
7. Grout back hallway
   

We'll see how we make out.

Busy night

Well, we had a busy night last night. Peter got the last major coat of crack-fill on the hallway upstairs while I cleaned out the back hallway and tiled over half of it! I was amazed at how quickly they went down since I didn't start actually laying them until around 8. Here is the back hallway when I finished last night. I should be able to lay the rest of the tiles (including the closet) tonight and grout next week - yippee! Notice our trim piece is in place ;) There's a rubber cover that goes to cover the edges of the laminate and tile that we'll put down once I'm done grouting. When I was measuring out last night to make sure we had enough tile (we hadn't originally planned to tile this hallway with those tile) I thought we were 2 tile short! Thankfully I found another box, so we should be good to go tonight.

I have a (bad) picture of the back bedroom / office with the paint on:
When I took the picture last night at 11 I thought it looked more close to reality than it does. Oh well, at least you can see that it's all painted and our desk is set up :)


And a few more pics - these are of the master bath - can't wait until it's finished!

This weekend we are hoping the hallway will get primed, and as I said I'm going to finish tiling the back hallway. Peter is going to get a start on crack-filling the guest room (one in front with two windows). Our time is very limited in the next few weeks, so we have to make the most of every minute!

Oh yeah - our Benjamin Moore store is having the sale on paint so I'm heading up there to pick up the rest of the paint at lunch - yay!

Our first "trim" pieces

No, we didn't go pick up stuff for window or door casings or trim. At lunch we went to Maritime Flooring and picked up all the trim that will be needed to transition between flooring types in the house. Hopefully I'll get to make use of some of it tonight - I plan on laying some more of the tile in the back hallway.

For those of you paying attention - I know flooring's not on the plan, but I'm waiting for Peter to finish crack-filling the hallway and want to make myself useful ;) Hopefully he'll finish up the hallway early tomorrow night and we can start priming / painting. I heard on the radio yesterday that some Benjamin Moore stores are having a buy 1, get 1 1/2 off sale, so I have to check and see if our local store is participating. If they are I'll go pick up the rest of the paint that we need!

We were a little curious to see how much one of our neighbours is selling his split-entry house for (same total sq. ft. as our house) and he's looking for $220k! I was really surprised since we're not in the city. We'll see how long it takes to sell :)

Weekly plan :)

I've had a few comments from people I saw over the weekend that they missed the weekly plan last week - who knew?! In spite of not posting a weekly plan, we did have one and got quite a bit accomplished. We got the back bedroom all painted and almost the rest of the crack-filling in the hallway done. We also got the front bedroom cleaned out, and the frame built and attached for the vanity. We still need to attach the countertop and drill the holes for the pipes in the vanity before we're ready for the plumber to come back, but it shouldn't be too long. We also got our first quote for doing the stairs - a bit of a shocker but it could have been worse. We're going to get a few more quotes before we settle on someone to do the work.

We have pictures, but they're still on the camera - sorry!

Our evenings aren't completely free this week (in case you're wondering why we have such small goals ;) ) So ... our weekly plan is:

Tuesday:

• Finish clearing out back hallway
• Break up some mortar where tiles pulled up in kitchen

Thursday:

• Crack-fill hallway (last bit)
• Begin installing shelving in back bedroom closet (yippee!)
• Drill holes in vanity for pipes

Friday:

• Sand, wash, and prime hallway
• Continue installing shelving in back bedroom closet
• Move clothes into back bedroom closet

Saturday

• Paint hallway - haven't completely decided on plan for this area yet
  
• Begin crack-filling guest room (front bedroom with two windows)
  
• Begin clearing junk out of second front bedroom

There you have it! If you're looking for us you know where we'll be :)

Weekly plan ...

Last week was a write-off as far as housework goes, as Peter and I were preparing to lead worship at a youth retreat over the weekend. Everything went well with that and we're now back to full steam ahead on the house. As a result of that, last night was very productive. Peter spent the evening leveling the tub surround and cutting and attaching exterior grade plywood around the lip of where the tub will sit. I primed the master bath (what a difference!) and put the second coat of varathane on the vanity. We also picked up the vanity countertop yesterday. Needless to say we fell into bed exhausted last night.

Our plan for the week is as follows:

Tuesday

• Fix uneven spots in master bath (they really show up after a coat of primer, and since we're using semi-gloss paint we want everything really flat)
• Varathane vanity (last coat)
• Build base for vanity
• Crack-fill in back bedroom

Wednesday

• Crack-fill back bedroom

Thursday

• Paint master bathroom
• Sand back bedroom (?)

Friday

• Wash walls in back bedroom
• Crack-fill hallway
• Clear out back hallway

Saturday

• Prime back bedroom
• Paint ceiling in back bedroom if no patching needed
• Paint walls in back bedroom if no patching needed
• Crack-fill hallway

As always, this schedule is subject to change when reality sets in ;)

Love at first sight!

Isn't that a beautiful sight :)

As you can see, the plumbers made it out to hook up our kitchen sink and dishwasher yesterday. Peter did an awesome job trying his hand at electrical work, and got the dishwasher running smoothly. It did a great job on it's first load. Now I just have to get some detergent - I'm using the little sample pack that comes with the dishwasher.

Dad made it last night after a little mix-up at the bus terminal. We managed to keep missing each other for a few minutes after the bus arrived - long enough for me to call home and tell Peter he wasn't on the bus. All was well in the end and Dad got a good coat of crack-fill on the master bath. He's hopeful that once it's sanded it won't need any more coats. That would be wonderful.

Peter finished fixing our mistake on the master vanity, so it's full steam ahead tonight on that.

Waiting with bated breath ...

I'm sure everyone's waiting anxiously to hear about our lovely plumbing that was installed yesterday. Unfortunately, you'll have to wait a little longer :( The plumbers did come yesterday and do some work but didn't actually perform the final connections to the sink / bathroom / dishwasher.

However, one thing we did notice is that there is no pipe in the half-bath for the incoming water to the toilet - a fairly major oversight I think! Peter was talking to them today and they're still not exactly sure how they're going to take care of that, but they do have one possible solution that doesn't involve ripping out my newly-painted wall. The situation is complicated by the fact that the most logical place to run the pipe would be through an outside wall, which is a big 'no-no' in plumbing apparently.

And now for the good news: I have it on good authority (Peter's) that he saw the water actually running and draining in my kitchen sink when he went out to take a look at lunch. So ... looks like I'll have new pictures later on tonight! Peter's going to try his hand at a bit of electrical work to finish hooking up the dishwasher when he gets home so I'll let you know how that goes as well. My Dad is arriving tonight to rest and put his feet up (at least, that's what he told me this morning!) - actually, I think he's going to be doing some crack-filling over the next couple of days, for which we're very grateful.

Getting there ...

Sorry this picture is so dark. This is what Peter spent his evening working on last night - the wall that goes underneath our bar counter eventually. This wall will hold all the plumbing for our sink and dishwasher, so it needs to be in place by tomorrow - I can't believe the plumbers are coming tomorrow! He spent most of the evening building it, and will level it tonight. Having the wall in place really helps me to see what it will eventually look like - it looks great :)



This is where I spent my evening - on my hands and knees like Cinderella ;) I prepped and grouted the floor in the half-bath last night. It's hard to tell, but the walls have been painted - the same colour as the front wall in our living room for anyone who's actually been there. As you can see by the nice patina-like haze on the tiles I have some more washing to do tonight before the plumbers come (have I mentioned they're coming tomorrow? lol). I also have to get another coat of paint on the walls. All in all I have an "easy" night tonight. I guess I still have to clean out the dishwasher - I've been storing my clean dishes inside to keep them out of the dust. I want to make sure the kitchen area is all cleaned up before the plumbers come.



I also want to say a big "Thank You!" to Dale from church. He came over yesterday while we were at work and chopped all our firewood that we had sitting in 8' lengths! I have no idea how quantities of wood are measured - but we really appreciate the help. Thank you so much! Not much of it has to be split as it is mostly from smaller trees, so now I'll be stacking as soon as we can find the time.

Time to get to work and watch the clock tick away the hours until we have plumbing in the kitchen ...