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 ;)