short weekend for me!!

Friday night Abbie came to visit.. Saturday was the baby shower for my niece and Abbie's mom and sister were the hosts.

Rich was busy though....

We have a new screen door on the sun porch..

The door he removed was a nasty brown aluminum thing.  And it didn't fit the space.  This one has the spring on it so it will slap shut and make that summertime sound I love so much...

And remember this?

This is the sewing room...  Do I need a fireplace in the sewing room?  No!  I need wall space... So Rich did this..

And then I did the old "mud and tape" dance.  I am so over the mud and tape...  Now where did the fireplace go?  Nowhere...   We just covered it up..with all the bits and pieces safely tucked in.  When we are gone, deceased, worm food, dead the kids can very easily remove this and sell the house with the fireplace intact.  Meanwhile we will paint all of the brick and it will all blend in...

And then we went back to the sun porch...

We painted the white trim...and the gray walls...

and a dark gray floor...

And we locked the door and hopefully it won't rain tonight and wash it all away...  fingers crossed...  And back to the sewing room...

we painted the ceiling... never realized how nasty it was until we started..  but we ran out of paint and only half of the ceiling got painted...

And now for some random photos...

a new family of kitties showed their faces this weekend.  Mommy and 4 babies.  One gray and three tortoise shell..

As I was vacuuming the sun porch before painting we found this ant trying to carry the dead fly.  He kept going around in circles...  I guess the fly was a bit too heavy for him.  I took the photo...then sucked them into the vacuum..

and my John Deere hat came in the mail...  I look TERRIBLE in hats, but I think I might wear it Wednesday when we go out to cut the grass..     You know, cutting the grass and sweating I don't think anyone will care...

Nancy

more choices...

Friday was Ryan's birthday so we waited until early Saturday morning to get to the house.  Because there was an accident (and we were looking at it) we missed the turn off for McDonald's and I was reduced to eating cereal... 

This weekend was all about painting and some demolition and some more painting...

baseboard for the sun room

one of the front doors

 I also did touch up painting in all rooms...  Except the gray paint didn't match...  Turns out that I ended up with two different colors of paint so the master bedroom and the hall bathroom are the same color and the master bath is a tad lighter..  I know how it happened...and it was my fault...but it's too dang confusing to explain...

This weekend was all about the sun room...  We decided on paint colors...and finishes and lights...

sun room before... facing deck..

facing side yard... that screen door will stay and we will match it for the other side.

  Yes, we decided to go for a painted floor.  We are using outdoor deck paint.. it's a dark gray..then lighter gray walls and white trim..  We have black wrought iron chairs and that red/white enamel table will go out here..

we wanted a ceiling fan, but the roof is too low...or we are too tall... here is the new light fixture installed mere moments after the ceiling was painted.. next weekend we will paint the walls and trim and then the floor will be last.

side lights for the sun room. we bought two, one for each side of the sliding doors

And we have decided to have two old fashioned screen doors.  Nothing reminds me of summer more than a slapping screen door...and Rich will make sure it slaps shut by adding a spring closure.. and simple pull handles...

Then bright and early (6am) Rich got busy in the BASR*.  He moved a load of firewood outside.  He moved all the stuff off the bookshelves to the basement.  He separated all the leftover wood and put it either downstairs or on the trash pile..along with that brown screen door from the sun room...

before..

the book shelf is demolished and sits in the middle of the room

The brick wall will be painted a creamy white..and a surprise is in store for the fireplace.

after...  the lower part of the wall had rough cut oak wainscoting and he ripped it down ..  the area from the right of the window to the wall will become a huge design wall..

Now to more choices.. .  We still haven't decided on a floor...It would cost as much to put vinyl in there as it would to have laminate...cheapest would be 18 inch peel and stick tiles... Any thoughts?  And after today, I have decided that my cutting table will NOT go under the sky light... I painted the front door on saw horses underneath it today and man that sun was HOT!!

And I need to find a wall color....

I am leaning towards the blues which surprises me as I have never been particularly attracted to blue...

And we found the kitties...well, three of them anyway.  They have been living under the house..

the gray one (in the back) already has a home, but the others are up for adoption if anyone is interested!

Nancy

*BASR Big As* Sewing Room

finishing touches...

It's gotten to the point that we are doing small little finishing touches to the living space of the house.  We haven't started on the sun porch or the back hallway or sewing room yet...  Those are next on the list...

I have quilt guild on Saturday so Rich finished the dining room step.  The dining room is completely finished now except for the light fixture.  We won't put that up until the table is in there and we can make sure it is centered...

 Saturday night we drove up to Lowe's and bought a mirror for the master bathroom and towel racks for both bathrooms.  I love the shape of the mirror...

Rich painted the remaining two doors and we hung them...  We also cut off two of the doors as they were too long once we installed the floors..

Sunday afternoon Kristin brought us lunch... roast beef, roasted potatoes, corn, asparagus, salad and even this...

Cherry Crisp...yum

Our next projects are the sun porch and then we will start on the laundry room, back hallway and sewing room...

We looking at different ways to finish out the sun room porch floor.  Right now it is just cdx flooring and very rough..  We only have screen windows so the floor has to be able to stand all kinds of weather.  According to Menard's personnel linoleum won't last through the winter months as it will crack, we don't want tile, this will only work over concrete and so I guess we are down to deck paint...  I think it will be fine...but if you know of anything else to use on an all season porch floor please tell me...

Nancy

blue tape....

So what does blue tape have to do with renovating a house? 

plenty!!

photo courtesy of 3M website

I can't tell you how many times we have gone to Lowe's or Home Depot or Ace Hardware and bought "blue tape"...cause that's what we call it... blue tape.  It has an official name...ScotchBlue Painters Tape.. we just happen to be on a first name basis...

And just because it says Painters in the name doesn't mean that's all you can use it for... Don't get me wrong..It's great for covering the edge of the wall when I am painting the doorways, but let's look at all the other ways we have found to use it...

a lot of it ends up on the floor

to hold the bullnose in place while the construction adhesive dries

to hold a piece of flooring down as the construction adhesive dries

Because the step isn't exactly square (what is?) I used blue tape to protect the flooring...

to fill with wood filler

used a stain marker to match and the steps are done

I had to cut a very small piece of flooring and that's a little close to get my fingers...So I taped the small piece to a larger piece and then cut...

remember when I painted the under side of the kitchen countertop? I used blue tape to protect the new cabinets

we used it when we did the crown moulding in the dining room to keep straight on whether to cut an A piece or a B piece we used it again when we put the crown moulding up in the living room

and of course we used it to paint all the trim

and you can't see it here but that window over the bed?  Right outside is a dusk to dawn light and I blue taped brown kraft paper over the window to keep it from keeping me awake.  I guess it's time to make some curtains..

So how do you use blue tape?

And this is how hot it was on Saturday... in the shade...and the A/C wasn't working so we got the dining room step finished, two more coats of paint on bedroom 2 doors and then we came home Saturday night.  It was just too hot...

Nancy

Memorial Day weekend...

This was a long weekend...Yippee!!  Three days to work on the house...in the heat...and the humidity...  You see our A/C is not big enough to cool the entire house.   Sometime down the road this will happen...not soon enough after this weekend..  The attic fun does help.  We flip it on at night with one window open to let in all the cool air we can...then we close up in the day and hope the cool air stays..  It worked Saturday...not so much on Sunday when the temp got over 90.  I do not know how people manage to live through the summer without A/C and I know there are plenty that do.

So on to the work and photos..

Friday we stopped at Lowes on the way out and picked up some more supplies...

That is one door and 360 linear feet of baseboard.. the blue tote carries our clean clothes for the weekend..

After we unpacked the truck we realized we had company...

Momma and her babies

They found a nice hidey spot behind a board in the garage

One of our kitties had her a family sometime last week.  FIVE new babies... So cute...and they need new homes (except for gray kitty who has been spoken for)..

Then I painted...and painted...and painted some more...

Saturday Don and Donna came out to help us lay baseboard which thankfully was completely dry.  So really that means Rich and Don laid the baseboard and Donna and I helped..

bedroom 2

we had more company...gray kitty is going home with them as soon as she is weaned.

entry way

They did an amazing job...it looks so good... Then we had a wonderful steak dinner.   Thanks to Don and Donna for giving up another Saturday to help...Call us when you are ready to start your deck...

 Sunday Rich finished adding the baseboard to the dining room and I did more painting of doors..and trim.. Then we started on the trim in the kitchen...

We finished all the trim underneath the cabinets...

This trim just has glue, so the blue tape is there until it dries...and notice the cabinet baseboard and trim..

and the last of the trim on the other side of the kitchen..

 Monday Rich mowed the grass and I cleaned up the tools, shop vac'ed the whole house and painted two doors...


Know what the best part of the weekend was?  Sunday night...taking a shower...and then sitting on the deck in my nightgown and drinking a Bud-Lite.. (except for the dang cicada's )