still painting...

 We spent the weekend doing what we have been doing forever...well, not really, but it sure feels like it..

We finished up the house and garage and now we look so much better...  I will be so happy when I can take a photo of the house without a trash pile in front...

Trim on two windows done.  My sewing room is on the other side of the long window on the left.. The other window is in the long hall way that is waiting for flooring,.

The front of the house.  That horrible wooden walkway is on the list to be removed..but doesn't the new paint color look nice?

The front of the garage.  Yes, the garage sits in front of the house.  Hate the location, but there is no way to change it.  As it is, we are struggling to find the perfect place for the work shop.  And no, this will NOT become the workshop.

We still have a blue door, but that will change next weekend..It will be painted white to match the front door.  And Rich will paint over those three spots on the wall where he spilled the bucket of paint moving the ladder...with the paint hanging from a rung...he wiped the paint off but of course he couldn't get it all off...

Look who came out!!  This is our youngest, our only son, who came out and did a whole lot of work this weekend.  He mowed all the grass, moved firewood from the basement to the OUTSIDE firewood pile, moved two or three different wood piles to the trash pile...and then we let him go home...lol   "Somebody" might have told him he could leave as soon as all his work was done..  He sure sped up after that...BTW, "somebody" might have been his oldest sister.. getting your car insurance paid for is a great motivator...

This is the pile of wood he moved from various areas to this trash pile.. 

i put the doors back up on the cabinets in the laundry room.  So glad I took the time to paint them white..

OK...this is what the side of the house looks like.  The bad before...We can't paint this side, or the other side or the back.  It's two stories and we don't like heights...  That yellow/cream/beige color gives me the chills..along with the bad paint job of the dark country blue... There is paint all over the windows and the trim is all sloppy..it's quite obvious someone was a little drunk while painting...  And look at that planter!  That window is the master bedroom and inside that stupid bird feeder is a dead bird.  And the dang thing won't disintegrate..it's been there over a year and it just won't go away... The whole planter/feed thing is OUT!  As soon as I can get up there on the ladder with the drill..

And last week, I forgot to show you what Rich did....  These are all the railroad ties that he pulled from around the garage..the house...down the driveway..all by himself ...last weekend... in the heat...

This week we pick up the flooring for the back hallway and decide on a front porch.  I want concrete, Rich wants to use TREX...  Your thoughts?  Has anyone used this? 

Nancy

I want to do something besides....

PAINT!!!  Please....

Saturday was my monthly Modern Quilt Guild meeting so I didn't make it to the house until around 3pm...or maybe later...
Rich took off around 7am and got the rest of the front of the house painted.  By the time I got there he was ready to quit, so I helped him finish trimming the windows on the garage.  There were three windows and none of them had any trim...  Then we ate dinner. Rich put a pork butt on the smoker and we had pulled pork sandwiches and then headed to town to see Cowboys and Aliens.  It was ok...a great way to spend the evening...

Sunday morning  Kristin brought over already cooked homemade pork sausage, a coffee cake and some mini-muffins..I added scrambled eggs and fruit and we had a great breakfast.  With all that food, we didn't even stop for lunch..The grandkids start school tomorrow.  Owen will be in third grade and Ava starts kindergarten.  Where has the time gone.  The other grandkids will start school on Thursday.  Grace in fourth, Jackson in third and Abbie started a new day care that is working out wonderfully... 

 before photos...

after photos...

I hope the mosaics look OK.  I am learning how to use Big Huge Labs...  I hope they are click able and you can see them better.  This is Before and After of the garage..  And the weather was fantastic..in the low 80's with a nice breeze and we were in the shade all day...

Next weekend we will start on the trim... let's keep our fingers crossed for nice weather then too..

Nancy

4th of July weekend....

Since we started this house project back in Sept of last year I have really decorated by my instincts.  Rich will say... "ok, it's time to pick out a vanity" and we drive around until I find what I like.  Ditto with faucets, bathroom tile, wood flooring...well, you get the idea.  The largest amount of time I spent on one project was the kitchen.  I must have driven the nice lady at Lowe's absolutely nuts.  I think I was down there every 3 days asking a question, changing the layout, looking at cabinets...etc...

This is what Rich did this weekend...

first...it was HOT!

He installed the side lights on the sun porch...

He installed the base board on the sun porch...

He found some dry rot on the sun porch when he was installing the base board and so he cut it all out and repaired it..  Sorry no photo of the repair...i forgot...

He installed the trim strip for the flooring that butts up to the sliding doors in the living room...

He rented a sprayer and spray painted all the brick in the BASR*

And also sprayed all the wainscoting in the BASR*  We used "Silent White" by Ace Hardware... We always use Ace Hardware's Royal Paint.  It goes on smooth and covers...

Friday am Rich cut grass right in front of the house.  Then we both got up at 6am Sunday morning to finish cutting.  I cut the very front on the riding lawnmower and Rich cut the back yard first with the push mower, then used the weed eater and then used the riding lawn mower...  Sheesh...it's a lot of grass...  This morning we took all the wire closet shelves and the old screen door from the sun porch to the car wash and cleaned them.  They were filthy... Karen and Abbie came down Sunday night for BBQ... It stormed and the temp dropped to 70 so we moved the table to the sun porch and ate out there.  It was so nice.  After dinner, I asked Abbie if she wanted a piece of apple pie that Karen had brought or an ice cream sandwich.  She gave me such a look.and said "ohh yuk"..I had to explain that an ice cream sandwich isn't "bread" with ice cream... She had never had one before ..  HA HA...  She likes them now!

Yesterday I put the first coat of paint on the BASR* and then today I put the second coat on...

I painted the inside of the bottom part of the  built in white...then the outside is the same color as the walls.  It looks like a piece of furniture.  And I love the color... The doors and shelves are on the saw horses and have been painted with one coat of paint...

This the door leading into the BASR*.  It shows the color much better.  It's a blue gray...and reminds of a summer beach cottage ..    I would like to say that when I paint I don't tape anything off.  I just trim with the paint..  I very seldom get any paint anywhere but where it's supposed to go... Go ahead...click on the photo and make it bigger.. I know you want to...lol

And I finally picked a flooring...  It's birch laminate... Can you believe it's cheaper than vinyl?

Isn't this cool?  I held the flooring in my hand and took the photo.  This is what it will look like when it's installed.  

Oh the paint color?  It's "Instinct" by Benjamin Moore color matched to Ace Hardware Royal Paint.  So out of my usual color palette.  I am NOT a blue person at all and was surprised when I picked this out..

And now we might need to change the name from BASR* to "Margaritaville".... 

Next project?  Flooring will be put down in a couple of weeks.  Have to order it yet... Then this...

This is the hallway leading to "Margaritaville"  In this photo, I am standing in the doorway of "Margaritaville" looking towards the rest of the house..  That door on the right is a second front door (no one knows why they have two front doors) and will be eliminated.  The two closets on the left are for storage. One will become a food pantry and the other will be used for off season clothes, hunting gear and the like.  At the end of the hallway behind the big blue wall is

 THIS!

This is the laundry room. Well, not much of a room, but an area.  Very small, but it's just the two of us..so it is adequate ..   The washer and dryer go underneath the cabinets.  I am so tired of painting that I think the cabinets will stay this color! lol   The white door on the left leads to the kitchen.  We don't have to do a lot to this area.  Flooring and paint (ugh!) and oh! we have to vent the dryer to the outside.  They had it vented to the basement into a trash can..  (let that one sink in)...yep...a big plastic trash can...full of dryer lint...  A fire waiting to happen... 

 And that's the weekend for us...

Nancy

*BASR =Big A** Sewing Room

Should I paint or should I paint...

As I drove up to the house Saturday afternoon, this is what greeted me...

Well, and this...

so...you might have seen the other photo but I was asked to please remove it...

Anyway.. Rich had taken all Saturday morning and stripped the airlock.  Now maybe I need to tell you a little about the airlock..  You can see the blue gray door to it in the above photo. That's a screen door. And the latch doesn't work.  You walk through there and to the right is a solid front door, which leads to the living room.   This is what was on the walls of the airlock..

I don't even know what that is, but it seemed to be shellacked to the walls.  There was no pulling it off... so we had to cover it up.  Rich said yelled  didn't want to do any more demolition...  So we talked about what we could put over it.   I guess I wasn't in on this decision...

By the time I arrived there was only one wall left to do.....  Alrighty then... let's go with it...

I helped put the last two walls up and painted it the same pale yellow as the living room, hall and kitchen...  It took awhile but it grew on me and it really lightened up that area...  I wish I had a before photo..it was hideous.. that dark brown shellacked whatever it was on top and some kind of paneling on the bottom...

The master bathroom was also tackled this weekend..

Vanity and toilet installed...by Rich by himself..

Door going in... We did finish installing it

The deadbolt and lock set installed on the back door by ME (with a lot of help)!!   I guess I need to do a bit more painting...

Rich up on the roof of the sun room... There was a leak so he braved the heights and sealed it up...

Ok...The photo above just makes me laugh...  I took the photo while I was watching Rich on the roof..(I also took the new header photo) ... If that doesn't look like the Beverly Hillbillies ...I don't know what does...   Of course the ladder on the deck isn't always there...just today so Rich could get on the roof...but even taking that away...look at that mess.  Two levels of deck and the bottom has that ladder hanging down into the yard.  That's the ladder that used to lead right to the above ground pool...that we paid someone to take away..  Even though it doesn't look like it, the rest of the deck is in fairly decent shape.  Sure, it needs a good power wash and we will chop that ladder off and close that up...and put the BBQ pit on the lower level..

But right now...that photo just gives me the chuckles... It so represents the shape the rest of the house was in...

So what did I do this weekend??  I painted

 1. second coat on the kitchen window
 2. first coat on the kitchen wall where we fixed the dining room entry
 3. second coat on the master bathroom window
 4. first coat in the airlock
 5. second coat on the back of the hall bathroom door
 6. second coat on the trim work of the hall bathroom doorway
 7. second coat in the airlock
 8. second coat on the kitchen wall where we fixed the dining room entry
 9. first coat on the master bathroom door (one side only)
10 first coat on the trim work of the master bathroom


Rich
  1. demolished the airlock
  2. put up the bead board in the airlock
  3. installed the toilet
  4. installed the vanity
  5.  installed the bathroom door
  6. installed most of the base board
  7. started in the sun room...pulled nails, swept dust, got a wasp nest out of the hanging light fixture...
  8. fixed the leak in the roof..