I had a cute title, but neither one of us can remember it....

Gah!!  We must be getting old.

Rich took a day and a half vacation time, so we headed out to the house Friday afternoon...

This is a list of what we accomplished before heading home about 3pm today... (sorry for the caps, Rich made the list and sent it to me and I am not retyping it so we aren't shouting..)

DINING ROOM
    FINISHED BEADBOARD
    PAINTED CEILING
    PAINTED AND INSTALLED CROWN MOLDING
    INSTALLED WINDOW CASING
    FILLED NAIL HOLES

BATHROOM
    INSTALLED GREEN BOARD AND DRYWALL
    MUD/TAPE
    SANDED
    MUD/TAPE (yes, again)
    INSTALLED TOILET WATER SUPPLY LINE
    INSTALLED TOILET SEWER LINE
    PRIMED CEILING


KITCHEN
    PAINTED AND INSTALLED WINDOW CASING



Yea, that's a lot... and here are the photos to prove it..

that's green board over the shower.  It is a special kind of drywall that is resistant to mold and moisture...

We caulked all surfaces that we were told to per the instructions...which was 9 areas...

finished the installation of the shower faucet handle

and added the shower head...

Installed the toilet sewer line.  Yes, we had to cut into that black pipe and we added all the pretty white PVC pipe.  There's a closet flange (not seen here), T-junction, 2-45's, a couplng and some straight pipe.. and we only made 2 trips to town for all the supplies.  With plumbing you very seldom get all the parts you need in one trip...

We can't install the shower doors yet, so we bought a curtain rod, shower curtain and rings.  We could shower...although the shower curtain is a bit short and we got some water on the floor, but WHO CARES!!

See that silver pipe up there?  I can't count the times Rich has hit his head on it going into the basement..

The cats were watching us through the kitchen window...I think they can hear the microwave "ding" and they are pretty sure they are getting some warm milk...

This is how you bring home the crown moulding and window casing when one is 12ft long and one is 10ft long...

dining room ceiling painted...

 Now lets start with the crown moulding..  Rich was fairly certain he knew how to cut the compound miters.  Which means you have to cut two miters at the same time.  So off he went...

These are all the WRONG CUTS...  So I got out my iPad and googled "compound miter cuts for crown moulding" and we did some cheats...  We labeled all 4 corners in the dining room with which end got an "A" cut and which ends got a "B" cut.   Once you cut and nail them onto the wall, it's hard to tell which is which..

Our "cheat sheets" Can you read them?   Left one says A, right says B..

 And then we made these cheat boards...  Each board represented an "A" or "B" cut.  We had them right behind the miter saw and paid close attention to them.  We only made one wrong cut after this...

More cheat sheets...or cheat boards..

Crown Moulding

Window casing

We had two wild animal sightings this weekend.  The first was Saturday night around 8.... I looked out the kitchen french doors to see a possum eating out of the cat feeder... I couldn't move fast enough to get a photo.  He returned Sunday night around the same time...still couldn't get a picture.. and he ran off when Rich tried to sneak up on him from the sun room...

And we also had a visit from a Heron.  He landed on the pond and stood near the edge looking for dinner... and I caught him snagging a fish.. I couldn't believe I had the camera on record...

You have to look very closely.  He stands there very still and then dips his head into the pond, grabs the fish and swallows...  sorry, it looks like the video is sideways.. I didn't take it sideways so maybe blogger is playing games...

Here is still that shows the Heron a bit better...

OMG...I am so tired of bathroom and dining room....

But that is what we worked on all day Saturday and Sunday.  We did get all the items on our list checked off though so we did pretty good...

First you dry fit the shower pan...

Then you add construction glue to the bottom.... Oh..you have already inserted the drain..

Put construction glue on the studs that will touch the walls...

add the back wall first...then the left side...

Then the right side and put the "dead man" up...  Glue must dry for 24 hours...

Now we proceed downstairs to finish the plumbing...  The drain needs to be connected to the sewer line...

See the orange circle?  Inside it there is a little white dot.  We had drilled down through the floor to mark where the drain line would come through..

Except when we went downstairs, we didn't find it.. woops!  It's over there to the left...Ha..We had been looking at the wrong drill hole...  Oh well...it all worked out as you can see in the next  photo..

I did that... I told Rich what parts to buy, where to cut the black pipe and did all the gluing of the PVC pipe.

 

And that was our only trip to town. Normally we take a trip to town at least twice a day...we did good this weekend...

I got two coats of paint on one side of the hall bathroom door and trim.... and forgot the door handle was off and had to be rescued from the bathroom...

We had our first cardinal visit the cat food... and all weekend we only saw 3 cats.  One cat is a loner, but he/she usually shows up sometime during the weekend.  Not this time.  We think maybe he is the male gone "catting" and the females all stuck around...We figure they are around 8 months old..is that when the males start straying?  We haven't had cats before as both girls are allergic, so we know nothing...

And we found a nice surprise when we took a short break and walked down to the pond.  These are planted haphazardly all over the property...  There are some other bushes starting to bud and we will take photos as they bloom.  People, we are NOT gardeners....I will be asking you all to identify plants for us... These are daffodils.

Saturday night we put pork steaks on the grill and then drove up to look at shower doors.. We did end up with shower doors, but we also ended up with the vanity lights...

 The sconces for the dining room

 And the dining room light for over the table...

This is a bad photo, but we bought the one hanging in the store and they didn't have the original carton which was fine with us since they gave it to us for only $2 over their cost..  and they let us have the light bulbs..and a bunch of different kinds of hanging stuff... It's exactly what I wanted as it is simple, plain and it just hangs there...

Sunday afternoon Karen, Matt and the kids came by to see the house and while there Grace saw the camera and I gave her permission to take some photos..

This is the scene from my kitchen window.  Didn't she frame it nicely? 

And then we went back to work on the dining room...

We got all but two small sections put up.  The new Dewalt  nail gun works so much better than the cheapy old one... It will need trim pieces and painting but I like it...  We will have dark wood floors and we have dark heavy dining room furniture and this will certainly lighten it up...

And that's it for the weekend... 

more master bathroom and the dining room...

We are down to our last two rooms and it is helping that we can work on both at one time.  The master bathroom is a bit small for both of us to be in there at one time.  Rich was out there before me as I had my monthly Modern Quilt Guild meeting Saturday am.  He got started right off and got all the hardie board put down. 

It has to dry for 16 hours before you can walk on it...so he got all the stuff together to finish the step..

Which was good and bad.  Good because our grandson will stop getting his foot caught in the hole that used to be there..and bad because Rich kept tripping up the step...lol

I got out just as he was finishing up, so off we went to Home Depot and bought all the bead board and trim we would need for the next day.

first piece...

second piece...

and we stopped.  Daylight Savings Time hit and we started having trouble with the nail gun so I did a second coat of mudd on the bathroom while Rich packed and loaded the truck..

EDITED -  I just realized that you can see Oliver in the photo..on the left..he is standing in front of the back door to the hallway.  That's where he stands when he wants to go outside. 

Oh, and we bought the shower pan.  It looks small, but it's 48 wide and 33 deep so it's a good size.  No tub will be installed in this house.  We don't have little kids and as we get older it will be easier to step into a shower instead of over a tub side. 

I also got the dining room ceiling all textured which about killed my arms.  My shoulders are sore this morning.

Next weekend we are going to focus all of our energy on the bathroom and get all the plumbing done and hopefully the shower walls up, toilet set and vanity bought.  I wanted a black vanity with white top and we can't seem to find one in a 30 inch size that is a reasonable price.  We are using the same flooring as the hall bathroom...but will use a white vanity with a black top... 

And that's it for another weekend. 

whew....we're tired...

Three and a half days later and we are really ahead of the game in the master bathroom...  We came home early today so I could do the laundry and pack the car to go on a quilt retreat... I can't wait to have 3 days of sewing with some old friends and some new friends I haven't met yet.....

I think we will just show photos today.  I am tired...

I started in the dining room.  I got it all mudded and taped ...and we will talk about that corner later...

Rich started in the master bath.  He got all the plumbing finished which included water to the shower, water to the vanity (which you can't see in this photo) and the drain run for the vanity.   He also got some new insulation added and we started putting up drywall.

vanity plumbing..

I painted dining room ceiling...needs texture added next weekend...That is a temporary light fixture.  We haven't found the one we want yet..

we have a tendency to use every tool imaginable.. and the tool we need is never in the same room we need it. It's always in the other room..

This seems to be leaking...

into this...  Rich capped the old stack on the roof. We are moving the toilet location and will tap into another stack.  Friday it really poured down rain and we quickly realized that he must have jiggled the stack a bit and loosened the seal.  Luckily we found out before we had the drywall up.  We bought some roof sealant and he got it all fixed.  It did require a walk on the roof though...and he hates heights...

Speaking of Friday...remember we don't have a shower? or bath? And we were going to be there for 4 days?  Sounds nasty right?  Well, Friday night we took off and stayed in a hotel.  It was wonderful..we had a hot shower and a TV and a king-size bed and went out to dinner and had a wonderful hot breakfast with made to order omelets the next morning..

and we are back to that corner of the dining room...

The photo above shows the reason for a new direction in the dining room.  When we bought the house the dining room had drywall above and 1/2 inch plywood beneath and we decided we would put beadboard halfway up with a chair rail.  Well we seem to have run into a problem. See the upright piece of wood in the corner?  Just to the left of it is a piece of 1/2 inch plywood.  We don't know why he put the plywood there instead of drywall.  It's the only place in the whole room that has plywood that high..  I removed the two pieces of drywall adjacent to it and then discovered that the piece of plywood goes BEHIND that big post.  There is no way to get it out unless we take down the whole wall.  That isn't gonna happen.  SO, we have been forced to chang the dining room design.  We will now install bead board all the way to the ceiling and add crown molding.  Then we will add bead board to the kitchen half way up with a chair rail to tie the two rooms together.  This means I don't have to do anymore mudding and taping in the dining room.  YIPPEE!!
But that wasn't the only problem we found.  Some of the drywall wasn't screwed into anything and when you pushed on it it moved...that isn't supposed to happen.  So I took the piece of drywall down, Rich added a nailer and put it back up.  sheesh...this guy couldn't do anything right...

so lets talk about those steps.. They lead from the kitchen to the dining room.  They are not very sturdy, they are not finished and really they are ugly... so while I was mudding and taping the bathroom, Rich started working on the steps.  We will have one step down into the dining room. Unfortunately it will be a wide step.  We found out that there is  ventilation pipes under the step.  They can't be moved.. so instead of a one nice step....it will be one nice BIG step..

This is the before...  In a couple of weeks I will show you the after...

 But before I go, I want to introduce you to someone.  Pictured below is the best friend a rehabber can have.  This is Rich..our trash man.  When we get a pile of trash, I call him... He comes sometime during the week, takes all the trash including the six trash cans we fill and comes back either Saturday or Sunday, returns the cans and picks up his cash.  We could not do this rehab without him...and his partner...

And I took a bit of video for you..  This is the "noise" we hear when we walk outside...

Nancy