Deck Addition

In a recent post I mentioned that we have a new addition for our deck. While we do have plans (thanks to our fabulous friend and landscape designer Kristin) to change up the deck in the future, this addition did not involve any construction. It did require some assembly, though.

Andrew has been wanting a grill for quite some time, so for his 27th birthday I got family involved and was able to give him enough cash to get just the grill he wanted:

It's convertible between propane and natural gas, so with a conversion kit we can hook it up the house gas line.

Eventually, Andrew wants what he calls a "grill arsenal,"--a gas grill, a charcoal grill and a smoker. We're a third of the way there!

Making It Work: A Cluttered Home Life

One of my favorite 5-year-olds was at the house yesterday for the first time. Trying to explain why we had lots of furniture in some rooms and none in others was pretty funny. She didn't mind the mess as long as she got to play with Sherpa and repeatedly check our mail since we didn't have anything.

Here's what she saw. We're pretty cramped but keeping good attitudes!

The right half of the office-which-is-now-our-bedroom

Another view

Yes, we do have two TVs in this room. Only one is hooked up; you can consider the other decoration. (And yes, I do sleep against the wall. It's kind of like a safety net...like when you were a kid and had gates on your crib or bunk bed!)

This is the guest room. One month ago it looked very clean and put-together. Now it has become storage for things like pictures and the futon mattress.

Oh, and dresses. I had to clean out the hall closet where my dresses were since everything in that part of the house is now covered in an inch of sawdust.

For a small room, it sure holds a lot!

This is our kitchen. With a couch in it. And a dog. We're slowly taking over every inch Sherpa has to roam...woops.

This is interesting. That door goes out to the deck and backyard. We (Sherpa included) have to squeeze between the couch and the wall to get out. Or to get to the basement steps which are located across from that door.

The mudroom aka Sherpa's room. Again, we apologize daily for taking over his territory. 

Reno Redo

You know how they say, "third time's the charm?" We're really hoping for that to come true on the second try. Unfortunately our two weeks of moving out were mostly in vain. The living room floor didn't take, so we had to start over. The good news, our silver lining if you will, is that the hall worked out okay so we don't have to move out again. We'll just have to be pretty strategic in our next staining. Here's a pic of the living room floor with two coats of stain, one coat of poly, several days after it should've dried:

As you can see it's just way too shiny. The poly never fully dried--rather than being tacky to the touch, it was actually oily. We determined the cause of the mess to be two key things: one, the temperature dropped and we hadn't yet turned on any heat, and two, regardless of the apparatus used to apply stain, you still need to work it in with a rag. To correct these issues we now have heat running so our next coats should dry quicker (and without millions of fuzzies blowing through the ducts since we've given them time to clear out), and if we use the staining mop pads for this try, we'll go slowly and wipe each swipe with a rag to work in and remove excess stain.

So where are we now? We spent the weekend starting over. Thankfully we have a friend who owns a sander so we didn't have to shell out $50 or so to rent one. And we were able to take our time and do it in two days. Andrew sanded the living room and the master bedroom (from a previous mess-up accounted here) with a coarse grit (I think 36) the first day, then he sanded with 60 followed by 100 on the second day. Below are some pictures of the process:

Andrew started by scraping some of the excess stain off the floor, leaving this interesting design. 

Once we determined using a 36-grit was the way to go, Andrew stopped scraping and started sanding.

The borrowed sander

The finished product

You may can see a dark edge in the picture above. We plan to rent an edger this weekend rather than spend extra time sanding the edges with a palm sander. Once that is sanded, we'll probably divide the living room in two or three areas to begin staining. We host a Bible study at our house each week, so we want to be able to work and maintain some normalcy (our definition has obviously flexed somewhat with this project!) at the same time. 

All in all, counting the hallway as a room, we did 3 out of 5 rooms correctly the first time. Not too shabby for first-time floor refinishers. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure if the next home we buy needs new floors, we'll install hardwood over refinishing!

It's been too long...!

Eek! Where did the last two-ish months go?! After my last post in July, I left for Alabama for a "business" trip, came home for a bit, headed to Maine for vacation, then a quick trip to the Adirondacks...and I have no idea where September went. I promise to do better. I hope :)

Now for updates!!

Two of the three bedrooms are 98% complete. My dad and step-mother flew up for a visit last month (that was my September excuse!) so we completely finished the guest room sans crown molding. I also have a really neat idea for a headboard that I hope to tackle soon. The office/third bedroom is done minus the crown molding and a tiny bit of electrical. I'll post pics of that soon...when I can get back there. More on that soon.

We started on the master bedroom floors about a week and a half out from the parental visit. We used a much thicker brush for the stain thinking we would need fewer coats in the end. Bad idea. The first coat wasn't dry by the end of the week, nor by the time our visitors arrived, nor by the time they left! Rather than looking like the other rooms where the wood grain shined through, this looked like we had painted our floors. So we started sanding it back up to start over.

In the middle of the bedroom fiasco, we got the opportunity to move out for a week to work on the living room and hallway floors. Here's a before pic:

I had to take this with my phone so it's a bit dark. This room had the best floors by far out of the entire house. (Well...except the whole "carpet in the kitchen" thing.) No deep stains, and Andrew sanded them really well. We moved out on a Sunday, I stained the hallway on Monday and the living room on Tuesday. In the picture you can see where I stained the perimeter with a brush. We used a mop to do the rest of the room. I highly recommend getting the brush/mop apparatus! It made staining so much easier.

You can get lamb's wool pads for these, but the guy at Lowe's told us the cheaper version would do just as well. You just need to be careful to smooth out where you start and stop with the mop--it can leave a mark or small bubbles. Overall though, it was a fabulous purchase. Below is a pic of the first coat:

We left that island area because we need to sand the closet area a little more. Once we poly the rest of the floor we'll go back to that area and blend it with the rest. 

All of those pictures were from last week, so we're now on week two of being out of the house. Last Sunday we touched up the entire area and are now waiting for it to dry before doing the poly. More pics of work to come soon, plus a new feature for the deck!

It can't be that hard, right?

While this statement may usually be heard in some Southern city preceding a fairly adventurous and potentially dangerous event, it could also be a thought in the minds of any regular joe as he or she stares down the blank canvas of an interior wall. Really, painting can't be that hard, right? It's one of the first arts and crafts activities attempted by a child...whether with brush or fingers, getting rid of the white doesn't take much skill.

Or so I thought.

Allow me to share these valuable nuggets learned while painting our soon-to-be office. If you knew these things already, kudos to you! And please, don't rub it in!

1. Painting should be accomplished in a single day, if not two.

2. If painting can't be accomplished in a single day (or two), remove the painter's tape until you have ample time to start again.

3. If the painting process spanned several days...or a week...be prepared for the paint to peel off the wall when removing painter's tape.

4. Also be prepared for tiny slivers of tape to remain attached to baseboards or other molding.

5. Installing crown molding is a great way to hide peeled areas near the ceiling, as well as avoid a dreaded spot of color on the ceiling.

Moral of the story? Painter's tape is a tricky item...it won't stay put when you're lining the room, but it decides to become glue if left too long.

Oh, the humbling joys of home renovation!!

Quick Fix

Have I mentioned our ugly house is kinda smelly? In addition to being really dirty and dusty, it smelled. Opening the windows helped get rid of some of that old, musty smell; however, it didn't help inside the closets.

One of the largest boxes impeding walking through our home needed to be unloaded in the hall closet, BUT that closet had some less-than-desirable shelf paper along with the moldy smell. I initially thought I could remove the shelf paper and that would be that. You can probably figure out how wrong I was! It left a sticky mess on some shelves and revealed an ancient odor that I did not want tainting my towels and sheets.

After pricing wood to cut new shelves, I finally decided to use some old brown paint we had left over from a previous project in our old apartment. A little paint will cover "old" smells quickly and more cost-efficiently than buying new wood (or in the case of walls, new drywall).

The paint I used wasn't the best--it had some clumps--but it did the trick for shelves that will constantly be covered with linens. I painted the shelves on our deck without putting down plastic or newspaper. I would recommend doing that if you like your deck (or floor, porch or driveway), but ours needs to be repainted anyway. You can also use cheesecloth to strain out clumps from older paint if you're painting something that will be seen.

A "new" closet with no funky smells! And it took less than an hour and $0 for two coats of paint on each shelf. 

One room (halfway) down...

Finally. We have made some progress. I picked out paint colors a few weeks ago while waiting for Andrew to meet me at Home Depot, but we didn't get started until last Monday, July 5.

The greens were options for my office, the blues for the guest room, the grays for the master bedroom and the tans for the hall and den. Because it's summer we've had a ton going on and haven't had much time to do any home stuff other than minor fixes and lots of research on kitchen upgrades. (The search for kitchen cabinets is on!)

Since last weekend was a holiday we thought we'd finally have some time to get painting. We were able to buy all of our supplies and paint Thursday or Friday (ended up at Lowe's), but with all the weekend festivities (paddling the Connecticut, hiking part of the Robert Frost Trail) we didn't crack the paint cans until Monday morning.

Here are some pics of the first day of painting...

taping is my LEAST favorite part...

blanched pine (white) for the ceilings and trim...

and leafy rise (green) for the walls!

Just before noon we determined we needed to wrap up. In order to get good lawn seats at Tanglewood to see James Taylor and Carole King we would need to leave EARLY, which we did. Here's a pic of the festivities:

                                      

We finished the second and final coat of paint Sunday and did most of the trim. I'll post a finished pic once we get the floors stained...then it will be truly done!

Lowe's vs. Home Depot

Note on our favorite home improvement store: we don't (technically) have one. Up until a few months ago, Home Depot was the only store close enough to get to. Andrew wasn't terribly happy about this as his summer stint at the Depot in 2007 was less than pleasant. Now that we have a Lowe's down the street from Home Depot we imagined shopping there more, but it doesn't always turn out that way. We shop at both to compare prices and inventory.

With the shower problem, we found out what part we needed at Lowe's, but they don't carry it and sent us to Home Depot. (This did please Andrew though, because the employee showed him a shower diagram, the exact part needed and didn't hesitate to send us to the competitor.) In researching front doors (more on this soon), we found one we love at Lowe's...plus we have a coupon and gift cards! I also bought a new refrigerator from Lowe's--display model, no scratches or other issues, nearly 50% off. 


I picked out paint colors at Home Depot, but bought the first room's color from Lowe's because we were already there and they stay open later. Valspar (Lowe's main brand) was having a rebate so we get $5 back per gallon. I'll more than likely buy the other colors from Home Depot (their main brand is Behr) because I know the colors I want, but I'll watch for rebates from Behr before purchasing.


It seems most of the items I've listed have come from Lowe's, but several smaller parts we needed for various things did come from Home Depot...I just can't remember what they are! Andrew would say he likes Lowe's better (again, he may be biased), but I haven't quite decided yet. I will say that their brand color--blue--is much better than the nearly-Tennessee-Vols-orange of Home Depot. Boo orange! 

All Part of the Game

When buying a new home, or in our case, a really old home, it's apparently "normal" for things to break immediately after moving in. We were prepared for this--and handled it well, I think--so I'll share with you our mini-potholes now that they're fixed.

We closed on June 16 and planned to move on June 19. The days in between were cleaning days. In my first post I mentioned the time spent on cleaning the bathroom and the fridge, but what I didn't mention was the leak we found in the shower while cleaning. In the middle giving a bath to the bathroom, our friends Brett and Jenna showed up to see the inside of the house. They'd already taken a trip to peak in all the windows a month or so before :) While showing them the basement, Brett found a pool of water under some pipes, which turned out to indeed be a shower leak.

We didn't have time to deal with it that afternoon due to the floor sanding project we'd already planned. Saturday was reserved for moving, so showers were taken at a friend's house that night. Sunday came and Andrew cut holes in the wall (inside the under-the-sink cabinet) to find the actual problem. One more day and three trips to Lowe's/Home Depot later, we had the right part and Andrew fixed the shower.

The one other "problem" that we ran into was our dryer. Neither this nor the shower were huge headaches, but still slowed down that actual "living-in-our-new-home" process. The laundry is done in the basement--pretty normal I'm coming to find here in New England--and the previous owner had a gas dryer. Didn't even know those existed! So before we were able to use our dryer, Andrew had to get several parts (copper, breaker, etc) that a co-worker of his hooked up. It was a pretty timely fix that cost about $100...copper taking up 3/4 of that cost. But I can do laundry now!

Pictures!

I realize it's been over a week since I last posted, and I feel terrible for it. Comcast isn't able to get to our house to hook up Internet until after the 4th of July, so until then I have to find time when I'm near wi-fi and not working to update. I wanted to post a few "before" shots of thehouse while I have a minute.

This is the outside of the house (obviously.)

This is what the floors looked like before we sanded them. They had dark stains in several places, so we sanded them and plan to stain them darker. This way we didn't have to sand terribly far down, which takes more time and effort. We were able to rent a belt sander from a local hardware store for $55 for 24 hours. We only used three pieces of sandpaper (one that was on it and partially used) so the total came to $65.

"Before" den

"Before" kitchen wall. Hand painted wall...not sure what was going on here, but I'm ready for it to be gone!

Sanded floors.

I'll post a few more pics later with an update of our work and planning over the last week.

Floors, Fridges and Moving Day

Disclaimer: I'm exhausted, so I apologize for whatever rambling might follow. I tried really hard for alliteration with my title, but my vocabulary is failing miserably at the moment! Yesterday I got in the house to clean...and three hours later I finished the bathroom--yikes! The dirt, dust and grime was intense. Thanks to my dear friend Christie our mustard-yellow fridge is clean...two and a half hours of elbow grease to accomplish that feat! (We didn't plan to buy a dust-covered home; however, the house is part of a trust and hasn't been occupied in a few years.)

Friday's goal was to clean the entire house--which more or less happened, mainly because of our wonderful friends who stopped by to tackle whatever project I came up with when they walked through the door--as well as sand all of the wood floors in the house. We started that project Thursday afternoon but soon realized that we could rent a large belt sander for way less than the cost of belts for our small one. Andrew did an amazing job, working from 5 until 11 at night, and all this without much light. The sander tripped a breaker that we couldn't get fixed so most of the late night cleaning and sanding happened by streetlight and moonlight.

Saturday morning came early...6:30 too early. I had to make a run to Wal-Mart for tape to finish our last minute packing before we left to pick up the U-Haul. Following a rental truck mix-up, we were able to get moved without too much trouble. Huge huge thanks to our friends who worked so hard and were flexible enough to cram coffeemakers, groceries and other odds and ends into their trunks.

While I did promise pictures yesterday, I'm not entirely sure where the camera cord is at this moment. I'll do my best to get those up soon. Agenda for tomorrow...cleaning the old apartment and initial kitchen design. We do hope to grab a nap or two also!

Day 1: One Dirty Mess

After two months of waiting to close on our first home (this following some near heartbreaks with actually signing a purchase and sale) we signed the final paperwork at 10 a.m. on June 16: one year and one month after we said "I do."

The house? A 56-year-old, three bedroom, one bath ranch...complete with green wood paneling, hand-painted ivy, mustard yellow fridge and a stove that Alice from the Brady Bunch would have been proud to own. But we got what we wanted: an ugly house in a nice neighborhood. The listing said "needs some TLC." And TLC we will give it...lots of it.

With a long to-do list already, the only "renovation" work that was done yesterday was measuring for a new front door. Gotta start somewhere, right? I did get in the house this afternoon to start cleaning, following a few unrelated to-dos. Not only are we renovating an ugly ranch, no one has lived in the house for several years...which means tons and tons of dirt. I believe I may have ticked off several eight-legged creatures that were occupying our lonely residence.

Tomorrow I'll post pictures of the exterior, plus all the before images of the interior. We also started sanding the floors to refinish them, so I hope to upload a picture or two of my newly acquired skill--taught to me by my handsome and talented husband, of course!