Witchy Woman....

So, the title of this post has nothing to do with anything except that it's a great song by the Eagles and it always makes me think of fall.

I finally got back to the house when it wasn't raining and got some good after shots of the work I did last weekend outside.  It really does look a lot better.

First the Before shot of the front of the house.  This was before we took down the tree in between the windows or did much of anything other than weed the flower bed.

And the After.  There is still more work to do, but you can actually see the house now.  We haven't painted the wood over the garage yet, but once we get that done, it will finish off all the painting on the front of the house.

The crazy trees on either side of the garage are gone now too, so you can actually walk down the sidewalk and see the stone on the sides.  Why anyone would want to cover that up is beyond me.  We're still not entirely sure what color we'll paint the garage door, but just getting the wood painted and the light replaced will help out a lot.

Also gone are the giant green bushes that dominated the big flower bed next to the driveway.  They were huge and scratchy and totally blocked everything.  Now they are gone!  We left the juniper though.   I like him.  He's small and tidy.

Before:

And After:

There's still a little more do to outside.  We need to replace the trees that were on either side of the garage with something and I need to pull up the weed paper in the bed along the house, but it looks a lot better than it did when we bought the place.  We've even had some neighbors stop by and thank us for all of our hard work.  Hopefully we won't ever be "that house" on the block again.

Stop Baby, What's That Sound?

So the last two weekend (and the week in between) have been crazy busy.  It's midterms for me at school, so I've been swamped with homework, papers, projects, and exams, and work at the house has accelerated dramatically.

Last weekend was Landon's birthday, but that didn't stop us from getting a lot done.  Work continued on the ceiling in the living area with lots of drywall mud and sanding.  The ceiling also got primed on Sunday (which made both me and Landon sore for two days after).  It might have had something to do with the fact that we also primed and painted the master bedroom ceiling.

Me, wiping down the ceiling before we primed it.
Sponge + Ceiling = not much fun.

Lots and lots of plumbing work went on in the basement with the sink in the guest bath finally getting hooked up.  Which of course means that the vanity cabinets and the vanity top went in.  Fun fact:  before you install a vanity, you should check to make sure that the wall behind it is flat.  Ours was not which leaves us with this situation:

It's hard to tell from here, but the sides are flush while the middle is about 1/4" away from the wall.

You can see it better here.  It's not a huge gap, but you can see it.  

We're working on trying to find a solution.  We're thinking (thanks to Ann again) that we might frame in the mirror and set it right down on top of the backsplash.  If anyone has any other ideas, let me know.

This week, Alan cut out the drywall in the ceiling of the guest bathroom where the old vent fan and a really bad patch was and installed a new piece with a cut out for our new vent fan/light.  It's totally awesome.  It looks like a pot light but is also a vent fan.  Best idea ever!

It doesn't look like much, but it's great!

We had purchased a vent fan/light from Lowe's but when we hooked it up to test, the light was so dim it wasn't going to work as the primary light for the room.  It went back and we ordered the one from Amazon.

We also have the vanity light installed, and I love it.  The guest bath is nearly finished.  We only need to finish the ceiling, paint it, and get the mirror and cabinet hardware installed.

Nicely sealed grout and tile.  Not a fan of sealing the grout, but it will be worth it in the long run.

Alan spent a good portion of the weekend working on putting in the baffles on the back of the house and installing more insulation.  Then he spent the next couple of days framing out the rafters so we can reinstall the soffits along the back.

The hallway also got primed, and then had more drywall work done and then got primed again.  So much fun.  We're buying Kilz by the 5 gallon bucket now.

And, because we were trying to get most of the painting done, I picked up some samples for the master bedroom and living area paint colors on Friday, applied them, and by Friday night, we were painting.  I didn't get a photo of the living area colors, but I did snap one of the bedroom colors.

From Left to Right:
Meditative, Languid Blue, Sleepy Blue

And we decided to go with Languid Blue in the Master bedroom.  It's absolutely gorgeous and makes me silly happy.  I can't wait to move into that room!  Landon and I spent this Friday night painting the room and Saturday morning it was even more awesome.

One wall done

Two walls down.

All done and dry!.  It's a little darker in person.

Saturday morning, we painted the ceilings in the hallway, foyer, living area, and kitchen.  It took about 3 hours and I had paint all over my face, but it looks okay.  We probably need to do a second coat, but I'm not sure I have it in me.

We then moved on to painting the walls in the hallway and main living area/kitchen.  I went with a nice neutral (Kilim Beige) for most of the walls and the hallway with our TV wall done in Clary Sage.  I love both colors, but the green is so nice it will probably end up being our Family room color as well.

Around noon, Alan rented a Dingo to help grade the dirt in the back/side yards and hopefully stop water from coming into the basement.  I think the boys enjoyed using the new toy.  But they did get some dirt moved and the posts left over from the pool pulled out.

Adding dirt next to the house so water flows away.

Where did the dirt come from?  The hill in the back.

Now what?

Taking out the pool posts with Brad Mattix.

Almost got it!

While the boys were outside playing in the dirt, I was inside getting the floors in the bedrooms/hallway/main living area ready for hardwood to go down.  This involved lots and lots of vacuuming, sweeping, scraping, and repeating.  And let me say this:  if you are going to be vacuuming up drywall dust, invest in the extra filter bag for the shop vac that's made for fine dust.  It's a life saver.

But, by the end of the night, all the floor were ready for....well floors!

And Sunday, while the boys were playing outside again, I touched up some paint and painted the widow frames.  And then I went outside to work on the front flower beds.  I needed to finish cutting out a lot of the black weed paper that was left behind.  About 3/4 of it was exposed now, and the rest had weeds growing on top of it.  I also moved some plant around, thinned some out, and generally cleaned up the front of the house some more.  Until it began to pour the rain!  I got soaked, but at least some yard work got done.

While I was digging in the front, the boys were digging in the back.  The chain link fence came out, was rolled up, and loaded up.  And the backyard got more grading work done and all the honeysuckle trees ripped out.  You can see the yard portion of the back yard now!

It's a muddy mess, but you can see the back now!

So much clearer

The same area before.  

Another before view.

The former home of the pool.
One day there will be grass here.

And the before.

And, while all that was going on outside, something even more exciting was going on inside.......Floors!

First signs of flooring:  Tar paper going down.

And the starter row.  

What's under the boxes?  

Floors!  So pretty!

Yup, the floor started going down.  And they look awesome!  I can't wait to see them more finished, but as of tonight, most of the hallway is done and about 3/4 of the Master Bedroom.  I love my Maple floors!

It's Been Awhile

So it's been awhile since I posted an update.  There are several reasons for that, including the fact that I started Graduate school last week which ate up a huge chunk of time and the fact that I was out of town for the holiday weekend.  But fear not!  Work went on at the house.  Lots of work in fact.

The last weekend I did an update, we had been working on the soffits and facia boards outside.  The boys finally got the front of the house done, as well as both sides of the garage.  The back still needs to be done, but it looks much better.

When I left last Friday, Landon and his Dad were working on painting some of the siding outside.  That turned out to be way more of a job than we expected, but they made some progress.

And, since it rained for a good portion of the weekend, they ended up starting work on the Guest Bathroom.  We hadn't planned on redoing that particular room, but since we discovered that the sub floor was rotted out beneath the tub, we had to tear it apart.  And, since we were going to tear everything out anyway, it seemed silly to not put it back just the way we wanted.  So, it's getting a makeover too.  So far the subfloor has been replaced, the toilet has been torn out (so no more potty at the house at all), the tub and surround are out, the vanity has been removed, and the vanity light is down.  Oh, and some of the drywall is gone.

Surround coming out.

Working on the tub.

Nearly out.

Keep going.

Vanity and mirror gone.

And tub and subfloor gone.

New green board up.  Plumbing fixed.

More wiring sticking right out of the wall.  No light box.

But we're getting it back together.  We've bought a new tub, vinyl floor tiles, plumbing fixtures, and vanity top (we are painting the old cabinets). The toilet we already bought.

The floor tiles

And the Vanity Top.  Clearance Baby!

Sink Faucet

Shower Fixture.

The tub is in.

New tub, as seen though the wall from the master bathroom.

The mortar bed for the tub.  

Tub protected and cement board up.  Ready to tile!

New subfloors and no more vent in the middle of the floor!

Toilet support shored up and redone.

There has been lots more work going on in the bathroom since Labor Day weekend.  So look for more updates soon!  You won't believe your eyes!