ok, sorry about leaving you all hanging. we just have been really busy so haven't had time to post anything. yes, so we did move. it was a rough weekend but we survived. although, it was a bit iffy for me on the Monday after. since then, it's been a flurry of activity trying to actually move IN.
our applicances arrived the Sunday after we moved, so that was nice. they all are functioning nicely. we are especially impressed with how well the washer washes and how quiet it is doing it. we got one of those new high-efficiency front-loaders (by Kenmore) ... we highly recommend it. the range (here it is in white, also Kenmore) and fridge (Kenmore Elite Trio) are doing well, although we still haven't officially"moved-in" to the fridge. we brought a few essentials, but still haven'tmoved the rest of the stuff from the apartment. one thing we are realizing about stainless steel appliances .... DON'T TOUCH!
the first few nights were spent unpacking and situating things. next, we hung curtains and roman shades ... lots and lots of them. they turned out nice, except the lady at JC Penny didn't know what she was talking about with the curtain panel widths ... 2 of the windows we can't totally "close". so, we'll need to exchange for longer panels or add another set of small ones.
once things were mostly in order, it was on to finishing up the "construction" projects (most of which happened this week since i took the week off). i trimmed the hardwoods around the vents so that the covers could go on ... well, almost. i hit a snag on the one in the sunroom ... the elbow in the ductwork that turns up to the vent pretty much broke apart in my hands when i tried to adjust it. so, i'm still trying to hunt down a 12" round 90-degree elbow (PS: they don't carry it at Lowe's, HD, or Menards). a local HVAC contractor was supposed to call me back ... but hasn't. i also still need to do the return air covers, but will finish those when i get back to the sunroom one. i also did some more insulating. first, foam in the gaps between the hardwoods and exterior walls (stop drafts). next, some R-30 over the downstairs bathroom (another example of the poor previous construction -- no insulation over the ceiling). i think that we could tell a difference there immediately ... the bathroom stays much warmer during a shower (and we might add, it's a wonderful mystical experience showering in our "shell shower"). then today, i put some R-19 under the sunroom floor and up the walls of the crawlspace, along with a vapor barrier (plastic sheeting) on the ground. now there is a lovely time, working in a crawlspace. i couldn't help but wonder how many dead hobos were buried in there ... and what their names might be (i like "Guesstimate Jones"). now i bet your thinking, that sounds like fun (putting fiberglass insulation in a crawlspace, not burying hobos silly). well ... you'd be wrong. eventually, i'd like to get some insulation under more of the floors to hopefully make them feel warmer, maybe some other time.
lots of other miscellaneous items were also done: new switch and light bulbs (60W-ers on a dimmer instead of 100W-ers = much better) in dining room, more switch/outlet covers, hanging pictures, re-working the dryer vent (temporary fixes, total re-do later), misc. decorating, re-keying the locks, organizing our box "collection" in the basement, etc. i also got a new toolbox to hold most of my tools (except power tools) and got a storage box with little drawers to hold and sort all the misc. nails, screws, etc. we have (both using Christmas giftcards ... thanks Mom and Michael & Kim!). that and the toolbox made for some fun sorting/organizing projects. i also got (also using giftcards) a nice collection of tips/bits for the drill ... suh-weeeeeet! oh, and we got a Christmas tree! if you go 2 days before Christmas, you can get them for super cheap (we got an "expensive" one ... for $8.75).
upcoming, i need to put in new doorbells (wireless--easy project), add some weatherstripping to the front door, refinish the stairs (pulled staples tonight), get shoe molding put in, some final painting, and picture hanging among other things. we also need to get out of the apartment by the end of Saturday. i went and did most of the cleaning today, but we have a couple loads of random stuff to bring back still.
oh, and in the meantime, we left for about 2 days to visit Chrissy's uncle in southern Illinois. it had been quite a while since we'd seen them. we had a lot of fun there, well worth the drive.
i've sprinkled some current pictures throughout this post and have put some more on the flickr page (along with some old ones that i never uploaded - i recommend looking at the "During" set ).
alright, sorry i've left you all hanging. here's a quick lunchtime update:
we did move. i was sick (Fri-Mon). then i was really tired and sick (Sat. - Tues.). we ARE living in the new house! we are mostly unpacked, mainly just need to hang pictures and organize the office more. the computer hasn't been hooked up to the internet yet (need a longer cable for temporary use while i wait on the wireless products to arrive -- no cable jack in office), thus no updates (in addition to no time). we've managed to hang most of the curtains/shades, but that's about the extent of the "home projects" since the move. there are some smaller ones that need to be done soon though (refinish stairs, trim out hardwoods at vents, install shoe molding, more insulating, more faceplates, etc.).
we will be out of state (southern Illinois) for most of the weekend, so don't expect any major updates (or pictures) until next week -- unless something weird happens, like a rip in the time-space continuum giving me more time to do stuff each day. i think that would qualify as weird? yes?
hope everyone has a great Christmas! we've been so busy, it hardly even feels like that time of year for us :-(
... our new floors (cue "Hallelujah Chorus"): they are done! we peeked in at two points in the process (Monday night after sanding and staining, Weds night after 2nd coat of poly) but didn't really see the finished product til tonight. we are very very happy with the results! the stain turned out great - a nice overall tone with a nice variety of colors. it really brought out some of the very unique grain patterns in the different pieces. it's fun to just walk around and look at how neat some of them look. it definitely turned out great. definitely worth all the effort we put in. unfortunately, due to the wacko lighting situation we still have (either not enough light or way too much) the pictures don't quite do it justice. you'll just have to come visit to experience them for yourselves. apart from admiring the floors, we did a lot of cleanup tonight. the carpet guy is coming tomorrow to re-lay the carpet in the bedrooms. so, we had to remove all the sawdust, tools and leftover wood so that could happen. we cleaned up the mudroom and kitchen also, moving a lot of the tools and random things to the mudroom. some stuff went to the basement, where i laid out a big sheet of heavy-duty plastic sheeting for protection from potential water seepage (the walls are a bit leaky at times ... that's a springtime project). Chrissy also got a lot of the switch and outlet covers put on. all in all, it looks so much better now that it's somewhat cleaned up and organized (the finished floors don't hurt either). you know me, can't go 5 feet without organizing something.
prior to tonight, we mostly worked on packing up. we have most things ready to go. we also did a little shopping for some last minute house needs (and got Andy some much needed new food) and finally ordered some rug pads. we still plan on moving on Saturday. so, if anyone (especially if you are skilled at lifting and carrying heavy things) is in the area, feel free to stop by. we could use the help. we'll let you touch and smell the new floors for 30 seconds for every box/item you carry. heck, i'm feeling generous ... i'll make it 45 seconds.
Project #1 (our work): Done -- Project #3: Almost done
well, much has happened since the last real update. most of it involved painting and laying floor. we worked really late Tues, Weds and Thurs night. i finished trimming out the end rows of the living and dining rooms, and created the transition into the kitchen. by Thurs night, the difficult portion of the kitchen was done (transition and starting rows) and i was a few feet into the main field. Chrissy moved steadily through the painting and had the living room primed and painted up to the stairs (we think the colors are turning out great). Friday night was my company Christmas party so we got the night off. we had a great dinner and saw a wonderful performance of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". it was another late night though, so no extra sleep to be had.
Saturday, we spent the first part of the morning at Sears buying all our appliances (special morning sale). they'll be delivered this coming Sunday. then straight to the house for more work. my dad came down yet again to make some progress on the few remaining electrical items. he relocated an outlet for the fridge in the kitchen (into the wall instead of a surface mount). then the major project was the mudroom. he ran new power for an existing outlet plus one new one for the washer/dryer. he also put a new outlet in the bathroom and put up the new light we bought. he rewired the mudroom light (put up a new one) and made it a 3-way switch so we can turn it on at the back door also. he also spent considerable time sitting on top of the shower (yes, on top of the shower and i'm kicking myself for not taking a picture of that) cleaning up the awful mess that is the old wiring. basically, much of the wiring before came out of the old electrical panel as modern wiring (very deceptive by the previous owners if you ask us ... the appearances of modern wiring when in fact 95% of the house used some knob-and-tube wiring still). the modern wire ended for several circuits above the shower where they simply tied into old knob-and-tube wiring. we had previously gotten everything off the old wiring circuits, but he was able to clean things up and utilize the existing modern wire portions for our new mudroom circuits. very tricky he is. again, my theory of the addition (mudroom & bathroom) being horidly constructed holds true. my list of prime examples grows with every project - just ask me sometime and i'll be happy to rant about it for you. so, the electric stuff is pretty much done except for the sunroom light and installing some undercounter lights in the kitchen (plus putting on switch covers and hanging a light or two ... small things). that's very good.
meanwhile, Chrissy worked on the final coat of paint in the bedroom and some misc. touch-ups. her parents stopped in on their way home from Florida so shewas able to spend some time with them and show them the progress which was nice. her dad also helped me with a few flooring tasks. i spent all day working on finishing up the kitchen and getting started on the upstairs hallway. the kitchen only went so-so, as i started having issues with the floor nailer. more on that later. i was fortunate to have help from my friends Chad and Brad in getting the upstairs landings prepped. they did the annoying task of getting the door frames cut down and getting the floor ready for the new hardwood. later, Brad and Sara (his wife) managed to get knots/chips/gaps in the hardwood filled in the entire living room. big help! we worked until around 11:30 or so.
then there was Sunday. Sunday didn't go so smooth for me -- everything took 3x longer than it should. Chrissy painted the sunroom and did some touchups. she also did wood filling in the dining room, kitchen, sunroom and hallway. i spent the day battling the stupid floor nailer among other things. the ratcheting mechanism is messed. due to the hallway layout, it was tough to always get a good solid hit on the nailer. normally, the ratcheting device would allow you to just hit it again to drive it home. not so anymore it seems. instead, any slight little mis-hit would end up requiring setting the nail -- which can be a really time consuming process with those flooring nails. also, i was battling some out-of-squareness of the walls, resulting in some gaps i wasn't so happy with. all in all, not going smoothly. Chrissy finished with everything else and came up to help me. slowly, but surely we got it finished (right about midnight - would have been about 5 a.m. had we not had that help on Saturday) including holes filled and a quick vacuuming. this included a scary moment of me hitting my wrist with the hammer really hard. not pleasant. one pleasant thing about Sunday (besides getting the floors done and the Colts winning), we bought what we'll call my Christmas present for this year ... a cordless drill! i needed one for installing the nosing piece at the top of the stairs, so it was a good time to make the investment. i'll do a little blogging about what i got later on. i'm quite pumped.
as you could expect, we were extremely exhausted today (and i hurt just about everywhere ... either from injury or just plain soreness) but i met the guys from Griffith Hardwoods this morning to start them on the finishing. same good guys from before. they were very complimentary of the results, which made me feel good. we both stopped in tonight to check on the progress and were very excited about the results! they had it all sanded and stained like they thought they would! it turned out great (sorry, didn't have the camera along for pictures)! they will put a coat of poly on tomorrow and Weds ... and it's done! it's going to be so exciting to see the final results of such a long and oftentimes painful project. NOT including the first day of work with my uncle and cousin ... i used roughly 6500 flooring nails and roughly 1200 finish nails. way more than you would normally expect, but so often you needed to use a lot to get the warping out of the boards ... or you'd have misfires to re-do. no wonder my hand was hurting so much ... that is a lot of impacts of a 2.5 lb. mallet hitting the nailer. it was a good experience though and it will be rewarding to look back over the years and see the results of the hard work. thank you so much to all of you that helped.
tonight we "relaxed". we got a lot of the upstairs stuff packed and i caught up on a ton of bills. tomorrow, more of the same ... get packed up. Friday we have someone coming out to re-lay the carpeting in the bedrooms. Saturday ... we move! holy crap Batman. can that day really be that close? are we really actually going to live there?
sorry no posts ... and this post is only to tell you that there are no posts. all i can say is we're working our tails off. we need sleep. hopefully an update with pictures and such on Monday. go Colts tomorrow, err ... later today i guess.
first, the good. the hardwood floor and painting projects made decent progress this weekend. we worked all day Saturday and Sunday afternoon (after halftime of the Colts game, 12-0 baby!) through late evening. our friend Kristi came over on Saturday and helped Chrissy paint the dining room. we ran way short of paint in there (but had a lot of excess Pepto-primer, go figure). i think it was just the fact that you need a lot of paint to get that deep of a red color. we got another gallon and Chrissy finished it up on Sunday. it really looks nice. it makes the room feel a little bit smaller, but not in a bad way. just a very cozy, warm space. we definitely need to get lower wattage bulbs in the light to help hide some of the "character" in the walls (the glare from the light shows them more). that, or lots of artwork. the hardwoods went somewhat slowly. i hit some of the more difficult stretches to work through (beveled cuts at the front door, radiused cuts at thestairs,end rows of rooms, etc.), so the slow-down was expected. the difficultspots went fairly well, just slow. the radiused cuts weren't perfect, but i plan to radius some shoe molding around there to cover it. after all was said and done, the living room and sunroom got finished. it's really nice to see the huge expanse of the living room all completed. just the kitchen and upstairs hallway to go (roughly 160 SF, including some semi-tricky transitions to get things started). i'm behind my initial schedule, but should be fine since we have all this week and next weekend to work. sorry, the dining room pic didn't turn out very well and the living room one has wood laying on the floor making it look funny. i'll try to get some better ones soon.
ok, so now the bad -- tonight. it has been fairly cold the past few days, especially starting last night. i have been worried about the pipes in the downstairs bath freezing because that area is on crawlspace and seemed to get very cold. well, they were frozen tonight. luckily, nothing burst. there were already some pipe heaters attached to those water lines, so after a discussion about their potential safety with my brother, i decided to use them (this was actually before i found out they were frozen). so, i plugged them guys in. it seemed awful breezy down there so i grabbed my flashlight to try to figure out why. i thought it was the poor brick-work down there but it seemed to be too much for that alone. lo and behold, i found a rather large gap in the end wall of the house right at the top of the foundation wall (just under the siding). i don't know how i didn't notice it before, i guess the siding and weeds kind of hid it. so, i grabbed more expanding foam insulation and insulated the snot out of the cracks and gaps. the foam doesn't work as well in the extreme cold, so i hope it still expands a little more to really seal things up tight. i could tell a definite difference right away though. there was still a very slight breeze coming from somewhere, but much much less than before. hopefully the foam will expand up and stop it. if not, i'll see if i can track it down also.
then, the ugly. after a bit i was able to get a few drips of water to come out and eventually the hot water line was going. but, the drain wasn't draining, but dripping out under the sink. i grabbed a little bucket to catch the water. the drain stopper connection was leaking like crazy. so, i tightened that but still no water was going down the drain - frozen?? i went back down and looked in the crawlspace ... lo and behold ... the last section of the drain line, between the toilet and sink runs DOWNHILL (as in the water needs to run uphill, which is sort of the opposite of gravity--at least here in Indiana, which is wrong, dumb, stupid, retarded, someone should be shot). for the love. so, we have a nice section of frozen waste water down there. nice. we kept hot water in the sink the rest of the night hoping to loosen it up. no luck yet. we're hoping things heat up down there with the gaps filled so that thing melts (also closed the bathroom door to try to keep some heat in there). so, this has confirmed what was only a theory before ... the construction of the addition (bathroom, mudroom) was terrible at best. makes me just want to knock it over and build something better there. for now, more insulating to try to keep it warmer down there and using the line heaters when it is really cold out. ugh.
so tonight was not so good. i also almost broke my ankle and my flashlight (it worked for a bit, but then stopped working so who knows), and nearly lost a nail punch, not to mention getting more insulation stuck to my fingers. so we decided to call it an early night (as if 10:30 is early). all i REALLY got done was preparing the door jambs going into the kitchen to lay hardwood around. which is a small victory on a rough night. Chrissy untaped the dining room and listened to me lament the woes of plumbing in a crawlspace. so, when can we start drawing plans for a NEW house??
well, Thursday didn't quite go as planned, but was not a total failure. i got a bit of later start than i hoped, but a little extra sleep was probably needed. the main problem was my back (something ambition can't do much about). i think its just really worn out. even with the brace, it was really sore all day ... really slowed me down at times. and i had forgotten to bring along some Advil, so i had to wait for Chrissy to stop in on her way home from work to get some pain relief (and dinner). i did make good progress though, just not as much as i wanted. the sunroom is almost done (probably 85%). i ran out of light (no new electric to the light in there yet) before i got finished. so, i moved to the living room and went as far as i could -- about 2 strips before the front door. i didn't want to go further than that because i needed to do some cutting around the frame and insulating under the threshold before laying the floor there. so, i ended the day with another expanding foam insulation party (i know, doesn't that sound like fun!?). initially i had WAY too much under the threshold. if i hadn't knocked it down, i have a feeling we wouldn't have been able to open the door the next time we went over (and still no guarantee, we'll find out tomorrow morning). there was a ton of cold air entering through the bottom of the door, so hopefully the insulation and a door sweep (currently using a piece of floor padding) will cut down on that. all-in-all, i got about 100 SF done and some insulating. not as much as i wanted, but ok. dang back. next time, Advil will accompany me.
tonight we went to JC Penny's and ordered curtains for the living room and dining room and then browsed tools and appliances at Sears. they have some good deals next Saturday morning, so we'll probably go place our appliance order then (not cheap!).
tomorrow i'll hit the floors hard again (properly medicated of course). i need to visit a hardwood supply store for a few items in the morning, but the rest of the day should be all hardwood laying. Chrissy will continue painting (hopefully getting rid of our pretty pink walls) with a friend or two of ours helping her.
also, i have scheduled Griffith & Sons back out on Monday the 12th to finish the new floors! woohoo! so i have just over a week to get the remaining approx. 250 SF down. shouldn't be a problem. i'm hoping to get about 150-200 this weekend alone. hopefully we'll have most of the painting done by that day too, so we can just abandon the house for a few days while they work. i think we are finally starting to see a bit of a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel. for the first round of renovation anyway!
hanging. we just have been really busy so haven't had time to post anything. yes, so we did move. it was a rough weekend but we survived. although, it was a bit iffy for me on the Monday after. since then, it's been a flurry of activity trying to actually move IN.
and fridge (Kenmore Elite Trio) are doing well, although we still haven't officially "moved-in" to the fridge. we brought a few essentials, but still haven't moved the rest of the stuff from the apartment. one thing we are realizing about stainless steel appliances .... DON'T TOUCH!
was on to finishing up the "construction" projects (most of which happened this week since i took the week off). i trimmed the hardwoods around the vents so that the covers could go on ... well, almost. i hit a snag on the one in the sunroom ... the elbow in the ductwork that turns up to the vent pretty much broke apart in my hands when i tried to adjust it. so, i'm still trying to hunt down a 12" round 90-degree elbow (PS: they don't carry it at Lowe's, HD, or Menards). a local HVAC contractor was supposed to call me back ... but hasn't. i also still need to do the return air covers, but will finish those when i get back to the sunroom one.
sounds like fun (putting fiberglass insulation in a crawlspace, not burying hobos silly). well ... you'd be wrong. eventually, i'd like to get some insulation under more of the floors to hopefully make them feel warmer, maybe some other time.
