Saturday, November 29, 2008

pause

this evening we went into a 2 day pause as we've left town to spend the weekend with Chrissy's family. managed to get some time in the upstairs bathroom and on a few misc. items (basement doorknob, cleanup, putting cab doors back on, etc.) before leaving though. and got to see Purdue get hosed against Oklahoma. argh.

here's the new and improved shiny white sink with superduper new faucet from Signature Hardware (and new drain, trap, shut off-valves, and supply lines .... which may be replaced for slighly shorter ones) . the tub got it's new faucet permanantly installed and drain put in ... but didn't get to the overhead shower rod yet (see bemoaning of Purdue loss above):






added crown (yesterday) to the top of the upper kitchen cabs. note that you are only seeing one of the cabinet tops. i bought one (1) 8' length of crown only to end up literally 1.5" short. had i realized how close i'd be cutting it i probably could have been really careful cleaning up the ends and squaring up after bevels (when doing 2 sets of outside corners you end up cutting off a chunk of unusable material to get back to a squared end) and have had exactly enough -- maybe. bummer. amazing how much excess you use up making only outside corners. ran to Menards this morning (whoa busy!) and got the extra 1.5" ... err ... 28 9/16" ... err ... 8'-0". will get that up whence we returneth. ignore patching of crack from siding install and tape not yet removed (caulk-line).

i was describing to the painter the pattern we wanted (what got red/white) for the porch this morning and i realized that the old soffits were off around the porch ... and was quite pleased with what i saw. i think we'll not put soffits back up. we'll leave the rafter tails exposed and just repaint/repair as needed. the profile of the header over the open part of the porch is so much nicer than before. turns out there was an old "1050" hidden behind the old soffits too ... keeper! sadly, this is probably the nicest surprise we've had with this house. we're easily amused by this point.





oh, and Mr. Great Escape Toby made his second dash for freedom today (first version was a similar escape plan a few months back). the painters have been working in the sunroom since not all the windows are accessible from the outside (due to non-opening storms, etc.). apparently they left for lunch and Toby found and open window where the storm DID operate. they are hinged at the top so he just pushed his way out i suppose. i was upstairs working and thought it odd i hadn't seen/heard him for a while (if you knew him you'd know what i mean). i searched the house up and down twice and knew he had to have gone out. on my second lap around the outside i saw him casually strolling along the neighbors porch (to the east). i went up to him and he just meowed and let me take him in. he was pretty wound up after that ... i think he was quite proud of himself. little felon. methinks we should have him microchipped. if i start finding little piles of dirt or improvised tools i'm going to start getting really worried.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

let there be bathing

took a while, but the tub and sink are done! the guy came late due to some scheduling issues but offered to stay late to finish up (didn't leave til after 9). the results are no less than amazing. the sink is ... white. real, honest to goodness white. the tub is ... white. and smooth. they really did a nice job. we'll let it cure tomorrow and reinstall all the hardware on Friday. which works well considering it is literally hard to breathe in there now ... them's some serious fumes. wow. here's some shots (including the Toby-proofing of the bathroom ... which reminds me, the blog world has never been introduced to Tobias the cat, maybe in the next post).













i didn't get as far as hoped in the kitchen today, but making progress and thank goodness i'm done caulking (hopefully). since i can't get into the bathroom yet it works out ok. i did get stocked up on supplies this morning (switches, wire, etc.) so Friday should be a productive day up there.

siding work continued also, north side today. 3 painters were out too. i think they're getting close to done on the windows except for some caulking and touch-up of the trim.











tomorrow (later today technically), there will be turkey. and there will be much rejoicing.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

east side + new inside projects

well, our contractor had a slow stretch again ... weather (cold, rain, blah blah). back at it again today. working on getting the east caught up. here's where that is at along with a new shot of the west side in better lighting. hopefully they take advantage of the upcoming good weather ... we want it done!














i'm off this week and the week of Dec. 8 (needed to use some vacation time) so am working on some projects around the house. first task is finally finishing the kitchen. kind of burned out/procrastinated on it and didn't finish up that last ~5% last winter. so, the first part of the week has been dedicated to that. mostly little stuff like touch-up painting (incl. some cracks from the work going on outside), caulking trim/wainscotting (about 3 tubes worth), finishing door jambs, installing crown moulding, putting on the new pantry door and the false front over the sink, etc. my first crown moulding experience went ok (did that this afternoon). after i figured out how to accurately set my crown stops things went nicely. some corners are slightly off which i blame on non-square corners (i checked, they aren't square). the walls are actually miraculously not straight or square. i don't know how a wall gets to have so many ridges and valleys in it ... i don't care how old it is. but hey ... caulk! i hope to get the kitchen done (except the panty door which isn't out of the basement paint shop yet) tomorrow.

after the kitchen is done, on to bathrooms. the upstairs tub and pedestal sink are being reglazed (should be done tomorrow) and will get purdy new hardware after thats done, including adding an overhead shower (hanging curtain rod). the refinisher described the bottom of the tub as "looks like Mars". it appears that the wonderful past owners (or their tenants) dumped a bucket full of drain cleaner in there with a drain totally clogged, so the gigantic puddle of powerful chemicals just sat there and ate deep grooves into the surface. then (oh yes, it gets better), they painted over it. love them. love. them. anyway, it'll be fixed properly and be all smooth and shiny soon. in order to use that shower long term, i'll need to add an exhaust fan up there as we aren't fans of mold. we'll also do some misc. repairs (including some cracks and a hole from the siding project) and repaint, but come back later for the full workover (trim, reconfigured closet, floors, toilet, etc.). instead i'll move down to the downstairs bath and completely gut that room and start over (yeah, it's that bad there). had to wait for a functional upstairs shower to start ... and boy can we not wait to be rid of our "enchanted" shower. if you've had the pleasure of using it, you understand. we're planning on a small tiled walk-in shower ... new vanity, toilet, tile floor, trim, etc. we will in no way miss the old bathroom ... it was a poster-child of poor craftsmanship. i sum it up with "ugh".

so that's the plan ... i'll try to keep pictures and updates coming. for now, here's a pic of the kitchen crown. disregard the many nail holes in the upper right. the chimney is behind there and the ceiling very poor ... so couldn't get any nails to grab. again, "yeah caulk!"

Thursday, November 20, 2008

west side almost done

... they just need to do the soffits to finish trimming out the top few rows. east side is about 1/2 done. north side is done to the soffits also. red accent on the window sashes is starting to show up. yippee!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

shingle siding begins

the west side lap siding is all up now. the new accent band is in and the first few pieces of the shingle siding are up. our first chance to see the colors in real life ... and we are not disappointed. painters started too. a bunch of the sashes were prepped and primed. as usual, more pics on flickr.





Tuesday, November 18, 2008

siding update (let there be color)

last week the contractor was really slow ... a couple rain days didn't help either. they finished some misc sheathing/building wrap items (e.g. behind the electric panel) and got about a dozen pieces of trim up. today finally we had a good burst of work ... some more trim and a decent amout of actual siding! good to see some color hit the walls.

pictures are on flickr

speaking of color, here's an "artist's" rendition of the finished product:

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

something pretty big is happening

look at the last few pictures here

(oh, and the kitchen was worked on in the last year also ... pics on flickr also ... not very current, but newer than before)