painting update

We've been very busy since I last posted.. but unfortunately the pictures don't do it any justice. I feel like we've been nonstop since the taping was done but it's still a disaster and I'm starting to think our poor house will never be clean! I guess you could say it's a getting a little frustrating.

With all of the colors picked we've been going back and forth between taping, sanding, painting, caulking.. for the last two weeks.
The crown molding was installed- it looks great but painting around it has been a little challenging (I'm getting better).
Ben spent much of last weekend replacing areas of the base molding in the living room and bedroom as well as installing shoe molding throughout.
Ben was also able to install some of our bath hardware (meaning no more drying our bath towels on doorknobs!) until he ran out of anchors.
I still need to do a second coat on the bath ceiling and clean up the walls a bit- the bathroom was the first thing we painted so it's still a little messy. Window and door casings as well as base molding is also in the plans. But we were able to re-install the medicine cabinet without any disasters!

And just today I worked on the living room radiators!
They definitely aren't perfect but anything is an improvement over the old, dirty, mustardy yellow..
And finally- as I had promised.. our big kitchen "reveal"..
Keep in mind we still have a ways to go in terms of work- we still need a backsplash and window and door casings. We're still missing some hardware and I need to clean and organize.. it's dusty and guarantee that if you open a cabinet door something will fall out- we've been stuffing things everywhere just to get them out of the way! But it's definitely taking shape.. and we can finally use it!

taping & finishing the walls

Taping the Walls
So as I had mentioned in previous posts, Ben and I opted to not tape the house ourselves. I have no doubt we would have been able to do it, but because every single room needed to be done, it would have taken us months. Not to mention its an incredibly messy process so in this case we went for practicality over saving money and we decided to clear out the house and let the professionals get to work. Henry and I took off for a few days- a dusty house is even worse with a mischievous dog..
and Ben sent me pictures of the progress along the way..

Remember we had those horrible tiled ceilings in the living room and office?
We decided to replace them because the house was already going to be a mess and it just seemed like the right time to do it.

living room (aka Ben's living quarters)

office

Even without primer on them you can tell it's a huge improvement. If you look closely you can see that there's a little gap between the new ceiling and the walls, so to correct it, we're installing crown throughout the house.

kitchen

bedroom

Scarily they took out the huge medicine cabinet.. which makes sense but I'm dreading putting it back in..

bathroom

Priming
The taper told us he was going to prime all of the rooms when he was done sanding so he could tell if he missed an spots. And I have to say, I'm thrilled he did- not only is it making the painting easier, but it also meant I came home to white walls!
A huge improvement over the grey sheetrock we've grown so used to.

Painting
As to be expected the last four days have been non stop painting. And it doesn't look like it's going to let up anytime soon.

Here's a little sneak peek..

bathroom

bedroom

office
kitchen

Check back next week for the big kitchen reveal!!

winter planting

Ben sent me pictures of the house in progress last night and I'll be sure to post them early next week. By then I'll be able to follow them up with shots of the final product (final meaning primed but still not painted).

In the meantime I thought I'd share our winter planting adventures- for a few laughs!

About three weeks ago Ben was offered a couple of "bushes" and because we are desperately in need of some landscaping around the house, he didn't want to pass them up. Thinking it would be easy to load them into the back of his truck and bring them home, he was more worried about getting them into the ground- the Weather Channel was calling it one of the coldest weeks of the year.

I wasn't entirely sure of Ben's plans and was on my way out the door when he called me and said "get ready, I'm on my way home and I've got two TREES in the back of my truck." Meaning a) they were clearly bigger than bushes and b) I was actually going to have to help plant them! When Ben first mentioned we might have to do a little landscaping he actually used the word "I" and he didn't say it was going to have to be done on the coldest day of the week (I'm pretty sure it was 15 degrees outside)!

Before I get on with the story I just want to mention for those of you who don't know, I have the opposite of a green thumb and made it very clear when we first bought the house that Ben would in charge of the landscaping and I would stick to the interior of the house.

Anyway, Ben pulled the truck up to the front of the house and soon realized getting the "bushes" (particularly the 500lb. one wedged in front) was not going to be so easy.
He started chipping away at the frozen roots to try to break some of the excess dirt off. He was hoping it would lighten the load a little, but it was too frozen and little to no progress was being made.
After much frustration it became very clear that the only way we were going to get the bush out of the back of the car was by tying a rope to it, tying a rope to a nearby tree on our property..
and Ben pulling the truck away.. very quickly!
In the meantime, I was running in and out of the house to warm up.
Once the tree fell off the truck, we shockingly were able to pretty easily dig a hole..
And then the bigger issue became getting the tree into the hole.. as it was way too heavy to drag ourselves.
Ben was able to hitch it to the truck and drag it a little closer and he continued to try to chip away at it with no luck.

After a few more minutes of frozen fingers and toes, we opted to call it a day. We dropped the other (much lighter) bush into the hole..
and decided next time we'll wait for the ground to thaw before we make any landscaping decisions!

Ben was able to cut the bigger bush up and get rid of the branches, but the frozen stump is still hanging out in our yard- as it will until the temperature warms up.

house update

I know you're all wondering what we've been up to this week.. and the truth is, not much!

We're hard at work trying to clear everything out of the house for the tapers to move in and do their thing next week.
They should be done by Friday at the latest, meaning this time next week we'll not only have sheetrocked walls, but they'll be taped and primed as well! Considering both Ben and I have technically been living without finished walls since October it is quite exciting!

I'll be out of town, but I expect Ben will take lots of progress pictures and I'll be sure to post them as soon as I can.

Upcoming Posts and News
Check back next week for details on our winter planting.
And make sure to pick up a copy of The Daily Gazette on February 21st for more pictures of the house!