The Contractor Has Started

November 26th

There hasn't been to much going on at the house for a while.  We have been continuing to scrape glue off the walls, Jared finished painting the porch out front and we took apart the radiator covers.  Jared wants to reuse the wood for a project in our future mudroom.

Our contractor finally started work in the house yesterday.  So the real work is underway.  They started with some demo and filled a dumpster yesterday.  They completely removed everything from the attic, all the carpets and started demo work in what will be our future kitchen.  You can see the pictures below.

I ran in to the contractor last night on his way out and he said that they should finish the demo work by Thanksgiving and then they will start framing out the new walls that are going in.  The last picture below is Jared's drawing on the wall of the bookshelf we are putting in under the stairs to the second floor.

Hopefully when we stop by tonight we can get some more good pictures of the demo.   

More Exterior Painting and Door Stripping

October 28th - November 3rd

We spent Monday night as a clean up night in the house.  Things were getting quite messy from the previous week/weekend and we wanted to move a bunch of the tools we had to the basement to be out of the way when the contractor starts.  Jen's mom and dad came over to help us clean up and remove the existing kitchen cabinets.  Also they brought dinner, ham and homemade mac and cheese, it was delicious.

Tuesday and Thursday night we just continued to work on stripping the paint off the doors.  We got the two main doors finished and most of the screen door.  Now we just have to finish up the insert pieces to the screen door that are glass for winter and screen for summer.  Hopefully those don't take to long to finish off.  We did get some trick-or-treaters Thursday night.  We were able to meet some of our neighbors as well.
 
Wednesday night we took a night off to carve some pumpkins with the Bonini family.  I included a photo below.  You can decide for yourself who the winner is.  Unfortunately the judge (my dad) picked Philip's Jack Nicholson from The Shinning.  I am positive mine was the true winner but I did win last year so we have to spread it out.  

Friday I took a vacation day from work to sleep and get stuff done around our house we live in.  I ended up having time to head out to the new house and tape off the areas we wanted to paint on Saturday.  We took off Friday night as well to go visit Liz and Kevin and their new baby Liliana Maria in the hospital.  She is beautiful!!

Saturday we hit the house and got right to the exterior painting.  My dad came to help and we were able to get it almost all done.  We ended up being able to get two coats done on everything and the only thing left to do is paint the insert pieces of each of the columns a grey color.  We decided to not keep them all white.  Sunday morning we were able to get one coat of the grey color on all the columns done.  Unfortunately we had to quit pretty early on Sunday to drive out to Jared's sister Jody's house.  We decided it was time to take the soft top off the jeep and put the hard top (which we were storing at Jody's house) back on.  Besides the temperature really dropping on Sunday, we also woke up Saturday morning to a man sleeping in the jeep.  He didn't damage or steal anything, but he was able to pull out one of the windows and climb right in.  No harm done, but definitely a surprise.

Most of the big work that we needed to do is now done.  We need to finish up stripping the inserts for the screen door and cleaning off any glue remnants from the upstairs rooms.  We are going to continue to do that at night.  Before the contractor can officially start we need to order our appliances and our cabinets.  We ordered our appliances last Friday and are working to get our cabinets ordered this week. 

Busy Week/Weekend

October 21st - 27th

We have had a busy week at the house this past week/weekend.  Jared's parents stayed the entire week to help work on the house.  They were a huge help and we would not have accomplished as much as we have without them. Thank you so much.  They went to the house pretty much every day this week while we were working.  Then we would come out in the evening to help continue with the work.  The goal this week was to prep the front portico so that we could paint it on the weekend.  This required lots and lots of sanding.  In addition some of the columns needed some work to make them square again on the bottom and caulk them up to seal them.  Jared's parents got tons done this week and started stripping the front doors to get them ready to paint too.

In addition to getting the front of the house ready to paint we also wanted to clean off any last remaining glue from the wallpaper in the living room and dining room.  This means the walls and ceilings of course.  We were trying to get the first floor pretty much done with the work we needed to do so that when the contractor starts we aren't in his way.  Friday night Jared's sister Julie, her husband Mike and daughter Laina came to help.  With their help we were able to finish up the downstairs glue removal and start working our way up the stairs. 

Saturday consisted of still some prep work and taping off the areas so that we wouldn't be painting the stone of the house.  Jared sister Jenny, her husband Bryant and daughter Joey came to help us on Saturday as well.  We were able to finally start painting and got one coat on the ceiling of the portico.  Since the area was completely prepped Sunday proved to be a great painting day.  We finished up the ceiling with a second coat, did two coats on the railing and one coat on 3 of the 6 columns.  Jared's dad was still fixing the other three columns so we couldn't paint them yet. The caulking job was a tedious job but it is all finished now and those last three columns should be pretty quick to paint.  Of course with the temperatures dropping so quickly later in the day we really can't paint all day long.  My cousin Ryan works for Sherwin Williams and informed us that we need to stop with enough time for the paint to fully dry before the temperature drops.  So that limited the amount of time we could actually paint but allowed us to move inside and continue stripping the doors.  The one door is completely done, the other door needs one last final sanding and the screen door still has some paint on the one side.