This week went by pretty fast. I was able to work on painting Tuesday and Wednesday evening so I could move on to a different room on the weekend. David's hours were cut so he was available at times on the week nights. Kevin only took off on Monday and Thursday evening and finished most of the framing in our room and has moved on to David's room and the laundry closet.
We all worked on the house this weekend and Juanita came to help most of the day Saturday. She even brought us groceries! She started out making us hamburgers then I forgot to speak with Kevin about bringing over the grill. Plan B, we decided she could just bring a skillet and cook them on the stove. When I told Kevin the plan, he informed me that we couldn't do that either because the gas was off . . . on to plan C! We had good sandwiches with all the fixins' which were just as good as any ole burger!
When Juanita was finished feeding us and helping paint the dining room, she grabbed the hoe and began cleaning the front yard. We have a flagstone path that leads to the driveway and the street and she is determined to find it all. So far we can see the path leading to the driveway. I can't wait until it is all uncovered!
Thanks to Linda, Kevin's mom, for cleaning off the front porch sometime on Monday or Tuesday. There was a lot of trash that was left there by previous owner and from Kevin's demolition to get to the windows. It may not have seemed like a big deal but it was one more thing David and Lydia didn't have to worry about being told to do!
Master Bedroom . . .
Here are the closets in the master bedroom. The smaller one is mine which is really weird! The window seat is going in the middle but that won't happen until after we have moved in. We keep trying to remember we need to get the house liveable, not fulfull all our dreams right away!
Just another shot at my closet from a different angle!
I will get to have a couple of rods in mine and the rest will be shelves. Notice the small outlet box right above the window. Kevin is planning ahead by placing an outlet there for a TV! He is the man, because he will rarely ever watch it . . . it will just keep him awake while playing something cool on SyFy!
Now you see Kevin's closet! Not much bigger than mine but he can have 3 to 4 rods in his closet and shelves! He has to have someplace to put his coveralls, jeans, coats and nice shirts plus all his work clothes!
I am really proud of the work Kevin has done. When he makes mistakes, he sometimes walks away and says let it go, it will be alright but he always talks himself into fixing it! The windows match now and are straight. The vertical boards are level and the sheetrock will look nice on them.
Nothing much has changed on the north wall except for the addition of my closet. Juanita keeps saying how the north wall will be cold and it would have been nice to put the closets there. I say, let it be cold! That's my side of the bed and I like it cold at night. Of course if I'm fortunate enough to live past 70, I may be singing a different tune!
David's Bedroom . . .
This is looking from dining room into David's room. There will be a very small hallway with our bedroom to the left and a small closet for storage to the right (you can see the where the door will be). Kevin is going on Monday to purchase a couple of doors for our room and David's closet. Looking at this picture, I am thinking shelves above David's door and the hall closet will be nice for storing books. Maybe? Moma will say that is just more you will have to dust. Who could see the dust up that high anyway? (Besides moma and Linda as well as people who are way too tall to be in our house!)
This is the entry to David's room from the other side and the beginnings of his closet (which will also be bigger than mine and maybe Kevin's, empty nest is starting to look good!) Giving him privacy, adding a bigger closet and the laundry closet is shrinking his room quiet a bit but that just means he will have to spend more time with us in the living room! He is still fretting over the fact that he has to walk all the way through the dining room and kitchen to get to bathroom when his room is completed.
To the Kitchen . . .
I had some issues with the paint for the kitchen. I really wanted to paint the walls a bright mint color and the cabinets the yellow you see on the walls. Well, I took my Mint Fiesta saucer to Home Depot to have the color made and it was more of a dark advocado green, similiar to the dark green on the appliances from the 70's. I tried explaining this to the gentleman in the paint department and he basically told me I was stuck with and would have to buy the color I wanted or use what I had. I went to the manager who happened to be a lady and got the refund. So now I have yellow walls. The cabinets are still questionable but it would be a lot of work.
Lydia helped finish up some painting in the living room so I gave her some paint and the roller and let her paint the hallway going from the kitchen to her room. This is when I remembered a very important fact, when you give instructions to a 13 year old be very detailed and make eye contact! She did a GREAT job on the wall and even realized that it would definitely need two coats of paint. Through my lack of proper communication, she also got paint on the cabinet and floor molding. Luckily, we were able to use a scotchbrite pad to get the paint off the cabinets. I was going to paint the molding white anyway so the yellow will get covered up. Whew! that was a close one.
Note: we painted the wall that will be cut out for the laundry closet. Fortunately, Kevin is going to try and salvage as much as possible to use in front of the doorway going into David's room that will be covered. (This was David's short walk to the bathroom that he is losing.)
The walls in the kitchen were covered with an inexpensive light gray paneling. I am surprised how much it has lightened up going from the light gray to a pale, bright yellow. The yellow looks a lot more yellow in these pictures than it does in person! There is a lot of thin molding all over the kitchen, I am just painting over that too. I haven't decided if I will just leave it yellow or go back with a hi gloss white. Decisions, descisions. I will be going over the wider molding with the white.
I decided to forgo painting the cabinets because of the lengthy process just to get them prepared. Now, I am second guessing it. They seem to look alright in these pictures up against the yellow but in person, I don't think they look so good. I keep telling myself it is all temporary and I can live with it but another voice says, "when will you really have enough money to do the kitchen?" Man o' man, more decisions! No matter what I do, I'm stuck with wall of formica to the left in the picture and straight ahead in the next. I'm just going to shut my eyes and day dream. (-,-)
The picture above and below are showing off Lydia's excellent painting skills in the hallway! Her new found skill has been quiet a surprise to me!
Another decision, to paint the paneled pantry door and bathroom door the same yellow color or bright white? Lydia thinks the pantry door you see above should be red. I'm not quiet sure about that, a little racey for me! I think I should at least stencil the word "pantry" on it.
Kevin wants to put barn-like sliding doors on the bathroom and laundry closet. Sometimes I think I like the idea and sometimes how think how gaudy, I just need to see the doors he is wanting. I like the thought of sliding doors just so when they are opened, they won't be in the way.
My help took off to go see a friend and go to church so I didn't get the fridge moved out so I could paint that wall too. That just wears me out when people don't take the time to move things and paint. You can barely see the patch of gray above the fridge for comparison. Don't you just dig that styrofoam ceiling. Lydia likes to light the candle in the kitchen and I just imagine the flame jumping off the candle onto the ceiling and everything going poof!
The bright yellow makes the countertops look like a dingy gray but I think some bleach might help that out. I have already cleaned them with 409 and comet but that was a couple of weeks and a floor sanding ago!
Living Room . . .
The next 2 pictures are of the finished paint in the living room. Nothing much has changed except I let David take off all the tape. Now you can see where the chair rail will go. I think the colors look a little brighter in these pictures than in person. They are really warm and will have a cozy feel once we get furniture and decorations in place. I am going to try and order plantation blinds for most of the windows this week so we can quit putting doors in front of the windows and chipping the paint. I can't wait to get the molding up! That too will probably be an after we move in project.
Dining Room . . .
The next 2 pictures are of the finished paint in the dining room. Again, nothing much has gone on in here except for paint. Thanks to Juanita, David and Lydia, I was able to get this room knocked out in day. Well I had to finish cutting in and David put a second coat on bottom the next day but the majority of the work was done.
What's ahead . . .
Kevin is going to finish framing in David's room, run electrical, insulate and sheetrock our room and Davids. Then we have to tape and bed (ugh!) and texture our bedroom, hallway and new wall in David's room. While I'm painting those rooms, Kevin will move on to the tankless hot water heater, framing of closet in Lydia's room and finishing laundry closet in kitchen hallway.
I am planning and preparing the living and dining room floors for staining; finishing up the kitchen painting (deciding on painting the cabinets) this coming week. After painting our bedroom, I will begin process of staining the floor in our room and hallway.
I guessing we will begin laying the laminate wood flooring in the kids room right before we move in. It's getting closer and I am so excited!
