Hallway Progress

The second floor hallway had been on hold while we waited for the media room to get further along, and we could do the second & third floor hallway spackling all at once.

So, this past weekend every free minute that wasn't spent at the kids' sporting events, we worked to make some progress!

First, we decided that the top section of wall near the bathroom door was cracked beyond repair.  So, we needed to rip down the old plaster...

And then Mike installed new sheetrock... and spackled the nail holes & seams.















 The little pieces above the door frames of bathroom and our master bedroom hallway needed to be replaced too...

We're also working on that cracked ceiling!


Meanwhile, up in the media room, there were little dots from the spray insulation covering the beams, which needed to be scraped clean before I can white wash them.  I used a wire brush and a sanding block.

 

The top is the "Before Scraping" the bottom is "After"- so much better!

The upstairs is incredibly dusty right now, but I'm feeling good about it. 

We're almost finished with the first coat of spackle (it's going to take three coats- ugh!)  Here's a sneak peak...

Attic Drywall

Once the insulation was done, we jumped right into sheetrock.

Last Friday morning, the crew showed up with a lift truck and hoisted the sheetrock in through the third floor window.  I wish I got a photo, but was busy getting the kids to school!

About three hours later, we had this...

They came back for taping & spackling on Saturday, Monday and this morning.

And now it really looks like a room up there!

Here are the before/afters for this phase...

Before

In Progress

Before

In Progress

Before (but after the insulation)

In Progress

Here's a shot of how they handled the peak of the room:

 

I think I'm most thrilled with the difference in the hallway... Raising that ceiling made all the difference in the world!

Before

In Progress

So, now we're ready for painting prep!

The flooring is on back order (grrr....) but hopefully it will come in soon!

Catching up- March 2013

Here are a few random odds & ends that have been going on around here...

I ordered more prints to go in the downstairs hallway frames... the ones currently showing are in shades of green for Saint Patrick's Day :)

Wall fix- in progress

We also had a small wall repair in this hallway... for Christmas the boys had received a Hot Wheels set that had a track that attached to the wall.  Somehow, it pulled off the paint... ugh!
So, spackle & painting completed here!

More spackle & paint happening to the stairway ceiling as well... this mark was left from an old fire alarm.  (Don't worry, there's a newer one located in the hallway, just 3 feet away).
The spot irked me every single time I walked down the stairs!  Mike patched the two holes, and painted it up.



The dumpster has been picked up, and the pile of scrap metal is gone!  We posted the scrap metal on Craig's List for free, and it was claimed & gone in a day.

And lastly, the lattice work under the front porch is back in place.  We need to get out there with paint this spring!

Corner Cabinet Complete!

The corner cabinet is completely installed & painted!

A quick recap...

After removing the plumbing stack, we had to come up with a solution to cover the pipes that did not completely fit into the ceiling & wall.

We bought the corner cabinet...

Raised it up 1 foot, and installed drywall above it...

In that space underneath, I hid the weekly local newspaper.  

I figure that will be a fun find for anyone that eventually removes the cabinet!

Mike made the bottom molding, and then I painted it all white...

We also spackled, sanded, and painted the ceiling... 

We're glad that's done, and we can now get decorating for the holidays.  

 The foyer is almost done too... 

Painting is just about finished, so now I have to get the furniture back in there.  

I hope to have pictures ready later in the week!

Spackle, Sand, Paint- Repeat

In between cleaning up the yard after Hurricane Sandy, we decided we needed to get the living room corner cabinet & the foyer finished... 

It's been dragging on ENTIRELY too long!

So Mike spent last weekend spackling & sanding.  

It's pretty much his least favorite job, and I hate the mess (SO much dust!)  

But since it was needed to wrap up these rooms, we bit the bullet & got it done.

Right now, they really don't look much different from these pics...

Just add a coating of white dust EVERYWHERE.

Foyer

Living Room

The good news is that we bought the paint for the foyer & grabbed the almost full can we already had for the living room.  I'll post new photos as soon as we get it on the walls!  The plan is to work on it over the Thanksgiving weekend.

So, while Mike was sanding, I decided to work on the upstairs hallway moldings & banister balusters.  My mom had gotten a first coat of paint on them when she was here last, so I was able to finish it up in a single day!

They were all a creamy off-white color, but we decided to change them to white.  The pretty molding details should really pop once we get the hallway painted.

Check out the difference:

Before on the left;
After on the right

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

 It felt really good to have something to work on that showed immediate results!  

But I'm not going to lie... those balusters were a nightmare!  

I'm now dreading doing the rest down to the 1st floor, & up to the 3rd floor.

AFTER

I guess that's the biggest problem with trim work- they all run together & once you finish a section, the rest looks twice as bad sitting next to it!

Now the doors look
REALLY shabby!

We still have to decide what to do about painting the walls in this upstairs hallway.  

The stencil is really starting to bug me.  The problem is wallpaper that's under the existing paint.  We'll have to remove it, then more spackling & sanding (UGH!) before we can re-paint.

Oh well, little by little, we'll get it done...
(I'll just be keeping the lights low in the meantime!)

Foyer Ceiling

While we were working with the drywall over the weekend, we also took care of the foyer ceiling.

Remember, when it looked like this?

(Which prompted the big bathroom renovation)

And then it was more like this....

It always has to get worse,
before it starts to look better!

This past weekend we had a birthday to celebrate, 

so we were under the gun to get this finished.

Thank goodness it was a Knight-theme, and we were able to hide the fact that we're not spackled or painted by making some castle walls!

It's hard to see the "stones" we drew...
Gotta love what you can do with rolls of plastic tablecloths & sharpies!

So now the party is done and here's where we really are...

Hurricane Sandy has now put that work on hold 

(we don't want to make a huge mess and then lose power & water!)  

Plus we had plenty to do with a little slate roof repair on Saturday... 

Nothing like a storm to get you motivated!  

Corner Cabinet Update

Thursday I left off with our new corner cabinet "faked" in.

On Friday night, Mike made a Home Depot run after work, and got started!

We needed to sheet-rock over the holes in the ceiling, that were still hanging around from the bathroom renovation.

I didn't get any good in-progress photos on Friday night,
but here's where we were by Saturday morning:

We also had a hole in the floor, from the removal of the plumbing stack, that needed to be patched.  Easy enough... so we moved on to figure out the placement of support posts in order to raise the cabinet up 9" to match the room's moldings.

Close-up

Wide-shot

Mike build the base to support the cabinet, and we lifted the cabinet up.

Once we had it level (note shim on right side in above photo), 

we secured it to the walls...  just to prevent any chance of tipping 

(these are the kinds of things I get nightmares over!)

Next up was installing a piece of drywall from the top of the cabinet to the ceiling, with the angle matching that of the cabinet.
This hides the little bit of plumbing that couldn't fit into the ceiling.

We also completed one coat of spackling- yay!

I'm thrilled with how it's coming together... 

Next we're going to make molding to match along the base.

And of course, there's going to be spackling & sanding each night... oh the DUST!