Moved In . . . But Not Finished

 We moved into our house the weekend before Christmas and I've done little to the inside of it since then.  Also receiving little of my attention has been this blog.  Don't lose all hope yet.  I still plan to finish posting the pictures of our work in chronological order and I'm gathering those pictures still.  To hold you over (Wilda) here's a few pictures of the house from this winter.  The front porch steps have since been finished but there's still no grass growing.  Just lot's of mud.  We hope to get the yard seeded and fertilized later this week or early next.  Enjoy!

Fancy Bathroom

Our master bathroom ended up looking a lot fancier than I expected.  

As apposed to the rest of the house where we tried to go as simple and easy as we 

would let ourselves, for time and money's sake, I ended up spending a lot of time in this room.  

To give the appearance of board and baton paneling, 

I added pieces of wood trim to the walls part of the way up.  

I then primed those.  

Then painted the whole lower section.  Then painted the top and bottom pieces trim white along with the window and door trim. 

Finally, three other guys from work 

helped me move over the claw-foot tub and we carried it into place.  

The plumber Scott then finished the fixtures last weekend and we love how it turned out.

Staircase

After putting off dealing with the staircase for too long, I realized the safest, and fastest installation method would be to hire Danny to come back and do it for me.  He and Stoney made quick work of it and we're happy with how it turned out.  I did some of the finish work on it and have yet to stain and finish it.  The treads are the same species as the flooring, White Oak, so I have stain to match the prefinished flooring.  The Newel posts and handrail are Red Oak so I'll stain them darker and not even try to get them close to the rest.

This last piece of railing is about 3 feet long, 3 feet more than we had any single piece leftover.  Maybe you can figure out what we did to make it work.  Shhhh, don't tell anyone.

Back Porch Finished

My Dad came for another (of many) weekends to help out and we tackled the back porch.  We started with the decking finished and the four corner posts.  My plan is to build steps from the kitchen corner side, (over Dad's shoulder in the picture) down toward the garage and onto the ground that will be accessible from the side of the house.  However, time being what it is and we want to close as soon as we can, we'll leave that part for later.  

Using treated pine lumber, we added two more 4X4 posts on each side and used 2X4's to make railing all around with 2X2 spindles making it all kid-safe.  We built it in such a way that come spring I'll add screen panels to the outside for a screened in porch.  Take that bugs!

For weeks ahead of time we had beautiful 60s and 70s weather, and then Dad came and the wind picked up and dropped down to 40s at midday.  

(Not pictured, Mat helped some too.  You'll notice the two spindles 

in the corner that are upside down.  Thanks Mat.)

Cabinets Almost Finished

Our bathroom cabinets have been done for a while but the process to finish up our kitchen cabinets has taken a while.  This week saw the final coat spraying and the installation of the counters.  We chose Corian counters.  We're very happy with how it all turned out.  Bonnie is very very very happy.  All that's left is some hinge adjustments and the handles and pulls to go on.  Bonnie's dad built for us some open shelving to go up in the back left and right corners.  I need to paint them still and they'll be ready to go.  We already have a dish rack that will hang on the left side over the dishwasher and the range hood will go . . .over the range.

Cool Weather

I've absolutely enjoyed the change in weather from hot and sticky to cool and breezy.  The girls like going and playing at the house more now too.  In summer they would whine about having to go there.  Or course, it's not really home until we've moved in I guess.  This picture is from one of the upstairs windows looking across the lot next door.  It's for sale by-the-way.     (wink wink, nudge)

Been Busy

Ok.  I know I haven't updated for a while but it's a good thing.  It's good because I've been busy working on the house a lot and haven't taken the time to do more of this.  See?  I'm not just being lazy.

     Looking back at the pictures on my phone, I'll start updating with the oldest, unused photos to guide us.
Here's an interior door representing all the doors I put in.  They are pre-hung, split-jamb doors that come with the casing you see here.  It took at little while to remember how I used to install these so quickly.  It took about 3 or 4 doors to remember, but I got the hang of it and they turned out pretty nice.

After the doors were hung we started on the windows.  Here's one with no work started yet.  You can see the vinyl window itself hung in the framed space.  They are hung from the outside, nailed through the outside sheathing into the studs, and should be plumb and level.  Our exterior walls are framed with 6" studs so there are several inches from the window to the interior wall face.  When building with this size walls, two options are available.  You can have the drywall installer "wrap" the windows meaning they turn the corner from the wall into the window space and butts right into the window.  This type usually gets a sill installed along the bottom and look nice.  We chose another route.  We made and installed window jambs which cover the framed 2X6 space with finish grade wood. 

This picture shows the jamb installed with a sill on the bottom.  The jamb is made to perfectly fit the window size, not the framed opening because those can vary.  I used many many wood shims to square these jambs in place.  After the jamb is squared and nailed tight against the window, flush with the sheetrock, I added casing around the sides and top and an apron below the sill.  This frames the window.

Ta-Da!  Once all the pieces are nailed in, we fill the holes made by the nail gun, lightly sand it all smooth, caulk the seams and finally paint it with trim paint.  See?  Isn't that simple?  Now you can try it yourself at home.  

(btw - we have 20 windows I did this to. )