Painting is Fun

Quite a bit of paint has gone on in the last few days. We started spraying primer on Thursday night. More primer Friday night and a few ceilings got their first coat sprayed over the primer before the sprayer had a temporary breakdown. Saturday morning, Debbi showed up early and started helping paint the laundry room pink. Michele demanded one pink room, and this is it. The walls in the rest of the house are all the same color, but not pink. The title is "Patience", and has been compared to a vanilla milk shake. We also completed building the short retaining wall on the SW corner of the house. It still needs to be backfilled when the weather allows.

On Sunday, we attempted to move some dirt into and around the garage footings that were poured last week. It was fairly muddy still after the 3"+ of rain that we have received in the last week. We worked on the short retaining wall off of the NW corner of the house today also. It too is ready for backfill. Painting continued inside the house. The 2nd coat is on in many places, and the first coat is on everywhere.

Special thanks for the last week of work in approximate order of appearance:
Caruth Construction for making quick work of the garage footings.
Jon's parents for help with cleanup in preparation for paint.
Michele for all of her hard work: taping off windows, painting, cleanup, etc.
My Dad for running my many errands and picking up several things on Friday.
Debbi for high quality painting work and for bringing her own painting tools.
Anthony Moeller for his work on COMPLETING the basement patio pavers.
Myra for bringing tools and painting for hours on Saturday and coming back for even more on Sunday.
Laura for painting and cleanup on Saturday.
Justin for doing a better job than me at spraying the ceilings and help on the retaining wall.
My Dad for all of his hard work and heavy lifting on the retaining walls. And mini dumptruck.
My Mom for painting well past her desired stopping point today.
Steve for moving a lot of dirt through the impossible muck.
Jana for painting. (Like a madwoman)

Drywall Day 3

These pictures show drywall progress at the end of drywall day 3. The stairwell area will be fun to watch change. Painting can start a week from today...

Yay Drywall !

So, it's messy but really defines the space. At first things seemed considerably smaller than I remembered, but gradually got bigger while we inspected everything. I think it will feel even bigger once there is furniture.

Here are a few shots of the main living space. They worked until about 7pm tonight and I think they should have everything hung out tomorrow morning.

Are you ready?

You know how a long distance foot race turns into a sprint at the end? This process has been quite the marathon, but the end is near and the heat is on. Literally. I turned on 2 space heaters Friday afternoon, and it's probably a toasty 60 F or so in there even with the cold outside.

The drywall hangers are starting tomorrow morning. Once they are done finishing and texturing the walls, we will start painting and chasing with flooring. Some tile and carpet is already ordered and we will order the remaining flooring this week. We will start in the kitchen and bathrooms to have the most time for the cabinets.

So if you're interested in seeing our progress first hand, have skills in painting or setting tile, and have some available time on a weekend or evening in the near future, let us know and we'll put you to work.

Here is a photo from one corner of the living room looking towards the stairway and kitchen. Things should look a lot different tomorrow night.

Faster Than it Seems

Day to day things don't seem to move that quickly, but at the end of the week we are sometimes surprised all that has happened. Within the last week, the siding has finished on the West side, gutters are up and connected to the drain tile, ductwork is complete, electrical wiring is almost complete, and the chimney is completed from the basement through the roof.

On Saturday, our friends Aron and Myra came to help prepare for the roof insulators. We (mostly they) stuffed fiberglass insulation in the space between the top of the wall and the roof sheathing. This way when the expanding foam is sprayed on the bottom side of the roof, it won't blow all over everywhere.

The inside will really start to take shape next Monday when the drywall is hung.

Progress

This past week saw some big changes at our house. My dad and brother came up to work on the siding. It was so exciting to come each day after work and see what they had accomplished. In spite of rain almost everyday, they got finished up the two sides they had started and also the North side. The west side is started but Jon still needs to figure out how to attach the chimney. They're planning to come back up this week to finish the west side and put the facia (trim piece under where the gutters go) on the south, west and the last piece on the north.

Today we worked on running the wiring. It was impressive to see how fast this goes. It's not done but it shouldn't take too long. Jon's college friend Dave is here to help for the weekend. We love when people volunteer to come out. We feel blessed that Dave is giving us a weekend-especially since he had to drive down from the twin cities. While the guys were running wire, Jon's mom and I cleaned up and started to move extra stuff down to the basement so we're closer to being ready for the drywall.

This afternoon, Pat (Jon's mom) and I went to Ames for a shopping/learning trip. The guys needed some more stuff for the wiring project and it is time to get more serious about flooring. We had a great time looking at tile, getting prices and learning about our options. We also looked at bathroom vanities so we would have a better idea of styles when we go to meet with the cabinetry guy tomorrow. We need to take him the walnut for the master bathroom and tell him how we want the vanity. I'm also really excited to see the progress on our kitchen cabinets!

In looking at the coming week we're hoping to see a lot of changes:

• siding and outside trim finished
• chimney figured out/installed
• wiring finished
• gutters installed (they're coming Friday)
• garage location laid out, and approved by the county
• pouring garage footings next Saturday
  

Patio Retaining Wall Progress

The retaining wall for the patio is going up slowly but surely. The stairs take time to cut the blocks to fit, one location that mortar would definitely speed up. The West wall is up to height, and some of the cap blogs are in place. The North and South sides will stair-step up to the house, and have more to go. The patio will have concrete pavers in the center when it is done.

This weekend is setting electrical boxes and figuring out garage footings, wanna come help? Next week is wiring and more work on garage footings.