Making Progress

Tonight I was at the house with Andrew and several of the contractors who have been doing work on the place for the past week or so. These workers are highly devoted to their job and have worked at least 12 hour days practically every day they have been on the job. Talk to us if you need recommedations for painters or flooring work. Seriously. We've had such good luck so far with these guys - great work, devoted workers, reliable and nice people. It is really coming along and today was the first day we have seen several rooms free of painting paraphernalia, tools, etc.

Voila! The painting is complete in 4 rooms. Our new and improved kitchen in Mayflower Red. Is it just me or do you just want to start cooking here? :) I love red, it gives me so much energy and inspiration to be creative :).

The dining room and living room are also complete, intricate molding and all. We love the muted yellow we chose - Waterbury Cream - and the ceilings are painted in a two-tone, one color on either side of the molding.

And finally, our powder room. Wow, this is a dull picture, isn't it? Ha ha! Well, I couldn't get at a better angle but it really does look fresh and new with the paint on the walls.

Our floors are also in the process of getting refinished. Here are some photos, there will still be more polyurathane put on tomorrow and the hall section will be further darkened to match the rest of the hardwood in the hallway upstairs. What a difference the hardwood makes in all of these areas, though!

The family room. This matches the rest of the downstairs hardwood in other rooms and looks great. I was told by one contractor who I had in for a consultation that the wood could not be refinished and we'd have to replace the floor instead. Uh, wrong answer...apparently :). It gave the crew a bit of a tough time getting the exisiting paint off of the floor but cleaned up nicely in the end.

The master bedroom area, which was formerly painted a depressed cream color. Again, cleaned up beautifully and will look so nice once the room gets painted. This is the final color, just a few more coats of poly will be added.

Finally, the back hallway, which was formerly painted a dull brown. This area will be darkened further before the final poly is put on.

The painters will continue to make their way through the house as Andrew and the contractors finish up in certain areas. Several rooms are on the radar to be painted over the next week so we should have more photos again shortly.

Construction is Finished!

The construction is officially complete at the house and the "fun stuff" started this week, such as the painting, and on Monday the floor-refinishing will begin. Both of those have been contracted out but Andrew has certainly been keeping busy with other tasks himself. Note his "McDreamy" facial hair - no time to shave lately he's been so busy! Next on his schedule is the finishing work - tiling, installing the bathroom vanities, and other decorative tasks like that.

Today we had several showings on our current house (pray that it sells soon!) so I had to get the boys out of the house for a little while. We went to the new place and met Andrew for lunch. Here are the boys in their work clothes. Ben even brought his tools with him!

The painters were busy working away, even on a Saturday, and it is really coming along. What a difference a fresh coat of paint makes! So far it looks AMAZING! I was going to take more photos but since the rooms have just been primed the photos wouldn't have given you a good idea of the final colors. They'll be finishing up this phase by Wednesday so I will definitely take some photos after that. The painting is really a fairly significant job since many room require skim coating of the plaster, there is so much molding and every single room needed to be re-painted. We are very excited to see the final product over the next few weeks, once the entire house is complete.

Here are some photos of the various rooms that required construction, now that they have been drywalled and spackled.

Here's Ben in the sunroom eating lunch. This room required new drywall on the walls and ceiling. Andrew will be tiling the floor.

The master suite area featuring the new closet Andrew installed and the new doorway (soon to be french doors) between the dressing area and the bedroom. These floors will be refinished next week. They did a sample for us and the wood underneath this godawful paint is beautiful.

The attic area, which will be our guest area. There is a bedroom and a loft. Below is the loft area with the new closet Andrew put in and the half wall at the top of the stairs (there used to be nothing there, just a dangerous drop!).

And here is the new closet on the bedroom side of the attic.

Nate's future room (with wallpaper still to be removed before it is painted). It used to connect to Ben's room (how stressful would that be for me??) but Andrew decided to keep the exisiting doorframe and make a double-width closet instead since there was no closet in this room. The french doors will be replaced with standard doors.

And Ben's future room. The entrance into the hall bathroom was sealed off and two single closets were installed because (you guessed it!) there were no closets in this room either.

The hall bathroom has been totally gutted and will be completely remodeled. It's now all drywalled and ready to be painted and outfitted. Talk about shady wiring and construction that had to be redone! Andrew definitely had his work cut out for him in demolitioning and re-wiring this room. We'll be adding a tile floor, a double basin vanity, a cabinet linen storage unit and have sealed off two of the doors going into it from other rooms so that the only entrance is from the hallway now.

Here's the future study, which has been sealed off from the hall bathroom.

And the future playroom with the new half wall railing at the top of the (steep!) stairwell. Prior to this, there was a very rickety old railing made out of a few pieces of plywood. Not very aesthetic or safe! This area is attached to the study (shown in photo above) and both rooms will be carpeted to make them feel a little homier.

Finally, here are two photos of the "old kitchen" which we will use as a laundry/utility/craft room. It had old 1970s cabinets that were ripped out, a strange ceiling that was also removed and a laundry area that needed to be outfitted for doors. So much of the room was drywalled and the rest will need to be skimcoated since the plaster on that part has some inconsistencies.

Here's the site of the former kitchen area - counter, sink, stove, etc. Totally re-drywalled, as was the ceiling. We will be putting in a full wall of new cabinets (upper and lower) and a utility sink. This is where I get to store my and the kids' craft stuff :). The floor in this room will also be tiled.

And here are the preexisting washer/dryer hookups; we just opted to frame it out some more so that we could put doors in front of them.

Stay tuned for more photos later this week. You'll be able to see lots of progress once the painting begins to wrap up room-by-room and the floors are done. The wood floors in various rooms (family room, master area and part of the upstairs hallway) will be refinished this week and Andrew will begin tiling the other rooms (sunroom, laundry, kitchen, hall bathroom) very soon.

Daddy's Little Helper

Andrew is off from work today to get some stuff done around the new house so we stopped in to have lunch with him. As we pulled in he was just arriving back from Lowe's with some plywood so Ben lent a helping hand.

Moving Along

With the new place under construction for the past few weeks, I have not been there too often while Andrew is working since it can get quite messy, especially with two babies. I will be there this weekend to check in on the progress since it's been a while and also to work myself so I will definitely get some updated photos. Here are a few to hold you over:

The sunroom, laundry room and hall bathroom are entirely "gutted" and ready to be drywalled:

Framing is complete in the master bedroom. Andrew has removed the wall between the two smaller "master bedrooms" and will put french doors between them to give it a suite feel. The doorway from one of the former "master bedrooms" to the hallway will be closed off so that there is now only one entrance into the master suite area. A larger closet has also been framed out.

The french doors between Nate and Ben's bedrooms have been removed and we have used this existing doorframe to incorporate closets into both bedrooms, a double width closet in Nate's room and two single closets in Ben's room. Neither room had a closet before.

Check in this weekend again for more updated photos. Next up on our agenda:

- Rest of wallpaper to be removed this weekend by yours truly.

-Electrical to be completed this weekend.

-Framing of hall bathroom and attic adjustments to be completed this week.

-Drywalling to start next week.

-Painting to start on 10/23.

-Floors to be refinished starting 10/27.

-Tile work in kitchen, sunroom, and laundry to be started soon.

-Appliances arrive end of the month.

Phew, that's a lot of work! We're so proud of Andrew's work so far and cannot wait see the progress over these next few weeks. Very exciting!