Today we stained and varnished (sanding sealer) the crown moulding, color-filled nail holes, and are getting ready to tack and varnish the cabinets and the Glass Man came to measure for bathroom mirrors. Pictures in a day or two.

The tile guys got done on Friday (yay!). Yesterday, Saturday, we scuff-sanded the kitchen cabinets. Today, Sunday, we're bringing the appliances out of storage into the house for installation this week (YAY!!). Would-be burglars, be advised: Security is active here! Attempt skullduggery at your peril!

February 24, 2011

The bathroom is (mostly) grouted now. There were a few sections they couldn't really finish until after the countertop guys finished in there, but that's done, now,so the tile guys have got the last bits of tile installed in the bathroom and will finish grouting in there soon.

 


The plumber came out and put a full day in. Got a lot done, but not everything. We decided to wait until the tile guys are done before we start yammering to have the plumber back out to finish.






Steve and Graham got the rest of the woodwork up around the kitchen windows, and on Monday, Steve and I performed an exhaustive marathon of staining and varnishing (sanding sealer) on all the cabinets in the kitchen so the tile guys could come in on Tuesday and sling mud in there. They really are careful, our tile guys,  but they are moving mud and it does get on things, so if you have just bare wood hanging out where tilers are working, you are asking for trouble...and we don't want any trouble. So we stained and varnished and baby, got 'er done, complete with accessory stains-on-skin and varnish-in-hair, in spite of protective clothing. What a knockout beautiful job, though: 

You can see that the tile guys got the "splash" laid, too. That's that brick-laid pattern you see on the wall.

(Those wires an' stuff aren't so pretty, but it is a work in progress.) 

I tell you what, these tile guys - it ain't these cowboys' first rodeo, no sirree. They get right to work, don't dilly-dally around, and keep their stuff gathered up.  They come in early enough and put in a good, no-kiddin' day, layin' that tile. Serious about their work, good natured, pleasant, easy to talk to if you need to, and they stay to task. Gold Stars from me all the way around, these guys.

We got our tile guys, by the way, through Bryan's Flooring. They only do jobs for Bryan's, and no kidding, Bryan's and their customers are lucky to have guys like this. If you're in Oklahoma and need a floor done, call Bryan's Flooring. Ask for Susie. She's the one who got us all fixed up and arranged for us to have these excellent guys.


Thanks for reading - we're still making noticeable progress every day, and I take pictures 'most every day right now (over 800 pics on file for this massive project!). I figger I'll organize them and have them printed up to put in a book when we're done, but for now, I'll just post another update in about a week or so. 


Moving forward ~

Progress so far....

The countertop guys were here yesterday, got the kitchen and bathroom counters in.  Here's a view of the kitchen:

Bathroom tile is in and the tile guys should be back tomorrow to grout the bathroom. Also, the plumbers are supposed to come tomorrow to top out the plumbing in the house. Once those things are done, we can apply for that certificate of occupancy! Thrilling progress! Still a lot to do, but these are huge milestones.

We're enjoying significant progress every day.  Today Steve and Graham finished and hung this long cabinet and the window frames and sill for the kitchen windows:

Moving forward!

Progress Report

 I had a long list of errands to run today, leaving at about 12:45 or so. I got a call from the delivery man who wanted to make sure he knew where we were so he could deliver the sink, so I wasn't so surprised to see this big brown box on the porch when I got back.

The surprise came when I walked around to the back of the house to talk to Steve, who is painting the woodwork around the bay window, and I saw this electric pole laying on the ground - which means OEC came out and put the meter on the house! I am thrilled!

As I did a little happy dance, Steve said, "You oughta leave more often!"

See, we've been operating everything in the house from heavy duty extension cords that we ran from the gray box under the meter on the pole, and now we can simply plug things in, in the house!  We have ceiling lamps (with bulbs in them!) too, so now we can continue working after sundown and actually still see what we're doing!

I know this seems like a really simple thing to get excited about, but just for a social experiment some time when you actually do have tons of stuff to do, consider trying to operate a significant project with only the power from a couple of contractor extension cords. It's about one step up from roughing it in Yellowstone. But now we have electricity in the house!

I am extremely happy about this, in case you can't tell.

...and now I hear the next question forming in your mind, and no, we cannot move in quite yet. We have to get the cabinets finished enough to get the plumbing finished (but we do have the kitchen sink now!) and we have to get the heat and air finished and a little more work by the electrician, and some flooring. Can't put appliances in until the floors are down.  So we're not quite "There" yet, but I can sure see it from here!

On the way home last night we got tickled and laughed so hard I was sure we'd have to pull over. Every time I think about it I break out laughing out loud all over again about how we dealt with the gravy - and then the potatoes - "if cheese won't fix it, just go ahead and throw it out!"

November 5, 2010

You can kind of begin to see the look we're aiming for on our house.

We considered using cement board clapboards, but the only thing anyone in Central Oklahoma stocks is the Certainteed brand with the wood grain finish, and we prefer the Hardie brand with the smooth finish, having had favorable experience with it in Cooperstown. There were places willing to special order the smooth Hardie board, but the hitch there is that you can't just run down and pick up a couple of pieces in a pinch, and you can't return any unused pieces if they don't stock it.

We looked at a type of wood siding board that is wider and thicker, with the showing edge cut in a randomly wavy manner to look like rough hewn logs. We'd seen a few places done in that motif in central NY (except those probably were actually cut from logs) and it is an interesting look. There are some new houses just a few miles down the road from us that have accent sections done in that siding, and we did find it available locally. We thought it a bit much for a whole-house treatment, though (not to mention ex$pensive).

Since we couldn't get the Hardie smooth clapboard we really wanted and didn't want to go all the way with the rough-hewn-log-siding look, we kept looking, kept thinking.

Steve likes redwood for exterior treatments because you can get a nice finish surface and it weathers really well. We learned that Forest Lumber carries redwood when he recently built a huge, beautiful redwood deck for one of my sisters. In the course of going through Forest's stock of redwood time and again, Steve noticed they also carry redwood clapboards, so when he picked up some redwood for the exterior trim on our house, he also picked up a few pieces of the redwood clapboard to build a mock-up.

The wood grain and color in these clapboards is so pretty, just in its natural wood state, that we couldn't bear to consider covering them up with paint. Happily, redwood will tolerate weather extremely well. It will keep even better (and look prettier) if it is protected, so we got some Sherwin Williams "DeckScapes" in "Natural", which has just a hint of warm stain. It really brings  the redwood to life. It's truly a stunning effect.  Up in the gable we have cedar shingles, Cape Cod style. The cedar shingles are raw and untreated, so they will weather naturally.

We were able to retain a good bit of the shape of the original A-frame in this redesign, while modernizing the floorplan with the two-story dormers on each side and bumping out to vertical walls in the kitchen and bathroom and adding a second floor over the utility room. The addition of these vertical walls allowed us to add many more windows in addition to the increased usable floor space, and yet we were able to retain enough of the original character of the A-frame to be charming.

Our exterior color choices are Sherwin Williams'  "Shamrock" green with "Clay Pot" red accents.  These colors, along with the natural redwood clapboards and the raw cedar shingles are totally in keeping with the rustic nature of our rural estate.

I am extremely pleased with the way it's all coming about, can't wait until it's done, and will certainly post progress reports.