First Finished Surface

About two weeks ago a silence descended upon our house; one we had not heard for several months. All of the contractors left along with their drilling and sawing and banging. The silence signaled a dramatic change, at least for a while. The project is now OURS. Time for a whole bunch of sweat equity.

Don has been diligently working on the surfaces in the bathroom and polishing up the uneven spots with mud, putty knives, and primer. 

We haven't seen the green wallpaper for about 25 years.

 We have made many trips to the paint store and we have two finished surfaces to show for all of the work. The front door is finished, inside and out and the dining room ceiling and upper trim is done.

Our worn, old front door looks much better.

Painting the inside brightens up the entryway.

Ceiling and molding are done!

Other elements of the remodel are moving forward too. the cabinets are in a queue to be built and should arrive the middle of December. We had to revisit the back splash tile design about four times, as the space for it morphed more than once, because drawings we were working with did not reflect the realities of our range, hood and cabinets. We’re excited about the final product. It is full of lovely fruits, vegetables and little animals; including a snail and a mouse. Eeek! We have selected products for the kitchen counters and floor as well as the bathroom floor.

We have selected a manufactured quartz for the counter tops and a vinyl tile for the floor.

Our Turn

The flurry of activity last week made very visible progress. With the sheet rock all in place, the space is defined. The new under-layment for the floor in the kitchen means that room is sealed off. We can no longer see into the basement through the knotholes and gaps in the floor, nor can we see into the main floor bedroom and bath areas from the kitchen through the skeleton of naked framing.

Mid-way through matching the ceiling texture

Its a match!

The final step in the sheet rock job was to match the texture on the walls and ceiling from the old areas to the new. The dust from all of that work has settled (a LOT of dust!), and we find ourselves in the middle of a project that we now largely own. We have about six, or so, weeks to wait until the kitchen cabinets are ready to install. In that time we hope to do many of things that are on our sweat equity list. First we must spend a few days delivering our house from all of the white dust and grit left from the sheet rock work. After that, our list is long. Don has begun by refinishing the front door, giving the new walls a coat of primer, and repairing the several areas of the floor that have been damaged over the years or by the remodel. Sami has spent the last few days musing about colors to use throughout the house. The Benjamin Moore Web site has proved to be a very useful tool to visualize color combinations, and Powell’s Paint Center, just a few blocks away, has supplied many paint chip samples. The names given to the colors are as fun as the colors; “Lapland,” “Rustic Brick,” “Gentle Cream,” “Brittany Blue,” “Snowfall White.”

Some colors we are considering together with the kitchen tile and cabinet oak.

For the first time in quite a few months we can pull our cars into our driveway free and clear. Gone are the contractors cars and their port-a-potty, and gone is the old dishwasher. That was taken by the appliance store when the delivered our new refrigerator and dishwasher. The new is finally replacing the old. There is still lots of work ahead of us, but things are beginning to take shape.