Back Down the Stairs

We are moving ahead with the final part of the project. Sami has put heavy-duty ribbed plastic shelf paper in all of the shelves and drawers in the kitchen. Don is drilling holes in the uninsulated walls of our bedroom and the living room. We hope to rent the machine and blow in the insulation tomorrow. Meanwhile, we have moved back down to the basement, this time with our bedroom. It is so very quiet and dark down there, but comfortable.

Don is also putting back the window trim.

For now this is our bedroom. When we are done with the remodel it will become Don's train room.

FIRE In Our Eyes!

We are bound and determined to finish the remodel (Do we hear you say... "Its about time!"). We have putzed along slowly for the last couple of months, focusing on other projects instead, but we are back at it now. There are really only three areas left to do; the living room, our bedroom, and the stairway and landing to the second floor. For the first time since we began the project we are giving our selves a deadline.... we want to be done by the end of the summer. The reason is, we have a family reunion and a 50th wedding anniversary party scheduled for Labor Day weekend So, the heat is ON.

Moving out of the living room is step one.

We are tackling the living room first. We know at least one, and perhaps all three exterior walls need to be insulated. We plan on blowing the insulation in from the inside, just like we did in the main floor bedroom. Then we will repair all the the plaster, and add new windows and window coverings, After that we will paint and do any spiffing up of furniture that is needed.

We decided we don't like our bargain dining set and hope to sell it.

Drop clothes will protect the few things left in the living room.

Almost ready to start drilling holes in the wall to prepare for insulating.

Rooms That Aren't Rooms

We have had lots of interruptions in the last few months. Both Sami and Don have been at Oliver's school several days a week working with the kids in their Oregon Battle of the Books volunteer project. And, both Sami and Don came down with a cold that rendered them unable to do much besides moan for several weeks (it was the worst!). However, through it all, we plugged away at the remodel. We are now finished with two areas that are as big and complex as any of the rooms we have worked on, but they are not rooms! The entryway by the kitchen has four doors (and a cat door), five switch plates, six switches, and what felt like miles of trim and a bucket full of hardware. The walls there are all bead-board, full of gouges and scraped paint. But after completely re-doing every surface and every detail, the area doesn't look much different than it did before we started.

Don refinished the long handrail going down to the basement and made a new handrail from the kitchen to the landing.

 The same was true of the front entryway. Don went through a large bucket of mud to repair all of the cracks in the plaster walls and became a master plasterer to repair a bulge in the front entryway stairwell wall. He also refinished all the old wood trim.. There was more wall space to paint there than in any of the other rooms.

The area with the bulge looked strangely guitar-like.

 But after it is all said and done, it looks lovely, but not surprisingly different than it did before.

 Even though our work didn't change the appearance of these areas a lot, WE know how much work it took, and decided it warranted a little celebration.

WOW!

A while back we asked our son-in-law, Paul, to design and build a light fixture to hang over the peninsula. His artistry and skill has won him awards at Bullseye Glass, where he works, and we admired the pieces he makes. We waited patiently while he made prototype after prototype, experimenting with different colors, shapes, wood connecting pieces, and processes for the production. We had no idea how much time and effort he would put into the project. Last week we were rewarded with the final product.... WOW! We love it. It is a focal point of our new kitchen. We are sooooo lucky. Isn't it beautiful?

We had a few fireworks during the installation, due to a twisted wire. But that got worked out.

It is hard to photograph lights, but perhaps this photo shows the beautiful warm light it casts on our new peninsula.

Its just perfection!

Each light is two pieces of glass that have been formed out of different colors of glass. The wood pieces that hold the two pieces of glass together were designed mathematically to match the curve of the glass, and then made on a computer controlled machine (CNC router) and glued with silicone to become one piece. That is also how he made the cross bars. It is a merging of engineering and artistry. In reality they are very complex, but the final product is beautifully simple. Thank you, Paul. We love it.

The Daring Young Man...

He flies through the air, with the greatest of ease....
Don is patching the plaster in our stairwell. These photos say it all.

The wall with the big area that lacks plaster had a big bulge in it. When Don is all finished it will be smooth.

Plaster dust - yeeeccch!

Once again Don is going through the mud, then sand, mud then sand process to fix the cracks in the lath and plaster walls and ceiling. It is about 17 feet from the main floor floor to the ceiling in the stairwell. Sami suggested that we might want to have a professional do the job, but of course Don wanted the challenge.

A Long-Legged Cat

The area around the cat door was always dirty from our kitties dirty paws. We hope to hide some of the soil with this decoration. Now, the only thing left in the kitchen entryway is to prep and paint the walls.

Detals

Don finished the kitchen entryway floor and now Sami is applying a second coat of paint to the trim  and prepping the walls for paint there.

Don has been working on a detail for the kitchen. It is a blackboard....

Sami designed it to use a brass heron as an apron hook. The heron is cousin to the owls used in the under-the-stairs closet, which we have dubbed the Harry Potter memorial closet. What's the point of doing all this work if we can't have a little fun along the way?