The stripping area...... Countdown to Baby..... B-57

September 27, 2012 

So in this house, we only have about 87 doors.  OK, that may be a slight exaggeration,  but probably not by too much ;-)

We have been working on stripping the "high priority" doors, which generally lead to an area that would be dangerous for the pets to enter (like the upstairs hallway bath that is full of glass, doors, vanities, etc).

Here is the stripping area:

In other news, the little repair of the butler panty sink wasn't so little.  Here it is now:

Hmmmm.... Apparently, there were some rotted pipes, etc that had to be cut out.  Sigh.  Which direction are we moving in?  In all seriousness, we will repair the wall here, Alok will put up the backsplash (we already have it... it's tin like the other area) and then apparently get a new countertop.   We will probably then just leave the sink off in the basement to be refinished later.

That's all for now.

Jessica

We've sprung a leak..... Countdown to Baby 2012.... B- 58

September 26, 2012 

Well, not so much a leak but a slow seepage of water.  Fortunately, I am only talking about the house now.   

Here it is:

OK, so you can't tell, but this is the former mold closet. To be more specific, it's the apartment closet that had the spiral staircase in it. The floor by the wall is totally wet, but the wall is dry. Ideas?  Sigh.

In other news, our drywaller came back to finish Alok's office area.  Alok also had him repair some "dings" in the wall, which just stressed me out. At this point, I think I would take painted dinged walls rather than having to patch these now:

 

 

Alok also finished the trim in the babies room, minus the closet trim (apparently we need a door first)

Alok made window sills

 Speaking of doors, some of our "high priority doors" are in the process of being stripped.  Lots o fun (and lots o layers of paint). 

Work is still going on outside, which apparently resulted in the need to remove part of the balcony railing. Sigh.....










That's all for now!

Jessica

Trimming it up..... Countdown to baby 2012.... B-59 days!

September 24, 2012 

I'm not feeling too witty here, so I'll just say that the outside of the house is coming along nicely! Check out all that blue!  We just have part of the west side (which is much smaller than the east), the front, and little bits of trim here and there.  Here it is:

On the inside of the house, Alok has been working on the window trim.  Again, we are missing the rosettes and will hopefully get them in the next week or so (hence the squares missing in the corner).  We are waiting for the floor trim until after we can purchase the wood floor that is missing.  We decided to prioritize based on dustiness.  Here it all is:

 

 

 

Looking good. That's all for now!  Hopefully, we will have some major developments next week :-)

Jessica

Cleaning it up.......Countdown to Baby- B-62 Days

September 20, 2012 

I've been avoiding the house since I'm still sick (fun times), but decided to venture over and see what has been happening.  The majority of the house is painted! Woo hoo. Here's the outside as it is now:

 

 

Alok also got a bit of help from a friend in moving out all of the old doors, random stuff that was lying around, etc.  It makes it look a bit better:

Foyer

Horror movie mirror- all hung up

Well, this area is still our trim painting area.... and by "our" I mean "Alok's."  With myself and my mom being sick for weeks, he's on his own :-(

Swinging kitchen door

This is the area that where he cut into the wall for the stove

Kitchen trim. We are out of rosettes (those little bulls eye things), so those will go up later

Apartment area is cleaner

Apartment area

Apartment chimney

Media area

Media area

No more vanities in the hallway

Hallway bathroom is now the storage area

My office 

My office

Alok's office

 

Alok's office. The green on the wall is the drywall waiting to be finished.  See that closet ahead?  It hasn't been opened in a really long time.  

 

Apparently, it contains light fixtures and other random things that we pulled out of the house

Alok is also continuing to work on the trim in the nursery, as seen here: 

 Talking on the phone to his sister, on a ladder, using a nail gun.  In what world is this a good idea?

Well, progress is being made and poor Alok is working as fast as he possibly can. This just isn't a one man job, but it is for now!

The last 28 items still remain! 

Here they are again:

1) Get as much done on the outside siding as possible

 

2)

Add this trim.... actually this is for all rooms upstairs and in the apartment area downstairs. 

3)

Now, we can always paint/clean this lovely sink later, but right now it's unusable 

4)

Hang up the butler's pantry doors after stripping the paint off the hinges

5)

Lay a floor in the apartment area.  There is way too much dust to leave it as a sub-floor for now.  We will just do a pre-finished oak here...... We are doing an unfinished oak here

 6)

Get a door for this bathroom

7)

Either fix or at least put up a door so the pets can't escape in this unfinished area under the stairs

8)

Pet proofing... which involves covering all of the open holes, like Alok did here.  He cut tin and put it over the old radiator/electrical holes in the floor

 

A not covered hole 

The lack of pocket doors are a perfect place for dust/pets to hide

Attic stair top needs to be capped so that a pet doesn't get injured jumping on it

9) 

Cover up the window wells. They will have the original trim refinished eventually, but for now, there are just exposed dusty weights

 10)

Fix these lovely steps.  Plan= paint them (brown top, white front) and lay a runner.

11) 

Hang the stained glass window here. We need to get a piece of glass for it. 

12) 

We are not finishing the bathroom, but should hang a door in order to keep the dust out/pets out of this area (this is our master bath)

13)

Hang trim in our bedroom.... as well as the other rooms upstairs (at least the bedroom and nursery before we move in)

14)

Repair the hole in the master bedroom chimney

15)

Hang trim in the nursery... otherwise, it's looking good!  

16)

We aren't finishing the hallway bath either, but we are hanging a door.

This will stay like this for now... unless he wants to go ahead and lay the hardybacker board since it's pretty dusty

17)

Hang a door on our new furnace room

18)   

Make/paint window sills for all windows in order to seal them.

19) 

Possibly lay a floor in Alok's office. He thinks we should wait, but again, it's a dust issue.  I think we should just do bamboo. Lay the pre-finished oak we found at bayview

 20)

Repair the drywall in Alok's office area.  It's too dusty to do it later.

He did hang the drywall, we just need the drywallers to come

21) 

Rip out these old electrical heaters in Alok's office

22)

Hang closet bars in these two small closets. The rest will have to wait.

23)  

Repair the chimney hole in the yellow bedroom

24)  

Fix this hole....even with a piece of wood so cats can't escape into the wall

25) 

Fix the attic stairs..... we are actually just going to carpet this.

26)

Cut a door for the attic bath

 27)

Fix the plumbing on the sink

28) New basement outside door/windows.


That's all for now.


Jessica