post.project.progress.past

sorry to those of you that were expecting this last week[or even early in this week...], work has been keeping me pretty busy lately and now once or twice a week im meeting with some co-workers during lunch to study for the leed certification exam. so yeah... lunch is getting tighter and tighter it seems. then there was the winter storm and the windows and such and well... time gets away from me... at times... anyway, lets get to the good stuff.

so not this last weekend but the weekend before, my mother-in-law came into town to visit us and help with whatever she could at the house. well... the week before she came we had to start getting ready for her arrival and figure out what projects we wanted to tackle while she was here. the most obvious projects involved painting but we werent sure which rooms, and we still needed to finish the ones we'd already started. not to mention we were still appalled with the paint in the entry way and there was no way we were letting anyone else see it like that... 

thursday|1.15.09

so thursday night, we put on our painting gear after work and got to it. we started by working on the second coat of the kitchen so that we could get it at least halfway done and push all the appliances back out to the walls where they belonged and out of the middle of the kitchen. [which alleviated a lot of tripping over each other in the kitchen, lol] that coat got started pretty quickly after we got everything prepped and as karen worked on the kitchen, i got down to business. it was time to fix that damned entry. 

so i got started taping and prepping and before i knew it karen was done with the kitchen and not really in the mood to do the entry, so i told her to take a break and id finish prepping and get started on it, she could join me when [if?] she felt like it. well i was able to get about 75% of the new paint on the walls when karen joined in [my memory eludes me at this point as to what she was doing in the other rooms of the house, but im sure it was something productive that wasnt painting] and she picked up the last bit of entry painting. we were really happy with the way the new paint was going on and it was already looking a million times better, even wet! we decided that was it for the night as far as painting goes, but we still had much to do in preparation - besides that coat needed to dry for the remainder of the night anyway. so we spent the remainder of the evening searching for our extra set of bed linens, unpacking the rest of the stuff in the attic and general cleaning organizing and such. i think we even got around to moving the mattresses upstairs and putting the bedding we finally found on the bed that night as well. needless to say we got a LOT accomplished - we didnt want to do much more than a second coat of paint in the entry if we had to the next day - she was coming in friday evening after all.

friday|1.16.09

so friday morning we woke up to a very pleasant surprise - the entry looks fantastic!! it was about freaking time! just one coat of the new paint was like magic so we said to heck with another coat we were done and cleaned all the plastic and tape up before work - the transformation was really just unreal to us. so anyway, the day went by fairly quickly as i remember and by the time we were home anne's flight had either arrived on time or a little late, but either way she was just getting on the road and wasnt due at the house for another half hour or more. so we busied ourselves tidying up a few last minute things cleaning up all the tape and plastic in the kitchen and putting the furniture in a much more pleasing arrangement, having a beer, chillin. soon enough she arrived and we began her arrival with hugs and... presents! presents? you got it! karens parents had just returned from a little holiday in new zealand and karen and i both got gifts! well turned out to be socks! awesome! haha, mine were possum fur - i kid you not - apparently its quite warm stuff down under. haha! after the presents we gave anne the grand tour of the place and she was a bit overwhelmed with it all. apparently the pictures we post here just dont do it any justice, the house is so much bigger and looks much better in person! [well thats great news!] after the tour we were just about time for dinner so we headed in the direction of the restaurant for the evening. karen and i have been wanting to try this place for some time but never got around to it, so we decided this was the perfect opportunity. we took anne to a local place in our northside neighborhood that always gets raving reviews - honey. 

well dinner was pretty good in my opinion. i cant remember now exactly what each person got, i remember i had the fish & chips and we shared some "honey fries" and that everything i ate was quite good. the atmosphere was fairly laid back, but refined and sheik. if i had any complaints about the place, its that we somehow got the table directly in front of the door, so we were greeted with many an icey-blast throughout the night as people came and went. overall id say it was a good experience though, and we'd have no problem going back again. 

after dinner we went back to the house for a little night-cap and to go through all of the pictures from the trip - wow were they gorgeous. i want to go to new zealand really bad... its just beautiful! other than that whatever else we did escapes me at the moment, but i remember it being a nice night, and a good preface to saturday.

saturday|1.17.09

well saturday morning we were up and going by about 9am, karen and i started off by getting coffee and breakfast together while anne went about getting ready. we had fresh fruit with our coffee and i made pigs-in-blankets for the main course. they were quite scrumptious, i must say. [although, not the most challenging thing to prepare, haha, i guess i shouldnt pat my back too hard] after breakfast and conversation then a quick rundown of the days objectives, we got gussied up to brave the bitter cold and walked a few blocks to the local hardware store. karen and i had made a vow the weekend before that we werent going to go to lowes or the depot until february came [we'd been spending 200+ a weekend for a few weeks now on project stuff and we wanted to stop ourselves - not to mention force ourselves to finish all the projects we already bought supplies for!] but luckily we only needed a few items. well by the time we got there we discovered that they didnt open till noon [it was around 10:30] - bummer. so we walked back and discussed what we'd do in the mean time before we could get the few things we needed to get started on the bigger projects for the day. well in the mean time we decided to finally install the toilet in the upstairs bathroom. woohoo!

well it proved to be a little bit of a task between removing the old toilet, cleaning up the aftermath of the removal and getting it prepped, then following all the directions and installing the new toilet... but we got it done! somewhere a little after noon we'd successfully installed the new toilet and we were mighty pleased with ourselves. the only thing we needed was a new water line hook up [the old one was too short for the new toilet] and we'd be ready to test it out. well the next thing on our list was to go back to the hardware store, and karen needed to go return some library books, so we let her go run that errand while anne and i walked back to the hardware store to get our few items. we were able to find everything we needed after a little help from the guys that run the store and we got home at the exact same time karen did, great timing! so the next thing on the list was actually a few projects. 

anne wanted to start prepping the rest of the kitchen to paint, and while she did so karen and i got to work in the project room sanding and painting some trim for one of the doors and our coffee table for the parlor. while we were at it anne asked if we'd cut a piece of scrap wood to act as a brace for the kitchen counter top that was caving in behind the sink, so we got that done as well - and it looks much better now! after we finished our first coat of paint, anne was making progress in the kitchen and i started plastering the walls while she finished up cleaning and taping. at this point we needed to let the plaster dry for a while so we decided it was time to work on the base boards for the entryway and really make that room start to come together. 

well it was definitely a pain in the ass but eventually we started making a little progress with the trim although it was a major fight. at some point i was nailing in a board and it bounced, knocked another board over that was leaning against the wall and hit me square in the face. at that point i was done fighting with the stupid baseboard and returned to the kitchen to finish the last fo the taping while the girls kept trying to work on the baseboard. before long they managed to get the rest nailed in and started going around with caulk to seal em up and make em look prettier. well it wasnt long before i had a nice black eye thanks to that stupid board, grr.... at some point wetook a break for lunch, although i cant remember when now, and again at some point we decided to get thai food for dinner. well, while i went to pick that up the girls finally got around to getting a first coat on the remaining kitchen walls and before long the kitchen was drying and our stomachs were happy... mmm thai food... well after dinner i worked some more on the kitchen while the girls started to hang some of karens art work in the entryway and other than that the nights a bit of a blur. i dont think we got much more than that done but the place was really looking amazing - not to mention we got a ton of work done with annes help, thanks mom!!

sunday|1.18.09

well sunday morning anne left to go see her family in indiana and i vaguely remember that karen and i put a second coat of paint on the kitchen and also installed a molding type thing to the entryway light. it was kind of a pain in the ass and we had to mess with it a lot to get it in there [jury-rigged for the time being at that] but we were pretty happy with the way it looked. other than that, time has gotten away from me and i cant remember what else, if anything else we got accomplished, but the weekend was definitely a successful one. the entry was looks great now and the kitchen does too, just awesome! so now i guess you all want to see pictures again, eh? well dont you worry, ive got you covered [although i seem to have misplaced them for the moment, i will get them up tonight as soon as i get home, i promise!]. and as seems to be the trend lately, ill put a few highlights here, and then you guys can check out the full set at the photo site. 

thanks for sticking with me through this one, i know it got a bit long - but hey, its for your benefit and entertainment anyway! stop complaining, lol!

[1.31.09|additions...]

so here they are, as promised. sorry it took so long to get them up, but as it turns out i had to do quite a lot of searching to find the pictures i took a few weeks ago of all the progress we made that weekend, and then once i did find them, i wasnt happy with the turn-out [they were a bit blurry and grainy to say the least]. so... i had to retake them. however, i assure you the only change since then is the new windows - which you can hardly tell in these pictures. 

and now, as promised...

as i mentioned before the rest of this series showing the updates of the kitchen can be found at the my.pix link. 

and while im here i may as well answer a few questions... yes, that is a hole in the wall. yes, we put it there. yes, it was intentional. its a kind of "art installation" of mine and karen's. originally we were going to put a door in the door frame and the idea was that youd open the door to a brick wall. karen really loves the idea of this, we [karen, anne, & i] decided ultimately that it was much nicer with out the crappy door however, so for the time being this is the finished product [minus some possible additional door molding]

secondly, the 6 white squarish shaped things on the wall there are some of karen's art. i wont go into too much detail on the specifics of the artwork - its certainly not my place, but i have always enjoyed this series. additionally, the bench is a re-purposed piece of trash that karen and i discovered in over the rhine and karen just had to have and has since painted. we thought it worked well in the room. its a great place to put your shoes on! =]

okay i think thats all i'll cover for now, hope you enjoy the rest of the pictures! have a great weekend!!