The first order of business was to start painting. We are still painting, but at this point we have two rooms entirely painted (Henry's room and his "playroom". Lots of fixing walls and precision mud-work. Henry's room is a nice bright blue--and he must like it because he will actually take a nap in it now. The "playroom" is--technically--"snowcone green", although I think it more akin to the glowing yellow-green of core of a nuclear reactor (we live in Springfield, un-official home of the Simpson's after all). It certainly wakes you up when you walk in. Stacey finished painting the bathroom walls yesterday--I think she called it "periwinkle", but it looks like a light blue to me. We're still chipping away at the last bedroom (our room)--well, no chipping--we haven't gotten to it yet. That, and there were some large areas of plaster damage that had to be repaired first.
"The Playroom"
Henry's Room
Bathroom
The "Last" bedroom
As for the rest of the upstairs, we've discovered that the "sunporch turned office" actually has lead paint on the walls. Hmmm, have to do something about that before we move too much stuff in there.
Downstairs, we've also been busy. We are slowly getting the trim painted and the walls primed when we have a spare moment, but it's taking a long time when you can only work on it nights and weekends. We have some furniture up--including a new dining room table (one that we can all fit at).
Dining room, starting to look like home.
Choosing paint...
Stacey stripped the mantle...surprise, surprise, it's a nice dark wood like the ceiling!
Then there's the backporch. At one point this was an exterior porch that was then hemmed in. Upon pulling up the adhesive tile (yay!) that was covering the floor...I was struck by the red, peeling, flaking paint underneath. A quick test of the lead pen and sure enough--super-fund site number 3. At least it was a small area and self-contained. After stripping the floor, we covered it with some super-heavy duty oil-based, "stronger than steel" paint and called it good. That was about two weeks ago--I think perhaps it's finally dry.
The back porch in progress
The big news this last week has been that our cabinets showed up 6 days ago. Since that time, I've been steadily working on installing them. Before hanging that first wall cabinet, I ran into the museum carpenter in our breakroom and asked if he had any tips. At first he asked if I had ever hung cabinets before, I said no. Then he asked if I had anyone helping me who had hung cabinets before, I said no. I could see he didn't have much faith in my abilities, so I was glad when he said he had a few minutes, he'd help me hang the first few.
Cabinets in the living room?
Henry likes 'em, installed or not!
An hour later, we had a corner of wall cabinets hung. Great! Not too hard--although when Kirk left, I don't think his initial estimate of "you're screwed" had changed too much. Over the last few days as I've slowly hung more of these things, I've thought to myself...it's not so much the "cabinet" part that is difficult, it's everything else. For instance, I've had to move 4 different electrical outlets and a doorbell because they would be covered by cabinets. I've also had to rehang an entire wall (including the first cabinets that were hung by "a pro" and I) because we didn't pay close enough attention to where filler strips went, and ... who would've guessed that your corner cabinet is actually supposed to be 3" out of the corner?
The problem wall...done!
The things I've learned.... The cabinets are almost entirely hung (only 2 left), the outlets are mostly still unwired (but in the end, we will have nice grounded newly wired outlets rather than the old stuff) and we are still awaiting a countertop (to be measured soon we hope). We should have a kitchen by the end of the week (minus the sink, countertop, microwave, and a few plugs).
Did I mention that we're trying to move in by 2/22? I'm thinking there are few more long nights ahead of me.
Henry can't take it anymore!
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