Dec 19, 2015

PROJECT DARKSTONE: Day 319

Lots of exciting stuff going on, so lets not stand around shootin' the breeze.  Lets get down to business!

They have finished patching all of the plaster.



I know that picture doesn't look like much, but do you remember what that wall used to look like?


Here is another before and after.



It really is pretty amazing.

Speaking of amazing, look at this!


That is the downstairs bathroom.  It only took the the tile guy, Salvador, an afternoon to do all that.  I actually toyed with the idea of doing the tile myself to save money, but THANK GOODNESS I didn't.  It would have taken me a month.

Here is the laundry room.


We spent some time at our house on Friday, working and cleaning, and this was there when we pulled up.


That says Sunset Painting Co, in case you can't read.  The painters were there caulking and taping off windows and such.  And THEN a truck pulled up delivering our front doors, this time in all the right sizes.  Here is the one they have installed so far.


Woohoo!  And THEN to finish things off, the painters actually STARTED painting upstairs if you can believe it.  It is a big deal!



It is pretty hard to get a picture of white walls.  In case you are curious, this bedroom in the picture above and the master bedroom required great big huge wood beams to support the vaulted ceilings, and we decided to leave the beams exposed.  That is why it is covered in paper.

To save money we are having the painters paint the ceilings, trim and doors, but only prime the walls. I figure I can paint, especially if I don't have to worry about the ceiling, but most rooms probably won't get painted until we move in.  My favorite thing about doing it this way is it means we don't have to pick paint colors yet.  We just chose 6 different kinds of tile, the carpet, and the hardwood.  Choosing paint colors is seriously beyond our mental capacity at this point.  

So things were pretty exciting when we left on Friday.  And then I stopped by my house this morning to pick something up.  I expected to maybe find the tile man there (he wasn't), but I certainly did not expect this:


That is hard wood flooring, being installed on the main floor.  Hot Diggity!  Heaven only knows what it will look like when we stop by tomorrow!

Dec 13, 2015

PROJECT DARKSONE: Day 313

Sorry to keep you all in such suspense, but I've been busy. You know, Christmas, children, costumes for the Star Wars premier, the normal stuff.  So here is your update, and I'm gonna try to make it quick:

A few days ago when I stopped by the house while the boys were at school Lani the builder put me to work nailing up trim


I used this cute little nail gun that shot out tiny little nails, the size of needles.  They only left itty bitty holes in the wood.  Like so:


So Lani cut the trim, I nailed it up, and the painter followed us around and caulked everything almost as soon as we were done with it.  


That up there is the doorway into the master bathroom.  


And that is the door into the laundry closet and a bedroom.

All of the shelving has been put up,


And last time I was there they had trim around all the upstairs windows, and all the baseboard installed upstairs.



The other things to report are that they finally got the structo-lite and have started patching the plaster!


And least half of the plaster had fallen off of the walls in this room, so I'm sure it is feeling much less naked now.


Also, the porch is pert near done.  Just one more board to go, as far as I can tell.


So things are moving along.  It is just possible that they might start painting upstairs this week.  Everybody cross your fingers!

Dec 6, 2015

PROJECT DARKSTONE: Day 306

All the doors are in



and they have started putting up trim.


When the heating guys came in to run the ducts for our house, they ripped out all the existing ones and threw them in the dumpster.  Then we pulled them out of the dumpster and put them in a pile by the fence.  They have been sitting there ever since.  We did it because 1: it was really fun, and 2: we wanted to recycle it.

So Tuesday I loaded up the ol' mini van with dirty, wet heat ducts.  I filled it from top to bottom, front to back.  Then I drove it to the metal recycling facility and unloaded it all.  That is just one of the fun kinds of things I get to do in my life.  Try not to be too jealous of me.


AND, we got $4.75 for all that metal.  Ka-ching!

Dec 1, 2015

Doors!

Nov 25, 2015

PROJECT DARKSTONE: Day 295

Here is a Whole Bunch O' Pictures for your viewing pleasure.

This is the porch.  They only work on it when they aren't busy with something else, so it is going pretty slow.


Here is a picture of the downstairs hall.


Here is the ceiling.  Hypnotic, I know.




Fun story about the doors:  2 of them aren't the right size.  That is why they are still stacked up in the old living room.  

For almost a year now the front room, with the fireplace in it, has been stuffed to the gills with furniture.


 But that time had come to an end.  We had to get the stuff out, whether we had somewhere to put it or not.  So we rented ANOTHER container, parked it across the street, and moved everything into it. 

Actually we rented 2 more containers.  They didn't have a 20 foot container, so they gave me two 10 foot for the same price.  


Here is our existing front yard container, in case you forgot what it looked like.  We wouldn't want that.


 So now the front room is all cleaned out and ready for anything!


This is the Kitchen/Dining Room.


Below is a picture from inside Richard's office.


You may be thinking at this point that looking at pictures of drywall is SUPER BORING.  That feeling is perfectly normal.  

So what I forgot to say is that the drywallers are totally done.  But I guess we aren't quite ready for paint just yet.  Exhibit A:



The builder decided he would rather patch the plaster than tear it off and replace it with drywall.  But he has had a heck of a time finding the Structo-Lite for patching it. He finally tracked some down after much searching and I think he will get it next week.





The following is the upstairs hallway, looking toward the master bedroom.


And here is another bedroom.  The one we affectionately refer to as 3rd bedroom. 


It is the one with the loft in it.


And, finally, the master bedroom.


Whew!  What a thrill!

Here is how the fascia looks right now.


The idea is to imitate the original soffit and fascia, like you see in the following picture, and I think it looks great.


Yeah.  The details are impossible to see, but someday in the near future we will get that painted and it is going to look amazing.

Any questions?

Nov 19, 2015

PROJECT DARKSTONE: Day 289

Here's the scuttlebutt!


That is my new nickname for Colin.  It suits him. 

There were a whole bunch of guys at our house today, running around, putting tape and mud on stuff. Like this:



I guess the pros don't use drywall mud straight out of a bucket like the rest of us.  They mix it with water first in an orange bucket using a silver doohickey.  Neat!

I can only guess what they were thinking of me, as I walked through the house every couple of hours, grinning at everyone, and taking pictures of them.  But how could I resist?  One of them was on stilts!  I was so excited.


They will probably be done with the the drywall and mudding by Thanksgiving. (including texturing the walls.  Which is the drywallers job, not the painters job, FYI.)

Some other workers spent the day outside working on the soffit and fascia.  


Things are coming together!