Ceiling Paint

I had never painted a ceiling before, but I figured that a room with nothing on the walls or floor was a good place to start! This is the kitchen, and most of the wall space will be covered with the cabinets, so I put a cream colored paint (antique white) on the top of the walls and ceiling.

And the best part was that my dad did one of the coats of paint!

Built In Bookshelf

This thing was a beast to paint, trying to keep the green on the wall and the white on the shelves, but it is done!

I think it is a nice feature in the dining room!

Siding and Roofing

The 1980s addition now has new siding and a roof on it!

I think the roof will help keep the house a much warmer temperature : )

Typical Conversation

My mom and I recently had this conversation at Pier One. I wouldn't normally shop there because I'm too cheap, but she had a 20% off coupon. We were shopping for black counter height bar stools for my kitchen, and they had two styles to choose from. Neither of them had price tags on them.

My mom: "So which one do you like better?"
Me: "The cheaper one."
My mom to the salesperson: "How much are these stools?"
Salesperson: "Well that one has a huge mark down because we're discontinuing that style."
Me: "Sold. I'll take 2."

Weekend in Review

My dad rebuilt the window sill and installed another sunroom window.

We special ordered the 5 huge front room windows at Home Depot, and we bought the rest of the windows that we need at Builder's Surplus.

And we bought new doors to replace the beat up interior doors in my house.

My contractor finished the new plumbing for the kitchen.

And he removed the old 1960 cast iron pipe!

Week in Review

Will came home for Spring Break and Tux was happy.

The new blower for the furnace kept the house warm.

My dad put in new lights and electrical outlets in the bathroom, and drank a lot of coffee.

My contractor took down a wall.

My contractor framed in more of the roof.

Inside the 2010 addition

View from the old bathroom into the new part of the bathroom. On the other side of the framed wall is the closet.

This is standing in the new part of the bathroom and looking into the closet.

This view is standing in the bedroom looking at the closet on the right and the new part of the bathroom on the left.

Removing the Bathroom

I came back from a weekend getaway - I took a much needed weekend off from working on my house - to find the contents of my bathroom in the sunroom.

But I was very happy to see the outside of the addition! Almost ready for the roofers to come back!

Scraping By

I finished my latest project today! It has been plaguing me for over a week...scraping the grout out from between all of the tiles in the bath/shower. If anyone has plans to do this in their own home, I have a great razor blade tool I can recommend for you! I could only do so much at a time, since I have to be able to use my hands at work and all, but I finally finished.

Now the old moldy chipping-away grout is gone. My dad is going to teach me to grout and then I will re-grout the shower!

My dad took my furnace apart the other weekend and discovered that the blower was broken. He found a cheap one online and today he and I put it back together. Here it is before we put it back together.

Just a few minutes after the furnace was running again, the temperature in the house went from 56 to 62 degrees!

Roof Framing

View from Outside

View from Inside

Pearly White

We found a fake pearl necklace in my backyard. Tux thought this complimented his outfit well.

My mom and I scraped, primed, and painted the fireplace bricks and transformed it from dirty, sooty white to pearly white.

I think it will look even better when the blue painter's tape is gone and there's trim around the window!

Windows: Before and After

Someone broke into these windows before I closed on my house, and we "sealed" them shut with dry cleaning bags and duct tape.

Here is my dad (and his helper, Tux) working on the windows.

Here is the corner after the window on the left was replaced. The picture didn't turn out well since it was so bright outside and dark inside.

Here is my new window from the outside!