Drywall, Priming, and Painting done! (almost)

It's been quite some time since I've posted on this house blog.

Not because we haven't been working, we have!  VERY hard.  

All of this drywall has been put on the walls!

 

We hired it done.

It only took them a week!

Check these guys out....

 Sure beats climbing up a ladder, then down the ladder, then moving the ladder, then up the ladder, then down the ladder, then moving the ladder....

 They left these here overnight and I wanted to try them....but I was afraid I'd hurt myself!

 

After the drywall guys finished, we went on a trip to St. Thomas for a wedding which I will post about on my other blog.  And when we returned, we started priming, and painting.

One day my friend Teresa and my cousin Gloria decided to come over and help!  Gloria got so full of drywall dust from scooting on the floor she went outside to shake it off before coming downstairs for lunch!  I really appreciated them helping.  We had a system down that day and we really got a lot of priming done.

Gloria came back on Thursday and we painted all day.  (we missed Teresa that day)

 There were a few times I did some painting on my own, which is no fun once you've had help. 

Dave and I painted/primed all day Saturday and on Sunday, Vickie and Robert came over and helped.  

Earlier that day Dave went after donuts, and I had texted him to get Vickie a donut on a stick. (her fave)  Well, he never got the text because he doesn't carry his phone with him.  So when she came over, he gave her a stick and told her to stick a donut on it if she wants a donut on a stick!

 Poor Robert....he is just so fun to bug.  I posted this pic on face book!

So here are a few pics of what we've done, or I should say Dave has done, since the painting is almost finished. (I still have the laundry room to paint)

Below is my kitchen.

 This light is in the entrance of our bedroom.

 We have matching ceiling fans in the bedroom, den, and living room.   He also got the sconce lights up and the windows trimmed out in the bedroom and den.

 And ta dah!!!  A closet that I cannot wait to use.

 

 This is the bedroom window ledge.  You can see I like to grow a lot of plants, and I don't like to kill them through the winter months so I bring them inside.  He made me a wide window ledge in the bedroom to put the plants on for the east morning sun.

 It's hard to see these lights, but they are stained glass sconce lights in the den.  He had them facing up at first because he didn't like seeing the light bulbs, but three of us ladies voted to turn them down. He put in different light bulbs, and agreed with us!

 And this peeps,  is my kitchen so far.....today......

I've been meeting with the kitchen guy again trying to make some decisions.  It's very hard to figure out what to do because on paper cabinets look way different than they do once they are installed.  And once they are installed it is way too late to make changes.  Same with flooring.  They give you a 5x6 piece of wood and expect you to make a decision on a room by looking at that little piece of floor! 
Anyway, it's moving along quite nicely now and I'm very excited.

Cindy

Finished painting bathroom

This is a view from one end of our bath/laundry room


(washer dryer area)

and this is look at the other end. The walls are all prepped and I spent three days out there this week painting the ceiling and the walls....and can you believe I did not get one picture of those walls painted walls! Yeah, I know, I believe it too. Oh well, I'll get them. In the meantime imagine creamy walls.

Dave had two days off this week and we spent one of those days shopping for tile, a bathroom vanity, lights, and crown moulding. We learned a BIG lesson. Shop for that stuff before roughing in the electrical or plumbing. We found out you have the option of bathroom vanities being the same height as a kitchen counter. 40 inches tall. We went by the height of our bathroom vanity at home, which was only replaced a few years ago. So, now we have some electrical outlets in the way if we want to make the bathroom vanity kitchen counter height.

We decided for the upstairs, where we plan on living forever, that we are going to shop for the fixtures, etc. first, then finish the room.

Anyway, here are some tile choices. I like this one, and it matches the other room very well. But we are thinking of maybe going with something a little different.

So we might go with a lighter choice. This picture doesn't really show the true color, but you get the idea. I'm thinking of the smaller one on the right as far as color. Then we need to determine what size to get.

I thought this was cute......but Lordy it was expensive! And no place to put all the gadgets such as curling irons, make-up etc.

Cindy

drywall and dirt

Ok so we got back from Kentucky, and Dave started putting screws in the drywall. Lots of 'em.

And we spent yesterday filling in nail holes, and taping the joints, and doing the same old drywall mudding that you gotta do to make your walls smooth.

But let's go back to the dirt situation, from the neighbor's pond, that I ended my last post with.

I am not going to say I was happy when I first saw this....

When I was told we were going to get the dirt, and it would be a good thing so we could raise the front yard to the level it is supposed to be, I was ok with it.

But I had no idea it was this much dirt! And when I first saw it I was snapping pics with my phone and sending them to Dave at work.....WTH!!!!

This is where the dump truck drove up into our yard. This is an easy fix.

But all this.....not so easy.

I'm pretending it isn't there for now.

Dave did have to fix the gutters right away though.

Since the yard level was raised, the gutters were too low, and the tube thing that the water would run through was buried.

And then there was the issue of tearing the osb off of the porch to fill underneath it with dirt....to raise the level.

This was the area across from the bee yard. It had a huge slope to it and was very hard to mow.

But this is what the area looks like now! I'm thinking of moving my bees to it and we've decided to plant it in white clover.

We used to have a ladder leaning against the porch. We had to climb the ladder to get on the porch. Not anymore! Now we can just step up on the porch...

If it had a floor that we could step up on!

Cindy

Insulation, drywall, dirt, and a craft room!

I've got a mess on my hands! In between hanging insulation and drywall, I've been trying to get some order to a craft room. I've collected crafty stuff for years, as you can tell.



And now that the insulation is finished...

we're hanging drywall.

And it's very close to being done.

The hanging part that is. We still have to do a lot of mudding and taping and sanding...UGH.

In the meantime, our neighbor is having a HUGE pond dug.

Guess where all the dirt is going?

Yup....our place.

More on that later.

Cindy