Thursday, July 29, 2010

July 23 and 24

Hi! I finally have a chance to get on the computer! Here are the pictures from last week. This is the master bedroom. You can see that the taping has started.


Kara's room

Alex's room. His room is between the living room and Kara's room. Since it only has one window, it tends to be the darkest room and he wants to paint it a dark blue!!! I'm trying to mediate between him and Gary and get a lighter blue with maybe one wall a darker blue!

This is part of the bathroom. With it's shape, it is hard to get a picture of it.

The entry closet. It will be nice to have a closet to put coats in as people come into the house. Then they don't get dumped where ever!!

The dining area, taken from the kitchen.

The kitchen, taken from the dining area.
And, last but not least the living room.

So, as you can see the house is really coming along!! Now we can actually see what the room look like.

Here's where the siding was when we finished last week. The only side that isn't done is the front.


Gary and I went over yesterday evening to do some picking up around the house. I'd better get off of here and get out to the house to work!! It will be exciting to see how far we get today and tomorrow!

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Just a Quick Post

We finally have our computer back. I will get pictures uploaded as soon as I can fight my way onto our computer. On Dad's right now. It will probably be after work tomorrow. I'm hoping to get out to the house tomorrow and do some clean-up. Lots of siding pieces laying around the ground and other stuff. Would like to get it all picked up before work starts on Friday. We think the sheetrock guys were coming back this week to do more work. It will be interesting to see how much is done. When we went Monday or Tuesday to take some measurements, just about everything had one coat of the mud on. I can't believe how fast this is all going!

Friday, July 23, 2010

Computer's Down and Sheetrock is Almost Up!

Just wanted to let you know that my computer is in the shop so I don't know when I will be able to post pictures. It's too hard to figure out Dad's computer to upload pictures from it. It's been exciting this week. The sheetrock is almost all up in the house!!! I can't believe it. A sheetrocking crew has volunteered their time to do this!! Wow!!
The other volunteers have gotten alot done on the siding! It's so exciting. It's hard not to think that we'll be in soon but lots can happen to slow things down. I keep telling myself not to get too excited but it's hard not to. It will be interesting to see how far everyone gets tomorrow. I have to work until 2:00 so about all I'll be able to do is some clean-up like I did today.
Hopefully the techs can figure out what is wrong with our computer and fix it before too long. I know blog posts without pictures are no fun!

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Friday, July 16 and Sat, July 17

Busy weekend. I went over to the house site both Friday and Saturday after work. Gary made it over on Friday too. I spent a lot of time in the basement. At least it was cool there!!! I was chiseling off ridges(?) in the seams of the cement. Not sure what to call them, Burrs? They were sharp edges sticking out along the seams and they had to be chiseled off before the foam insulation can be put up. My arms and back are sore and achy today. I also have bruises on a couple of knuckles that I kept hitting with the hammer when I missed the chisel!
The insulation is all in on the main floor and in the edges along the ceiling in the basement! That was fast! It was interesting seeing it being blown in. Insulation will be blown into the attic once the sheet rock is on the ceiling. Speaking of sheet rock, we have people coming on Tuesday to put up the sheet rock!!! I can't believe it is time to sheet rock already! I think they are related to one of the college volunteers and do this professionally and are volunteering their time for our house. How great is that? I still can't believe how fast this is coming along. Before I know it, It will be time to paint and I'll have to actually make a decision on the paint colors!!!

Besides the insulation, the guys finished the siding on one side of the house. I really like how it looks!

This is how it looks on the other 2 sides:

And, they started to put siding on the front.
Thought I would show you the basement. Not much to look at but it is another part of the house that I haven't shown yet. This picture was taken from the bulkhead door stairs.
This one was taken from the back corner looking towards the bulkhead stairs.
Can't wait to see what the house looks like with the sheet rock up!! SSOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Another Flooring Sample

Here's another flooring sample for you. This is the vinyl for the bathroom floor. It has 9 inch squares. I'm trying to pick flooring that will be pretty neutral so we can paint the walls just about any color we want. Now that I have this sample we can go and pick out the color for the bathroom sink.


I've decided that Gary needs to make some nesting houses to put up at the house. We've had fun watching the birds that use the houses at Mom and Dad's. This year we have a pair of Great Crested Flycatchers. Hopefully we'll be lucky enough to see the babies take their first flight. Last year we had White Breasted Nuthatches in the birdhouse and Alex and I were lucky enough to see the babies take off.
Here are Mom or Dad Flycatcher

Flooring and Cabinets

No house pictures to show today, but here is a picture of the flooring and the kitchen cabinets wood. The flooring is cherry and will go through out most of the house. The smaller piece of wood is the sample for the kitchen cabinets. This is rustic alder in a natural stain. The rustic means that the cabinets will have knots in the wood and may have some knot holes in them. Ashland Lumber where we are getting the cabinets from had these cabinets in one of their displays and both Gary and I loved them.

It is lucky that both Gary and I tend to like the same things. It has made picking out the flooring, cabinets, counter tops and hardware easy. Out of everything picking hardware for the kitchen was the hardest but we found some that we both really like. I tend to like a more contemporary feel and Gary tends to like more traditional.
I'm off to the flooring place today to get a sample of the bathroom vinyl we picked out. I forgot I needed it so we could pick out the color for the bathroom sink and counter.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Friday, July 9 and Saturday, July 10

I wasn't sure that there would be anyone working on the house yesterday. When I got out of work at 8:30am it was pouring rain. It stopped late morning so I thought I'd better get out to the house site since I had told Debbie I would be there. There was a small group of people working away at the house. Three of them had started putting up the siding. Debbie and I finished stapling that fibery fabric/paper stuff to the studs in the house. This is the stuff that will hold the insulation in. Dad - if you are reading this, the insulation they are using is Cel-Pak by National Fiber. Gary said you had asked about the insulation before but he didn't know anything about it at that point. We have a brochure we can send out to you.

When I arrived at 12:30, this is what the house looked like. The color of the siding is Vintage Cream.



Here's the back.


And here is the other side of the house. It's hard getting pictures of this side. By the time the guys finished for the day, the siding was up to the bottom of the windows on all 3 sides.

These next pictures show what the inside of the house looks like right now. This is from the back of the house looking down towards the door.


This is from the door looking down the hall to the back of the house. On the left is the entry closet and to the right is the living room.
This is the living room and through the stud wall is Alex's room.

This is the dining room. On the right you can see the fibery stuff stapled onto the walls. To the left you and see the roll of more of this stuff. Still need to finish putting it up.

This is the kitchen. Behind this is the bathroom. The black thing is the tub.
The electrician was there this week and ran the wiring. It is great to be able to see where all the switches, outlets, lights, etc will be. I can't believe how fast the house is coming together. I thought it was going to be a lot slower than it has. And the people who keep coming back week after week is just amazing! I am so thankful to all of them. We wouldn't have a house coming together without the help from all the volunteers and the people from Pemi Habitat. I am really happy to be able to start working on the house again myself. I missed being able to do it when I was sick.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Bad Blogger

Well, I goofed, I didn't get these pictures posted when I said I would!!! Sorry! These pictures are from 2 weeks ago, showing the foam insulation going up on the outside.



Alex had fun playing with a giant magnet on wheels. He went around the house picking up nails.
Last week the house didn't look much different but everyone had done a lot of work. They put tape over all the joints in the blue insulation boards. Inside the house they put some sort of thin man made fiber (I have no idea what it is called.) on the out side walls. This stuff comes in big rolls and reminds me of some stuff I use in my art projects. This is what will hold the insulation when it gets blown in.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Work from June

These pictures are a little out of order but I want to get them posted. These were all taken in the middle of last month. Here everyone is starting to shingle the roof.



Before they started shingling, they were putting up particle board and finishing the roof over the dining area and porch.



This is the particle board going up on the back of the house.




Here are the start of the walls inside the house. We are standing in the doorway of the kitchen/dining room area.
I am finally feeling much better. I started back to work a couple of weeks ago and now feel strong enough to start working on the house again. I won't be able to this Friday, since I'm scheduled for a full day at work but I'm hoping once the temperatures cool off, I'll be able go over and to do some site clean up.
I do have some pictures of what was done last week. I WILL get them put up on the blog tomorrow. Now that my energy has returned, I should be able to keep up with posting better than I have!!!