Outside Projects

A month or so ago, Jeremy and I spent a couple of full weekends scraping/priming/replacing our fascia and installing the flashing to finally finish the roof. We now have a house almost entirely ready for paint! We're pretty stoked about that.

We also planted our garden (these pictures are hilarious to me, the garden was planted months ago and everything seen here is about 5 times this big) with lots of tomatoes, peppers, herbs, squash, beans, edamame, fennel and onions:

Weekend Demo

This weekend was full of projects, getting dirty and crossing items off of lists. I am sore but very pleased with the amount of progress that Jeremy and I made. The most progress was made with general maintenance on the front yard and with our former/current weight room future baby's room.

We: removed all door/window trim and baseboards, pulled up carpet/pad, removed old oak flooring, refastened all loose sub deck floors (which was all of them), demo closet, laid 1/2 inch ply for an underlayment in prep for new wood floors. 

Here is the room in all of it's naked hollowness. 

It is now ready for (in order):

1. New wood floors

2. New windows

3. Trim and baseboards

4. New closet system

5. New door

Hurray!

House Reno: Summer 2012 Bucket List

"Hunny, what house projects should we work on this summer? What should be our goal to finish?" ME

"Why don't we start and finish the dining room addition?" JEREMY

"Yea, that would be really nice to have done." ME

(After thinking about it for a day or two I am regretfully excited to tell you that we will NOT be doing the dining room this summer. WHAT?? Well, Jeremy and I plan to have a very work busy summer this year. Logically, I would prefer to not get into something like an addition without being able to completely finish it.)

Boo. Kind of.

So, instead, we will be finishing a lot of the projects that we have started already!

1. Finish roof (we re-roofed over a year ago and it's still not finished), fascia,  flashing, prime and paint entire house.

For reasons like this ------>

<------- And this 

2. New front door installed, framed, trimmed out.

New Door:

(Something similar)

3. Finish (ie: wood floor/windows/trim/baseboards/closet shelf system/closet doors/bedroom door/everything) future baby room.

(Obvious "before" photos)

4. New windows in the entire house

5. Possibly finishing the front porch (post columns, railing)

So, there you have it! Wish us luck!

Kitchen stools, doors and a little craft

Kitchen stools:

These were my mother-in-law's kitchen stools that we have used for years. I knew that I wanted a much more simple tall stool for our bar in our kitchen. Stools that will also go well in our kitchen-to-be, not so much our kitchen now.

And then I stumbled upon these while Jeremy and I were thrift store hopping one day for fun. (is that a strange thing to do for fun??) So at 6 dollars a piece I snatched them up! They were rough and beat up but solid wood and the simple, country look I wanted for our kitchen.

And with a lot of sanding and even more paint: viola!

They take up so much less room and I love them!

Doors:
Our guest bedroom now has a door and a door handle!

And for my craft:

I was looking for some theme appropriate decorations online to fill what is now our corner DVD shelf. After Jeremy came home with his giant tv, our corner shelf that is full of DVD's looks so cluttery. So we'll eventually be making an entertainment center for under our tv to hide the DVD's and lightly decorate the corner shelf. I found some cute african safari type animals made out of wire on the Pier 1 site with a steep price tag. I wasn't willing to pay a high price for something that I could make for free... in comes my craft:

Sooo, they are obviously not professionally done, but they're fun and will be a great addition to what I'm envisioning the shelf holding.

Jeremy's shop and our chimney

As Jeremy's work trips have become extended and more frequent, his shop has become more and more of a nightmare. Finding a paint brush became impossible without a phone call in order for him to help navigate me through the mess and arrive at where he hopefully left one last. In addition and most importantly, the lack of organization was increasing the amount of time it took for him to get out the door and start his day. So, organizing the mess and sorting through his shop went on our list. I'm kicking myself for not taking some before pictures but I'm also glad to not possibly embarrass ourselves with how bad it got!

So here's his shop completely organized with our camping gear/hiking/floating gear on the left and stacks of lumber on the right. Everything is super easy to get to and he's now able to see what lumber he has on hand so he's not buying doubles (I've said this before but lack of organization can seriously get expensive if you're constantly buying doubles of something you already had but couldn't find)

We got these shelves to stack his plumbing bins/painting/electrical/grout and tile work bins, his many bags of different colored grout and mortar, tools, etc so he's able to clearly see what he has and where it is and grab it and go. There is plenty of shelf space left for any tools that are typically kept in his truck to be stored in the shop instead.

This was my biggest contribution. Jeremy had bags of screws and nails and bolts, you name it all over. Not to mention the loose nails/etc that were scattered on the floor and in every nook and cranny of his work truck and shop. I will eventually label everything. But for now, row by row, he has organized hardware.

Our poor ceilings have taken a serious beating. Partly due to a desperately needed new roof, which we thankfully took care of last fall. Also partly due to a poorly sealed chimney. So, before we repaired the ceilings, we had to take care of the root of the problem on the roof. Again, no before picture, but I'm happy to say that our chimney is now sealed and mortared.

CHECK, CHECK!

My Mom-Is-Coming-Checklist

I recently had a conversation with my mom about her making a long flight from Woodstock, GA to Pleasant Hill, OR to visit me and my family (who are also spread out to Central Oregon). I cannot wait!! I haven't seen her since our wedding in 2008! I also am excited to have a deadline for some little, and frankly embarrassing, things that need to be done around the house. (Mom, if you're reading this, don't feel bad that we're doing all of this in your honor, it's just a fabulous excuse and a reasonable deadline to get all of these things done)

Here's my incredibly revealing and un-edited list:
(for those of you who know me, this disorganization may be a shock, I would remove any children from the room, I wouldn't want to be a bad example. YA it's that bad)

Weight Room:- Texture/Paint/New light fixture

Guest Bedroom:

- New custom closet built/painted/installed (carpet in closet ripped out)
-New wood blinds

Master Bedroom:-Build a bench/make cushions/find baskets for under storage
-Wall decorations
-Hooks for behind door
-Matching table lamps
-Trim out big window
-Shorten blinds (wayyy too much excess)
-Add height to far corner

Office:

-Finish slate/grout/seal
-Wall decorations above desk

Bathroom:


-Organize/clean under sink

Kitchen:
-Clean/organize under sink
(i think even my camera was a little shocked at this one)

Entry hall way:
-Repair ceiling (it's hard to get a house roofed when your husband is the one doing it, and he also has a job...unfortunately Eugene weather isn't consistent and we had a leak mid project)
-Prime/paint ceiling
-Build Bench
-Hang coat hooks
-Make and hang decorative sign

Living Room:

-Fill holes in trim around sliders/windows
-Prime/paint trim
-Touch up grout

Outside:
-Seal/pressure wash chimney
-Build/plant garden
-take out bamboo
-pressure wash/weed/yard maintenance/burn piles burnt
-Empty tarp building (my mother in law has some things of hers that she stores in a tarp building in our front yard, we're in the process of emptying it out and getting rid of the tarp building)

Cannot wait to get these things started and more importantly cannot wait for the arrival of my mom!!