More trim, more paint, more better :)

Kind of a low-key night on the homestead.

I walked through the farmer’s market, bought some eggs, and picked up my farm box after work and went home to see what I was getting into this week. Looks like a good mix – and things I’ve had before! Sometimes the familiar can be good, too J

Lovin' my farmer's market brown eggs!

Contents of my farm box: green onions, mixed lettuce, herbs, misc. tomatoes, chard, little yellow things I have to research, purple peppers. Healthy, healthy!

 My only real project last night was taking the door down between the laundry room and the garage and painting everything. It has been cool enough (FINALLY!) the last two or three days that I felt comfortable enough opening the house to the elements.

Pretty easy process..I unscrewed the hinges from the jamb and set the door up in the garage for painting. I would alternate between painting the jamb and painting the door, giving each time to dry between coats while I worked on the other. Pretty efficient, I’d say!

Garage door all painted up!
My wire rack is looking a bit crowded these days. Another coat of paint on the inside of the kitchen cabinets and I'll clear this out a little better.

I also took a minute to snap a picture of the work we did the night before. In addition to the quarter round from the previous post, we hung the ‘headers,’ as we’re calling them over the doors to the garage and the driveway. It looks so much more finished now! A little caulk, a little paint, and it will look crisp and clean..and, most importantly, DONE!

Trim: in place.

All painted..and glowing :)

Up, up, and away!

Quick picture update from our progress last night: more upper cabinets!!

An addition to the large cabinet seen in the post yesterday. It should look good with a pair of doors, don't you think? All the cabinets will get another coat of paint before I'll be totally happy with them, but for now I think they look just fine! :)

All of them, actually. All that’s left now is the hood over the range, but that’s a project for another day. 

These are the upper cabinets on either side of the range hood that doesn't yet exist. The cabinet on the left has shelves that are set back a few inches to accomodate a spice rack that hangs on the inside of the door.  

As you can see, I really don’t have that many cabinets, but we had to find the wiring we left wound up in the wall for the under cabinet lighting. So between that and the fact the neither my dad nor myself had hung cabinets, I think we made pretty good progress in an hour and a half J

I didn't get a picture of the cabinet hanging in the other corner over the hypothetical dishwasher, but once you've seen one, you've seen them all. The backsplash area behind the stove will be covered with a piece of stainless steel, and I'll wrap the stove-sides of the upper cabinets with it, too. Should be pretty snazzy!

This weekend is a busy one – I’ll be volunteering Saturday morning for a large, community-wide service project, and there’s a graduation party for a family friend that night..so my guess is there won’t be a lot of base cabinet setting happening that day. Tonight and Sunday might be productive, though…I guess we’ll all just have to wait and see!

About Grout

Just a quick update to show the progress we made the day after Christmas.

The tile had been down for a week or more waiting for the right time to grout. With family in town for Christmas, I knew it would be difficult to find a time to make any progress on the house. My uncle, being the damn decent man he is, volunteered to help us grout seeing as he has had some recent experience in that department.

Coming into the laundry from the garage. Kitchen and dining room, beyond.

The grout was pretty self explanatory, but I had the added bonus of talking it over with the salespeople at the Tile Shop. I really appreciated the guidance and actual customer service I received there – I recommend them!

The grout I bought was a modified sanded grout – this means, in addition to the sand and cement-ish mixture standard in this type of grout, this one had a polymer component that would help stabilize the floor and help keep the grout from becoming brittle and cracking over time. In addition to this, I bought a liquid latex additive that further stabilizes and adds flexibility..though flexibility isn’t the right word..

View from "the bathub" looking out into the kitchen.

Directions call for mixing the grout to the consistency of toothpaste, though I’ve heard pudding, peanut butter, etc. all work well. We went a little wetter because we felt it would seep into the cracks better than a stiffer mix. Actually, the bathroom is a little stiffer than the laundry, which is stiffer than the kitchen. I’ll let you know if I have trouble and where.

After filling the voids and smoothing out the cracks (with our fingers..no fancy tools, there), we wiped down the floor several times making sure to clean and refill our buckets frequently to avoid leaving a streaky haze over the tile. I’ve been told that the additives in the grout could make that haze a pain to remove if you don’t get it while it’s fresh, so be diligent.

Kitchen floor grouted! Bathroom, beyond.

48-72 hours from grouting, we'll be able to wipe the stone/grout sealer over the entire area. This will darken everything slightly, but, more importantly, it will help protect both the tile and the grout from staining as they're both pretty porous. Any time after that dries, we can set the fixtures in the bathroom!

I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season..wherever you are!

Garage Roof Update

Just a quick note to show our progress from last night - sheathing on the garage!

Notice the East gable end toward the left, here. The pitch of the dormers should match the pitch of that peak.

As I said last time, the roofers should be here (and gone) before the end of the week. We'll actually be shingling the garage ourselves since the dormers won't be in place before the roofing crew gets here to do it.

We're going to mock up different shapes and sizes for the dormers - the idea at this point is to match the pitch of the dormer with the pitch of the East gable end seen in the picture above. The hope is that the addition will look more cohesive that way instead of 'tacked on.'

Fun, fun! Come back often - lots of updating to see!