It's beginning to look a lot like..finished :)

So, I’ve been posting much shorter entries lately. Which, for long-time readers, is probably fine because there are a few over the past several months that are a bit lengthy. Anyway..for whatever reason, the shorter posts just seem more in line with what’s going on around the house lately. Little projects here are there being finished up – but the impact of those projects is pretty huge!

The last “little” project to be done was painting the inside of the house. The entire. Inside. Of the house. When compared to building a garage or rewiring the entire place, it’s not a huge project..but it took some time, nonetheless. Now that that’s been completed, we got back into trimming things out.

Last night’s project du jour was the quarter round in the front half of the house. When we tore out the plaster and lath and replaced it with drywall, there was a pretty good sized gap between where the wood floor ended and where the wall (and even baseboard, in some spots) began.

Remember these gaps? No more!

The solution I chose was a thicker, taller baseboard that would be more in keeping with the age and scale of the house, and a ¾” x ¾” quarter round strip to fill in the gap and give it a more polished look.

I bought the quarter-round preprimed - all we had to do was throw on a couple coats of the 'White Dove' paint, cut it, and pop it in place.

Over the course of a couple hours last night, we had pretty much everything done save for a few small pieces in the office, and it looks really great!

Much more finished looking!

A few days ago, I took the time to organize where all the ‘header’ pieces would go – because we’re working with salvaged stuff, nothing fits exactly over the doorways in my house, so I was trying to fit each piece to a door with as little cut-waste as possible. Once I had everything placed, we cut the pieces down to fit as needed and did the necessary cutting, sanding, and filling to make them look good once they were in place. As of last night, the laundry room was done and we were starting to think about the more complex cuts for the pieces over the bathroom doors.

Last Tuesday’s farm box came and I feel a little embarrassed that I haven’t used up much of the produce..especially because the next box comes today at 4! Anyway, last night I made up a batch of seat-of-my-pants eggplant Parmesan. I say seat of my pants because I had never had 1. Eggplant, or 2. Eggplant Parmesan. I knew the basics – after all, two of the ingredients are in the name – but had never done it before. Granted, mine was the quickie version – no baking, just skillet-quick – but it was really good and gave me the confidence to buy and use eggplant again in the future!

OK, I cheated..this is NOT a picture of my eggplant Parmesan. I scarfed mine before taking a picture.
And this one looks better.

The other thing I tried was much more by the book – I found a recipe online for a banana cake that looked and sounded really good. I can usually kind of take or leave banana cakes, breads, etc. but this one was quite good. Really dense and moist with lots of cream cheese frosting. (The frosting was not from the recipe..it was mine: 1# cream cheese, ½# butter, 1# powdered sugar, 1t vanilla. So good.)

Waiting for the oven.

Trimmed the rounded top off the bottom layer (and dipped it in frosting..nice snack :) )

Again..cheated..not mine. But mine was kind of crooked - I'm not a professional, get over it.

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2012/05/double-banana-cake

I brought the cake to work Monday, gave a hunk to mom and dad, and had a piece for dessert after my eggplant Parm..and it was pretty well gone! Which is fine..the last thing I need is a double-decker cake staring at me every time I open the fridge.

More trim tonight, I suppose – will post pictures as good things continue to happen! J

Almost forgot my trip (back) to Cedar Rapids! My friends were getting rid of a perfectly good twin bed that I will be putting in my office for visiting friends. We stopped off at Parlor City Pub & Eatery again this time and were very happy with it. Awesome beer selection and good food! http://www.parlorcitypub.com/

Pro.Duc.Tivity.

This weekend was amazing! Not only had Wednesday’s wet snow melted off, but the sun was shining and the temperatures were unseasonably warm…well, at least warm enough to power through some siding, anyway.

We started last weekend and had hung several rows on the back of the garage – a good, straight run to get accustomed to working with the siding. For a couple of amateurs, we didn’t do so bad! As long as you maintain a level line and – in our case – a four inch reveal on each piece of siding, you’re in good shape. A good crisp chalk line comes in really handy on this project.

This was a really exciting corner. Seeing this little bit of siding go up somehow meant the entire house was finished and I could move in immediately. 

A good days progress for three people who have never hung this type of siding before!

Anyway, that was Friday. Saturday was also pretty productive: we laid a lot of groundwork for bigger things to come.

Then came Sunday.

Sunday was the siding day to end all siding days. We kept our collective nose to the grindstone and finished the east side of the house!

Remember, this is how it looked before...

...and AFTER!

Voila!

And dad/roommate and I fixed the booger-y spot in the dining room floor.

Before..

I pried out the worst of the wood floor..

..and replaced it with some of the flooring from a closet. We ended up ripping the "tongue" out of the tongue and groove and just face-nailing the new pieces into place. This isn't how a professional refinisher would do it...but I ain't a professional!

All done! Once the sander has a go at this area, it will take off the random bits of paint and even out the high spots. I honestly don't think you'll be able to tell it's been patched!

And my sister slaved away on the floor pulling up tack strips and staples from the carpet and pad. Hopefully, with that (tedious) job out of the way, we will be in relatively good shape to sand the floors down and get them ready for refinishing!

I’ve also had a nice surprise on the drywall front. My initial contractor had come back at $2,700 to mud, tape, and texture the entire house. Pricey, but not horrible considering the angles, corners, height of the ceilings…and that bit where I don’t know what the hell I’m doing with mud and/or tape. I was set to go when my dad/roommate insisted that I get another bid from a drywall contractor he knows that is supposed to work wonders with sheetrock. He came back with a $2,000 bid and can start Friday! Which is exciting…and sets another new deadline for us: move everything out of the house, and finish tying up the loose ends before drywall man comes to make this shell look like a house again.

Big days like these call for big celebrations! Unfortunately, I was too asleep to celebrate much. Although, margaritas are tentatively on the books for...someday. Feliz Lunes!