Fancy pants windows with fancy pants trim

Dad came over Saturday morning and we started working on trimming out the windows in the solarium. We've got a couple more adjustments to make, but otherwise, we're ready for paint!

Tying up loose ends

Well folks, the weather is turning colder and we’re running short on daylight most days after I get off work. That means we’re having to take better advantage of our weekends..before the snow starts flying!

Finished up some of the trim pieces around the bay window that hadn't been done. Looking pretty good up front!

This past weekend was a long one, thanks to Veteran’s Day. Saturday was a busy day for a number of reasons (more on that below) and my office was closed Monday, so we were able to get quite a lot accomplished in a fairly short amount of time.

Story time: Friday night was spent doing a little grocery shopping and getting ready for my mom’s surprise party the following night. She specifically requested no party, but it was her 50^th – we HAD to! So, Friday night was prep night. Saturday, it was my job to keep her distracted from my dad and sister while they put the pieces together and got everybody rounded up. I find the best way to distract anybody is to have them haul stones for most of the day..

Get to work.

Anyway, the party was a success and the birthday girl was REALLY surprised, so that was a lot of fun. Mom and Dad have both helped me out a lot over the last year and half (..or 25, but who’s counting) so it was nice to be able to do a little something for her.

The day after the party was pretty much a lost cause. I did do a little laundry and a couple dishes, but it was mostly a day of recovery from Saturday’s festivities. I hadn’t over-indulged as much as some, but I had hauled enough of that rock to have difficulty climbing stairs! Basically anything from my butt cheeks down was feeling the burn from all of our landscaping.

This was the process: string line, spade for trenching, gloves for moving stones. woof..

I rolled the stones back out of the trench and lined it with landscaping fabric to (hopefully) keep weeds from popping through.

I'll fill this with mulch - it's going to look so good! :)

I couldn't believe how far the stone went! I thought for sure I'd run out before we got everything done, but we actually had a few little pieces left over. That's good living.

Monday saw more work inside as the temperature dropped – that meant finishing up some of the baseboard and random trim pieces that hadn’t been done before, filling holes, and touch-up painting. This detail work takes a little longer, but makes such a big difference when it’s done!

I had to have my (new) drywall patched to account for the new windows being slightly smaller than the old ones.

I also put in a special order for these grilles to give the look of divided panes - I think it makes the house look better AND is more in keeping with the details in the old pictures I was given. 

Testing out my grilles....ignore the painters tape :)

We also trimmed out the front door and finished up the baseboard in the solarium. I'm always amazed how FINISHED that baseboard makes everything look!

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 :)

Kitchen mini-update

Getting all the trim installed around the kitchen doors and windows. New beadboard and stainless steel backsplash, too! There's more stainless to come, so stay tuned.

Italian Plum Tart: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/italian-plum-tart-recipe/index.html
I subbed a little fresh orange juice for the liquer and left out the tapioca entirely.

Good night, sink.

I pick up my new farm box this afternoon – I wonder what I’ll be eating this week?

Painting/Cooking/Boozing/Cleaning/Traveling

First coat of "Greyhound" in the office. So far, so good! Probably finish the second coat tonight and start touch ups on the kitchen paint - cabinets and walls.

Homemade bread..who needs the grocery store?
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/honey-white-bread-recipe/index.html

Garden-fresh broccoli! I had great expectations that this would last me a little while. Those expectations vanished when I ate the entire head for lunch..

I've been squeezing more and more 'fun stuff' into my days lately - this was taken while crossing Lake Red Rock (just north of Knoxville) on the way to Cedar Rapids and Cedar Falls to spend the weekend with friends! I didn't do any boating, but I did take a nap while on the lazy river..nice little sunburn.

Aside from the friends, this was possibly the highlight of the Cedar Falls trip. Bloody Mary with fresh tomato juice, bacon, pickle, celery, roasted asparagus, and a sweet little pepper. Glass was rimmed with seasoned salt and pepper. I was basically full after this, but continued to eat breakfast anyway. 

Laying in a park, listening to bluegrass. Happy summer, everyone!

Superbase

This weekend was the last I’ll see of the dogs for a while. The parents made it back from Texas late Friday night, and took the dogs Saturday afternoon. I took lunch over to their place and we got a game plan for the weekend.

My little carpentry project last weekend: lining the closet with wood, hanging shelves, and painting. One or two more coats should do it..the roommate got antsy to move her things back in..

Dad and I decided we’d like to get started hanging the baseboard. And while the thought was nice, the execution was going to drive me crazy.

For a while now, every time I’ve gone to look for something it has miraculously gone missing... either because I’m a crazy person or because everyone puts things in a different place when they’re done. So, rather than wander the house for an hour looking for tape measures and things like that, we decided to clean and organize the garage as it has needed it for quite a while.

You can tell we cleaned, right?

Believe me, it's so much better than it was!

We finished up with that project and had dinner at my place. Take-out = no dishes.

Sunday morning, I got the chance to work on my surround sound system a bit. I ordered a system through our local Radio Shack and it came in! I started putzing around with it Friday on my lunch break, but quickly decided that I was probably going to need to focus on this project for longer than the extra 25 minutes I had at the time. In addition to the speakers, I bought a kit that will mount each unit to the ceiling and orient the speakers so the sound hits me in the teeth while I’m sitting on the couch J

Tiny rear surround speaker. It rocks :)

We had computer speakers rigged up to the TV for sound. Shouldn't need those anymore!

Dad stopped over just in time to lend a hand with this project and it went together pretty smoothly.

After that, we got to work on the baseboard. After messing with the table saw for a bit, we got to work and got quite a bit done considering we were sort of learning as we went along.

This is what we were up against..

Because the floors slope toward the front of the house (remember, my “greenhouse” was originally a porch.. and the floor still sheds water!), we thought for a while about the best way to hang the baseboard. I decided that I’d like the trim to be at the same level all the way through the house. Whether that’s the easy way to do it or the hard way, I don’t know.. Anyway, I bought 8” and 10” baseboard so that we would have plenty of excess board when scribing it to the variations in the floor.

We still need to lay some quarter-round along the bottom to hide any gaps, but it already looks so much better!

We got to the point where we’ll have to switch over to the 10” boards before calling it a night. More work on this tonight, I imagine.

One corner hung, waiting for holes to be filled and sanded. See the need for quarter-round here?

And you can see the floor sinking slightly here. The closer you get to the front door, the more the floor drops. We've got taller boards to make up the difference.

As I write this, Dad is on his way to the store to pick up materials for cabinet-making! We measured everything before he left for Texas, and once the baseboard is hung, we should have room in the garage to build a few boxes. Pictures and posts to follow…wish us luck! J

This is what the door/drawer fronts should look like (we hope!) when done. They'll be painted the same white as the trim, door jambs, and fireplace brick. Again, wish us luck :)

No, I'm not dead.

I’m just a really bad updater.

But I’ve been busy!

Not only did I have my first (birthday!) party in the house, but I’ve welcomed two new roommates..one of whom is a cat.

A house-warming palm! And my giganto aloe..I told you I was turning this into a greehouse!

The birthday party was really great. 20-25 people..just big enough that we could have a dance party in the living room, and small enough that I got to talk to everyone and thank them for coming J It was also just a really good excuse to see people I haven’t seen in a while. Some of my best friends made the trip from Cedar Rapids or Des Moines just for the night..and I was so glad to have them! Everybody gets so busy that we don’t always take the time to hop in the car and go see one another on the weekends.

Wal-Mart plants on the window ledge in the dining room.

It was also pretty cool because I invited a bunch of people that I like, but didn’t necessarily know all that well outside of work or the occasional run-in. By the end of the night, I think everyone had met somebody new and become closer to people they hadn’t known as well before. Mission: Accomplished.

Lots of compliments on the house – especially the light fixtures. It made me feel like all the work we’ve been doing has really paid off (not that having a roof over my head wasn’t payment enough, but you get the idea).

My new (old) cupboard in the dining room! It's currently holding every dish, cup, fork and spoon I own..in addition to displaying all my moonshinin' stuff on top.
Disclosure: I don't actually make my own booze. I bought this because I thought it looked cool. Though, after watching "Moonshiners" last weekend, I think I might like to try it one day :)

The roommate thing has been in the works for a couple weeks. I didn’t say anything because I have this tendency to say things with regard to the house that don’t materialize.. (i.e. I’m moving in THIS WEEKEND!!  ..three months later). I thought pretty hard about it, and decided that it would probably be alright, even though I really like my alone time.

From the laundry, looking through the kitchen into the dining room (with more pieces of the whiskey still) and the living room beyond.

Granted, it’s only been a little while; but, so far, I think things are going well. The cat is actually providing a valuable service by killing any spiders it sees roaming the floor, and the roommate Swiffers said floor almost every day before I get home from work. It’s apparently a cat-hair-related Swiffering, but it’s a Swiffering nonetheless.

The cat-roommate is entirely against everything I have ever said I would do. Ever. I am not a cat person and don’t know that I ever truly will be. But, this cat comes with my friend who comes with a few hundred dollars a month in rent. Which is nice. Also, the aforementioned spider-killing is reassuring. As long as I stay on his good side, Charlie the cat will patrol the house for movement.

Charlie the Spider Slayer. I caught him between yawns..it's been another rough afternoon.

That said: if he pees outside his litter box, I’m sending him to “the farm” where he can “play with the other cats.”

Progress has slowed slightly since the roommate moved in. Helping her move in and then re-situating everything in the kitchen and bathroom took some time. But, this past weekend we got back after it and finishing routing, sanding, and painting the baseboard.

8 & 10" baseboard routed, sanded, and painted. Boom.

This has been a pretty cool project, actually. I was dreading it because I don’t know how to run the router. I tried two boards: the first was fine; the second looked like cooked bacon…a little wavy. Luckily, the former Roommates spent a good chunk of the weekend over here in the garage and we got it knocked out.

Now to hang it and finish it with quarter round. Then on to a new project!

I saw a version of this on another blog: using a painters canvas dropcloth as a curtain. I'll hang it from the 1/2" conduit and have a custom, made-to-fit system for my baywindow. Total cost: $18. I like the color and texture of this stuff.. More to come!

Tonights dinner: I've had this chicken soaking in a brine overnight (all the onions and carrots have sunk to the bottom)..I'll let you know how it tastes. By the way, those are peppercorns...just so you know! ;)

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck..

We have been woodchucks here at the house the last few nights. Chucking old wood trim up onto the wall and giving things a more finished look. Granted, I still have holes to fill and another coat or two of paint to apply, but things are looking really good so far!

The old trim we're using came from the house next door that's being demolished soon. It has these nice blocks at the baseboard level that make the doors look like somebody wealthy lives in this house instead of me :)

The molding over my bedroom door - the kitchen side.

My bedroom door from the inside. Fancy pants.



The trim around the window in the office.



The doors and windows that I know how to trim have been trimmed, and now I’m waiting for my knowledgeable reinforcements for guidance on the pocket doors and longer window “tops” to match the molding over the doors.

Aside from that, we vented the dryer and I did my first FULL load of laundry in the house. It was a very successful first run, and very nice to not have to lug a bag of clothes to a laundry far, far away. I’m also having a water softener installed. Water softeners might be more of a Midwest thing: when you talk to people out East, they kind of look at you funny. Because of the mineral content in the water here and the damage it can do to faucets and water heaters – not to mention how dry it makes your skin in the middle of winter – it’s a nice thing to have.

Otherwise, I’ve been nurturing my little Wal-Mart plants, testing out my new toaster, and getting my things organized.

And eating dinner, of course..

The garage has been taken over by sawdust and lumber again for the trim projects, so I have had to scrape the ice off my windshield in the mornings before work, but I can deal with that.

IKEA finally came through for me! BOTH lights hanging in the dining room!

The register covers I got for the hardwood floors. They have a brushed finish that doesn't come across in this picture, but I think they look pretty alright.

Things are coming along – trim isn’t as big a deal as I had made it out to be. Once the doors are finished up, we can start on the baseboard.. I bought all kinds of lumber last weekend for that project, and I’m excited to get started. What a difference THAT will make!