Almost there!

These lighting fixtures don't look like anything in these photos, but I think they look great in person. The first one is in my office. Adjustable lights I can point at whatever I'm working on in there. Hopefully.

This is the ceiling fan/light in the bedroom, spinning away. Should give us many years of great service.

I finished prepping and sanding the laundry room today and applied a coat of primer. We bought a little power palm sander and it was SO much easier to do the work. Too bad we didn't pick it up three months ago!

Tomorrow: We move in! We're so excited. Well, I'm also kind of scared to be driving a 20-foot moving truck for forty miles in city traffic, but hey, I can do hard things. 

Benched, lit, and gifted

A bench! We wanted a spot for people to sit and take off their shoes by the front door, so we ordered this cute little bench for the task. 

Here's what it looks like with a jolly person sitting on it. 

We picked up three more light fixtures on Saturday and installed them. The three-light one below can be adjusted a bit to point in different directions and graces the dining room. 

The kitchen light is a 48-inch fixture that puts out a lot a light - just what we wanted!

And the hall. Getting there!

Today was like Christmas - look at these lovely gifts! No, wait, actually we had utilized all of our saved-up Christmas wrap when we boxed up our belongings. 

Now I can eat Cheetos again!

 And cut our pizza properly!

Now it's countdown time to Wednesday and the transfer of furniture, etc., from the Nievaard home to ours.  

Blinds!

Let's start with the kitchen painting. It's done! Here you see what we had to do to prep it to protect from paint splatters. This was taken after Nate put on a primer coat throughout. Thanks, Nate! You can't see it too well here, but if you look at the door to the laundry room (top photo) you'll find that he also reversed the door swing for us. A big job! We wanted it to open that direction so we can put a washer and dryer on the right in there (where the pipes also happen to be...) and not whack them every time we want to go in there and do a load of laundry. 

 I'm not going to miss the big blotches of plaster on these walls that we've been working on for weeks, that's for sure. I'll have to grab a couple of photos of the walls after I finished the two coats of semi-gloss and add them here for good measure.

On Wednesday, The Blindman crew came and installed all of the blinds in about 30 minutes. I wasn't there, but Doug described the two workers as a well-oiled machine. Below is the living room with a very wide set of blinds that is pretty heavy so we probably won't be raising them too much.

Here's (an approximation of) what the kitchen blinds look like on either side of the back door. Yup, they do look like blinds all right. We chose a style that doesn't have any holes in, which make for better privacy, and the slats are just suspended in the strings so they can be removed and cleaned. 

This is Doug's man-cave sporting the new blinds plus he's moving right along with making it cozy. I love that he put the giant Bic pen he made in the corner! 

Carpet!

Here are the steps to installing carpet as I observed yesterday when the guy came with ours. FYI there was just one installer who arrived at about 9am and finished up at about 9pm. He was a really large guy weighing maybe around 400 lbs, and he just carried these massive rolls of pad and carpet on his back. There was a tremendous amount of ups and downs, kneeling, etc., and he just kept at it. 

Step 1. Hammer down the tack strips along all of the edges. Side note: I didn't get a photo of it specifically, but I mixed together a beige sample and some black paint until it matched the entryway tile and painted it along the two side edges of the wooden slab under the tile so it wouldn't be so obvious it wasn't ceramic tile on top.

Step 2. Bring in the carpet pad. Measure, cut, tape seams, staple down.

Like so. 

Step 3. Measure and cut pieces. He did this on the road in front of our house. Not sure how they would do it on a busy street or in the rain or after a snowfall, etc. 

He ran into a snag of some kind when he created the long seam in the living room and was stuck in that spot for about an hour but eventually got it and moved on. 

I left at around 6pm so didn't see him finish the work but Doug stayed. Below is what it looked like when I returned this morning, which doesn't show much except vacuum lines, but we're loving the color and it feels great under your feet. The entryway worked out well. 

Blue masking tape is still all over because I left it there after I applied the "final" coat to the living room, hall, and bedroom trim figuring there might be a little touch-up work on the baseboards after the installation. Note to self: Next time do NOT spend time painting the baseboards before the carpet is installed because the carpet will scratched against it and require major touch-ups.

In this case, there were several chunks knocked out and lots of vertical lines presumably from the carpet stretcher, plus a few square corners that aren't really square anymore. I put some plaster on the worst spots and they've drying tonight. 

So how will I paint the baseboards without touching the carpet? Hmm. Doug said he put masking tape on the basement carpet in our old house to do this, so am going to try that rather than be moving around a drop cloth or cardboard that would be likely to smear paint where I don't want it. 

I spent the afternoon today masking throughout and hope to finish up this project tomorrow. Fingers crossed! 

It's exciting to finally be at this point in the remodeling process! While the contractor installed the carpet yesterday, I emptied a some kitchen boxes and organized the cupboards. It's actually starting to look like someone might live there...soon. 

They nailed it!

The grout in the entryway is done! It only took an hour, so Doug and I must be getting more efficient/proficient at this. I'll paint the sides of the board another day so they blend in with the tile and carpet.

Joe and Nate and Doug worked at the house on Saturday to get the rest of the baseboard in in the areas that will be carpeted. Below are samples of their wonderful work. They truly nailed it! There were some odd angles and other surprises, as there always are in EVERY project, but it looks great. For example, check out the multitude of cuts that had to be made to get in and around the closets. 

Molding, tiling, and showering

Moldings (or "Mouldings" if you prefer a little Brit):

We bought the door casings and wall baseboards and fit them in the car. Even  the 16-foot pieces. Yup, amazing. Doug put them in the garage and gave them two coats of paint. Well, the paint part hasn't happened yet in this photo. 

Am thrilled to say that I finished painting the living room and hall with one coat of primer and two coats of Seriously Sand. 

Nate kindly loaned us his miter saw and stuff like that and Joe spent about 8 hours last Saturday cutting trim and installing it. He's so good at this stuff!!! Hope his family is getting lots of blessings for sharing him with us. 

Our house is starting to look like a - HOUSE!

See the cupboards at the end of the hall, though? I sanded them nicely before painting but after giving them three coats of paint, they don't close anymore. So I get to sand them some more and we'll make it work.  

Joe cut and nailed on all of the door moldings needed before the carpet is installed as well as the living room baseboards. So about 2/3 of the trim or thereabouts. Whew!

This week we (finally!) Doug and I took a deep breath and installed the shower rod. I've learned the power of a good level during our remodeling and put it to good use in placing the bracket templates at either end. Bull's eye!

Ta-da! Doug christened the tub by having a shower yesterday and all is SWELL.

Next project: tiling the front entry. I got my tiles randomized and my little plus sign spacers ready and went for it. It was a LOT easier than my first effort at it in the bathroom, possibly due partly to experience and also to the fact that it's a nice rectangle shape. The door had a few oddities we had to work around, so didn't grout it just yet. 

Still a lot to do before the carpet-layers come, including filling the nail holes in the trim, light sanding as needed, and another coat of paint. Which will involved lots of masking of the newly-painted walls. We can do this!