Progress Party

I came home over lunch yesterday to check on progress, and couldn't believe the activity. In addition to the contractor, there was our wrecking crew (now acting as trim carpenters), the plumber and the electrician all working hard. It was a progress party! So the changes from the day are widespread and oh-so-satisfying.

First thing - see those glowy things at the top of this photo? That's right - we have lights in the kitchen for the first time in over two months!

Don't worry, these lights are just temporary. The real lights - surface mount schoolhouse fixtures - will be installed after everything is painted. But these are great in the meantime, so we can actually see our new room!

Moving along, we also have running water in the kitchen now. This was originally slated to happen last Friday, but our farmhouse sink required a special fixture to connect our garbage disposal, so we had to wait a bit longer. It's so nice to have it up and running, and washing my first load of dishes in the sink was wonderful - it's such a nice deep basin.

Garbage disposal! Our last one hadn't worked for about a year, so this is a pretty novel improvement for us.

We also have lots of nice, new oak trim installed. The trim guys have been working hard all this week, and expect to have everything wrapped up by the end of today. It really gives the room its shape and will be a great frame once it's all stained nice and dark, to match our home's original woodwork.

They used two of our original doors on the main floor - an old close door in the office became a closet door in the kitchen, and an old door adjoining the office to the kitchen is now our half bath door. They cut oak to fill in the opening from the old mortise, and used nice new, oversized hardware to cover old hardware holes.

Our dishwasher is installed - it was also waiting on the sink drain connector. And see the blue tape to the left, at the corner of the sink? The trim guys cut little wedges to fill gaps around the curve of the farmhouse sink. All they need is a little stain to feel right at home.

And the stove is next in line for appliance installation. The plumber ran the gas line today for the cooktop, and the electrician got the outlet all set up, so the wrecking crew guys should have it in place today.

Speaking of the electrician, he went to town with outlets everywhere. The ones in the kitchen and bathroom tile will have matching white ceramic switchplates to tie them in, and the rest will have bronze switchplates, which we have throughout our house.

So that's it for now. The trim guys should have everything wrapped up today, and then the hardwood guys come back tomorrow to put a final coat of polyurethane on the floors. Painting begins next week, and should be the beginning of the end for this project.

It's finished!

I'm happy to announce we're done with the back of the house. I'm working on an animated gif that will show the entire process, but until then, you can see the final results below. We rented an airless paint sprayer for the final coat, Expensive, but time saving.

Our turning walnut tree leaves inspired a final yellow coat on the attic vent window. Overall we're happy with the results, and even more happy to be done.

Paint Progress

Fall has been nearly picture perfect around KC. The cool dry season has proven perfect for house painting. With each week's passage, I find myself getting more and more nervous about getting everything done before the end of the "painting season."

Thankfully, today we were able to finish the 1st coat of paint on the entire back of the house. We even broke out some orange paint for the attic vent area, which was like a cherry on top of all the progress.

We used to live on a screet in KC affectionately called "Nutterville" by locals, in which every home was painted with a wild pallet of colors that you really don't see anywhere else in the city.

We jokingly called our orange vent an "ode" to our previous hood, and we like it - (hopefully the neighbors do too).

Our last step for the back of the house is to rent an airless sprayer and cover all the blue shingles again. We used rollers for the 1st coat, but there are too many valleys to fully cover with a roller. Anybody have some advice on how to pick out a good sprayer?

Handy Hardware

The cabinet guys were back in full force yesterday, installing crown and hardware to our cabinets. To be honest I wasn't too excited about it yesterday morning - I kind of felt like this week would be a slow one in terms of progress. So imagine my excitement when I got home to see these lovely details.

Cat added for dramatic effect.
 

We're using a two-piece trim, so you can see in some places where the first piece is in, a flat piece with decorative lines along the bottom. The pictures above of the white cabinets show the final look with both pieces in, and below you can see what the under piece looks like over the dark cabinet.

The crown and hardware may be small details in terms of the overall project, but they make a tremendous difference in the look. We are so happy with how things are coming along, and pleased with the surprise of the dramatic change.

They should be back today to continue their good work, and the stack of glass cabinet inserts, doors and trim left in the kitchen makes us very excited for another day of great strides. They will also putty and put a final finish coat over all the nail holes and cracks for a perfectly finished look.

And while we're on it, let's take a moment to look at the grain in the dark cherry cabinets. My original pictures were in poor light and with my ancient cell phone, so here's a close-up of the grain. We were actually originally going to use oak for our dark cabinets, as that's what the rest of our downstairs trim is made out of, but when we got into the cabinet showroom C spotted a beautiful cherry vanity and the rest was history.

So that's where we are. We appear to be about 3 weeks from finished now (and we're on our 6th week, so we should land around 9 total weeks when all is said and done). Next week they're refinishing our hardwood floors on the entire main floor, so we're busy moving out of the house this week, and have scheduled piano movers to move my 1920's upright (which translates into incredibly heavy but very lovely old piano) out to the garage so that it's out of the way. Then refinishing should be about a week of work/drying/defuming. The following Monday, which happens to be Halloween, will be countertop installation (I'm so excited) followed by two weeks of painting, trimming, installing fixtures and faucets, etc. until everything is finished and we can enjoy our new home!

Climbing the Ladder

We're almost done sanding the huge back wall of shingles at our house. Once this wall is done, we're hoping the rest will feel a lot easier. Needless to say, this project was harder than we anticipated, but we think that the work will all be worth it in the end. Jay and Alex pitched yesterday to help us speed up progress. Results below.