Merry Christmas!

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

From my family to yours, may you have a wonderful and blessed Christmas!

Tis' the season

I haven't been blogging recently because I haven't been working on the house and life has been busy. That being said, I thought I'd take a minute to keep things current.

Thanksgiving went extremely well. We wound up having twelve people over between my wife's family and some neighbors. The dining room was back in shape.

The day after Thanksgiving, we went and purchased our Christmas tree and decorated the house. Nothing makes a house feel like a home like Christmas decorations.
The first Monday after Thanksgiving is deer season in Pennsylvania. My nephew went for the first time with my Dad and I to hunt land in central PA. We had a great, albeit cold, time hunting the elusive whitetail. This was the first time in 13 years that I hunted with my dad. Unfortunately, we're eating pasta this year because one of us missed a shot. I won't say who, but my nephew was carrying around an empty shell casing afterwards. . . 

This past Saturday, my wife's entire family traveled three hours west to meet up with extended family from Ohio at a Bed and Breakfast. We exchanged presents, ate a lot, and had a good time catching up. My sister in law gave me a Porter Cable pin nailer to work the moulding in the dining room!

Coming home from this trip, another snowflake shut the roads down. I miss upstate NY.

This single snowflake. . .

. . .Can render the entire Pennsylvania road system unusable. 

There was some minor snow on Friday, with barely a coating here. By Friday evening, the roads had iced up and our evening plans to see our nephew sing in a concert were cancelled. PENN-DOT's road maintenance strategy seems to be wait until things warm up.

Saturday morning I returned to the Dining Room project. I had the remainder of the chair rail to get up, followed by the finish work, and painting. By early afternoon, the chair rail was installed and I had caulked the gap left between the wall and the moulding.  

My wife came home with a gallon of trim paint that matched what our builder had used. I had never heard of Duron paint before, but it seemed to go on well. We then painted the chair rail as well as the lower walls with the white trim paint. This morning I got up at 4 am, and after getting coffee found myself finishing up the touch-up work above the chair rail.  

We still have to paint the upper walls with the faux color and also install the decorative moulding below the chair rail. With Thanksgiving right around the corner however, the completion of this project will have to wait until after the holidays.

Incidentally, our family pet has settled in quite nicely and does a good job pulling sentry duty.

Planning, Planning, Planning

Today was spent taking care of my youngest who had a bad headache, watched the Eagles struggle to a tie to the 1 win / 8 loss Bengals, and figured out the picture moulding details. I used Google's SketchUp to create some quick plans which allowed me to visualize what things would look like.  

Once I had the plans drawn up, I used some blue masking tape to transfer a couple of squares to the wall to ensure everything looked correct. I'm glad I did this as I tweaked a couple of things.
I have a day off tomorrow due to having training this coming Friday and plan to start installing chair rail. With about 200' of picture frame moulding, that part of the project is bigger than I first thought. I'm thinking I'll get the chair rail installed, get things painted, and restart the picture frame moulding project when time permits after the holidays.

Kitchen - Done, Living Room - Done, Dining Room - Not So Done. . .

Well, we got past the paint mix-up (pun intended) and repainted the kitchen accent wall.  This is the first color we've done where we are wondering if we should consider something different. The color blends well with the counters and other walls, however we're not sure about how it goes with the cabinets.  I'm planning on tiling the backsplash in a couple of months, we'll revisit the color then.

Thursday afternoon and Friday we prepped and painted the living room and the upper walls of the dining room. There were a lot of nail pops in these two rooms, which I had to repair before I could roll the paint on.  Both rooms were painted the same color, Mesa Tan. Depending on the light, this color looks either very close or much darker than the Ligioniers Tan in the foyer.

Our living room sofa will soon be retired to the basement "game room," the game room presently being nothing more than a place where we have a TV and the kids video games set up. We also rearranged the living room to create a space for my daughter's harp.

What still remains? Chair rail needs to be installed next in the dining room, afterwhich the upper walls will receive a second color wash.   One snag: Friday afternoon I ran out to get the chair rail and picture frame moulding.  Unfortunately, none of the local stores carry the trim for the picture frames, which means a delay of least a week to special order it. It's gonna be a close call to have the picture frames installed for Thanksgiving.

Stirred, not shaken

I took two days off this week to get some painting done before Thanksgiving.  Today was to paint the two kitchen cabinet walls.  Problem number one showed itself as soon as I opened the paint container.  The container had not been shaken at the store where I had purchased the paint.  As the color is a deep red, I stirred and shaked it for a good 20 minutes before things looked uniform.  

The cut in work took several hours after which we started to roll the paint on.  Problem number two - rolling the paint on revealed that it still wasn't mixed well and would occasionally show streaks of the added pigment.  We wound up having to take the paint back to Sherwin Williams to have them mix it with their machine. Upon getting back, we rolled on the first coat and found that the mixing changed the hue slightly from what was cut in.  We'll have to mask everything off again once things are dry and repaint tomorrow.

Mom said there would be days like this.

Foyer Painting - Part 2

Saturday we picked up where we left off, rolling on the paint from Friday's cut-in work. I worked the second floor portion of the foyer from an extension ladder. My wife then painted the lower portion while I worked the second floor landing. The landing received an accent color, Oak Creek.

By the end of the day, we had two coats of paint on the main portion of the foyer and one coat of Oak Creek on the landing. I'll apply a quick second coat of Oak Creek today. 

One thing that made painting the foyer manageable was using a Wagner power roller. This tool pumps the paint into the roller, eliminating the need to use long extension poles or climb up and down to dip the roller in a tray.  The only downside to the tool is that it takes about a half hour to clean all the parts.

In other family news, my son received a set of braces this past week. He had oral surgery two weeks ago to pull some baby teeth in preparation of his receiving the braces.  He got a cheesesteak the night before, the last he'll be able to bite into for two years. . . 

Next up is painting the accent wall in the kitchen and then move on to the Dining Room and Living Room.  I was going to tile the kitchen backsplash before painting but have decided to hold off on that for a while.

Foyer Painting - Part 1

Yesterday consisted of cutting in all the doors, windows, baseboard, and ceiling of the foyer. Painting for me is pretty mindless work which I do not enjoy until it is done.  This being said, I was a little slow in getting started yesterday, which is in part why I only completed the cut in work.  Working off an extension ladder also slowed things down some.  If there was one thing that I would change about my house, it would be to eliminate the two story foyer. While it looks nice, it is an awful lot of wasted space.

The cut in work was wrapped up around 5 pm, after which we had dinner at a neighbors house. It was a fun evening getting to know them, which was capped off by a bread basket catching fire when our host placed it too near a votive candle.  Fortunately no damage to anything other than the basket. We had a good laugh.

Downsizing strikes home

Add paint to the list of items that manufacturers are now downsizing.  Taking their cue from other manufacturers, Sherwin Williams redesigned their new paint container to have a twist off lid, a convenient built in pour spout, and 3 & 11/16ths quarts of paint. It's not a gallon anymore, it's 92% of a gallon.  

Next time you order a gallon of paint at Sherwin Williams, ask them where the other 8% of a gallon is when they hand you the redesigned container.  I tried calling their customer service number to ask, which provided a different phone number, which didn't work. Sherwin Williams, if you are reading this, email me.

This past weekend was spent painting the family room and kitchen. We completed the family room and also painted the main color in the kitchen. The two kitchen cabinet walls will receive a different color later.  The plan is to paint the two story foyer this coming weekend.  

One additional bummer is that the Sherwin Williams paint didn't cover near the estimated 350 - 400 square feet that they quote on the container.  We'll have to buy another 3 gallons for the foyer at the rate it was used up.  Between the missing 8% and the missing coverage, I'm pretty disappointed with S.W.

On the positive side, it feels really good finally de-white-ifying our walls.  You don't realize how sterile things are until color starts to get added. A before (actually during painting prep) and after painting pic:

Color choices and Basement Cleanup

Our paint color consultation on Friday was everything we had hoped it would be. We went from room to room, picking colors and ways to improve each of the spaces. By noon, we had gone through all the rooms on the first and second floor. Starting from scratch like this, the designer was able to pick colors that would flow from room to room. Here's some of our picks, all Sherwin Williams colors:

Ligonier Tan - Family Room / Kitchen / Foyer

Sierra Redwood - Two Kitchen Walls with cabinets

 

Green Sprout - Study

Master Bedroom - Restrained Gold

Friday afternoon we went to pick up the paint for the family room, foyer, and kitchen, seven gallons in all.  The plan is to start painting this coming Friday.

One of the problems with buying new construction is that there is no shelving or defined storage in the basement.   Consequently, we still have a myriad of boxes down there, which makes finding things near impossible.  As I couldn't find some of my painting tools, I figured this would be a good weekend to create some shelving.  I had purchased the supplies earlier this week, which consisted of a couple of sheets of plywood (ripped in half) and some 2 x 4s. By noon, I had 3 shelves twelve feet long and two feet deep.  By two o'clock, we pretty much had all the shelves filled. I still haven't found all of my painting tools, but I did find tools that I had written off as being stolen in the move. 

Two million colors is way too many

Home Depot was having a sale last week on paint, so my wife and I started to look at colors to paint the interior. Both of us are pretty much color blind - not literally mind you. We just have no sense of what color will blend with what, what matches with what, etc. We painted the family room of our last two houses Sherwin Williams Cameo Beige only because our furniture guy (Mario DiSiena of the Furniture House in Malta, NY) loved it. And it worked for the last two houses. By the way, Mario, we miss having you nearby.

But I'm sick of Cameo Beige. And that still creates a problem with what to paint the rest of the house. As we stared at the myriad of colors available, we realized that we were in way over our heads. If we wanted to get anything painted before the holidays, we needed help.

We're having a designer come by this Friday to give us a quick color consult.  

The deck is done!

Friday consisted on buttoning miscellaneous things up on the deck: Caulking screw holes, cleaning out the wood scraps underneath, putting away tools that had filled up the riding mower's trailer.  This project is done!

Harp in the house!

For those of you who know my eldest daughter, you know that she has been saving her money to purchase a harp for several years now. Yesterday we took the plunge and picked up a beautiful Lyon and Healy Troubadour VI harp at the nearest harp store which is an hour or so away.  She starts lessons this Friday and is very excited.

Steps Done!

We wrapped up the steps yesterday and no one is happier about it than I am.  These steps mocked me, taking way longer than I had estimated!  I don't remember the steps taking as long on my last deck, but then again that was a while back.  There are a lot of little details that all take time on steps.

The white railing and trim really pops in the sun-light.  

What's left on the deck?  I have to caulk the white fascia joints / screw heads, clean-up under the deck, and put the tools away.  After that, the next project will involve painting some rooms downstairs.
I took this picture (below) this morning.  A hot air balloon flew over our house and landed in our neighbors yard.  I hadn't realized it until I looked at the picture, but the chase van is driving past the barn.

Go Phillies!!!

One of the senior managers with the company I work for called me in to his office today and asked if I could work overtime today for a "special project."  When I told him I could, he handed me a ticket to today's first game of the playoffs between the Phillies and the Brewers.  I like these kind of work assignments!

I went down with a co-worker who also received a ticket.  We arrived before the start of the game at 3 PM, watched the end of batting practice, then got to our seats.  Despite some light rain, we had an awesome time, particularly because this is the first post-season win the Phillies have had in 15 years.  Go Phillies!

Weekend Washout

The weather did not cooperate this past weekend and I didn't do anything with the deck. Fortunately I was able to catch up on inside work on Friday / Saturday and catch up on a nap on Sunday. I'm hoping that this Friday will be dry so that I can wrap things up on the deck.

We hadn't hung pictures since moving in and we spent a good bit of time on Saturday morning figuring out where most of the artwork was going.  I then spent several hours hanging them.  I still have more to go, but it's nice not having piles of art stacked up.

Good news - The Phillies won the NL East pennant this past weekend!  My condolences to my upstate NY (Mets) friends.

Rainy Weekend

It's been a wet rainy weekend so far.  I've got one day of work left to get the step railings on and skirt board done, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen today.  I'm going to do some indoor jobs today - hanging pictures and organizing the basement.

I got my iMac back from the repair shop yesterday.  They had diagnosed it as a bad power supply. Here's hoping everything is back to normal!

Back to work!

We've had friends from NY visiting for the last several days, here to celebrate my oldest daughters sixteenth birthday. It was good getting caught up with the news from up north. It's still hard to believe that I have a sixteen year old.

I got back out to the deck this afternoon, and got to work attaching the Azek skirtboards. By 7 o'clock, we had all the skirtboards attached. My dad came over for several hours and had some good tips on better ways to do things. I also borrowed his radial arm saw to cut the 12" wide skirt boards. My chop saw can't cut much deeper than 8", so having the extra reach with the radial arm was a great advantage.
At this point, all I have left is to get the skirt boards onto the side of the steps, install the step railings, and some cleanup activities. It's good to be almost done!On the computer front, the Apple store was not able to reproduce the problem I was having after two days of testing. The computer came home on Wednesday, and the problems started again on Thursday. I took the computer back today. Fortunately, the store showed me where the loading dock was, so I won't have to carry the PC through the mall again. The good news - they were able to reproduce the problem today, so hopefully they'll be able to figure out soon.

One cool thing on the work front, my department will be doing a 3 month trial of 4-10 hour days. This will give me every Friday off! We'll be starting this upcoming week.

Til' next time. . .

Rotten Apple

My 9 month old iMac is dead, refusing to start up when the power button is pushed. While I've generally been happy with the computer, this is a major bummer. There is no in home service (unless you purchase an extended protection plan) which means I have to schlep it to the nearest Apple store. Good thing I still have my trusty, though slow, Dell.

Loss of Momentum

I got off to a late start on Saturday morning, having slept in after being awake for part of the night. By the time I got started, it was close to 10 am. Since returning from vacation, I haven't spent any time on the deck project. Work has been busy and I spent 16 hours at work on Thursday working on a problem. Between work and getting things back to normal at home, I haven't been terribly motivated to get back to work on the deck. It was a good thing my Dad was headed over, otherwise I may never had started.

I had thought getting the steps done would be a half day affair. This was an underestimate as things took longer than I had expected. There were a lot of small details to work out, such as how to attach the treads to the risers. I wound up screwing down the back of the rear tread, then using the CONCEALoc fastener between the two boards, and then screwing down the leading edge of the front tread.

As the front treads are not pre-grooved, I had to cut a slot for the hidden fasteners. I spent a bit of time looking for my biscuit jointer in the few unpacked boxes in the basement and am beginning to think that the biscuit jointer "disappeared" in the move. We've already discovered several things that went missing during the move by United Van Lines including a chain saw. Unfortunately I already filed my claim with them and will not get reimbursed for any additional items I find are missing.

By the end of the day, we had all of the start treads attached, the first Azek skirt board cut down and attached, and the Azek for the stair risers cut down.
What's left? Two things: 1) The stair railings and 2) the remaining white skirt boards around the outside of the deck.