End of Summer - sigh. . .

Well, it's been a busy summer. I received a temporary promotion about the same time as I installed the kitchen faucet. Shortly after my temporary stint ended, I received a permanent promotion. Consequently, the amount of free time has drastically been reduced. But the summer has not been without it's projects.

The grass growing project went well. We didn't lose any topsoil thanks to the mesh/straw material we purchased at Lowes. I still have some work to do this fall to overseed some small bare areas.
I also finished off the dining room moulding project. It turned into more work than I was anticipating and it didn't help that after painting the walls high gloss, I painted the trim with flat. Grabbed the wrong can of paint and wound up finishing the repainting 15 minutes before company stopped by. Still want to install some crown moulding.

We also just painted my youngest's bedroom. Very girly pink. We're still trying to figure out what to put above the bed.
In addition, she repainted her desk with a slightly pink white. New desk hardware.
This swag light, which was a gift to my daughter from my sister, meant running new wiring through the attic.

More to follow. . .

Progress, finally

This past weekend, we picked up where we left off, getting my eldest daughters bedroom painted. I tried out Lowe's Valspar paint and was very pleased with the results which was in stark contrast to Home Depot's Behr paint that we used in the half bath. I don't think the picture accurately reflects the paint color and we are hard pressed to give the color a name. It's not yellow, it's not tan, it's not quite gold. Sherwin Williams calls it Cupola Yellow, so we'll stick with that.

We have more work to do in here however. We're going to move the bookcase and headboards out as they don't go with a sixteen year olds room. I made the headboards and bookcase, so sentimentality dictates that we'll hang onto them. I'll replace the bookcase with a simple night table and taller lamp. After I have the table, we'll hang the artwork. My wife is also going to make some curtains.

We've been debating about what projects to tackle this summer. Part of the reason that the work slowed off during the winter is that our basement is so cold due to no insulation. I'm kicking around whether I want to stud it out and insulate.

New Painting Project

We started a quick project this past weekend, which is painting my eldest daughters bedroom. The room is pretty small for the two twin beds we have in it, so to get everything away from the walls, we had to push everything into the middle.  I wound up finding a number of screw pops in this room that needed spackling, so between that and my son's basketball game, it wound up being a preparatory weekend.  We're planning on working the painting several evenings this week.

Back to Work

We wrapped up painting the half bath this past Saturday and put the bathroom back together on Sunday.  Home Depot's Behr paint was very very thick, similar to the consistency of maple syrup and didn't go on very smoothly.  We'll try Lowe's next time.  

We received the mirror as a Christmas present which replaced a builder's grade oval mirror.  

The new exhaust fan is extremely quiet.

Nothing too exciting, but we're on the one room at a time phase at this point.  I've gotta get out to the store to purchase the moulding for the dining room soon.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year.

I've had the week off from work and have generally putzed around the house.  My wife and daughters have been fighting a cold this past week, which has limited our mobility.

Today I started prepping the half bath to be painted tomorrow.  There were eighteen nail pops that needed to be spackled which is kinda high.  Some probably didn't need to be fixed, but when I saw several obvious ones, I got out the flashlight and went to work.

In between coats of spackling, I also replaced the bathroom's exhaust fan.  The fan that the builder installed was extremely loud and would wake us up if it was running as it is below our bedroom.  The new one is nice and quiet.

I've also been starting to think about what I want to do with the basement.  I don't have a workshop right now, just an area where I have my workbenches and tools laying out.  The basement walls have no insulation and consequently it gets pretty cold down there.  Getting some studs and insulation up on the walls will warm things up, however I'm still in the mulling phase of this project and am not sure I'm happy with what I've come up with so far.

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.