NO TIME TO CATCH UP!!

So busy, no time to talk, only show pictures! CHECK OUT THE BADASSERY!

Temporary floor transition until Jay can get us the "special piece" haha. 

TV mount up... quarter round done... 

Quarter round, new paint, windows stained... and suddenly we had a family room!! TV, furniture, pup, and all! It's pretty amazing to see. And I KIND of heart my reclaimed wood wall...

And then the big project... the one everyone was worried about... the railing...

This is what we were dealing with... we basically took down a wall, and rolled a circular saw through the middle of the remaining studs, smacked a 2x4 on top, and VOILA, temporary railing! However the building inspector did not think it was up to code... [SHOCKING, I know]

So in our "Pros vs Joes" moment, we debated tackling it ourselves, or calling in someone who had done it before... "we" came to the decision of "Let's see how hard it could be..."

And the boys got to work... 

The end result:

Color me impressed!!!

And the thing's solid as Sears... Well done, gentlemen!

We Might Actually Pull This Off...

We have.... drywall.

**Clouds part, rays of sun shine down**
**Choir singing**
**Angels playing harps and trumpets**
**Puppies and kittens, living together in harmony**

Lets do some remembering, shall we?

Bedroom

 

Bathroom

 

Stairwell

Studio

Attic

It'll probably be another few days (ok maybe a week) until its all taped and sanded and such, but then it's on the fun parts!!! In the words of Peter Griffin, this house is [gonna be] freakin' sweet...

Door No More

When giving the Money Pit tour, I always felt a little like Willy Wonka opening the door to the factory when we would get to the door at the top of the front stairs... Except instead of a colorful, magical room full of candy, it was a dilapidated war zone with boarded up windows and bare wall studs... But it was still a pretty interesting juxtaposition of demolition next to the relatively finished first floor...

(just realized this was the best pic I had of it... lame.)

Well, in our grand attempt to convert the house BACK into a one family home (as it originally was) this doorway had to go. And the wall enclosing the stairwell at the top of the stairs. 

Which luckily was only that horrible MDF panelling...

Bye bye paneling...

Thankfully this was done circa the 1960's, so it was all drywall, panelling, and easier-to-cut-through "2x4s" that are actually only 1.5" thick... not like our 1900 old growth redwood forest over 2" thick studs the rest of the house is built with...

I love you '60s construction materials for your easy cleanup, if nothing else... 

Yeaaaaaah reciprocating saw...

And there you have it... a... railing? Ok it's only temporary, for OSHA, but look how open that is! Hooray!! It's actually starting to look like a real house!

OH EM GEE...

I found this in my drafts... embarrassingly enough from before I went away... so "Friday" is really September TENTH! **shame** Many, many updates to come this week!

I got home Friday to see this...

"GASP! Are you doing what I think you're doing?!"

I think the words, "I have never been so happy to see someone do something in my entire life!" [I am, perhaps, prone to exaggeration...]

Goodbye you horrible green monster.

And now we have:

[gigantic sigh of relief] It makes such a difference, even though I'm now even more painfully aware of how badly the garden needs weeding... and I don't really care... and I love it.

Slowly Upgrading Ourselves From Squatters to Rednecks...

I figure our "curb appeal" has somewhat been upgraded this summer, perhaps not by much, but at least now it looks like there's someone actually living here. This porch ceiling revival is taking a ridonkulous amount of time to complete... but a check-in is in order, as we finished the priming stage this weekend:

As always, a "before reminder":

We fixed and replaced the panelling, and after uncovering some original (what we consider) outdoor "crown," we put on some new matching lower moulding:

And now after the repairs, some new moulding and a couple coats of primer:

It's still by no means "done" but it's at least a blog-worthy improvement in my opinion... maybe we can elevate ourselves to full-fledged "proud homeowners" before the end of the summer, with a full HGTV-esque fancy schmancy curb appeal "reveal."

Seal It Up, Baby!

Well, it only took 3 months, but we are FINALLY finishing sealing that envelope! That's right folks, the new windows are FINALLY here and getting put in, little at a time! No more worrying about birds and bats and God-knows-what-else flying around inside the joint! So without further ado – extremely bad quality, relatively boring photos!

So this is a taste of what we've been dealing with on the second floor... one's a mess, two are boarded up... this is what we've looked at in the back of the house, where we park our cars, for the last year... 

I got home yesterday and I was greeted with..... 

(Hey I know the pics suck, but you can't complain about sun in Buffalo... let's just imagine it's the clouds parting, and a ray of sunshine is shining down on us, with choirs of angels singing and playing harps!)

So I ran in like a kid on Christmas, stole the hubs' iphone (for slightly less sucky photos – I LEFT MY CAMERA AT WORK!), and ran upstairs to see from the inside. 

Check out how dark this room was... 

That crazy solar flare above the board is where the sun rises every morning... but even in the evening, this is what the room looks like now!

Aw, so sad to see this go... (no, not really...)

We also got one of the windows in the front in!

Before:

After:

Ok, it doesn't look that exciting, but the other one was cracked, and rotted, and all sorts of wrong!

Reading corner:

(what you can't really see is that is plexiglass covering that broken window frame... BROKEN plexiglass at that...)

nooooow:

Okay, I AM painfully aware that these photos are completely anti-climactic, but please trust me, this is a huge deal... and I'm jumping-up-and-down-hand-flappin' giddy about it! More and more and more to come... FINALLY!!! 

So Much For Being Ignored...

So remember when I said I didn't want to be FEATURED on the Garden Walk, I just wanted my house to be "ignorable"... Well...

Siiiigh. How can I say no to something this hilarious? Well, maybe this was the best cover for the front yard AC unit!

Anyway, as per usual, the to-do list expectations exceeded the ability to actually do them, BUT, I'm happy with the progress made. First up, the walk way:

Before:

After:

(this was a sh!t-ton of work, surprisingly... that's annoying...)

The porch; 

New moulding, primed, full update coming soon...

The driveway;

Still a hot mess (shock me shock me shock me!)

Back door;

Likewise

Back of house;

Trip to "the dump" planned... for reals...

And the crown jewel of our new "curb appeal"... the garden!

Let's see what took so long... as we discussed, there was rototilling...

then plant transplanting

and then topsoil

then more tilling...

then plant planning...

with Brick supervising...

then mulching and finallyyyyyyy...

Let's remember before, shall we? (because that's the only thing that makes this impressive, haha!)

Before:

Afterrrrr:

(will be replacing sucky sun-flarey photo tomorrow...) SO we still need to redo the flagstone pathway, and line the garden with the bricks we found on the side of the house, AND cover that massive eyesore of an AC unit... BUT... le sigh, it's ignorable. :)

So our garden was definitely not the star of the Garden Walk... but I don't think anyone noticed... 

We're stars for better reasons... with neighbors like these, who cares about the effing garden anyway? :)