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!

Mmmmm, the Smell of Progress...

Usually a super toxic smell that I'm not allowed to be around at the moment. Awesome. Luckily, Mr. Moneypit and Mr. Chaz Adams rocked it out so I didn't have to. :)

So we rented the big floor sander from Home Depot - note to other DIYers... the sander rental; CHEAP! $50 for the day! Sweet!! Um... the sand paper, that you have to buy... to go with it... upward of $250 for what they "recommended" for our little one and a half rooms!!! But more on that later... The boys did the coffee room... (Nick, stylin' as always)

 And the family room

 We tried to protect our new carpet and semi-furnished bedroom as best we could... though perhaps ended up turning it into a bit of a scene from Dexter...

 Sunday we returned the rental with HALF the recommended sand paper, thanks to my dad lending us this baby to finish up...

 Not too shabby... (NOTE: that was not the ShopVac we used, we actually had [also from my dad] his heavy duty dust-wrangling attachment on the ShopVac - sort of like this - if you can get your hands on one of these if you're doing this yourself, DO IT, we didn't even need tack clothes, it got ALL the dust...)

 Back to the family room, where Nick was laying down the first layer of Poly while Chaz stained the coffee room our most favoritest stain color, Minwax's Dark Walnut.

Love love love... it's so exciting, I can't wait for them to be totally done! Which will be... later this week. Hopefully. 

Bad Blogger...

Is it possible my last post was over a MONTH ago??? In my defense, we've been working our tails off with the holidays, the show, and trying to get our C of O (the last stipulation for closing this book). Here's just a little picture tour of what's been going on...

Bedroom mouldings going up... 

 and up and up...

Master bath vanity needing finishing... oh, and mirrors...

How many Clarkson engineers kids does it take to lay a rug??

hehe, obviously kidding since they did an amazing job...

The soon-to-be-nursery rug down and moulding up...

 Damn crooked ass house... :)

Oh my goodness... that bedroom is starting to look like a BEDROOM!

Mouldings painted, carpet down...

Brick approves...

And last but not least... could that REALLY be the floor under all that mess??

Yes... yes it is... amazing what a little ok a lot of sanding and staining can do to original wood floors... (we did not do this, by the way, we left this one up to the pros...)

But now I'm reconsidering refinishing the rest of the third floor, rather than carpeting... 

That concludes our quick, up-to-date tour, more as it comes, promise!

2 Post Day!

As the other blog gets ignored... (#writersblock) its a 2 post day over here at the Money Pit... SO let's talk about sills shall we... or aprons, or stools or whatever you want to call it... either way, my Dad rocks windows socks off...
So last week... after working his full time job, and after working an entire weekend at a craft show for my mom's full time job, my dad came to my house and measured all 20 of my windows to fit them for sills... then went home and cut them. I got this picture [when I woke up] because my dad texted it to me at 11:30pm Tuesday when he finished cutting them...

 THEN came over to install them...

 Wednesday, Thursday... Friday...

 Saturday...

Stopped by Sunday before and AFTER the football game...

Until we had:

In like... every room... #greatestdadever

But you'll have to wait for the rest of the photos, my lovelies... we'll be doing a full post-inspection reveal tomorrow... depending on how the inspection goes :)

Whoa.

So... today is the FINAL (hopefully) bank inspection... which would mean, no more contractors, no more begging the bank to pay the contractors, no more inspections, no more (non-self imposed) deadlines... basically; for the first time since we got into this mess, we will no longer have to rely on SOMEONE ELSE telling us how/when/what to do with OUR house. Freedom. SO... lots and lots and LOTS of work went on this weekend, and this past week... but I still owe you a shower installation post!! So let's start there. Back on Thanksgiving weekend (holy crap that was so long ago at this point!) Kev came over to fix the screwup from our lazy/dumb/overpaid plumber made of our shower, which basically meant taking the whole thing apart, cutting the pipes, and putting it back together. It looked something like this...

we were starting to get a little punchy...

Two boys in a tub grabbing a pipe... not as sexy as it sounds...

But the finished product.....:

TAAADAAAA!!! Well done boys!!! (I extra enjoy the beer on the back of the toilet!) Couple that with our schmancy new sinks:

And we've almost got a bathroom... 

Too Busy to Blog?

For shame!! Let's catch up, shall we? I have a bathroom and a wood floor post for you! But, since the photos for the bath are not quite "blog-ready" – let's cover the floor first...

We had this:

when we moved in; 12-15 boxes of pre-finished cherry hardwood (about 350 sq ft). In the house, ready to be installed. So this weekend we installed it in the hallway on the second floor. 

Saturday we had help from Nick's stepdad Dave, who, as usual, was pretty much a rockstar. First we put down the underlayment...

 Then the first row had to be nailed in by hand.

 Getting started was the hardest part...

Till we got to this...

I knew this part would be tricky... and after much debating...

We figured it out...

 More nailing, (and Genny Cream Ale) and by 8:30 pm we had....

Siiiigh, not bad for 12 hours... I guess... On to Sunday...

Sunday Meg and Paul came to help... and thanks to them, despite feeling like we'd both run a marathon, we were able to soldier on!

 

Until finally I turned around and saw Cole sitting in the middle of the finished part of the floor playing with his toys, and I said, "Meg!! Your son is actually sitting on the floor of my second floor playing!"

 That was pretty cool...

So by the end of Sunday... we had actually [almost] finished the whole hallway... 

Finished enough to take the rented nailer back at least!! Some last touches with our pneumatic nailer and we can put a bow on this baby... I'm pretty pleased with it... Which is good, because this might be the most extreme form of "nesting" known to man...

Ha!