President’s Day Weekend 2

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holiday, photo

Day 2: We tar papered & put flashing around the edges. Then we ran out of shingles so we had to make a run to Lowe’s.

So then we came back to finish the shingles. Later Gregg will caulk up at the top & put up the new pretty trim boards around the sides to make it really look finished.

President’s Day Weekend

Tags

holiday, photo

Well finally we decided to start putting a roof over the side porch.

Framing is all done. Tomorrow we put plywood, roofing paper & shingles on.

Overdue

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photo, water

The first part of this post is long over due the second part was due just last week. Here is an update to the kitchen. Trim put up & around the opening plus the wall to the back stairs is painted.

Since our hot water situation has been sketchy from the beginning we finally decided we needed to add a water heater to help with the flow. Especially having 4 adults using a shower instead of just the two of us. Also Gregg wants to add another bathroom soon, to create a real master suite in our bedroom.

Pantry to other things

Tags

ideas, photo

Since last time the pantry has come a long way. Gregg made & installed new shelves in the pantry plus I got him to put in a new plug on the outside wall.  Pantry got a new floor too. (half tile/half Melamine)

He also put up a piece of drywall in the back stairwell.  And for the Christmas tree this year he built a base that is round like a drum. (I assume will finish it after christmas to look more like a drum)  Gregg got the idea from the Lowe’s creative idea newsletter.

Thanksgiving Weekend

This thanksgiving weekend we celebrated Gregg’s birthday, plus we cleaned out the old chimney. We brought a small wood stove from Lowe’s for 179$ to place in the old fireplace. It was definitely a “Mike Rowe” job for sure.
The day started with just me in the fireplace poking up the stack to get it clean & Gregg working on shelves in the pantry. But after getting tons of old dirt & ash in my face I needed help. We were able to clean up most up it doing it that way. Then we had to bust up the ceiling in the other room to get access to the top of the chimney to push the rest though.
Dust cover not only us from head to toe but the entire kitchen too. Had dust up our noses & in our ears & on our hair. At least we know we are close to getting the chimney up & running very soon.

Little by little

So today we did a few more things in the kitchen. Gregg wired a few plugs plus put a much needed light in the pantry and added a hallway light to the back stairs. We cleaned out the pantry so that we can tile the floor & start re-building the way we storage stuff in it. The only non kitchen thing we did was to cover up the outside of the A/C units for the winter.

Working for the weekend

Saturday we worked in the yard cleaning some branches out of the big maple tree plus we were finally able to clean off some of the vines from the cables that hold up one of the one of the electrical poles out on the sidewalk in front. We had to then drag it all out to the back behind the fence. We also started mulching some leaves to go around some of the trees.

Today we cleaned up the dog’s yard by raking and mulching the leaves & stuff up. We cleaned up a little in the dining room then started grouting the rest of the backsplash Gregg put up. We are really getting close to finishing the kitchen like Gregg wants but I think it will always be a some what work in process.

And what actually makes this weekend so special is that this is the first weekend in over 2 months were we didn’t have to be somewhere else.

Update

Last week Gregg & his dad cleaned & organized the basement. This week because of the sudden snow storm we had half a tree come down. We started cutting it on Monday but they finished cutting up the rest of the tree on Tuesday. Though out the week Gregg has been continually working on finishing the backsplash & counter.

Father in-law

Last week Gregg put up drywall on either side of the fireplace. Today my father in-law & Gregg did some additional work in the kitchen. They put up some more backsplash & trim (around the door, window, & pass though). Even put up the kickboard around the bottom of the cabinets.

Hung by the chimney with care

Tags

fireplace, photo

Today Gregg stuffed insulation around the top of the fireplace in the kitchen. Earlier he opened the top to see why so much cold air seemed to be coming in when we took down the original mantle. That’s when he noticed there was no insulation & it had a huge open space beside it.

We talked about how we wanted to frame it. We would have kept the brick but it wasn’t very pretty. Thought about using slate tile like we have on the foor but we decided staining some wood to look like the rest of the cabinets would tie things altogether a little batter. Of course that wil be our last step.