Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Changing the color of a house is a big decision.  A decision that is costly and not easily changed.  We love this house, but don't plan to spend our golden years here.  It's too big for us once most of the children have flown the nest.  Originally, we planned planned to put gray siding on the wooden parts of the house and then paint the cement a blue-gray.  There were 4 5-gallon containers of polymer paint in the basement from the previous owners.  We mixed in a 5-gallon container of white into the gray to lighten it a bit.  

I began scraping the cement and cement blocks to prepare for the paint.  I completed the scraping and painting on the bottom floor of two sides of the house before I broke my wrist. 

 

Notice under the window where Mike repaired the cement.

Mike also climbed up the 85' ladder to paint the second floor.

About this time, Mike decided that he didn't want a gray house.  We looked at various options in siding.  We considered replacing the missing lattice on the wooden parts of the house and painting the entire house.

 Mike now had the added work of scraping the remaining cement sides of the building and scraping two side of the house that were wood.  He realized the the vines that had grown up on the one side of the house had created a texture on the cement that wasn't easily removed by scraping.  It was necessary to power wash and sand with an electric sander to remove the imprint of the vines. 

 The more we looked at the various joints and edges to the house, we decided to install new siding over all the wood portions of the house.  The gray will be used as a primer, which will be covered with the same color as the siding.

Even though we will be changing the color of the blue-gray, I still think it is a vast improvement over the nasty, peeling yellow and brown.

Mike began installing the siding by wrapping with and insulating paper.  Hopefully, our house will be less drafty this coming winter.

The windows that he installed in the fall were pulled out, so the siding could go into the channel on the sides.  Yet another project for poor Mike.

First dormer window partially finished.  I love the sage green that Mike picked.  None of the houses near us have this color and it is fairly neutral.

Mike will be working on the siding project probably for the rest of the summer.  It's his first time installing siding and hopefully it will get easier and quicker as he progresses more.

Painting the Exterior of the House

Before we sold the last house, our family painted the exterior of the house using paint rollers on extension poles.  Mike was required to climb up on a huge ladder to paint the roof line the the windows on the second floor.  It was a bigger job than expected and ended up taking several weeks longer than planned.  Isn't that the way home improvement projects always go?

Our current project house desperately needs something done with the exterior.  The front has yuck brown vinyl siding,  the wooden siding is painted brown, the walk-out cement exterior to the basement is cream.  The scope of this project is overwhelming.  The house is huge (by my standards) with 5700 square feet of living space on three levels.  Mike and I walked around the house deciding what we wanted to do with the outside.  I don't want to spend the money on vinyl siding right now, there are higher priority projects that should be completed first, but the exterior is ugly.

We decided that I would start scraping the paint as I up as I was comfortable on the ladder.  Then Madelyn or Mike would scrape the upper level.  Then I would begin painting with the extension poles using the roller. 

The scraping took off almost all the paint on the first floor,  Less paint loss on the second floor.

We discovered a rotten board, so Mike cut it out and replaced it.

Two days and many, many hours later, Madelyn and I had scraped one side of the garage and the walk out level under the garage.  I've decided that I'll be doing the project in small sections: scraping one section, then painting that area.  It will keep me from having some of my muscles incredibly sore from repetitive movement and it will look like progress is being made.

The plan is to have the house painted by the end of the summer.  If I get it done earlier, I'll get a nice break before school starts.  

Colds and Flu Virus, Home Improvements, and School

Our family got hit with a bug of some kind a couple of weeks ago.  It is slowly making its way through the house.  Paige started it with a fever, cough and runny nose.  She was out for 4 days before she began to feel better.  I caught it next and immediately shared it with Mike.  Thankfully, neither one of us ran fevers, but the cough, sore throat and aches have been around for 10 days.  Allie and Amy came down with our bug at the end of last week.  Amy had a light case, but Allie's case has dragged on for more than 5 days.  The poor girl can hardly make herself heard, due to her sore throat.

Throughout our sickness, work has continued to be completed on our former home.  The house has come together beautifully.  It looks gorgeous.  Both baths have been updated, all rooms have fresh paint, new carpet has been installed in the master bedroom and on the stairs, the decks and porches have been painted, bushes and flowers have been planted.  I want to do a final clean and polish on the kitchen cabinets, wash all the windows and vacuum or wash all the floors before I consider my contribution finished.  Mike is planning on painting the basement walls to make it bright and fresh.  We have a number of 5 gallon tubs of elastimer  which is used to paint cement or stucco that were left behind when the people moved from our current residence.

The three girls are working hard on their school work this year.  Considering how much time we've spent ill or working on the other house, I'm amazed that we have accomplished so much.  One of the areas that I've let lag a little last year was writing.  The girls are all using different levels of Writing Strands and the results have been excellent.  The lessons are short but meaningful, so there are complaints when we do writing which is always important to me.  No one feels overwhelmed, but their writing assignments are showing real growth in sentence structure. 

We're still plugging away here and things should begin to be a little less chaotic.  I'm looking forward to time to do creative projects, write more frequently, and do fun, memorable things with the children for the remainder of the fall. 

Painting, Painting and More Painting

We'll we're in the final big push to make the old home ready to put on the market.  Mike has finished a lot of the little jobs that get put off for another day, but never actually completed.  He's also put in new light fixtures is all the rooms, changed hardware on cabinet doors, stained the wood in the bow window, installed a medallion behind the ceiling fan in the family room for some architectural interest, installed a new vanity and medicine chest in the upstairs bathroom.   I've painted.

His list looks huge compared to mine.  I have worked for many hours, put painting doesn't sound very impressive.  So far, I've painted the coat closet in the dining room, the board games/vaccuum/photo album closet in the dining room, painted both closets in the master bedroom, painted the ceiling of the master bedroom, painted 2 coats on the master bedroom walls, painted the dining room, painted 1/2 the living room.

The rooms that are finished look bright, inviting, and very neutral in color.  Not like the colors my family normally uses.  Madelyn says that the whole house is beige.  It really isn't.  The master bedroom is a light creamy beige.  The dining room and living room are medium warm beige.  I wanted to paint the family room and kitchen the same color.  The family room has light brown carpeting; the kitchen has gray counter tops and fairly dark brown laminate floors.  Beige doesn't really work with the shade of gray.  Mike and I ended up choosing a really soft gray/green.  I think it will work in both rooms well.

The plan is to have Mike finish all his projects by the end of this week.  The carpeting will be installed on the stairs and master bedroom early next week.  Hopefully, all the upstairs bedrooms, hall, closets and bathroom can get painted by the middle of next week.  We really need to sell the other house, so we can finish some of the projects at the "project" house.  Until the painting is done, all of my spare time will be spent with paint brush or roller in my hand.

While Mike and I are busy working on the house, Paige and Allie have been playing with their friends in the other neighborhood.   Monday, one of their friends from the new neighborhood walked to the other house so they could hang out together.  It's so nice that the girls have their old friends visiting them at the new house and the new friends are willing to walk 1/2 a mile to play with them at the old house. 

Crazy Week

This has been a difficult week for our family.  Mike took the week off of work to put in some time on the other house in preparation for getting it on the market.  Having Mike home is always wonderful, but if week keep having weeks like this, he will probably stay at work in the future.

Our cable and internet was finally installed.  It sounds like a simple thing, but our installation was a little complicated.  The satellite could only get a signal from a spot 200 feet from the house in the backyard.  The installer began to dig the hole and needed to bend a pole to hold the dish.  He was pounding the pole on the ground to make the bend flat when the pole bounced off the ground and hit is leg.  The pole created a 2" slice in the middle of his shin.  He called for one of the children to get me.  I ran down the hill and applied bandages and tied up the wound. 

Madelyn was my unenthusiastic helper who held the first aid kit and ran to the house to get a bag of ice.  The installation guy got on the phone and talked with his boss, workers compensation and someone else about the injury.  His boss left immediately from the large town 30 minutes north of us to pick him up and take him to the hospital for stitches.  I offered to drive him to the hospital (3 minutes away), but he wanted to wait for his employer.  We waited an hour for the boss to arrive.  The installer spent the time commenting about who would pay for his lost wages, medical bills, pain and suffering. 

One of my children has been breaking everything in sight.  Plates, bowls, books are all in jeopardy around here.  Last night, the aforementioned child climbed on the upstairs bathroom vanity.  I don't know how it happened, but the vanity was pulled away from the wall and fell over, breaking all the pipes in the process.  Water streamed all over the floor.  By the time we managed to turn off the water, there was 3 inches of water.  Everyone pitched in and tried to sop up the water with all our towels, but quite a bit of water leaked through to the kitchen.  About 40 percent of the ceiling needed to be replaced due to water damage.  By the time everything was "picked up" it was 1:00am.

 Today, Mike redid the plumbing in the bathroom and began to work on the ceiling.  I was helping him cut some materials, using a rotary cutter.  Mike was holding down the straight edge for me.  He moved his hand to apply pressure in another area.  Unfortunately, he placed his hand directly in front of the cutter and I accidentally sliced his thumb.  He had to take a trip to the hospital to get it closed up properly. 

Mike is taking next week off of work as well.   We're praying that the week is more productive and less exciting.

Project House Updates

We're frantically trying to pull together various rooms of the project house before Steve's open house.  Joe and I (mostly Joe) with some help from Mike put down flooring in a nook in the entry where guests can hang their coats. 

The downstairs bathroom is coming along nicely. 

We installed the bathroom light fixture and discovered that one of the shades was broken, so we'll be heading back to Home Depot for a replacement shade.

I made and installed the curtains in the kitchen.  I love the colors in this room.  It's so bright and cheerful.

Big Week Ahead at the Project House

Mike has taken a weeks vacation to work at the project house and hopefully pull the remaining "must do" jobs so that we can move.  There will still be some things to do, but it will be easier once we live there.  Having one car has made it difficult for me to get as much done as I would like.

Saturday, Amy, Joe and I worked on painting the ceiling in the entry hallway.  Mike decided to hang new drywall there, so this is the second time we've painted it.  We also burned a lot of brush, did a little tree trimming (thanks Steve!) and moved the swing set.  Paige and Allie were supposed to pick up the few remaining shingles from the new roof, but discovered some bees or wasp nests in the ground near where the shingles lay.  The younger girls were frightened by the bees, so that job will be put off until we kill off the nests.  I used up a bottle of window cleaner and a roll of paper towels cleaning some of the main floor windows.  Yuck!  it's always shocking how nasty people let their windows get.  More Windex and paper towels have been added to my shopping list for later this week.

We're trying to eat out of the freezer and panty in preparation for the move.  Shrimp, fries, and broccoli for lunch with frozen yogurt for dessert.  Chicken breasts with broccoli pasta and salad for dinner with strawberry smoothies for desert.  We're certainly getting spoiled with frozen treats!

The water is getting turned on today.  After checking for any leaks, we will be able to close in the plumbing and install the tile in the main floor bathroom.  I'll be so happy to have water at the project house again to clean floors, etc.  No more hauling paint brushes and trays between the houses! 

Feeling the Pressure

I went to the project house last week and spent some time inventorying all the things that still need to be done.  The tear out is completely finished, but the amount of work is overwhelming.  We really need to get our current home on the market this spring, so we can sell it and finish some of the more costly projects on the project house.  It just isn't feasible to sell our current home while we are living in it.  So the project house must have some projects finished before we can put this house on the market. 

The dining room is completely finished.  The light brown and white combination is bright and airy.  The chandelier is installed and looks great.  It's great to be able to say that something is completely finished.  Unfortunately, it's the only room that is finished.

My public school children do not have class on Monday.  Sunday and Monday will be spent at the project house trying to complete some more projects and finish painting Madelyn's bedroom and Joe's bedroom. 

The project has a large closet/room for coats and two smaller closets also for coats.  The three closets are in the same area which is located off the garage and dining room.  One of the coat closets will be used for guests and the second coat closet will be lined with shelves to hold shoes.  During the week, the coat room will get painted and possibly the shelves will get installed into the shoe closet.

Mike and I will be spending next weekend in Chicago to celebrate our anniversary and to attend a letterboxing event.  We did the same thing last year for our anniversary.  I'm looking forward to a break from all the hustle around here.  Hopefully, we'll come home refreshed and ready to tackle lots of  projects over the next month.     

Lighting Fixtures for the Project House

The dining room is finally done being painted.  The final color choice was a light tan with white trim.  The room is an interior room without any exterior windows.  There are windows in the entry that lead into the dining room, so there is some natural light, but I wanted to room to be as airy as possible.  

After Paige and Allie's dance class today, Mike and I went to the home center to look at lighting fixtures.  There was one chandelier that I loved, It was brushed nickle and had a whimsical feel to it.  Eventually, it was decided to get something with a broader appeal, so this is the chandelier that we purchased.  There are several other fixtures in the same line that will probably be used in the entry and stairways.  Mike will be installing this fixture tomorrow morning while the homeschooled children and I are at the homeschool group.  Can't wait to see our first room completely finished!

New Page

We've been working diligently on our project house.  Instead of continually adding more photos and information to the main page, I'll be updating our progress on the House Renovation 2012/2013 page that can be accessed by clicking on the heading at the top of the page, under my blog title. 

Mike has been getting discouraged about our progress.  We have had to push back our move in date a few times.  I'm hoping that being able to look back and see the progress that HAS been completed will provide him some encouragement. 

Hauling, Hauling, and More Hauling

Mike rented a trailer on Tuesday to get all the old appliances out of the reno house.  He removed 1 huge chest freezer, 2 clothes dryers, 2 clothes washers, 2 refrigerators, 1 dishwasher, 1 gas stove, and a pile of miscellaneous steal.  I offered to help load up the trailer, but he had rented a dolly and didn't think it was necessary.

It ended up being three trips to the scrap metal place.  On the second trip, Mike had a refrigerator fall on top of  him.  On the third trip, he had the huge chest freezer fall on his toe.   He was so sore last night!

We managed to take the canoe, outdoor fireplace, lawn chairs, tables, wheel barrow, stationary bike, and lounge chair over to  the other house.  After emptying out the trailer, Mike loaded up three loads of yard waste and took that to the village composting site.

The area of the lawn that Amy, Joe and Madelyn have been working on is looking so much better.  They have cleared out so much vegetation that it looks like a different piece of the property.  Amy has mentioned that she plans to move some of the Rose of Sharon plants to the top tier to provide some privacy in the yard below.  I found some spring bulbs to plant in the lower tier for some spring color.  It will be so nice to see this area in good shape!

 

New Beginnings

The end of August and beginning of September have been a blur of activities and changes.  We began our new school year the day after Labor Day.  I love that Michigan students don't return to classes until after Labor Day.  It provides a little more time to get outside and enjoy the warm days before the business of fall.

Madelyn, Paige and Allie are being homeschooled this year.  Madelyn is a high school freshman!  She's taking a full load of classes and plans on testing out of the classes with the local high school next fall.  After much decision making time, she's decided to take biology, algebra, English/literature, American history, Economics, piano, and Spanish.  She's using Rosetta Stone for the Spanish through a local homeschool group.  Madelyn is also taking an art class once a week with the homeschool group.

Paige and Allie are studying Spanish, keyboarding, spelling, English grammar, U.S. geography and history, earth science, reading, math, and piano.  They are both taking ballet class and karate class in the community.  A local homeschool partnership is providing art and P.E. classes once a week.   Both girls have been enthusiastic about their school work and are completing everything between 12 and 1 o'clock each day.  It's such a blessing to finish our school day early!

During our vacation, we bid on a foreclosed home.  We closed on the house last Thursday.  I love many of the homes features and look forward to seeing some of the work completed.  We can't really do much work on the interior until our contractor gets the new roof on the house.  In the mean time, all the kids went over to the new house to work in the yard this weekend.  After 10 hours of hard labor, they are making a dent in the "secret garden" area of the yard.  Here's a list of some of the things they found in the overgrown garden:

A folding-lounge-chair style lawn chair
30 metal hanging basket containers
a plastic chair
40 maple saplings in containers
26 Rose of Sharon
100 plastic planting pots
12 seed planter trays
15 cement blocks
a metal flask
assorted trash
many, many vines (the vines are being referred to as "Devil's Snare")

While they were working on the yard, the neighbor's daughter told Amy that our yard is known as the trash yard.  Amy mentioned that it was no longer to be used for trash and that it was going to be known as the beautiful yard from now on.

 I've been painting the exterior of our current home.  We decided to go with a light grey house, white windows, medium gray window frames and doors, and charcoal foundation.  Mike took a huge extension pole and attached a roller for me to use to paint the second story.  I managed to get most of the second floor, but Mike is going to need to go up there on ladders or scaffolding to get the windows and touch up my roller painting.  I have about 1 more day of painting and then MY part of the exterior will be done.  It's been exhausting work, but I have rediscovered many muscles in my back and arm!

I'm hoping to get over to the new house this week to paint the dining room.  We have removed most of the ugly wallpaper in the kitchen already.  Joe wants to help clean, paint and design the kitchen in the next few weeks.

Joe has had three meets for cross country and is doing very well.  He has taken first place on his team in two of the meets.  (The one that he didn't win, he made a wrong turn and had to backtrack.)  He's planned out his goals and is making huge progress on meeting his expectations.

Feeding 9 People Without Access to a Kitchen

Mike sanded and stained the kitchen floor on Wednesday and Thursday. We didn't have access to the stove, freezer or refrigerator. I took the homeschooled children to MacDonald's for lunch Wednesday, which they thought was a real treat. Wednesday night we had burgers on the grill, carrots, apples, and chips for supper. Rain started falling Thursday morning and continued through Saturday night. Grilling became more difficult, until we put the grill on the front porch Saturday.

Thursday, everyone had granola bars and pop tarts for breakfast with an apple. Mac Donald's for lunch and supper that night was pizza from Little Caesars with carrots and celery. I could feel my arteries hardening and was dying for more fresh, real food.

Friday, we once again ate granola bars or pop tarts for breakfast with bananas. I picked up a cooler, ice, and ingredients for subs for lunch. We had hot
dogs cooked on the grill for dinner Friday night. Joe (my hero) grilled the hot dogs in the pouring rain, using the lid to the sandbox as an umbrella.

Saturday was another granola and pop tarts morning with apples. We had subs for lunch and salad with rotisserie chicken from the grocery store for supper. Joe went mushroom hunting and gathered a bag of mushrooms which he cooked in a fry pan on the grill.

Sunday everyone had fruit for breakfast. Could it be that my children were finally sick and tired of granola bars and pop tarts? We had left over hot dogs, subs or chicken for lunch and a fresh rotissorie chicken with cottage cheese, apples and broccoli for supper.

Sunday evening when Mike came home from work, he went over the still tacky floor with mineral spirits, so we could walk on the kitchen again. I spent several hours cleaning dust (from sanding the floors) off of the counters, cabinet doors and appliances.

It was wonderful to have all my appliances, running water, and dishes at my disposal again. Next time we do work on flooring, I hope to have more time to prepare for being kitchen-less. I might even move the refrigerator into the dining room temporarily.

The kitchen floor didn't turn out the way we had wanted. Mike knows how to fix it, but has decided that he doesn't want to strip the floors again and put the kitchen off limits for several days. Probably next month, he'll install the same flooring that we put into the dining room and bathroom. I feel bad that he worked so hard and put in so much time on this floor and still has more work to do.

Home Improvement

Mike's been busy getting projects completed around our home. Big projects.

Replaced the plaster walls by the stairs with wainscotting
Sanded and stained the wainscotting
Sanded, stained, varnished and installed a hand rail for the stairs
Installed new flooring in the downstairs bathroom
Installed new flooring in the dining room
Last night, he began sanding the wood floor in the kitchen.

I'm so happy to see so many projects getting started and FINISHED. Our home feels much more relaxing when there aren't projects screaming to be done. We have a few more big plans for this summer and I'd also like to tackle the yard.

My gut feeling is that Mike wants to get all these things finished, so we can sell this house and move. He may discover when he's finished, that he won't want to tackle another whole house renovation. Either way, I plan to enjoy his accomplishments.