Spring is here!

This weekend was the first nice weekend of spring. I decided to take full advantage and work on some of the curb appeal plans I've had brewing all winter. I started off by priming the porch railing white. I decided that the white looked so good that I'd go white will all my accent colors. I primed the formally red stairs white to match. Then today I picked up a couple sets of white shutters, mounted those, and gave everything a coat of white paint. It's looking good so far but plenty more to come. Hopefully I can get that atrocious attic window replaced in the not too distant future.

Who doesn't love demo?

7/3 Tuesday -- I took off a bit earlier today and met up with Erik in the afternoon. He took the task of tearing out the rest of the plaster in the dining room while I got cracking on some odds and ends. He really brought it to those walls and a small ~1ft x 4ft section of plaster over the counter is all that remains. The walls at some parts were full of literally garbage: beer cans, broken plaster, newspapers (dated 1979), god only knows what else. No wonder why I couldn't get the wire snake through to where I wanted to put the light switches. Anyway we got that all cleaned up while I had painted the front door, hit the steps with a second coat, caulked up the cabinet holes from the old hardware, and pulled up some of the floor in the bedroom closet where I want to raise the height of the staircase ceiling. I found finished hardwood floors under the carpet. If I took a picture of it you'd understand what a weird place this was for it. Anyway I pulled up those boards to use for replacing some of the more beat up boards else where and by the time I was ready to cut some flooring it was 9:30 and too late for power tools.

Looking good a coat later

The last day I'll have to look at this

7/4 Wednesday -- Today was a big day, no questions about it. I got started around 11 and Erik was over again by noon. Our main project was to raise and widen the doorway from the kitchen to the dining room. It'll give me a little extra head room and really add to the fluid feel of the house. I originally thought it wasn't a load bearing wall but after doing a little reading found the contrary. Not a big deal. It had two 2 x 4's for the old header which I upgraded to 2 x 6's and added two studs under each side of the header where there had only been one. We ran into a bit of trouble trying to figure out how to transition from cutting the existing studs to getting the new header in place while still supporting the wall. Luckily I had a hydraulic jack in the truck of my car. We were able to jack a 2 x 4 up to the ceiling to support the wall and still had enough room to squeeze in one of the 2 x 6's for the header. With that one in place we could drop the jack and put up the other side. The picture I posted was taken before we added an extra stud under each side for additional support. Not half bad job for a couple of guys who really didn't know what they were doing. After talking to Charles, the neighbor who works construction, the only thing we maybe should've done different was put a sheet of 1/2" plywood between the two header boards so they sat flush with the rest of the studs. Not the end of the world, we'll just have to shim out the trim that goes up later.

A couple of sandwiches later we were ready to tear up the carpet in the living room--the last of the carpet still haunting the house. It was a bit tedious to get through but with Erik pulling tack board up while I hit staples we really got a good rhythm going and banged it out. The floors really have some potential but will need a bit of help getting there. After Erik headed home around 7:30 I went to give the door another coat of paint. I was super disappointed to find that yesterdays coat was all bubbles and awful. Even sanding was no help. I'm going to need to strip it back down and use a primer first. The steps had looked good but with today's rain (last nights actually) they started to spot a little. We'll see how it looks when they dry. I hit the part of the floor that was in really bad shape with some ammonia and retired for what was left of the night.

Such an improvement

Carpet no more

Step on up

6/27 Wednesday -- Today Tara's dad spent the day building wooden steps for the front porch. It took most of the day but they came out pretty great. Not to mention he got to go at a pitbull attacking another dog with a hammer. After two hits with the hammer the pitbull hadn't even flinched, but I digress. I just need to get some trim molding to run along the side and then give them a coat of paint, hopefully at some point tomorrow. While he was working on that I took care of a few miscellaneous jobs: spackled the screw holes in the drywall, took down the deck in the back yard, removed all the cabinet doors and cleaned them up. I tried stripping a cabinet door to see how they'd hold up but even just a little sanding with an orbital was going through the veneer. I'm going to have to wind up painting them. It wasn't what I originally wanted but I guess you have to do what you can with 50 year old cabinets. I also got some epoxy floor covering for at least the workbench/laundry area and some spray on epoxy kit for redoing the worn upstairs bathtub. Oh and I meant the guy who owns the house next to me on the corner (the people living there rent) and apparently he's not only a plumbing contractor, but the guy who installed the lower bath in my house to begin with some ten years ago. He's supposed to drop off his card and I'm going to have him take a look at what'd be needed to get the shower installed downstairs.

A coat of paint and we'll be in business

The yard gets bigger every day