The House Project: The Past Nine Months

My last entry about the house detailed the installation of the Austin Stone. Since then, we haven't had any major projects or contractors out to work on anything. We are at a point where there are countless small projects and a few big one that we still plan on doing ourselves.

I had to go around the house and put a second coat of stain on all the trim, a job made necessary by a combination of mortar splatter and rain. It took forever! Well not really because I did finish it but it took several days of work! Bruce and I stained the front door together

It turned out beautifully!

As we started working on the house again this Spring, it became necessary to have some more lights in the work areas, and since we have to get all the electrical work finished before the sheet rock can go on the walls we went ahead and installed the garage lights!

Here is a view of the garage from the laundry room. You can see the plywood we put up where the garage doors will go.

We also ran some wires for the dining room lights. The circuits aren't complete yet, mainly because we haven't put all the fixtures and switches in yet, but Bruce ran the wires and installed the boxes!

We've also done a ton of work in the kitchen! Actually scratch that. Bruce has done a ton of work in the kitchen! I gave some input here and there and kept him company a little, but he worked and worked on it while I was off at work and he was home from his job. My Dad came over a few times and helped him out, as well as giving him input on light placement when he went into analysis paralysis!

One of Bruce's projects was to build this pony wall. He basically just built out the wall so that our cabinets could be placed against it to give us the deep countertop space we wanted along the West wall.

What you see below is the duct that vents the downdraft for the gas rangetop. It had to be a certain cross-sectional area, so Bruce did the math to figure out what size and shape it would have to be in order to fit it behind the cabinets and not lose any usable space. He designed it and had it built! Then he put it together, installed it, and built out the wall in the corner around it! We will have a double oven backing up to the corner on an angle.

This is quite a work of art isn't it?

Here is another view, where you can see the return vents up at the top (they will allow some air back in to the house so you you don't get a vacuum when the downdraft is running!)

OK this next part is fun! We went back and forth over whether or not this change was worth the effort. We both really wanted it, but couldn't decide if it was worth it so Bruce went ahead and just did it one day. (I helped a little with putting a few nails in but basically he just went for it!) He recessed the ceiling over the kitchen! We have designed the kitchen with several 45 degree angles (such as the doors to the pantry and laundry room as well as the oven) and now the ceiling ties all that in! There will be two drop-down lights in the middle that hang down over the island. You may be able to see in the picture where he put the boxes  in for them.

Isn't this cool!

Moving through the house from the garage to the kitchen and dining room, I decided to show this next picture so you can see some previous work. Bruce had raised the ceiling before I even met him, but a few years ago we finished out the wall and painted the living room, two front bedrooms, and the front bathroom. We completely remodeled the front bathroom (I'll have to blog about that sometime!) and Bruce had also altered the floor plan a bit to remove a hallway and hall closet, allowing more square footage to be added to the living room and one of the bedrooms. We also chose ceiling fans. The two in this picture took us a long time to pick out! They had to be just right because there are two of them! The open floor plan of the house requires some good air circulation, thus, two fans!

 Aren't they awesome!

The view is taken from the front door, and I think it gives a cool perspective. You can see areas of the house in various stages of completion!

Another job that I got to do recently was sealing the inside of the main AC return. It was built into the wall with plywood, and just big enough for me to crawl into and stand up after a ladder was creatively placed inside. The tight space made it imperative that I got this done, as Bruce (or most people in general) would have found it difficult or impossible to get inside! I had to spread a putty sealant at all the seams, cracks, and nail holes. It took awhile, and my Dad came over and helped by handing me more putty through the return vent (yes I had to crawl through that!).

This wall cavity we use for a return leads all the way up to the unit in the attic!

The other job I completed over the summer was cleaning excess foam off all the windows. It's funny the work that comes up that just doesn't seem like that big a deal, but it is tedious and takes forever! That yellow foam stuff sure knows how to stick to vinyl! I had to use a putty knife, some gel chemical that helped remove the foam, and a razor for the glass! Oh yeah, and my fingernails! They were pretty much gone by the time I got finished!

This blog post has me caught up to where we are right now. I have thought about taking some pictures of the front bathroom that we already remodeled, but I didn't really photograph the process, so I don't think it would be as fun. I do have another book review coming up later this week, but other than that I will start writing about the house as we work on it. Lets just hope my next enry about the house isn't too far in the future!