Weekend #16 - July 22-25

The FINAL weekend!  I can hardly believe it.  

I took off work Thursday and Friday to get in a couple of extra work days to push us to the end of this project.  I drove up to JC on Thursday morning.  Before I left, Maisy and I went for a little walk in the neighborhood.  She wanted me to carry her so I snapped a picture of us.  I'm sharing it here just because we are so cute.  This was the cutest (and most rested) I would be for the next 4 days.  :)

I arrived at the house around 11am.  Mom came and joined me around 1pm.  We worked on finishing up the last of the painting (second coats and touch ups).  We also worked on removing the paint from the faceplates of the door knobs in the bathroom/kitchen.  

On Friday, I started out solo because Mom had a meeting.  She joined me mid-morning.  Robin also stopped by just to visit.  I am certainly going to miss the drop in visits and seeing my extended family so often.  

I set out to tackle the front porch face-lift on Friday.  It was SO HOT.  I started by painting the railing on the porch.  The paint was peeling so they needed a little TLC.  First, I scrubbed the railing with a brush.  I then sanded to smooth it out because I wasn't removing all the old paint.  Lastly, I added two coats of fresh white paint.  I used Krylon ColorMaxx indoor/outdoor paint.  

Before:

After!

So much better!  If we've learned anything doing this house, though, it is that when you get one thing looking better, it usually makes something else glaringly in need of help.  So it was with the porch.  I painted the railing and immediately decided the columns needed painting.  It didn't use much of my paint to do the railings, so paint on the columns it was!  

Before:

After:

Just like that, all prettied up.  Except, now the gray looked dingy and in need of TLC.  So off to Lowe's Mom and I went to get gray paint.  

In honor of the day of working outside, Mom and I took our Friday work crew picture outside by the prettied up front porch.

Mom started working inside wiping down the woodwork with Old English Scratch Cover for Dark Wood.  It really shined up the woodwork.  The wood is one of the prettiest features of the house.  With a little bit of shine, it is really gorgeous.  Pictures certainly don't do it justice.

Also, my Mom is the cutest.  💙

Before we left, I brought up more trash from the basement.  At some point, my Mamaw decided to keep every single orange juice jar that was ever made in her basement.  She also kept mayonnaise jars and old pickle jars.  I carried up so many - I wish I had taken a picture, but alas, I did not.  I also found an old baseball mitt, with just a little bit of dirt on it.  😉  There was also a single crutch, probably used by Denny at some point.  There were a few old soda bottles.  I did keep those.  They just need a bath!  I brought one home already and got it cleaned up.  This Pepsi bottle is from the 1960's, I believe, based on the logo style.  

There is plenty of info out there on how to find the age of a Pepsi bottle.  I love old stuff, so I could read about this for days and days.  I will post pictures of the others when I get them home.  

I also found an old tool used for the coal furnace in the basement.  I don't know exactly what it is.  I've googled everything I can think of and nothing looks like this.  If anyone knows what it is, please share!  I'd love to know more.  It is solid and pretty heavy.  

On Saturday, Scott and Pap joined us.  Scott immediately headed out with the trailer to the dump.  

The weekend was a flurry of activity.  There was so much, it was difficult to keep up.  Pap got the stove fan installed in the kitchen.  He also installed the AC vents in the kitchen and laundry room.  Scott installed the closet rods and shelving.  I stained the backroom closet woodwork.  Scott installed the kitchen cabinet hardware.  Nan continued her work with Old English on the woodwork.  I sanded the floor in the back room and stained it.  Scott installed new blinds.  It was a busy busy weekend.  I'm adding a bunch of photos of the weekend below.

Mom cleaning up after the installation of the stove fan

Installing new blinds - we learned the hard way that length matters.

Installing closet shelves and rods

The backroom closet - rod and shelf installed, before staining the woodwork

After staining the woodwork!  So lovely.

Pap working on installing the HVAC vent in the laundry room.

That's Pap's hand inside that vent.  He was in the basement, all shimmied up in the crawl space.

He won the award for the one who got the dirtiest this weekend.  He was A MESS.

Mom and her trusty Old English.

The backroom floor following sanding, before staining

The backroom floor after staining!  It still needs a lot of work.  I wouldn't walk around in here without shoes.  You're guaranteed to pick up a splinter.  My hand sanding made a difference in the floor, but it needs a heavy duty sanding, for sure.  This room will need a rug!

Finishing touches

While my Dad was working on the HVAC, he was also moving some ill placed electrical line in the laundry room.  It was then that he asked the magical question:  Where will you plug in the washer in here?  We never considered a plug in that room.  So, we called our favorite electrician:  Pap.  See new plug and the other work he did below.  

The end of a project seems to be when you find out all the little things you didn't consider previously.  Haha!

The biggest news of the weekend:  The new fridge was delivered!  We've been without a working refrigerator for weeks.  It was a glorious moment when the new fridge made its was home!  

We finished out the weekend with just a few finishing touches still to do.  The family reunion is scheduled for Saturday, July 31 and the house is certainly ready for that.  Mom and Dad, Robin and Ron have been busy at the house this week cleaning and setting up for the party.  I am so excited to see the family and share this house.  

As usual, I will close out today's post with a work crew picture from the weekend.  I snapped this one while we were having our lunch break on Sunday.  I love these people so much.  I am so proud of the work we've done here.  I am so grateful for the team of people we've had helping us.  We would absolutely not be where we are now without them.  I am incredibly grateful for this journey.  💜

Weekend # 15 - July 17-18

As it has been over the last couple of weeks, we had the good fortune to have some of the work crew drop in during the week and keep the project moving forward.

During the week of July 12, Mom and Robin finished the second coat of paint in the bathroom, finished the ceiling painting, pulled up the protective plastic off the baseboards and the paper off the floor, and began working on cleaning the floors.  They aren't expert photographers like I am, so I only got two pictures.

Look at those gorgeous floors!  They steam cleaned them.  So gorgeous!  Mom and Robin worked on all the wood floors throughout the house.  They really look good.  

They also did the second coat of blue paint in the bathroom and painted the trim at the kitchen ceiling.  My Dad finished the closets.  Again, they put us in a great position going into the weekend.  

They also sent a work crew picture for the Monday/Tuesday crew.   Look how cute those two are!  I'm sure they never imagined they'd be roped into this kind of project with me!  Somehow my Dad escaped a work crew picture. 😊

Scott and I drove up on Saturday morning and jumped into working on the trim in the kitchen.  Finishing up the kitchen and bathroom were our big goals for the weekend.

I started in with the heat gun, removing the 75 layers of paint from the trim.  Mom started painting the trim in the bathroom.  My Dad got to work on the electrical outlet for the fridge's new location.  Scott starting reinstalling the baseboards in the kitchen, which were removed for installing the cabinets.  He also had to cut a new piece to put where the sink was.  We were all busy with our own projects.

My photography skills are slacking, because I only have pictures of Scott and my Dad from Saturday.  Maybe it is because we were so busy.  

Scott was a busy bee!  He started working on the doors from the kitchen and bathroom.  The paint needed to be stripped from the doors because it was very thick.  He took them outside and worked with the chemical paint remover and scraper to remove the paint from the doors. He also had an electric paint eater, which was similar to a sander.  The paint removal was a hurry-up-and-wait process, so he worked on other things during the waiting periods.

I managed to get the paint off the door frames.  It was a hot, miserable job.  But I did it.  By the end of Saturday, I had it ready for sanding.

When Mom and Dad left, I took over painting in the bathroom.  I got the rest of the bathroom painted, except the window and a tiny spot of bead board that needs to be repaired.  

In the picture below, you can see the dramatic difference between the painted area in the foreground versus the not-yet-painted area in the distance.  Getting a fresh coat of paint on the trim and getting it all painted white (it was a combination of white, off white and yellow) really freshened it up.  

Sunday started with just Scott and I.  I got the barriers up in the doorways to help prevent sanding dust from getting throughout the house.  Those barriers severely limited the AC to the kitchen and it got hot fast.  We had the backdoor open and the fan running to keep the air moving, but it did nothing for the temperature.  

Scott continued to work on the doors.  He also worked on mounting the backsplash in the kitchen.  He also installed an access door to the back of the shower plumbing.  He actually had about 3 or 4 things going at the same time.  He might be ready to be done with this project.  😉

Mom joined us around 11am and began cleaning the blinds.  She claims cleaning is her specialty, and we are happy to oblige this task to her.  She has done an amazing job of getting things polished up after we've made them really messy!  

At 1:30, we had a special visitor arrive!  Lynn made her way to Myrtle from North Carolina for an unexpected visit.  She said she was just wanting to come see the house!  It was such a fun surprise!  She did not wear her work clothes though, but she contributed by providing conversation during the afternoon work.  Because Lynn arrived, it brought Robin out to visit too!  My cousin, Chris, also stopped by.  They hung out in the kitchen while I worked on finish painting the trim and Scott put primer on the doors.  

It was such a nice afternoon.  It was hot in the kitchen, but no one seemed to mind.  The conversation was a welcome change from the radio we usually have playing.  

Below are the 'after' pictures from the weekend.  It was a lot of work, but we accomplished a lot.  The weekend included sanding, priming and painting all the trim and doors in the kitchen; sanding and priming the kitchen and bathroom doors; applying the backsplash in the kitchen, painting the trim and lower walls in the bathroom, and installing the electrical for the fridge.  My Dad starting working on moving the HVAC vents in the kitchen and installing the new vent in the laundry room.  When we come in to work on the weekends, we take full advantage of every minute.  

I am so proud of this gorgeous kitchen.  It is absolutely transformed.  I can't help but wonder what my Mamaw would think about it.  

I *think* we have one weekend left.  The things remaining are small things - installing the hardware on the kitchen cabinets, changing out the blinds, touch up painting, cleaning...I think all the big things on our list are complete.  The family reunion is scheduled for July 31, and our goal was to be done by then.  I think we are going to make it!

I will close out today's post with the work crew picture from Sunday.  It includes the physical work crew and our supporting staff.  I am forever grateful for the village it has taken to keep this project moving forward.  💜