VETERANS DAY

We had the day off for Veteran's Day and we made some good use of it.

Tommy worked on some more of the trim on the front porch and also helped his dad with the stair railing.

Tom's mom was picking rocks from the backyard from where the propane trench was dug.

I gut and glued with construction adhesive some stone veneer for the short edges of the fireplace. I didn't think I was going to put them, but it didn't look good without them so we decided to add them. I also painted caulked and painted the crown molding on the side porch...

STAIR RAILING, FIREPLACE GROUT & CROWN MOLDING

Yesterday, Tom and his dad were able to use the quick drying concrete to put the stainless tubes in place. I didn't get a picture until this morning.

I started first thing in the morning on cleaning out the mortar from between the stones on the fireplace. Most of it was clean already but some of the corners needed some work.

Hooper enjoyed the newly sealed side porch. The sealer worked great to brighten up the colors of the slate.



LaMar came by today to give us a hand. Tommy and him worked on the crown molding on the side porch. We have had this material for a long time but never put it up. They finally did today. We did base molding on both the ceiling and the side wall area and then they put the crown on top.



I grouted the fireplace today. It took a bit longer than I expected, but I also didn't think the grout would dry as fast as it did. As soon as I had everything grouted it was ready for me to go back and tool it.


Tom's dad was out on the front porch working on the railing. He got some pressure treated 4x4's and wedged them in the plastic sleeves. They are pretty darn stiff.



The finished side porch crown molding!



The finished fireplace! I left off the grout on the bottom though because we will need to do it after the hardwood floor goes in.



It won't be as dark as it looks in the picture. It dries much much lighter.

FIREPLACE STONE

Tonight we worked on finishing up the fireplace stone. We were able to get a majority of it done but we still have a few more pieces to finish tomorrow.

STONE IS DONE!

We worked this weekend on finishing the stone veneer on the front of the house. All the stone was laid but we needed to grout. We finished it this weekend!!! On Friday night we started with the small sections on the garage door side. Then we worked all day Saturday... We discovered though that the morning is the only really good time to do it... once the sun is gone from the front of the house (since it wasn't really too warm this weekend) the grout stops drying... like literally takes FOREVER. We could do batch after batch in the morning, but once the afternoon hit it goes like molasses. But we did finish by early afternoon on Sunday...

Saturday Tom's dad dug the trench for the propane line... Tom's mom got rid of all the concrete from the cement mixer on the front yard... Then Sunday his mom worked on cleaning up the trench to get it ready for sand. In the afternoon Tommy and his dad did some Azek molding around the garage doors, Tom's mom destroyed the big boxes from the stone veneer, and I grouted the front porch.

Porch Railing

Today Tom's dad put the worked on the railing on the side porch. We did not pick out the "easiest" railing for him to install. It is a pvc railing, so typically they have those little cups for the top and bottom rail to fit into... not this one you have to cut the railing to the EXACT length or it will look terrible. Have to say the old man did a good job! Love the railing and the posts!!!

When we got home we mixed up a batch of mortar and worked on the fireplace stone a little more since it was raining outside... we are almost done, but it is a lot harder to do then it was outside.

LET'S ROCK

This weekend we worked on the stone veneer. We had some small sections left like around the stairs and on the side of the garage. The shorter areas are more difficult to do... We also put the stone on the risers of the front stairs and Tommy put the ledges on the top. We are finished with putting the stone on the front, but it started raining on Sunday afternoon so we couldn't start the grouting... Tom's mom was a big help with finding the small stones to fit in all the spaces we left and Tom's dad worked on the side porch, putting up the 4x4 columns and gluing up some Azek columns.

We cleaned up the leftover rock and all the stuff we had in the front yard this evening but of course I forgot to take a picture of the whole house.

FIREPLACE STONE

We worked some more on the fireplace stone veneer tonight. It is a little more difficult than the outside because we will be seeing it everynight when we watch tv... So we are taking our time to make sure we do a good job. No updated pictures of that though...sorry

ROCKING OUT

We started thismorning finishing up as much as we could on the left side of the front porch... Then the sun became too much so we decided to go inside. We worked on hanging the mantel of the fireplace after Tommy cut it to length. Tom's dad had welded us some brackets a few days ago so that we could drill holes into the back of the mantel and the brackets would slide into the holes and all we have to do is screw the brackets to the studs... It worked pretty good. Then we made a bucket of mortar and put up a majority of the corners on the fireplace... When we were done with that the shade was back out on the front of the house so we went back out and started the right side of the porch, we got two big batches of mortar finished before it got to dark...

While we were outside a few hot air balloons came over the house. Hooper is freaked out by them. They make a "dragon breathing" noise from the propane torch and it scares him to death... He stares at it for a little while and then he runs inside! poor baby!

ROCKIN'

We had some helpers today... Tommy and I got up pretty early this morning because we were excited about the stone veneer... We continued from what we laid last night and got about 2/3 of the way to the end of the garage before Tom's Dad and Uncle came with Tommy's new table saw. They drove to PA to pick it up this morning. It is a nice big JET table saw... yay! Tom's dad set Wojcio up with some mortar to put a smooth coat of mortar on the basement side of the house. We though we were going to have stone over there so we had the masons do a scratch coat, but we decided against stone there so we had to have a smooth layer of mortar put on. He did a great job! Tom's dad put the 1x6 along the bottom of the house which made a big difference... Mark came by to help out also... he did the two top windows for us and they came out great (eventually haha!). Tommy and I worked all day on the stone veneer in and out of making sure everyone else had what they needed and got almost to the front steps... We probably need one more batch or mortar to finish it up. Before everyone went home they carried in and laid down the limestone for the fireplace hearth...