SEWER!!!!

We got connected to the sewer in the street today!!!  How amazing!  The guys showed up at 7am this morning and they were packed up and gone at 2pm.  Turns out there were TWO sewer pipes in the street and they had to call the Municipality to come out and tell them which one to connect too.  Go figure...  After they were all connected Tommy went down to the basement and drained one of the clean-outs...  then him and his dad pulled out the inflated ball in the lower clean-out, it wasn't too bad though!

Tom's dad with a little bit of help from Tommy installed the kitchen sink and dishwasher and then they installed the toilet and faucet in the powder room.  I had to go to Home Depot to pick up the wax ring and while I was there i picked up the towel rack, toilet paper holder, and towel ring and when I got back I installed them.

Tommy finished the Dining room floor in the morning and worked throughout the day on the base molding.  He started with all the larger pieces in the entire first floor and just has to go back to all the smaller pieces.
 
I painted the crown and basecap for the foyer and some shoe molding... and I sealed all the tile in the master bathroom with one coat...

In the evening Tom went downstairs to mop up some of the water that came out of the pipes... he looked inside one of the clean-outs and it wasn't pretty... turns out that even though he told me not to I "may" have rinsed out buckets of grout in the master tub... well now the pipes are half way filled with sludgy sand... OOPS... Tommy managed to clean out as much as he could and a service call was put in to his dad to get a roto-rooter...   OOPS!!!

Hooper was exhausted by all that work!

CROSSING OFF THE TO DO LIST

Today I caulked a few more things in the morning and then I moved on to painting them. I finished painting the crown in the family room, the crown in the master bath, the window in the sitting room and then I painted the wainscot in the laundry.

Tommy installed molding in the skylight, he trimmed the top piece of the window over the toilet in the master bath... He also trimmed all the doors upstairs to the correct height. He also fixed both the closet and master bathroom pocket doors. Then he moved on to finish the hardwood floor in the princess bedroom, but didn't finish before I was ready to start the hardwood floor in the Front J&J bedroom. We got about 10 rows finshed before the rubber on the hammer was completely ruined and we dented a good piece of wood trying to get it in... We really need to order a replacement rubber piece for the flooring hammer...

EXTERIOR WINDOW MOLDING

We went down the Marvic Supply this morning and picked up some AZEK molding for the windows on the front of the house. We are doing something similar to what we did on the interior...

Before we got to start the trimwork Tom's dad came down and helped us to pour the concrete on the side porch... The tractor works pretty good to lift the trough thingy up to the porch height... We finished that in a couple hours...

Then we pressure washed some of the older pieces of AZEK we had and Tommy started to put them on the windows on the garage... I think it looks great. We need to find another piece of something to put under the windows because it looks a little unfinished...

FRONT DOOR TRIMWORK

Today Tommy finished the moldings on the window and sliding door in the kitchen. I then caulked, puttied and painted the rest of the crown in the kitchen and the window/sliding door. Did two coats of paint on the crown molding for the master bedroom. Tommy put the extension jambs on the circular window above the front door, curved the plastic molding and built the trim above the door. Then I painted the arched windows in the dining and office.

Almost all the trimwork is finished on the first floor!

ELLIPTICAL MOLDING

Tom worked on curving the plastic molding for the elliptical windows in the dining and office. He used the extension jamb that was provided with the windows and used the heat gun to warm up the plastic. With a little coercion the plastic bent around the extension jamb and after it cooled down he was able to nail them up.

I painted the 24 additional pieces of casing that Tom's dad picked up and dropped off for us the other day.

TRIMWORK WHILE RAINING

On Sunday it was raining so we couldn't work outside. Instead Tommy worked on the trimwork on the elliptical windows in the dining and office. I spent the day painting two coats on the fancy ceiling in the office and Tom's dad worked on hooking up the electric to the A/C units in the attic.

Not the most exciting day and no pictures to show for it.

MOLDING MORE

We worked on Monday and today on the molding. We finished putting together the pieces that go above windows and doors and then I started to caulk and putty them and eventually put a coat of paint on them. Meanwhile Tommy put some of the original "tops" on the garage door and porch door and then worked on the family room windows some more. Everything is coming along!

FAMILY ROOM WINDOWS

Tommy was working today on the family room windows. Because they have the arched transom window they are a little more difficult. He got plastic 1x6 and routed the one side with a tongue and the other with the half round profile and it is acting as an extension jamb and the bottom piece of the crown molding top. He realized the other day that all the transom windows came with molded trim pieces and with the extension jambs and the molded piece of trim it looks pretty nice. Once he got that transom in he was able to put the little wings to match and then the casing went up to that. Then he cut MDF for the top piece. All four windows are at that point. We just need to prime the MDF and put the crown on top and will look like the rest of the door tops.

I spend the day painting. I did the front jack and jill bedroom and the jack and jill bathroom (door jambs, trim and doors) and painted the crown in the top foyer. We also got some doorknobs so I started to install those on some of the other doors that are finished.

HAPPY SPRING!!!

Yay for spring! What a beautiful day!

Tom's parents were here today. His dad did some more work on the air conditioning ducts in the attic. He is pushing that so that we have air conditioning before it is too HOT (just think a few weeks ago we had blizzards!). It actually did get too hot in the attic for him to keep working so he went outside in the afternoon and moved some dirt around.

His mom painted some base cap for the crown molding and then she went outside and cleaned up around the driveway.

Tom worked on the crown in the family room.

I painted all day. All the trimwork upstairs is for the most part installed and I have been painting it since you can see the puttied nailholes if you don't.

PUTTY and CAULK

Tom's mom and I have gone around the entire upstairs... All the casing and crown are caulked where necessary and the holes are puttied and sanded. I even started painting the doorways and doors yesterday... The princess room is done and I started the rear J&J bedroom... this will be a never ending process.

Tom has started the crown in the downstairs foyer (under the bridge) and we spent some time on Monday figuring out how we want to trim out the arched entryways in the downstairs. We thought the casing we had was too small so we went to home depot and found a piece of molding that we can use to extend the casing. I think it looks nice!

TRIMWORK UPSTAIRS CONTINUED

This weekend we had some fun times. We went out on Friday night to Morristown for some Birthday celebration.

Then on Saturday and Sunday we continued the trimwork and the two story foyer has been painted all the way to the top...that was fun! That gave us the ability to put the tops and casing on the doorways upstairs and downstairs that are in the foyer. The crown is up in the master bedroom and the upstairs foyer...

SITTING ROOM CROWN

Today we worked on the crown in the master sitting room. We got the crown up, puttied, and siliconed. Looks good. Then we did some research on how we wanted to put trim on the archway between the master and the sitting room. I "think" we figured it out.

Tom's parents were at the house today. They spread the remaining pile of the gravel on the driveway and smoothed it out so it isn't like those ski bumps anymore. Then they worked on moving dirt from the back of the house to the front yard and filled in where the dirt settled because of the underground sewer line. The garage was becoming a mess with all molding scraps and dust so his mom did us a favor and cleaned that up. YAY!.

TRIMWORK UPSTAIRS

This weekend we decided to focus on the trim upstairs. All the molding pieces for above the windows and doors have been built and painted so we installed all of those, all the casing for the windows and doors. Tommy installed the window stools and we put the molding under the window stool. We then started to put crown in the rear Jack and Jill bedroom. This is the room with the tray ceiling so it was like doing two rooms. We got the two windows, two doors, and crown completely puttied and siliconed. It looks pretty good.

Another important thing that went on this weekend... we went to see the new baby Patryn... Amy looks great and baby Owen is so little, but healthy. Very exciting!

ONE MAN CREW

Tommy was on his own for a few days as I was in Charleston, SC for work. He was able to put another clear coat on the window stools and he also put in the pocket doors for the master closet and the master bath.

ELECTRICAL MISHAPS

Tom's parents were at the house a few days this week during the day. His dad wired up the outlets in the basement and had some issues... We poked some holes in the sheetrock because we thought an outlet might be hidden, but after looking at pictures we decided there was no outlet there and the issue must be somewhere else... The breaker kept popping and I guess a black and ground were touching somewhere... All fixed...

Also found another electrical issue... There was no power in the outlets over the bar counter or the nook in the dining room... these are fed from the GFI in the powder room... apparently there is no link between the GFI in the powder room and the first outlet over the bar counter... OOOPS! my fault... so his dad figured out a way to drill holes from the basement withouth hitting any other pipes or wires to run the jumper between the outlets... NOW they work!

After work we finished up the stools and put in the extension jambs on the second floor... and yesterday we started to install the casing. LOOKS GOOD! Tommy also started to finish up the rest of the door installation yesterday, but there are still a few more to finish.

Our groundhog came out of hibernation... There is a big mudhole in the snow outside the sliding glass door and muddy footprints in the snow... He has decided he is done with winter and although I like the SNOW days, I am ready for some springtime weather.

PRESIDENTS DAY WEEKEND

tAfter the two days we had off last week we also have a LONG weekend... wow.. Friday night we worked late and grouted the kitchen floor.... Tommy did the grouting and I cleaned it up with the sponge. We used unsanded grout because the sanded would scratch the surface of the travertine tiles (we did that without knowing on the powder room floor)... Mistake we made was not picking up some rubber gloves and the grout does a number on your hands... it eats my hands alive, but it was worth it because it looks good...

Since we had the long weekend we decided it was time to start the trimwork. We went to the lumberyard on Saturday morning and purchased a majority of the trim we needed. We are going to do a craftsman inspired trimwork, not the colonial style. It is a bit more work but we like it better and it will make all the arched doorways and windows easier to trim. On top of the craftsman style trim we are doing a window stool on all the windows out of pine... we are going to stain the window stool to match the brazillian cherry hardwood floor we are going to put in and the trim will all be white. I hope it looks sharp. Anyway once we got the molding I painted the casing and Tommy set up all the tools in the garage. Then Tom's dad made the extension jambs for the 2nd floor with the shaper table (used to put the tongue on it) and his mom painted them. We cut the pine for the stools... but we aren't doing straight stools, they are going to be arched on the front lip... so we figured out how to make the curve since the radius is HUGE, like 60 feet for some windows... and got the router table set up and decided what bits we wanted to use for the stools... Tommy routed them out and I put the pocket holes and sanded them. We didn't finish them by the end of the day Monday but we had everything figured out and we now know what we want and how to do it.