SAWYR

We took the day off of work today and had the guy come to saw the logs. It was a bit of a gamble having him come today because the forecasted weather called for rain, but although it drizzled a few times we were able to cut up a majority of the logs we had. I will call him SAWYR because that was on his license plate.

We had him cut a majority of cherry because we will use that for our kitchen cabinets. He also cut some walnut and maple. We hoped to use the maple for a butcher block top, but it turned out to be spalted so that did not work out, instead we will use cherry which I think I prefer anyway.

We had a regular and a visitor stop by and give us a hand. Tom's mom (the regular) came for the day and helped sweep off and stack the lumber as it was cut. The visitor, Lamar, was a really big help all day, he carried the lumber to the stack, helped Tommy get logs ready to be offloaded at the sawmill, but his defining moment of help was in the middle of the afternoon when Tommy accidentally flicked a log with the forks on the tractor and sent the log tumbling down the hill toward the sawmill, a dirty look from the SAWYR and a yell to Lamar and he ran over and stopped the log just in the nick of time. PHEW!!! This is especially funny because the SAWYR was OVERLY protective and VERY VERY anal about his sawmill so if that log hit his machine it would have been the end of the world.















We took some video, but every time we did the SAWYR screwed up, but you can check it out. The pictures of the log pile are from the middle of the day so imagine about double that amount of lumber.

DIRT, LOGS, and PLANTS

Friday night we worked on the front yard. No more dirt is needed but there was a mound on the right side that we cut a tree down from and then flattened it out a little bit. We also removed another walnut tree that I remeber last year was pretty messy once the walnuts begin falling. And that is that... it looks great...

Saturday we worked on the front yard some more. We pulled strings for the property line and staked out the driveway. Then Tommy took dirt out of the back (near where the driveway pad will be and put it on the left side of the driveway while I raked it into a mound.

We are having someone come with a portable sawmill on Tuesday to cut up the logs (cherry, walnut, and maple) that we are using for the kitchen cabinets. So onSunday Tommy moved the logs to the front yard and put them in piles of what order to have them cut since it is likely that all 50+ of them will not be cut in one day so picking the better ones is necessary. Meanwhile I went to Lowes and got some shrubs to plant on the left side of the driveway. Got some boxwoods and burning bushes. Also dug out some of the other plants and trees we got last year at that auction. Planted all of those and I think it turned out pretty good. Later in the afternoon Tom's parents came down and his mom brought me two pink dogwoods and a white blooming tree. Put the dogwood on the small hill we knocked down on Friday and the other one along the driveway, still need to find a place for the white one.

HAPPY EASTER!!!

We had a long but relaxing easter... Church at 6am... then a yummy breakfast at Tom's aunts followed by a late lunch... Then we headed over to Amy and Andre's for an evening easter hors d'avours get togehter... and home by 9pm... Like I said... a long day, but we deserve the relaxation, great food and good company...Fun times!

FRONT YARD GRADING

Friday night we set out to "move" the shed... We were able to movie it about 30 feet and then it started falling apart so we gave up. The walls had shifted about a foot off of the platform, that particle board plywood does not hold at all. So then Tommy flipped it over with the kubotka and it landed on the roof (scary moment because it was rolling towards the house!!!). We knoked it aprart and made piles of 2x4's to keep and plywood to scrap. Tommy told me about 4 times to watch out for nails, but inevitably he is the one that ended up stepping on one... it didin't stop him friday but he didn't wake up today without feeling the pain... So the backyard is starting to look clearer with the shed gone and some of the material we have organized, palletized and moved further back on the property. Saturday morning we first graded the front yeard. We evened out the base dirt and filled in holes and scarped down sope of the crappier dirt. We sculpted and raked the slope so that it looks good. We won't be able to plant grass there because it is a little too steep for mowing so we are thinking about using some fo the round river rocks and pachasandras or low evergreen style plants to cover that area. We shall see... Then tommy started to move topsoil from the backyard, near the deck area, to the front yard. Although it is really really really great topsoil it is pretty full of rocks and sticks so it is too difficult to rake it out and remove ALL those little rocks. The saving grace is going to be the rental of a harley rake. It will attache to the 3 point hitche and removes all the rocks from the soil. When we have the front yard and back yard fully grades we plan to rent that and give it a shot, hope it works! Since it wasn't worth it to try and rake out all the rocks I went inside and painted the second coat on the rest of the wind/door tops.

OUTSIDE!!!

It was such a beautiful day today that we just couldn't bear to work inside afterwork.

We need some topsoil for the front yard and some more dirt to finish the grading. In order to do that we need to take some of the dirt from the backyard. The area in front of the shed needs to be cut out and graded so we spent the evening cleaning out the shed and moving everything to the basement and then we cut up the plywood and scrapwood and piled it up in the family room for some fireplace burning. We have a little bit more to clean up and then we can either MOVE or DESTROY the shed, we haven't decided which yet!

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!

MOLDING

On Saturday we did quite a bit of work. Tommy worked on cutting and routing all the material for the rest of the window/door tops while I worked on caulking the coiffered ceiling in the office. We finished each of those jobs at the same time so we worked together on building the window/door tops. Tommy cut all the crown while I nailed it all together. We got it all finished by 7pm and then we got to go hang out for the night.

Sunday we got back to the house and I worked on puttying and caulking the window/door tops. Meanwhile Tommy took apart two that I put together wrong and cut new (larger) crown for the window tops that are going to be going over the arched windows in the family room. When we put them over the windows the first day with the small crown it disappeared, so we stopped at Home Depot and got 2" crown. It looks much better that way!

Before we left on Sunday we put the first set of finished stairs up to see what it looked like. Love it! They look so great. Can't wait to get them installed!

STAIR DELIVERY

The stairs were delivered today. They were supposed to be delivered last saturday but something happened with one of the stairs so we postponed to Sat the 27th... but today at 3:15 he called me and asked if anyone was at the house. Nope, not yet... still at work, but I can be there in 1.5 hours... so I left work and stopped at the bank (the bank teller was WEIRD)... Got to the house in time to clean up the one side of the garage and the truck came. We offloaded them into the garage and wow the stairs for the first to second floor are HEAVY compared to the staircase for the basement. The first to second floor stairs are very nice. We got brazillian cherry treads poplar risers(i think) so the treads will just be cleared and the risers will be painted white. One minor problem I realized after he left is that the bottom set of stairs was supposed to be curved stairs and flaired on the right side... He didn't make the flair... they look gorgeous but that isn't what we asked for so I am going to call him tomorrow and see what he can do... He is a really nice guy so I have no doubt that he will fix it for us.

Afterwords I caulked the crown in the powder room and the windows in the office...

AIR CONDITIONING

Tom's parents went to the house yesterday and today and they worked on the Air Conditioning. His dad connected all the remaining tubes and then today they wrapped them with insulation. Trying to get it done before it is too hot outside and the attic starts to boil. Only a few more things and the A/C unit in the attic is finished.

I caulked and then painted the crown in the family, 1st floor foyer and kitchen. And of course I missed my Tommy!

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!.