It's Official!

I . A.M. C.R.A.Z.Y!!!!

No, seriously....I'm absolutely, positively, without a doubt, CRAZY!!!

Today I picked up the sander...

walked in to the clutter room...

and sanded the polyurethane off of the cabinet boxes!!  I just couldn't take it!

I knew I wouldn't be happy with the "yellow" finish that they ended up with!

It DEFINITELY wasn't the look I was going for!

(darn that minwax waterbased poly!)

You can already see the difference in the yellow polyurethaned finish and where I sanded it off (the big flat area)  What a cloudy, dusty MESS this was!!

I sanded for HOURS but didn't get finished.  Hopefully I'll wrap it up tomorrow so I can prime it ALL again...and then start to repaint.

Have I mentioned that I'M CRAZY????

For Better or for Worse :)

That's how I feel about the clutter room cabinet doors at this point  :)  Today I put the final coat of paint on them.  I need to look back and see exactly when I started working on these cabinets (or maybe I don't, I'm sure what I find would be SUPER depressing!)

Had Kade take a few pics of me "working" today.

The Harbor Freight HVLP sprayer works quite well, although I think I need to spend a little more time learning the best paint mixture and appropriate settings on the gun.

Don't you love how I used the trash can to try and get the doors close to "my" height?

Oh my gosh my back/neck/shoulders have been KILLING me during this process.

I'm working muscles that I never even knew existed!

Here's a closeup of a freshly sprayed door.  The texture should subside during the drying process.

(at least a little bit)

Not sure that I necessarily am happy with the results, but this is how they're going to stay.

I'm NOT painting them again!

They look "fine" from a distance, lol.

Kade finished up the window sills for the double windows while I was working on the cabinet doors.

I can not wait until the windows are all trimmed...they're going to look so awesome!

Almost all of our windows are NOT even with the drywall, so we're going to have to do LOTS of detail trimming when we go to put it all together.

I seriously think we should have just built a new house!!

We may have actually been done by now if we had!

This and That

Today was one of those days that was just a little bit of everything.  First thing I did this morning was run down and check the wash tub that I bought for the laundry sink.

water level looked good...

don't see anything around the bottom...

and NOTHING underneath!  Yeah!

It passed the water test!

Then I took it outside to attempt to make it have a little less shine  :)

After a google search I found a post where they said that Lysol toilet bowl cleaner would "age" galvanized metal....so....you know what I did next!

(here's the actual post)

I grabbed a sponge and an old piece of cardboard that I've been spraying when I clean out my paint sprayer and headed to the front yard.  It was so nice and sunny this afternoon.

This is the brand of tub that I bought.

Hopefully this works!!

Here's what the final result was after the toilet bowl cleaner sat for an hour and a half.

It looks better....but I think I may give it another coat tomorrow...maybe I'll put it on a little thicker.

So while I was doing this, Kade started cutting the new window sills.

We had our local milling company make us some 1" x 3.5" x 8' poplar boards.

The old sills were a full inch thick...and I really liked that more than even a 3/4" board.

Kade really is good at whatever he does.

After he cut and double checked the fit on the new sills he handed them over to me and I eased all of the edges and gave them all their final sanding.

Don't those just look chunky and nice :)

I almost feel bad having to put primer on them!

This is an example of what we're working with (sorry the pic is so dark)

The house already had replacement windows and jamb extensions, so we have to just make it work.

 I think that's a pretty good fit.  Our side pieces are 3.5"if I remember correctly.

Hopefully tomorrow we can get the 2 kitchen windows all trimmed out.

(it's almost funny what I think we can get done in a day...seriously...you'd think I would learn)

I labeled all of the backs of the sills so we'd know where they go...JUST IN CASE!

We must have been really motivated today, lol!

I also finished up the polyurethane in the clutter room (laundry/pantry)

Don't you like how I taped off what I had left to do.

Hey, I didn't want to get polyurethane on the ceiling!

Why does prep always take longer than actually doing the job??

It's seriously ridiculous sometimes!

Laundry...

DONE!

Pantry...

DONE!

Now I've just gotta get those cabinet doors done

(for real, what is my problem??)
They're on the schedule (in my head) for tomorrow.

(as well as more toilet bowl cleaner on the wash tub, finishing window sills with Kade, and trimming out the kitchen windows, lol.  Wonder if I'll actually get any of it done!)

Crowning Glory!!

 OH MY GOSH I LOVE IT!!!  Crown moulding is one of my favorite things!  Today I FINISHED the crown in the clutter room and around the kitchen cabinets.  It all needed to be painted just one last time.

The pantry side of the clutter room.  LOVE!

I still need to put the poly on the tops of these cabinets - that's in the plans for tomorrow morning.

(you can see the color difference now, the top is really white, that's what's waiting for poly!)

The laundry side of the clutter room.

Laundry baskets will go here in the bottom on shelves, and t.p. and paper towel above (I think)

Don't you love sandpaper and spackling still in the cabinet.  That reminds me, I REALLY need to wipe out those cabinets!  They are full of sanding dust from EVERYTHING that we've done in this room.

The cabinet above the washer & dryer.  I have NO IDEA what's going up there!

Kitchen crown moulding....it looks AMAZING (thank you Jeremy for putting it up!)

Just gotta get the trim on those windows and the backsplash up so we can get the faucet in...

and then the kitchen will be DONE!! (minus the appliances)

Above both windows in the kitchen I painted the trim white like the rest of the house.

(please ignore the "mock" trim around the window, Kade pulled that down tonight)

See how the two colors of trim meet.

You better believe I got up there with a little tiny brush and did some precision trim painting :)

Wednesday I caved and ordered a new galvanized tub to use as the clutter room sink.  It came today and BOY oh BOY is it shiny, lol.  Gonna have to try and give that some distressing if it passes the water test. :)

I filled it up with water and sat it by the floor drain in the basement before we left tonight.

So far it looks like it's going to hold water (that's the guarantee anyway, lol)

I'll check it again in the morning and if it still passes then I've got some more work to do!

Hoping tomorrow we can get some windows trimmed and maybe I can FINALLY get the last coat of paint on those cabinet doors.  What on earth will I work on once those cabinet doors are done???

ONE LAST THING

before I go tonight.

This is my 200th blog post!  Can you believe that??

Lovin' It!

One thing about the new property that I really do like is all of the wildlife!  I've never heard so many owls in one place at one time.  I had to run home at lunch today and this is what I saw....

I bet you're wondering why I took a picture of a bunch of trees right??

Well...I only had my phone  :)

Here's what I actually saw

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An owl....in the middle of the day!  Talk about camouflage!!  Owls can blend in amazingly!

It is so neat to hear them talking back and forth to each other.

I'm looking forward to the days where I can actually sit there and enjoy it for more than 2 minutes!

Jeremy came back today and finish touching up all of the crown.  He quit early since we quit early on Saturday, lol.  I don't blame him...it stinks to be there working alone...trust me...I've done it enough times to know.

Look at the clutter room with its crown!  This is the pantry side.

Tomorrow I will do the touching up in here.  We had already started the trim in this room before Jeremy came to help, so I told him I'd finish it.  I had different paint in here anyway.

Here's the laundry side.  I truly can't wait to see the countertop, sink & backsplash in.

I've had to slightly modify my sink plans.  I wanted to use the old galvanized tub that I had...but of course, it won't hold water, lol, leaks from every single seem that it has!  I have searched high and low for something else that I will like, and finally decided to just order a new tub!!  Hopefully it will work!

In here I just need to paint that crown and get the poly on to "blend" it with the rest of the cabinets....then get those stinkin' doors on that have been the thorn in my side!

Maybe if I work 24/7 I will get something done and it will actually look like things are moving along!

A Beautiful Day!

This morning we had a little delayed start.  Kade's cousin is building a house (or should I say, having a house built - HE WAS SMART!!) and wanted some opinions on a few things.  So we headed to his new house...this was our first time over there to see it since we've been so busy with our own mess.  I can't believe how quickly it seems like it's coming along - guess that's what happens when you have a crew working there every day, Mon-Fri!

Kade and Zach looking at the plans and having a meeting of the minds!

I can't wait to see his house all finished.  I'm sure it's going to be awesome.  He has done a ton of research (like somebody else I know, lol) and is making all the right decisions!

I can't believe how nice the weather is today!  I started out with a tank top & hoodie (my fav) and had to take my hoodie off in the truck on the way home!

This afternoon we made it up to the house to try and get something done.  Something tedious...

something that's been needing to get done for awhile now.  But first....

This is the Jeremy Special daffodil, lol...notice how the tips are all white??  That's from the day he came out and sprayed all of the trim, lol.  Didn't stop them from growing one bit!

So back to our project of the day...

The 6' double closet doors in the front bedroom.  Did I tell you that originally they fell out of the opening and the jamb broke?  I can't remember if I did or not.  We ended up ordering a new piece of jamb...had to do some fine tuning because it wasn't exactly the same as the original, but I got it all primed and painted and now if I wouldn't have told you, you would have never known! :)

Have I said before that double doors are a PAIN in the you know what??  At least they're finally done!  And I LOVE the way they look!