House Renovations: Week 4

We’re still at it!  Slow but steady, we are getting there with this house renovation.   There are a lot of little details to work on and one of these days, there will be some huge changes going on.   In the meantime, here are a few updates from this week.

My sister and I went to pick up some things from Lowes and dad got the table saw back out to finish cutting the MDF boards for the rest of our board and batten in the dining room.  We pulled back in the driveway and saw this scene in the back yard.  Mom’s a good helper too!  Aren’t they great?   Mom’s birthday was Friday, the 4th.  She turned 84 years old.  I love my folks!

Dad and I headed over to the house and finished up the rest of the board and batten.  It’s looking SO good and now I can’t wait to get it all painted. I just finished caulking in here this week and soon will be painting this room.  Our next big project will be priming and painting the trim.

Bit by bit, this house will come to life.

So glad I decided to do this treatment in this small 10 1/2 by 10 1/2’ dining room.  Board and batten will really add a lot of impact in here.  I’ve ordered a pretty 8’ square seagrass rug for here too from Overstock.  My old seagrass rug got ruined in my sister’s basement flood and we got a payoff from the insurance company, so the new one will look fantastic in here.  This 8’ square one will  fit perfect in this small dining room.

The rest of the room.

Dad came up with a nifty idea for the lightswitch, which is in the middle of our top row.  He got longer screws and pulled it out flush with the board.

So, now when I get new white covers for all my plates, it will sit on top of the board.  Genius, huh?!

We got the grass mowed last week too.  Dad started the back and the next day I finished off the back and then mowed the front.  At least it is a yard I can handle and can do it myself.

I sure don’t have to work out with a renovation going on, exercise is happening on a daily basis!

We started working on finishing the window trim in the kitchen.  It was done in a really rustic way (as is most of the house), so it really needed an update to make that trim look better.  Here’s a closeup of the existing inside of the window trim.  Very rough and basic.  He took off the front boards, which were basically 2×4’s and not very pretty at all.

We are covering it back up with plain wood too, but at least it will look much more uniform and better.

You wouldn’t believe all the discussions one can have with their fathers over window trim.  Yep, that head-butting thing keeps happening.  He wants to do it one way and I want to do it another.  We are compromising, but mostly I say, with a little extra effort on this trim-out on the windows it will make a big difference in the overall look.  He’s going with my plan for the most part. 🙂  It is not going to be fancy trim at all, since this house is on the rustic side.  It has basic traditional trim all over with baseboards and door trim, but then they did some really rustic trims on the bigger windows and I’m OK with that, just want to make it all look good when painted out white.

He added a little window sill and that looks better already.  Once it is all caulked and painted out white, that will make a huge difference too.

Here they are after both are trimmed out.

We did a basic Craftsman style header across the top.

With the window sill at the bottom.

We also added a trim piece inside left and right and top on each window to hide some of these seams (using baseboard, the perfect fit inside these windows).  I’ll show you that part later.  After caulking and painting, it will be a world of difference.  Next week will be a ton of caulking and then I think we’ll be ready to tackle priming the trim.

Another lunch in the living room with some rest for the weary.  They are troopers and hanging in there.  I caught them with their mouths full so that’s why they aren’t smiling.

Atlanta girls!

One week from Saturday, May 19th, we are going to plan for a painting party.  Anyone in the area who’d like to show up and help, I will give you a room and let you all go to town on priming that stained trim.  We are going to have to prime with oil-based primer to get it ready for the latex trim paint.  I sure appreciate the help so much!  That will just get us further down the road to getting the house painted. 

If you can make it, please bring a paintbrush with you.  And if you have an extra tray for paint, that would be great too!  We will only be doing trim primer that day.  I’d love to meet you, so let me know if you’d like to come out and help.  We’ll feed you too!!  Not sure what, but we will come up with something for lunch.  You can stay as long as you want to, no pressure on time.  Email me at:  [email protected] if you’d like to come out and I’ll give you directions.

Thanks so much!  That’s this week’s update.

Next week, I’ll tell you about the floors.  Looks like that old engineered hardwood in the diningroom and kitchen is going to come out.  It’s not worth saving, unfortunately and that is the conclusion we have come to.  I’m probably going to be putting down all new prefinished hardwoods (we are going to do it ourselves).  I am hoping to do all the rest of the house in hardwoods, Lord willing!  I should be finalizing my choices on that soon and I’ll share with you.

Cabinets are another story.  I’ve gotten a couple of estimates and I’m not really happy with either of them, so we will continue checking around for a better deal.  If I have to, I will totally get Shaker style cabinets from Ikea.  They are very pretty too!

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