Se we started last week with, you guessed it, more sanding! 

We moved on to the master bedroom, which kind of stalled a few days ago after another fairly large rain storm and a small river in the basement again... At least this time the sump pump ran every 30 seconds to dump a few gallons of water out for about a day. 

So naturally its time to dig a drainage line to try and divert some of that water. So we spent a day digging a ditch. We're just waiting now for a loader bucket of gravel.

Meanwhile the contractor finally came back to pick up his scaffolding and after he packed it all up and drove up we decided to call him up and get a quote for re-siding the house. While not budgeted for we talked it over and decided that it would really help the image of the house when the big day rolls around. 

It's been two days in and they've been doing quite well in the face of rather crappy weather. between the two of them the new siding looks great! I'm really happy it's going to look amazing and save us a whole ton of time and effort. Unfortunately the driver that delivered our siding managed to clip the neighbors phone line and snap is in half. OMG really!?!? Needless to say pissing off the neighbors was really not on the to do list and we've done so well avoiding it. But c'est la vie all we could do is follow up and make sure they contacted bell. It's two days now and they still have a live phone line dangling on the ground which can't be good. Its really surprising, mind you not a power line, that its taking as long as it is to replace the line or even stop by to look at the issue. 

Meanwhile in the light of the new siding we decided we had better get our two new windows in soon! can you tell which one? 😋

The second one will be a little harder as we'll actually have to re-size the frame around the window. But I'm confident. 

It's been a successful week even if the work was all totally unscheduled! At least it really feels like we've been making progress this week.

Till next week here's a picture of Carl enjoying an apple:

Bedroom Number 2 Done.

 Last week was spring cleanup week and look out we had a LOT of stuff to curb! It was awesome, though, as the next day after putting it out (what was left over as passers by had finished picking through) the garbage trucks came by and took it all away. It was quite organized as each truck took a particular type of waist until all that was left was the poor water heater. Just until the final truck swung by and picked it up as well.

Heh even after cleaning up a ton of garbage floating around outside including two bathrooms worth of appliances and two fairly substantial piles of wood the house still looks like an episode of hoarders on the inside. Mind you it's getting better and in the next week the third bedroom will be done which will clean up all the stuff piled up in the hallways. 

Mum had a day out on Thursday to a quilters gathering in Shelburne and poor Sam was so concerned that she was leaving forever he parked himself on top of her lunch bag to make sure she wasn't going to forget him! She had a good time and maybe even made a few friends. 

I on the other hand spent most of the day on the phone finding new car insurance as my old broker took so long 'waiting' for a new quote that my insurance expired. Good thing I didn't have to drive anywhere! So annoyed but after finding a new broker my insurance bill went from about $2000 last year to just under $900 with a CAA membership included. Yikes! shoulda called them first. 

Meanwhile between all these goings on we managed to sand, repair, and paint room number two! Which means tomorrow I move into the newly finished room and start sanding the last bedroom! 

With the end in site I've been thinking about what I want to do when I grow up... heh heh I mean what's next? So far nothing super exciting has come up. Thrown a few ideas around but mostly trying to find something that will be satisfying long term and not kill either of us (like the large list of manual labor items waiting for us). We'll get there eventually. There's still some time but better start looking now. I think mum is hanging back quietly waiting to see what I come up with...

PS... I hear people are having problems making comments on the blog. Comments are limited to users with Google accounts and used to be based on Google+ which they have been phasing out. Which means all the old comments before April 2019 are gone. 😣 

So to comment you need to be signed into a Google account and if prompted for third party cookies on this site you can accept them as they are needed for the commenting process (It's a funky way of handing it but that's how Google rolls). Don't get me started on cookies... There's way too much bad publicity over cookies and for the most part they are actually a good thing. 

If you try to post a comment and it gives you an error please let me know and send me a screen shot. I'd be happy to see! tyler <at> fromthe.blue

Oh look... more sanding, mending, mudding, sanding, and painting!

Just a quick one this week. It's mostly just more of the same as last week. Sanding, mending trim, mudding, sanding, and painting! we've gotten one room finished and mum is working on the next little room while I've been busy sanding the next room down and getting the trim all fixed up. 

Mum spent a few days stenciling the floor of the first bedroom but it looks amazing even if its super time consuming!

Meanwhile here's a shot of the sub floor I had to cut for the second bedroom closet. It was just a tiny bit too big so a quick trim and it fit like a glove!

Cut to size.. almost

We were originally going to drywall a false wall over the pipes to hide them but with the time it'd take we decided to just paint them the same colour as the wall and carry on. 

Right now the upstairs hallway is like an episode of hoarders and it's a nightmare. But it's only because the rooms are empty while we prep them. 

Today we didn't actually get any work done on the house as we had to drive to Yarmouth to get tires changed and a servicing. Mum was joking maybe I should keep the winter tires on as we drove into rain and wind on the way in! I was supposed to get the undercoat done today but with the weather being so wet they recommended I wait. I have to say the Kia is really great at taking care of my car and making sure I'm happy and they have really reasonable pricing which I was pleasantly surprised coming from a dealership.

It's junk week this week do tomorrow we're hauling all our dead appliances and junk to the curb for pickup. It's funny if there's anything interesting in the pile somebody will have it picked out and gone in less than an hour. It's good to see... that whole reuse thing....

Till next week!

More Bathroom and first bedroom

One wonders how the time can fly by so fast and it seem like not much is getting accomplished. When really we've been plugging away at the upstairs bathroom and the first bedroom for what seems like forever! Mind you they look great. The bathtub is almost finished. The last piece of baseboard was attached to the bottom of the tub. Tomorrow morning I can remove the bars holding it into place and then all that will be needed to mark the bathroom as done is some caulking and a final paint job! 

The box for the tub loosely fit and waiting to be glued. 

Everything is glued and bars are being used to hold everything in place while the glue sets.

Meanwhile mum has been working hard painting the ceiling and walls after so very many hours of scraping the paint and wallpaper off the walls. Oh and don't forget the last inhabitant had darts so there were dozens and dozens of little hols all over the walls and trim that had to be filled. It's been a slog but this is the worst bedroom of the three so hopefully the next two will go much quicker. We went with "Trash Can Grey" which is a very nice colour despite it's name. haha.

It's a bit dark sorry 'bout that. 

The doors we initially painted white but after a heavy sanding and 3 coats the yellow from the stain was still bleeding through so we decided to paint the doors grey as well and I am really happy to say they look brilliant! I managed to sneak some painting in there before she took the roller away from me! 😜

Trash can Grey walls all painted

Today I sanded the floors of the bedroom and it's attached sitting room. It took about hours to do but holy moly my arms and legs are so sore! Like noodles! I totally zoned out on Wrongworld this afternoon and almost didn't make it to the blog! But we're here now so it's all good. Still on my once a week schedule. *pew*

Just about done.

All done! Pew that's dusty!

Tomorrow we clean up the dust now that it's had time to settle. Then to paint the floor. Mum has picked out a nice and easy stencil to go on the floor after it's been painted. Something subtle. Hopefully next week I can show off the finished bath and bedroom. And double hopefully by this time next week we'll be finishing up the second bedroom!

Upstairs bathroom... still

Been busy in the bathroom still plodding along. We managed to get the sink and all the plumbing finished Woo hoo! No more plumbing jobs! (Well except the sump pump ditch at some point)

The vanity took a bit of finagling as I had to cut a slot down the back for the pipes to fit. It was easier than re-plumbing the whole room with the pipes inside the walls like they're supposed to be.

The Vanity looks great and it's nice to have it all up and running again. Due to the size of the wall and the weird angle it runs we had to offset the mirror from the vanity which looks a little odd but its a huge improvement from what was there. And on the right you can see the new trim I installed around the door and as a divider for the tiles. I have just about finished installing all the new trim; just the gap below the window seat between the bath and the vanity. but before I can do that I have to build a box to fit around the end of the bath tub to hide all of the pipes. We're going to paint the bath tub copper coloured and leave the side open with two panels on each side cut to fit. It should be an interesting project. It's so funny yesterday I was having a bad day and just struggled to get the trim on the inner frame of the window. But today was a different story. Feeling renewed I managed to do more in an hour than all day yesterday. Go figure some days are just write offs. Oooh and once that's all done it's just caulking and a paint touch-up and the bathroom is complete! 

Meanwhile mum has been hard at work removing wallpaper, sanding, and prepping the first bedroom before painting. You can sort of see the first coat of paint is on the ceiling and the door. We had a discussion about painting the wood trim but it's just so dark that it looked... um... depressing. Fresh paint just brightens things up!

This week is the finishing the bedroom and bathroom before moving onto the next bedroom and finishing upstairs. Time to get the show on the road already!

Oh and one last thing... The forecast is calling for up to 70 mm of rain tomorrow. So we'll see if all that hard work I put into the basement did any good. I just finished dismantling the space heater and dehumidifier and cleaning them up from the last rain disaster. But at least there's nothing below ground level to get destroyed anymore. 

Super excited the end is nigh... Till next week!