2 Carpenters + 3 Masons = Full House

Well it's been a week since my last post and while a lot of things have happened since then, there are only a few picture-worthy items of note. The rest is just stuff that had to get done. Since last week the carpenter has completely finished siding the front of the house.

And I love the detail he added at the top of the front door. Not sure if I mentioned it in the past, but the front door will not stay that color. I'm staining it (as well as the other 3 doors we're replacing) a dark cherry color, but that probably won't happen until closer to the fall when the weather is cooler and definitely a lot drier.

Over the weekend, we spent all of Sunday cleaning up the yard in preparation for the dumpster to be hauled away. It took hours to get all the debris from the backyard into the dumpster with me on the wheelbarrow and J on the tractor. And thank goodness for that tractor! We used the backhoe bucket to compress all the wood that was already in the dumpster. Without doing that, there was no way we could have added all the other debris. My reward for doing all of this clean-up - one nasty sunburn on my back!! And that's after using sunscreen. Go figure...

On top of that work on Sunday, I was also busy scraping paint off the 2 awning windows on the side of the garage. They're in good condition so I figured let's clean them up, paint them dark red to match the other windows and we'll be good to go. Plus now's the best time do it while there's no siding on that wall yet. No need to be ultra careful - who cares if I get paint on the Tyveck! Yeah...well that's until J decided to push on the glass to open them up (they were a bit stuck after not having been opened in years) and the bottom glazing on one of them completely broke off. Great... So now I have to repair that before I can paint it. Then I looked at the other window and noticed that the glazing was cracking and breaking away on that one too. Ok - back into the house to Google "re-glazing windows" to find out how to fix them. Thankfully it was a rather easy job. Just needed some window glazing and a putty knife. And I already had the putty knife! LOL So Monday night I painted a coat of primer on them. Tuesday night, coat #2 of primer. Wednesday at like 6am (yes I am an early bird, but it was also so nice and cool out this morning I couldn't resist) I re-glazed both windows so now I just have to wait for that to set and in a few days, I can paint 2 coats and they'll be done. Pffeww! One more task that will be done off the list that is slowly growing to be several pages long. :-o

Also on Monday - the stone masons set up their scaffolding to start prepping the walls for the stone.

Just a few of the many (9 or 10 I think) pallets of our lovely CT weathered fieldstone.

News from renovation central...

I am very pleased to report that the new siding is going up really fast! Here are some pictures of the progress from yesterday.

As of this morning:

As of this afternoon:

And I'm very proud that we have installed our new front door handle and lock - even though we were working on it until 11pm last night!

The inside view:

The outside view:

And of course what would a blog about 2 black cats be without a recent picture of at lease one of them, right? Here's my girl Hailie sniffing through the debris.

Update on the home renovations, or I should say demolition...

Without further ado, let me start by describing some of the progress on the work being done to the house. The carpenters started working on the house during the last week of June and as of now, the old siding is gone from the front and rear of the house, along with the front porch and parts of the back deck. We purchased 4 new exterior doors to replace the old ones and as of this morning, the front door has already been replaced. Yippee!! More stuff for me to stain...

Anyway, last week J met with the mason to pick out the thin stone that will be applied to part of the front and the two gabled ends of the house. That will hopefully be delivered later this week so the mason can get started as soon as our carpenter pulls off all the old siding. And we received a dumpster this morning so the debris that's been scattered around the yard can finally be picked up. I'm saving the "before" shots so you can compare it to the "after" shots, but if you want to see a few pictures of some really nice Tyvek, here ya go!

Watch your step if you go out that door - the front porch is gone! We really need to get rid of those trees too.

Back of the garage, not yet Tyveck'ed. That little window at the top is going to disappear.

Back of the house.

The garage looks so naked!

Going back to work after vacation is no fun!

So my week and a half off from work has come to an end. I know it had to, but I have to admit that I was completely confused at 5am this morning when my alarm went off and the first thing that came to my head was "What the heck is that noise?" Yup - I totally forgot what my alarm clock sounded like! So here's a recap of the past week and a half...

My cousin E drove down from Ottawa on Wednesday 6/25 to spend a few days with us. Thursday proved to be a busy day as that was the first day of demolition of the exterior of the house, but we had plenty of time to fill in the day with some fun activities. First my cousin and I met J at work for a quick tour of the datacenter (one of many that this sports broadcasting firm maintains) followed by a nice lunch in their brand new cafeteria. From there my cousin and I drove down to Gillette castle state park for a tour of the mansion as well as a nice walk along the grounds. We left just as the rain started to fall, so it was perfectly timed.

On Friday, despite the threatening skies, we decided to head to Lake Compounce for some old-fashioned amusement park fun. It wasn't until after we got off our very first ride (the Wildcat!) that I learned that my cousin had never been on a roller coaster before. And I had to pick the roughest, most jostling ride there to go on first - oops! I do have to give him credit though, despite that painful ride, he seemed excited to get on boulder dash next. So he went from having never ridden to riding 2 roller coasters in 1 day! Despite all my coaxing though, he drew the line at Zoomerang. I think the going upside-down backwards thing didn't sit well with him. Next time!

Saturday ended up being a great day in Rhode Island. We traveled to Quonset Point to see the RI Airshow, complete with VIP guest passes from Team Oracle (that J secured following months of back and forth with his Oracle rep.) Not only did we have front row seats on the runway, we also got to meet B's favorite aerobatic pilot and his son who is also an aerobatic pilot - Sean D. and Eric W. D. Tucker. The highlight of the day was when B approached Sean with his own miniature version of the pilot's biplane for him to autograph. It was a kit he received at Christmas that we helped him to assemble and we even painted it bright red to match Sean's plane. Well Sean was so impressed by this little plane, that we were invited to visit the real plane so B could hop in and have a seat in it! B was so excited! We had a great time that day and meeting with the pilots was such an honor. I had never been to an airshow before but now that I have we'll definitely go again.

On Sunday B, my cousin and I spent the day down at Mystic Seaport to see the wooden boat show that was going on that weekend. It was a nice, but hot day and after a bit of walking around we left for a late lunch at Abbott's in Noank. Their hot lobster rolls a must-eat for any lobster lover! Monday morning my cousin left and headed up to the White Mountains in New Hampshire before returning back home. We on the other hand spent the beginning of last week staining more cedar (shakes this time!) More on that later...

Who needs drugs when you've got siding to stain?!!

I think I'm still high from all the Cabot fumes. Last night marked my 3rd consecutive day of staining our brand new cedar siding boards that we received last week. I spent over 16 hours this past weekend staining, and thankfully the weather held out long enough on Sunday for me to do 54 boards all by myself. In 2 hours last night, 3 of us finished about 65 more and there's still 20 or so to go! I should be able to finish that last bit tonight, but after spending Sunday and Monday night in the garage surrounded by the fumes, I think it's starting to go to my head. ;-) And of course it's been rather humid lately so this stuff is taking forever to dry and I'm running out of place to put them to dry! They're spread all over the garage and many are even leaning up against the tractor to conserve space. So no parking in the garage for a bit longer! We're hoping that the carpenter will start the siding work in the next few days, but we still have more stuff to do before then like take down the outside lighting fixtures and getting a dumpster delivered to throw away the old siding. All I can say is thank goodness we're doing a significant part of the house with stone. No need to stain that stuff!

More work on the house and a new dress!

Ok, so the heat and humidity from about 2 weeks ago really tested the new AC system and we discovered that the upstairs wasn't cooling off as much as it was supposed to. So the guys are back at the house again today, as a matter of fact, to drop 2 more supplies in the upstairs bedrooms to balance out the air in the upstairs. So it should nice and really cool up there the next time we get 90+ degree heat! And to top it off, I asked them if they could look into the issue we have with the tub in the bathroom upstairs. We haven't used it in ages because of a leak which appears to be coming from the drain underneath. That issue has been on our To-Do list for about a year now, so if they can get that fixed we'll be golden!! Not to mention the fact that B will get to take a bath in "his" bathroom again.

In other renovation news...we received a delivery of lumber this morning for the siding. I have to admit - those cedar boards are beautiful! So we'll definitely have our hands full this weekend staining all of that before the carpenter starts his work on Monday. We have also signed with a stone mason and he will be starting his work as soon as our home equity loan goes through at the bank. Oh - and last weekend I borrowed a wallpaper steamer from a former colleague (Thanks J and I!) so that I can start the removal of the last bit of wallpaper in the upstairs hallway. Busy busy!!

Speaking of last weekend, one other task on my list of stuff was to get together with my cousin and her friends/family and go dress shopping! My cousin is getting married in October (finally - she's been with the guy for like 13 years!) and I'm one of her bridesmaids and I'm so excited! I haven't been a bridesmaid since my best friend Chel got married in 1997, but I think I remember the drill - LOL. Anyway, her only requirements about the dress was that is had to be black or brown. But of course we peppered her with so many questions about what she wants/doesn't want (can't have the bridesmaids outshine the bride now can we!) that she ended up caving in and showed us her wedding gown. It's absolutely stunning! So the 5 of us - 4 bridesmaids and her maid of honor started scanning the racks and I started trying on a bunch of dresses. This is the one we decided to go with. It will be a dark brown with a cream-colored sash. I have to admit, I didn't really like it at first (all that poofy-ness isn't really my style), but it's starting to grow on me.

And the maid of honor will have a slightly different dress. Hers will be a taupe/nutmeg color (more like the color of the sash in this picture) with a dark brown sash to match the bridesmaids.

So let me know what you think of the dresses!

Bring on the heat!

Cause we're ready! Last week, the first of several major renovations to the house was completed with the installation of central air conditioning. So long to 8 long years worth of window-unit nonsense! After growing up in a house with central A/C then moving to a house without it and having to deal with window units, I realized very quickly how much of a pain those things are to deal with. And after replacing all the windows over the past few years, well just say I'm glad I don't have to worry about those getting all scratched up anymore. So bring on the hazy, hot and humid weather! The crazy summer heatwaves that last for weeks! (Just not any droughts, ok? Food prices are high enough as it is!) Cause we are ready to sit back in a nice cool comfy house!

Next up - we need to secure a mason so we can secure some money and get the exterior renovations going. We've talked to 4 stone masons already and we have a really good feeling about 2 of them. One of them wanted us to measure for the square footage ourselves - what?? Isn't that what you're supposed to do? And another one quote a price that is way above the average. So stay tuned...