painted love

work has started on painting the house. my chants of, "oh, i can paint that" when we bought the house are on the endangered speaker's list.












the siding on the back was in the worst shape: it gets uninterrupted afternoon sun 9while the rest of the house gets some respite from other buildings and surrounding trees. so, it made more sense to have it re-sided.












we're going to have the front porch rebuilt in the next few weeks too, so that will be the last part to be repainted when it's put back together.







pictures show most of the scraping and sanding completed.














house will be lightly pressure washed this coming week before they apply oil-based primer. oil-based paints will essentially be outlawed by the end of the year in vermont, we are told.

kitchen in place

got the kitchen base cabinets in place. not anchored down yet - need to decide whether to align with floor, wall or ceiling...


floor actually seems reasonably level, so it shouldn't be too troublesome. we went with exposed legs on this kitchen instead of the covered plinth style. these seem more sturdy and less potential to look crappy like the plinth does if the floor isn't level.





haven't picked up the countertops yet, but will probably use ikea numerar. also need to get a filler piece for the right angle cabinets before it all gets nailed down.

garden state

the 2009 garden is in play. one weekend's work on april 19 did it.


lovely, beautiful, fine compost from our twin bin. couldn't have asked for better. nice and processed, dry and crumbly, super loamy.







had the old window frames lying around, so thought this might help get some heat into the ground and the seeds started, since we've definitely had seeds rot in dampness in past years. worked a treat on the potatoes, and most of the other seedlings are poking through too now.




turned this little corner into our herb/strawberry/sunflower garden. the local cats have other ideas though, so our hopes are modest.

happy ending

the floor refinishing on the second floor was done quickly and looks great.

kitchen with original pine floor refinished.











floor was sanded, stained, stained again, polyurethaned, lightly sanded, polyurethaned, lightly sanded, and polyurethaned one final time.










patch in floor from old plumbing mess. looks pretty good, but will be covered by kitchen cabinets anyway.







refrigerator closet - reused some old wood from the hall floor to fill in this area, where previously there was none.







hallway with new bruce prefinished oak flooring. the quality is good, but it looks a little new, especially with the slight beveled edges of each of the planks. it should look better when the carpets and thresholds are installed.









the area around the heating vent is now solid. no squeaks at all in the new flooring so far. the thresholds to the kitchen (left) and bathroom (right) still have to be installed.

sand job

2nd floor kitchen floor is now ready to be refinished... we left the house keys in the hands of the contractor, so it should be done by next weekend when we get up there. we've never handled a floor sander before, and considering the original floor is in such good condition (below the glued on paper you can see here), opted not to screw it up by doing it ourselves.







the hallway in the 2nd floor leading from the front door, past the living room to the kitchen also had what was probably the original flooring on it. however, when the heating vent was retroactively added, the floor and joists were cut to accommodate (see also 1st floor bathroom... it's a real trend in this house), and as well as the patching not looking great, it was pretty bouncy/squeaky. so, the best idea was to take out the old floor, fix the subfloor and lay a new one. this should also be completed by next weekend.




we're definitely trying to get a move on now with renovations so we can move back upstairs and get the 1st floor rented. stopped at ikea on the way back to the city tonight and bought a third of the kitchen; a couple more trips and we should have everything.

a beautiful mind

weeks of planning and calculating and replanning and recalculating,
and finally we built the secondary staircase between 2nd and 3rd floor.

there were so many limiting parameters, that just when we thought we'd figured it out, another got in the way. using old plywood templates, we eventually figured out a decent compromise.





main stair stringers in place. stringer had to be notched around door frame - couldn't be any higher without limiting staircase headroom to attic ceiling.











this is the area just to the left of the staircase as you start to go up. main are on left will be a coat closet, the cubby above will be the baby's bedroom. behind the wall is the 2nd floor refrigerator.








the underside of the straight part of staircase. all the treads are pine, the risers finish-grade plywood with hardwood facing. we will cover this area later with a decorative lauan panel or wainscoting.










looking down from the attic. it needs more finish carpentry and some newels to slow the fall of tumbling babies, but the hard stuff is done.







view from below. the entrance will be from a deck built up to the second floor and through the existing door shown. another cupboard will reside under the stairs. we wired in the switches for the stair light, but that's a long way away.




so, now that this is out of the way - and most of all, having proven that it was viable, else we'd need to have come up with another plan for secondary egress - we need to get a nash on with the 2nd floor.

more kitchen, still no sink

lots of plaster, lots of sanding, nearly ready for paint.


it's permanently snowing dust in this room.









the old pantry is now basically a recess for the fridge. hilary made me put an outlet in the back of the closet too - she didn't want the cord coming out to the side there.







the back of the refrigerator closet by the new stairs to the attic. crooked floor and walls meet level/plumb walls and floors.

the kitchen sink

designed the 2nd floor kitchen again with ikea's kitchen planner tool.


we'll use mostly the same bits and pieces as the 1st floor, in case we need interchangeability in future. plus, that design is cheap and inoffensive. all this stuff looks like adding up to about $2100.

this picture should also make it clear why we halved the size of the window on the left.