Vote for our new couch on Facebook

We finally got our new couch from "The Sofa Company." They were able to customize the size and give us the couch we wanted in the length we needed. They took about half a foot off the length. We also had them make the perfect sized automan to put our feet on.

Here it is when it first was dropped off.


We love this couch! Doesn't it look all comfy and cozy?

We are actually in a contest on Facebook where you can vote for our couch. The winners get $1,000.00! Please help us to win this money. I am still officially laid off with the school district so we may need it really bad...

Here is the link: http://apps.facebook.com/promotionshq/contests/45885/voteable_entries/6406731

Details: Moldings, Blinds, and Curtains

We are very close to actually moving into this house that we have owned for over three months now. Before we do, there is some detail work to do. One major step in the finishing of the interior is molding. We put all new trim moldings around all of the doors, windows, and floors. We even installed crown molding in the living room.
To save time and effort, we painted the molding before installing it. This way we only needed to touch it up after it was installed and caulked. Here I am cutting a piece of crown moulding. It is crucial to have a compound miter saw when doing this. Installing crown molding is a geometric nightmare. Every cut requirs 10 minutes of pure concentration. It is very easy make the cut in the wrong direction. Don't I look serious about this?

To make the work easier, I purchased a pnuematic brad nailer. I already had a small air compressor so it was all I needed. A little glue and a couple of brads and the molding will stay right where you want it.

The trick with crown molding is getting the corners right. Without perfectly square walls you can easily get a connection like this. One option is to use a scrap piece and keep trying different angles until it is right and then do the cut on the actual piece. I did not have any extra pieces so I went with the "fill it in" option.

All it took was a little "Fix-all" patch comound and some sanding...
Add some caulk on all of the edges and seams and little touch up paint...

and now you have a beautiful corner. Nobody will know your walls are not pefect (who's are?).

We also installed all of the window treatments (minus the sliding door). For the two sets of French doors in the front we used shear curtains which will add privacy but still allow a good amount of light to come in.

For the bathroom and bedrooms we used composite 2 inch blinds. They install very easy. Just attach these brackets in the corners of the window frames...


...lift the blinds into place, and now you have a nice finshed look.


Here are the bathroom blinds (nice to have some privacy).

Here are the blinds looking good in our second bedroom. Notice the moldings around the windows and the floors. Just wait until you see it with the floors all exposed and polished.

What are those blue things you ask? You'll just have to wait for our "Kitchen Finishing Touches" post (coming soon...we hope...).

Paint

Many of us have painted so there is not much to say regarding the techniques we used to paint our house. We still want to show what colors we are going with and hope that you will respond with your feedback.
Please keep in mind that we still have yet to get the trim molding installed and painted. It will all be white, so you can picture that as you go through these photos. Enjoy.
Before getting to the colors we had to prep, which included the "fun" process of sanding these beams. There are 12 in the whole house so it wasn't that bad.


And then we had to prime everything. The fresh drywall was easy and only took one coat of primer. The kitchen walls being burgundy (with yellow and green stripes) took about three coats before we were ready to paint them..


Choosing the living room color was the hardest pick for us. We knew we wanted something young, lively, and modern looking. We decided to try a nice bright green color. Looks kind of like...


Pea Soup!


We painted a sample panel before really going for it. It looked a bit too lively...


We went back to OSH to see if they could take it down a notch. The paint guy suggested going with a 50% mix. This would be the same color only a bit lighter. Yes, it is really called "Far Away."


Ooh, smooth and creamy...

Here is the new color in comparison with the old. Slightly toned down and just right (Thanks paint guy)

Laura is excited to finally be painting her new living room.


Here you can see the green in the living room with the white ceilings. You can also see the freshly painted kitchen in the background. The kitchen walls are white but we will be adding color with the tile backsplash very soon. (We will post on that next week)


Cutting in around these beams was not fun after doing it coat after coat after coat. I know it will be worth it in the end.

It was a painting party. Laura's parents were again very dedicated in helping us get this house done. We owe them so immensely for all the time they have put in.


We went with a light blue for the master bedroom.


For the second bedroom/office/project room we went with a light gray. Laura tells me that this light gray will go nicely with baby blue or pink some day. Hopefully some day soon right??? (JK)


It was Laura's project to paint the closet. She had fun and did a great job.

For the beams we went with a dark brown solid wood stain. This dark color will tie in with the dark hardwood floors.

This solid stain really helps clean up these old discolored beams.

Don't they look nice?


Don't worry, we are not keeping that light fixture. Stay posted as we start to put this kitchen together and get this house move-in ready. Let us know what you think of our color choices. We would love to hear your thoughts.

Insulating the Ceiling

Currently our house has no attic. The ceiling you are looking at in this picture is also the roof. That's right. If you moved one inch through that wood, you would be outside. This means when the sun is beating down on the roof, you feel the heat on the inside. We decided that we would insulate the ceiling to help keep it cool in the summer and warm in the winter. In many of the rooms, like the kitchen here, we wanted to keep the exposed-beam look. In order to maintain this look, we had to frame out each section, or bay, and insert insulation.

Here I am with Laura's Dad working on framing out the ceiling bays. We are attaching 2X2's on the sides of all of the beams. On the ends we attached 2X4's. This is what the drywall will be screwed into eventually.

These are the spacers we used to make sure that the 2X2's were evenly spaced away from the ceiling. We attached them 1 inch from the ceiling. With the 1.5 inch foam insulation, this would leave a 1-inch air gap, which will help insualte as well.
In the middle of some sections we added 2X4's so that light fixtures could be attached. The electrician installed receptacle boxes to these. In the other bays, we used 2X2's in the middle.
Now you can see one of those boxes. This flat receptacle box is called a "pancake" box. It is the same thickness as the drywall that will be installed around it. The light fixture attaches directly to it. Laura's dad is installing the foam insualtion. (No, that is not the light fixture we are using)
Here is Laura's Parent's dog, Sandy, looking cute. She came that day just for fun.
This foam insulation is basically large sheets of styrofoam. If you cut it right, it squezes nicely between the beams. This is a good way to insulate a shallow space. It takes a lot of measuring and cutting but I think it was worth it. (If I had this stuff when I was a kid I could have built the coolest fort ever!)
More measuring...
"Yes, I am still being cute"

Bedroom...done! (Notice the light receptacle, that's new too!)
Since we dropped in a ceiling in the living room, we used standard fiberglass insulation here. It has a great R-value but it is messy, ithcy stuff. I used this staple gun to hold it in place.
This 9.5 inch this pink fluff has an R-Value of R-30. That is pretty high compared to the walls that have R-13. The styrofoam provides about R-10. Since we will spend much of our time in the living room, it was important to go as high as possible in here. We hope it really helps keep the hot roof from heating up our main living space.

Living room...done! (Notice the new recessed lights are on. It was geting dark by this time)
Now we can move on to Drywall. Next week we will post on this process. This will be one of the only projects we are having professionals come in to do (other than electrical). My drywalling skills are Ok but not as good as I'd like to have our walls look. We can't wait to have walls again!

Kitchen Bar Demo 2

So we had this wall between our kitchen and living room. There was an opening, so you could see through, but we wanted to open the whole thing up. Here is how we did it.

First, this cabinet had to go. We will use parts of that later when we fix some of the lower cabinets.

Nice striped wall. That needs to go...

These will have to go too. We'll put brand new outlets in later.


Always make sure your cuts are level. Nobody likes a crooked cut, or a crooked bar counter top.

Cutting the drywall with a keyhole saw.


Goodbye view-blocking drywall.


Now just cut the studs and pull the whole thing out. If this wall was bearing a significant load, I would have supported the roof before taking out the studs. Since our house is so small and narrow, the rafters are able to support the 1-inch thick roof just fine.

Insert header and you're ready for drywall. Well there is a bit more to it than that but you know what I mean...

Ahhh...Nice and open...