A Quick Update

Just a quick update at the moment. Wouldn’t want anyone to think we’ve spent the last few days just sitting on our duffs. ; )

Tuesday we had a welcome lift from my Aunt J. She met us at the house with a huge home cooked supper (we finished the leftovers last night – yum!!!) After reviving our spirits with good food, Aunt J stayed and helped my mom scrub down the bathroom. After work on Wednesday Charles and my mom got the bathroom walls primed. My own accomplishments at the house this week include completing the first coat of finish on the dining room woodwork and putting shellac and finish on a collection of miscellaneous trim pieces. There has also been much discussion this past week on the choice of paint color for the living room.

This week also included three renovation milestones. First, the HVAC crew swarmed the house one last time. For three days in a row they had three vans parked in the drive. We now have the permanent furnace, heat pump, and air purification system installed and working. I know we'll appreciate the air conditioning in a few weeks, but at the moment I’m thrilled simply by the fact that our new thermostat includes a reading of the outside temperature.

A second milestone reached this week was the exit of our general contractor. I’m sure he’ll be around again for an odd job here and there, but there’s nothing on the books at the moment. His ladders, work lights and most other accoutrements were gone early in the week and he was going to pick up his scaffolding this morning. (I predict Cecilia will be quite disappointed when we get to the house this afternoon.) We’ll be giving our masonry contractor a call sometime this spring, but for the moment we have work at the house to ourselves.

Finally, April 7th marked six months since closing. It seems hard to believe it’s been that long. Sometime soon, I’m hoping to put together a picture-heavy post showing how far we’ve come in the past six months. (Hopefully that will make up for the picture-less post today!)

New Front Door!

This makes me ridiculously happy!

From inside the house (still a bit rough around the edges):

And a reminder of where we started from:

Eugene the Pickle says he approves of our work:

One Day More

Here's a follow-up to the last picture in yesterday's post.

The dining room windows after one day more work:

(The astute may notice the difference between the two windows. Correcting that issue is one of the few things left on our contractor's to-do list.)

Content

We've been keeping busy at The Einsel House. Ceiling priming/painting is done for the moment, and the work we are doing cntinues to be (mostly) of the visually rewarding variety. And of course the arrival of spring has been so nice. Late Thursday Charles noticed 12 deer in the field behind our house. We watched as they meandered across the field in a single file line over to the creek. Barely ten minutes later we were all sitting on the sidewalk outside the kitchen counting the bats that swooped out from under the eaves. Neil counted nineteen. As he counted we were serenaded by frogs along the creek.

Last night as Charles and I were closing up the house we could again hear our bats waking up for the night. (They make a 'chirp' noise, kind of like a cricket but much less harsh.) Charles told me that he was surprised because seeing the bats and knowing they are in the attic doesn't really bother him. If not for the fact that we need to insulate the attic, he said he would be fine with letting them stay in the current home. I wonder if bat guano has an R value? ; )

Like the local wildlife, our two children have been celebrating the arrival of spring. Here's a picture of Neil riding his new bike down the lane:

In the house we've been working mostly on the dining room. I began applying Sealcoat to the dining room woodwork yesterday. Here's a picture of the corner I started in:

In the opposite corner of the room my mom put back up a few trim pieces at the top of the windows that had been removed when the ceiling was gutted. And my Uncle J installed the new candle chandelier (bulbs for it are on my next Lowes-run list). We have a family Easter party today, but I hope to finish the Sealcoat in this corner of the room tonight:

I Don't Like Painting Ceilings

Sorry, that's all I've got at the moment.

A Pick Me Up

Although it was the weekend, I set my alarm this morning early enough that I could make the 7:30am Mass for Palm Sunday. Waiting for the next service would have cost me two hours of progess at The Einsel House. After Mass I went to McDonald's for an Egg McMuffin and a large vanilla iced coffee. As I pulled up to the first window to pay the teenage employee was counting some money in her hand with a somewhat bewildered expression on her face. She turned to me and said, "I assume you know the lady who was ahead of you?" I looked at the white minivan now stopped at the second window. It didn't look familiar. The cashier continued, "She left this money to pay your bill." I looked back to the van now pulling away from the window ahead of me. It still didn't look familiar. Feeling rather bewildered myself, I paid the 17 cents still owed for my breakfast and pulled forward to pick up my food. I had planned to splurge on the iced coffee as a pick me up, but it paled in comparison to a stanger's random act of kindness. God bless that lady, she made my whole day better by starting it with a smile.

The little dorm-sized refrigerator in the EH kitchen now has this sheet of paper on the front of it. Being able to put an "X" in another box is a good feeling at the end of the day.

Two of the most recently filled in boxes include painting the living room ceiling:

and the primer and first coat of paint in the dining room:

The basement also shows signs of recent work. Our new bat boxes have been primed and have part of their first coat of black paint:

And hanging from the ceiling are four of the house's original floor registers. We had these sandblasted and they are now primed and waiting for spraypaint:

Next up is a picture of my Aunt D, who stopped by for a few hours on Saturday and helped us prep the dining room before primer went on the walls:

Thanks, D!

And finally here is Cecilia looking quite at home in

her playhouse/jungle gym

(a.k.a. the scaffolding our contractor has in the north end of the kitchen):

(A corresponding picture of her brother would have shown him upstairs in his bright yellow bedroom in front of a small TV, Wii remote firmly in hand.)

Painting Begins

Neil's room has been painted since some time in February (or was it January?) so I suppose "Painting Continues" would be a more correct title for this post. But this time, painting has commenced in earnest, one room to be followed by another, and another, and another, until every wall and ceiling in the house is fresh and clean and bright.

First up is the kitchen:

I'm loving the light blue/gray color so far. I'm contemplating painting the ceiling beams and the rest of the woodwork in this room white, but so far I'm content with just contemplating. (At the moment I've got plenty of more pressing items on my to-do list). But I am planning to paint the kitchen cupboards a deep charcoal shade of gray sometime this summer.

Tomorrow after work will be spent priming and painting ceilings, and then the coming weekend should be a mix of more painting and finishing trims.

Our general contractor is planning to be finished at the house within the next week. He has a bit more sanding to do in the back bedroom and he is also going to install the new front door. In a few weeks we will welcome back the masonry crew to continue repointing with the south side of the house. It's snowing outside at the moment, but I'm ready for spring (bats and all!)