Enjoying the Living Room

We have finally reached the point where we can once again enjoy our living room space. It was a lot of work but we pulled it off. First, I had to fill all the cracks in the wood (note to anyone attempting their floors themselves - do this step before the initial sanding!). It took six tubes and three 32 oz. tubs of wood putty to fill all the cracks.

 

The next step was to mop up the excess. And mop. And mop. And mop some more. It took a lot of mopping to get the floors relatively clean. I say relatively because there always seemed to be a bit of dusty residue after the floors dried.

After letting the wood putty cure for a few days, I had to get ready to literally paint the cracks with stain. I stole one of the kids' paintbrushes to do this step as the fattest one was the perfect size for those filled cracks.

 

Here is what a section looks like once it has been "painted" with the stain. Again, you can see that our old floors had a lot of cracks.

The final step was to buff the floor with a microfiber cloth to remove any excess stain and to see if I missed any spots. They were pretty easy to spot due to the major variance in color!

After a few days to allow the stain to cure and dry really well, I had to sand the floors with 1000 grit sandpaper...again. And put on two coats of polyurethane. This time we used a high gloss finish. My husband loves the final look because the floor looks "wet;" I hate it. You can see every dimple and roller mark. The semi-gloss finish left a nice, dull smooth finish that looked much better in my opinion. Alas, I am stuck with shiny imperfect floors. I am planning on doing some more research on applying the high gloss finish so that the other floors finish up more smoothly.

We also applied a second coat of stain to the board and batten wainscoting that we had installed. It is now a much darker, richer color that better matches the coloring of the floor. Those also got a coat of polyurethane to make them easy to clean. And the same was done for the two window frames.

Finally, we painted the two walls Champlain Blue. I was able to find an 8' x 10' area rug that had the blue of the walls, the beige of the couch, the dark brown of the recliner, and the yellow from my overstuffed chair. With some new curtain rods installed and natural, light blocking drapes, the rooms has been reassembled.

We are not finished yet as we still have to install the built-in bookcases and we also have to finish the ceiling and install crown molding; but at least the room is a usable space once again and we are enjoying it quite a lot. This is what it looks like today!

Catching Up

Wow! I was shocked to see that it has been almost a year since we last posted on the house. We actually did do some things this past year, but not a whole lot house related. I blame it on the pool. This past summer we installed a summer pool and that greatly interfered with any home renovations. We did do some work, but nothing is finished yet. For example:

• We repaired all the nail holes in the exterior. At least, those that were simply holes and not broken stucco. It only took about four tubes of caulk that can be painted over.
  
  
• We learned how to mix masonry in order to repair a leaking basement window sill and started repairing the larger broken chunks of stucco. Unfortunately, the weather was a bit cold early and we had to stop repairs in late September, early October.
• We finally selected the exterior house colors. Yeah! This whole process involved a lot of discussion, research, and looking at different color palettes. We narrowed it down to two and actually posted it to Facebook for votes. Yes, it was that challenging to choose! The winning color scheme was the second one (pictured on the bottom).
  
  
  
  
  
• We were able to fully paint - one coat, that is - one exterior wall as well as half of the front of the house. The results were and were not what we expected.
  
  
  
  
  
• We made some interior improvements too, such as adding a new pot rack and more bookcases.
  
   
• We made a new fire pit using rocks we originally tried to use to frame out flower gardens.

At this point, our house looks like it is infected with some sort of small pox. The caulking is appearing lighter and because the base of the house was once painted blue and the original color was a dark brown, the house appears to be two-toned where we painted. We are debating primer or three coats. It's really a tough decision because the paint is expensive. (It comes with a lifetime warranty.....trust me, we only want to paint the house once!)
So, now that you are caught up with what we did, here is what our plan/wishlist is for this summer:

• Install the perimeter fences: picket fence in the front, privacy fence on the sides, and chain link fence in the garden.
• Install walking paths with some sort of stone in the garden.
• Plant two sweet cherry trees in the front yard.
• Plant a second apple tree in the side yard.
• Plant grape vines along one side of the privacy fence.
• Paint the garage to match the new color of the house. (We are not planting a garden this year, so we are improving the infrastructure for the garden and making repairs to the garage - repairs normally impeded by the garden.)
• Replace garage roof with a steel one.
• Remove two concrete strips from driveway and replace with either a new concrete drive or a gravel one.
• Clean out the garage.
• Transition shed contents to garage.
• Replace shed with a greenhouse. Or at least, once we replace all the windows from the house, use the old windows to make a greenhouse? See, this is on the "wishlist" side of things.

Basically, we are hoping to really start working on the house again. And posting pictures of our journey. I think we worked so hard the first few years that we just sort of reached a "burnout" point. Now we are itching to get back to work. And of course, we will continue to keep you posted.