Otterpop's Journal

Shutting it down
I'm probably not going to be posting much here any more... All house stuff will be up on http://www.buildingupgreen.com, and will probably put more personal stuff there or on facebook. Anyway just sub to the rss feed if you want updates.

House Journal - Floor Redemption
Another day, another rented floor sander...

This time a 4 disc oscillating sander. This does an amazing, albeit slow job. A little after 8 am and we were already sanding. We bought 3 packages of sanding discs, and could've probably used 4. So the last room was very slow going. It was still working, just not as aggressively as it does with fresh sanders. To give you an idea of how much material we were taking off the floors, here is a shot of the bedroom floor.

When it was all over, the floors looked like this:

Before progressing further, we had to vacuum and clean the floors with mineral spirits to remove all dust and dirt particles from becoming a permanent part of the floor.

After a short break for a snack, we started staining the floor.

We got through the dining room and living room, but had to stop there. The machine had to be back at the store and besides, after 2 days of crawling around on the floor on our hands and knees we were beat. (Incidentally we returned the sander at 6:32. It was due back at 6:34.) But not before taking these next few pics. I love the rich color the wood and nice contrast with the grain.

House Journal - Floor Debacle
This weekend our major goal was to re-finish the wood floors. We planned on getting to the house early and just "rock and rolling" until we were done. So I should have taken it as a sign when we stopped at the Lowe's to pick up the floor sander - theirs was being repaired. So we drove further west while I called a few places and finally located one at a rental shop in Chelsea. We thought we were in good shape.

Here's a quick before picture of the floors - they are in pretty rough shape.

So we started with the random orbit sander from the rental shop, and... well it sucked. We worked with for a good half hour and got nowhere.

Tim ran back over the Chelsea and picked up some more abrasive sandpaper, and it didn't help much. It didn't help any that there is a lot unevenness in the boards. So I made a few calls located a drum sander. Of course, the nearest one we could find was all the way back in Ypsilanti. So we ran over there, picked it up, 4 hours after we started our we were finally making some progress.

We all took turns running the machine and crawling on the floor using the hand sander to get in the corners.

Here you can see what we're doing. On the left - original floor On the right - freshly sanded.

We managed to get through all the rooms with the drum sander as a first pass. I returned the square orbital sander and picked up a 4 disc sander which we use tomorrow for a second coarse pass and then a finish sanding. We also picked out some stain: "English Chestnut". It's nice and dark with brown and a hint of red. We wanted to go on the darker side to help mask some stains in the floor that the sanding is not taking out, as well as give it a nice "old" feeling.

House Journal - Memorial Day Weekend
Well it's already Memorial Day and it seems like just yesterday we were trying to shovel our way through the snow at our new house. There will be no picnics for us today, just a 3 day weekend to work on the house (although we were able to sneak in a little fun).

Saturday we hit up some garage sales on the way to the house. Erin was just about done with them all together and I convinced her to go to one more. And it was there that I happened to find an aerator and a broadcast spreader for our tractor for only $10 each!

We got to the house and started priming the hallway. About halfway in to it my parents arrived. They just stopped by for the day since the weather was so nice. We showed them the latest progress and they brought along a grill and made us some burgers. It was a nice, leisurely day. After lunch, my dad had to take the tractor for a spin.

We took a walk through the area where we know there are some raised garden beds but wow, talk about overgrown!

After they left we cleaned up a bit and left for home. We were trying not to push too hard this weekend.

On Sunday we brought the dogs with us for the first time. Now that their fenced-in area is mowed we could leave them run outside. Of course, the fresh air is too much for them and they'd prefer to be inside with us.

We painted the entry hallway. The color is sort of a sand color.

We wrapped up the day painting the trim in the dining room. Trim painting is much more time-consuming than you think it is. You look at it and just think "oh well that's not that much, just along the floor and around the window" but with all the curves and edges where trim meets wall that must be cut in, etc, it takes much longer than you expect.

Because the weather was so nice we wanted to spend at least some time outdoors today. I also had a couple extra bucks in my wallet from picking up a shift at the bar on Saturday night, so we decided to go ahead and buy a gas-powered string trimmer (which is not the same thing as a WeedWhacker, because that is a trademarked name. We also got a few bags of dirt to fill in some of the holes in our yard. Cutting the grass will no longer be the exciting adventure it once was - never knowing when your wheels would drop out from under you. But it will be much safer (and easier on the tractor).

We read in the paper that the local firefighters would be holding a chicken BBQ dinner in the Stockbridge town square, so we decided to try it out.

After lunch, we put a second coat of paint on the hallway and painted yet more trim. The painting never ends!

House Journal - Trim Work
It's been slow but steady progress at the house lately. This weekend Erin and I worked on separate projects for the most part. No Tim this week - he closed on his new house last Thursday and is busy working on that! We're both excited for him and wish him well in this new endeavor.

Erin's task was the hallway. The original plaster walls in this area are in the worst shape of anywhere in the house. So she spent a lot of time like this:

Of course it didn't help matters when she accidentally put this hole in the wall with a hammer.

Jane stopped by to say hi and see how things were going. She advised us on some window treatment options and it was VERY helpful! She thinks because we have such beautiful trim and stunning views, the window treatments should be as minimal as possible. We don't want any drapes covering up he molding, and we don't want anything to obstruct the view of the outside. So, any window treatments will be used for some privacy and light control. She even offered to get us a few quotes from local dealers!

That afternoon, I decided to tackle the kitchen island. It's the last major kitchen project to be completed. When we bought the house, the island was about half-finished. We thought it had potential, and of course part of being "green" is recycling and re-using wherever possible. So we kept it. The first thing I had to do was finish up the paneling on the one side. It was never completed because the plumbing for the dishwasher and sink was never finished. So I had to complete it but also be able to access the plumbing in case the sink gets clogged or something. So I devised this panel:

Doesn't look like much but that's the point. It's held in by 4 counter-sunk screws and provides a seamless look. When it's finished you'll probably never know it opens.

For the "legs" of the island (which were just 2 x 4's) I mitered some molding and added some quarter round trim to make it look more architectural and structured.

I framed in the beadboard with some more quarter round. I'm really proud of my work here and I am so happy I was able to make the pieces fit EXACTLY! Thanks to my dad for giving me the tip to never measure when you're doing this stuff. It's much better to hold up the pieces and mark it. Measuring just introduces the possibility for error.

A few more trim pieces here and there and it's nearly complete. I ran out of quarter round so I'll need to pick some more of that up. Erin primed the one side to get an idea of what the completed island will look like.

We finished up by installing these rails in the pantry. They will hold our shelves where we will keep our dry goods. Nothing too exciting about it but I managed to get one flipped upside down and it drove me crazy trying to figure out what nothing was lining up.

We are both really anxious to get moved in. Every day the house seems more and more like our home, and we really can't wait to get in! The kitchen is nearly complete, and once we get the hallway painted we'll be able to get the wood floors sanded and refinished. Once that is complete the major messy projects will be completed and we can move in.

House Journal - Another Transformation
Erin and I stopped at a couple garage sales on our way to the house this morning. We didn't see too much, but we did pick up this colonial revival style table for $20. It needs a little work but the price was right. I brought it into the house and thought it looked just about perfect next to the front door.

A lilac bush on our property is blooming so Erin picked some and put them into an impromptu vase in the kitchen.

Rain clouds were looming again and we tried to get a little mowing done before things got wet again. This little tractor is FUN! We cut a huge area with a lot less work and sweat than it would take with our walk-behind mower.

We got to meet a new person today when a farmer from down the road stopped by. He offered to cut the pasture on our land across the street for us with his tractor if he could use the grass to feed his cows. No problem for us - we're not going to be doing much with that land this year and it will help keep the grass a reasonable length.

Our main goal today was to get the living room painted. We started by priming the walls and caulking the trim. Erin is really good at caulking, so shortly after this picture was taken I took over "cutting in" and she worked on the caulk.

My dad always says that one of the keys to a really nice paint job is to apply caulk wherever the wall meets a piece of trim. It makes a seamless transition with no dark edges. Erin took this picture to demonstrate - to the left is already caulked, to the right is uncaulked.

We took a small lunch break after priming the walls to let things dry. When we got back we were ready to paint again.

We put on two coats of this koi pond color. This picture doesn't really show the color that well, but you can get an idea. It's a million times better than the dark, ugly wallpaper that was on the walls previously!

These original plaster walls were covered with wallpaper and had some rough patches and cracks which we worked on, s

House Journal - Tractor Day
Today I took the day off work to take delivery of our new garden tractor. We have a huge area to mow which would just be too much to mow by hand, and we will be able to use it for other tasks such as tilling the garden or plowing snow in the winter. We did a lot of research, and finally decided on the Husqvarna as it has a good reputation, a lot of features and fit in our budget. We also got a free dump cart with the deal.

The lawn was very wet and it rained off and on, so I wasn't able to mow anything today, but I did get to tool around a bit in the yard. While I was out pheasant decided to pay me a visit.

After playing around with the tractor, I painted the ceiling in the master bedroom. Then I sanded the living room walls and met old friend - drywall compound. A few areas needed some more smoothing out.

I finished my day caulking the trim in the bedroom and called it a day.

House Journal - little touches
Erin and I arrived at the house early today to make the most of the day. Within the first 5 minutes, we already checked a box off our to-do list by putting up this new light over the island.

Erin's dad arrived a little while later, and he helped me put the doors in the pantry. We had to shave about a 1/2" off the bottom and 1/8" off each of the sides in order to make them fit right. Here he celebrates the fitting of the doors with his dogs, Riley and Casey.

We found some rhubarb that started overtaking one of the raised garden beds. Erin gathered a little of it and snapped a pic:

Now that countertops are finished, I was able to plumb the sink again and attach the doors.

To make sure we would go home really good and sore tonight, we decided to finish the day installing the hardwood floor in the bathroom. This is some more flooring that we picked up on clearance.

House Journal - Backsplash Day
Today I took some time off work to have our backsplashes installed. I'm so happy with them - they look great and I finally don't have to look at the ugly paint on the wall behind the backsplash.

While they were working on that, I painted the pantry doors in the garage.

Then I put a second coat of paint on kitchen trim and painted the pantry. We are very close to having a functioning kitchen!

House Journal - April Showers

I've been a little slack in my blogging lately and trust me, we've gotten more than a few phone calls from friends and family wondering if we had just given in to the allure of the hammock's siren song. The answer of course is NO, although we can't wait for a day when we have the time to nap the day away.

This past weekend it was just Erin and me. Erin's dad took the weekend to go turkey hunting. I tried to convince him that he could still work on the house and shoot the occasional turkey from the kitchen window, but I was only joking - he really deserved a good break.

Erin worked on stripping the wallpaper from the living room. We found numerous poor patch jobs that had been wallpapered over but in general the plaster was in pretty good shape.

We went into Chelsea for lunch at Mike's Deli. Erin heard it was a good place and they had very good sandwiches. After that we went into Chelsea Farmer's Supply which is a real, authentic old farm supply shop that has probably been in the same spot for a hundred years.

A big thunderstorm rolled through and sadly we left the windows open in the house so we had some clean up to do when we got back. We also found one window that had a good leak in it that we'll need to repair.

The trim in the living room was very dirty and needed to be cleaned up before painting so Erin scrubbed the heck out of it.

I worked on some drywall and did a little more trim work, helped Erin with the walls, then finally got around to painting the rest of the kitchen.

That's it for today - I'll be back at the house on Thursday waiting for our backsplashes to be installed and will work on a few other pet projects while I'm there.

House Journal - Spring is here
As you can see from our backyard spring has officially arrived and shades of green are slowly taking over the landscape:

I started today putting a coat of paint on all the trim I primed yesterday. Since we had nice sunny skies today I put it outside to dry in the sun.

Then Erin and I started putting the handles on the kitchen cabinets. Her dad found a little jig online at the Woodcraft store and was kind enough to pick one up for us. It really made the job easy and we managed to avoid any crooked or out-of-line handles.

After lunch the trim was dry so Tim and I started putting it up in the master bedroom.

While we were hard at work, Erin put together the hammock and decided to try it out. I have a feeling that our productivity will experience a deep decline from now on.

House Journal - Countertop installation
Today I took the day off work so our countertop could be installed. It was a beautiful day out so I opened the garage doors and started priming some trim. We have a lot of trim to put up, so I thought it might speed things up if I primed and painted it before we install it. That way we'll only have to touch up a small amount of paint. At least that's my theory - we'll see how it goes.

Of course as soon as I got started with this the countertop guys pulled in.

They didn't waste any time bringing in the material.

Now, this is no small feat - I lifted a small chunk of it and have no idea how just two of them managed to carry this in. They wasted no time getting it set into place.

Here's a quick shot of the island and the dishwasher we put in last weekend.

To close the seam between these two pieces, the installers put some epoxy in the crack and use this device to close the gap. It creates suction and pulls each side in toward each other.

We had them create a window sill out of the countertop material and I'm really happy with that decision. It looks great!

It took them about 2 hours to do everything. It's really looking good! They'll be coming back again to do the backsplash.

After they left I grabbed a quick lunch at Columbo's Party Store. It's right down the road from us and they have really good pizza by the slice.

After lunch I installed this new light fixture over the sink.

For the rest of the day I continued working on the trim. We're using 1 X 6 boards for much of the trim in the house. It's used in a few rooms and gives those rooms a simple, old farm house feel, which I guess makes sense for an old farm house. Anyway I had to fill a few knots and dings with some wood putty and give them a second coat of primer.

I'm back home now - time to rest up before another long day tomorrow. Of course I've got some pressing issues at work that I need to look into tonight as well.

For those of us who are not religious, it's a huge pain in the ass when the entire world shuts down due to a 2000 year old fairy tale.

House Journal - Race to the Finish
This week has felt like a race to the finish line. We've been trying to clean out our old house and get it ready to show to potential renters. A friend of a friend of mine heard about our house being available for rent and we wanted to be able to show it to him. We spent about 4 or 5 hours decluttering and deep cleaning the house yesterday in order to prepare for it. I'm happy to report that he definitely wants to rent from us starting in June so that is a relief for us.

Today I needed to get the kitchen sink hooked up so that we can show it to the appraiser on Monday. When we bought the house, we had to put some money in an escrow account in order to guarantee that certain items in the house are repaired. The appraiser originally pointed out several things that required repair in order to get our money back - fixing the leaks in the basement, install a fridge and stove, and a working kitchen sink. Now that we finally have cabinets and a sink in place we can get our money back. Unfortunately this also means that after the appraiser leaves on Monday, I have to disconnect the plumbing again so I can remove the sink so the countertops can go in on Friday. Silly? Of course.

It took a bit of "Lowe's Engineering" to get the plumbing right. "Lowe's Engineering" is where you haven't figured out what you need until you get to Lowe's, and you stand in the aisles and look at all the parts and figure out how you're going to put something together in your head. And you usually end up buying more than you need to get the job in the hopes that you don't have to make a second trip later.

While I was wandering around the hardware store like a zombie, Tim framed up the pantry area. We bought some bi-fold doors last week to close off the pantry and needed to slightly modify the opening.

Erin spent her day collecting rocks from our yard. We have a bunch of rock on our land that were dug up in fields over the years. She put up some chicken wire on the fence we built last weekend and added these rocks to prevent our dogs from sneaking through the pickets.

That was about it for today - it was a short day since we had to get home early to show off the house.

House journal - Getting closer
This weekend was a good one with quite a few projects wrapping up. Today we got out the house and were able to mark a few things off our list right away.

Erin painted the dining room and primed the trim. Painting is one the jobs that seems to go on and on with caulking, priming, cutting in, painting, second coats, ceilings, touch ups, etc but she tries to put on a happy face about it.

Tim and I swapped the positions of the washer and dryer. As you can see we can now open both doors and seamlessly move clothes between the two.

We then hooked up a piece of exhaust vent in our range hood and I installed the cover.

Tim installed a new tank seal in the upstairs toilet. I have to admit at first I did not care for color ot the toilet and matching tub, but against the blue color it actually doesn't look too bad.

We did a little more work on smoothing out the walls with some spackle:

Tim decided to built a little box to hide the unused flue for the old wood burning stove. We had some scrap material laying around and he had it done in about 10 minutes.

Erin and I wrapped up the day by putting another (hopefully final) coat of paint on the ceiling.

House Journal - Fence installation
Yesterday I left work early to meet the countertop guy so he could measure and cut some templates for our kitchen countertops. While I was there, I finally got the downstairs bathroom sink repaired!

The countertop guy needed the sink in place so he could figure out how to cut around it. So he helped me heft it in to place.

I did a little more drywall patching and a few other things and stopped at the Lowe's on my way home. They are still not able to get our dishwasher in, so I convinced them to give us a more expensive one at the same price. That will be delivered next week.

Today Erin and got to the house early and took up the plywood counters on the island and "bar" area. The quartz countertops do not require any underlayment and if we leave them you'll be able to see the ugly plywood underneath so we got rid of them.

Erin's dad arrived and we made a quick trip over to Menard's for supplies. We needed a bunch of trim pieces and stuff to make a fence. We wanted to a small dog area off the side of the house so we can just let the dogs out the door without worrying about them running all over the countryside.

We got back and had some soup for lunch. We started digging some post holes and were pretty discouraged with the first two holes. This is a picture of all the rocks we hit in just ONE HOLE:

Fortunately for us, the rest of the holes were much easier going.

While we were digging, I heard an surprised exclamation from Erin. She was cleaning up some junk on the side of the house and found a garter snake!

Fortunately for the snake, Erin is an animal lover and the snake was lovingly relocated further away from the house.

Good help is fortunately easy for us to find with so many family members and friends who are able to give us a hand. Our friend Jane Hughes was in the area today and stopped by just to do some raking and yard work. And of course we don't know where would be without both of our fathers helping out.

A few hours later and the fence (complete with gate) was nearly complete. We just need to cut the tops of the posts so they are level, and paint it. I surprised myself with how quickly it went up. I'm sure the dogs will love the area, and it will really make a nice transition from the garden to the house.

House Journal - Dishwasher troubles
We started Sunday by finishing putting together the rest of the drawers for our cabinets. Once that was done we decided to put in the toekicks, and I have to say I think we did a nice job as you can barely even see where they are jointed up against each other. Every little thing we've been doing lately makes the kitchen look one step closer to being finished.

After that we tackled installing the dishwasher which was delivered the day before.

The space for the dishwasher in the island was about a quarter inch too short, so we had to take up the lovely contact paper and cut a notch in one of the support braces. We got it all the way in when we noticed some scratches on the front of the dishwasher. We put that together with the soap stain on the inside and we realized that somehow they sent us a unit that had been used. So it needs to go back! We contacted Lowe's, who apologized profusely, but it seems as though we got the last of that model in the state. They're trying to locate another one for us but so far have not had much luck. If they haven't found one by tomorrow we may just have to pick a different one. As you can see we literally got it almost all the way installed and tomorrow I'll have to take it out again.

Erin also got the second coat of paint on the master bathroom! Looks fantastic!

We've gotten a few comments that it's been too long without an update, so I apologize for the lapse in posts. Last weekend was kind of strange in that a lot of small projects got done. The main ones were the master bedroom got painted and the bathroom was primed. More on those later.

Today we got to the house just as the Lowe's delivery truck was pulling into the driveway. It was as if we timed it perfectly, but to be honest we did need to do a bit of panicked running around moving ladders and boxes so they could bring the appliances in. We didn't hold them up too much.

I'm going to talk a little about our appliances - we spent a lot of time picking out smart, energy efficient appliances and I thought I'd share some of the reasoning behind it. First of all we bought all Energy Star appliances (where applicable - they do not rate ovens/ranges or clothes dryers). These appliances use less electricity than standard models, which will not only save us money, but also help save the environment.

Our refrigerator has several features that make it energy efficient. It features a twin cooling system which helps you more accurately control the temperature in each compartment. Also, it does not have a water dispenser in the door - this allows the fridge doors to be as insulated as possible. Plus, it looks good! The top doors open to the fridge and the bottom is a pull out freezer.

We found this awesome oven - it features two separate cooking compartments which is great for holiday meals. However this makes it a very efficient oven - instead of heating up a large single compartment, most meals can be made in the slim upper compartment, thus requiring less electricity.

Our washer and dryer are front loading, which uses less water and electricity than normal ones. The electric dryer is a bit of an energy hog, but in the summer months we will be able to use our solar linear evaporator (that's a clothesline to you lay people). We sprung for the pedestals which raise the appliances off the floor. No more bending down to get clothes out of the dryer!

Missing from this view is our dishwasher - it's still in the box and will be installed at a later date.

Once everything was in place, we started working on the vent hood which we started last week. After getting everything in place, we realized we had the entire thing turned 90 degrees, so we had to re-do everything again. I won't tell you what I was muttering underneath my breath in this picture, but it wasn't pleasant.

Once we got that all sorted out I screwed in the dozens of tiny torx screws that hold this thing together. And with a bit of teamwork we got it all hooked up.

After a quick lunch of some chicken and dumplings that Erin made in the crockpot, Tim and I started putting together all the drawers and doors for the cabinets.

While we worked on that Erin touched up some paint in the master bedroom, which she and her mom painted last week.

And then painted the upstairs bathroom.

Meanwhile downstairs we kept plugging away at the cabinets. Those Swedes know what they're doing with their fancy hinges and snap-together drawers. There are all kinds of built-in adjustments you can make to ensure everything is level and flush.

Things are really starting to come together! We are both really pleased with the way everything looks together.

House Journal Day 44
It's been a month and a half and I'm just amazed at what we've accomplished so far. Erin and I are both very thankful for all the help we've received and this weekend it felt like things really changed from a construction zone to a home. My dad and I arrived at the crack of dawn. Only the turkeys, cranes, and deer were up before us. My dad fixed the door to the garage which was broken and occasionally would drift open. He cut out the broken part of the frame and made a new piece to go in. Works great now!

While he worked on that, I painted the kitchen walls. Not all the walls were ready to be painted, but the ones that were ready (mainly the ones where the cabinets go) were painted. We're both pretty fond of the of the color.

The paint testers from Sherwin-Williams are a full quart of paint. It's not the full quality paint that we get in full gallons (and we're using a low VOC paint) so it doesn't coat quite as nice, but is plenty of paint to get a good feeling for how it will look on the wall. So Erin really went to town with it. Here is our dining room color:

And our laundry room (It is a different, brighter yellow than the kitchen - the camera phones aren't really doing the colors justice).

And bedroom (this is actually a shade of green - looks beige for some reason).

Then our attention turned to the cabinets.

The walls in our 150 year old house aren't exactly straight, so it took a lot of putzing and shimming, himming and hawing to figure everything out. The end cabinet ended up parting with the wall by about an inch and a half. Not the end of the world - everything looks straight in relationship to the rest of the cabinets and the floor, and when the countertop goes on no one will know the difference (except us, and now you). I thought about it on my way home today and figured out how to correct it and get it closer to the wall, but I'm not sure it's worth the trouble. I think we will talk to the countertop people and see what they think.

I really like the way white cabinets are going to look with the wall colors and slate floors.

House Journal Day 43
It's been about a week since we last posted, but don't think we took a break or anything. Quite the contrary - we've been hard at work. I've been out to the house working on various things almost every night after work, so I just haven't had a chance to update the website.

Today Erin and I had both of our dads over to help us out. They are both true handymen and taught us everything we know so we were able to get a lot of stuff done today.

My dad and I went out to the house at the crack of dawn and figured out what kind of trim we needed. We wanted to make the trim in the dining room look closer to the original trim in the living room. So, we made a quick trip to Lowe's and back and picked up some wood. Then my dad started working on this:

He had this all up before I could even think about it. While he did that, I primed the kitchen wall. All my work sanding and mudding drywall payed off with a nice smooth wall. I also managed to get paint in my hair, which Erin was quick to point out:

Tim arrived shortly after with a trailer full of woodworking power tools that he was very generous to pass on to us. They are all high quality machines and VERY heavy, so it took some major work to get them unloaded. (It was much worse getting them up the stairs earlier in the week) After that, he went back to work on the cutout for the fridge he started working on last week. It was a few inches short so it needed to be raised up. We also decided to put a little shelf in there adding to the complexity.

Our friend Jane Hughes stopped by and helped us pick out some colors for the downstairs. All the rooms are very open and blend into each so we had to pick some colors that would compliment each other well. She picked these based on colors from our slate tile.

It was a beautiful day out so Erin and I took a small break to explore our land.

Erin and her dad left early to get to the paint store before they closed, and my dad and I stayed behind to put up this beadboard:

We had just gotten started when my friends Craig and Todd stopped by - they recently bought an old farm house as well so it was fun showing off the place.

We ended the day by painting the kitchen ceiling. I can't believe how a coat of primer can change a room from feeling like a construction zone into a home. I'm very excited to get some color up on the kitchen walls tomorrow and the cabinet frames in. Then we'll start to have a sense of what our kitchen will really look like.

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