upstairs floors...

So, this weekend we wended up working on the upstairs flooring. It is now finished with 3 coats of poly. The North side, we stained with a Walnut stain and then put on poly. We rented a floor sander and edger and the cost was $100 for the weekend. We also bought one gallon of stain and four gallons of poly. That cost around $200.

3 coats of poly later they are done.

Before

The upstairs on the South side we decided to do something different. Chris took a torch to the floor. We made sure to have a the necessary safety gear and a bucket of water and a mop. I mopped the floor right after Chris was done burning it. It really brings out the grains in the flooring when you burn it.

This is a close up. The top board has been burned and the bottom two have not.

Done.

The final look after poly.

More Finishes...

The upstairs is now painted and the lights are hung. We have to refinish the hardwood upstairs and trim it all out. The master bedroom/bathroom is the only area left to finish the drywall in.

This is the loft area in between the girls' bedrooms. The wall on the opposite side is also the same shade of purple.

This room is a light grey in color and is a few shades lighter than the tin in the shared bathroom.

This room is a shade off of the shared bathroom green color.

It is really girly in here!

The wall lights in that room. They will be trimmed out with wood too.

The green color in the shared upstairs bathroom.

The tile is done and grouted. The light is hung. Now you can see the purple wall on this side of the area.

The light going up the stairs. The walls going up are the same grey as the kitchen underneath. Only one wall is painted purple.

Chris' brother Cale came up with this idea for the countertop in the main bath.

We had to order more bottlecaps. 300 wasn't enough. We will attach them and then build an edge to be able to pour resin over the top of them.

The kitchen is coming together too. The countertops are set and the backsplash is almost done.

Hannah's idea was to use some of the tin as the spacers in between the cabinets.

We cleaned up the floor on this half of the house now.

Making progress

All of the mini splits are up and running! It is nice to have it a constant temperature in the house.

These are the ceiling fans in the living room. They have 6 foot blades on each of them.

The library is starting to come together more. We were able to buy some more book shelves at an auction for $5.0 a piece. We already have two more 4 foot long bookshelves that my dad made for me

The upstairs ceiling is getting closer to being done. It has taken alot of work and even more patience.

The upstairs North side bathroom is coming together more. The tin ceiling is up and the tile is going on the walls.

Chris bought 8 table tops at an online auction to use for the countertop in the kitchen. We were very disappointed when we went to pick them up. They were listed as solid wood tabletops BUT they had a solid wood edge and a laminate top. We spent $135 on them all. In the end we decided to just go with it.

They are now cut to fit but have not been attached yet. I think they look really good though!

The main bathroom ( with the license plates) we added a few touches too. My grandparents have always loved to travel. My grandma saved road maps from ma ny of their trips. I thought it would be nice to use some of them in our house. My mom and I spend the day laying them out and cutting out the front covers. the earliest one I have on the wall is from Arizona in 1962! The most recent one was from the last trip my grandpa went on to Georgia in 2011.

It only seems fitting to use these maps because some of the license plates also belonged to my grandparents. They came off of their personal vehicles and my grandpa's police cars.

The lights are all hooked up ! The down lights in the vents were Chris' idea. I think it looks beautiful!

Slowly completing rooms

It seems that we are making progress slowly but really the small stuff seems to take so much time. This is the bathroom off of the gameroom. We have finished the tile for the shower. The trim is also done in this room now. Except Chris is a perfectionist and found areas of drywall that he thought needed fixed so now I have to paint it again.

The main bathroom also now has all of the trim and baseboard done. So that makes 4 rooms that have lights hung and trim complete. The electrical switches and outlets will all be done at the same time. Also the finishing up of the bathrooms ( the sinks and toliets) we will also do all of them at the same time. We decided to go ahead and use license plates for the baseboards in here.

The tin on the ceiling in the library is done now and caulked. we are still figuring out the bookcases that go on the back wall. We need baseboard and window trim in here and then it will be done. We have the laundry room to trim out and then the kitchen will be the only room downstairs left to trim out. The plan is to then probably move back to the upstairs and work on it but you never know!! Our plans always seem to change.

Auctions and heat

These past few weeks have been hot around here. With a daily temperature around 90and a heat index around 100 it is tough to want to do much. That being said, I wanted to talk about the house and how energy efficient it already is. The downstairs of the house is approximately 2200 square feet. We have one 110volt 5000BTU window air conditioning unit in a window. The average inside temperature runs about 81 on these 90 + days. The inside of the 600 square foot trailer we are living in with three of the same air conditioners running....is 85. The trailer is from 1994 and we put newer windows and doors in it and it still gets that hot in here. Some days I go find things to work on in the house because it is actually cooler in there!

This last week we went to a couple of auctions. the first auction we went to we really didn't get anything. The second one we went to...we filled a 16 foot trailer and had to leave behind about 2 of the same trailers full of stuff. We spent a grand total of $86 with tax at the second auction.

All this trim we paid $25 for.

All this trim we paid $15 for.

We paid $20 and got 4 solid oak doors and 3 bi-fold oak doors.

We paid $5 for all these pieces of counter top. We bought one of them for my mom.

This is all that we could fit on the trailer to take home. We did not have a way to come back for the rest and it took us 4 hours to sort through and load all of this.

We have been putting some finishing touches on a few of the rooms. Chris and I both are getting overwhelmed with all the work to be done still so we decided to work on finishing a few of the rooms to make it feel more like we are making headway.

The trim is up and I am working on painting and then touch up paint. We have crown molding to put up in here. It is painted but we ran out of time this weekend to get it up.

This bedroom is DONE. ( except for touch up paint and cleaning)

One down and three more very close!