Polyurethane

Stained the door yesterday and applied the first coat of polyurethane just before this picture today. Tomorrow I sand and apply the second coat.

got to let it dry overnight.

Good Times

Goof ballin' it up!

Walls, Closets and hallways

More progress is being made with the layout of the new house. I slowly cracked away at removing the walls and closet of the old second bedroom (our office) to open it up to the addition. After that I pulled up and saved the old hardwood floors so that they can be re-used.



floor getting pulled up

 The two new bedrooms will be carpeted so on the old existing floor where there will be carpet I had to lay down 1/8in sheets of wood to create a sold surface over the old 1x6 flooring (to keep the bugs and critters out). Half the of new room is in the old part of the house and half in in the new part. After that I framed up the new walls that made our hallway that runs to the master bedroom, second bedroom/closet and also a laundry/storage closet.

first wall and doorway up



bedroom closet

 Once the hallway was created I re-used the hardwood pulled up from the old bedroom to continue the wood floor where the new hallway met the old. This hallways was where the old bedroom closet was so the only flooring was the 1x6's. With the walls framed and the hardwood laid you can really see/feel the layout of the new place and I'm liking it. The floors will need to be sanded and re-finished once the front addition is laid down but they've needed that for the last five years we've lived here so what's a few more?

Hallway before



Hallway that leads to master bedroom.

 



Sunday nap time

My two favorite people!

The Roof

The Roof is finally shingled! It is hard to think about how much work went into just getting to this step. I'd have to look back but I think it has been over a year since we started hanging the first ceiling joist across the addition. Last years record rainfall did not help this process at all. The funny thing about building this roof was how many other non-roof tasks had to be done before we could get here. We built the new roof while removing the old as we made our way across the house so that we could have coverage from the rain while working at the same time. In the end, the entire house has a new ceiling and roof and the finished product is so much better looking then trying to tie into the old existing roof lines.   

after day one front

Getting the shingles installed was about a two week process that started with the shingle yard delivering the shingles and their loading truck putting a huge dent in the edge metal I had already installed. To get started I asked some friends for help for the first day of work and a bunch of them showed up on that Saturday morning. Billy W, Tristan B, Kent K, my Brother and my Father all showed up and put in some work that day. After day one we finished pretty much all the the south side of the roof because of their help. The rest of the roofing was completed by my father and I or myself solo. We put in a few hours after work on Tuesday and Thursday and then a another full Saturday and Sunday. To make sure we finished the roof as quickly as possible we put the door building project on hold. Next week we'll start back up by staining the door.

after day one back

 We have not actually installed the fire place yet but we needed to complete the above roof section of the stack so that the shingles could be finished. You can see in the pictures where the fire place will be (the window will be replace by the fire place). I'm super stoked on the look of the shingles, our house is really starting to stand out in the neighborhood.

It's had to imagine that we came from here...

*Just a side note: this is our 200th blog post!

5 Year Anniversary

McCall and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary on September 30^th by staying at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, CA. McCall made the plans for the weekend and did not tell me what they were until the night before (so I could pack the right stuff). The whole weekend went off without a hitch, I took the Blue line train from work on Friday afternoon to meet McCall at work and we left from there. The only real traffic we hit all weekend was getting out of LA that evening.

We were able to stay in two different rooms at the Inn and that made the stay more fun. The hotel has a feeling to that just makes everything fun and unique. Our first room was a “Cave” room called Daisy Mae, it was small but neat. The second night we were in the Wilhelm Tell room. Check out the Madonna Inn website for photos and details: www.madonnainn.com. We made sure we only ate at local restaurants and not at the typical chain type food places. SLO has so many local places to choose from it was a refreshing change to the rut we can get into at home. The weekend was short (only two nights with Saturday being the one full day we had) so deciding what to do was not easy. We made a good choice though and went to Hearst Castle in San Simeon. McCall had never been there and I was so young the time I went I could not recall much about it. Being there makes you dream what it would be like to be able to live there for a month.

Cave Room

Bathroom of Cave Room

 On our drive back home we made some quick stops in Solvang and the Chumash Painted Cave but were missing out baby so we didn’t dally. Over all we had a fantastic weekend that McCall and I desperately needed. Here are some photos from the weekend.

Too busy to update

McCall and I have had a lot going on since the end of September and have found it hard to find the time to put into to words and photos. More post are coming soon that should catch us back up to speed.