James and Kristin Whitt’s Corner

Siding, Front Door, and Front bush

In case you haven’t heard, we’re going to be getting new siding on our house really soon.  With the siding deal, we are also getting a brand new steal front door and new gutters added to the back of the wrap-around porch.  The also will be putting up insulation and a vapor barrier around the entire house.  It’s going to be really nice.

While we were working in the front yard yesterday, I started trimming the bush next to the porch.  Next thing that happens, I’m trimming it with a chainsaw.  Needless to say, there is no bush next to the porch anymore.  I’ll take a picture of the house tonight when I get home (if it’s not raining) for an updated front shot and a before / after picture for later.

House Update

Well, we’ve been really slacking on working on the inside of the house.  Nothing has really been done besides cleaning up and unpacking still.  We still have a bunch of places that need painted upstairs.  Touchups and two doors still need to be painted.  Kristin has been working on cleaning up the back porch though.

I’ve been working outside constantly still.  I’ve almost finished cutting down all the trees, cutting up the logs, and shredding the rest.  At one point about two weeks ago, I really thought I was done.  Then a storm came through and knocked down half of our tree in the front yard.  So I’ve been working on that.  Then another storm came through this past week and knocked down another big portion of the tree in the back.  Just can’t win.

I’ve also started planting the grass around the house.  I’ve cleared out the circle of weed / flower / who knows crap in the front and planted grass there instead.  It’s starting to come up pretty good.  Realized that it’s not the same grass as the reset of the yard, so I over seeded the rest of the yard.  Has enough holes that it should work out fine.  Also started planting grass in the back yard where we have already cleared out all the trees and vines.  That’s actually growing really quick and will look awesome.

That’s about all that we have done with the house though.  Mostly working outside clearing weeds and vines, and then planting the grass so that we don’t live in a big mud hole.

Carpet Upstairs

Well we finally have gotten everything painted and done upstairs so yesterday we went to Dalton Georgia Carpet and picked out the carpet for the rest of the upstairs.  They were able to come today to install it and are working on it now.  So by the end of today we’ll have the upstairs almost completely finished.  We have a few places that need tiny touchups on paint and the mirrored closet doors will need to be put back up, but we’re almost done!  After the carpet is all in, I’m going to start moving our stuff up from the basement and try to put it away and organize it for the rest of the week while I’m on Spring Break.

My dad is working on putting a new mailbox up for us today and then he’s going to start working on the hallway that goes downstairs.

Painting the doors

Still in the process of painting the doors. I finished the main door for my office, and the closet door just needs one more coat. Did one coat of one side on Kristin’s office door and the hallway closet door. Need to do one more coat on that side and two more coats on the other sides, then those doors can be hung too.

With the help of my Dad, we picked up another set of mirror closet doors for my office. We also stopped at Home Depot today to pick up the color samples of that we used to paint the walls. Plan on taking those with us carpet shopping tomorrow to help pick out the colors.  We also moved all the large stuff in Kristin’s office either to the basement or into the dining room, so we can get carpet put in those rooms.  More pictures have been added to our remodeling album.

23 More House Pictures

I found the camera cable again, and took 23 more pictures of the house of what has been done up to this point. Major things in the picture are looking at the finished trim on the first floor, the hallway, closet, Kristin’s office, and my office. Work still continues on my office at this point with touching up little things here and there before the carpet. We didn’t get around to going last weekend so we’re planning on going this weekend. I’m going to see if my Dad will be able to help me sometime this week in picking up another set of mirrored closet doors for my office closet.

Paint my office

Progress slowed a bit last week because I ended up with the flu for most of the week.  At the present time, we are painting my office.  I put the last coat on the walls last night and all we have left is the trim and then touching up.  I don’t know what the colors are for my bedroom of hand, but I’ll post those when I get them.  The new closet that has been added is pretty much finished.  Has the same painting needs.  George is adding the shelving and the pole this week.  I think we’re going to wait to buy the closet doors (which will be mirrored like in Kristin’s office) until after the carpet has been installed.  George is doing the last touches on the other closet this week also.  He made that closet look a lot nicer by fixing the walls and ceiling, and then drywalling around the air duct that is running up from the basement.  I should be able to have that closet painted by the end of the week.

For the dining room, it’s still where it stood last time.  We went to the Lowes again last night, and they still do not have the quarter round in stock.  We’re running up to Tri-County after work today for hair cuts, so we’re planning on stopping by that one to see if they have any more in stock.  Once that’s done, all that is left in the dining room is to change out some of the older electric.

The hallway is finished for the most part.  Kristin did the last of the touch up painting last night.  We need to put a couple of coats of paint on the banister, but that will only take about 10 minutes each coat.  Most of the doors in the hallway have been taken down, and we’re in the process of sanding down parts of them that had a few too many layers of paint, and then painting them the color of the respective rooms and the hallway.

Update

The house is still coming along.  My office is pretty much finished except for a few minor touchups and carpet.  The stairs and hallway walls have been painted and we just need to do the trim.  Yesterday, James put in a track light in the hallway ceiling.  It adds a lot of light and really brightens up the area.  We still need to put the quarter round in in the dining room, but we have to wait for it to come into Lowe’s.  After those things are done, we will just have to finished James’ office and we will pretty much be finished.  At least enough to take a break for a little bit before we try to fix up the basement and eventually the master bathroom.

More Pictures

We’ve both been pretty busy lately, but I have added more remodeling pictures at the photo gallery at my blog. Still working on getting the photo gallery up an running for this site though. Many other things that need to be done first though.

For the house, we’ve pretty much finished painting Kristin’s office. I still need to fix the door and then paint it. We bought a closet door that is a mirror, and I think George is planning to install that next week. After that, it’s just touch up painting a few things here and there. I’m putting the blinds up in the room today probably and wiring up the phone, cat5, and coaxial.

George has patched the hallway / stairs up. The closet in the hallways has been patched up and fixed and is ready to be painted. The large wood post was cut down and then patched to match in with the wall. He also removed the wood on the ceiling that tied into it and has patched that up. Next week we should be able to finish painting the hallway and the stairs.

After all that, my office is that last major room that needs to be done. There is still minor work in each room left here and there, but nothing major. Just need to get carpet for the offices, hall, and stairs once it is all done. The dining room still needs to have quarter round put in it, but we have to wait formore to come in at Lowes first.

Living Room Laminate Re-Flooring

Kristin and I did really good on the living room floor. Before we went to bed we had about 1/3 of the floor done. The next day we actually finished it all except for about 3 rows.  That’s when it happened.  We took a moment to look at the entire floor and then I noticed that something was wrong on the left hand side of the fireplace.  We had noticed earlier that the right side wall was closer than we remembered, but didn’t think about it too much.  Well, while we were laying the laminate the night before, we were only putting spacers against the left wall and not the right wall where we finished each row.  Sometime overnight or when we were working, the laminate shifted to the right on us.  We ended up having over 2 inch gaps on the left side.  In the end, we ended up pulling up most of the rows and then repositioning the floor, and then laying it down again, this time including more spacers on both sides.  I ended up cutting up what was left of a 2×4 that we were throwing out and using it as additional spacers.  We ran out of time before we could finish the last three rows though.

Living Room Flooring

Well, last night James and I decided we wanted to try to put the laminate flooring down in the living room by ourselves.  We are both ready to be able to move our things up from the basement and start living in the living room.  So James bought a short how-to video of putting laminate flooring down and we watched it and got started.  We have half the living room done so far and are going to finish it today!!  Once we got around the fire place it was really easy and started to go much faster.  I took some pictures of us working on it and we’ll get them up as soon as we can.