Molding went up yesterday and a complete cleaning started.
So far the kitchen and dining room are construction dust free. Yay!
Here's a few pic's
-Sherry and David
Monday, May 18, 2009
The Hardwood Floors are done!
We (David and I) finally finished the hardwood floors this weekend.
Molding went up yesterday and a complete cleaning started.
So far the kitchen and dining room are construction dust free. Yay!
Here's a few pic's
-Sherry and David
Molding went up yesterday and a complete cleaning started.
So far the kitchen and dining room are construction dust free. Yay!
Here's a few pic's
-Sherry and David
Monday, May 4, 2009
Non Hardwood Talk! - My new camera
It was that time of year again where I receive my quarterly EthicsPoints (for being a good employee). Once again I choose to cash out the points for a Costco card.
As I've been taking pictures of the hardwoods, my 2 year old Canon Elph has started to give me more and more white dots on the pictures. These white dots are due to an issue with the camera and flash and would cost a lot of $ to fix.
With that said, I decided we needed an upgrade - especially considering I have a small passion for photography.
After some research I decided on the Canon SX200IS.
This camera is quite a bit bigger than my elph but it still fits in David's pocket for our traveling adventures (which is all that matters for a point and shoot camera). The highlights are the camera is 12 megapixels and has a 12x optical zoom!
I've taken a few pictures of the dogs since I bought the camera last week and they are unbelievable so far. I'll post up some soon!
Thought everyone would love to hear a non hardwood\house project story for a change! :)
As I've been taking pictures of the hardwoods, my 2 year old Canon Elph has started to give me more and more white dots on the pictures. These white dots are due to an issue with the camera and flash and would cost a lot of $ to fix.
With that said, I decided we needed an upgrade - especially considering I have a small passion for photography.
After some research I decided on the Canon SX200IS.
This camera is quite a bit bigger than my elph but it still fits in David's pocket for our traveling adventures (which is all that matters for a point and shoot camera). The highlights are the camera is 12 megapixels and has a 12x optical zoom!
I've taken a few pictures of the dogs since I bought the camera last week and they are unbelievable so far. I'll post up some soon!
Thought everyone would love to hear a non hardwood\house project story for a change! :)
April 20 - May 3rd update on flooring project.
It’s been 2 weeks and we’ve come quite far considering our busy schedules and David’s race weekend (this past weekend).
Last weekend we were able to lay 2 sheets (foam underlayment paper) of hardwoods. All went well except for David breaking the door molding but that’s all fixable!
We were going to try to lay some more hardwoods during the week, but life is just too busy with work, the dogs, the house, etc!
I had counted on not getting much work done this past weekend due to David’s racing schedule. Friday, he had a track day and Sunday was race day.
Unfortunately David crashed at PIR on Friday – he was fine (thank god!) but his bike didn’t do so well.
So, Friday night ended w/ me assisting David w/ taking his bike out of the truck, David cursing at his bike and us going out to dinner and then crashing before 9pm! – We were both exhausted apparently!
Saturday morning started w/ David buying me an Americano (my new fav espessro drink) and then proceeding to “play\work” on his bike for a few hours. After giving up and realizing he didn’t have the money or parts to put into the bike this weekend, we started on the floors. My goal was to finish the entire dining room and get to the garage wall. Unfortunately David was sore from the crash so we cut the night early and only laid down 1 sheet of hardwoods. Still better than none! And the floors are looking fantastic right now! I’ll post pictures up once I get my new home PC all fixed up.
Sunday – David spent at the track and then came home to help me finish cleaning up the house.
I’m hoping this week we have time after work to spend a few hours a night installing the hardwoods. David is picking up a table saw tomorrow from his dad which will help us with the kitchen transition (we are 4 rows away from this part).
If we’re LUCKY we’ll be able to finish this upcoming weekend. A girl can have high goals and dreams right?!?
Last weekend we were able to lay 2 sheets (foam underlayment paper) of hardwoods. All went well except for David breaking the door molding but that’s all fixable!
We were going to try to lay some more hardwoods during the week, but life is just too busy with work, the dogs, the house, etc!
I had counted on not getting much work done this past weekend due to David’s racing schedule. Friday, he had a track day and Sunday was race day.
Unfortunately David crashed at PIR on Friday – he was fine (thank god!) but his bike didn’t do so well.
So, Friday night ended w/ me assisting David w/ taking his bike out of the truck, David cursing at his bike and us going out to dinner and then crashing before 9pm! – We were both exhausted apparently!
Saturday morning started w/ David buying me an Americano (my new fav espessro drink) and then proceeding to “play\work” on his bike for a few hours. After giving up and realizing he didn’t have the money or parts to put into the bike this weekend, we started on the floors. My goal was to finish the entire dining room and get to the garage wall. Unfortunately David was sore from the crash so we cut the night early and only laid down 1 sheet of hardwoods. Still better than none! And the floors are looking fantastic right now! I’ll post pictures up once I get my new home PC all fixed up.
Sunday – David spent at the track and then came home to help me finish cleaning up the house.
I’m hoping this week we have time after work to spend a few hours a night installing the hardwoods. David is picking up a table saw tomorrow from his dad which will help us with the kitchen transition (we are 4 rows away from this part).
If we’re LUCKY we’ll be able to finish this upcoming weekend. A girl can have high goals and dreams right?!?
Monday, April 20, 2009
Hardwood Flooring Goes Down!
Saturday night began with David and I trying to figure out how to get a straight line when our starting wall isn’t straight. After a phone call to my father, we got it all figured out.
As it was 8pm, we decided to call it a night, grab a late night dinner and head to bed.
Sunday the 19th began with laying the first boards. They went down great.
Then we placed the 2nd set of boards and realized we needed the foam paper under the first set otherwise it was going to make the 2nd set of boards have too much tension.
So we had to pull up our first set of boards…. Good thing we made the decision, as once we got the paper under the first set and laid the 2nd set, things went much smoother.
The process of getting the first 5 rows in was a pain as you couldn’t use the stapler for all of them or the pry bar. But after the first 5 rows things started to come around. I would pick out the boards for color and grain and arrange them so the ends didn’t line up and David would staple them in.
After 6 hours of work we only managed to get 16 rows in but they look wonderful and that’s all that matters. We stopped at row 16 as we needed to prepare for our work week.
Here’s some pictures of what we accomplished:
As it was 8pm, we decided to call it a night, grab a late night dinner and head to bed.
Sunday the 19th began with laying the first boards. They went down great.
Then we placed the 2nd set of boards and realized we needed the foam paper under the first set otherwise it was going to make the 2nd set of boards have too much tension.
So we had to pull up our first set of boards…. Good thing we made the decision, as once we got the paper under the first set and laid the 2nd set, things went much smoother.
The process of getting the first 5 rows in was a pain as you couldn’t use the stapler for all of them or the pry bar. But after the first 5 rows things started to come around. I would pick out the boards for color and grain and arrange them so the ends didn’t line up and David would staple them in.
After 6 hours of work we only managed to get 16 rows in but they look wonderful and that’s all that matters. We stopped at row 16 as we needed to prepare for our work week.
Here’s some pictures of what we accomplished:
April 1st – April 18th Update on Flooring Project
Well it has been almost a month since we started our little project of replacing the floors in our house. I haven’t had a chance to blog much so I’ll give you a short summary of the past 3 weeks.
Friday April 3rd ended with Bud and Nancy coming over and helping us lay down the Plywood. Bud and David actually did all the work while Nancy and I gave them support They were able to get about 1/3 of the Plywood done on Friday Night.
Saturday April 4th – David and I spent 7 hours finishing laying the plywood. It’s a lot of work when you don’t have square rooms and need to remove large items like a refrigerator! At the end of the night (9pm) we were tired but excited we could start laying the floors on Sunday (Easter). Thankfully David decided to test the stapler on a sample piece of hardwood flooring… By testing the stapler, we realized we didn’t have the proper staples.
Sunday was then spent with David running around to home improvement stores to find the staples. Come to find out – we had the wrong type of stapler as well and no one sells the stapler we need locally! Safe to say no work was done on the floors Sunday – so David mowed the lawn and I ran several loads of laundry – both of which we were behind on.
The next week we found the stapler we needed online at Home Depot and ordered it with 3 day shipping, expecting it to arrive on Saturday. Apparently the 3 day shipping was business days so it didn’t arrive until Monday the 13th… This delayed our working weekend we had planned but it worked out well since David had a Race day on Saturday the 11th and Easter was the 12th – so we still had a busy weekend minus our project
Monday the 13th the stapler arrived! Woohoo… Too bad we both had a busy week ahead of us. Friday night after work we planned on starting. We read the instructions and noted we needed a Brad Nailer (finish nailer) for the first row of hardwoods to set them. My father loaned us his Brad Nailer for installing the molding so we thought we were fine. We put in the 18 gauge nails and tested it out…. Come to find out the Brad Nailer is only for 16 gauge nails and won’t work with 18 gauge nails… We tried the flooring stapler thinking it might work – nope, only for staples…. I called my father, he didn’t have any more brad nailers. David called Bud – and low and behold, Bud had one!!!
It was 7:30 at night on a Friday and I had already spent 90 minutes driving home so we decided to pick up the stapler on Saturday since we were going to Beaverton for the Nike Golf Employee event we were invited to.
Saturday led us to the Nike Employee store where we both spent way too much money but with our new found interests (tennis –sherry and racquetball – david) we needed some near gear and since my feet have been killing me and my hip – I needed new shoes.
After the employee store, we had a quick lunch at Panera and then David found Joe’s….
Since Joe’s is going out of business, we had to go in and of course by items we didn’t need
After Joe’s we finally made it to Milwaukie. Bud showed us the nailer, David put our nails in and shot it. It worked! Jackpot – Finally!
We made it back home at 6pm! And the laying of hardwoods finally begins… Yeah!
More to follow…
Friday April 3rd ended with Bud and Nancy coming over and helping us lay down the Plywood. Bud and David actually did all the work while Nancy and I gave them support They were able to get about 1/3 of the Plywood done on Friday Night.
Saturday April 4th – David and I spent 7 hours finishing laying the plywood. It’s a lot of work when you don’t have square rooms and need to remove large items like a refrigerator! At the end of the night (9pm) we were tired but excited we could start laying the floors on Sunday (Easter). Thankfully David decided to test the stapler on a sample piece of hardwood flooring… By testing the stapler, we realized we didn’t have the proper staples.
Sunday was then spent with David running around to home improvement stores to find the staples. Come to find out – we had the wrong type of stapler as well and no one sells the stapler we need locally! Safe to say no work was done on the floors Sunday – so David mowed the lawn and I ran several loads of laundry – both of which we were behind on.
The next week we found the stapler we needed online at Home Depot and ordered it with 3 day shipping, expecting it to arrive on Saturday. Apparently the 3 day shipping was business days so it didn’t arrive until Monday the 13th… This delayed our working weekend we had planned but it worked out well since David had a Race day on Saturday the 11th and Easter was the 12th – so we still had a busy weekend minus our project
Monday the 13th the stapler arrived! Woohoo… Too bad we both had a busy week ahead of us. Friday night after work we planned on starting. We read the instructions and noted we needed a Brad Nailer (finish nailer) for the first row of hardwoods to set them. My father loaned us his Brad Nailer for installing the molding so we thought we were fine. We put in the 18 gauge nails and tested it out…. Come to find out the Brad Nailer is only for 16 gauge nails and won’t work with 18 gauge nails… We tried the flooring stapler thinking it might work – nope, only for staples…. I called my father, he didn’t have any more brad nailers. David called Bud – and low and behold, Bud had one!!!
It was 7:30 at night on a Friday and I had already spent 90 minutes driving home so we decided to pick up the stapler on Saturday since we were going to Beaverton for the Nike Golf Employee event we were invited to.
Saturday led us to the Nike Employee store where we both spent way too much money but with our new found interests (tennis –sherry and racquetball – david) we needed some near gear and since my feet have been killing me and my hip – I needed new shoes.
After the employee store, we had a quick lunch at Panera and then David found Joe’s….
Since Joe’s is going out of business, we had to go in and of course by items we didn’t need
After Joe’s we finally made it to Milwaukie. Bud showed us the nailer, David put our nails in and shot it. It worked! Jackpot – Finally!
We made it back home at 6pm! And the laying of hardwoods finally begins… Yeah!
More to follow…
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Day 7 of Demo
After night 6 of Demo, David decided to call our friend Josh. Josh owns All About Construction and only lives about a mile away, so he came over to assist David.
Josh brought a similar sawzall as my fathers (a Dewalt) with him and in about 5 minutes had the mantel off the wall!
Once the mantel was off the wall, we were able to see holes in the drywall from using the handsaw on Friday night. A few of the holes were quite large and one section was quite torn up so Josh helped us cut a nice square hole out of the wall so we could replace the drywall.
(Thanks again for your help Josh!)
After Josh left, David and I headed to Portland to grab a piece of spare drywall from my father (No sense in buying a huge sheet!). We then went to Home Depot and purchased the rest of the equipment\supplies we needed to patch the hole and to lay the hardwoods.
Once back home, David successfully patched the wall w/ the drywall and then started to mud (proper termology?) the wall to cover the smaller holes\damage not covered by the replacement drywall.
As the mud needs to dry, we decided to relax and watch a movie and then go to bed early (well early for a Saturday and for working on a home project).
Sunday involved more patching and then we had dinner plans w/ the Lanes so off we went.
Overall it was not the successful weekend we were initally hoping for but there is always next weekend :)
Josh brought a similar sawzall as my fathers (a Dewalt) with him and in about 5 minutes had the mantel off the wall!
Once the mantel was off the wall, we were able to see holes in the drywall from using the handsaw on Friday night. A few of the holes were quite large and one section was quite torn up so Josh helped us cut a nice square hole out of the wall so we could replace the drywall.
(Thanks again for your help Josh!)
After Josh left, David and I headed to Portland to grab a piece of spare drywall from my father (No sense in buying a huge sheet!). We then went to Home Depot and purchased the rest of the equipment\supplies we needed to patch the hole and to lay the hardwoods.
Once back home, David successfully patched the wall w/ the drywall and then started to mud (proper termology?) the wall to cover the smaller holes\damage not covered by the replacement drywall.
As the mud needs to dry, we decided to relax and watch a movie and then go to bed early (well early for a Saturday and for working on a home project).
Sunday involved more patching and then we had dinner plans w/ the Lanes so off we went.
Overall it was not the successful weekend we were initally hoping for but there is always next weekend :)
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Night 6 of Demo
Friday night began with the idea to take the fireplace mantel off the wall.
David and I tried to avoid this idea for the entire week, trying to figure out a way around it as my father had advised it would be a pain. We finally decided it needed to come off after looking at how the hardwoods would need to lay against the mantel - it just wouldn't have worked with the mantel still being on the wall. Plus we wanted to repaint the wall due to some markings so we figured it would be less of a hassle with the mantel off.
After having a phone conversation with my father on how to remove the mantel we slowly started to chisel away at the seams around the mantel. After an hour or so of doing this and not getting anywhere, we realized the mantel was strongly glued on. At this point, we had to try and pry the mantel off the wall but it wouldn't budge. My father suggested we use the Sawzall to run into the seems to see if we could find nails.
For some reason we couldn't get the Sawzall to keep in any of the blades we tried - which led to another level of frustration. At this point, I thought it would be a good idea to run down to my parents house and get my dad's contractor Sawzall but David thought we could do with out it... and then started to use a tiny hand saw to break away the glue and apparently nails. Unfortunately the hand saw just wasn't big enough or strong enough to break the nails which led me to ask if I should now go get my dad's Sawzall or call our friend in town to see if he had one - but David didn't think it was needed....
David proceeded to run the hand saw down the sides of the mantel to break the rest of the glue but the glue had been applied as if the mantel was going to hold up the house! After about 3 hours of work, David was able to slightly pull the mantel off the wall in which case we could see the massive amount of glue,breaking drywall and nails holding the mantel on. We tried the Sawzall one more time but it wouldn't work and my father warned if we yanked too hard on the mantel it would either rip the drywall apart (To late for that) or crack the mantel so we decided to stop for the night and eat dinner (11pm!).
Safe to say - it was a very long frustrating night especially after working the entire day...
Lesson of the Night - Listen to your wife when she states "I think we should go get my dad's Sawzall or call Josh"
David and I tried to avoid this idea for the entire week, trying to figure out a way around it as my father had advised it would be a pain. We finally decided it needed to come off after looking at how the hardwoods would need to lay against the mantel - it just wouldn't have worked with the mantel still being on the wall. Plus we wanted to repaint the wall due to some markings so we figured it would be less of a hassle with the mantel off.
After having a phone conversation with my father on how to remove the mantel we slowly started to chisel away at the seams around the mantel. After an hour or so of doing this and not getting anywhere, we realized the mantel was strongly glued on. At this point, we had to try and pry the mantel off the wall but it wouldn't budge. My father suggested we use the Sawzall to run into the seems to see if we could find nails.
For some reason we couldn't get the Sawzall to keep in any of the blades we tried - which led to another level of frustration. At this point, I thought it would be a good idea to run down to my parents house and get my dad's contractor Sawzall but David thought we could do with out it... and then started to use a tiny hand saw to break away the glue and apparently nails. Unfortunately the hand saw just wasn't big enough or strong enough to break the nails which led me to ask if I should now go get my dad's Sawzall or call our friend in town to see if he had one - but David didn't think it was needed....
David proceeded to run the hand saw down the sides of the mantel to break the rest of the glue but the glue had been applied as if the mantel was going to hold up the house! After about 3 hours of work, David was able to slightly pull the mantel off the wall in which case we could see the massive amount of glue,breaking drywall and nails holding the mantel on. We tried the Sawzall one more time but it wouldn't work and my father warned if we yanked too hard on the mantel it would either rip the drywall apart (To late for that) or crack the mantel so we decided to stop for the night and eat dinner (11pm!).
Safe to say - it was a very long frustrating night especially after working the entire day...
Lesson of the Night - Listen to your wife when she states "I think we should go get my dad's Sawzall or call Josh"
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