Monday, 11/29 Painting, Organizing, Cabinets

Well I am back from a great Thanksgiving break and started working some more on the house. It was Darren (my painter), Josh, and me working today. Darren put second coats on some of the ceilings, especially the closet, while Josh worked on organizing the house. We put some plastic down on the back porch and moved most of the supplies back there (things like doors). This opened up the inside of the house and gave much more room for movement. Josh then spent the afternoon cleaning up the house, especially the floor.

I also went the paid for the cabinets today. Hopefully tomorrow when we pick them up we can begin staining them and seeing what they will look like. Im excited to see the house continue to come together.

Tuesday, 11/23 Random

Tuesday was a day of random things. Since tomorrow I am heading home for Thanksgiving, not too much work was done. Most of the ceilings were painted and the more small drywall work was done. The house (inside and outside) was also cleaned up and readied for more work. The interior trim was delivered today as well. Today was a day of getting prepared for more work after Thanksgiving.

Monday, 11/22 Drywall, Deck, and Painting

Today a lot of work got done today! As you can see the shutters were finally put up and painted, and the exterior doors were given their first coat of paint. A second coat of paint was also put on the downspouts, and the rest of the trim was touched up.

Also, the back deck was finished today. Johnny and I had to put up the rest of the railing, with most of our time spent with the railing for the stairs. But we got it done and even cleaned it off afterwards. Three photos of it are shown below.

Josh and Parke did more drywall work. I am having to fix some of the things my drywall guys did, and make sure it is completely right. This is mainly just leveling out areas of the wall, which Parke and Josh are actually enjoying (to a point). Im really excited about it looking like a real house.

Friday, 11/19 Deck Railing and Drywall

On Friday Johnny and I worked on the railing of the deck and the stairs. Cutting and putting up the balusters with a 4 inch spacing (thats what code requires) takes up most of a good day. Johnny and I spent all day on the deck, at the end of the day it was getting close to done. Parke worked inside doing some small drywall work. Some walls needed some small work.

Thursday, 11/18 The Deck and Sanding Drywall

Today was the most tiring day I have had in a very long time. Johnny and I spent the entire day working on the back deck. We finished putting up the joists and then laid all the decking. It was a long process that involved moving around a large amount of 2x6's, but it looks amazing now. The difference it makes to the backyard is incredible! Tomorrow we will put up the railing and stairs, then it will be finished.

While Johnny and I worked on the deck, Parke and Josh worked on the drywall inside. Most of the house didn't need new drywall or patching, but still needed to be sanded flat. Josh and Parke did that all day long. I'm sure it was not fun work, but they were inside in the heat.

Wednesday, 11/17 More Deck and Drywall

The weather today was much much better than it was yesterday. It still wasn't warm, but at least it wasn't windy and rainy. Anyway, today much of the deck was built, specifically all the 4x4 posts were put in place and the holes filled with concrete. Once the concrete set up enough, we started on some of the joists. Tomorrow we will finish putting the joists in place and then start laying down the deck. Hopefully the entire deck will be finished on Friday!

Also, my drywall work will be finished this evening. My guys are there right now sanding and skimming the walls, so in a few hours it should be completed.

Tuesday, 11/16 Drywall, Deck, and Rain

Today was a pretty terrible day to be working outside. It was cold, rainy, and very windy pretty much all day long. But Johnny, Parke, and I spent the day starting the framework for the back deck. I'm sorry I didn't take any photos of it, but I wanted to keep my camera dry. So I will take some photos tomorrow of how the deck is going, I'm excited so far.

While we worked outside, my drywall guys continued to work inside. I finally got the gas company to come out and turn on the gas, so its nice and warm inside. The drywall should be done tomorrow!

Monday, 11/15 Drywall

Today was a pretty relaxed day for a Monday. My drywall guys were continuing their work and getting the first coat of mud up on some of the patches. They worked on that all day while I worked from home, getting ready for the week.

This week is going to focus mostly on installing the large back deck. This will take all of the week if not more to get it up, but it will look great when up. Also I will be preparing to have the hardwood floors refinished and then the kitchen cabinets stained and installed. It is going to be a busy next two weeks.

Wednesday, 11/10 Trim and Cleaning

Today my painter Darren did the first coat of the trim. It really made the house look way better. I'm really excited to see what the house will be like once the doors are painted and the shutters are up.

I did small stuff around the house for the most of the day, mostly cleaning up on the inside to get ready for the drywall guys to get started; I also went over everything that I wanted to them to do. There is drywall patching, some places that need new sheets, and areas that just need to be skimmed.

Friday, 11/12 Drywall and Deck

Today was a good day where a lot of work got done. To the right is a great photo of Johnny talking to his wife, enjoy.

In the morning Johnny and I went to Home Depot to pick up drywall materials. My drywall guys started working as soon as we got back. While they were working inside, my painter was outside putting a second coat on the trim. The exterior of the house is really starting to come together.

After the drywall materials were unloaded, Johnny and I spent the day beginning the back deck. The rest of the morning was us discussing the deck plans and figuring out how much materials we need. After that we went back to Home Depot and bought all the materials for the frame. (It was a ton of wood, and the truck could barely handle that much weight.) So to say the least we spent a good hour loading and unloading all the wood.

While we were working on the deck plans, the drywall guys hung most of the drywall. Photos below show what has been done so far. Note that this is just the rough work, a lot more has to be done before it will look good.

Thursday, 11/11 Sanding, Door Knobs, Trim

Today was apparently Veteran's Day. Somehow I had no idea. Anyway, so my painter asked the day off to spend with his family, which seemed totally fine with me. A large amount of his family was/is in the military, so it is an important holiday for him.

Parke did work, so I had him at the house sanding the walls. Many of the walls don't need any drywall work, but they have some raised areas that need to be sanded down. He spent all day sanding; I'm sure he loved me.

While he worked at the house, I went home and ordered some door knobs. I went to Home Depot first and looked at the styles before ordering some online. Door knobs are way, way too expensive. It also took too long to figure out which ones I needed. But I finally got the order in. I also spent some time adding up the dimensions for the trim and getting that ready for ordering.

Finally, I met with my designer Angela at the house and went over a few things such as what trim to use and types of door knobs.

Tuesday, 11/9 More Painting and Staples

Today the second coat of paint was sprayed onto the brick. It now looks great with very good coverage. Tomorrow the trim will get at least one coat of paint.

While my painter worked on the outside, Parke worked inside pulling more staples out of the hardwood floors. He worked on the most of the day and finished the day by mowing the yard.

The main thing that I worked on today was getting all the dimensions for baseboard and casing trim. I also put the large screws into the exterior door frames. I used eight screws for each door for security purposes. The large screws will keep the door frame from ever being knocked in. I also spent the day talking to several men about doing drywall work.

Monday, 11/8 Painting, Insulation, Staples, and Hardwoods

Today I got the first coat on the brick; it totally transformed the house. Tomorrow a second coat will be put on and it will look even better! After that the trim will be done in a nice brown color and it will look like a real house again.

Besides for the painting, a lot of other things happened at the house as well. I had insulation guys come out and put insulation in both the attic and the crawl space. I was amazed that the price difference between hiring them and doing it myself was very small.

While they did that, Parke spent the day pulling staples out of the hardwood floors. Josh has done some of this before, but there are hundreds of small staples throughout the house. Parke will most likely being doing more of the same thing tomorrow. Johnny was also working with the hardwood floors, replacing pieces that have been too badly damaged to repair. The main area he put in pieces was where the wall between the kitchen and living room had been.

The day was very busy for me, I was talking with the painter and the insulation guys as well as running to Home Depot. I also drove down to the Cool Springs area and went to Cox Interiors, where I believe I found the interior trim I will be using.

Friday, 10/5 Shopping and Shower

On Friday I was hopping to get started on painting the exterior of the house, but there was light rain and fairly heavy winds. So the painting was postponed until Monday. I actually went down to Atlanta to visit my sister, and spent the morning and early afternoon shopping there. I found a kitchen faucet and a large amount of lights (both interior and exterior) for a very discounted price. While I was in Atlanta, Johnny was working at the house. He spent the day in the bathroom working on the shower. He installed the copper for the new faucet as well as an alcove for the shampoo bottles to go in. The shower head that is shown in the picture is not the one that will be in there when the house is completed, it is the old head.

Thursday, 11/4 Caulk, Sanding, Clean up

Thursday it finally stopped raining long enough for the wood filler and caulk to be put up and dry. The trim was sanded more and is now most of the way ready to be painted. Josh worked on the inside getting all the rooms cleaned up and ready for drywall guys to come in and work. So he moved all the tools and supplies into one corner of the living room that doesnt need any drywall work done. Shown to the left is the trim after being sanded and caulked. Also shown is the a corner piece of the trim that had to be replaced because of rot. And finally is a photo of how nice and green the grass has become.

Wednesday, 11/3 Power washing, Sanding, Wood Filler, and Caulk

Today we finished up using the power washer. The only thing left from yesterday was the fence, which took Josh and I about half the day to do. While Josh mainly did that, Parke sanded the exterior trim to prepare it for being painted. I helped with that a little as well.

Johnny filled in some holes in the trim with wood filler and also started caulking. But it started raining too hard and so he had to stop. We ended up going to Home Depot (of course) to get some very heavy duty screws. We are driving these screws in the door jams of the two exterior doors and into the studs on both sides of the doors. The purpose for this is to prevent the door frame from being kicked in. With eight 4 inch screws in each frame, it is very securely attached to the studs of the house. This combined with heavy duty dead bolts will make the doors very hard to get through.

We also went to Lowes to pick up the french doors I had to special order. For some reason they couldnt find one of them, so after waiting around for about 45 minutes we finally were told that I hadn't arrived yet. It was very very frustrating. I also hope to take some photos tomorrow of what everything looks like now, especially the back yard now that the fence is clean. It mostly depends if it stops raining by then...

Tuesday, 11/2 Power washing, Sanding, and Shower

While I was in Knoxville, Johnny and Parke went to Home Depot and rented a power washer. Josh and Parke spent the day switching off using it to wash the brick, exterior trim, cinder blocks, walkway, and the front landing. This was done after a small ditch was dug around the whole house (just a few inches deep and wide). They dug it so that when the house is painted, it will be evenly painted all the way to the ground. Once it is completely painted, the ditch will be filled back in and the paint will cover all the way to the ground.

Once the exterior trim was finished being power washed, whoever wasn't using the power washer started scraping the trim. Although it had been scraped once, it needed to be scraped again once the power washer had loosened more paint.

Johnny worked mostly inside, well besides for the beginning of the day where he prepared the house for being pressure washed. He put up hardie backer (concrete board) in the shower and helped Josh and Parke whenever they needed it.

Monday, 11/1 Scraping Brick and Planning

Monday it was just Parke and I working. The day was mostly about scraping the exterior brick. Since I am planning on painting the brick, I need to get the surface of the brick as clean as possible. I am planning on power washing the whole house, but before that I need to scrape some of the bricks. Because of the age of the brick, there was some mineral buildups and other things on the brick that I doubt the power washer could get off. So Parke and I scraped the whole house clean.

My painter also came by and we talked about getting the outside painted. Hopefully that will happen later this week depending on the weather.

I also spent some time planning out Tuesday. I have to go back to Knoxville to vote (still need to transfer my residency to Nashville). So I tried to plan out everything that would happen the next day.

Friday, 10/29 Trim, Dave, and Drywall

Sorry for being so far behind on my posts, I have been having major computer problems. But I have finally gotten them all worked out and can get back on schedule.

Friday was a pretty relaxed day where Johnny and I mainly worked on the exterior trim of the house. There were several pieces that were rotten or out of place. We removed several pieces and replaced the rotten pieces. It doesnt really sound like much more than thirty minutes of work, but in reality it took most of the day. Working up on a ladder, plus having to remove the gutters, takes a while.

Johnny and I also installed the bathroom fan/light. We went ahead and installed it so when Dave came later in the day he could wire it up. Dave also finished up the house, the only electrical work is finishing out the house with new outlets and switches. He will come back and do that when most of the other work on the house is done.

Finally, I had a drywall guy come out and look at the house. I showed him everything I wanted done and he said he would get back to me with a price.