Housewarming

We had a housewarming get-together during Memorial Day weekend. Here is the aftermath:



One of our housewarming gifts (see bottom right side of porch):



A&J's Pad

The Shiny "New" Floors

We decided that we could not handle refinishing the floors ourselves, so we solicited some recommendations for flooring contractors and had a few people come over to give us estimates. The biggest challenges were removing the concrete patches (see April 24 post) and notches from former radiator spots, repairing those damaged areas, and matching the wood on our staircase and front window ledge.

We ended up going with a place near our neighborhood (Peter Flooring). They did a fantastic job and actually completed it in about the amount of time that they promised, for a reasonable price. They took out the concrete patches, replaced the subfloor in those areas, and installed the new boards (red oak to match the existing red oak).







The floors were then sanded:



and stained with DuraSeal and three coats of water-based finish were applied.

Here are the shiny "new" floors:

A Brighter Kitchen

After what seemed like endless weekend days and weeknights of painting, we were ready to install the new hardware and put the cabinets back together.

They are definitely not perfect - the extra layers of paint and lack of veneer on the frames made things not fit back together exactly the same, but it looks a hell of a lot better and really opens up the room.

Before:



After:







We also put up a new lighting fixture (after bumping our heads on the existing one MANY times).

Before:



After:




As a side note - and an update to the May 2 post - the bird story did not have a happy ending. One day we didn't hear birds chirping anymore and figured they'd made it out. Jim went about clearing the nest (which was HUGE) out of the exhaust and putting a screen over the opening, and taking apart the vent cover inside the kitchen and cleaning that out. However, a persistent smell developed in our kitchen, and we decided that there might be something lodged in the section of the vent above the oven. Sure enough - four dead little birdies. We were pretty pissed off at the mama bird for making such a huge nest that her babies couldn't even escape the vent. She was pissed off at us for disturbing her nesting area - she even dislodged our first attempt at a screen and started building a new nest. So Jim went back up and secured a new screen. No more birdies in kitchen exhaust, and the mama bird seems to have left the area.

Back Online

It has been a few weeks since our last posting. We got busy with moving, throwing a housewarming party, and traveling for a couple of weekends in a row.

Not to fear... work was done since the last posting - namely, the kitchen cabinets were repainted and put back together, and the living room and dining room floors were refinished. Separate posts to follow on each.