January, February: Trying to catch up here

We celebrated a late Christmas with my family in Wisconsin for the first week of January and left our 3 monkeys with my parents for OVER a week, and then they brought them up to us and stayed a long weekend! So, we had over a week to reallllllly get a lot done. One of the things we needed to do without kids was build more kitchen cabinets, as the cabinet shop is not (legally) kid-friendly. (The kitchen cabinets post Part 2 will come in a bit.)

Cute cousin Rachel in Christmas decor

Teddy's 8th birthday cake

The biggest task we accomplished together with Mom and Dad was painting almost the whole upstairs. Much paint was found in the "oops paints" sections of various stores. Of course, the final skim coat of mud had to be completed first, which Randy and I got done while we were sans kids.
Turns out, applying the final coat of mud with a roller really saves time and our necks and backs. Then I came with my super-wide mud knife and it was basically done.

We used our paint sprayer (acquired on Craigslist) for priming everything and then applying the ceiling paint. Definitely a time-saver, although we did it slightly wrong. It was sending a big drop of paint here and there, which I would "touch up" with a roller. I should have just rolled everything after it was sprayed.

Bridget's room! Happy helpers. We didn't get pictures of this, but there was a mishap involving a ladder, a bucket of paint, and my foot. It cleaned up okay (despite no running water in the house yet) and so did Teddy.

My dad did 3 walls in the master bedroom that beige color, and then I started working on the accent wall. First the top (blueish white), then I mixed in a little dark blue to make the furthest mountains, mixed a little more blue to make the next layer, and so on. It was quite easy; no taping, and with "organic" lines, they certainly didn't have to be straight.

The lowest color was the dark blue that I mixed incrementally to make the others.

Mom and I then used 2 of the mountain colors to paint the bathroom.

Happy helpers! There is, today, some touch-up painting to do in certain areas. I'll get there eventually.

Before the spring rains came, we needed to get something over that little kitchen window on the left. Sooooo, winter framing of the garage commenced. We picked warm-ish days and Randy did most of it. I helped stand up sections of wall.

January 27 - February 3
After a little research on whether making our own flooring out of plywood would be a good idea, we decided to go for it. We were able to buy good birch-veneer, 9-ply 1/2 inch plywood through the cabinet shop, and use his panel saw to cut it into uniform-width planks. We then sanded all 4 edges by hand before installing.

2 "samples" I made with stain we already had used for the cabinets. Water-based, so I could water it down to the darkness I wanted. We ended up going with a shade between these.

Sub-floor cleaned and prepped, ready for planks.

To create interest, we made a couple "breaks" in the design, rather than have only long, straight planks going all the same direction. Entirely Randy's idea. I resisted at first, but he convinced me it would be a good idea (aesthetically, though that's usually been my department) and I'm glad we did it.
We glued each piece and brad-nailed each perimeter every 6-8 inches.

This cute little guy has been told NOT to use the hammer on the floor.

Kitchen done, DR on its way...

And this is after staining. That was one of the most intense, cannot-stop-to-rest workouts I had in the whole house-building endeavor, next to the concrete wall pours. When I made it to the end, I just sat in a chair for a while, caught my breath, and watched the stain dry.

Applying the first coat of oil-based floor polyurethane, in semi-gloss. Not true to color...

That first coat really popped the grain!

Third coat, contrasting with the sub-floor section where carpet would later be installed...

And after the final (4th) coat. This pic is truest to color, though it's not as shiny now (having dried since). That oil-based floor poly was STINKY!!! We basically couldn't work in the house while it was drying. In fact, I remember after one of the last coats, the next day Randy went to the house and opened up some doors and windows to get fresh air in there. I was walking over from the pole barn with kids a few minutes after him and we were overwhelmed outside from the smells coming from the house. We kept windows open whenever possible until it was really cured.

Feb 12-13

For the master bedroom, we took a slightly different approach. Randy cut planks to varying lengths and I applied 3 "stain" colors before installing. (Actually the 3 colors were kind of a sketchy don't-tell-any-flooring-people-I-did-this process, involving water-based stain, acrylic latex wall paint, acrylic/craft paint, and water, to get the right colors.)

Happy helpers

The helpers made nice stacks organized by color and size.

Then we chose which boards went where, trying to use up the stacks at the same rate.

And the final product! (Although this is after lights and outlets were installed. Pretend you didn't see that.) The "castle" room (light fixture snagged from Habitat too!) :

(January 30):

Another crazy thing we did was shape some donated decant logs into a post and faux-post for the railing. (Decant logs are 3 sides flat and one side still round.)

Randy glued and screwed 2 logs together for the big post, and the third log he actually made into 2 faux-posts, but we haven't used the second yet. He sanded off some of the roughness from chain-sawing, cut out spaces for the 2x4 rails and outlet box, and then I used the cabinet stain, which soaked in nice and dark, and water-based polycrylic.

Feb 5: After the main floors were sealed, we could install the posts.

While the fat post is non-supportive, it was secured from above with huge screws to a 2x4 in the attic, which is secured to a truss, and secured in a similar fashion in the floor trusses from below. It's not going anywhere.

The rails (roughed-up 2x4s) and spindles (found at Habitat ReStore) were installed at a later date, one day before move-in.

To see the spindle installation, click here.

The intermittent "flashes" in the video are Andrew, running laps from one end of the house to the other, crossing right in front of the camera.😂

Our bathroom flooring we found in the remnants at Pine River Carpet. I really really like this floor in the main bath! It's just sheet vinyl, but the look of the bathroom really came together with random "oops paint," a Habitat ReStore dresser mirror, a made-over kitchen cabinet base, a repurposed in-counter sink, and a complementing shower curtain.

That made-over cabinet base:

Feb 7:

The entry and laundry room we wanted even more waterproof than how our plywood floors turned out, so we found this cool laminate in the clearance section at Menards, our home-away-from-home.

Turns out it's a lot easier to install this stuff with daylight.

Feb 14

Bridget's floor was stained and varnished in-place. In the bedrooms I used Varathane's water-based floor poly, and I highly recommend. In fact, I recommend it for a lot of projects. It dries fast, it's not real smelly, and super tough. 3 coats on these floors and they're the slipperiest in the house.
Bridget's room turned out to have a "beach house" feel.

Still working on those garage walls on decent winter days...

Hide and seek? Sort of?

Feb 14:
First meal in the birthday house since Andrew's birthday meal in August, when we were laying sub-flooring and had no upstairs walls yet!

A toilet in the house. Yes. And lights too!

Andrew, showing off the working light in the pantry.

Feb 15:
With the help of a couple dear friends on a nice winter day, we installed garage trusses. Alan drove, Ella (13) "wrangled," Randy and I were the monkeys, and Bill hooked trusses onto the boom.

Kitchen window nearly safe!

With lights, outlets, and flooring, we started moving some things in. Legos, first.

Feb 19:
Teddy helped me install handles on cabinet doors and drawers.
(More cabinet pics saved for Cabinets Part 2 post)

We used some donated paint-grade poplar pieces for a custom panel on the back of the island. Another project for the Varathane poly.

Laundry. Forever a sweet spot in my heart.

February 22:
It's MOVING DAY!
Our last meal in the pole barn!
(It doesn't look like we've packed much, huh? We didn't, really.)

I didn't capture any pics of the moving process, but it went swimmingly-smooth. Randy could drive the tractor with a load of things on a pallet right up to the entry platform in the garage, and thus we moved most things directly to the upper floor with ease. (The piano and entertainment center monstrosity, done at a later date, he tractor-ed to the door in the LR which will someday have a screened porch. THAT process was a little more questionable, even with good help.)
For this day, we did beds, dressers, and kitchen stuff.
Hey, my kitchen tools have a good home now!