Coming Together

Wow, have we been busy. I must say though that all of the hard work is really starting to show. The inside of the house is really starting to look like a house. A week ago I would not have given any chance at being in the house by our deadline of July 1st, but now it is starting to look like we will make it in with a couple days to spare.

The bad news is that I think I have agreed to pay my helpers in beer, and as much help as I have had it might have been cheaper to just pay the builder to do it. I hope there is a big beer sale soon. Honestly I can not say enough how grateful we are to all of the help we have had from our family in getting all of the work done. I don't know how we could possibly have gotten this work done without everyone's help.

Over the last week and half we have pretty much gotten the outside painting done. I think we still have to trim 2 windows and above the front porch. We also need to paint the porch ceilings. The masons have been working on the front columns and completed the stone work on them and the bottom of the porch. They still have to put the stone on the fireplace. We completed staining all of the woodwork. Then we had to stain all of the window casings and pre-hung doors. Once everything was stained we had to spray-on the polyurethane coatings. This was a pretty labor intensive couple of days. Dad only had one sprayer break and dumped lacquer thinner all over his head once. We have started painting the interior and that should be done by the end of the week. The HVAC system is hooked up and running, built-in bookcases have been completed, and master bathroom pieces assembled. In the next couple of days the kitchen cabinets will be installed, counter tops will be measured, and hardwood floor installation is to begin.

Here are pictures of the progress.