Oak Floor Started, Painting the Ceiling

They started installing the oak flooring. The boards on the right side of the kitchen island wall are nailed down. The ones to the left are just cut placed roughly in position awaiting final positioning and nailing.

Oak Flooring

Marlene and I decided to try our hand at painting the ceiling in the great room. We borrowed a low-end commercial paint sprayer. It seemed to do a good job, when you held it a uniform distance from the surface and moved it at the right speed. Marlene got frustrated with her lack of success using it. So I tried it. I was starting to get the hang of it, but was having trouble with the slanted cathedral ceiling. It was a hard to keep it a uniform distance from the drywall. The deciding factor for me was how long it was taking. We spent a couple hours and had finished less than 10% of the ceiling. I could have done billable work instead of spending all day breathing paint fumes and getting less than satisfactory results. I called a friend who is a painter and had him come out and give us an estimate. Had I worked those billable hours, I could have made enough to pay him to paint half the house! That settled it. Marlene and I are definitely not professional painters, nor do we have the desire to become that. We packed up the paint sprayer and went home. It was pretty frustrating to have spent most of the day there and not accomplished very much.

Here is the great room. The Baker scaffolding in the back is what we were using to get up by the ceiling. It worked great; our spraying technique, not so great. Also, you can see the rough coat of plaster on the Trombe wall. It had been applied the day before.

Great Room

Here is another picture of the dark gray primer. It sure makes it look more like a real house!

More Primer

And on the outside the snow has finally melted leaving lots of mud.

Snow Gone

So what happens when you step out of the Port-O-John into the saturated soil? You sink up to your knee and you yell for help. For a split second after hearing Marlene yell, I fought the temptation to grab the camera to record the moment for posterity. Instead, I rushed down to her and put a piece of pipe that was handy where she could use it to push against to free herself from the mud. Only then did I grab the camera.

Muddy Marlene

Walls Primed

Forgive me, dear readers, it has been 5 weeks since I last posted! (It is Sunday evening, 4/27, as I write this.)

No, the big delay is not because there has been little or no progress. And, no, it isn't because I lost the camera in the divorce proceedings. Actually the reason for the lack of posting is because of how busy I have been with client work. The month of April is already a record month for me in terms of billable hours. This is good news, since it will help immensely in our efforts to pay for finishing off the house.

Much has been happening on the house, and much of it is visible progress. When last I posted we had just had the drywall installed. Here we see that it is primed. Even the primer makes it look significantly more finished than the drywall. We were excited to see the contrast of the dark walls and the white ceiling.

Becca and Alex were putting a bid in on a house so we went out and checked out the house with them. On our way back, we stopped at our house. Rob had his camera with him and took these pictures. Thanks, Rob!

Here is the skylight over the kitchen island and the kitchen wall in the back. The pantry is to the left.

Skylight and Kitchen

Master bath, ready for the tub?

The exterior of my office in the basement was not primed. We get to do that when we finish off the rest of the basement.

Office Exterior

Becca enjoying the view out my office window.