The Stairs are Clad!

There was quite a bit of back and forth over whether my parents would come this weekend or not, but in the end they decided to come on Saturday. Terral and I rushed to get the protective coat on the stringers before they came because the coat that goes on the stringers is different from what goes on the steps, and the two can't overlap at all. Luckily it all worked out and we were able to get it done just in time.

Terral had a race in St. George, so he wasn't here for the first half of the day. Things went much slower this time because dad needed breaks and mom and I weren't skilled enough to do the precise measuring and cutting. But that was totally fine, because of course I wanted dad to take his needed breaks, and there was less that needed to be done.

Here's a picture of the stairs with the newly-cut risers and a few treads put on. You can kind of see the color difference between the risers and the railings. Once the railings (that we love!) were up, we felt that the stain turned out a little too orangey-red and it made the other wood tones in our house look. . .different. . . so I tested out a couple scrap pieces and we decided to put a coat of walnut stain on top. It didn't make a stark difference, but it tones down the red and I think fits our house better now.

 And here's the view from the top with just a couple treads put in.

 As dad cut the treads, mom and I glued and nailed them in. Mom was thoughtful enough to make sure there was photographic evidence of me working on our stairs. :)

 Ethan spent the morning with Terral's parents, and I met them in Cedar to watch the storybook parade when Terral came back from his race. Ethan really enjoyed the parade, and I did too. The floats were way better than what you see in the 4th of July parade. But mostly I just had fun watching Ethan.

 He was so tuckered out afterward that he fell asleep in the car within 2 minutes!

When we got home,  mom helped me put some wood filler on our cabinet fronts, and dad installed an outlet and switched out a broken one to make our kitchen more functional. Terral and dad finished off the drywall and some more trim on the stairs. Dad was pretty darn beat by the end. He is such a trooper. I'm very lucky to have the parents I do.

There is still plenty of work to do (sanding, staining, filling, topcoat, etc.) but we love our new stairs! I think they are beautiful. Even covered in construction dust. :)

Lethargy after Work

I never seem to feel like blogging after spending a whole day working on the house. My parents came down and we got the rest of the stairs clad. It's awesome! But I felt bad for my dad the whole time. His ribs are doing much better, but his foot is still really bothering him.

Hopefully tomorrow I will share pictures and more details of this very full day.

Garage Door

The garage is pretty much all painted. I say pretty much because 1) there is some touch up work to do, and 2) The back side isn't painted because we are likely going to put siding of some sort over the plywood. But that could change.

In the meantime, here's a before and almost-after of our barn garage door. ;)

More on the Railings

It's about time that I filled in a little on the progress we made last Saturday.

It was a snowy weekend, so we weren't sure my family was going to come, but they did! Matt and Karalee traveled as far as Delta Friday night after work, then they rode down with Mom and Dad in the morning. Diane and Mike were here by noon in spite of the snowy mountain between us. Everyone was such a big help and we are so grateful they braved the weather to come to our aid!

Matt and Karalee tore out the drywall next to the stairs.

 Mike helped quite a bit with the construction of the wall next to the stairs and figuring out some of the details for the hardwood.

 Dad was supposed to just supervise, but we couldn't keep him down. He did try to not overdo it though. And it's great that he was feeling well enough to do what he did.

 Once all the sanding and staining was done for the remaining stair pieces, the women didn't have a lot they could do, so I asked for their help getting started on our cupboards. Terral and I bought a couple of 1/4" thick MDF boards to make trim for the doors. Dad helped me double check the measurements and cut the strips. He did the cutting at first until I asked him to just teach me how to do it. Once he did, I took over at the saw. :)

 Mom and Karalee nailed the trim to the cupboards and drawers, and they even put a primer coat of paint on the lower ones! I can't tell you how excited I am to have this project underway!

 While we were all busy with construction, the kids were busy playing. I just had to snap a picture of Ethan and Lucas together. :)

  Finally it was time for the railings to be put in! Happy day!

 Matt and Karalee made quite the team. :)

 Made had made all the parts large so they could be cut to the right angles, etc. Dad did a lot of that cutting.

 Ethan sure loves it when family comes to visit. He often points to the stair rails and says, "Matt" or "Karalee did it!" It's fun to hear him try to say Karalee.

 Here are a few more views of the stairs with the newly-installed railings. We love having them up!

 And the landings is one of my favorite parts. These pictures really don't do justice to the stairs. They look so good!

 Here's Ethan going up for the first time!

 And just for fun, here he is after everyone left and he decided to put on my boots.

Am I a blessed girl, or what?

Stair Railings

We are so very excited about our new stair railings! My family is just amazing. They accomplished so much today, and did so by braving snowy roads. I can't thank them enough!

Painting the Tower

Yesterday Ethan refused to nap for some reason, and since I really needed one, the result was a mommy on the edge of an emotional breakdown. Thankfully, in spite of a rough morning babysitting, today was not a repeat. We napped and I was much happier. I didn't paint during the day as I had planned, but after Terral got home we all spent some time outside together.

Terral painted up on the tower. It looks so much better now! I don't have "after" pictures yet because we worked until there wasn't light anymore.

 I worked on the bottom of the tower. I had to dig away dirt that had built up to the wood and clear away plants that were growing up and into the siding. And of course I cleared away garbage. There always seems to be more garbage to uncover.

There has been quite a bit of water damage here. We have a new piece of wood ready to replace the old one, but we have some more prep work to do first.

 I also did detail painting around our windows and a few other random spots.

Ethan was reluctant to play by himself at first, but once he got going he seemed to have a blast. He found some leaves in the driveway and spent a really long time digging them up with his backhoe.

I couldn't believe how pleasant the weather was all evening. We had a very nice time!

The Current State of Things

Something I didn't mention last time about our weekend activities is that my visiting teachers came to help paint the exterior of our house and garage. Not only did they come, but they also rounded up some other ladies to help. They accomplished quite a bit, and it really helped ease the load on me! There is still more to be done because we ran out of paint, but we are much closer now.

Here are some before pictures of the porch.

And after. Ah! Much nicer! (just don't look above the porch roof quite yet.)

Terral and I rearranged our living room a bit last night. It was one of those times where you measure to make sure it will work and then still have to move the heavy things back and forth. So things actually aren't that far from where they started in general, but it made a huge difference to us. Part of it is that I took care of some of the post-move clutter that was still hanging around. Anyway, here's the new layout with our new stairs.

You can see the outline of the old stairs. Now we don't have to duck to miss the beam, the stairs are a little wider, and the landing goes all the way to the opposite wall instead of leaving a gap.

I finished a bit of decorating for Halloween today. I really like how the top of the piano turned out. It doesn't look quite as awesome in the pictures as it does in real life, so I guess you'll have to take my word for it. 

The books I used are The Secret Spring, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Stairs In Progress

As I was going through the pictures I took over the weekend, I realized I don't have any of the current state of things. So I'll have to take some more pictures tomorrow to finish documenting what was done.

One last look at our stairs in their "pre" state, minus the temporary railing up top.

 A look at the landing, since it was going to be a big change.

 Ethan helping his daddy dismantle the old railing.

 Gotta love hammering!

 T is for Terral

 This is one of the things that prompted a whole staircase redo instead of just putting in new railing. some of the steps had been cut out for the old posts.

 Hooray for removing yucky carpet!

 Matt tearing out the wall beneath the stairs.

 Ethan was fascinated by all the destruction. And he loved hanging out with Karalee too. :)

 And the crow bar becomes a gun. Bang!

 Sorry for all the dust particles. The flash had to go off and it really highlighted all the junk in the air. It was pretty amazing to watch Dad tear down the drywall under the stairs and see pounds of dirt fall to the ground. Um, gross. Did they never vacuum?

 Matt and dad cutting into the old floor to make room for the new landing.

 Mom and Karalee did lots of sanding and staining. Terral and I jumped back and forth doing lots of things, but we spent quite a bit of time doing this too.

 And here are the beginnings of our new stairs! Dad and Matt really figured things out well. All our needs were addressed without making the stairs too obtrusive into the narrow family room. As Matt said, I really did hit the family jackpot. We really are so grateful for their willingness to share their time and talents with us!

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A couple funnies from this weekend:

1) Mom was trying to complement Terral, but she made us all laugh because she kept saying that he is very easily entertained. She meant that he has a creative mind, and was surprised that most people mean that someone is simple minded when they use that phrase.

2) Ethan has a little tape measure he got at a white elephant party last year. It's a tape measure for dumb blonds and has pictures of feet instead of numbers. Matt needed to measure something, and mom apparently hadn't woken up completely yet that morning because she brought him Ethan's tape measure instead of a real one. She didn't even realize it until she saw Dad laughing.