Almost the last of the wall painting...

Kyle finished the second coat of green paint in the laundry room today, so the walls are done upstairs. Except for our bedroom, but I think we're going to wait until next year when maybe painting sounds like fun again.  White will do for awhile.

When I came in to help, he was just finishing that up so I got started downstairs with the gray in CP's room.  It wasn't intentional, but his room looks like a University of Utah themed room, it will look even more that way when we pull the tape off and there are white stripes on both sides of the red.  Hopefully he can covert- I think he might still be a BYU fan.

Then we headed to A's room to put the last coat on the black and yellow.  When we were done we pulled the tape off...  (These are Miami Heat colors)

Then we headed to J's room to finish the final coat of all three colors in his room.  Jazz themed.  I hope they appreciate how much work that was.  They turned out pretty cool though.

Now we *just* have to paint the ceiling in the laundry room, the second coat of gray in CP's room, all the trim, the doors, and touch up the ceiling in all the places where we oops-ed.  Then we'll be ready for carpet.  :)

I didn't get a picture, but yesterday the siding guys came back and installed the rain gutters.  It's chugging along.

Red Stripes in Boys' Rooms

I took E out with me this morning, he rode his plasma car and played on my phone while I got the first coat of red paint up for the stripes in CP's room and A's room.

A's room.  He wanted a "Miami Heat" room, so the stripes just above and below the red will be black, and the bottom will be yellow.

CP wanted a "blood red and black" room, so we compromised with a red stripe.  Above and below the stripe will be gray.

Things were really going pretty well with E staying out of the paint and not touching the walls, until I told him we were finished.  I went to get a bucket and he decided to paint a little more.  This is after I wiped as much paint off as I could.  Luckily these parts still have to be painted.

Paint and Electrical Progress

Half of the great room upstairs and E's room is "Napery".  We got the first coat on.  The second coat will hopefully go up on monday.

 I don't think Kyle was super excited about my idea to paint one wall up in the cooling chimney, but he went along with it.  He's a good sport (and a good climber).

We taped off the stripes in the boys' rooms downstairs. 

We put the second coat of gray on last night.  

 Kyle and I both did a little wiring.  This is one of the plugs I did. 

Kyle got some lights up in the storage room. It's amazing to have lights that turn on with a light switch. Now just picture this room full of food storage and a freezer.

The Last of the Siding

The siding is finished!  It's actually been done since Wednesday, I've just been slow about posting updates.  When the icicles melt they'll come back and put up the rain gutters.

Since the last update, Kyle has been working on getting the inside cleaned up and windows and other things masked off for painting.  He has the primer done in the bathrooms and the laundry room, and a couple of his brothers came today and they tiled the laundry room.  Tonight he's putting primer in as much of the rest of the house as he can get to before he gets too tired.  When our house is done, he's going to have to take some long naps in the sunshine coming in our south facing windows.  

More picture updates tomorrow hopefully.

Even More Siding, Vent hood and other Inside Work...

Kyle worked all day yesterday and got a lot of work done.  Our mechanical room didn't get drywall for some reason, so we bought some wall panelling and he cut that and installed it.  We'll need one more panel to finish it off.  Then that room will be ready for the water heater and softener.  (If you have a water softener that you love, let me know because I've never had one before and have no idea what to look for.)

This is just to show the wall board, but that mess of stuff is for the fire sprinklers.

The most exciting thing Kyle did yesterday was work on the vent hood for over our cooktop.  We looked at our options, which were limited since we have an island cooktop.  The vent hood would be one of the first things you saw when you came through the front door, so we didn't want it to draw a of attention.  We debated a downdraft vent, but they don't very good reviews.  Some of the fancier vent hoods that might have looked good were prohibitively expensive.  We finally decided to buy an oversized, overpowered (for the size of our cooktop) insert, which we'd install as high toward the ceiling as we could, and Kyle would build a surround to put it in.

The frame.

We used the same trim that heads the doors.

Test fitting the unit.

Finally, he installed it, and trimmed around the top with the same hardwood sheeting that he used for wrapping the cooling chimney beams.  Now all that's left is to fill nail holes, sand, and paint.  I'm really pleased with how it turned out, and even more pleased that we didn't have to go buy more trim to finish it off. 

 The siding guys were here  and finished up the south side of the house.

Including the gray that we deliberated over so much.  I kind of wish we had gone even darker than we did (we picked the darker of the two options we were looking at) but we were worried that it would be too close to the roof shingle color.  As it is, I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out.  Also, the above picture was taken this morning, but the below picture was yesterday- wasn't it a beautiful day?

Kyle also got more of the solar tubes put together- he finished the ones in our closet and bathroom, but was short material for the one in the hall bathroom, so it will have to wait for the extension piece to finish up.  He also got the wiring done for the motor on the window in the cooling chimney.  This was tricky because it didn't come with parts that he could just hook up to the wiring he put in for it.  It was kind of ridiculous, the wire was barely long enough to install the switch (do they not think about how high the windows are that people are buying electric openers for?).  I got to help pull a piece of metal through a small hole we made in the drywall in the bathroom, so Kyle could tape the wire to it and pull it back up.  That was fun- peeking through a tiny hole trying to grab a piece of metal with pliers.

More Siding, and inside work coming along.

The siding guys were back today.  They finished the back porch, and around the kitchen and dining area windows.  

This is the base for one of the porch lights. 

Last night Kyle spent several hours trimming around the new window.  It was decided that it was easier to trim around it than it would be to fix the drywall.  

He's also covering the 2x4's with plywood, then he'll fill the holes, caulk the cracks and paint it with the rest of the trim.  

This is the solar tube in our closet.  We have one in our bathroom and one in the hall bathroom as well.  He just has to finish installing the tubing and then attaching the bottom piece to finish it off.

I noticed that at some point (maybe the first day they were here) the siding guys put the ceiling of the porch up.  I can't wait to see the green siding with the rock on the front porch.

Whoops and Siding

The fire sprinker people installed this head too low, so they came back to raise it, and left us with this nice repair job in the dry wall.  They said we could just "patch it up".  Thanks.

Siding going up.