McBerkoBlog

OK, a bit misleading since the pics below aren't actually of painted walls, but the bath is now primed. We're moving on to paint tomorrow. The first pic is where the toilet will be (on left) and sink, medicine cabinet, and light (right). The open sections of the wall will get cement board for the shower after the floor and shower base are in, after painting. The square above the window is the fan. We decided to go with the wall-install option so we could keep the full ceiling height (over 9').

It's been about a month since we started the bathroom. After a few weekends of one or another of us being sick, Bill whipped through the plumbing and electric in record time with minimal cursing and only two burns. He may hate it, but he can rock out some plumbing when he needs to. This weekend, we each took a vacation day Friday, dropped Ruth off at day care like usual, then did as much as we could before we had to pick her up. By dinner today, we got through a first coat of drywall mud/taping. Excellent! It is so different with the new layout and the raised ceiling - you will not recognize it! ETA, some progress pics, pre-floor and pre-drywall:

I hated this bathroom so much. The drop ceiling, the vinyl wood parquet floor tiles, the plastic sheeted fake tile walls. It was very exciting to destroy it. Our original plan was to keep the sink and toilet where they were, but swap out the tub for a smaller shower in the corner. Once everything was gone, we realized we had enough room for the sink on the same back wall rather than across from the toilet. We weren't positive if we had enough room, until the shower base and sink base were delivered this week. Now, I'm thinking this is definitely the way to go. There's so much more space to move than before (it was tight when I was pregnant)! Here are some shots of the bathroom, pre-demo: The after-demo pic below is the view through the doorway (same as the shot above), with the shower and sink bases roughly in place. On the far left, the newspaper template shows the actual toilet measurements. The blue tape on the wall is where we think the beadboard will end (same height a...

Ripping out the downstairs bath tomorrow - woohoo!!!!

Quite the transformation with the new color scheme! Since our house is located in a historic district, the colors had to be approved by the historic district commission.  Front Door After The colors and products used here are (not affiliate links): Door - Sherwin Williams Cajun Red ( link , a pretty red-orange in real life, looks slightly more brown here) Siding - Sherwin Williams Rookwood Blue Green ( link ) Trim (white) - Sherwin Williams Pure White ( link ) Trim (teal) - Sherwin Williams Still Water ( link ) Porch floor - Sherwin Williams Pewter Tankard ( link ) Brick foundation (not shown) - Sherwin Williams Rookwood Dark Brown ( link ) Mailbox - Ecco E4 in Bronze ( link , available via Amazon and elsewhere) Similar Craftsman-style Door With Dentil Shelf ( link ) Front Door Before

Few more pics of the entryway (/temporary bike storage). PS - I'm on the hunt for curtains for the front window, so let me know if you see something that will look good with the tan/black/red scheme.

Like most other rooms - out with paneling, carpet, and acoustic ceiling tiles; in with new walls, ceiling, floor, built-in bookshelves and coat/hat/bag nook.

It is so funny looking at the original pics of this place. I almost can't remember all the old acoustic tile ceilings and the carpet.

After going through old posts today, I realized how many "after" pics we are missing. I guess they're not completely "after" since they don't have crown molding and aren't decorated yet, but it's close enough for me! The future office is currently serving as a baby play and nap room. The plan is for an L-shaped desk where the pack-n-play is, with some reading chairs on the right. One of these years I may get around to sewing some cushions for the window seats, but I wouldn't blame you for putting money against it. Before we moved in:

And the winner was... Pete Gafner!! This was Uncle Pete's first beer taste-off, and he won with 8 of 10 correct, edging past my 7. The rest of the pack was far behind. Craig, Amy, and Bill, all former winners, were nowhere close. Bill claimed his cold affected his palate. Several people got one or zero right. This clearly means we all need to practice a lot before the next contest. Dad, Eric, Joe, and Emily, I expect better scores from you next time around! For those of you who haven't participated, the beer contest works like this: A list of 10 beers is posted for everyone to see. You get a mini-pour (2-3 oz) of each beer, one at a time. You have to finish that beer before the next one is served, so you don't have the chance to compare them against each other. (This is not about drunkenness, by the way - it takes a long time to go through all 10 rounds.) For each beer, you write down which of the 10 you think it is, rate it on a 1-to-10 scale, comment about why you liked/d...

Today is our 11th wedding anniverary, and Bill kindly spent it installing our fabulous new front door. It took nearly 2 months to get it delivered (don't buy custom doors from Lowes, y'all), but it looks great. I was worried that something would go badly with the install given that nothing in our house is normal or square. You'd think I'd have learned by now that Bill will always figure it out. After we get some paint on the door, I'll post pics of the final result.

After 11 days of work by 4-5 guys/day, the exterior paint is done! The pictures don't quite represent the colors (at least on my computer) - the accent color on the sashes, top, and columns is a muted dark teal, but you get the idea. A bit different from the original . New front door, porch light, mailbox, and house numbers are still on order.

The house painters started Monday. Or maybe I should say, the house paint preppers. They've spent 3 days cleaning, scraping, and priming, and are nowhere near ready to paint. Maybe after a full week of prepping, we'll see some color on the house. 3 person crew x 5 days prep = one million weekends of me and Bill and Ruth time. I can't imagine how long this would have taken us. I'm glad we realized there was no way we could do this project ourselves.

Drywallers took much longer with this room than the last, but it's finally done and now all primed. Pics from yesterday partway through priming. Ruth did an excellent job entertaining herself while we worked.

No member of the McBerkowitz family can play all day every weekend until this house is done, there's too much work to do. Ruth finally got with the program today and completed some key tasks. She learned to measure twice and cut once: After pulling some wire, she helped nail in those cut boards for the recessed bookshelves: She then moved to some finish work, installing the hardware on the window seats in the office: All in all, a pretty productive day for a baby. Next weekend, she'll try her hand at stripping paint and eating applesauce.

I realized after that last post that I hadn't even previously mentioned that we've moved onto the entryway. (There are a few final paint touchups to the office, and then I'll post final pics of those.) We started it at the end of March when Eric and Mom were here for spring break. The lovely paneling (what else!) came down quickly, but the other two layers of wall took a bit longer. Since then, the progress had been embarrassingly slow until we decided to take a day off work and power through this weekend as much as possible. That plan actually worked! Drywallers can start this week. After we finished the insulation, Bill finished roughing out a few areas that needed it. Today, he finished the pre-drywall portions of the two built-ins. The first two pics are of the new recessed bookshelves. We are very lucky that this wall is deeper than normal because there's a pocket door between the living room and entry. Adding shelves didn't occur to us until we opened the wall...

Bill and I both took today off work so we could have a day without Ruth to work on the house. Amazing how much you can get done in a day without a baby! I had forgotten. Entry is now fully insulated. Hoping the drywallers can start early next week. Bill has a few things to finish first, so hopefully he can get that done while Ruth and I hit Lowes to order a new front door. One of these years, the house will be DONE and we'll be able to spend our vacations outside the house.

Bill has all the trim up and window seats complete. A few shelves in the closet and a lot of painting and this room will be done. Cross your fingers that Baby Ruth takes some long naps tomorrow so there's a minor chance we get through priming and a first coat of paint.

I forgot to mention the other great stride forward of our house - we now have a dishwasher. Almost one year has passed since we moved in. I thought the lack of a dishwasher would be far more annoying than it has actually been (turns out hand washing dishes isn't really so bad), but that doesn't mean I'm not super-excited to have one again. Yay for presidents' day sales on appliances!

My last post said we thought we'd get the room ready for drywall within a week. HAHAHAHA! We finally got everything ready, then had professional drywallers in for the first time. Best money we ever spent! I am glad we did the previous rooms in the house so we can appreciate how fast and well pros do the work. Thursday morning we had studs and Saturday night we were priming. After seeing how fast that is, not to mention reasonably inexpensive, there is no way on earth we are drywalling any more rooms on our own. There are weeks of trim work and window seats to go, but I'm thinking I won't post any more progress pics until we're done, for maximum impact. This room is shaping up to be the best room yet. :)

The to-be-office, which was Ruth's changing/napping area until this demo started, is our next major project. While Steve and Patty babysat today (thanks, guys!!), we managed to remove almost all of the 3 layers of ceiling (acoustic tile drop ceiling, tiles stapled up, and plywood). We also removed the top layer of wall, and parts of the second layer of wall. No plaster - yay! Goal is to finish demo, rewire, and insulate by the end of next weekend.

Living room fireplace is now done - we're back, baby! Progress pics, from how it looked when we bought the house (paneling over the fireplace tiles!), to the original tiles uncovered, to Bill having to rebuild the base brick layer, to final finish tiles and trim. It was a bit scary when we removed the top tiles only to find that the bricks underneath would bounce when touched. Not ideal. Fortunately all is stable, and much prettier, now, without losing any old house charm.