MOVE IN

Ready or not, it was go time. The move went smooth, aside from the usual aches and pains. At least we didn't have to take anything upstairs, there wasn't much of an upstairs.

The first floor had finished floors and primed walls, but there were still gaping holes in some drywall sections and portions of the house were still without electricity. Thankfully the sewer line had been run and we had running water. It was only the beginning of November, so the furnace was not actually on yet, but it was installed. There was still no insulation in the attic, so the race was on to complete the ceilings, so it could be blown in.

My wife's project, bless her soul, was to remove all of the cabinet doors, fill all of the holes, sand and paint, and reassemble the entire thing. Lets just say it was not done yet, but at least the insides had been primed and painted, so we could place our dishes and food in there.

So there we are in an incomplete house making it work as best as we could. My wife, son, and I all shared a bed in what was supposed to be the dining room. My mother-in-law, father-in-law, and niece all shared what was supposed to be the parlor. Far from convenient, far from private, far from ideal, but we made it work.

As the month rolled on and the weather declined, the insulation got blown in. The wind howled in through door seams, window seams, cracks in the brick, chimneys, and under insulated areas. It was, by far, not energy efficient. Spray foam, caulking, blankets, towels, tape, etc were utilized to reduce as much draft as possible. The gas company was loving it.

I told my wife that I wanted that type of Christmas morning where the kids come down the stairs, turn the corner, and get that WOW! That gave us nearly a month to finish 2 bedrooms and get the furniture moved upstairs.

The front bedroom seemed the obvious choice to finish first. It needed the least work and was to be our bedroom. Portions of the plaster had crumbled, the crown molding needed to be reattached and everything primed and painted. Everything went smoothly and we finished the room with plenty of time to spare.

The back bedroom had many of the same issues, perhaps a little more plaster work needed to be done. The closets also needed a ceilings, which I lowered from 10 feet to 8, the rest wouldn't have been accessible anyhow. I also had to build a chase in one of the closets to hide the wiring and plumbing that was brought up to the second floor.

Perhaps the biggest challenge in the back room was the painting. My wife and I wanted some classic ad sophisticates, not just a solid color. We decided to stripe the back wall with green on green, flat and satin, paint. First I painted all of the walls with a satin paint and let it dry for several days. Next I determined the pattern of the stripes, drew them on the walls, and taped them using the delicate surface, blue tape.

Here's a trick I learned from watching all of those home improvement shows. I picked up a bottle of Acrylic Gel Medium at the local arts and crafts store. I used this to paint over all of the tape seams to eliminate the potential for paint to bleed under the tape. After the medium dried, I painted over the entire wall with the flat green paint (the same color). I let the paint set up for a couple hours and then removed the tape. The effect was awesome. It can be a subtle striping in some light and bold in others. It was perfect and there is where the problem stemmed from. My wife liked it so much, she wanted the whole room done. UGH! WEll, it turned out great.

Since we now had 2 bedrooms ready to go, I concentrated efforts elsewhere for a while. We were a bit annoyed with the laundromat, so a laundry room was a logical next venture.