The Stevens Family

It's been a very long day, but we're finally getting somewhere with the bathroom upstairs. I was primarily working on laundry, about ten loads of it, while everyone else worked on various jobs. Josh put some lights up in our closet (yay!) and started getting Jayden's closet light up. My mom came over today and did some more plastering, sanded, helped with the electrical, set our toilette AND painted on the bead board a bit. She's currently at home working on our house....the lady doesn't stop. My uncle came up and drilled the holes for all of the pipes and helped us figure out some of the electrical. He's also drawing up some plans and an estimate for the built in book shelves in the family room. We're hoping to have enough splurge money from our tax return to go ahead and have those put in. Jayden helped us with everything.
Now that the holes are drilled, my brother is working with Josh on getting all of the pipes ran up and through the holes. I think he's planning on finishing it up tonight, so we'll be able to hook up all of the stuff in the bathroom tomorrow! That means a toilet UPSTAIRS, a sink that's actually big enough to wash stuff in (I still love you pretty little corner sink), and yes, a bathtub! Our very own bathtub. *sigh*

In other news, Jayden isn't getting one tooth like I originally thought...he's getting 3 or 4. So that explains all of his sleepless nights. He's also been a huge help around the house. Always jumping in while we're working on something with his hammer or drill to give us a hand. It's a great "help." :)

Here are a few pictures of the progress up to today of Jayden's room. I don't have a picture of it from the very beginning, it had shag carpet on top of many layers of flooring, and the closet was absolutely disgusting. We've still got a few things to do in here, such as: nail down the quarter round that has been ready to be nailed down for months now, finish some spots on his floor, put up shelving, and a few more painting touch ups. Then we'll be DONE with a ROOM. Craziness.

Another shot looking southeast. We're down to the pine boards here, and starting on the walls.

This is in Jayden's closet. I was actually proud of the way it looked here, because it looked so bad before hand. I can't find a picture of what it looked like, I think because I tried to steer clear of this room as much as possible. To give you an idea, the previous owner had buckets on top of the built in drawers to hold all of the water and debris that came in through the ceiling and walls. The buckets had been there for years, and were green and grimy and gross.

This is looking Northeast. It's after we had the heat and air installed, and we had to build around the pipes. I'm planning on putting in floor to ceiling shelving in the nook there.

Here it is looking Southeast again, after we'd painted the floors, walls, and most of the woodwork.

More pictures! Woohoo! Here is what we call the "Kid's Bath"...even though we only have one kid, who isn't even potty trained, and probably won't be having a "Grown up Bath" for another year or two. I have no pictures of the upstairs before we started all of the construction. So, you'll have to deal with pictures of stuff that's actually been modified by us a bit.

This was the antique hot water heater on the East wall, we kept it too out of of hopes of us finding something really cool to do with it. So far, no luck. We were originally going to keep it up for decoration, but we had tear out the chimney that it sets next to because the chimney was causing structural damage.

This is the tub on the North wall. It had a wall thing built all around it, you can see it in the right portion of the picture. Notice the shag carpeting in the bathroom? Nice.

This is after the chimney was taken down. Sadly, the toilette didn't survive.

As with many rooms, we had to pretty much gut this one completely. This is facing the East wall, where the sink, water heater, and chimney used to set. We also tore up the floor and replaced it with a newer pine flooring.

This is the bathroom today, facing the East wall. We moved the sink over to the South wall because it gave the bathroom a better flow. We weren't able to save the original wainscoting because it had been built around the chimney, and it was going to be more trouble than it was worth. So, we put up some new bead board instead. Nothing in this bathroom is hooked up yet.

Here is the tub, on the North wall still. We just flipped it around so we could have the option of installing a shower easier.

These are the colors I'm looking at for the bathroom. Since its a Kids Bathroom, I wanted something a little more colorful.

Looking South, before construction.

One of the first parts of the house to face demolition.

The entire back wall of the house was so rotten, that we had to completely tear it off and replace it. This is after all of the bathroom walls came down, and the new size window was installed.

These are the walls being built after the back wall was completed, and the new pine floor was put down.

This is a shot of the bathroom today. With the working sink and toilette. We still have a lot of painting to do, but its coming along nicely.

Our ceiling...or lack of ceiling. No lights yet either.

Thats our half bath up to today! I'd like to think that it will be done soon, but since its actually somewhat functional, I think other rooms will take a higher priority over this room for now (our full bath and kitchen, for instance).

So, I'm a little late...but I've been under the weather a bit and sitting in front of the computer just didn't sound like much fun.
Anyway, its the time of year for resolutions. I think this is the first year I've actually given the whole list making process some serious thought, maybe because I've grown up a bit the last couple of years and I have higher expectations of the years to come.
The first list deals with the house. Its pretty big, but its also pretty basic. I didn't really want to go into too much detail because it would have been depressing. Basically its a list of everything we want to accomplish this year on the house.

Jayden's Room

• Touch up floor paint
• Install and paint quarter round and floor trim
• Finish shelving
• Install dimmer switch
• Blank covers for obsolete outlets
• Install lighting in closet
• Paint door

Master Bedroom

• One more coat of paint on walls
• Edging on ceiling
• Plate covers
• Finish Trim
• Install Door
• Install closet lights
• Run cable to our room

Upstairs Hallway

• Finish patching cracks
• Sand
• Primer and paint ceilings and walls
• Install lighting
• Switch plate covers
• Paint woodwork
• Install shelving

Kid's Bath

• Finish Floor
• Plumbing
• Order faucet for tub
• Sand walls
• Primer and Paint walls and ceiling
• Finish painting bead board
• Put up trim
• Put up and finish door
• Install Lighting
• Hang medicine cabinet

Stairway

• Sand, primer, paint walls and ceiling
• Sand and varnish woodwork

Living Room

• Finish woodwork
• Finish installing built in media cabinet
• Finish dresser
• Finish and install french doors
• Touch up paint

Family Room

• Touch up paint
• Put up woodwork
• Finish woodwork
• Install built in bookshelves

Dining Room

• One more coat of regular paint
• Top coat paints
• Woodwork
• Switch plate covers
• Door on closet

Half bath

• Put in ceiling
• Plaster, sand, primer, and paint walls and ceiling
• Paint bead board and woodwork
• Plate covers
• Hang medicine cabinet

Kitchen

• Electrical
• Plumbing
• Drywall walls and ceiling
• Plaster, Sand, Primer and paint walls and ceiling
• Install and paint woodwork
• Sand and varnish floor
• Install lighting
• Install cabinets
• Install appliances

Outside

• Scrape paint
• Primer
• Paint
• Begin landscaping

And of course there is my personal list. Woohoo. I'm hoping that if I share it, I'll be more obliged to keep to it.

• Lose 30 pounds (this should have happened LAST year)
• Get my real estate license (this also should have happened last year)
• Get a job. Don't get me wrong, I love being a stay at home mom, but a girl needs to get out of the house sometimes.

I'm pretty sure there was more, because I was thinking about it a lot. I just never sat down to get it all down on paper. So maybe I'll just add to this list as I think of things.