Baseboard is In ... No more remodeling for Sara

Sami decided to make all the track lights point at certain spots in the room.

... and I guess my title is not entirely accurate. There is one piece of trim on the ceiling (behind Sami) that I still need to replace. We haven't bought it yet though, so I couldn't do it today.

Here's another picture of Sami adjusting the lights.

After we installed the baseboard and quarter round, Sami put in the speakers.

The screen is made of a special material, so the sound from these three will come through it.

The bottom part of the wall is built out further than the top part. This is because of the concrete foundation wall behind it. It makes attaching the screen tricky, but it's a nice place for the speakers to sit.

Here you can see the size of the screen and how it will cover the speakers.

We still need to add the black trim to the bottom (we stretched the screen ourselves) and hang it at the proper height. The top will be near that blue piece of tape.

Curtains for the Baby's Room

Many months ago, I bought one long silk panel curtain from Goodwill (secondhand shop)... I had always intended to cut it in half and make two short curtains for my "office" / guest room.

I also found this cool pillowcase at Goodwill, but not on the same day.

When I cut the panel into two pieces and re-hemmed it, I realized it was just a teeny bit short for the window.

I got inspired by the pillow and decided to buy a couple dollars worth of ribbon to make tabs for the top.

Close-up of the tabs

Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with the results. Now I just need to make some tie backs for the curtains.

Belly & Floor Update

The floor is nearly done and that's a good thing, because my belly is getting HUGE!

In this picture, I am taking the tape off the floor, because the glue has dried and the floor is OK to walk on. It is a floating floor installation (above concrete and vapor barrier/insulation), the boards are glued only to each other and not to the floor.

I still have to work on the door threshold and the the last couple rows of floorboards. Hopefully I can get the baseboards installed next weekend.

Home Theater Wiring & Floor Installation

Sami is nearly finished putting all the wires in for the home theater.

(He took these two pictures, so they must be important).

There will be a big panel here with all kinds of fancy outlets so all the wires can plug in.

Finally we got to start installing the floor.

It is an engineered hardwood floor - American Hickory.

The tape is only on there temporarily to hold the boards in place till the glue dries.

Yay! - The Dining Table is Finally Finished!

I put the last coat of finish on our dining table yesterday (it was in the cardboard box for most of the last year).

Anyway, it's now done except for a few pieces that attach to the underside of the extra leaves, and some hardware for the extra leaves.

If it looks a bit disproportionate, that's because it is. It's a counter height table. When we bought it, we thought it would be nice to be able to use the same chairs for the table and the kitchen counter bar (off to the right)... now I'm thinking perhaps we should have gone with a standard height because we have a low ceiling... but still, it's a very nice table. I suppose we can change out the table legs and chairs if we get tired of it.

PS - the floral arrangement is made of grape leaves and japanese flowering plum leaves from our garden.

Sauna Project - Flood!

Friday evening Melissa and Erica came over to help remove some more drywall in the laundry room (to prep for plumbing work).

Yesterday Sami and I worked on installing the tile in the laundry room. We marked out the layout, cut the edge pieces and tiled the corner where the water heater will be moved...

We woke up to find our pretty tile job underwater... Don't know if we have to rip it up and start over, or if it will dry out ok.

Our bathroom and our home theater room flooded too.

Unfortunately, the carpeted home theater room was packed full of stuff since we're in the middle of several projects. We had to move everything upstairs.

After we cleared the whole basement out (and turned the rest of our house into a huge mess), we found this crack in the foundation wall under the stairs.

We're hoping it's the only one, but actually it seems like the water is coming from the joint between the foundation wall and the slab.

Unfortunately I think the only thing we can do right now is to buy a sump pump and get the water out of our crawl space so it won't keep flowing in.

Red Rum

Sami gets decorating ideas from "The Shining"...

Actually we had to paint around the molding and the grooves in the paneling with a paintbrush because the roller couldn't get them.

Painting Part I

All of the rooms in the house were painted this beige off-white color. It's fine, but boring. Sami and I have lived in neutral colored rooms our whole lives and we wanted a change. We decided to paint the office/guest bedrooms this soft green color and our bedroom a medium blue. At first we thought we might paint the two extra rooms different colors, but then decided maybe we didn't need 5 different colors in the house right now.

This room is the basement part of the split level (the windows are the low ones you can see behind the bushes on the snow picture), so it it only 6 steps down from the living room and kitchen area. This will be Sami's home theater. Our friend Eric (on the milk crate) came over to help tape the rooms and get ready to paint. The second photo shows the grey primer we had to use in order to paint the room a darker color.