It has totally changed the way I work around the house, because now I can do things in the attic without fear of heat exhaustion. Same sort of thing for any outdoor activities or the garage. The oppressive heat and humidity are gone and I am now a happy camper. :)

I'd like to see what cal quail's kitchen would look like photoshopped because I think u have only seen bits and pieces of it so far.

This is my "at home" weekend for the month of December so I need to make it count. For now though it's been coffee and Angry Birds.

We did talk about the bedroom/bathrooms project that is next in line yesterday evening, and the den/dining room project to come after that wraps up. The next project will be big, but not to the scale of this one. It is the last "large" project that I will DIY. The den and dining room must be worked at the same time, but there is nothing in the den that I can do. Gas, fireplaces, terrazzo, and opening up an exterior wall are not on my skills list. Other rooms after that are just smaller bedrooms and bathrooms that can be done one at a time, and there really isn't much to them. The real reason for the talk yesterday is to figure out where kids for fit into all of this.

The answer is, after the master bedroom/bath (next) project. At that point the large-scale chaos will be over and I will not be so preoccupied any more. In any case, is there a decent board here for bedroom/bath/closet layout? We're forming ideas now and could stand to have themshredded improved upon. Maybe the building board?

I did refinishing projects over the summer, as well as painted/replaced some trim on the outside of the house. And we spent an awful lot of time in the neighbor's pool. Now that it's cold outside (we've been below 0F already), I've started indoor painting projects. That should keep me busy most of the winter.

DH and I made these last night - double-stuff Oreos dipped in almond bark. They are almost too sweet to eat, but I struggle through!

These are for a bake sale at our church tomorrow.

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Holy moly, annkh! Made my teeth hurt through the drool. :)

It really sounds from these brief contributions, that we're hunkering down....

Those look awesome! Aaaand now I am officially hungry for lunch.

The pantry lighting is complete.

Schicksal, I LOVE the doors! They look perfect and they totally go with your backsplash! You ended up with 3, didn't you?

Annkh, I could never eat those without going into sugar shock! They look good and I'm pleased that white stuff isn't white chocolate, so I'm sure they'd be dee-lish!

CEF, when your phone is working you'll have to upload a photo of those cabinets.

My boys are in Florida so I'm working OT every day off I have. I'll bank the time and cash it in next March so it's a different tax year and I'll have the cash to do the bathroom. My house is a disaster due to the OT though. Today I went with some friends on an 8.5km run. It was great. I ran at a bit slower pace than usual, but it was faster for my friend and it was the longest I've run in a while. They go every Saturday morning, so I'm going to have to get in a few around the hockey schedule. It's much easier going with others than alone. I'm off to work in an hour or so, so I'm going to wrap my last two Christmas presents! One is my gift from Santa, and the other is my 9 year olds from Santa. Then I just need a couple of stocking stuffers, and I'm done, so no panic here. I do need a day off for baking cookies though.

There are two doors. After living with it for a week it was the right call for sure. Threw would have been a hassle.

The trim is installed around the door. It still needs caulk and paint though.

We're prepping for the BIG CAT MOVE!!!!

So I'm doing the tile in the sunporch, where we hope they will loll around and enjoy the sun.

Installing cat doors
Cat-proofing the house as best we can

Etc.

Schick- what is your pantry door? Did you order or build it and I just missed it? It looks really cool! Also, the front door looks great!

CEF- "colder" is a relative term around here. Yeah it was freezing the day they poured the slab but today was a high of 59 so not really chilly.
I want to see pics of the credenza when you get it done!

Annkh- those look sinfully sweet!

MGMum- sounds like my Christmas shopping. Normally I get it done before Thanksgiving, this year I didn't but since I have Amazon Prime I did it earlier this week and got everything yesterday. Just need to wrap them and set a day aside to make candy.

The past few days have not been as visually impressive on the addition. Since that used to be an outside wall, we had a drain clean out, water heater overflow/drip line and a water faucet that all had to be re-routed. The last two were fine but when we removed the decking to get to the drain clean out and reroute it we found this.
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We have no idea when this happened, it could have happened when the house was originally bricked 21 years ago or it might have happened a few weeks ago when we were removing the brick. Regardless, it is a pain.

Here is a view from the front
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My dad wanted to have a safe room for storage and as a tornado shelter. The vault door is the white thing and if you can see the rebar sticking up, that is where the walls will be constructed. The blocks were delivered yesterday afternoon and the workers are supposed to be here on Monday to build the walls. We can't put up the last two walls until those are constructed.

Here is a view from the back.{{gwi:2141139}}

Today was mostly decking and building headers for windows.

Tonight, we put up the main tree. I can't wait until the kids are old enough that we can put the breakable ornaments back on the tree. :)

Where we live, the cold is not so much a problem but the rain is. Once the fall rains start, everything stays wet. Plus, the sun sets soon after 4 in the afternoon now. It's difficult to get anything done outside.

Just got home from a college football game - round 2 of FCS playoffs. Our team pulled out a win in the last minute of the game - I darn near had a heart attack.

The photo was taken at a pre-game lunch - I went retro with a sweatshirt from 1981. I'm pretty good at purging my closet, but some things you just have to keep!

Did you photoshop the beer out of his hand?
Lol...retro is good!

Shick, Kid talk....did you not hear me last week? Lol, in the long run, they are more expensive than any project you could think up, but then.....You can't technically be a grandparent without kids. :) My oldest and his wife came up to pick up the van, all freshly repaired and "shoed". It's so weird to look at my son and then his wife's baby belly and SEE that we'll be grandparents in a few months! My first baby is having a baby!

As to projects and such: nothing but "living" is going on here. Today I did take a look at my 2nd coffee table I Citristripped the top off. It's going to need to be sanded. The edge is "fake" wood grain and not much came off. Well it's splotchy yellow with grain stripes here and there.
Still have to strip the legs and apron and peel off the funny little shell on one side of the apron.
I wish Ikea would show the US cabinet door choices so I could start planning the kitchen.

Terri- as someone in the thick of parenting (4 kids ages 2-7) its not REALLY that bad. Come on, don't discourage the other youngins from propagating the species!!! ;) j/k

Yay for you, first grandchild, that is VERY exciting!!!

If you are the type to publicly post pictures, you HAVE to share pics of the new baby when it arrives!

@Terri - I couldn't either, but then again only kids sound like a foreign concept. The two of us have basically been like one of the early scenes in Idiocracy where the professional couple talk about kids but there are 50 other things going on so it never happens. My parents have been bugging me about grandkids for a long time now though.

@annkh - lucky sweatshirts and tshirts never get purged. Totally excusable.

@TX Gem - I bought the pantry doors from The sliding Door Company. I was considering them along with two other companies I never could get so much as a quote from but was unsure about ordering because I couldn't see them in person. Then this summer someone on this site posted a picture of their place with four of these doors in the background and answered all of my questions about their quality so I went ahead and bought these. The front door was custom built in our dining room. The design was lifted from a picture of someone else's front door. It was a huge pain to DIY but these things cost an arm and a leg if you go out and buy one.

The cleanout looks like it was broken by sudden downward force. Maybe bricks fell on it, or someone thought it would make a convenient step. A moment was clearly generated about the wye that broke. The 2x6 walls are great though.

Around here...
Front area - The transition pieces between wood and slate are in, so this "done done."
Kitchen - All that remains is the toe kick which I will put in this morning, minus the missing piece they forgot to include
Family Room - The only thing left is to put the veneer on the exposed beam and to finish it. I went with walnut with the thickest paper backing available. I'll consider myself lucky to have it completed by the end of the day because I expect this to be a long, tedious process and I will need to pry my helper away from facebook.

Back home after a short vacation. It rarely gets cold here in south Florida, just less hot. This is good as I have no energy when it's super hot out. I can go in the garage and not risk heat stroke. It's grilling season now. I'm at a stop until the holidays are over and then I'll be starting the bathroom project. Just in time as I can't stand it much longer. Tile buckling from the wall and a tub so disgusting I wont use it. I have a nice white shower curtain hung up to hide it but I know there's a blue disaster behind it! Blue tub, blue tile.

We put up four trees and they're all up and lit, two are done, two need ornaments. I accidentally bought some cool white lights for the living room tree and they look blue. I'm pretending I was going for that look. I'm working on that plus a cookie order I need to finish tonight. My snowflake cookies are in high demand this time of year!

Love those doors Schicksal! They look great, as does the lighting.

Good luck with the cat move Lazygardens, I want to see photos of your kitties :)

Looking forward to seeing the credenza CEF, have you got any progress shots? I'm always looking for ideas. I've got a bunch of doors and drawers and shelves left from the kitchen project.

Cookies look amazing Annkh!

Your addition is going to be great, Texas, that safe room will be a nice thing to have.

Christina- I love the tree and the color play going on. I have to ask, the ceiling in the back ground looks really cool, could I see a closeup of it?

Glad to see I'm not the only one who puts up multiple trees.

terri - we had just arrived, and my DH was eagerly awaiting his beer.

Schick, I love your pantry and entry!

Texas_gem, I hate that ceiling! I'm from New England where we had plaster walls and smooth ceilings. If there was any way to get rid of that popcorn ceiling without making a horrible mess I'd do it in a heartbeat. Anyway, we have two of those huge rosettes, one in the dining room and one over the kitchen table. I haven't actually seen them in any other house in my neighborhood or anywhere else for that matter, so I suppose they're at least different.

Yeah,I'm not a popcorn ceiling fan either but I've never seen a rosette like that. The far away view looked like a medallion but from that picture it looks like it was actually hand done with the texture? That is really cool!

Take heart though, its definitely a textured ceiling but it doesn't look like an actual popcorn ceiling. I've been slowly removing the balls of doom from our house and yes, it is a HUGE mess!

Of course I will share a picture when she arrives.

Yeah that ceiling is interesting but not the kind of popcorn I have. This is mine. It's been painted several times not coming down without a fight..and not a fight I'm inclined to wage. :)

Okay kids...they are kinda cute..and sometimes make you laugh your a$$ off. And you love them til it hurts.

Christina - I'm pretty sure that plasterwork is hand done. Outside the rosette it looks like a star pattern. You have a unique piece of work there. I saw a Youtube video of guys in Europe doing that kind of work. One has to be very skilled to pull it off. You may not like it, but it is very unique.

Having said that, I'm gladly ripping out all my lath and plaster, but there is nothing in my house like what you have. Mine looks like a couple of drunks on a Monday morning did ours and 100 years of earthquakes has not helped matters.

You guys have succeeded in making me feel better about my weird ceiling! From now on I'll try and be appreciative of its uniqueness :)

I guess I'm weird (or old-fashioned). I don't have a problem with our popcorn ceiling. As much echo as we got when we replaced carpet with hardwood, I can't image how much echo we'd have if the ceilings were flat.

I found the secret to painting our ceilings is a split-foam roller.

I hear that - I agreed to take an upholstered sofa that was offered purely because of echo problems in our family room. It's not quite the right style but it'll do nicely until we figure something out later.

Christina22, that is an incredible medallion, done in a home that would normally, never have such workmanship. Nothing derogatory intended, but most anything in the last 1/2 of the 20th century did not have decorative craftsmanship built in.

I met a guy, oh, 20 years ago now, in Cumberland, MD, where we stayed in a Victorian B&B. Or at least it turns out they wanted to be a B&B. It was obvious they'd never stayed in one to see what basic amenities should be. A room upstairs just wasn't it. Anyway.

This crumbling home in bankrupt Cumberland had incredible, detailed, perfect medallions around each, 1970s crap lighting on the 10-12' ceilings. Again, obviously someone had "upgraded" the lighting at some point.

We complimented the work up there and the guy said, "Oh, thanks. I did that."
After we picked up our jaws, we asked about it. Turns out he and his family have done plasterwork for generations and he was pretty much the last of it. Such a shame he didn't live in a restoration-oriented area or wasn't able to market himself.

If you ever change your ceilings, make sure, please, under the penalty of death, that the workmen don't damage those medallions. If Rehab Addict can do it, real people should be able!

Ok. So today.
I browse CL all the time for furniture and building materials I don't need. Have you ever noticed what total crap came out of the 80s and 90s as far as quality and style are concerned? Talk about totally ugly, totally disposable, degradable materials, and just BUTT UGLY, psuedo-Spanish-ish, plastic decorative pieces glued on particle-boardy UGLY furniture?

I'm finding that Broyhill (think: The Price is Right, remember?) was one of the few somewhat-affordable furniture makers through that era that made any MCM stuff worth keeping. Of course, you MCMers here should correct me, because everything else is EFFING Hideous JUNK. I could use some beauty like your doors, Shicksal.

On that note, I'm off to 2nd Chance in Baltimore to browse construction materials. Yeah!

The doors weren't very expensive, compared with other solid core doors available at your nearest friendly big box. I just bought them from Baird Brothers. Finishing with water based poly took no time at all.

Just food for thought if you're considering replacing any.

I'm heading out from work to go pick up the missing stainless piece and then be brave and start working on this veneer.

Yesterday they got most of the walls up for the safe room
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Today they are back to finish it up.

Also, the septic tank we currently have is no longer up to code so we have a team here today digging up the old tank to replace with a new one.

My property is very noisy today!

Well, since I am still working on outdoor chores, the answer would be "no". But I am starting to think about how to organize the basement stairwell (I keep sun visors, garden gloves, sunscreen, broom, mop, bike tools, random don't-want-to hunt-for-somewhere else-stuff on those walls next to the back door) and will surely be asking for suggestions soon.

Got the other broken tree limb removed and had a whole bunch of small branches and twigs to clean up from the ground yesterday. Did that and mulch mowed (my electric mower handles the job but not as quickly or as thoroughly as my old Lawn-boy) -- the pear tree has dropped about 50% of it leaves now -- and worked on moving the rest of the enormous pile of chopped leaves that I got from the city back into my flower beds. I'd say I have about 35% of that left to move.

Put up the Christmas lights and garland, put the storm window into the front storm door (took out the screen), swept the patio, refilled the bird feeders. In all, almost 4 hours of work outside yesterday.

Christine, this credenza, do I remember you posting about it a maybe 2 years ago, about the time I first started visiting this site? Probably I am confusing you with another DIY-er. I am seeing a series of stacked boxes on a wall in my memory.

Schicksal, you are almost done! I am so looking forward to pictures of the entire finished space!

I can remember touring old derelict mansions down by the Ohio River back in the 70's -- it was the start of the rehab/gentrification boom -- and seeing fabulous plaster work and woodwork that had been covered up with dropped ceilings etc intended to "modernize" homes from the 1850- 1880 era. Such a shame the skills to create these beauties are becoming so rare.

No, raee, it's probably my stuff you're remembering. I haven't done anything on them in a year or so, and it was slow going to begin with.

My MBR stacked (Tansu) cabinets all have their finish on them and are waiting for me to figure out what to top them with. Countertop? My live edge oak? Still thinking.

My kitchen has a credenza waiting to be assembled on one end (need floor in first) and one kind of credenza-ish in the middle of the 16' run of cabinets. This is where I have the antique (1994) cherry cabinets I stripped, 4 I made, and those (worthless) apothecary drawers.

I was stymied on how to suspend/support the latter in this configuration. Then I realized I have 4 antique oak and cherry corbels, and if I put a square of wood in certain places on the underneath of the cherry cabinets, I can screw the front into that. So I'm working on painting and sealing the small drawer thing and hopefully later today I'll be able to install all that.

So in the scope of cabinets, I have more than most humans ever need, with more yet-to-be installed than 10 kitchens.

BTW. You've been busy. Glad to see you put your leaves back in the garden!

Texas_Gem, other than tornadoes, which I completely understand, what's is the safe room for. Or, less politely, what's your dad need with a safe room?

You're all kickin' butt on projects. And we thought we weren't moving forward!

Well the primary reason is for tornadoes as we live in tornado alley. He also does a lot of hunting and wants a secure place to store them.

All the walls are up, they are constructing the framing for the ceiling now.
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Septic looks like this right now, they are almost done digging lateral lines.

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Hope they finish it today, we can't flush any toilets, run the DW, laundry, etc.

Yay, they got my septic hooked back up! Sure makes bed time routine easier.

I also decided to make my kitchen a little Christmasy. It makes standing at the sink a lot more enjoyable.
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That looks pretty cool. For some reason I thought your kitchen was not this far along in progress.

Yesterday I did nothing. Meetings ran over three hours late at work and when I got home my other half said not to wake her up because she's taking a nap but will be up in just a few minutes. Yeah, right... she never does.

This afternoon I hope to get the veneer installed on at least one of the two long sides of the beam because that's really the only thing left to do. We'll see I guess.

Schick- I hope she helps out some with all this reno work!! The house is both of yours, she should contribute! Sorry just a pet peeve of mine. I know several women who say "oh, we could do this ourselves so much cheaper/better/etc" and what they really mean is they expect their husbands to do the work while they sit around!

Don't lose steam now, if the veneer is all you have left, just get it finished so you can finally say DONE!

My yard looked like this this morning
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You could hardly walk from my house to the shop there were so many trenches and piles of dirt.

But, we got the system inspected and they got all the trenches filled back in so right now it looks like this!

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Its nice to have major step completely finished.

The kitchen is complete. It's all done but the cleaning.

I started on the veneer this evening. So far, so good but only one piece is up. I will need to finish the wood but that should be the easy part.

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Schick- the beam is looking good! So does this mean you are going to post a final reveal thread soon? It would be great to see it!

Probably this weekend or on Monday. The beam is too visible from the kitchen so it needs to be done before that can happen, and the side facing that direction is the second one that I am doing. You know... Figure out what I'm doing on the surface that is less visible, then do the one you see all the time.

I'll probably finish it without stain, but won't know for sure for a day or two. Our old place had walnut following and I saved a couple of scrap pieces when we moved. That is what I would like this to look like.

schicksal - The beam looks really nice. I've been waiting for this as I too have a beam to do in my living room. Could you give a more detailed account of how you installed the veneer? Is it PSA or glued and did you do anything special to the surface of the beam before adding the veneer?

Texas_Gem - Really happy to see the progress. That's a lot of disruption. How are you coping?

I'm happy to report that the chimney in the bedroom is tiled. I put the last short row on the top last night. I can't say everything's perfect, but for my first time ever tile job I'm pleased with it. My wife and I both think she hit a home run with the tile color and size. It was worth the additional expense. I bought some grout today and hope to start that tomorrow if work allows, and I'm hoping to have the room construction phase finished soon. Will certainly post pics when done.

Doug- can't wait to see pics!!

The disruption has been, aside from the septic, surprisingly minimal.

I wish I could help more with the MIL addition but unfortunately, I'm watching my kids all day. During my kitchen addition, my mom watched the kids so I could be out there helping. Since this addition is for her and my father, they are both working on it and my kids are too young to be left in the house unsupervised while I'm out there working.

Once the addition gets to the point of being opened to the rest of the house, I should be able to help more.

Truthfully, I look forward to roofing. I really enjoyed laying shingles last year. Its fast, easy and you can really see a change rapidly.

Speaking of change, as soon as my hubby got off work, he helped them raise the last few outer walls while I got the kids to finish homework and get in bed so it looked like this at shut down time.

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@rmtdoug - I bought the veneer from Oakwood Veneer. They have more choices than I could possibly list here, but more importantly they have them with two paper backing options - 10 and 20mil. I went with the thicker of the two; it's about as thick as greeting card stock.

I have to back up to explain why, because for something like this there are two challenges. The first is, you have to go with something paper backed because contact cement is the only way the material may be applied to something this large. The second is, a LVL is nowhere near perfectly smooth. This one was in the attic for 10 years and had ceiling joists attached to and removed from it so there are nail holes and marks from a saws-all. The thicker backing makes all of that invisible.

To prepare the LVL I used a punch to set all nails that were cut off and used spackling to fill pieces of missing wood. On the right side I filled nail holes and on the left I did not, but I can't tell the difference between the two areas. I followed the directions on the contact cement can and went to work. I cut the veneer slightly taller than the actual size of the beam because the ceiling is not perfectly flat. The occasional 1/32"-1/16" gap at the top will be filled with walnut wood filler. The veneer company recommends using a rounded off piece of wood to flatten bubbles instead of a J roller. So far, so good. It was still completely bonded when I left for work this morning. This was surprisingly easy. I should be able to finish the other big side this afternoon and maybe the underside by the end of the day.

Looking forward to seeing how the chimney turns out

@Texas_Gem - it's crazy to see how fast framers can go, isn't it? How long until they can get a roof on? Are they going to remove the sloped section of the roof over the existing part of the house or build on top of it?

Here is a link that might be useful: Oakwood Veneer

Thanks schick! That's exactly the info I needed. I've done veneer on much smaller objects but never a long beam.

Texas_Gem - I'm sure your watching the kids during all this is much appreciated.

Schicksal, it's looking great so far! What will you do with all your time when this is done? Other than the bathroom and bedroom? This house is going to be brand new by the time you're done with it.

Kids: I love mine dearly but boy oh boy do I hate when they start nitpicking at each other. They are very busy and take up a lot of your time driving them around etc, but I wouldn't change it for the world.

RMtDoug, I can't wait to see pics of the chimney!

TexasGem, holy, did they move fast!

The projects will get progressively less intense. I plan on refocusing on the rental business, and I do have a few car-related things to take care of. A/C and insulation for the garage will be a priority too in order to make it inhabitable from May-October and keep tools from rusting. I will also resume studying Dutch.

Work at home should last through 2016, including breaks in between work projects.

Schick- yeah, I love framing, drywall and roofing b/c they make the biggest visual impacts. I don't like plumbing and electrical work, I tend to get disheartened when I can't see any major progress.

Dutch? That sounds like a fun language to learn! Are you doing it out of necessity for work or just for enjoyment?

As for when the roof goes on, it started today.
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Building hips is outside of our expertise so we hired some guys. They should be here tomorrow and, fingers crossed, we will have decking on next week! I'm SOOO looking forward to shingling. I think I can convince my mom to watch the kids so I can get on the roof, she's not a fan of roof tops.

Everything in the utility room for the addition has been run. We have the water hookups for the hot water heater, the washer, the extra fridge located in there as well as the dryer vent.

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While the guys are here building the roof, we will be doing electrical, bleh.

Schick- to answer your question, I believe the roofers are going to do similar to what we did, build the new one right up to the current one, cut an access hole to the existing attic for wiring, gas and HVAC. Externally it will look like the current roof has just continued.

From experience, you'll probably want some extra holes or as much of the old roof and decking removed as possible. It's sort of one of those "ask me how I know" things... I needed to get into a few areas where there was no access because they built the new roof of the addition on top of the old one and it was me + a saws all and flashlight up in the attic cutting holes to squeeze through. Bad times. I get to do it again this winter to get to the area above the master bedroom and bathroom to see how it was built and I'm not looking forward to it.

The framing looks great though, I keep seeing the 2x6s and wish we had that. I enjoyed doing electrical work, but that may have been because we had no outlets, or ungrounded ones with undersized wiring that animals chewed on underneath the house beforehand. At the end of the day there was a place to plug things in and no more old, dried out duct tape repairs.

So far as languages go... some time ago I was studying German but cases for everything were very hard for me to get straight. Here everything is either de or het. Plurals are also easier along with noun genders. It would be nice to get to a reasonable speaking/reading level by the time kids come along since it would probably make their life easier when they have to take language courses in school.

I would try and come up with a week 30 question but the only one that comes to mind right now is "have you had enough coffee yet?"