For the last few weeks we have been working on the front hallway.  We have scraped, sanded and painted the trim around the doors, and the floor.  Brian took the window out so I could re-glaze the stained glass and paint it.  That is a big project. Just very tedious!  Will be glad to get it done. We ordered the flooring and it just came in a few days ago, so hopefully we can start getting it down tomorrow.  Today we finish painting the walls and then will be all ready for the flooring. Brian had to do a lot of work on the old floor to get it ready, it had to be reinforced, repaired and leveled before we could even think about putting the floor down. 

And the kitchen floor is done and it looks great!  We installed the kick board and the transitions yesterday and today we will get the rest of the baseboard up, after it dries.  I stained it and now it has the last coat of varathane on it.  I think that might be the last item in the kitchen to do other than finish decorating...wow...that has been a long time coming.  We moved in 7 years ago this month, who would have thought it would have taken this long to have finished the kitchen. So what project should we start on tomorrow???

We did finish the stairs in January!  They look so nice!  We still have a few more of the spindles to do on the top landing, but we are so pleased with how the stairs turned out.


Monday we started putting the floor down in the kitchen.  We are using the same flooring that we used in the upstairs bathroom.  It goes down pretty easy and looks good.  The one we chose for the kitchen looks like an old wide plank pine floor.  I like it.  As we started on the next section this morning Brian cut the first two cuts wrong.....he is SO pissed at himself, so we are taking a break.....back to it soon!!!

And the stairway is still the project!  We have the lower part all done and the railing installed all the way up the stairs.  Going to take a break from it for the holidays...but hope to still get a little bit more done when we have time.  It creates so much dust!  We spent today trying to clean and get all the sawdust off just about every surface upstairs...what a mess!  Brian also hung the Celtic stained glass in the lower window in the hall.  My Mom gave it to me a few years ago and am so glad to finally get it in place.  Trevor will be here in a few days and hopefully he will not think the stairs look so spooky anymore! Brian also got the trim around the doors finished in the downstairs bathroom, so that room can be crossed off our list as completely done!!!  YEA!

Still working on the stairs!  It is never ending!  We have all of the lower steps, railing & newel post sanded, stained and 2 coats of varathane on. Brian installed the 3 spindles we had made last year.  It makes a big difference.  I have been painting all the little details on the spindles and it is looking great.  Hope to finish the lower section this week!  Besides that, Brian finished making the other bracket to go up by the pocket doors.  He did a great job of making them!

November?  Really?  It has been close to 4 months since I last updated the blog.  Well I guess not a lot has happened.  We had grand kids here most of the summer, so that was fun, but did not let us accomplish much.  Then we went on vacation for 5 weeks.  But we are back to being busy.  Brian has done a lot outside to winterize the house and yard, always a big job.  Inside we are working on the stairway.  Gees what a job.  We have been scraping and sanding for hours and there is still so much to do, but at least we are making a dent.  I painted most of the lower part of the walls a pretty green, and I really like it.  Also painted an accent wall in the entrance hall the same green.  We are determined to get the stairs and hallway done before Christmas.  My cousin Trevor told us that it is spooky in there and feels like a haunted house!!! He is coming to stay for a week over the holidays so we are dedicating all our time and effort into getting it done...

   The time has just flown by recently, I cannot believe it is July already.  We took a few weeks off for a road trip in June, but no more traveling until the fall.  Too much to do!

    The bathroom upstairs is complete except for the floor and some trim, and we will get to that soon.  We had some insulation done and had to take everything out of the attic and it is all stored in the bathroom for now.  We need to build a new floor in the attic so we can put everything back up. In the meantime I have been going thru all the boxes and totes and getting rid of a lot of Holiday stuff we do not need, so there will be much less going back up there.  We also had the outside wall of one of the bedrooms upstairs insulated and also the crawl space under the house.  I have a feeling it will be a lot warmer this winter!  Yea!

   Outside we have been working in the garden and also working to enlarge the firepit area.  We put more gravel there and started putting the bricks around the edge.

  The girls and their families were all down over the 4th of July weekend and helped us do some jobs in the yard.  Jahn got the rest of the bricks in around the firepit.  It sure looks nice.  Adam helped us clean out the woodpile area and later we will get some fill dirt and more gravel in there to finish it off. Hope to make it a new parking area.
   We were also given a hot tub by one of Brian's cousins and the kids helped us move it onto the patio.  Now we need to figure out how to get it plumbed and wired in so we can use it!  Will be nice to have a warm tub to soak in.

   Brian started working on restoring the front door.  We were looking at buying a new to us "old" one, but the cost is way too much so will just see if we can save this one.  So far he got the hardware off and we have cleaned it up, looks better already. We also finished a lot of the interior doors downstairs.  They all required a lot of scraping, sanding and refinishing, but the time spent was well worth it. You can see some of the pictures on the website.  http://www.dahliahouse.com/

     Six years ago this month we moved into Dahlia!  I remember thinking at that time that we would be done with all the projects in a years time.  How naive we were!  Little did we know just how much work this old house needed. So here we are 6 years later still plugging away, I am not sure I would have signed on for this if I knew at the time how long it would take, and maybe that is just as well as we have enjoyed the journey!
      In the recent weeks we have continued to work on the bathroom upstairs, getting trim up around the windows and walls and dealing with water issues.  Had a geyser of a leak in the bathtub plumbing.  Wow, what a mess that could have been!  Brian put little "shoes" around the feet of the tub so it cannot move, so that problem should be solved.
     We also hung the stained glass boat picture in the living room after I stained and sealed the frame.  We have been waiting for a long time to do this and are very pleased with the results. 
    We do a little bit each day on the staircase.  It is an overwhelming job and as long as I just focus on a small area I don't get so frustrated at how long it is taking to do.  Brian has fixed 3 of the spindles that were split, and I have painted them with primer, so as soon as we finish the sanding and staining we can put them back.....
    Still cleaning out boxes.....I think they are multiplying at night!

We are finished repairing the downstairs shower.  Re-sealed the whole floor, so hopefully no more problems with that.
The bathroom upstairs is almost done.  The toilet is in, as is the sink and vanity. We had the electrician come today to help with the wiring and Brian was able to get the fan and the lights working this afternoon.
We found someone in Seaview to make the missing spindles for the stairs.  He did a great job and that is another job checked off the list.  I have painted them with primer, and hope to get them installed soon.
We have cleaned out another 5 or 6 boxes and put stuff away, sure a good feeling to get it all out of storage. Well not ALL, but we have put a big dent in it.

The rain cleared up long enough to get the tree moved, now we will have more room in the garden and not so much shade on the plants.
Discovered a problem with the shower downstairs, some of the grout had come out from between a few tiles, so Brian cleaned out a bunch of the old grout, and replaced two tiles, and we will have to re-grout it before we can use it again...as I have said before it is always something.
The toilet is attached in the new bathroom, but no water lines to it yet, and we got more trim and some of the baseboard down and a curtain rod up. It all adds up to a bathroom that is almost finished.  I did take a bath, and how HEAVENLY was that!

Amazing!  We have a working bathtub in the house, haven't used it yet, but will very soon.  I put the wallpaper border up today with Emily's help.  It looks great. The vanity top is glued down and ready for the sink and the plumbing.
Had to take some time Friday to repair a leak in the water line about 1/3 down the driveway.  Always something!  Em and John were here this weekend to help us move a tree out of the garden, but it has been raining too hard.

All of the laminate is up in the bathroom and it really looks nice.  The bathtub is in place and Brian is working on the plumbing for the bathtub, and getting a top built for the vanity. I finished sanding and staining the back splash for the vanity and it is ready to go. All of the pieces are coming together and we hope to have a finished bathroom by this time next week.! It will be so nice to be able to cross another room off our list, but most of all I can take a bath!!!  I have really missed having a good soak!

Finished laying the floor in the upstairs bathroom and have one piece of laminate up on the wall. I have started sanding the rest of the floor so we can stain it later this week.
Brian finished the trim on the skylight in the downstairs bathroom, it looks so good!
Still unpacking boxes, but at a slower rate, all the cabinets in the living room and dining room are pretty much full, so being selective about what I take out, it must have a place to go.

January continued.......

The living room and dining room floors are done, the trim is installed, the last curtain is up in the living room and we have started unpacking boxes from the "junque" room.  We are finding things that have not been seen since we moved in. All my Belleek is unpacked and most of the good dishes and wine glasses etc.  Very exciting to get to this point! However many more boxes to unpack. We are finding some real treasures and some items I look at and say...What was I thinking when I bought this...?

We put down most of the flooring in the bathroom upstairs, need to get one more box to finish it.

How did it get to be January 2011?  A lot has happened in the past 4 months, so I have some catching up to do.
September:  Went on a road trip so nothing got done here at home.  Came home early October to find that my Mom had fallen again and had to go to a Group Home.  Poor Mom...getting old is not always fun or pain free!
October:  Finished painting the house!  We had one wall left to do and a lot of the trim.  Got that done before the weather turned.  It looks so good!  We have had many compliments, one friend said it looks like a jewel shining in the sun!  We also worked on getting the yard and garden cleaned up for winter, always a big job.  Had to have the pump replaced for the water system.  There is so much iron in our well that it had seized up. More $$$$$
November: Started working on the last bathroom upstairs, got the room cleaned out and all the measuring done.  Bought the flooring too.  Had a few leaks in the hallway and in the front window from a real heavy rain so had to do some more caulking on the outside.  We were still having major issues with the water system, so had to have a new sand filter put in and update the rest of the system.  The corner of the garage with the system in it looks like it could purify water for a whole town!!! Again more $$$$$$
December:  Worked a little on the upstairs bathroom, put up bead board on the entrance wall, got it stained and sealed,  but kind of gave up on projects for the rest of the holidays.  Decorated for Christmas and enjoyed having a lot of company from Thanksgiving thru the New Year.  We did hang curtains in the dining room and living room.  So cozy looking.
January:  Brian went under the house and got the floor fixed.  There were a lot of weak spots, but boy now it is solid.  We laid the new flooring in the living room and dining room.  It took us about 6 days to do, from fixing the floor to getting the last board down.  It looks so nice! What a difference!  I also worked on the dining room table, giving the top a few coats of sealer and cleaning and polishing the rest of it. That is January so far...more to come!  We have been getting about 1 or two calls or e-mails per month from people wanting to book a room.  GOT TO GET THIS OLD HOUSE DONE!!!!

August
Just painting and more painting so far this month. We have one side of the house completely done and hopefully by weeks end we will be finished with it all..............well I can hope! We are really liking the color combination.  It took us a long time to figure it out and it was worth it. So glad we hired someone to paint the peaks!  It is way too high for us!

      Well here we are at the end of July, and the weather this year has been crummy.  We did not have a chance to do much outside in the spring and the summer is not doing all that better.  Will re-cap the last few months.

May Spent most of this month putting in the shower in our downstairs bathroom.  We had lots of tile to lay and grouting to do, but in the end it turned out GREAT.  We love it!  Also worked on the fireplace surround.  Putting up the Connemara marble from Ireland was so satisfying.  I have wanted to do this for such a long time.  We ran out of the marble and will have to get about 4 more pieces. In between rain showers we put in another raised bed and got the garden planted.  We also re-painted and re-wired a chandelier and put it up in the dining room.  Painted and put a medallion on the ceiling too.  Except for the floor and decorating, that room is done! Brian's cousin gave us their old swing set and we now have a great place for the grandkids to play.  Brian re-stained it and now it looks new again! Still need to finish landscaping around it...but the kids don't mind how it looks!

June   Worked on some little finishing projects, like the threshold between our bedroom and bathroom, and putting up more of the trim in the upstairs bathroom, hung some pictures and a mirror. Got outside on a few of the nice days and did some yard work and got the flag pole moved over by the garden.  It looks great there!  We have 3 flags up there now, the American Flag, The Chinook Tribe and the 4 provinces of Ireland. 

July   Back to scraping and painting the house.  We hired Chris D to do all the peaks as we do not really want to climb up that high on a ladder or crawl along the roof.  It is looking great. We are using 4 colors. a light grayish tan called Pewter Moon and a darker grey called Silver
spree. Then the trim around the windows is white and most of the gingerbread is a burgundy red.  I will post some pix soon!  One thing we had to do that was not so fun, was to tear apart the outside of the house because the new shower was leaking.  What a big job!  But it was better than tearing apart the tile.  Brian fixed the leak and we put it all back together again.  I bought an old table and sanded it and painted it for a vanity in the bathroom.  Also refinished and re-covered an old chair to match.  I have always wanted a vanity and now I have one.  We have also planted some bushes and have had fun harvesting some of our garden veggies.  The Dahlias are on early this year and are so colorful.  We have quite the crop. Bought all the flooring for the living room and dining room and will get it put in this fall.  Looking forward to that for sure...oh my aching knees! That is about it for now.....

Just figured out how to change the settings so people 

could leave comments on the blog!  So go for it, 

we would love to hear from you!

We have continued our restoration and have accomplished a lot on the past 5 months.  It's been busy around here for sure.  I had knee replacement surgery at the end of January, so I am still not doing ladders, but can do anything that does not include climbing.

Here are some of the things we have done:

November: Insulated the living room ceiling, then hired a friend of Heather and Adams that is a professional sheetrocker.......is that even a word?  Brian was his go-fer and they got all of the living room, dining room, stairwell and upper hallway done, complete with texturing, primer and a base coat of flat wall paint in a neutral color.  The house was so torn apart for the better part of two weeks, but the results were amazing! What a BIG difference it had made.

December: painted the wall by the fireplace green, and brought in the cabinets for the fireplace wall, also started painting and putting up the window and door trim in the living room.

January: Continued painting and putting up trim in the living room and dining room, put some insulation under the house...much more to do. Worked on finishing all of the trim in the kitchen including building a new utensil drawer, scraping, sanding and painting the rest of the wainscoting, and Brian built a great little knick knack shelf for me...even though he knows I will just fill it with "stuff". Painted the lower half of the dining room wall a dusty pink..looks great!

February: Tony (the sheetrocker) came back down for a weekend and did the back bathroom upstairs.  Brian did most of the painting as I was just not up to it yet.  Right now we are using it for a bedroom for a granddaughter as we have two of them living with us now...FUN! But this summer we will get the fixtures in and finally get that bathroom done!

March: Worked in the yard quite a bit as we had a week of spring like weather, nice to get outside. Also worked on finishing the trim in the conservatory and in our bedroom, nice to have those done. Lot's of cussing and caulking involved in putting up the crown molding in the bedroom...but it is so worth it.

April:  So far, this month has been spent painting and putting up crown molding in the living room.  Hired a pro to install it as it was a bit beyond us to do.  He did a GREAT job. Also painted more in the living room and upper dining room walls. 

As we were painting today Brian commented that the old girl  (how we sometimes refer to the house) must be feeling better with all this new paint...and that we first had to start with putting a new hat and shoes on her!  (the roof and foundation)  It's a good comparison!  Soon we will have a true Painted Lady!

It has been a busy few months! We have focused on getting the house painted, but what a job. As of this date we have about half of it scraped, sanded and painted with primer. About 10% has the actual finished colors on it. We have also added trim around the back door and some of the windows. It is looking good, but what a lot of work it has been. Will continue to work on it as we have nice fall days.
We have also finished the upstairs porch by sealing and painting the floor. Then we could finally replace the rotten boards in the hallway. So that is repaired and insulated and we will hopefully get it sheet rocked soon. Have put up more sheet rock in the living room and Brian has the fireplace surround just about finished. (with sheet rock) It looks great! It will be a good winter job to finish.
A lot of work has gone into the yard. We have grass planted on the side yard and hey it is growing really well. I guess the third time is the charm! We bought special soil called energy. And boy did the grass seed ever take off like wildfire!
We bought a 29 foot trailer to use for a bunkhouse when we have a lot of family here, and we will also be renting it out. So if you are interested, let us know!
Cleaned off the back hillside pulled down some trees and laid down lots of new dirt and rock, will finish that project in the spring by adding gravel to the new parking area and on the driveway. Made some new flower beds...or should I say Rock beds. Just something to make it look good and that the deer will not eat.
We had a great garden this year with lots of potatoes, tomatoes and onions. Also my dahlias were so bountiful and so pretty.
Got the back deck cleaned, sanded and the first coat of stain on it, will do the final coat when we finish the painting on the house. (too much of a chance of splatters!) We got one of the spires up on the witches peak! Looks great! (Thanks to Adam for climbing way up there!!!) Did some finishing work on my big closet upstairs. Added a light and sheet rock and paint. It is so organized! Love it!
That's about all I can think of right now...I just know the summer has just flown by!

Cannot believe I have not added to this blog since last November. We had a busy winter and really did accomplish a lot. Guess the easiest way to do it would be to just add a list.

Got the glass block shower put together in the downstairs bathroom, (still need to add the tile)

Tiled the back splash in the kitchen and put up and painted the trim around one window

Attached all the cabinets in the bathroom, built the vanity top, installed the tile and the sink!
(wow, so nice to have a sink in the bathroom now!)

Gutted, insulated and sheet rocked the old closet upstairs, painted, added trim and new flooring & built shelves and now we have a linen closet upstairs

Worked on the upstairs deck, replaced all the rotting boards and support columns, added a railing, and sealed and painted it.

Did some more sanding and painting in the kitchen

Insulated and put up a few pieces of sheet rock in the living room

Built new raised beds in the garden

Built a fire pit in the side yard

Picked out the house colors. Pewter Moon and Silver Spree, with white and burgundy trim

Started scraping, sanding and putting primer on the outside of the house. Hope to have it painted by the end of the summer.

Had 75 sheets of sheet rock delivered so we can get the downstairs and the hall sheet rocked

So that has all been in the last 6 months...not bad.....