We had a couple of down days this past weekend.

The wainscoting in the hall and stairs has been primed and I believe we will start to have some of the trim installed today.

Here are some recent photos of the work.

The stair treads will be replaced with light oak, matching the light floors. The kick plates will be white trim paint. This will be much better than the torn up original wood work. They look like someone took a crowbar to them – nasty.

The small half wall at the top of the stairs will be capped with a similar light oak topper. Should be a nice effect.

Though all of this crown molding will drive us toward installing similar woodwork downstairs.

Work continues and we can start to see the finish-line, way off in the distance. We have heard that the windows are due to arrive in Plaistow on 4/16. Seems to be rather quick, given that they left Klamath Falls OR on 4/9.

The crown molding continues to be installed and appears to be going well.

Karen picked up the Racoon Hollow paint. Did I mention that we have spent more than $500 on paint alone. We did not see that coming.  This color is more like it, calming, comfortable and less like tart fruit.

We are also seeing the wainscot being installed on the stairs and in the upstairs hallway. This will all be painted the trim white, and should look great when completed.

We have started to paint the walls and add the crown molding.

The Revere Pewter Gray has been applied to the Master Bedroom. It looks rich and subtle at the same time. Just what we are looking for.

The crown moldings look perfect (or will when painted the final coat) and truly bring the room up a few notches.

It will be great to see them up in every room, including the bathrooms.

Karen’s Closet has had some major surgery. We moved the door over to the left about a 18″, to provide more space on the right wall.

This is where she will store shoes and handbags etc, lots of handbags.

Now to the wrong yellow. … this could be where I say ” I told you so”… but I won’t.

The yellow (the photos do not represent the actual color well) is too bright, and has too much white in it.

Karen is thinking of going back to an original choice of Raccoon Hollow. This is more of a khaki shade and will fit better with the other paint colors on the second floor.

Remember, this room is her office and it would be like working inside a lemon... WRONG.

It’s Sunday evening and Karen and I had a “hunger” for good BBQ.

We also needed to land on some color choices for the spare room and her office. We will be having the upstairs rooms and hallway painted early this week.

We LOVE Goody Coles  for the best TX BBQ this side of Fort Worth. Trust me when I say we KNOW Fort Worth.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/goody-coles-smokehouse-brentwood

What goes better with BBQ  than the Blues?… well some might say (Karen) that Country music goes best… but I had control of Pandora and Chicago Blues it was. Consider it a north and south reconciliation of sorts.

…back to the project: We are leaning toward a light green for the spare bedroom, and a shade of yellow for Karen’s office.

Benjamin Moore is by far the best paint we have used and it is what we are sticking with. We will be picking up the gallons sometime tomorrow.

We use White Street Paint in Plaistow NH http://whitestreetbmp.com/sb.cn

The void in the wall outside the Master bedroom has  been, or rather is being turned into a new storage closet.  The bones are now there.

More lights, more lights, more lights…  hooray!

Spring is certainly here today, with the weatherman forecasting that we will reach the mid 50’s. Karen is happy, and happy wife=happy life.

We still have a few remnants of snow in the yard, but certainly far less than a couple of weeks ago, when I got the Land Rover stuck/ highsided in the backyard trying to move a sailboat trailer.

I love the morning light and took the opportunity to take some BEFORE photos of the exterior of the house.

Remember that we are replacing all of the windows ( 24+) with new double hung windows with BLACK panes and exterior trim (see a prior post).

Work continues and most of the new floors have been installed. They look AWESOME!

We have had recessed lights installed in the Master bedroom and we will also have a few installed in the dark blue room (Karen’s office) …

that will most likely be painted some shade of yellow.

A few of these lights will be pointed at the large black furniture pieces, like the armoire, the headboard and the tall chest of drawers (actually not black).

We will also have these lights on a dimmer switch, because I can’t stand “bright operating room lighting”.

.

The lights that were selected are dim-able LED lights.

We were surprised to find out that we had some dead space behind a wall located just outside of our master bedroom, that we can re-purpose and insert a small half closet.

We are really excited about this, as we removed a linen closet in the master bath when we installed the  full 60″ inch wide shower. Kudos to the Leightons !!!

As part of this rebuild, we are looking to replace the “Home Depot” special lights,  that we originally installed when we first moved in with something a bit more modern.

We are looking and have purchased the following ONXY (translucent stone, very cool) fixtures.

The one upstairs will hang out over the stairs and there will be two smaller ones in the hallway on the first floor.

The hallway lights will look like this:

It looks as though most of the hardwood floors have been installed.

This includes the Master bedroom, the hallway, and the front bedroom. Karen’s office is next and last.

We are replacing 24+ windows in the house. All of the current windows are original and VERY old. Though they are still 10 years younger than me… ?

We have chosen windows from      made in  Klamath Falls, OR. They had the features and color options that we wanted in a wood replacement window. The pricing was highly competitive compared with the other options available. They were the only company that had a Black exterior option without having to order custom… read $$$$. We will see what they look like and how they perform when they are delivered in a week+.

.