Cabinets are hard.

And they're even more difficult when your walls aren't straight, and the ceiling has a bit of a slope to it. So, it's a good thing that Drew was around to help us hang them. Chad assembled the cabinets, and Drew devised ways of attaching them to our kitchen. I ran important food and hardware store errands.... oh, and installed some registers.

The east wall:


The west wall:


The register:

Mind out of the gutter...

The gutter folk came yesterday and installed our gutters. Chad deems them ginormous.



And this is our rain barrell:

And the floor saga continues

We decided that we could stand the hobo life for another week if it meant we could make one more run at the floors. They were too close to fabulous not to try to get rid of the underlying orange peel effect of the bubbles. So, this Saturday, Chad and I met Drew at the house to sand the floors again. Drew applied another coat of poly - this time a satin finish, rather than a semi-gloss, in the hopes that a flatter finish would be more forgiving. The result is that you have to really work to see the bubbles, and, therefore, things look sooooo much better. Six to ten small flies sacrificed their lives to the floor. They either landed on it and got stuck while it was drying or died from the fumes. Whatever the case may be, several small flies are embedded in the floor. We salute you flies (and we think we can sand you out)!

Chad and I also painted the fascia (no idea if that's spelled correctly) - in preparation for the installation of our gutters this Tuesday. As attractive as khaki and olive are, someday Rooster Haus aspires to be either "Island Shores" blue with a "Crisp Linen" trim or a "Green Tea" with "Crisp Linen" trim... either way, white gutters are going up, so now's our only chance to paint the wood behind them.

Watch for posts this week. If all goes as planned, we should have baseboards, cabinets and appliances by this weekend. Exciting!

More floors

The third coat of poly was not so successful (damn you, infernal poly bubbles!). So, it had to be re-sanded and re-coated. The most recent coat is smooth, but still has issues from the earlier coats. BUT, from a distance, the floors are shaping up. We just have some decisions to make about how perfect we want the floors to be... and how long we can live like hobos to get them there.

The kitchen:


The living room:


The office:


The guest bedroom:


BUBBLES!

Plan B

What's more fun than moving in an ice storm (my last move)? How 'bout moving in 104 degrees with 110 degree heat index?

We moved out of the Woods at Manchaca this Sunday. All of our earthly possessions are stuffed into the master bedroom, and we're house-sitting for a work friend until Thursday. After that, we're staying with Sarah and Sadie. Thank you, Cynthia and Sarah!

Here's the bedroom:



House-sittin'!

Let there be floor

Chad and Drew have been leveling, laying tarpaper, and screwing down plywood. The result - we have floors!

Here's the kitchen:



And the guest bedroom:



And finally, the office:



We're really excited about how they've turned out. The higher quality plywood looks terrific. Drew suggested we use fancy screws to add some visual interest - so ours have a square shape to them. And Chad and Drew have carefully organized a pattern for the screws, so even the fasteners are pulling their aesthetic weight.

Also note the PAINTED ROOMS(!). We are finally feeling like the house is really coming together. Tomorrow, we finish screwing down the plywood... we may get to sanding and the first coat of poly. Then we pray for a weekend of dry air.

Painted and Floored

We've been so busy working that we don't have pictures to share tonight. BUT, here's a list of tasks accomplished this past week.

1. The house is painted! In the end, we went for the linen white. It was the least white of the three, but when it's on ALL of your walls, it's pretty white. So we're pleased that we went with it, rather than the whiter Dover White. We also bought some paint for the bathroom. I thought it was a nice, light, yellowy-green. No dice. It's pretty much flourescent. We're going to test a patch of wall before going back to the Home Depot. (Chad thinks the color will grow on us. I'm not convinced. It reminds me of some socks I had in the '80s.)

2. We bought the cabinets. Ikea had just about everything. The only thing they didn't have was the countertop that will hold the sink. So hopefully that will be in sooner, rather than later. It would be nice to have a place for our kitchen sink and fancy faucet to rest.

3. We bought flooring material -- lots of leveling compound (like concrete, but runnier) and on-sale cabinet-grade plywood. The on-sale plywood was a huge boon. Because of the sale, we were able to get the cabinet-grade for the price of lesser plywood. Cabinet-grade lacks knots and spray-painted edges. It's fancy. And pretty.

4. We scraped and shop-vaced; taped up some of the gaping holes ("roach doors"); and poured leveling compound in the office and guest room. (We didn't catch all of them, though. So we have "leveled" some dirt under the house. The holes form little, mesmerizing whirlpools of concrete.)

5. Today, Chad and Drew (contractor) screwed down plywood in the office and guest room. It looks pretty kick ass. There will be pictures soon.

We're moving in - for better or for worse - this Sunday. We're hoping that the floors will be finished and cabinets assembled (if not installed) by then. Hoping is the operative word. We have scraping, shop-vacing, leveling, and plywooding to do in the kitchen/living room. AND, we have to wait for three coats of polyurathane to dry.

Don't worry. We have a back up plan. We've gotten good at back up plans.