EricaNAndy's Handy work

Baby's Nursery!

2009-10-11T14:31:00.001-07:00

We have a few things to do yet:

Build risers for hope chest.

Finish and hang curtains

Install branch shelves on tree.

Hang pictures above hope chest.

Finish baby girl quilt.

but otherwise: Here it is!

Grandmother's hope chest. Andrew will build risers for it. Then it is the changing table. Prints are from a book and will be hung with a mirror above the changing table.

Bird cards from Land of Nod. Little birds and bird houses various stores. Children's games were from Andrew's grandma and grandpa's house. The boys used to play with them while growing up.

Butler desk was made by Andrew's great great grandpa.

Book/nursing nook

See the wooden game? It's about 20 years old!

This is the quilt for if baby is a little boy.

Tree is missing branch shelves.

Cat's meow of church we were married in. Sign says: We loved you even before you were born.

This quilt is going to grandma's house.

Before's We've come a long way baby!

2008-07-22T09:46:00.000-07:00

There is now a wall near where that pole is. and this is the dining area. We ripped out those two closets and only put one back up, seperating the dining area and office. Where the desk is now, is where the desk is in the new room. We put up a wall, instead of the concrete block. I painted the coffee table black.
On the right you can see the washer and dryer. Now there is a wall built and angled there.
Andrew's workshop area hasnt changed much, but it is now closed off!

Laundry/Workshop Area

2008-07-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

We installed a pocket door going into laundry/workshop/ storage area.

Basement Reno- Living Area

2008-07-22T09:37:00.001-07:00

Standing by storage closet looking right. I plan on moving those chairs (they were there for the openhouse) and putting bookcases there to flank the entertainment center.

We have to box out the pole yet.

Basement Reno- Dining Area

2008-07-22T09:31:00.001-07:00

Here is the dining area (yes in the basement) The former owners use the one bedroom, and we had to walk through our living room to the rear bedroom to get to the dining area. The steps to the basemetn are right off of hte kitchen so now it is closer.
I finished this piece myself. It used to be "cherry" so I sanded it down, primered it, and spray painted it black. Then changed out the hardware.
My china is on my grandmother's stand on the left. ON the wall is the plate DH and I made on our honeymoon. And glasses from the winery we visited there.

Basement Reno-- Office Area!

2008-07-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

Here is the office Area in our basement Reno. It is to the left back area of hte room. I tried to design the room with 3 distinct areas. I want to change out the desk soon to one that has a filing cabinent on either side and is black. The rocker is the one I was rocked in as a baby. The bookshelf DH built. I picked the color a long time ago, before we even owned this house.... luckily it matches well enough for this room. Curtians are from Ikea...and I was cheap, only bought one set, split each panel up the middle and hemmed it.

Bathroom Reno All Done!!! (okay 99%)

2008-07-22T09:08:00.001-07:00

Before: (on the left was about a year ago, on the right, I had painted the tile)

Here it is folks! The new bathroom!!!!! I need to find a curtain, and we need to put up a bit of trim ehre and there...

Liz's Wedding

2008-06-27T07:30:00.001-07:00

Okay I will update later this week I promise!

2008-06-26T04:56:00.001-07:00

But for now I found through friends this really cool thing online.
Scrapblog.

Here is my first page!
http://www.scrapblog.com/1258e55def/0F15DE0D-57B7

Woohoo! How fun!

This is why we got puppers

2008-06-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

Training for childcare

I love sleeping

Uh oh! Here comes trouble!

2008-05-31T15:57:00.000-07:00

This is more life related than house related! Our new "kiddo" has arrived! Meet Biscuit!

More Basement!

2008-05-11T17:02:00.001-07:00

Here are more pics!

Hi

2008-05-11T17:00:00.001-07:00

Hi Andy and Darcie!!!!!!!!

Been tooooo long

2008-05-05T15:03:00.001-07:00

So we are completely framed out and insulated. Woot Woot!

Alright Alright! I am behind in my blog updating:

Up the Lowes count by 9 . Literally 9.

Above is pics of insulation, however, before that we ran the electric...since then we/okay Andrew/ has insulated everything, put all the drywall up and spacled it. Busy busy boy!

We are ready for the step to finish spackling and then paint. Then ceiling. Wowsa

Lowe's Tally

2008-04-07T05:11:00.001-07:00

I figured I might as well start a tally of the times we go to Lowe's during this remodel:

Lowe's: 11

Home Depot: 1

New Comment: I wanna buy a jigsaw. I need it.

Week 3

2008-04-04T07:38:00.000-07:00

Get that man out of the basement!
I seriously cannot get Andrew or the neighbor Scott, out of our basement. The boys start every evening between 5:30 and 6:30.... and they are not done until 10:00-10:30. They are sawing and hammering and sawing and hammering. There is no peace in my house right now!!

Here is what they have completed:
1. Shell of my closet.
2. All the interior walls studded.
3. The wall near the stairs studded.
4. The wall of the stairs started.

They were excited becaues they have some pretty cool tools borrowed from a friend of the neighbors... some air compressed nail shooter thingy mabob.

What's my contribution this week? I made soft pretzels.

Pictures to come soon. (Of the work, not the pretzels)

Seriously we've been working hard!

2008-03-30T07:11:00.001-07:00

This may be the last post for this weekend.

Yesterday we:

1. Completed all the painting we needed to do.

2. Put on the stainless steel cover Big Poppa made us for the sump pump cover. (He owns a metal fabrication shop)

3. Went to Lowe's and got:

100 2X4's

That's a lot of wood folks!

We borrowed Big Poppa's Stake Body Truck, the neighbor, a brother, and Big Poppa.

Andrew is extremely picky when it comes to wood. It's from working as a carpenter with a very very particular boss. So we spent 2 hours picking out lumber at Lowes. He has a system where he "levels" the quality of each piece of wood we selected. He is such a stud at picking out studs. Ha.

Here it is.

Basement Reno continued again

2008-03-30T06:58:00.000-07:00

Alright, next step:

The former owners put in a "sump" pump. However, they never repaired the concrete where the sump pump was put in. Andrew's dad loves to help with our projects and most of the boys (minus David away at Pitt) came over to help.

Yes ladies, some of the man meat is for sale.

Basement Reno Continued

2008-03-30T06:36:00.001-07:00

Week 1/2:

This was Easter vacation for us so we had more than a weekend, actually 5 days to work on it.

So we worked and worked and worked. Here is more of our work:

Week 1/2:

Step 1: New Windows for the basement.

Step 2: Finalize plans for basement layout.

Basement Reno!

2008-03-30T06:04:00.001-07:00

Before pics can be found below in one of the initial posts. But oh man I cannot wait until the final afters!!!

Week 1:

Step 1-Clear out, clean out, bag up.

Step 2- Tear out closets. You could also read this tear as crying. I almost did. My two 8' storage closets are no more. For now.... :-(
Step 3: Scrap and scrap and scrap and scrap, then paint on a layer of "water barrier". Hmmmm why aren't there any pictures of this? Two reasons. 1.) I did 95% of the scraping and 80% of the painting and I am the "photographer". 2.) Andrew was outside tearing out our basement windows.

Been so long.

2008-03-30T06:02:00.000-07:00

Sorry everyone it has been so long since the last blog entry! Over 2 months!!! I apologize. We have been busy with grad classes and school and lots of other fun things. We are now on our way to rennovating the basement. The next and immediate post will be our basement probably week by week! Here ya go!

Cookie Quilt

2008-01-11T18:01:00.000-08:00

This summer I had a visit from my favorite non-mom mom. I had this idea for this project for a while and I was so excited for Theresa to come work on it with me. I change the cookie cutters out for the seasons. This is in my kitchen above our "trash center" and it really ties in the colors form the living room and kitchen. So FUN starting a new cookie cutter collection :-D

Penn's Landing and Philadelphia

2008-01-11T17:44:00.000-08:00

Hi All!

Here are pics of the Penn's Landing sign Andrew's dad made in Philly. (Yes he designed and manufactured it). I also was excited to use my camera, I am looking forward to taking a photography class in the near future and here is my attempt pre-class!

Bats in our bellfree!

2008-01-11T17:38:00.000-08:00

This summer, or was it fall? Time flies... anyway... Andrew and his dad (the brothers watched) repointed our chimney... well we had a new friend that evening who got trapped in the house...

Mr. Bat... or as Andrew likes to call him... Mr. Sparrow (we debated while freaking out as he flew around the family room)

Here are some pics of the repointed and the bat... okay mostly a box....

Dining Room Transformation

2008-01-05T16:53:00.000-08:00

Our dining room used to have this hideous wallpaper in it. It took us WEEKS! to tear it down... (okay we were busy too)

Here is our process....

Before:

This is the during:

This is the after: (with holiday decor) I still need to get curtains... I was thinking tan?

Our House Is a Very Very Very Fine House

2008-01-05T13:32:00.000-08:00

With two chicks in the yard.... it used to be so hard.... now everything is easy cuz of you!

New Year's Eve Party

2008-01-05T13:02:00.000-08:00

So we had a "rockin'" New Year's Eve Party... at least I planned on the party being rockin'. But after some cancellations, and people leaving early, the countdown to 2008 ended up being Andrew's brother Peter and I sitting on the couch watching the ball drop.

Here are some pics of the house all ready!

Bathroom Reno

2008-01-05T12:29:00.000-08:00

First stop: Bathroom "Renovation"

We are planning on redoing our bathroom this summer, but I just couldn't take the pink anymore. The bathroom is a really really really small 1950's original bathroom... not anymore!
I had read online (thanks nesties) that I could pain my tile. So Andrew and I went to 4!!! different paint/hardware stores, until we found the paint we needed.

Tip 1: Go to a PAINT store, not a hardware store, and explain that you are looking for an oil based/mix paint for a bathroom.
Tip 2: If you want it to stick long term, you will need to lightly sand the tile and then clean it with amonia.
Tip 3: Tape it out and paint it with an oil based primer. Oil based takes a while to dry... so I got the primer and 1 coat done in day 1... then got up early day 2 and did coat 2 in 10 minutes!
Tip 4: Paint the tile with the top coat. (You may need 2 coats)
Tip 5: DO NOT use your bathroom for 3 days. The painstore guy told us that any time you paint you should not have steam in the room for 3 days. (We could use the sink and toilet... we just showered at the gym)
We did 1 coat of primer and 2 coats of top coat. I did not tape it out because I left the maroon at the top and the bottom. Also, I never tape.... a skill taught to me by Andrew.

Here are some pictures!

Welcome!

2008-01-05T12:26:00.000-08:00

Hi All! Friends, Family, Guests!

I decided I wanted to blog so I could keep my extended and distant family and friends up to date with our life here outside of Philadelphia. Recently Andrew and I moved from the area I grew up in, so I really miss being around my friends and family. I thought what a great way to stay connected!