Finally-Windows!

It's been almost a week with our new windows in the sun room and I can't believe it has taken me this long to show them off! The pictures really speak for themselves. So a couple before pictures:

And a few afters:

Do I miss the charm of the old windows? Of course! Stuff like that is why we bought this house. But there is no denying how nice it is to have windows that work and a place for all my sewing stuff.  Those 2 things are outweighing the loss of the charming, old broken windows.

All of my sewing stuff kind of got dumped into the sewing room in our hurry to get ready for some company yesterday. So no updates in there probably for a while- But for the first time since we moved in, we can use our dining room and our guest room. I finally feel like we have real progress happening! It is the BEST feeling. It only took 7 months... lol.
So yes, the good news is I can show you updates of the guest room in my next post! We still have to hang some things but the walls are painted and the bed is set up which was pretty huge for us.

I am taking a few days off from my DIY adventures. I am TIRED. It's the kind of tired that makes you feel good because you accomplished something, but it's tired, no matter what. After that I think I may tackle the cabinet we bought for the TV to live in (it's only been in the garage for 3 months) but it may be painting some more walls. There are lots more of those to tackle and the babies room is still only half painted :) I will let you know!!

~R

Heatwave! (and the craziness it brought with it)

The middle of a heatwave is usually NOT the time to take on a huge project- especially if it involves too much time outside or leaving all the windows open. But hey, we are insane apparently! We have been fortunate in that we haven't lost power but it's been in the 90's for what feels like forever. This is part of the insanity the heat brought on.

 Since this is what our guest room currently looks like, it's safe to say that is not the topic for this post. I am actually going to tell you about our sun porch/ room/ soon to be sewing room. I haven't blogged about our sun porch before because honestly it just hasn't been usable space for anything other than storage. Even then it had to be something you didn't mind getting wet because the majority of the windows are broken. It's off the bathroom. Strange location but this room is going to be my sewing room. It's exciting because right now my sewing stuff has taken over the dining room. This is what the sun room/porch looked like when we toured the house.

Full of junk and busted windows that left this room completely open to pests and the elements. The windows do let in a huge amount of light but it's still very cave like. Since we moved in I am afraid things haven't improved very much.

 Still full of junk but we upgraded to plywood over all the windows that were too busted to stay closed or didn't actually have windows to close. So this Thursday they are coming to install new windows!! Woo hoo!!! Of course they had to be custom made since they aren't even close to standard and let me tell you it takes WEEKS for the process to happen. We had them come out to give us an estimate almost 2 months ago now. So since we want to be able to unload my sewing stuff from the dining room as soon as possible after the windows are installed I thought I would try to strip the floors with the belt sander. This was early last week before the temps got crazy but the belt sander was not working. After about 45 minutes this was as far as I had gotten.

I was using 60 or 80 grit and it barely made any difference against the brown paint. So Matthew and I talked about it and decided to rent a drum sander from Home Depot this weekend.  We really wanted the floors to be done before the windows got here. Then to take our craziness to another level we decided if we were going to rent the sander for a day we might as well do Aleena's floor as well. Aleena's room has had bare wood since we moved in. It looked ok but my fear of what a three year old could do to an unfinished floor has kept her room on the project list, even if it was towards the bottom.

So Saturday in the 97 degree weather Matthew spent HOURS out on our little sunporch with the drum sander and orbital sander. Aleena's room only needed a light sanding and then a topcoat. I then spent Sunday applying coats of polyeurethane. Here are our results.
The Sun Room:

 Aleena's Room (excuse the stuff on the floor- she was so excited to play in her room):

We didn't stain these floors. They are just that lovely all on their own. We are just letting them cure another day before we out any furniture on them.

When we moved in you might remember we had the floors in the foyer professionally refinished. We paid $675 for 1 room. We got 2 quotes and they were only $10 apart. We really didn't have much choice at the time since we didn't have a lot of time to do it ourselves. Now it's a different story!

 To rent the sander for 1 day was only $55. The supplies we needed (sandpaper, poly, applicators) ran us $115.  So we were able to refinish TWO rooms for $170. Crazy right?? We probably saved over $1000.

So excited that my sewing room is moving forward. I can't wait to see how it turns out. I have some paint downstairs left over from another project that I am going to use to paint my little room. You probably noticed that when the electrician was here we had him run some outlets up there. So it is coming together!

We also went and sort of looked at kitchen cabinets today. We'll get there eventually!

I'm off to go sit in front of the air conditioner! Stay cool!

~R