Little House on the Prairie - 2006
Remodeling a 1920 Midwestern 'Foursquare' Farmhouse …

This page documents work on the house during 2006. Entries are in reverse chronological order (most recent first). For reviews of work done in other years, please click the desired year from the menu to the left.

December 31 , 2006

Other than a few minor "fix it" items, I haven't done anything new, so this wraps up the house project for 2006.

December 26 , 2006

While Tyler painted the attic stairs trim, Chad and I textured the kitchen ceiling last Saturday, and Beth and I have sort of figured out the color scheme for the room, so now it's time to paint and wallpaper. I have to go ahead and choose the countertop color, as we are coordinating it with the trim in the room. I'm also going to try to install the central humidifier I bought two years ago - the house gets really dried out in the winter (not good for the boys instruments!), and this should help a lot.

I'll do one last update at the end of the year, and that will wrap up our 2006 remodeling activities!

December 20 , 2006

The kitchen is primed! The boys and I sanded the whole room out in one bone-numbing evening. I used the blue-top "light" mud for the skim coat, and it went on and sanded off a lot easier than the green-top "normal" mud (which is still recommended for the tape and first skim coat).

Beth and I are sorting through color chips and tile samples, and Chad and I will hopefully texture the ceiling one night this week...

Progress!

December 15 , 2006

Work has commenced on the kitchen walls. I've been mudding up the skim coat on all of the joints, and should be able to start the sanding process tomorrow. I'm sure there will be need for some touchup mud and sanding, but hopefully we'll be in a position to prime everything before Christmas.

December 7 , 2006

I didn't mean for half a year to go by with no update, but there hasn't been much to report on anyway. While we've been busy, it's not been on the house!

Since the last report, we've completed all the trim in the upstairs hallway, including the attic stairs. We need to do some touchup paint in the upstairs hall, and the attic stair trim needs painting, too.

The biggest visual change to the house is the completion of the staircase (with exception of some putty and touchup paint to hide the trim screws I used to reassemble everything). It turned out pretty nice, and this officially marks the completion of the living room.

Here are the 'before and after' shots:

Our next step is to move all of my tools and supplies off of the sun porch down into the cellar, so we can move the stuff that's currently in the new kitchen area out to the sun porch. Once that room is cleared, we'll seal it off with sheet plastic, and will finish the mudding and sanding on the walls so we can get them painted, hopefully before Christmas. Funds permitting, we're also ready to have carpet laid in the upstairs hallway.

Oh, when I was up on the roof a couple weeks ago with our wifi internet provider, I got a close look at the shingles, and now realize I probably need to plan on a new roof during 2007. We don't have any leaks (yet), but the shingles in the valleys are looking pretty crumbly at this point...

June 18 , 2006

Due to several out-of-state trips and plenty of outside yard and garden responsilbilities, work has been a bit slow inside the house lately. We did finally get our living room carpet installed, and it turned out really nice:

Beth and the boys are about 2/3s done with painting the upstairs trim, and have also done a good bit of staining and painting on the living room window, guest bedroom door and stair treads. We have six of the fifteen treads done, and Chad is working on stripping all of the bannister posts in order to prep them for stain.

May 13, 2006

Beth and the boys have been working on finishing the upstairs trim over the past week, and have started painting. There's a lot of trim to do, so it's going to take a while.

We're making slow progress on refinishing the stairs, too.

May 2, 2006

More chipping away. The picture window stain is done, and Beth decided it needed polyurethane before we paint the trim, so that's in the works now. We're still waiting on our living room carpet to be installed (we told the man who's doing it we're not in a rush, and I think he believed us!).

I also installed the bathroom vanity this past Saturday. That sounds simple, but it actually involved quite a number of not insignificant tasks to be completed before I could call it done:

April 15 , 2006

Closet shelves are done. Picture window has one coat of stain, and needs another before it's done.

April 9 , 2006

Trim is done in the closet, just need to build shelves in it and it's done. Our carpet is in for the living room, and it should hopefully be installed in the next week or so. Also, we got a notice that our upstairs bathroom vanity has arrived, so I need to go pick that up, too.

The other project that's been mostly completed was the replacement of the cracked, poorly sealed, splintery, crooked picture window in the living room with a sparkly-new double-hung window (we kept the leaded-glass top portion):

March 27, 2006

The boys finished painting the closet today, so all that's left on that is to put in the trim and shelves before we can call it "done." I've also finished building the bookshelves in the hall and only have a few pieces of baseboard left to install before we can start painting all of the upstairs hall trim.

March 22, 2006

Making progress on the upstairs hall… The boys are almost done with the sanding in the closet, and I finished hanging the closet door, plus installed the trim around the door. Still have to finish out the attic stairwell, and build shelves in our hallway book nook.

March 6, 2006

Still poking away at things... We got the heater installed and the gas line run without blowing up the house. It's very cozy now, although I am going to have to move the main furnace thermostat, as the little heater warms the room so well, the furnace won't come on, making the rest of the house pretty cold!

The boys have been working on finishing out the upstairs hall closet (no help from me!), while I'm working on finishing the attic stairwell. As soon as we can get these sanded, primed and painted, we'll be ready to finish the hall trim and install carpet.

We're also ready to install carpet in the living room - just need to go pick it out.

January 21, 2006

Just a quick update tonight. Things are back to moving in slow increments now that I'm back to work at Caterpillar.

I have the staircase trim and risers back in (they are now painted white to contrast against the treads which will eventually be stained). The bannister pieces are in a pile waiting to be stripped, sanded and stained.

In the interim, Chad and I worked together in the upstairs hallway installing baseboards. I also mixed up some leveling clay (or whatever it's called) and poured it into the low spot in the hallway floor where it was uneven (by about 1"). Before we can finish trimming the upstairs hall, the boys have to finish mudding, sanding and painting the hall closet, and I have to build in the shelves in the hallway 'book nook." All of the doors in the upstairs hall are trimmed except the closet door...

Also, Chad and I built a hearth in one corner of the living room for the new gas heater we're putting in. All that's left to do there is grout and trim and then run the gas line.

January 3, 2006

As we start our fifth year of renovation/remodeling, let's take stock of what's been done so far:

Still left to do:

My goals for this year are to finish the stairs and upstairs hall trim, install carpet in the LR and upstairs hall, install a vanity in the upstairs bath, get the new kitchen walls sanded, primed and painted, and funding permitting, install a new roof.