Progress...Slowly but Surely

Last week we took a breather from working on the house and left it to the professionals!  We spent some time appliance shopping and trying to figure out what all we needed to buy.   A good bit got done, and we were very excited!

The roof is completed and all of the storm windows have been removed.  All of the trim has been primed!  We still have yet to buy a new front door....

Thomas is in town for a few weeks, and he stopped by to see the project.  While he was over, he removed the old, rusted, metal awning over the back door to the basement.  Yay!  Left is a before picture of the back of the house with the awning.  Below, the awning is removed.  Thanks Thomas (hate I missed the photo-op of all that hard work)!






New awning coming soon.  I'm thinking of a nice, black canvas one. 

You can also tell in this picture how much cleaner the windows are and how much better the house looks with just a coat of primer on the trim!

Graham worked hard cleaning out years of leaves and yard debris. I'm ready to do some landscaping and get some color out in the yard! 

The parque flooring came out of the den during the week last week.  The man who pulled it up said that there were 100 nails per sheet of plywood.  Thank God we decided not to do that part!  Left is a before picture. 

The door opening in the back right corner will soon be twice that size.






Here's an after picture of the den minus the parque.  What a lovely design underneath.  I am anxious to see new hardwoods!

My most favorite thing that was done last week is the basement bathroom!!!  We have walls, a working sink, and a working commode!  There is also a ceiling in the shower and the pipes are covered.  Woohoo!  If you remember the before picture of this bathroom, you know why I am so thrilled about this!  Scroll down the blog a few posts to see. 

We are waiting on gutters, floor stain, and paint on the walls and the basement will be complete!  Hopefully that will happen this week.  We are especially hoping for gutters since Hurricane Irene is projected to hit the SC coast and come inland this weekend.  Fingers crossed that all comes together! 

Today, the painters came over early to start painting the exterior trim.  Unfortunately, I've yet to pick a paint color, and they left for another job.  I managed to pick 3 of the 100,000 white paint samples that I liked this afternoon at Lowes.  We hope to have some samples on the exterior for a final decision tomorrow.   Paint and a new door is going to make all the difference! 

Inside, they got started making the opening from the foyer to the den into a double sized opening instead of a single one.  It's hard to tell in this picture (above with the parque floor), but that opening at the far end of the picture to the right is what's being widened.  It's going to be opened another 3 feet or so.  Anyway, I think one of the guys got a little sledge hammer happy because he started knocking out the whole wall!   Luckily, Graham got there to stop him just in time for only minor repairs to need to be done.  I'm anxious to see the progress this week!  More pictures to come.