October 21

    Today I painted the foyer walls and ceiling. The color on the walls looks wonderful against the stained glass. The only area I didn't like the color was on the staircase wall. I'll paint it white again some time in the future.

For Sigo that key word of the day was - finish coats! He put finish coats on in Emelia's room, Seamus' room and the blackboard wall in the playroom.

October 20
We started the day with Sigo skim-coating the play room while I painted the molding in the playroom and in Emelia's room. Sigo continued to spackle  door frames on the second floor and then sanded the dried spackle on the doors and windows in the playroom and Seamus' room.   After Sigo finished sanding, I painted the four windows in the playroom and Seamus' room. He also painted the ceiling in the playroom and in Seamus' room.  Then he caulked Emelia's room. Sigo then sanded Emelia's ceiling, painted the rose on the ceiling and then rolled out a final coat. Finally, I painted the three windows in Emelia's  bedroom with its first coat of paint after primer. Seamus and Emelia helped out by pulling nails and staples out of the floors to ready them for painting. Sigo ended the day with the first coat of blackboard paint in the kids' playroom, a.k.a. the Kid Cave.

October 15
Today I planted another 100 bulbs in the front and backyard: tulips, daffodils and grape Hyacinth. I also painted the crown molding  

in the kids playroom with Perma-White, a mold and mildew resistant paint. Then I spackled the little holes on the doors and door frames coming from the hallway through the playroom and in Seamus' room. Finally,  I caulked the space where Sigo had put in molding in the kitchen ceiling.

October 14

Today we are camping out at the house for the first time. We still have no running water or heat but we're up for an adventure tonight! After we came back from visiting my mom in New Jersey, Sigo repaired the cracks on the walls of the kids’ playroom and Emelia and I planted bulbs - we planted 60 daffodil bulbs and about 20 crocus bulbs.

Sigo and I set up Emelia's room for our camping adventure. Once the kids were settled we got into some really fun stuff. No, not roasting marshmallows, putting on hardware!
For the kitchen hardware Sigo put up the striker plates, door plates, bolt lock, and door handles.  He used paint thinner to clean everything up.

October 7
Today was a big lesson day for me at The House on Ridge! Larry showed me (in great detail) how to replace lighting fixtures. I took careful notes of each step.

October 6
This weekend our dear friend Larry came up to the House on Ridge to help out.  Larry and Sigo took on the death-defying task of getting the refrigerator beast out of the second floor kitchen.  Between the bulk of the fridge, the narrow stairway and the penetrating stench of whatever had been left there for months (years, decades perhaps), they nearly lost their lives!   It was an impressive accomplishment to get it out to the back yard!

Larry also took the hardware on the older doors on the second floor and cut molding for the space underneath the kitchen window where Sigo had built the sill.

 
Sigo sanded and primed the kitchen walls which he had repaired and put a final coat onto the backs of the cabinet doors. He also put one coat of the color on the kitchen counter tops and back splash. I skim-coated Emelia’s ceiling and sanded and primed the four windows in Seamus’ room. 
The kids pitched in by spackling holes in Seamus’ room. They patched the window trim and  door molding.

Then Sigo showed me how to caulk! I caulked the molding and windows in Emelia’s room.

September 30
Today was an incredibly productive day! In the kitchen, Sigo taped and compounded the ceiling, spray-painted the stove vent, painted the kitchen countertop laminate with the first coat of primer, painted some of the walls, skim-coated other parts of the walls (again), sprayed the radiator (again) and put a final coat on the backsides of all the kitchen cabinets.

Early in the day, Sigo showed me how to fill the holes and the cracks in Emelia’s ceiling: First I taped over the cracks with the mesh tape. Then, using a taping knife, I spread the joint compound over the tape, filling in the mesh. Then I smoothed over the compound to blend the edges. 
 

After Sigo scraped the windows in Emelia’s bedroom, I sanded the molding and then vacuumed and wiped them down. In a mini-lesson, he showed me how to paint one window and I painted the other two with one coat of primer.

Photos of Seamus and Emelia (and Emmett too!) helping out.

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New Window Sill in Kitchen

September 26

Today Sigo painted the back of the cabinet doors with a second coat of primer. He also spackled holes in window trim and all around kitchen (doors, door trim). Then he skim-coated the walls. Finally, he put trim and a new sill around the kitchen window and finished putting up the trim between the chimney and ceiling.

 

Emelia's Closet After Sanding

I sanded, de-glossed and primed the closet in Emelia’s room.

 

 

 

 

After the kids and I left, Sigo put up another coat of primer on Emelia’s closet and painted the back of the doors. He also painted the new kitchen window sill with a coat of primer. Then he caulked all around joints in the kitchen. The finishing touch was cleaning up the kitchen so we could really see the work thus far. We are definitely making progress!

 

Closet After Priming

September 29

Today I did the most disgusting thing ever - I scraped the grease off of the oven vent. Ugh!!!! I had to take a picture with what I scraped off with the five-in-one, just to share how gross it was.

Yuck! Oven Grease

Then I went onto another job that was nearly as gross - cleaning out years of grease from the kitchen radiator.

These two tasks were completely worth it because after I completed them Sigo spray-painted the oven vent and the radiator. What a difference!

Oven Vent Before

Oven Vent After

Radiator Before

Radiator After

Sigo put the first finish coat on the outside of the 

Safety Equipment

cabinet doors and put the first finish coat also on the cabinets themselves. He also skim-coated the walls of the kitchen.

We have decided to paint our laminate countertops. We began that process by cleaning the laminate. Sigo followed up with sanding them.

Sigo spackled the areas of the kitchen which had gouges in them.

Towards the end of the day, the kids went with me to the hardware store and we picked out the color for the laminate countertops as well as the color for Emelia's bedroom. I also chose a new color for the living room with a little more gold in it  - because the last color we tried was to write other yellow.

Finally,  I scraped the ceiling and molding in Emelia's room, being careful to wear safety goggles and a dust mask!

September 24
 

After dropping Seamus off at school I came with Luna to the house on the Ridge.  My first task was to tackle the large pantry in the kitchen. I scraped, cleaned, sanded and then wiped the interior. Then (over the day) I applied two coats of primer. I also added a second coat of primer to the cabinet shelves the kids had started over the weekend and touched up some parts of the interiors of the cabinets.

Next I raked and picked up some more debris from the backyard.

I finished with a quick sweep of the first floor and was off to pick Seamus up from school.