Painting Continues

Since my last post, we've finished painting all the ceilings. Most of the walls are also done. Everything is getting two coats. The only walls we haven't painted are the two extra bedrooms, the closets, the laundry room, and the bathrooms. Those won't take much time because they're so small.

I've used two brands of paint: Behr and Benjamin Moore. I'm sure they are both fine products as far as quality goes, but I've noticed a difference in how they go on. Behr goes on with a nice consistency and covers very well on the first coat. BM seems thinner, and takes a good second coat to cover everything. The first coat soaks in and lets a lot of the white primer show through. Now, it doesn't matter because I'm using two coats no matter which brand I paint with. But it was a noticeable difference.

Here are some recent shots of the painted rooms, starting with the tile I'm probably going to use laid against the TV room wall:

Also, here is the concrete pad we made for the air conditioner unit in the backyard:

Painting Started!

Here are some pictures after the first weekend of painting work. We've finished the office, and moved on to the ceilings in the foyer, TV room and kitchen.






And here's a bonus picture of some other tile I'm considering. The one on the left is $3.90/sqft and the one on the right is $4.95/sqft. They're close enough that I would obviously go with the cheaper one. But I'm still looking at other tile as well.

Sewer Connection Done

The pipe is now laid under the street. I'm told that another crew comes later to rip up and replace the two pads of concrete that cost me $6,000. Here are some photos from the second day of work. Since then, they've refilled the hole and smoothed over it with dirt.

In the pictures, you can also see the other utilities running underground:

Interior Doors Delivered

I ordered by interior doors back in June. And I paid most of the balance at that time. Since I wasn't ready for them yet, I didn't press to find out what was taking so long. Finally, with the economy tanking, I decided it was time to start looking into the doors before the supplier or the vendor went under! When I called, he said most of my doors had been in for quite some time. They had trouble with the wooded door for my office and had to send it back 3 times because of defects.



In the meantine, I asked that he deliver all my other doors. They came last week. In addition to my office door on back-order, they delivered the wrong door that leads from the foyer into the attached garage. Instead of the Therma-Tru fire rated door, I got some door with a big glass pane. I sent that back with the delivery truck and called my salesman. He's looking into it.



Here's a shot of some of the doors laying around the house now. I've used Post-it notes to tag each one as to where it goes. This helped me check off the list to make sure I had everything.

Sewer Connection in Progress

My $9,200 sewer connection is being laid across the street. Work began yesterday, and they completed the first half: across the street where the main sewer line is. Today, they're supposed to finish my side of the street.





In the process, neighbor across the street had his yard torn up pretty bad. They had to dig down to the sewer line on the parish property part of his yard. They put all the mud back and laid the grass in place again, but it still looks pretty rough. After seeing the mounds of mud during the day, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it looked as good as it did, but it's a shame his yard had to be messed up.

I spoke to him last night and offered to help in any way to get his yard looking back to normal. He thanked me for the offer. He had already called the parish to tell them it wasn't acceptable. They told him they'd come back out if it didn't settle correctly in the next couple of weeks.


During the work day, the parish called to tell me they needed to know how deep the sewer line is as it comes out of my house. My plumber told me it was between 30 and 36 inches below the surface. The surface at the house is higher than at the curb. The parish worker told me that the main sewer line is about 5 ft below the surface on the other side of the street. So I should have plenty of room for a slope down to the main.

Garage Paneling Complete!

This is one of those jobs that seemed to drag on and on. We finished hanging the paneling in the rear garage last night. All that's left back there now is to put moulding around the top and down each corner.

Biting the Bullet on the Sewer Connection :(

Yesterday, I went to the parish office to give them a $9,200 check for installing my sewer connection. It was a sad, sad day. :(

I had spoken to just about everyone in parish government that would talk to me and also two lawyers. The lawyers took time to call some contacts they had. Everyone confirmed that there was nothing I could do to avoid this. So, I wanted to get the ball rolling.

This is because the main sewer line is across the street from me. My particular lot doesn't have a sewer connection running across the street. Remember, my lot used to be part of the lot next door. When it was subdivided, the people built on the half with the existing connection. I could do something like run my sewer line laterally down to the neighbor's line, but I'd need the neighbor's permission and I'd have to pay to replace the driveway that would be dug up in the process. I'd rather have a direct line across the street.

I was told that the ticket will be passed to the sewer department and a work order will be created in 5 days or more.

When the work begins, my neighbors are going to be inconvenienced again. Replacing two pads of concrete in the street is going to create a big work area. I'm not sure if they'll do one side of the street at a time or if they'll block off the entire street since people can get out by going the opposite direction.

Colors, Colors, Everywhere!

Among other things this week, I've been narrowing down on the colors I want to use to paint the house. I have one question: just how many shades of beige and tan can there be?!

I've had a friend from church over to help me pick the first few colors. Now that I know what the finish on my cabinets should look like (a mid-to-dark cherry color), I'm ready to continue through the kitchen and the rest of the house. My mom's cousins also came over a week ago to give their input.

Everyone tells me that staying "neutral" is best because then you have a lot more leeway in how you decorate. By neutral, most people seem to mean beige or off-white colors. I'm okay with using colors that are "neutral" versions of themselves, like an earth tone color that's shifted toward the beige end of the spectrum. But I can't see painting every room in the house beige! Yeah, I know: you liven each room up with colored furniture and decoration. Okay. But it's hard for me to wrap my brain around that just now.

The local Helm Paint stores offer a service to come out and help you pick colors. It costs $35, but that get's credited toward your first purchase of paint. I arranged for her to come out on Saturday, and it was a good experience. She also pushed for a lot of beige, but I was able to steer a few colors slightly toward some other colors. Here's a snapshot of what we came up with:


Okay, alot of it is still beige. So leave me alone! :) The office and master bedroom colors actually look green when you see them on a wall. And the "sea haze" color in the master bath is a blue color. And even the alternative colors for some of these are (you guessed it) beige!

You can see my cabinet color in the kitchen part of the image above. The other insert in the kitchen are two countertop colors that might work well. I need to finalize the countertop and tile colors to finish out the selections.

News on Cabinets & Garage Doors

Cabinet Supplier Selected!

Over the weekend, my mom & I visited Wood-n-Things unfinished furniture in Gretna. I had met with a girl from this store at my house during the week, and I was impressed with her knowledge and attitude. She called me the next day with a price and I was definitely impressed with that since it was the lowest so far! And the visit to the shop confirmed that the work was up to par as well. So I've decided who will supply my cabinets!

It takes a lot to impress my mom. She's a perfectionist (even moreso than me) with a good eye for detail. But she was impressed with our visit. The quality of cabinets was good, and the people are helpful and down-to-earth. The owner offered to show us some of their work in progress, and we followed him a few blocks to his workshop where they were finishing some furniture.

They offer pre-made cabinets from a few places, but I'll be getting my cabinets custom built by a guy named Bruce in Dallas. Now that this is settled, I just need to figure out exactly how I want my cabinets configured. It turns out this is no small set of decisions either! Uggh... It never ends! :)

Garage Doors Ordered

Another big step accomplished is that I ordered my garage doors today. Home Depot had a 15% off sale on Clopay doors. I got a traditional-looking door for the rear garage and something a bit more stylish for the front garage. The next step is for someone to come out to measure and inspect the site before they actually make and ship my doors. This was another decision that's been hanging over my head for a while, and it's a relief to get it done and move on. I need to finish hanging paneling around the door frame and finish the insides of the frames with Hardie board before the doors get put in. That should be in 2-4 weeks.

The front garage door

The back garage door

Paneling Progress

We spent this evening hanging more paneling in the back garage. Here are pictures from our work as of Saturday. As usual, I'm behind on pictures of what we did today, so a few more panels are up on the wall from what you see here:

Garage Paneling Photo

Here's a picture of the paneling in progress for the back garage:







What you see here is where we left it on Tuesday night. we worked on it again tonight, but Murphy's Law kept us from making much more progress than what you see here.