Cameron's Adventures

Over the past week and today, Rory worked really hard to finish the trim, install the doors for the bedrooms and the sliding doors for the closet. Everything is shaping up nicely. I will still have to paint the trim and the doors but we’ve got basement bedrooms!

Bedroom to the left:

Bedroom to the right:

Today in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. I came home to find Rory had done most of the trim for the two basement rooms we are trying to finish. He also ordered the doors which will come on Wednesday. Now that’s one hard working husband!

Yippee, the rooms are starting to look great!

On Sunday around 2:00pm, we arrived home from our Oregon Coast and Beyond trip. As the weather was nice, Rory decided it was a perfect day to install the picture window in our living room. Swiftly he called Jesse to request his much needed help to bring the window and install it. In the past, I would have helped out. But for the next few months, that is not going to be possible as we are due to have a baby girl at the beginning of March.

One more window to be had in the house and then we are done with replacing windows. Yippee!!!

Today marks a big achievement. After a summer full of work on the den, it is finally done. Well, there’s still a bit of trim painting to be done and we need curtains, but all the furniture is in and there are still shelves ready to be stocked with office goodies. Here update photos of the den.

It’s great to be done. Now I can finally focus on computer work!

This weekend I spent a bit more time painting the three window trims. I still have to go over them with one more coat. Still, I couldn’t resist bringing my computer and setting it up with the furniture I have thus far. There’s still one more bookshelf to get, but that will come later as Dania did not have it in stock at the moment.

AS one enters the den from the living room, this is what one sees:

Looking to the right, is a little reading and relaxing place:

To the left is my desk with all my home office needs:

The desk is a little large and does not have the cabinet space that I need, so we’ve bought a smaller one that is due here on Wednesday.

From the desk I can look outward into the living room. With the doors close, it is a perfect den. But as you can see, there’s still work to be done on the doors:

And of course with the doors opened, the real reason why I wanted a den in the first place… so that I can watch TV while working!

Rory coming into the den while I was taking pictures. He has worked very, very hard and is the main reason the den got done!

The den is shaping up even more. On Tuesday, Rory and Jesse brought the French doors home.

Then the next day Rory decided to install them all on his own. And without hesitation, they were installed:

Yep, they sure are looking great. The den is almost done!

Yesterday was a day full of activities. First we woke up and went to Freemont where Rory ran the 5k in the Brew Ha Ha event. It was in celebration of Oktoberfest. Though he hasn’t run once to prepare for this event, he did very well. I think around 7 1/2 minutes per mile. Not bad indeed.

Here’s one picture from beginning of the event:
 
More to come once I upload the rest as well as a little video of the beginning of the race.

After the race, we went home where we started the trim work for the den. This pretty much took the rest of the day. Rory put up the trim, while I painted it.

The door also had to be painted. As you can see, it was gray and after three coats of white, I still need to put another tonight. The great thing about this work is that most of the wood is reused from before. So of course it doesn’t look brand new and had a lot of holes that I went and covered with wood filler, but that’s the character of the house and this room, well have the same feel as the rest.

Tonight is the final coat for the lower trim and then I can start doing the windows. And this weekend, who knows Rory might get the French door installed. Stay tuned…

Today, we returned from a mini vacation in Cle Elum to finished hardwoods. It took Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to get them done. And now they look great!

Rory spent the day framing in one of the doors. It was a bit tricky as he used the existing door and door frame that was used for a closet door. After reversing the hinges and cutting a bit of the door, it was nicely framed in it’s place.

It has been a long time since my last post, but luckily Rory has still been working hard at the den. We had Bert our contractor do the drywall and mudding. It turned out to be a great thing as he did it while we were at work and as always did a fabulous job.

But now it’s time for painting and hardwoods. Rory primed the walls and got the hardwoods as ready as possible so there will be minimum prep time to get them done. Hopefully within the next few weeks we’ll have the hardwoods refinished.

Here are some pictures of the current state of the den:

The picture below shows where the hardwoods were after we removed the closets. As you can see, quite a bit of patching is needed. The pictures above shows how Rory prepped the weaving of the hardwoods.

And here are some pictures of the walls being primed. This was the first thing Rory did after the walls were finished while I sat and looked at him work. That’s right, this den was done by Rory’s hands mainly. I have contributed very little unfortunately. But I am very excited to have the den.

Though I have been slow at reporting our progress on the den, Rory has not been. He’s been working feverously on getting all the wiring, studs and insulation done so that our contractor Bert (who is amazing) can put up drywall. So the next few pictures show the progress from a few weeks ago to what we saw when we came home after work.

I left of the previous blog post with Rory and Jesse working on the studs. Well the den is now beautifully framed and we moved the furniture from the living room into the dining room so that there is a lot more space to do work. This of course, means some perfect photo opportunities:

Yes, the den is shaping up. But the pictures above are the state of the den on Sunday. Today it is:

There was so much excitement in our hearts when we saw the walls that Rory couldn’t help but do the chicken dance:

He is goofy indeed. But you have to understand, that not only are we getting the den, but Bert is doing the round ceiling for our living room. It’s something we would have been really sad to see it gone.

And to top it all off, Rory brought me flowers. They are gorgeous as it is our 9 year wedding anniversary.

A day that we’ll remember!