Hello, August! The One Where Bernie Accomplishes Much, and I Accomplish Little

Hello, Happy Monday, and Happy August, Everyone!  

After finishing my Scrappy Celebrations quilt top last week, I stalled out on the backing.  Having recently moved several times, I am acutely aware of how much fabric I own, and therefore I am not even considering purchasing yardage to back this quilt, but most of my fabric stash is half yard pieces or smaller, or leftover strips of backing trimmed from larger quilts after long arm quilting them.  I will have to get creative, and I will need my work table cleared off in order to piece the backing, and right now my work table is a mess.  Nevertheless, I do plan to get that backing pieced this week!

Meanwhile, I accomplished one more little 3/4" hexagon rosette for my Stonefields quilt border.  I fussy-cut the print but either I imperfectly centered the motif when I fussy-cut the hexagons or else the templates shifted slightly as I was hand stitching them together, probably a little of both.  Best viewed from a distance, then!

One Little Stonefields Hexie Rosette to Show For Myself

Progress On the Home Renovation Project

With so little progress to show for myself, I might as well share someone else's progress with you!  Eight and a half months after beginning and three months behind schedule, our builder is still not finished with the renovation.  Nearly 14 months since we purchased this decrepit haunted house and we have never slept in our bedroom, showered in our own bathroom, or cooked in our kitchen.  That is because the steam shower in the primary bathroom was leaking and full of mold, there was mold behind the leaking refrigerator in the kitchen, the oven did not heat to temperature, and some of the burners did not light on the stove top.  I am not complaining -- we knew what we were getting ourselves into and the price we paid for the house absolutely reflected the amount of work it needed.  We are just tired from the stress of living in a construction zone for so long and looking forward to the day, hopefully 2-3 weeks from now, when we can kiss that port-o-potty and dumpster goodbye (not literally!) and move up out of the basement and into the main floor of our home.

Meanwhile, not everything needing to be done was included in our builder's scope for the renovation.  The door hardware was in bad shape: some doors were not closing properly and needed adjustment, most of the door knobs had peeling or scratched up finishes from the previous owners' German Shepherd, and the door knob on the powder bath was broken and did not lock.  Since I selected mostly unlacquered brass light fixtures throughout the main floor, I decided to replace the handle sets and door hinges with brass as well.  They are the same manufacturer and style as the original hardware, just a different finish, to be cohesive with the original door hardware in other parts of the home.  We ordered the new hardware ourselves and Bernie installed it, saving us the builder's markup on materials as well as additional labor costs.  

Bernie Installing New Door Hardware

The outside of the house was looking pretty awful, too.  We don't think it had ever been painted since it was built in 2000, except that at some point previous owners had painted over the cedar garage doors and mahogany front doors instead of keeping up with the maintenance of the original stained finish (the insides of the garage doors still showed the original stain).  I get it; in direct sunlight in the South, stained doors need to be lightly sanded and a new coat of stain applied every 2-3 years and paint lasts so much longer, but Bernie strongly prefers the look of stained and he is willing to do the work.  Instead of including the exterior painting and staining in the scope of our builder's remodeling contract, we got a referral from a neighbor and hired a painter ourselves.  They finished up a week ago and it looks so much better now!

Cedar Garage Doors Had Been Painted, Looked Terrible

There were decorative shutters on several windows of our house as well, painted the same color as the garage doors and in similarly rough shape, and our original plan was to strip them and stain them after Bernie tightened up the ones that were sagging.  However, when they started sanding the paint off they realized the shutters were yellow pine, not cedar.

Faded Painted Shutters Turned Out to be Yellow Pine

So Bernie went to a local lumber yard, hand picked his cedar boards, and built new shutters to replace the old ones.  They look identical from the front, but he did something different on the back of them to ensure they don't sag and "rack" over time like the old ones did.  The painters stained them with the same stain as the garage doors and put them back up on the house for us.

Bernie's New Cedar Shutters, Ready for Stain

The painters were not 100% finished yet, but as soon as they had completed painting the stucco on the front of the house Bernie wanted to install the new outdoor lanterns I'd ordered several months ago.  The old ones were smaller, much more ornate "Tuscan" style, in an orange rust finish that was faded, chipped and peeling.  I tried to select a style that was a lot less fussy but still complemented the traditional architecture.

Father and Son Installing New Lantern Fixtures

Our younger son, at 6'2", was just the right height to assist with hanging the lights.

Then Bernie moved on to the flower beds.  When we bought the house there were just two Japanese maples and a lot of trash in the flower beds, and the trees were planted way too close to the house.  Bernie pulled out the trees, fixed the irrigation system (broken, like everything else in this house!), added some misters, and planted a row of evergreen shrubs and vincas.  He loves to get dirt under his fingernails.  See how nice the cedar garage doors look with the new stain?  What a difference!

...And Finally, Planting Flowers!

Lots more remains to be done with landscaping and lawn revival in both the front and back yard once cooler weather comes in the Fall.  We will only get a few months out of these annual flowers before it's time to change them out for Fall/Winter, but it sure is more welcoming to have flowers and greenery along the front foundation instead of just dirt and dead leaves!

Today I'm expecting the countertop guy to come and finish fixing a problem with the kitchen countertops that caused a big hullabaloo last week.  I've also been promised that the plumbers will come back and install the last two faucets and that the electrician will come back this week to finish his portion of the job (although my backordered light fixtures for the primary bathroom aren't expected to arrive until the end of August).  We're missing some cabinet shelves in the kitchen, the drying rack in the laundry room isn't installed, the wrong size bathroom vanity mirror is getting exchanged for the right one next week, and then the painters are supposed to come back to do all of their touch ups and missed bits.  And then there will be Post Construction Cleaning Crew, and THEN I finally get to move into the main part of the house.  Right now we walk through and it is so, SO close to being finished, but the challenge is getting each of those trades out here to do the little bits that only they can do before they can get the next trade out to do their job.  Note that it's nearly 10 AM on a Monday morning and no one has shown up to work on my house today...  Usually if anyone is coming they arrive before 8 AM, so this is not a good sign.  Patience!!!  The Lord must be trying to teach me patience!!!  It is NOT WORKING!

We still need to figure out closets on our own, though, because our primary bedroom closets are just hardwood floors and drywall, not so much as a clothes rod or a wire shelf in either one of them.  We had a couple closet companies come out to quote but Bernie can't bring himself to pay their prices for "particle board, laminate and cheap hardware."  😳. He will probably build something himself out of real wood.  The kitchen pantry is the same way, just bare drywall and wood floor, but Bernie needs to get his table saw set up for those projects and right now his workshop is full of moving boxes that have all of our kitchen stuff and everything else that we've been unable to unpack during the renovation.

I told you earlier that my To-Do item for the week is the Scrappy Celebrations backing and getting that quilt loaded for quilting.  As I look ahead at the month of August, I am likely to be dealing with remaining renovation time-sucks for most of the month, followed by Round Two of moving, getting furniture and possessions placed where they belong on the main floor, unpacking all of those boxes of books and kitchen items and finding homes for everything.  One thing I really underestimated is how much time this renovation has taken me as the homeowner, even though the builder is getting paid to hire crews and do the work, because it has added up to hundreds of hours of my time researching products and making selections and decisions and having meetings and following up when things go wrong...  I can't imagine how anyone does this while they are working full time, caring for young children, etc., and I never want to take on renovations of this scale ever again!  So, this week's goal is the Scrappy Celebrations backing, and maybe August's goal will be sewing those pineapple blocks together into a quilt top.  There, I made One Monthly Goal!  Wish me luck!

August OMG: Assembling MIL's Foldy Bits Pineapple Blocks Into Quilt Top

I'm linking up with OMG: One Monthly Goal at Stories From the Sewing Room as well as some of these favorite linky parties:

MONDAY

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

Monday Musings at Songbird Designs  

TUESDAY

To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt  

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

FRIDAY

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre

Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty

 TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday

SATURDAY

Scrap Happy Saturday at So Scrappy

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework