The Roby Family

The nursery is finished…sort of.  All the walls are painted, except the closet.  All the trim is painted, except the closet.  All the electrical is done, except a few switch plates and the closet light.  The crib is set up, but doesn’t have blankets in it…  You get the point, we are really, really close, but just not quite there.  Give us a few more nights and a weekend and we’ll be ready for showtime.  Until then, this sneak peek picture will have to suffice:

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The entry, stairwell and upstairs hall are all painted.  After seeing the “Lantern Light” while the painters were “cutting in” Jenny got really nervous it was too yellow.  Now that it is dry she feels good about it.  Personally, I really like it and can’t wait to get pictures, etc on the wall.  No sneak peeks at it tonight, but we’ll get pictures posted as soon as we can.

The HVAC system is installed and blowing fresh frigid air.  The crew has a few outstanding items to complete.  While they are working away in the basement finishing up the HVAC they are also going to install a new hot water heater.  We are taking advantage of having them on sight to upgrade our capacity and efficiency.

Painters arrive tomorrow morning to paint our entry hall, stairwell & upstairs hallway.  Guess what, we don’t know what color we are painting the walls!  We’ve narrowed it down to two:

Lantern Light

Colonial Yellow

The trim will be the same throughout the house:

Antique White

Sherwin Williams closes at 6p tonight and the painters arrive at 7:30a tomorrow.  We have less than eight hours to decide.  Help?!?

Oh, and they are going to finish painting the trim in Judah’s room (thanks for helping get me out of the doghouse Pa).  So he should be moved into his nursery this weekend!

I didn’t get any painting done Sunday, but I did do a little clean-up and take some pictures.  The painting didn’t get done because I spent a good amount of time changing out the flush valve and refill tube on our upstairs toilet.  But, that is a whole ‘nother story.  Below are pictures of the woodwork we did in the room.  All of the new wood is poplar and was milled at a local mill shop.  Of all the goofy angles I cut I’m most proud of the window stools.  The old ones had seen better days and had some water damage.  Always one to love working with saws I recruited my friend James to help me make me new ones.  We milled the new stools from a rough hewn stick of poplar and I have to say it is quite satisfying to see them sitting there so smooth and snug due to the myriad of angles we cut into the bottom and back of them.  If this whole banking thing doesn’t work out I may give ol’ Norm Abram a call and see if he has room for an apprentice in the Old Yankee Workshop.

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I’ve finally finished installing all the baseboard, window/door casing and picture rail in the nursery.  When working with corners that aren’t square and walls that aren’t perfectly flush trim carpentry is a frustrating process for a perfectionist like me. With help from several friends and my dad we did a fine job.  We couldn’t match the trim in the house exactly, but if I hadn’t just told you you’d never know.

While the trim still needs to be painted we went ahead and installed the new light fixture.  We chose the “Fisherman Ceiling Lamp” from Pottery Barn Kids.  It hangs down a bit in the room, but overall looks great.  I’m too tired to take pictures of it in the room but here’s the pic from PB Kids website:

I’ve been battling an extreme raging (doc’s words not mine) sinus infection for about three weeks so progress on the nursery has slowed way down.  If I can find the energy I’ll start painting the trim and post some pictures today.

The drywall is primed, the ceiling is painted and now the first coat of paint is up on the nursery walls.  We chose “Blissful Blue” from Sherwin Williams.

Once the second coat is done we’ll post pictures of the paint on the walls.

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It isn’t exactly rest and it wasn’t the seventh day, but eight days after we ripped the walls out of the nursery we installed insulation.  It is significant to us because, well were hiring someone to hang the drywall so were done working for a bit.  Oh, and the room didn’t have any (yes that would mean none, zilch, zero) insulation in its prior state.  Let’s just say our new little one will be nice and snug and by insulating the interior walls we hope to be nice and quiet.  We were thankful my dad a.k.a papa came up to help and brought along his skills, work ethic and tools!  We hope for drywall to start going up Tuesday morning.

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Yesterday marked the begining of our first remodeling project on the new home, the nursery.  The room is upstairs just off the stairs and has a great view of the back & side yards.  We must assume the room was home to girls for some time based upon the lilac floral wallpaper.  Based on the style of the paper and the fact it is the only layer on the plaster with no paint beneath leads us to believe it is original to the home.  While sad to tear out something original to the home that has lasted 85 years it is in quite disrepair and has to come down.  Due to cracking in the plaster, the potential for water damage behind the window AC unit  and zero insulation in the walls we decided to tear this room down to the studs and install drywall.  I recruited two men from our Life Group and we went to town.  We took the room from walls to no-walls in about 5 hours.  It was dusty, dusty, dusty, dusty and dusty work, but we powered through.  I’m so thankful for the guys help, because without them it wouldn’t have happened!

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