The Downstairs

Most of the snow is gone now, though we do still have a few patches left here and there. But we had flakes in the air this morning, and we lit a fire a few days this week. These are the miserable weeks of spring - when the calendar says it's time, but the weather disagrees.

We built a platform on the East edge of the house site on which to dry some firewood. As it is, this will hold 2-3 cords of wood. We will add a few more pallets to the right and will have a good sized area to dry the next few years' of wood. This spot is naturally flat, and will get plenty of sunlight. Now who wants to stack all of it?
Mindy started some growing things in the kitchen - some flowers and some vegetables. We're working to get the garden space ready, but it's a good thing it isn't planting time here yet.

The bottom of the stairs used to be clean, but only because we shoved all this extra wood into Andy and Mindy's closet. Andy cleaned out the closet, so the hallway is messy again. Maybe we should actually build something with this, instead of moving it around every week?

One of the walls in the craft room is installed - this used to be open framing until the sheathing boards were put up. The sheathing really looks good downstairs. The FirstDay 'basements' are very different than the traditional New England cellar.

The boys' bathroom downstairs has been mudded, sanded, and primed, and just needs some tape and some paint. And a toilet, a faucet, a doorknob, cabinets...

Another view of the boys' bathroom. The white primer really cleans up the space.

Holy blue, batman! Mindy started on the first coat of blue this week. It is a very bright, vibrant blue, and will look great in the boys' room when it's done.

The dining room is a woodshop this week. We needed to move the cherry wood, the tablesaw, and a workbench to clear out Andy and Mindy's room downstairs, and this room was a good catch-all. The boys plan to use drop cloths to contain the dust in the dining room when we build things here, but the girls disagree. They would rather not disrupt the main floor. We'll see how it goes. Maybe if they had book club every night for a few weeks we could make good progress and they wouldn't see the mess.

Ethan will occasionally avoid the camera, and occasionally play to it. He was watching Andy mark the route lines for the french doors. The bedroom is mostly clean at this point, and the walls, clearly, have been primed and painted. It's great to have this space livable!

Mindy painted the bathroom one night this week. It's a different color than the bedroom, but they look very good together.

Yes, we are very Eastery in our house. Perhaps we should repaint for every holiday?

Another painting view...

We began to install the railing to the downstairs. Nearly all the materials are down or up at this point, and having the open area to move things off the stairs is no longer as helpful as it once was. For the downstairs post at the end of the rail, we sistered three 2x4s and ran them from the floor to the ceiling. We know that the boys will come flying down the hallway, grab the last post, and whip around it to jump up the stairs. It seemed prudent to build proactively and plan a solid post to handle the stress of three boys.

The french doors to Andy and Mindy's bedroom, as seen from the hallway. They will be painted soon, and we will add some trim around the doorframe. But they sure add a touch of class to what has been a workshop for so long.

The french doors from inside the bedroom. There will be curtains hung on the inside, and we will fit a trim piece to overlap the gap between them on the inside. And we will probably mop the floor, too.