Before and After!
I love these posts, for it makes me see how far we have come

I have posted this photo before, but this is the living room and how it looked on the day we first saw Sunnyside. An unfinished addition with no walls, floor, or ceiling, no insulation, but with very nice Anderson sliding glass doors already installed. I think this was almost a year ago.

The same room with shiplap walls and ceiling, nice track lighting, and brand new cork floors. All with 4" of foam insulation in the walls and ceiling.

Here are some good pics of the cork floor in the living room. We just have to add the trim around the floor, which is already cut and ready to paint and the room will be done.

We think it looks really well.

Monday:

The cork floor is finished and looks incredible! The two of us did the bulk of the floor on Saturday, me rolling and gluing tiles and the floor and Greg snapping them into place. Greg spent all yesterday sitting cross legged on the floor cutting around door moldings and walls and fitting in the tile. He did an amazing job.

Two things we know for next time: The floor has to be so level with no low spots, because you will end up with slightly indented tiles every where. a rubber mallet helps a lot!!! We bought one at the last minute and the first time I used it to flatten down the seams, the tiles just kind of melded together, it was awesome.

So, the tiles cost us $97 a box and we used about 8 boxes (retail $195 a box). The glue cost me $75 for three gallons (retail $75 a gallon) and it took us about 15 hours to install. I think we saved about $1400-1600 all told.

While Greg did the perimeter yesterday, I painted a lot more of the downstairs. I have just the living room to go and half of the hallway upstairs plus the trim. We decided to use the gray color wash on the walls throughout the downstairs. It is a beautiful color that changes with the light of the room, and is pretty neutral. Overall, the color reminds me of the pickled cypress that my grandparents had in their house in Florida. I am using a two parts water to one part paint mixture and so far have only used a quart of paint! $15.00 to paint most of the downstairs of Sunnyside.....not too bad.

Bought the Jenn- Aire downdraft roll in stove that was on sale at MacLeods in Belfast. Everyone told me it was the best move. It's black to match the granite on the island. It will look great with the natural maple counter tops.

I think that is it for now. My sister and some friends are coming to stay at Little Bohemia this week so they can use the house as a base for hiking and going on a Puffin Cruise in Bar Harbor. Gotta go make the beds there.

Da cork floor!

Saturday:
We finally got full power yesterday, save for a few circuits that were bad, which will be replaced on Monday....so, no hot water yet, though we had some yesterday and it was really nice!

I spent yesterday afternoon painting most of the downstairs, putting in the track lighting, and seeding the back lawn where the destruction of burying power lines occurred. My only hope is that the grass grows back before our neighbors show up!! Even though the digging happened on village property, the lawn is still their back yard.

Here are some photos of the living room stained a soft driftwood gray with whitewashed trim. The floor is all prepped for the cork, but we are waiting for a good dry day to do it.



We have sliding drawers in the kitchen! Each cabinet has sliding maple drawers for pots and pans. Cabinet doors will be made in Larry's shop and then fitted up in the kitchen.
Josh had to redo the drawers in the kitchen because the others were rickety and held together with glue. These ones are already filled with things!
Today is more painting, (kitchen today) I have three walls left to do. I will then probably go and spend more than I should on a stove for the kitchen Jenn-Aire smooth top with central downdraft fan. There is one in Belfast for $1000 off retail and I think it's a good deal. Might have to take the white fridge back in favor of a black one. sigh.....

Greg is working on stairs today....he has all the materials, and I think he can get it done today.

Wednesday:
We are finally getting full power hook-up today, Central Maine Power will be at the cottage at 8:30am to get things rolling. Yesterday was a well deserved day off, though Greg and I did go and find a Whirlpool side by side fridge with water and ice maker for the cottage as well as a roll in stove. As soon as the kitchen counter tops are secured, we can add the stove and have a real working kitchen! In about a week, we will be able to add furniture to the bedrooms (I want to let the floors cure for a while before putting anything on top of them.) and then the place will be habitable.

OK, first mishap today happened when I was cleaning and organizing again. I was up in the second floor bathroom and went to pick up something, knocking the green floor paint can onto it side.....the top was not firmly attached and I spilled green paint on the bathroom floor! Luckily the tiles were sealed, but the grout was not, so I ended up staining the grout....nothing took it off, so I figured I would have to grout over it....but a razor and a bit of scraping on Larry's part got the color right off the grout....my hero!!

CMP canceled today because of the rain, so they will come on Friday. Greg started in on prepping the plywood floor with leveler so that we can lay the cork tile on Friday, when it will be sunny and warm and dry again. I painted second coats of trim color in the small bedroom and then the cavalry arrived, Larry and Josh came to work. All in all, we got the upstairs closet built and the door hung, the downstairs fridge cavity in the kitchen boarded over, the deck planned and the materials ordered, and a master plan going for the final stages of Sunnyside 2010.

Also talked with Butch at Parenteau Flooring about laying down our cork tile. He and his crew laid the cork down at the Belfast Library and our tile and that tile are very similar. The weird thing about cork that I have found is that every manufacturer has their own adhesive that they want you to use. Since we got our tiles at Marden's, a close-out surplus place, there was no accompanying adhesive. Butch took a lot of time out to show me the glue they they used at the library and to look up what we should use and how to use it. He gave me some good tips about laying the tile, and I ended up buying my glue from him. Kudos to Butch, if I ever want someone else to lay my flooring, I will go to Butch.

I still cannot figure out a color to paint the downstairs walls!!

Thursday 6am:
Still obsessing about color. Also obsessing about the Jenair roll in stove that I saw yesterday....too bad it is black and not white...Also realized that it needs to vent outside and I don't want another complication in my life with the cottage.

I am trying to clean off the porch of useless things so that we can finally pull the table saw and the chop saw out of the house on rainy days. Yesterday got three doors off the porch, today will see the painted furniture go back into storage. I also think we are pretty much done with scrap wood, so I feel a dump run coming on today.

Got a quote to install a new garage door from PDQ doors $2300.....OUCH!!!! That, I cannot afford right now.

Sigh....off to the salt mines (Last May, Greg and I visited the salt mines in Poland, they were very cool.)

Greg's family just left and we are saaaaaddddd to see them go! What amazing troopers they were to do all the work they did. I cannot believe how much we got done with them here. I was expecting to only get the two bedrooms painted, but the nieces set to work finishing the bathroom trim and painting furniture outside and scraping some of the old paint off the side of the house while their mothers taped and sanded and painted and never complained a bit. (unlike me) I whitewashed the living room ceiling and painted a lot of the guest room, and then painted it again!


We decided to color wash the walls, essentially staining them with paint.
I mixed a color for the smaller bedroom with one part water and found that after we painted the WHOLE room, the color was too dark. I fretted and fussed and fumed, and then decided, on Greg's suggestion, to white wash over the very dark blue. (the original treatment looked like a pair of fresh blue jeans after one wash). A one to one bright white to water created a second surface that really lightened up the room, toned down the paint, smoothed out the surface, and gave a look of faux-weathered boards. The blue triangle above the window was the original wall color. The trim color is bright white tinted with the blue from the downstairs bathroom. The floor color is also what is on the walls.

I really like it. The whole paint process for that one bedroom took four days and we still have some touching up to do. I am sore all over... I never want to paint an18 foot ceiling again!

The master bedroom is a wonderful green color wash with the full strength color on the floor. The floor color matches the original colors of the upstairs floor, and I really like it too.

We got the kitchen counter tops in and cut Monday. If you remember, there were doors to the cabinets before, but they started to warp and never fit properly, so they have to be made over again. I hope we'll have some new ones by the end of the week.



Burying the power lines was successful. ( At least burying the conduit was, as the line has not been moved yet) The entire back of the house has to be graded and seeded and watered, but not until they get the power line moved. A good thing that came out of this is that my pile of dirt and concrete from under the house has been hauled away. We can use the driveway again!!! (of course, after the grass comes back, or after I put a bit of pea stone out there)

Today, I got the last wall boarded up. We had to wait until Ron, the electrician put in the wiring for a light I forgot to install in the downstairs shower. All of the outside fixtures are up and the first floor is all set with outlets, switches, and lights. The second floor's "Deco" fans and Moravian Star chandelier should be installed tomorrow and then, when they get the wire and the new circuit box, we will have full electricity!

Took the old fridge to the dump yesterday and will go up to Dennett's in Bangor to see what they have in their bumped and bruised section for fridge's and stoves. Once I get those, the cottage will be livable!

Greg went to NYC this morning at 4am to have a night there with his two sisters and two of his nieces. They are all caravanning it back here tomorrow to start painting the upstairs bedrooms on Friday.

I called State Sand and Gravel today to inquire about peastone for the garage. When I asked when they could deliver it, the phone guy said...20 minutes be too soon??? I said yeah, I had to put down the vapor barrier. I'm gonna call him tomorrow.

Lots going on......always

Larry and his boys arrived yesterday to take the shingles off the roof and put down the rubber membrane for the deck, which didn't arrive. Instead of waiting around, Larry and Josh started in on the kitchen and we got the counter tops cut and placed. The kitchen is very cute...I had to run down to Home Depot and invest in another big piece of maple and get new hinges for the cabinet doors. Josh is going to make the cabinet doors and finish off the rest of the kitchen, which he might have done by the end of the week.

The electricians came in yesterday to install the lights and the outlets and switches and today, I believe, they will dig to bury the power lines and add in the new electrical box in the basement.

Greg leaves tomorrow for New York, where he will meet his sisters and bring them back here for four days of painting.

I am off to sand the ceiling downstairs.

The floors in the cottage are all sanded and ready to go. I was able to have Sherwin Williams paint match the old green on the floors upstairs. The color is gorgeous and we will repaint them this rich dark green that reminds me of grass.

The wonderful thing is that Greg and I agree on colors and treatments for the bedrooms upstairs. I really liked the distressed look of painted shiplap, but because I have neither the time nor the inclination to paint the boards and then sand it off, we are going with color washes upstairs on the walls and ceilings. It might be a lot of color, but for a Maine cottage for a week, I find that most people get cheered by bright colored rooms.



This blue with the green floors is my personal favorite.

I have to constantly review these photos so that I can remember what the place looked like through the phases, we really have come a long way!

Yesterday was sanding floors and putting up trim day. The upstairs rooms are all sanded and ready to paint, though they look really good right now and I toyed with the idea of just leaving them, cleaning up and furnishing the rooms.

n Lots has been happening, of course. Progress on the kitchen: All the doors have been made and reinforced and hung. I found some brushed metal pulls that are fairly contemporary and look like modern boat cleats. Ended up getting figured maple for the counter tops, which should look fairly cool.

I am working on the floors upstairs. Spent about an hour on my hands and knees pulling out old linoleum tacks and punching down nail heads in preparation for sanding. I sanded a bit last night, but had to call it quits around 5:30 to entertain friends and their kids at home. It's 5:30 am now and I plan to be sanding in about 45 minutes. The master bedroom floor is easy as there is no paint on it, just trying to get the spray from the foam insulation off.

Monday all hell breaks loose as the electricians will dig to bury the power lines, finish the electrical, hook up the lights and new hot water heater we installed yesterday. Monday also has our contractor coming to install the rubber membrane on the roof for the second floor deck.

Been trying some color washing on boards. So far have not come up with a winner for colors, but I have to choose this weekend, or we will not have anything for Greg's family to do when they get here next Thursday! Plus Sherwin Williams is having a 25% off sale this weekend.

Too tired to post photos today.

Photo day!

Progress is still going strong. Marcus is going strong on the kitchen, and I am going out today to get countertops, drawer slides, and other accoutrements so that he can keep moving on it. I really like the detail of the" feet" on the cases.


While I grouted yesterday, Marcus made two door mock-ups, which you can see below. I chose the one on the left with the 1 3/4" border surround rather than the one with the larger surround on the right. I wanted to put on wrought iron strap hinges, but I think the doors, which I reallllly like, are too contemporary for that. I think I will try and find some copper finish hinges and knobs instead.

Ceilings are done! The rooms upstairs look amazing

I particularly love this photo of the master bedroom. Did I mention that we are thinking of doing a tinted wash on the walls rather than painting over the knots, which have turned out to be rather beautiful.

I have bathroom tile envy! I wish we had such beautiful tiles in our own house. I finished grouting and polishing both bathroom tub and shower surrounds yesterday and they are really beautiful.

I

Thanks to the kindness of friends, neighbors and blog readers, Bill and Suzie (whose names have been changed to protect the innocent), I was able to store all of Sunnyside's possessions in their garage yesterday. Three loads in the back of the truck, plus some hand carrying, and Little Bohemia no longer looks like a storage unit! Bill (again, not his real name) came down into the garage after I was finished and said "all of this fit into Little Bohemia???" I failed to mention to him about all the stuff hidden in closets and under beds!

I have to go over there to clean today as I have friends coming tomorrow to stay for a week with their adorable tow headded boys.

Thanks again Bill and Suzie!!

I was in Aubuchon Hardware the other day, and a lovely woman looked at me and said "You're Mainecliffdweller, right? I read your blog." She was very complimentary about the progress on the cottage, which was nice. I do think that she used to read my first blog, "MaineFoodie," the one that I probably could have developed into a business, but got bored with it instead. Now there are Maine food blogs everywhere, but I was one of the first.

So, we continue to fly at the cottage. Both bathrooms are now almost done. The upstairs bathroom looks amazing! I am envious of the copper tile around the tub, it looks like pennies pressed into the walls, and Greg did such an amazing job at laying them perfectly straight.
As I keep saying, the textures are a strange combination in the upstairs bath, with the copper tile, the slate floor and the greenish sandstone walls, all with deco fixtures, but it works!

I saved the old mirrored medicine cabinet from the previous bathroom....remember this photo? See where the ceiling starts here? We raised it about two feet.

Here is the cool pocket door for the upstairs bathroom, its a maple door with the original glass inset panel at the top. It's a seven foot door, so no one can see in. I am debating about whether to find a piece of stained glass to inset over the clear glass. Because this is a pocket door, I cannot put a curtain over the glass because it won't fit.

Please do not look too closely at the downstairs shower tile, which had a bit of trouble going up! I got pretty good yesterday using the tile wet saw, which I always thought was a bit scary, but really, it's easy once one gets the hang of it. I had to cut a few of the glass tiles to fit into the corner where there was a gap. We are adding grab bars and the shower hardware and I think after the grout goes in, and the trim goes up, it won't be as noticeable. I could kick myself for not having the confidence to do the tile on my own ...next time!! Grout work on the tiles around the shower and tub happen today, whenever EBS opens.

The Kitchen is looking great, and we finalized the design yesterday. Our new hire, 21 year old Marcus, is doing a good job. The two of us came up with a design that works, simple and straightforward. I cannot believe that he has a lot of the framing work done already.
Where the broom is will be a granite topped island and there will be either open shelves on either side of the window or, if time allows, cupboards. I love the sink, which was in the original kitchen, so I decided to use it again, it's enamel over cast iron.

I found a 1" thick figured birch plywood at Home Depot, which I think will look great for countertops. We made the "L" where the stove will go measure only 8' from the wall, so a single sheet of the birch can be used and we won't have a seam to worry about.

Real work has gotten in the way again and I am up to my eyeballs in art research. This means that I am freaking out about ole Sunnyside getting underway. I feel that the work has stalled somewhat, but Greg reminds me that it is now down to a lot of little things, which are actually getting done. I've called in reinforcements, which will cost me more in the end, but which will ultimately catch us up. Larry and his boys are coming the early part of next week to finish the ceilings upstairs, put the rubber membrane over the roof of the addition so that we can build the deck, finish hanging the doors (which happened today) and help with other things. When I last checked in at the cottage, Marcus had successfully trimmed out the beams in the kitchen and the living room and was half way through building the first set of kitchen cabinets.
After presenting a collections evaluation to a local client today, which she deemed "a work of art" in itself, Greg and I went to Home Depot and picked out the track lighting for the ceilings in the kitchen and the addition and the carriage lights for the outside of the house.
Greg is now over at the cottage planning out the bathroom tiling upstairs. He called to tell me we were three square feet too short and needed more tiles...these are the clear glass tiles with the copper threads running through them...which he correctly told me needed white thinset mortar rather than the gray we used elsewhere because the color will show through the tiles...details details....Home Depot is open until 9pm tonight.
Still looking for a vintage newel post while I research an 18th-century London silversmith!

I took yesterday off to drive to Western Massachusetts in order to see a silk and needlework portrait done by a young girl in 1808. The 13 hour car ride was worth it!

The day before, Greg and I turned the hose on the side of Sunnyside to try and find a leak that was streaming water over the new sliders in the master bedroom. It was easy to find, since I pretty much knew where it was. The vent over the door, which was installed when the addition was built, about 10 years ago, had no caulk around it and is the perfect place for water to gather and seep down to the door frame. After about ten minutes of testing along the wall, Greg turned the hose on the vent and water streamed down over the header for the slider....




It's way high up there, too high for me to get to it, so I am getting my boy Josh to come over and fix it.

Our new finish carpenter, Marcus, started yesterday. He is working on casing in the new support beams right now before he moves onto building our new kitchen cabinets.

We have working toilets and sinks now too! Very exciting....we will even have working bathroom doors today too!