If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Bushman gets A Nursery


If you haven't noticed, I've been absent as of late.

No?  Damn!

Oh well.  As usual, I get busy doing all sorts of things.  (It happens with ADD)

After our return from Mexico, I was on vacation from work for two weeks and while the weather was crap (no wood cutting) I did get a few things accomplished on the homestead.

My top priority was getting the spare bedroom turned into a nursery.
(It sounds so weird...NURSERY...I'm too old to be saying that - LOL)

First things first.  That room needs new windows.  (The whole house does)
So I get on my trusty steed (the internet) and start searching for window companies, prices and all the stuff that goes with it.  In short, I discovered that I am too poor to be warm.  Yep!  Having someone replace the windows in my house would cost me my first born and well... that would kind of defeat the point of a nursery, right?

What to do? What to do?

Back on the trusty steed, I start searching on how to replace windows DIY.
(What would I ever do without the WWW?)

After hours and hours of searching, reading and countless videos I am convinced I can do it myself.
And that folks - is just what I did.  Well, sort of.

I didn't do the whole house...yet.  I started with the nursery, which is 3 windows, and the bedroom which is 2 windows, for a grand total of 12 windows.  Well, that's what it seemed like anyways!

Before
These windows are horrible.  Cold air blows in so easily that it would billow out the plastic sheeting I put over the windows.  They looked like some sort of demonic glass monster,breathing.


Yes it was cold!

I went with pocket replacement windows.  Low E and Argon filled.  


This picture doesn't show the finished trim but I assure you it is there.  After a brief battle with a can of spray foam (I still have orange fingernails) The windows were sealed up tight.  What an incredible difference.  What I am really excited about is these windows have screens.  Our old windows did not have any screens on them so we never were able to open the windows.  I didn't want to spend money on screens for windows I knew would eventually be ripped out.  I can't wait for spring and those warm breezes to filter through the house.

I saved all of the existing trim and re-installed it.  Then I ripped it back off because I didn't like the looks and replaced it with new.  I even put the little decorative blocks in the corners.  (sure makes installing trim easy)  As luck would have it while at the big box store to purchase new trim for the window we happened upon a double door stainless steel fridge that was 50% off because of a small ding in the door.  The quick trip to the store for $30 worth of window trim turned out a bit more pricey than anticipated but boy, I love the new fridge.  Of course, it didn't exactly fit so I had to remove the lower cabinet and cut it down 1/4 inch as well as remove the countertop and cut it down 3/4 of an inch.  


That is not my beer!


Now that I had suitable windows in these two rooms I had to empty the nursery room of it's belongings.  This room had been used for mostly storage and it also contained the cat litter box.  

In order to remove all of the storage items from this room, I had to make room in other areas of the house.  So an epic re-organization of the house took place.  Pantry, kitchen cupboards and cabinets, garage and a few other places were ravaged and consolidated until I had everything in its place.

Now I could proceed with painting.  I also ordered a closet organizer off Amazon (Love Amazon) and that will be here on Tuesday.

We are going with a jungle theme of sorts in the nursery.  I went with pink upper walls and green lower walls, with a nice chair rail moulding separating them.  It will be painted white to match the rest of the trim in the room.  I started the pink yesterday.  I will finish it tomorrow.  (Today I am cutting firewood)


Here is the theme of the room copied from a picture off the internet.  It won't be exactly like this but you get the point.


Momma is doing well and really starting to sport a nice baby belly.  Every once in awhile, I can feel Corabella in there kicking around.  I am so excited to be an official Dad.  I can hardly wait.

She will enter her third trimester in just two weeks.  It's game time now.
We will be quite busy from here on out.  

That's all for now, don't be alarmed if I don't post regularly.  I'm not sure if I will do the A to Z challenge this year or not.  It would be an easy topic for me that's for sure!

The deer were in the garden two nights ago!



Winter does have its benefits!




Hope all is well with you,
-Bushman


7 comments:

  1. Isn't that typical? One project just leads to another.
    Brave man to do the windows yourself. I managed to replace the boards on our back deck and our fence, but that's as close to a carpenter as I get. (We did have our windows replaced a few years ago. It was worth the couple thousand dollars to watch someone else do it.)
    Certainly understand if you can't do the Challenge this year. Although I might have an option for you - send me an email.

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  2. Good job with the windows! I bet it will be nice and cozy there now in the nursery :) Must be the year for jungle theme; my son/DIL are expecting next month and that's their nursery theme too :)

    betty

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  3. We didn't notice you were absent only because we were absent too. That counts for something, right?

    The only nursery this guy is familiar with is the kind that houses plants. But good job with the windows (I would never attempt that) and that's a cool design you're going with. We hope it works out well. Don't drink too many of those frosty Sam Adams' before working... drink those after.

    (We also chill our beer in snow. Don't ask me why, but tastes 100% better that way)

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  4. We try to do a couple windows a year. The are cheaper in the winter.

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  5. I did the epic "all" window replacement in the summer of 2013 (12 windows & 3 doors) - never again... lol... damn rights, never again! I thank the gods that job is done. Messy hard work, but the payback on my electric and gas bills was well worth the hassle.

    That outdoor fridge seems handy - too bad it's seasonal! :) The indoor one rocks!

    Can't wait to see the rest of the work on the nursery - it's looking like a good start.

    Cheers, Jenny

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  6. It's pretty awesome that you can do these home repairs. You saved a bunch of money on those windows. I had my house done in CT and it cost an arm and a leg. Good for you. The nursery theme and colors sound great

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  7. I can't even properly put together a grilled cheese sandwich.
    Very impressive.
    Also, there's something wrong with the bottles..they're still full. Uh oh!

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