We used a lot of paint this weekend

This is what Matt was doing until midnight last night.  He was on a *waitforit* roll!  This is what the living room looked like when he was done:

We need to rent staging for the ceiling and the edging.  In addition to finishing up the living room, Matt also finished rolling out the loft, where i had done all the cutting in earlier.  We're a pretty good painting team; I cut, he rolls.  It works out well, since i have a really steady hand, and rolling for too long makes my arms hurt.

We also started working on the master bedroom Matt prepped the closets and doors, and i did some more cutting in (I told you I have a steady hand).

So um...

Matt and I just realized there are NO traffic lights in Acton. Not even a blinking light.

Spindles and cabinets

All those miles of wood trim are looking better with some crisp white paint on them! And Sunday we started to paint the walls, too.

Before:

And after:

Matt and I both love how the gray walls look with the white trim!  The wood railings will be stained to match the floor, which will be a dark walnut.

Our carpenters started unboxing the kitchen cabinets!  They also discovered that we apparently bought a range vent and hood (which we didn't realize we were buying with the cabinets) so we ended up saving money!  The guys installed the vent directly to the outside, which means no gross gunk will end up behind the fridge, like it does now with our recirculating vent.

So pretty!!

Trim

We just got back from spending the weekend working up at the house.  We slept there for the first time! We had a very productive weekend - on Saturday, we sanded about 6 miles worth of wood trim (it felt like that much, anyway), and on Sunday we did two coats of primer.

Before and after:

The floor guy will be getting started on Wednesday (which is why we were a little messy with the primer on the floors - we knew he would be sanding any paint drips away anyway).  Our carpenter "feathered" the wood where the old wood stove was, since our new fireplace insert is going to take up less room.  This way, the floor guy can mix new wood in with the old wood and stain them the same.

And we got the kitchen cabinets in! Wanna see a sneak peak?

Yup, boxes.

Oops, forgot the exterior pictures!

Some "before" photos

Panorama of the master bedroom

Front entryway, stairs on the right, looking through to the kitchen

From the living room, looking up to the loft, with the kitchen at bottom left

Panorama of the loft

Work has begun!

Matt spent Friday night and Saturday getting started with the carpenter, the plumber, and the oil technician.  Matt demo'ed the fireplace surrounding the wood stove (we're moving that to the basement), Jay the carpenter repaired a lot of dog-chewed trim, and Scandal the oil tech and Kevin the plumber replaced all the missing pipes in the basement and fixed the broken baseboards.

CJ stood in front of the space heater for a few hours on Saturday - it was cold in there!