Colors - one more time (for now; we'll resume later)

I'm learning. I finally figured out if I upload the pictures first, then it's easier to format the words around the picture frames. Also, if I upload them in reverse order from the way I want them to be viewed, then I don't have to click and drag to rearrange. It only took me about 8 months to figure this out. That gives me hope; I'm teachable.

It's Sunday morning (barely - it's almost noon) and I'm not at The 123. PC is though. He got up early -again- and went down there to get started. He has a few more things he's got to finish up inside and then he's going outside to get started out there. He's looking forward to moving outside. I'm looking forward to him moving outside, too. It'll be good to get some of that outside stuff started (more about this stuff later) and that gets him out of the way so I can take over inside. (I'll tell you more about that, too. Later.)

For right now:
Here's a picture of the bathroom with primer on the walls:




Here's a dusty-camera-lens picture looking in at the green bathroom walls:




One wall, the one you can't see in the above picture, is the darker green (if you've been following along, this is the bullfrog as opposed to the lighter green of the spring peepers).
Here's a tri-color corner shot:




The ceilings are (and the rest of them will be, too) the traditional white. Trim will be the creamy white. The deep red will be accent, at least in the bathroom. Outside of the bathroom, two of the larger walls will be painted this deep red to create a cozy corner where you can relax with your coffee and read or open up your laptop and check your email.

Enough for now; I've got to go. We're meeting PC over at the lodge at Tygart Lake for the buffet lunch (and live music!). This is opening weekend. The Foundation sponsored the Spring Hop and had all kinds of activities going for the past few days and I've been wanting to get over there. Yum.

[I think the Tygart Lake State Park Foundation has a website, too, but I seem to have misplaced the address. Will someone shoot me an email with that information, please?]

Colors - yet again

There's no going back now; the colors have been chosen and purchased.
Since I've been such a ninny about choosing the colors and I've changed my mind about two gazillion times, I decided enough was enough. I bought paint today. As a matter of fact, I painted the bathroom today, but for this post I'll stick with pictures of the color samples.

My monitor is really bad about showing colors. I didn't realize how bad until I saw the color samples on another computer. These pictures don't show the lighter green very well on my computer; I hope you can see it better on yours. As a matter of fact, the lighter green looks like another white to me. It's not. It's called 'rejuvenation' and it's a refreshing sage-ish green. PC says it puts him in mind of frogs. I can live with that; I like frogs, especially the spring peepers.

I hope you can see the colors. If not, you'll have to come on in and have yourself a cappuccino and check it out. We're still shooting for a September opening. Or, before that, if you're driving, walking, or biking past and see us working, you can stop in and say 'hi.'

I'll post pictures of the bathroom (with the paint still wet) later. I also have a picture of an alligator attack that occurred during the paint purchase. I'm going to post that one over at my other blog, so click over. I'll have it up later this evening.

Maisie Dog

Here's Maisie in the bathroom:




Here's Maisie at home later in the evening. If you look closely, you can see a white streak on the side of her muzzle. I hope I don't find a big trenched-in face print in the bathroom wall mud tomorrow.

MUD

I mentioned earlier that I am not a very fast drywall mudder ('mudder' is probably not a word, but you know what I mean). Well, I have to also add that I am messy.
This first picture shows a new bucket of drywall mud with my mixer in it. I've never added water to a new bucket before, but figured I'd give it a try. I added about a quart and the end result was very smooth. A bit droopy, but it worked rather well to keep the mud coats thin - which will mean less sanding.
See my feet? One has a running shoe on it and the other one is furry. Oh, wait, no, that's not mine - I had two shoes on - that's Maisie. She came to hang out with me. I think I have a picture of her in the bathroom; I'll post it later.
You can see the drill at the top left of the picture and the water is splattered all over the floor (see? I said I was messy).





Just a random shot of two coats of mud in the back corner of the bathroom ceiling (it looks as if this was after a light sanding after the second coat - see the smeary looking dust around the edges of the white?):





My clothes look like this, too:



At least this stuff washes off. I'm going to have to dig out some crappy old painting clothes soon, though.

Bathroom Wall Framing

Before we get back to the question of color (and my indecisiveness), I'm going to post miscellaneous pictures. I cleaned off the memory card in my camera and I'm trying to organize them on my computer; I've found a few that will be good to post here, but they're random...

The beginning of the bathroom wall framing:

Color debate

I purchased the paint primer last night, but put off buying anything with color because I'm indecisive!

For the past few days I've been mudding the inside of the bathroom (I'm not very fast) with the intention of getting it ready to paint the first part of next week. I hope to use a couple of the lighter shades -for the smaller room- to get an idea of what some of these colors are going to look like; I never think the finished product is exactly the same as the color sample (I think it's just me).

Colors - Try Again

After I put up that last post, I realized that some of these other pics are probably better (with less flash), so I came back to post a few more:

Colors

Here are a few color samples. The background is a floor tile.
What do you think?

The next topic will be drywall mud and bathroom walls.

Interior Colors

Paint.
Adding color to the bright white of fresh drywall always makes a huge impression and, therefore, makes me feel both bold and scared. Bold because it will cause drastic change and scared because what if it looks like crap?
Since looking like crap is not an option, I will be asking for help from people who know something about color. So, rest easy knowing that my (lame) eye for color is not the ultimate decision maker.

After narrowing the options down from a three-inch high stack of color samples to just a few deep, warm, autumn tones, here are some color names (I'm having trouble uploading colors from Behr's website, so I think I'll have to take a picture of the color samples and post them that way. I'll do that before I take the most recent pictures off the camera.):

PUMPKIN PATCH
S-H-250
AWNING RED
S-H-180
PINEAPPLE SODA
340B-6
ITALIAN OLIVE
S-H-390

You can go to Behr.com and plug them in to see before I get them posted over here.

Opinions are welcome :).

Springtime - post-flu catch-up post

Just because I've been slacking on the blog doesn't mean work at The 123 is slacking. The drywall is hung and the mudding has started. Also, some of the plumbing that needed rerouted for both the first and second floors has been finished.

Now that the flu has finally loosed its grip, I will update pictures and post some color samples soon.
And even though the temperatures remain wintry, little yellow coltsfoot flowers are popping out of the hillside, so there is hope for spring - soon.

Brick/Block Cutting, again

I do have pictures of drywall progress, but I'm pretty sick of drywall, so I'm changing the subject...

The window that faces Main Street is too small.
Okay, the window isn't really all that small, but you have to be standing up to see out of it (and for me, tip-toes help).

Remember when PC cut the door into the brick wall on the west side? Well, this was very similar, only the brick on this side of the building is just facade and not structural; the cinderblocks on the inside are the structural support.

They used the same saw, only this time they hooked it up to the hose to keep the dust down. You can see the water marks on the brick below the cut in this picture:





Here's a closer view:





And closer still:





And from the inside looking out:

Construction Boredom and Blog Neglect

I've been neglecting this blog while I'm busy building the Grafton123.com site.

I just wanted to stop in with a quick update: Drywall hanging continues.

Not a very exciting update, huh?
No apologies; sometimes construction is boring and right now we are in a boring, plodding lull.

After the drywall and the painting comes tile. I get to lay the tile myself. While I'm at it, PC will be outside working on the entryway. I'll keep you up to date, but be sure to check out the main site often, as information is added everyday. If there's something you'd like to see over there, please let me know (mk@grafton123.com). You can put the information together yourself, or you can tell me what you'd like to see and I'll try and pull something together.

Also, I was thinking about it today as I was digging through my picture files: I know there are quite a few impressive photographers in town. If you have pictures from around the area, I'd appreciate it (a lot!) if you'd share. It might make the web site building a bit quicker (and certainly prettier).

Drywall

Here's the view of the wall as the insulation board goes up:




Here's the same view (or close) with drywall going up:




Drywall moves the project from dark to light; it's the first drastic step up from the deconstruction zone.


Color is a big topic of discussion right now.
We're thinking bright and clean and warm.
When we get further along with the choosing, I'll post some color samples.

Drywall Delivery

A normal sheet of drywall is 4'x8', like plywood or paneling; it's standard. Other sizes are available, though sometimes they are hard to find. PC finally found the sizes he was looking for with these guys:




While we did get some standard sized sheets, mostly we got a bigger size (4.5'x12') that is much heavier. This is PC & our neighbor who was kind enough (and strong enough) to help unload (not just one delivery, but two):



I stood around and took pictures.

Construction!

I'm always 2-3 weeks behind when it comes to posting pictures; these two pictures are from January 9th. I will take more pictures this weekend and again on Monday when the drywall is scheduled for delivery (yay!).

This first picture is just a shot of the saw horses and 2x4s.




This picture shows the beginning framing for the ceiling soffit. In the interest of keeping the high ceilings, we compromised with a soffit that will cover the duct work for the second floor and some of the other utility stuff. Some things will still be exposed, but we can make those things look good.