This Lo Life

I've started working on the interior doors, which has proved to be a very dirty job. The old paint was peeling off of the doors so we decided to strip them all down to the bare wood and repaint them. To accomplish this task, I borrowed my friend's 60 year old 3"x24" belt sander. This thing worked quite well but created a huge amount of dust. I've got dust all over my garage now and upon almost everything in there. I regret not putting up plastic around my work area to contain the dust. I also took many precautions. I wore glasses, a mask and hearing protection. A belt sander is very loud! I used that piece of equipment for almost four hours. That's a lot of exposure to a high volume of noise. It took me one hour per door to with the belt sander to strip it down to the wood. I started with 80 grit sand paper, which worked well. I followed that up with 120 grit paper to smooth it out. After that, Joel and I wiped down the doors to check out th...

While Joel and I were working on the doors, Allison was at work on painting the hallway walls and existing cabinet frames.

Allison and I have been working on painting the rest of the family room ceiling and the hallway. I decided to repaint the entire ceiling of the family room because of a host of issues. First, I created streaks or "lap marks" after trying to touch up areas that I had to repair. Second, I noticed the area above the pantries were more yellow than the rest of the ceiling. Allison reminded me that I didn't paint the area above the pantries very well because I thought we were going to install molding above them. However, we changed our mind on the molding and decided to install LED tape lighting to create an up light over the pantries and kitchen wall cabinets. Third, the ceiling paint line between the dining area and the family room looked really bad because it wasn't straight. Fourth, I didn't paint above the front door. Seeing that the ceiling had so many problems and after some research on how to fix streaks, I just decided to paint the entire ceiling again. So we...

When you're filling the role as the general contractor, you need to find subcontractors. For the last few months, I've been searching for the right person to fabricate and install our counter tops. Along the way, I've learned I need to decide on the fixtures and the edge or "profile" of the counter top before I can commit to hiring someone. Allison and I started out with the easiest part, picking the fixtures. They are the kitchen sink, faucet, and water purification system because these items will be installed into the counter top. For the sink, I think I'm going to go with the  Kraus Outlast MicroShield  because it's the thickest gauge sink I could find (16 gauge) so it won't make a lot of noise when being used and it's scratch resistant. We cook a lot at home so I figure this sink is going to get a lot of  wear  and tear so it should be built to last.  For the kitchen faucet, I'm leaning towards the Delta Essa . It's got a sleek look a...