House Of Boyd

Meet Fred

John Boyd — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 02:28:37 +0000

We recently celebrated our 20 year wedding anniversary and what better to celebrate than to add another member to the Boyd clan. So meet Fredricka Constantine Boyd (Fred for short). Fred is a Pembroke Corgi. Shauna got a Pembroke Corgi (Ed) last year for Christmas and while she lived with us, we fell in love with her and missed her very much when Shauna moved into her own apartment. So now, we have two Corgi’s in the family….Ed and Fred!

The New Carpet Is Here

John Boyd — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 01:39:32 +0000

This past week has been a very productive week with our basement remodel. Today, the carpet layers finally came and laid the carpet in the den, computer and staircase of the basement. It’s a great motivator to get the baseboards down and some curtains on the windows as soon as possible. We’re so glad to be at the “buttoning up” stage of the basement remodel. Almost 2 years after we started, it’s finally coming to an end. Of course, we still have a lot to do. The bathroom isn’t finished, but that’s going to have to wait until next spring. But all of the living area of the basement and the kitchenette is almost done…no more bare concrete to walk on. This past weekend, we finished installing the tile, painted and installed our “recycled cabinets”. When I say recycled, I mean recycled. These were headed to the dumpster this time last year, but I decided to throw them in the garage and work on them over the winter months. Here are the before and after pictures.
I still have to install the end caps and put a decorative “L” bracket on the end, but they’re pretty much done. This will also be the first room to get baseboard and curtains. So really, we’re just looking at a couple more weekends of work and the main part of the basement will be finished!!!! It’ll be hard to put off the bathroom til next spring, but before we can start in the bathroom, we need to purchase a stackable washer and dryer and a new living room suit for the den.

Vinyl Final

John Boyd — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 02:53:19 +0000

Today, we finished installing the vinyl floor in the basement. This covers half of the square footage of the basement, the other half will be carpet. Since we had never laid this type of floor before, we were skeptical about taking on the task ourselves, but now, we’re glad that we did. We took our time, did the research and we’re more than pleased with the finished product. Hopefully, this time next week, we’ll have the carpet down as well….but for that, we’re hiring the professionals….

Final Touches

John Boyd — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 05:07:04 +0000

Even though it’s been a few weeks since we posted an update on our basement remodel project, it doesn’t mean that we haven’t been busy. The entire basement is painted now and we’ve been adding the finishing touches before the new carpet is installed. We spent most of the day installing the new vinyl flooring in the kitchentte area, the laundry closet and the downstairs hallway. It looks as if we may have underestimated the amount of vinyl tile we’ll need, so we’ll probably have to order a few more boxes. The carpet layers are coming on Monday to take some measurements. We’ve already picked out the carpet for the other half of the basement, so hopefully we’ll have it installed in the next week or so. After that, it’s just a matter of getting the doors up, the baseboard installed and some curtains up…….!

Weekend Of July 10th

John Boyd — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:45:38 +0000

Just a few photos taken around the house this weekend. Our cucumbers are finally starting to grow, we’ll be picking the first batch in just a few days. We’ve also had many visits for the local squirrels. We put in a feeder a month ago or so and we have many visitors throughout the morning and evening hours. And of course, we got around to doing some work in the basement. The last room that needed primed has finally been primed and ready to paint. Unfortunately, we found a few places that needed to be touched up with joint compound, but all in all, it has turned out well…next step will be to decide on the flooring and to paint all of the walls that have been primed. There is a light at the end of tunnel! We want this project complete by late fall!

Weekend Of July 3rd

John Boyd — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 03:32:48 +0000

Spent the long, lazy, hot weekend taking some photos around the house. Many of the plants that we planted in the spring are finally starting to grow now. Of course I had Mabel out enjoying the weather and we let our new beagle (Bailey) explore the neighborhood and get used to her surroundings. Also spent a lot of time reconditioning our old utility trailer. Cleaned it up, sanded any rust and painted it to match our new truck. You can view the entire photoset by clicking here!

Getting Primer On The Walls

John Boyd — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 04:06:00 +0000

So today was another milestone on our quest to finish our basement remodel. We finished sanding the walls last night (so we thought), and we started getting the walls primed and ready for paint. The computer room, hallway, laundry closet and den are completely primed and ready for paint. However, we discovered that the kitchenette area still has a few rough edges and will need a skim coat of mud in some areas. We’re hoping to get this completed tomorrow and have the walls and ceiling primed before Fathers Day is over!!!

Another Step Closer To Finishing The Basement

John Boyd — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 02:03:34 +0000

The past few days have been spent mudding the walls in the basement in an attempt to get it completely finished in the next coming weeks. We still have the bathroom to finish (tile and drywall), but that’ll have to wait until we a new stackable washer and dryer. But for now, we need to finish the kitchenette area, the hallway, staircase, computer room and den. All of the seams are completed, 2 coats of mud have been applied, the last will be applied in the morning and sanding will begin on Tuesday. Slowly but surely, it’s coming together and we’re excited about getting it done. We still need to decide on flooring.

Our New Truck

John Boyd — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 01:49:26 +0000

Chevy Colorado

Last winter, we quickly learned that our Solstice wasn’t the best car to drive in the sleet and snow. Great for summer time driving, bad for winter. As much as we enjoyed it, it just wasn’t practical for us any longer and since we sold our Jeep, we really needed something that we can pull our trailer with and considering the amount of trips we make to Lowes, a new pickup seemed to fit the bill. We looked at the Toyota’s and the Ford’s, but it was the Chevy dealership who was willing to give us what we needed out of the Solstice. We also got many more features on the Colorado than we would’ve been able to get on the Toyota or Ford at a comparable price. So far, we’re loving it.

Photoset For Our Basement Remodel

John Boyd — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:38:51 +0000

This project started in mid September 2008. A complete remodel of our basement, new walls, new plumbing, new electrical, etc. Since we’re doing this ourselves, we allocated 2 years to complete the project. So we’re hoping to be completely finished by the end of September, 2010. Based on estimates, we figure that we’re saving about $28,000.00 doing 99% of the work ourselves. You can follow this link to view the entrie photoset, starting from day one!