I have a new roof going on the house today.  After a few weeks of getting quotes, and finding the right roofing guy for the right price its finally going on.  We are also getting rid of one skylight towards the back of the house.   Reason for dumping the skylight is that I need to built a wall and the skylight would have been right in the middle of where the wall is going.  Some before / in progress pictures are below.  I’ll have some after shots later today / tomorrow.

Just a quick tip for when you are doing nested resources….

In this example, I am building a app for a client where there is a recipient and they have many physicians. So I have a case where I have a nested resource. To keep thing DRY, I added this to my before filter where I get the recipient. This allows you to nuke the find in the show, edit, update and delete actions and retain the original use of @physician.

def get_recipient
  @recipient = Recipient.find(params[:recipient_id])
  # DRYs her up a little so you don't have a find in the show,edit,update and delete actions
  @physician = @recipient.physicians.find(params[:id]) if params[:id]
end

Don’t forget to modify your index find, change it to reflect the nested route… In my case:

    @physicians = @recipient.physicians.find(:all)

Have any other useful tips? Let me know!

Here is how our kitchen and dining room came out.

This is the buffet table we did in the dining room, we did a glass tile counter top for it
b/c of the leftover tile from the backsplash in the kitchen.

This is the guest room I just (almost) finished yesterday,
just need a bed frame and some other stuff..

The next project, the pond, got my rocks yesterday… Loaded down my truck and my dads.  PA Flag stone.

My other project I am working on, the garage!  To many projects, not enough time…

Eventually I’d like to do a nice garage tile floor and finish rocking the garage.  Garage has its own zone of heat too.

Here are some new pictures of the outside, the grass is coming in really good.  I just finished putting down some fertilizer / grub and insect killer.  Central Air unit / install is going to happen this Tuesday, I am excited!  We ran the 40 Amp line outside into a waterproof box with a cut off and the whip is ready for the Unit install.  I also ran an extra 20 amp line outside for some low voltage lighting and eventually a pond pump into its own small waterproof box.   I was able to score a free pond pump and pond insert, I am not sure how big it is, but its free!

Front Yard

Back Yard

Here are some before, during and after shots of the landscaping. We did a simple design for the front, and are planning on adding another layer or two of the brick to finish it off. We just did one layer so we could put the initial mulch down and that is all that would fit in my truck.

Everything seems to be growing pretty good, the grass has some bare spots and I’ll address those in the spring. Hopefully some of those weeds will go away with the next weed and feed session. Next up is to do a fence along the side and back (behind the new arborvitaes we planted). Waiting for that tax refund!

Front Before

Front After

Another Shot of the front – An in progress photo

Another two shots of the front – All done – And sidewalk / walkway is power washed now!

The Backyard

Before:

In Progress (All cleaned up and seeded)

After – John Power washed neighbors fence too

Two more backyard shots

Well the siding is 95% done, there is just some minor trim work that needs to be completed.  It really came out a lot nicer then I expected.  The wider planks and grainy look makes it stand out from regular vinyl siding.

Front View:

Back View:

Me and my Father-in-Law started the Bamboo flooring upstairs.  We started in the master bedroom and are working our way into the office.  It looks a lot nicer then I had imagined.

Ignore the messy bed and desk!

Other Bedroom Angle

I’ll be working on the office / hallway area’s this week, then into the guest bedroom.  Our entire 2nd floor with be Bamboo with the exception of the bathroom & laundry room.

Well the house is actually starting to look like a real house now! Closets are starting to get shelves, rooms are getting painted, the kitchen *almost* looks like a kitchen (less a counter top!). Now is a good time for me to say we wouldn’t be able to do this with out the help of Johnny O, who has been here every single weekend since we bought the place helping out with everything from the wood floors to ripping closet doors.

Now onto the pictures and updates…

Appliances are in (except for the sink / dishwasher which will go in after the counter top). I managed to wire the outlet for the microwave, and install it by myself – patted myself on the back after that.

P.S. All these pics can be viewed here also on flickr via a sideshow -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/burmjohn/sets/72157603473704766/show/

Food in our house, finally!

The Bathroom now has lights, and lots of them!

Our hallway closet now has a door, shelves, and food!

The other closet (jacket closet) in the entrance way now has a door, walls, and shelves – Along with some access panels.

In the closet I wired the control unit to the Paloma instant hot water heater, which hopefully will be saving us up to 30% a year in gas bills…

In the entrance hallway I wired in a new lighting fixture, now everyone that enters the house can feel like they are starring in Broadway play.

Living room, cleaned up a bit , now featuring a Christmas tree! Only a few things left to do here is to hang shelves, crown molding and floor molding & Window molding and outlet switches.

Another angle of the living room…

Here is the master bedroom, all painted! Its hard to see the colors in these shots below, but the walls are a tanish color and the back wall is chocolate. We still need to paint the windows and add molding, clean up the base board heating and replace the fan.

Other angle in the master bedroom.

This room is obviously not touched yet, but its our temporary bedroom which eventually will be the office.

This is the almost done laundry room upstairs.

The other side featuring a nice slop sink…

That’s it for now… As you can see everything is moving along pretty well and I am off to relax.

Well another weekend has past and some more things were accomplished. Johnny O worked on getting the entrance to the house slated with the natural slate my wife picked out. It looks really nice.

He also cut the molding to trim out the fire place, and I got to fire up the brad nailer that my Dad has purchased for us. It worked out really nice. We grouted the seams after and it needs one more cleaning to get the extra grout off, but the molding really finished off the wood floor to slate transition nicely.

During the week I had started to replace some of my rocker switches for the highhats with Insteon dimmer switches. These are really nice, they have LED indicators to show the brightness levels and it makes it easy to see them in the dark. They are also X10 compatible so they can be controlled via a remote control or your PC. Im hoping to replace most of the switches in the house with these. Check them out here -> http://www.smarthome.com/2476d-light-dimmer.html

This weekend I spend about 90% of my time working in the master bedroom. The ceiling was a mess and needed to be screwed in (old nails were popping), spackled and sanded. I finally was able to put two coats of the Benjamin Moore ceiling paint on and it came out pretty good, at least its a lot better then what it was. This week I’ll be panting the walls, there is just some minor spackling to get done on the spots I might have missed.

Jamie also was able to stop by on Friday and figure out why the circulator for the baseboard heating was constantly running. He re-wired the relay for the pump, and I ran out and purchased a new thermostat to run the downstairs. It seems to be running perfect now, I just have to snake the wire down the wall and mount it this week. I am going to replace all of the zones with new thermostats, hopefully saving money from the increased energy savings.

I also ordered a cat 6 patch panel and received it this week from eBay. I dont know when I’ll have time to finish and clean up some of the wiring. I still have to finish running my surround sound cables in the living room. So much to do, so little time!

The kitchen is almost all in, and its actually starting to look like a house now.  The bathroom downstairs is now fully functional, the laundry room is done (with the exception of some molding and shelves).  Here are some pictures:

Well, this weekend is it! We have to move , there is no other choice, we close on our Coop Monday. Sunday will be spent moving all of our furniture and other things to the house. Our vanity is in stock now, and we will have a sink (the final piece of the puzzle) to complete the downstairs bathroom. Hopefully this weekend we will finish the hardwood in the kitchen and hallway.
The last few days I have been rushing to finish the painting in at least the living room so we have a place to put our stuff (and we probably will be sleeping there for a while till the master bedroom is done.) We went with some bold colors again, these pictures were taken when it was still wet, so it probably will not be as bright as in the photos below. Benjamin Moore paint, its the way to go.