Nursery

Our baby boy was due today, but he didn't get the memo. Instead, we bring you his nursery, ready for his arrival.

Thanks to painting help from my dad Steve and Timothy's mom Joanne in January, we also finished the guest room.

Bamboo Flooring, Part 2

We've been too busy working on the floors and painting upstairs to post about it! Before we get another room finished, here's what we've accomplished so far.

Installing wood flooring in the bedrooms was easy. Installing it on the landing and stairs took more work and ingenuity. On the landing, Timothy undercut the trim boards for the railing and shaved off the tops of the flooring board edges to let them slip underneath. Then he glued these edges in place. The other sides of the landing have baseboards that allow for expansion of the floating flooring.

Taking the carpet off the stairs was only the first step in preparing them for the wood flooring. The lumber treads stuck out beyond the risers and had to be cut off with a circular saw and the ends finished with a chisel. In addition to covering the treads with flooring and nosing, we used thin plywood to cover the particle board and tidy up the risers.

The whole endeavor has made plenty of use of our new table saw!

The end result looks gorgeous!

We've also painted the nursery a warm yellow-orange that complements the floor. Our baby boy is due to arrive in March!

Bamboo Flooring, Part 1

Over the past few months, we have also been working on installing the bamboo flooring upstairs, starting with the east bedroom. The first step was demolition of the carpet.

Then came more tedious prep work. The subfloor is oriented strand board rather than plywood, and the quality of installation is less than stellar. We could not find a self-leveling compound that can be used on OSB, so we tacked down layers of tar paper to even out edges and other unlevel spots. We also removed the baseboards and undercut the door trim to allow the flooring to slip underneath.

After unrolling and trimming the underlayment to fit came the fun part - installation of the bamboo planks. The flooring is Mohawk Uniclic, which snaps together along both the long and short sides of the boards, requiring methodical left-to-right and front-to-back installation. To maximize the salvaged pieces, we used previously cut planks as much as possible.

The east bedroom is done, except the closet, which can use small scrap boards left at the end. Installation went quickly, but the next area will be more challenging. The hallway will require some creative cutting and gluing to come together.

Wildlife

It's been too long since we last posted. By late June, the baby martins had grown as big and sleek as the adults and were eating whole insects.

Before long, they left to join hundreds of other purple martins in the undeveloped fields to the east of our house before migrating onward.

The barn swallows laid another round of eggs much too late in the year and raised three babies in sweltering heat. Once they got their feathers, the little swallows spent most of their time standing on the edge of the nest, panting.

Recently, we've spotted multiple tiny geckos around the house.

With all of these animals living nearby, we have applied for Certified Wildlife Habitat status from Wildlife Austin and the National Wildlife Federation. Our neighborhood is competing with others in Austin to have the most habitats certified this year!

Empty Nest

Our little barn swallows have gotten big. So big, in fact, that they've left the nest. Here they are yesterday; this morning, they were gone.

The purple martin babies have ventured out far enough for us to get a peek.

And for the first time, we've spotted a hummingbird at the feeder. Good to know we're not making that sugar water for nothing.

Here We Go Again

Just as one project wraps up...

... another begins. We lucked into nearly enough bamboo flooring for upstairs. Our neighbors are having their flooring replaced under warranty due to an installation issue and opted to go with a different look. The flooring was a floating installation and is in great shape, and it's exactly what we'd wanted!

Baby Birds

We're still putting the house back together after the tiling. In the meantime, we bring you birds! Our purple martin house has even more families this year than last.

We also have a barn swallow nest on the front porch. As much as we like the martins, I really enjoy seeing the baby swallows every time I step out the front door.

Tile: Installation, Days 2-4

Setting the tile.

The messy work of grouting the tile.

We're almost there.

Tile: Installation, Day 1

When we went by to check the progress of the tile installation at lunch, it looked fantastic. Unfortunately, the 1' by 2' tile was oriented in the wrong direction, running across rather than the length of the house.

Fortunately, the installer hadn't gotten too far and still managed to cover a large area today. The living room and much of the kitchen has tile set.

Tile: Demolition

After five long years of living with carpet and tile we never liked, we are finally redoing our floors. Out with beige on beige, out with matted high traffic areas that should never have been carpeted. Demolition has been ongoing for the past two days, and tomorrow the crew should start laying tile.

In the meantime, the garage and upstairs bedrooms make it look like we're hoarders.

Blue

It's been quite awhile since we've posted. Timothy and I took some time off from home improvement projects to plan our Hawaiian wedding, but we are back to work with painting. Our bedroom is now a pale blue, and the bathroom is gray with a cobalt blue accent wall. We went with the deepest blue on the fan deck; when we asked to get it even more saturated, the amount of pigment needed would not fit in the paint can! 

 

Meanwhile, development in the neighborhood is finally moving ahead. The first major building in the town center, the Austin Children's Museum, is under construction, and to the north, a grocery store is also underway. Designed by Lake|Flato, the new HEB will open this summer. It's about 3/4 of a mile walk from our house, and we're excited at the prospect of never again setting foot in the chaotic Hancock Center HEB.

Birds and Butterflies

At the Mueller Plant Fest in early April, we bought a purple martin house that had been donated to raise funds for the Friends of the Mueller Prairie. The three-level, 12-compartment house needed some work, but nothing that seemed too difficult.



The house has entirely too many different types of metal - aluminum roof and floor plates, galvanized steel dividers, painted galvanized exterior panels, ferrous (and very rusted) nuts and bolts, and stainless steel clips holding rebar perches. After too much thinking about galvanic reactions, I probably did not make any significant improvements. The nuts and bolts are now zinc, sacrificial compared with the other metals - though they may corrode away, at least they shouldn't damage the other metals in the process. The perches are aluminum rods.

I also learned entirely too much about how to paint galvanized metal. Almost all spray paints are alkyd (oil-based), which is incompatible with the zinc coating and paint adhesion will fail. I couldn't find a store in town carrying the latex spray paint recommended in this blog, so I brushed on an aluminum primer before spray-painting the top coat.

Finally reassembled, we put the birdhouse up in the backyard in early May, perhaps too late to attract a group of martins looking for a nesting site.





While we were not fortunate enough to have nesting birds this spring, we did host another form of developing life. Long-tailed skipper caterpillars devoured almost all of the leaves of our Texas wisteria, then made cocoons from the few that remained. We missed seeing the butterflies emerge, but here's one preparing for metamorphosis.

From Winter to Spring

It's been a long time since we've posted, and the weather has turned from snowy winter to beautiful spring.





Over the winter, with the help of my friend Kristen, we painted two rooms: a deep purple wall in the dining room, and a really green green in the half bath.







We also hung some new "art" in the bedroom: framed pages of a bird guide to Texas. Now the walls just need to match the pale blue background of the illustrations, and the room will finally look finished.



This spring, we've watched our plants flourish after the lengthy freeze. The peach tree blossomed and now has a few peaches growing.



Native plants purchased at the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center plant sale in the fall are blooming, and we added a few more from the spring sale. Giant spiderwort:



Winecup:



And lanceleaf coreopsis:



The Wildflower Center is having a photo contest through June 15th, and I plan to enter a few from my garden!