Just a few more pictures.

These pictures are from September. My computer crashed, so I lost all of my October and November pictures. I will try to take some new ones soon.

We have moved our focus to the soon to be baby room. The baby room project includes: new window, scraping the ceiling, new flooring, fresh paint and new closet system. I will add pictures of that project soon too.

Cabinet Progress

We spent the majority of the weekend installing the cabinets we did recieve. Hopefully the rest of the cabinets will arrive this week. Very rough right now, but already a vast improvement. Can't wait to finish up!

Pictures! Pictures! Pictures! (but not done yet)

Big Day Tuesday: Cabinet Delivery

So, as most of you know, we took a chance getting our cabinets through a small, wholesale cabinet distributor that we originally found posted on Craigslist. We’ve been really impressed with the experience thus far. Not only did they furnish the very best bid for the most upgraded cabinets, but the cabinets also came in very quickly, something that from reading reviews online was most people’s main gripe with the company. My greatest fear in going this route was that the cabinets were going to be shoddy. When we put in our order, we really didn’t get to see a good display of the cabinets, and I feared that perhaps they were going to be poorly made.

In receiving our cabinets yesterday, my fear was put to rest. They are really beautiful, well-made cabinets. The paint job is superb and staining is even. That said, I was slightly deflated when I learned that we had been shorted about nine things from our order, including three cabinet bases and multiple small add-on’s such as crown molding, fridge panels, cabinet spacers, ect. Worst yet, when we called the company to inquiry, they were completely nonchalant and unapologetic for the shortage. I am truly hoping that we’re not going to have some long, drawn-out ordeal on our hands. As the company sources their cabinets through Canada, I am guessing that rectifying any mistake made is not going to be a swift process.

We’re just really praying about things. We’ve already paid for everything, which doesn’t give a company much incentive to try to work with us. As we got an excellent price on the cabinets, I am okay with some minor discrepancies and hiccups, but I am really hoping that this will not leave me kitchen-less for an extended period of time.

As for next week’s dinner party that I was so hoping for cabinets, countertops and a sink. I think it might just be tough luck.

Smoky Slate & Turtle Dove

We’ve got a big, exciting weekend in front of us. The sheet rockers finished everything up yesterday so we’re ready to start the painting process. We vacuumed sheet rock dust for what felt like an eternity last evening and hung painter’s plastic over all the windows and doors. Tonight we’re going to prime all the surfaces with a paint sprayer and come in tomorrow morning and spray the ceiling paint.

For generally being an extremely decisive person, I had a heck of a time picking paint colors for the kitchen and porch. I finally decided on ‘Smoky Slate’ for the kitchen and ‘Turtle Dove’ for the porch. Both would fall into the green/gray/blue color family without being overly pronounced as any of the three. For me, the hardest decisions in the course of this remodeling process have been the light fixtures, the paint colors, and the cabinet hardware (still not selected).

I know we’ve been really bad about posting pics as of late. It’s just that we are so tuckered out by the end of the day and uploading pictures takes forever. Once the cabinets arrive on Tuesday, will get some current pics up.

Happy Husband, Happy Wife

The beast, otherwise known as drywall is now complete. Granted, it took us every moment of the weekend to finish, but I am not going to complain. The mudders and tapers arrived at 7 a.m. this morning and it feels great to hand off the next phase of dirty work to someone else for a change. If all goes as planned, they will finish up by end of week. As for the most exciting piece of news, our cabinets are coming next Tuesday. Ready or not, here they come. In between now and then, we have to get the ceiling and walls primed and painted and install the hardwood floors. There is a very strong, gleaming light at the end of this tunnel. I am one excited girl!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Overall, this remodeling process has taken very little toll, that is apart from eating all things microwavable, spending less time with our friends, putting large debits in our checking account, living amidst uncontainable clutter, and working every weekend ALL weekend long. Seriously though, this has been a great experience. I love the constant flurry of activity, I love building something from the ground up, and admittedly, I even love the physicality of the project. But most of all, I LOVE seeing transformations.

This is not to say that there hasn’t been some really challenging moments. Last weekend we experienced the “ugly” in home renovation. Pure mental and physical fatigue coupled with long, hot, grueling hours on the roof made emotions run very high. There was some bickering, some crying, and a whole lot of “woe is me.” Thank you dear husband for putting up with me at my worst. You’re my rock solid companion and I love you.

We’ve also encountered some “bad” jobs along the way, but certainly taking the cake would be roofing and insulating our house. Though insulating is not heavy, back breaking work, it is terribly uncomfortable. Being covered in specks of fiberglass makes you cough, eyes burn, skin itch, and nose run. Now add in a day that is 95 degrees and 100% humidity and you’re in for a real treat. Now try crawling under your house in the dirt to insulate the floors in a 2 ft. crawl space, add in the heat, sweat, and shards of fiberglass and it’s like a dream come true.

Even amidst some of these unpleasantries, there has been such an abundance of “good.” Scott and I were lucky to have a couple days off this week and we got through about a week’s worth of work in a two day time frame. We passed our insulation inspection with flying colors, which is our last inspection until final, and we sheet rocked our ceiling. Our brother in-law, Travis stopped by yesterday evening to help Scott put up some of the wall boards, and my parents are coming over tonight to bring us dinner and help us get more rock on the wall. Hopefully Scott and I will be able to finish the job on Saturday so we can take a much needed day of rest come Sunday.

We decided to bite the bullet and hire someone to do the muddying and taping, they are also going to do a knock down ceiling in all the common areas in our house. They start bright and early on Monday morning and I expect they will be working through Friday. This means we’ll be painting by next weekend, better yet, it means we’ll be installing cabinets in less than two weeks. Calm my beating heart—I cannot wait!!

End of July Blues

If you would have talked to me 3 months ago, I would have exclaimed that by end of July my kitchen would be back in working order. I had preemptively taken the week of July 26-30 off from work with the idea of painting walls and arranging items in my new cabinets. Ha! To expect the unpredictable is the only predictable thing when it comes to home renovation.

So here we are closing in on the last week of July, and I am sad to report that we are no where close to being finished. A failed plumbing inspection and the large, looming task of roofing our entire house has eaten away our time. I am happy to report that the entire back of our house is roofed and looks beautiful. Last night, in a three-hour span, Scott and I attacked the front of the house and got all the old shingles torn up. We’ll finish prepping the remaining roof tonight so that we’ll be ready for the new shingles by the weekend. As Sunday is supposed to be muggy and near 90, we’re hoping to get the roof finished on Saturday.

From there, we have more fun to look forward to: insulating, sheet rocking, and oh yes, mudding & taping. We are likely going to contract out the mudding & taping because it’s not terribly costly, and the professionals are so speedy and precise.

And then the real fun stuff: priming and paint walls, installing our gorgeous Brazilian walnut flooring, installing our cabinets and countertops, hanging light fixtures, and tiling our backsplash fireplace surround.

Scott and I celebrate our 5 year anniversary over Labor Day. I am hopeful to make us a really nice dinner in our new kitchen!

Roof & Fireplace pics

I Am Hungry . . .

I’ve now been without my kitchen since Memorial Day weekend. Things really haven’t been too bad. Though dinners have become very repetitive, (hello, nice to see you again tacos), I really don’t have any horror stories. I am also immensely glad that I am not going through this process with small children at home. From my nannying days, I recall preparing lunch for two eager, hungry kids out of the family’s laundry room while their kitchen was under construction and I am happy to not relive those days.

The one thing that I have noticed throughout this process is that I am hungry for baked goods. I just want to put something in the over and have it come out all warm, melty, and fragrant. I am guessing that this intense feeling would only be perpetuated had we done this remodel in the winter time, but even amidst the hot, humid July weather, my taste buds are still functioning in overdrive.

Weekend Mania

With last weekend being a holiday weekend, it was absorbed with all good things that come with holidays: family, friends, and food. Needless to say, we didn’t get much done other than expand our stomachs and work on our sunburns.

I am looking forward to this weekend because 1) we can hopefully get some work done, and 2) we’re supposed to have nice weather. This will be the first Saturday in many weeks that we’re not expecting a rain shower. On the agenda we need to get our fireplace installed, we need to build some little stairs off the porch door, and we need to install fascia along the roof line. Getting the fascia installed is the last thing we need to do prior to getting our house roofed. We’ve now had a 30ft dumpster sitting in front our house since before Memorial Day and I think our neighbors are getting little antsy.

On another note, we passed our electrical inspection. It’s not that surprising given that a professional did all the work. Now to see if we pass framing and plumbing . . . fingers crossed!

Almost Done With Putzy Work . . . Hurray!

Everything that made the month of June not very fun is being wrapped up this week. We have our electrical inspection tomorrow and the framing and plumbing inspection to follow. Scott finished pluming over the weekend and it ended up not being as bad as we expected. Likewise, Scott finished running the gas line for the fire place last night. Hopefully we pass all the inspections with flying colors

I am eager to start putting the space back together and am rapidly anticipating having a ceiling on our space. As the past few weeks have been hot and humid, having nothing above us but open rafters has turned our house into sauna, which makes for very unpleasant working conditions.

Scott just received an email last night from our cabinet company that all the cabinets are in and ready to go. As we’re no where near ready for install, they are going to house the cabinets in their warehouse and then assemble them right before we need them. I am hopeful to get them installed sometime late July, but in all likeness, we’re probably looking at mid-August.

Lights and Stone

The electricians came yesterday and put in the full day of work. It was nice to leave in the morning and come home to progress. All the cans have been installed at this point and they’ll be working on outlets today. I am still completely in awe that this company would be so generous with their time and resources—what a gift they are giving us!

Yesterday evening Scott and I went to slab yard to pick out countertops. Though we could have gone 100 different directions, there were only a couple of stones that really stood out and made sense within our space. We ended up picking a stone called White Spring. We both felt that it was unique without being so over the top that it would go out of style. Here’s a pic that I found on the internet:

Decisions Decisions

As we’re coming close to wrapping up the “building” portion of our remodel, we’re rapidly advancing on the “finishing” portion of the remodel, which is admittedly much more to my liking. Here’s a couple ideas I have for our space:

I really like this pebble surround for our fireplace--it's rustic and beachy all roled into one
We're most likely going to order the sink below. It's made out of silagranite, which evidently holds up very well. We're thinking of going with the granite below. It is called Colonial Gold. It has good movement and looks really nice with 0ur antiqued white cabinets

This is the fixture for above the sink

This is the fixture for over the dining room table.

Little by Little

We’re still here, working away. We are in what I would consider the least enjoyable phase of the remodel. In the first few weeks of our remodel, results came so quickly. One week there would be no structure, the next week we would have walls and roof. Now that we’re into the nitty gritty, the evidence of our labor is less noticeable. We’ve spent the past couple of weeks indoors working on all the small stuff that goes into finishing a space. This afternoon our electrician is coming over to help map out a lighting plan.

For those of you that we don’t speak with regularly, we received an amazing gift a couple of weeks ago from the electricians that Scott works with. They told us that they wanted to take care of all the electrical work in our house at no cost. This is such a huge gift! Though Scott would have been able to wire the house, it would have taken a great deal of time because this is the area of construction that he is least familiar with. If all goes smoothly today, the electricians will have everything wired and ready to go by the end of this week!

On another note, our kitchen cabinets are coming in the week of June 30th. We won’t be ready for them until likely mid-July, but I just love know they are here! I cannot wait for my clean, white kitchen. Here’s a couple pictures below of exactly the cabinets we are getting (except we’re not getting the rope trim in the crown as I don’t care for the look of this fancy accoutrement).

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

Coming off a week of little progress, we agreed to tackle some odd jobs during our weekday evenings. We decided this week’s job consists of ripping out the hallway ceiling and ripping out the ceiling in our downstairs storage room in order to prepare for the electricians. We also decided to clear out our front living room in order to prep for tearing out the existing hardwood floors and prepping for scraping the popcorn off the ceilings. I’ve got one word for this phase of the remodel: BLEH. This is not fun work.

Last night as Scott commenced on tearing out the ceiling joists in the hallway, I tackled prying up hardwood from our kitchen. I’ve torn out flooring before with little effort, but this flooring is cemented to the floor with gallons of sticky adhesive. I was able to get about ¾ through with the job, but we still have hallway and decent size living room to tear out. My back hurts just thinking about it . . .

On the positive side, we really are making good progress. Once we finish some small framing details inside, we’re ready for the electricians and plumbing work. Thereafter, we’ll shove some insulation in the walls and start sheet rocking. I am hopeful to begin painting walls the last week of July.

Week of Purchases

Well, this has certainly been the week of expenses. First cabinets, followed by flooring, and now most recently, a fireplace. Even though we’ve received deep discounts on all of our purchases, it’s tough doling out money! We have to keep reminding ourselves that the immediate expense will eventually reap dividends in the end.

We found our fireplace this past Wednesday on Craigslist. Both Scott and I have been scouring Craigslist daily after discovering that retail prices would not really be feasible within our budget. We ended up scoring an absolutely beautiful file place that had only been used for one season. It came with a thermostat remote, brick refractory, blowers, and even a really upgraded face-front. All we’ll need to purchase is a venting kit. Here’s a pic I found on the internet:

We are planning on a doing some small tiles around the actual fireplace and then encasing it in a white wood surround and mantel.

Cabinets & Flooring

The month of June has arrived and we put in a good amount of work over the weekend. We have commitments for the next two weekends coming up so we knew we needed to get a lot done.

On Saturday we finished most of the framing details inside our space including the new closet and bookshelf as well built two small half walls to divide the kitchen and porch space. Lastly, we put in all the ceiling trusses. Scott and I went back and forth quite a bit on what to do with the ceiling. Though we had the option of vaulting the kitchen ceiling, we decided to do a flat, 8ft. ceiling instead. Even though the vault would have been pretty majestic, it would have made can lights and insulation quite difficult. I was also fearful that having a gigantic vault would be a red flag for a remodel. As we only have 7 ½ ceilings in the rest of the house, we both felt that it might just become too disjointed from the rest of the space. In the end, we’re both very happy. By going with the flat ceiling, it also means that our cabinets will go all the way to the ceiling, which is the look I prefer.

However, perhaps the best part of the weekend was getting some big ticket shopping checked off our list. We purchased our kitchen cabinets on Friday. We found this overstock cabinet warehouse via craigslist. They furnished the best quote for the most upgraded cabinets (dovetail joints, full extension drawers, soft-close feature). Though it may seem kind of risky to go this route, as of right now, we feel really good with our decision (hopefully we’ll still be feeling good in about a month).

We also found the deal of a lifetime yesterday at Lumber Liquidators. We went in with a very specific budget and a flexible idea of what sort of flooring we were looking for. We first found an odd/damaged lot of a cappuccino colored engineered oak. Even though the color was a little darker than what we had envisioned, the price was right. When we went to order we discovered that they only had about half of the product that we needed. The gentlemen helping us really didn’t want us to leave empty handed so he began racking his brain for other items within our specified price range. He finally asked, “What do you think of Brazilian Walnut?” Of course, we both love the looks of walnut but the pricing was out of the question. Turns out, they had just received an “odd” lot of solid Brazilian walnut in the exact amount we needed. Even though the asking price is generally $5.69 sq/ft., the gentlemen sold us the lot for $1.99 sq/ft. We loaded it up and took it home same day. We bought enough to do our entire upper level, bedrooms included! This may be the best deal we’ll find during the course of the entire remodel. I couldn’t be happier.

Weekend Progress in Detail

Saturday was the most transformative day of our remodel thus far. It was the day that the walls came down between the existing and new space (pictures in previous post). It was the first time that we were actually able to see our new space and envision living in it. As you may well imagine, it was thrilling to watch the transformation.

Thankfully, Tim & Karen graciously offered their assistance on Saturday. Scott and Tim went right to work removing or old cabinets and then started on tearing down the walls. Karen and I had the fun task of cleaning up the garbage and hauling it into the dumpster. All in all, I think we worked from 9-7 p.m. that day. By the end of the day, all the walls were down, the ceiling above the old kitchen was down, the new window in what will be the dining room was installed, and our new side door was installed. The space is now completely enclosed and sealed.

We spent Sunday more less recuperating from Saturday. We got the sink in the laundry room a.k.a “temporary kitchen” hooked up and I laid fresh mulch in our landscape gardens.

Monday was another productive day and we were able to install all the fly rafters to the outside of the house. Though this is generally a two person job, since we only have one extension ladder, Scott somehow managed to do this on his own. Now all we need to do is attach the fascia boards to the fly rafters and we’ll be all set to begin roofing.

As an aside, as I am now down a kitchen, if anyone has any good no-bake recipes, please send them my way!

And the Walls Came Down . . .