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!