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!