Seriously, Three Weeks Later?

November 18, 2012

I can't believe that tomorrow it will be three weeks since we began putting the hardwood floors in.  For some reason I thought it would take a week.  The floors are in and completely finished, but we are still waiting on the stairs.

So much has happened in the last three weeks, so I must catch you up by starting at the beginning. So, we cleared out all of the furniture from the kitchen, music room, and living room.  Installation of the new floors took the first week...

This is where the new floor was blended with the existing hardwood floors from fifty years ago...

The old and new all get sanded three times, then sealed, which will (or should) make them look almost exactly alike.

We also put slate down in the mud room.  This is before the grout was put in...

The second week was when the sanding of all the hardwood floors began.  We couldn't really live there, so we moved out to Paul Gladen's house.  Paul went to England for a week, so we moved into his place while he was gone.  He just built a new house this summer, and it is amazing.  Jason walked in the door and looked around and said, "Wow, this makes me feel rich!"  Just a few pics of us hanging out at Paul's...

The awesome wall fireplace..

Hanging out in the kitchen after school...

Jason's favorite reading place...

We even brought the keyboard along so we could practice piano...

Downstairs in the movie room for movie night...

A way to take out all of our aggression...  Oh yeah, and spend quality family time, hee, hee...

It was so nice to be at Paul's house because there was no dust, or mess, or noise...  However, that particular week it got really windy and cold.  The temperatures dropped into the 20's.  

When we got to Paul's place the kids had fun exploring the entire place.  They loved the deck above the garage and said they wanted to do their homework up there.  Well, two days in, they went back up on the deck and came back to tell us the table was missing.  Of course we didn't believe them because the table is HUGE.  It is one of those high tables that is about six feet by three feet and has a super heavy piece of glass on top.  

Apparently the wind was so strong, that it picked up the table and blew it over the edge of the deck and it was gone.  The shattered remnants of the glass top were on the roof below the deck, but the table was nowhere in sight.  The kids went all over searching for it but never found it.  David ended up driving down to the bottom of the hill and he eventually found it and the kids and I walked it back home.

The glass had cut a two foot slice in the roof below the deck, so we were worried that when the snow melted, the roof would leak.  We swept the broken glass and snow into one corner of the roof.

Meanwhile, back at our house we continued to work on the underfloor heating in the basement...

This is where we used to measure the kids' height...

Then I finished the etching of the glass door that will go between the mud room and living room.  This is me working in the garage...

Paul came home last Sunday night, but had to leave on Monday, so he was only home for a few hours.  Our place still wasn't done, so we decided to stay at Paul's again.  We saw Paul at around 11:00 a.m.. and then we were back working at the house. 

At around 4:00 p.m., after I had picked up the kids from school, we went back to Paul's house.  When we walked in, there was water pouring down through the light in the entry way.  My first thought is that the snow was melting and it was coming through the roof.  But when I went up to the deck to look over on the roof, it was completely dry. 

That was when I heard it, a rushing of water.  I saw that there was a faucet on the side of the deck and I could hear water rushing in the wall behind it. I called our contractor (who also built Paul's house) to find out where the water shut off was.  He was awesome and told me exactly where to go so that I was able to get the water off quickly.  He came over and helped me and the kids do damage control.  There was water everywhere.  It went down all three floors.  Even water coming down through the light fixture in the basement bathroom.  The worst area was Paul's master laundry, closet, exercise room because they were completely flooded - 1/2 inch deep in water.  We ended up using every towel in his place to dry it all up.  I spent the rest of the night washing towels.  At least a complete disaster was averted...

Now Paul is back home.  We had hoped to be moved out, but unfortunately the stairs have not been put in yet, so Paul has to put up with us.  Jason has been enjoying watching football (soccer) with Paul.  

We even have the luxury of an in-house hair salon.  Paul cut Jason's hair today!

The stairs are supposedly going to be finished today, but here is what they looked like the last time we saw them.  David had to sand the front (riser) and side of each and every step because sometime in the past the stairs had been sanded in place and the edge of the sander had made a gouge in the risers.  The new stairs (treads) are 1/2" not the old 3/4" so the gouge would have been really visible if not for being sanded flat by David ...

It has been a really long three weeks, and I just want to move back home.  Hopefully it won't take me so long to blog next time...

~Mary

Wood Floors This Week, YES!!!

October 29, 2012

So I finally have some news and pictures for the remodel.  This week is wood floor week, and I am so happy.  Mainly because I think that once the wood floors are in and sanded, I can begin to clean the house.  Still feeling as dirty as I did over a month ago.  I am finding it hard to believe that it has been almost three months now.

The wood for the floors was delivered last week and has been getting acquainted with us as it rests in the front room awaiting installation.

Our painter, and mudder, Josh was able to get everything painted last week.  This is the living room with the mud room in green.  

This looking back into the kitchen...

From the kitchen towards the living room...

Meanwhile, David has been pulling up the floor in the kids' bathroom.  It had several layers of linoleum, just like the kitchen!  What surprised us is that below that, some of the floorboards were missing!  Good thing the kids didn't fall through...   He is spraying insulation in there to help with the sound of water rushing through the house.  Then we will have hardwood floors installed in here as well.  I can't wait!

Josh also did the ceilings and matched them to our old ceilings in the other parts of the house.  I love the texturing he did as it all matches really well and fits perfectly with the age of the house.  It also reminds me of many of the places where we were in Italy...

I spent an entire day working on etching the window that goes between the mud room and living room.  I decided to hand draw it so that it would look more natural.  Here is a closeup of the window..  I am really pleased with how it turned out, which is usually not the case when I am trying something new...

Below you can see where the window is in relation to the mud room.  I stood in the living room looking towards the kitchen when I took this...

So this week will end with new wood floors...  I can't wait!  It may go into a bit of next week, but once they are in and sanded and finished, I will take pics and post again.  Oh this is a happy week!

~Mary

Some Progress is Being Made...

October 15, 2012

This is the original date I thought we would be done with the kitchen...  oh well, not to be so...  I have been feeling useless as I haven't been able to do much with my back acting up, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and do something to make me feel productive.  (cleaning the dust every ten minutes does NOT make you feel productive)

Some of you may remember that we painted the world map in the living room a few years ago.  Well, it took forever, and when it was done, I swore I would never do it again.  The only problem is that I was never pleased with the final product because I didn't like the colors.  So I told David that since we were doing the remodel, I wanted to paint over it.  He would have none of that because he really likes having a world map in the living room.  Well, I don't like the colors, so I said I was going to repaint it. (What was I thinking???)

Here is what the map used to look like... (very 1970's, don't you think?)

So, the kids and I started to repaint the map.  Meanwhile, David was working on installing the underfloor heating and then insulating it.  It was a bit precarious walking around in there and standing on movable boards in order to paint the map...

David's handiwork...

Sometimes I get a little too focused and just want to finish things so I end up working late into the night...

Below the basic colors have been painted, but there is oh so much more to do to make it look antique...

First, I wanted to make the wall around it look kind of like suede...

Then I finished the antique look over the entire map. Here is the finished product...

While I was busy with the map, David finished the underfloor heating and began spray insulation in the ceiling above the kitchen.

Since David finished that, they can sheet rock the ceiling today, YES!

The drywall has been put up between the kitchen and music room, so you can see how the space lays out a bit better now.  The archway leads into the kitchen.  The orange foam you see behind the ladder I will explain in the next picture...

These are where the pipes from the kids' bathroom come down the wall and into the basement below.  When we changed from the old cast iron pipes to the pvc pipes, the noise of the water coming through the pipes became unbearable.  So we are trying to sound insulate it.  So far, this has not worked very well.  We are going to have to put up both sound barrier sheet rock as well as a vinyl sound barrier and hope that will take care of the problem.  I will have to keep you posted on that one...

Here is the view from the kitchen towards the music room.  The venting you see are the ducts leading up to the kids' bedrooms.  The railing in the foreground will be the raised bar in front of the stove.

So at least this week it looks like things are moving along a bit.  I keep hanging on to the fact that I am going to love this when it is all finished...
~Mary

Two Months In...

October 5, 2012

Things are moving along... It has been much slower than I anticipated, as now it has been two months.  I seem to be dealing with it much better though.  No break downs recently, so I am guessing that it a good sign!

We now have a new archway that connects the kitchen to the living room.  I am so pleased at how open it is now!  I never realized we had that much space to work with until all the walls and the closet were out of the way.  You can see the frig is residing in the living room at the moment.  The wall between the kitchen and music room is framed in, but I am glad it is not finished as it lets light in from the front of the house as we have no electricity for lights in the kitchen.

I spent a few days stripping some of the cabinets from the kitchen that we will be recycling and using in our mud room.  It was HARD work, and I NEVER want to do it again!  There were so many layers of paint that I had to repeat the process four times!  Then I had to sand the rest off.  I still can't get the paint out of the ridges.  Ugh.  I may just have to repaint them which is such a shame as the wood underneath is really nice.

It has been a crazy busy week this week.  David has been installing the underfloor heating.  He finished the kitchen, music room, and dining room as he had access to it from the basement.  However, the space below the living room floor was just too small, so we ended up having to tear up the entire floor.  We have found some interesting things down there.  There are bed frames, monopoly money, colorful spools of thread... you name it, we have found it.  Here is David tearing up the floorboards...

This is what the underfloor heating looks like from the basement under the kitchen...

Like I said, busy week.  Electricians are here... They are incredibly nice... Justin and Sean from AMPED electric, great name for an electrical company...  Justin went and brought all of the workers coffee from the Loose Caboose the other day.  Who ever heard of your electrician buying everyone coffee???  We keep a refrigerator full of water, gatorade, and sodas for all the workers, so I think it was nice for them to get something a little different.  What a nice surprise...   We are looking forward to all of the electrical work being finished, but not these guys being gone... Hopefully it can be done by next week and we can begin drywalling...

We have had an amazing HVAC guy too.  Wade came in and did some really complicated work in the basement so that we could maintain as much headroom as possible and still get the ducting we need.  It looks so much nicer over in the corner than it did in the middle of the basement.  The white tubes hanging down are from David's hydronic underfloor heating... they need to be connected to the Baxi unit.  I think that is happening in two weeks.  Wade, the HVAC guy was amazing in that he got our heater working in time for the temperature drop.  It actually snowed overnight!  It was 23 degrees this morning and it was so nice to have heat...

 More of Wade's fine work...

Last, but certainly not least, I have been experimenting with glass etching.  We are recycling one of our windows that wasn't going to be used, and are putting it in the wall between the mud room and living room to let more light in.  I am thinking of etching a leaf design on it.  I practiced on this window from the basement.  I still can't decide whether or not I want to do it.  I welcome any comments...

Until next time, that's how it is going with the remodel!

~Mary

One month in...

September 10, 2012

So, I have been without a real kitchen for just over a month now.  It really hasn't been that bad.  At the moment, the toaster is near the front door on a little table, the refrigerator is across the house in the living room with the microwave, and the stove/oven is resting in what will be the new part of the kitchen.  It is funny how that really hasn't bothered me much. 

The dirt continues to be my nemesis.  David decided to damp mop because everything seems so dusty.  Unfortunately, it just made mud.  He did get rid of a lot of the dirt, but now there are mud mop marks everywhere.  I am just to tired to deal with it as I spent the weekend cleaning.  If you stop by my house you will be surprised, because it still looks like I haven't dusted in like seven years.  It looks like that about ten minutes after I dust.  Still, I keep dusting for sanity sake alone.

We have actually been moving along with the plumbing. David spent an entire day with the plumber working side by side and they were able to accomplish 2 1/2 days of work in one really long day. It was nice because we were without water for only a very short time. I ended up going down to my friend, Theresa Strauch's house to take a shower.  Other than that, we heve been self-sufficient.  It is so nice to have all of that disgusting old piping out and have fresh new stuff put it. This is underneath the kids bathroom...

 

The basement is looking much better as well.  All of the crazy add-on plumbing is gone, and everyting is nice and neat.

 

 

We had another change of plans regarding the basement.  Our original plan was to dig out underneath the dining room and put the mechanical room in there.  Unfortunately, due to budget and time constraints, we have to put the room in the existing basement.  So all of the plumbing was moved in order to place the mechanical room in the corner...

 

 

The space down there is already seeming so much bigger now that we have knocked down the walls to the office and removed "the throne" toilet. you can see where the wall is dark grey is where the office was, and the toilet pedestal was just on the white side... all gone, YES!



So, bottom line is that I am hanging in there.  We ordered the cabinets, and it will take a month to get those in.  At this point it doesn't feel like it will ever be done, but I understand that is how it usually feels at this point, so there is hope... At least I am doing better than the last time I posted... Staying positive...
~Mary