home on the front range

Dishwasher update

2012-01-08T10:09:00.000-08:00

The dishwasher saga finally ended, but it took the BBB to get it resolved. After 6 weeks of dealing with this, the store finally agreed to refund my money and take the dishwasher back. BUT, they wouldn't come get it, I had to take it to them. Since I have a truck, and dishwashers aren't that heavy, I didn't argue the point, I just wanted to get it over with. We now have a Samsung dishwasher that we LOVE! We got it from Best Buy and had no problems whatsoever. I never knew a dishwasher could be this quiet, we can be in the same room with it, and not even realize its running.

Oh, and I'm over the whole issue with the holes in my bathroom cabinet. They have been well patched, and its not like I sit there and stare at them, lol.

It's Done!!

2011-11-20T17:27:00.000-08:00

Actually, its been done for several days now. The only thing left is a very few, nitpicky punchlist items. ABD has been fabulous to work with, and we are VERY happy with everything we got. Except for those holes in our master bath cabinet. It will take me awhile to get over that one, but on the whole, I would absolutely recommend ABD to a friend. I have no pictures because the instant the job was done enough, I filled the space with boxes that we've never unpacked. It will be a long while before its clean and organized enough to want to share pictures.

The dishwasher saga with Appliance Factory Outlet is a completely different story. Don't EVER shop there!!! Our dishwasher was installed more than 3 weeks ago, leaked right out of the box, and has never been fixed, despite 3 visits by the repair guy. The issue is still not resolved, as AFO keeps telling me over and over, they can't do anything, the manufacturer is responsible. Bullcrap, I didn't pay Electrolux, I paid Appliance Factory Outlet. I'm so sick of the 'pass the buck', 'I can't do anything' line of crap I just want to puke all over them. Its a huge saga that I won't go into any further here, but suffice it to say, learn from my horrible experience, and don't give them a dime of your money. I intend to file complaints with the BBB, Attorney General's office, and leave all of the complete reviews all over the internet that I can find.

Day 49

2011-11-08T12:53:00.000-08:00

We got the vent covers installed finally, now it looks finished downstairs. The last thing we need for final inspection is a step to go under the bedroom window. The window is 4 inches too tall for the fire safety code. The step was built and stained today.

Day 48

2011-11-06T20:43:00.000-08:00

Big, big news - the kitchen is done!! The range hood was the last big thing. It didn't go in easily, but it is in. I love, love, love how this project has turned out. I really meant to get a photo in better light this weekend, but we were too busy trying to put stuff away and finish moving into it.

The laminate transition pieces finally came in and got installed, as well as the baseboards, and the corbels under the bar.

The bathroom mirrors were installed downstairs. The painter also finished caulking all of the baseboards and trim, and finished touching up the paint. It all looks great!

Day 47

2011-11-03T17:28:00.000-07:00

This is the existing upstairs bathroom, where we had the shower doors installed. There was a miscommunication somewhere, and see-thru doors were installed by mistake. Today we got the translucent doors that we wanted. Having lived with both, I know the translucent ones hide water spots much better, so I don't have to clean them as often. Yes, I am that lazy.

The other big thing that happened today was getting new insulation blown into the attic. What was there was in pitiful shape. Between the new windows and insulation, we ought to be nice and toasty for a lot less money, which always makes me happy. It doesn't make for exciting pictures though, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Day 46

2011-11-02T18:17:00.000-07:00

Not a lot happened today, but what did happen was significant.

We got the top doors!! We couldn't load up those shelves until the doors were on, so now there is nothing holding us back.

I can't remember if I've already posted about what's inside the cabinets and I'm too lazy to go back and look. Those upper doors are for these two awesome pull out cabinets, accessible from both sides.

The lower unit has our pull-out spice rack, and 2 or 3 more adjustable shelves that go in there. That square on the bottom is an access panel to the water valve for the refrigerator.

There are 2 lazy susans, one on each side of the stove. It seemed to be the best use for those hard to reach corner areas. This one has all the coffee stuff right under the coffee maker.

Next to the lazy susan are these 4 drawers. I love that they pull completely out, so you can even dust the top of the back wall, if you are anal enough to care about that. I'm not, but I like to see everything in the drawer.

This is the tidiest it will ever be under the sink.

Pull out drawer under the microwave to hold the microwave cooking stuff.

Pull out bins for trash and recycling. This is the door that was up too high yesterday, fixed now.

The doors next to the trash hide two more pull out shelves.

Day 45

2011-11-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

Backsplashes are now grouted and caulked. I love them!

The flooring is almost done, we just need the trim. That laundry room might be next on the project list after we finish getting unpacked. For now I can just close the door, lol.

The toe kicks were installed today and look wonderful. Yes, that door on the left is too high and will be repositioned.

Now that the tile is grouted, the shelves were installed! Those are the new dishes we bought. The old ones belonged in a cabinet, not out in view all the time. We are finally to the point where we can move back into the kitchen. Its so nice to have a fridge with water and ice in the door again!

Although the new fridge does freak me out a little, it looks like a giant eye back there, watching my every move...

Day 44

2011-11-02T07:07:00.000-07:00

I didn't think anyone was going to come on Monday, but the tile guy showed up, which was great because I really needed to talk to him about the kitchen.

He got both of the downstairs backsplashes set and ready for grout.

Upstairs we needed to talk about how to finish off the inside of the window frames. We did these little triangles so we could get the bullnose finish on both the top and front sides. Now the kitchen is also ready for grout.

Day 43

2011-10-29T15:58:00.000-07:00

Overall, Day 43 was a very disappointing day. I'll get to that after the positive stuff. I don't have a picture, but the original upstairs bathroom got an exhaust fan installed! This is such a pet peeve of mine. I think building codes should require exhaust fans, operable windows are NOT enough. Coming from a climate of extreme humidity (stinky towels), and seeing a lot of mold in my rental apartments here in Colorado, this issue is a big one for me.

Downstairs got all of the quarter round put on. That's the piece at the bottom. It covers the gaps by the floor and just makes the taller baseboard look more finished. Now it needs the painter to come back and caulk it, and finish the touch up painting bits.

The Water Closet got its toilet paper and hand towel holders. Now it just needs the mirror over the sink, and the fitting where the drain pipe goes into the wall attended to, and it will be done. Oh, and the exhaust fan.

Hand towel holder in the master bath. I'm thinking that eventually we'll replace those electrical outlets and covers with the oil rubbed bronze color. That's a minor detail though, and I want to get over the sticker shock of this job first.

Toilet paper and towel holder in master bath. We debated placement of that towel holder for awhile. The shower is to the left, but we couldn't move it to the left because the shower door would bang into the towel holder if we weren't careful, and it would be awkward to reach behind the open shower door for a towel. Over the toilet was no good because it would also be inconvenient to reach, and would have to be mounted pretty high to avoid having the towels lay on top of the toilet tank.

I'm not too sure about this double towel rack. It seems like if you put two wet towels on it, the one in the back still isn't going to get dry, even with an exhaust fan. We shall see. We'll probably still hang one towel over the shower door wall anyway.

But here comes the big frustration for the day - we specifically redesigned the bathroom so that I could mount the toilet paper holder to the RIGHT of the toilet. No one made sure that the guy who was actually mounting the toilet paper holder knew that, so he put in on the end of the cabinet, like they usually do, but which is to the LEFT of the toilet in this case. ARGHH! I was hoping that for the enormous amount of money I'm paying for this job, details that are of utmost importance to me would not get overlooked. Now I have 4 holes in the side of my beautiful cabinet, and they are right where I can see them Every. Single. Day.

And here comes more frustration, which is NOT ABD's fault. I've been losing more and more patience with the kitchen, as it gets harder and harder to live with the kitchen in the living room, the constant mess, can't find anything because half the stuff I need is packed away, and there is no good place for what I did keep out, etc. Its really getting to us and I finally started to lose it and begged our foreman on Monday to get our kitchen to the point where we can move in by the weekend. It sounded doable at the time, but then the snowstorm hit and we lost the whole day on Wednesday. Okay fine. They tried to get at least the dishwasher and oven in by the weekend. Ron was working on it Friday, and got the dishwasher in (purchased separately through Appliance Factory Outlet) and the darned thing leaked!! I called the store manager who gave me the service department, which is actually a separate company they use. They can come Monday, which is the best I can expect at 3pm on Friday, but they won't give me a 2 hour time window until Monday morning. WTF?? I have to block out yet another entire day for an appliance. I am livid. Ron took pity on me and tried to at least get the range installed, but he didn't have a gas line. He went and got a gas line, only to come back and find out that my power had gone out YET AGAIN (3rd time since the snow). Then he discovered that the gas fitting the plumber installed is actually 3/4 rather than the normal 1/2 inch, due to the 3/4 inch gas line I guess, but whatever, he still has to go back out and get the right size fitting. He did, and got the gas line installed, but by now it was too late to actually haul the range up from the garage and get it installed. So, moving into the kitchen isn't going to happen this weekend. And one more thing, the darned plumber never did caulk the kitchen sink, so now I still have to be careful about getting water around the sink while I still have to do dishes by hand. Ron was going to caulk it, but just ran out of time. I might end up doing it myself this weekend, darn it. The kitchen tile isn't going to be grouted until Tuesday, so the shelves won't go up before Wednesday. The doors *still* aren't fixed for the spice cupboards, so we can't load those up. We can't load up the lower pantry because the water line for the refrigerator still has to be run in the bottom. So, we can put some stuff on the counters, and load up several of the drawers, but we are still in kitchen limbo. Truly, I do understand that mine is not the only job, and the day we couldn't work really threw a monkey wrench into the schedule, but it seems like we are so close and it just isn't getting done. Still, I have to say, the workmanship is SOOO much better than whoever did the previous kitchen and additions, that I know I will be very happy indeed when its all over. Except for those holes in my bathroom cabinet which will bug me to the end of my days unless they become totally invisible. Really, what the heck to you put on the end of a cabinet to hide flaws?? Its not like I can hang a picture to cover it. I'm going to have another margarita...

Day 43

2011-10-28T19:33:00.000-07:00

We had a snowstorm this week, and lost power for most of a day, so nothing happened on Wednesday. Thursday was Day 43 of actual work, and we are now at 8 weeks since construction started.

The electrical trim out got finished today, which included hanging our new pendant lights. It was dark outside when I was taking pictures, so I'll have to get some lighter ones. That tile wall was finally finished today! That was a whole lot of tile cutting. I think it looks fabulous. It will get grouted next week, and then the shelves can go up.

Down in the basement the rest of the doors were hung, and hardware installed. This is the mechanical room door.

This is the freshly painted quarter round that will line the baseboard in the rooms with laminate. It covers the gaps where the floor isn't level.

Our office closet doors.

Days 41 and 42

2011-10-25T19:38:00.000-07:00

Nothing happened in the basement yesterday. Upstairs the kitchen tile got started but I forgot to take a picture.

Today the plumber came back and finished installing the wet bar faucet.

He got the Water Closet sink mounted on the wall but still needs some kind of part to finish it. You can see there isn't really any room for soap on the sink itself, which is why we did the niche in the wall.

He got the black strainer baskets installed. We had chrome ones in there so I could use it until the black ones came in. He still didn't caulk around the edge though, not sure why not.

There was a lot of tiling done in the kitchen today! Yesterday he got all the way around the counter, today was the back wall. I feel so bad, there are only 2 pieces of tile on that entire wall that didn't have to be cut. Every single cut requires a trip up and down the stairs to the wet saw outside. It is very labor intensive.

Here's a closer picture of that new inset that will be above the stove.

Days 39 and 40

2011-10-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

On day 39 not a lot of visible stuff happened. The wet bar sink was set in place, and the painter continued working on the trim.

Some very visible stuff happened on Day 40. The shower door was installed. I *love* the oil-rubbed bronze finish! Its a good thing, because it costs a lot more than chrome or gold-toned.

We also had a door installed in the upstairs bath, where there had been a curtain before. But, there is also a Jacuzzi tub upstairs, with tightly curved sides, so curved that the shower curtain doesn't even come close to the wall, so a lot of water leaks out, even when I'm taking a shower, and its not the kids being sloppy. That water had been leaking on down into the basement, which the former owner was apparently fine with, but I am not.

We got carpet today!

Carpet in the master closet.

Carpet on the stairs is *so* much easier for our elderly dog.

Got the glass in the mirror for the master bath.

Day 38

2011-10-19T17:47:00.000-07:00

A whole lot of electrical went on today, and we have light downstairs!!

There are 5 of these wall sconces in the master bedroom.

Lights in the master bath. A lot more electrical stuff happened that doesn't make for exciting pictures, like trimming all the can lights, installing all the smoke detectors, installing all the outlets, switches, and covers.

Shower fixtures actually got installed yesterday, but I was so excited about the toilets that I didn't notice.

And here is a better picture of our cool new faucets. I love them!

The painter was here all day too, caulking in the trim, which is so tedious.

Nothing happened in the kitchen today. I wish the plumber had actually caulked the kitchen sink in so I wouldn't have to worry about getting water under the edges.

Day 37

2011-10-18T15:59:00.000-07:00

I have a functional kitchen sink!!! The faucet is so cool, its touch activated so you can turn it on by touching it with your wrist when your hands are too gross. That head is a pull out nozzle. Now to make sure the kids don't play with it, lol. And no, that tile is not our new tile, its a sample that I brought home but didn't like.

And I have not one, but TWO more functional toilets!! This one is in the Water Closet (aptly named, don't you think?). The sink is here, but not installed yet.

Okay, so maybe 1 and a half functional toilets downstairs. This one flushes but I don't really want to sit on it until the seat is on. I had forgotten that we ordered dual flush units.

Part of the backsplash is up, the sink is working. The faucet is really cool but I didn't get a good picture of it. I'll do that next time. So, we can use the toilet in the water closet, then come over to the master bathroom to wash hands. I like this sink, but I'm really glad we went with the black sink for the kitchen.

Oh, the rest of the appliances did come in today.

Day 36

2011-10-17T17:26:00.000-07:00

No photos today, but the door casings and baseboards are almost completely installed downstairs.

Went to a tile store and picked new tile for the kitchen wall, as well as new accent tile to go over the stove.

As for the appliances, they came at 815 this morning, without having called last night to give me a time. We figured out that someone had transposed a couple of numbers on his paperwork. After he unloaded the refrigerator he got ready to leave. I asked where the other 3 appliances were. He said he had no idea, maybe they'll be here tomorrow. What a load of crap! I called the warehouse and asked for a manager. Some guy came on who didn't know squat. He said the other pieces got hidden. WTH?? He said that when someone picks one of the pieces up, it gets hidden in the computer so the warehouse won't try to deliver another one. Great, except I never picked any of this stuff up. He had no idea how this could have happened and said no, they couldn't deliver the other pieces today, and no, he can't promise I will be first on the list tomorrow. Clearly I was getting nowhere with him so I hung up. I was livid, so I went to the store and asked for the manager there. He was a really nice guy, and already knew what was going on. The driver told him I was okay with waiting until tomorrow, where he got that idea I don't know. The store manager also had no idea how this could have happened. We left it that I would be first on the list tomorrow morning, between 730 and 8. I thought it was interesting that they got a call from another very irate customer while I was in the store. The driver called a few minutes ago to confirm that he would be here between 730 and 930 tomorrow. I said great, but you mean between 730 and 8, right? Oh, and to top it all off, their truck leaked a huge oil spot in my driveway.

Day 35

2011-10-14T19:56:00.000-07:00

Tabitha, the designer, came out to bring the original sample and take a look at what we got. She agreed that its not even close to the sample, so we'll be getting different tile. I still can't believe the tile company sent a sample that is so different than the end product. Its incredibly lame and annoying.

So instead of the backsplash being installed today, the floor went in. It is laminate that looks like tile. I love how much softer it is to walk on.

This will be the backsplash tile for the wet bar and master bathroom downstairs.

A whole lot more trim work went on down there today, as well as building some much nicer stairs to the root cellar.

The appliances were supposed to be delivered today, but no one ever called yesterday to let me know a timeframe. I called this morning and was told between 11 and 1. When no one showed by 2:15 I called again and spoke to a second person. She tried to reach the driver but he wasn't answering his phone, so she said she would keep trying and call me back. After another hour went by with no word, I called and spoke to yet another person. He then told me I wasn't scheduled until tomorrow. There is no way I would ever have scheduled delivery for a Saturday, they just totally screwed up. I changed the delivery to Monday. We'll see what happens but I don't think I will buy there again. This is Appliance Factory Direct, the gaudy blue and yellow building on south College.

Day 34

2011-10-13T19:29:00.000-07:00

A whole lot of trim work went on in the basement today.

Remember this? Its the samples of stuff we chose all those weeks ago. That piece of tile up there next to the wood is for the kitchen backsplash, which covers the entire wall.

This is what came out of the box. I don't know what you guys think, but this does NOT look like the same tile to me, even allowing for a good bit of variation in natural stone products. There is hardly any contrast with the cabinets, and its going to be a big, dark hole at the end of the kitchen. Hmmm.

Day 33

2011-10-12T19:27:00.000-07:00

There was a great deal of discussion about the shelves this morning. They are 3" tall, which I was afraid would be too thick and overwhelm that small space. It was going to be a huge pain in the butt to change them though, and add more time to the whole project, so we decided to just go with what we had. These are not permanently installed yet, but the wall supports were put in, so after everyone left we stuck the shelves up there to see how it looks. I think they are fine, and will look great when we get our new dishes on them.

The laminate is completely finished downstairs now. I sure am glad someone else has to clean up the construction mess.

The door trim started going in today. Its a little wider than standard, to go with our taller than standard baseboards. I like it.

The niche in the water closet got tiled today. A teeny wall-mount sink goes under here.

Day 32

2011-10-11T18:52:00.000-07:00

The downstairs laminate is nearly done, the main areas are done, but the entry way/coat closet need to be finished.

Countertops in progress.

Countertops are done! The color difference isn't really this noticeable in real life, the red is not this bright.

Day 31

2011-10-11T17:42:00.000-07:00

The tile got set on the landing. Since it was still wet, I couldn't walk on it to take a picture downstairs, but more laminate got put down. Nothing happened in the kitchen.

Day 30

2011-10-08T12:32:00.000-07:00

The rest of the kitchen cabinets got set today. The shelves for the back wall are sitting there on the floor.

Apparently I forgot to take a Before picture of this, but there was a step down from the main house at the doorway, then another step back up partway into the laundry room. It was a stupid design and everyone tripped. The floor is now built up, and there is a step where it makes more sense. I don't feel like unloading the entire laundry room, because its a pretty big storage area which is full right now. Finishing the floor in there will have to wait until the current project is done.

The countertops are done for the wet bar and the master bath.

The tile went in in both downstairs bathrooms. It was dark and rainy when I was taking pictures, so better ones will have to come later.

Day 29

2011-10-07T13:08:00.000-07:00

Laminate got finished in the office/sewing room

The linen closet in the master bath

The master bathroom sink cabinet

Several of the kitchen cabinets got installed today also.

Day 28

2011-10-06T07:31:00.000-07:00

This is the wet bar downstairs. A mini-fridge will go in there, and we can make coffee without having to go up to the kitchen. The only problem is that we forgot to put an outlet up above the counter, so we'll have to figure out how to plug the coffee maker in.

Laminate flooring is going in. He actually got quite a bit farther than this, but I didn't get back down to take a picture before it got too dark.

I like that these planks are a bit wider than most of the other patterns.

Day 27

2011-10-04T17:04:00.000-07:00

We have cabinets!! This is very exciting since we've never actually seen this exact cabinet.

We picked from samples of wood type and stain color, which isn't quite the same as seeing an entire finished piece. I'm so glad we like them, lol.

Cabinets have arrived. Since we don't have an attached garage, they had to come in the house until they get installed.

Here is our new pantry, minus the doors on top. I did like seeing 'Super Rush' written on there, lol. The top ones are pull-out racks that are accessible from both sides, which is very cool.

We won't have any upper cabinets, except over the fridge, but will have shelves on the wall with the stove. These are 4 of the shelves.

The way everything is laid out, the right corner here will not be accessible from the kitchen, so we had a piece built with access from the bar side so that we don't lose the corner space altogether. I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Most of the pieces are here, generally where they will be installed.

That's a Lazy Susan in the back corner, then a 4 drawer unit, then the sink unit. I love it.

The downstairs cabinetry was also delivered, but not terribly exciting to take pictures of while its still wrapped up.

Day 26

2011-10-03T17:40:00.000-07:00

Today was spent pouring 11 bags of concrete to start leveling the floor out enough to install the wood laminate. I didn't know we needed any here at the end of the stairs but there it is. The biggest drop was that bit at the top of the picture. We'll see how close it is to level tomorrow. The guy also added some in the office, but I couldn't get to it to take a picture. The laminate flooring was delivered today, but I didn't get a picture before this bit at the bottom of the stairs was poured. The good news is that I still like the flooring, even though we only saw a tiny sample almost a month ago.

Here is the kitchen after I did my painting job. Its a good thing I didn't have to paint the back wall or go all the way to the floor, I would have run out of paint.

I will just take a moment to tell anyone who might be thinking of new windows, DO IT!! Since we had the new, double-paned windows installed upstairs, the temperature has dramatically stayed lower! We've had a few hot days since getting the new windows, but it hasn't gotten hot enough inside to turn on our new air conditioner. The living room is SO much cooler now, I can't believe it. Yes, I still would have installed the A/C, but I would have thought a lot harder about it, lol.

Day 25

2011-09-30T17:16:00.000-07:00

I didn't think anything was going to happen today, since the painter is going to paint the trim in his shop, rather than here. But, this afternoon they came to start hanging the interior doors.

The doors are not yet painted, they will be the same color as the ceiling. But since the ceiling is pretty close to white, the doors make a huge difference and its really starting to look closer to finished. The really exciting stuff is starting to happen. Those things that make it look like a finished product. I do so hope that I don't *actually* pee my pants when its all officially done.

I didn't slough off for yet another day, I really did paint the ceiling. Can't you tell? lol...

Day 24

2011-09-29T18:21:00.000-07:00

In the midst of painting the ceiling today.

Now the ceiling and walls are done.

No, I didn't do anything in the kitchen today either.

Day 23

2011-09-28T15:22:00.000-07:00

We have paint on the walls! I haven't decided if I like the color or not. I definitely don't hate it, but I'm not sure I love it. I have such a hard time with colors. I went too light on the walls upstairs, so went darker down here, but it might be too yellow. It doesn't matter, I need to get all the furniture in and live with it for awhile before I decide to change anything. I usually end up painting at least one room in my houses every year, and now I have a lot more rooms to choose from, lol. Good thing I like to paint.

Nothing happened in the kitchen today because painting that is my job and I called in...uninterested. I've got until Tuesday.

Day 22

2011-09-28T15:15:00.000-07:00

The walls got textured today. It only shows up at all because the thickest parts of the mud are still wet.

Day 21

2011-09-26T18:27:00.000-07:00

The second coat of mud went up on the drywall today, not very exciting for pictures, but progress nonetheless. I believe the walls are getting textured tomorrow, then paint on Wednesday.

Day 20

2011-09-23T15:28:00.000-07:00

The mud was still too wet to do anything more with the drywall today, but the rest of the windows got installed. Yay!

Day 19

2011-09-22T18:30:00.000-07:00

The remains of that glass block are there on the floor. The new window is so much nicer.

Drywall is all mudded in, now we hope it dries by tomorrow so they can do the second coat before sanding it all smooth. We now have steps going up into the root cellar. That cube up there is hiding the vent piping for the hot water heater, which couldn't be moved. It looked really weird to have a cube just hanging there, though I did want to paint it like the Borg cube. We opted to add that wall to the right of the root cellar, and put in some shelving under the cube.

Here is how that door that was widened, then shrunk back down a bit, turned out. I'm very happy with it.

This is my sewing area. I can fit an 8 foot table over there under the window, and will put some open shelves in that area beside the closet.

Oh, I just want to puke every time I look at the outside of this house. What on earth ever possessed the former owners to pick such a gaudy color?? Ugh. Anyway, the point here is supposed to be all of those new windows upstairs.

Here is the end of the house with a new and old window up there. The plan is to get rid of that ugly wood shingle siding up there when we paint the house.

Day 18

2011-09-22T18:05:00.000-07:00

Today was a very big day. The drywall went up and the new windows started going in.

We added the middle window in the kitchen. It really brightens it up in there.

The basement feels totally different now. For the first time, you can't see all the way to the end when you walk in the room. Now its starting to feel like a real house down there. This will be the TV room, with the master bedroom through that doorway.

This is the office. I hate glass block. Guess what's happening tomorrow?

Day 17

2011-09-20T19:44:00.000-07:00

We had our plumbing inspection today. More framing got done. We had some extra insulation from building our chicken coop, so they put that up in the ceiling in the master bedroom for us. Hopefully it will help cut down on the noise from upstairs. The drywall got loaded in and there sure is a lot of it. Got the news yesterday that our windows have come in a couple of weeks early. They aren't for the basement, we are replacing all of the upstairs windows because the existing ones are so awful. They are old, rickety aluminum frames, and not double-paned. They are a single window with a storm window a couple of inches away, so if I want to open them up, I have to open two rickety, wonky windows that don't slide well. I was gone all day long today, and didn't get a chance to take pictures before it got dark.

I think the worst part of the whole process so far is not having a kitchen sink. I can deal with the refrigerator and temporary table as a kitchen, and the whole mess that goes along with that, but trying to do dishes in the bathroom sink *really* stinks. It helps to see visible progress every day though.

Day 16

2011-09-20T19:35:00.000-07:00

Today the electrical work got finished up and inspected. We passed, woohoo! More plumbing stuff happened. The furnace and air conditioning got finished, just in time to not need the a/c any more this year, lol. I wouldn't want to run it right now anyway with all the construction dust in the air. So, major stuff happened but nothing good for pictures.

Day 15

2011-09-17T15:49:00.000-07:00

The plumbers came today, even though its Saturday. I think we're having an inspection on Monday, and stuff had to be done.

The master bathroom sink is ready.

And the shower got set today. The stupid concrete slab slopes 3/4 of an inch along the length of the shower, so they had to pour 80 pounds of concrete under there to level it out.

This is the doorway that got framed yesterday. It will be SO much nicer not to look in the messy coat room.

Day 14

2011-09-17T07:01:00.000-07:00

More wiring work today. Lots more. I wasn't surprised in the least to hear the electrician say that 1 job in 10 turns into the mess from hell, and mine is one of the ones, lol. The kind you can't predict until you start tearing into it. Today he opened up a box and said 'Wow, what on earth were they trying to do? There is no way an electrician did this'. Great...I'm trying not to think about the rest of the house that isn't being redone.

That doorway that I changed my mind about got framed down to the right size, but I didn't feel like going down to take a picture.

Day 13

2011-09-16T08:10:00.000-07:00

A lot more went on with electrical wiring and plumbing, but not stuff that is easy to see in pictures.

Installed the 6 new can lights and 2 pendants in the kitchen. Took out the 2 old cans that were in the wrong place now.

Got rid of the old plumbing for the sink and added the gas connection for the new stove.

Added the plumbing for the new sink. Lots of other plumbing stuff went on today, but I don't know what it was, lol.

We did make lots of decisions today. Now that we can see the walls and size of the spaces, we opted to scratch 3 of the can lights in the basement that we had planned. We hadn't made up our mind about lighting in the master bedroom, so we did that. We're going with 4 sconces on the walls and 1 in the hallway. We still haven't decided about a ceiling fan in our bedroom, so we opted to wire for it and decide later, after we live in the space for awhile. Decided to go with a fluorescent fixture in the master closet, rather than incandescent. Decided to go ahead and pay extra to fix that sloping floor in the basement so we can have laminate instead of carpet in the main sitting area. And here's the one decision I felt just a little bad about -

I stood where the couch is going to be and realized that if we look right, we'll be looking right into the coat closet (left of the stairs). I don't want to see that, so we're going to make that doorway smaller. On the plus side, its a LOT easier to make it smaller than bigger.

Lots of wiring went on again today, which is very hard to show. The basement wiring was all wrong too, so it had to all be redone. The Jacuzzi tub upstairs was wired wrong, so that had to be fixed too.

This photo is looking into the master bedroom, you can kind of see the ceiling and how its framed to drop down halfway across the room. It has to in order to enclose the plumbing, but its going to look too choppy like that, so we decided to drop the whole ceiling down. It won't be as tall but will make me happier in the end. The drywall guys will be happier too.

Day 12

2011-09-14T06:11:00.000-07:00

Aw, the psych ward door is finally gone. At least I'll always have pictures.

Installing a heavy-duty lintel so the house doesn't fall down through that new, extra-wide doorway.

Doorway is done. I wish my kids cleaned up after themselves half as well as these guys do!

A bunch of plumbing stuff happened today. This is the drain from the laundry room upstairs. It now runs through the wall like its supposed to, rather than stuck out in the middle of the room. This will be a little sink and fridge cabinet so we can make coffee without having to go upstairs.

Moved the plumbing around for the new bathrooms.

This will be the new master shower. Yes, I know its fiberglas, and not some gorgeous tile, and people think we're weird for choosing this. But, I've had enough mildewed grout (Florida = steamy pits of hell) to last a lifetime. Easy to clean is so much more important than looks at this point.

Day 11

2011-09-12T18:03:00.000-07:00

Remodeling is such an adventure, you never know what you'll find once its too late to turn back, lol. The wiring in the kitchen turned out to be even wonkier than we first thought, so the whole thing is getting rewired now. Sheesh. I'd really like to smack whoever thought making such a mess of it was a good idea. All that drywall wasn't originally supposed to come off like that, but its going to be easier to replace the big 4-foot sections rather than patch a bunch of smaller areas.

Wires running through the new bar, and that hideous light is gone!

The nasty tile at the top of the stairs is gone.

The carpet is gone. That ugly wallpaper will go at some point, but not as part of this job.

The door to the basement will be opened up.

The one support column that wouldn't fit into a wall is getting covered.

This is our bedroom ceiling. The soffitt covering the plumbing is up.

WooHoo! Our new A/C compressor is in. Being from Florida, I've never seen one this tiny, lol. It looks like a toy.

Day 10

2011-09-10T14:38:00.000-07:00

A lot happened in the basement today, but not stuff that can be seen well in pictures. The electrician spent a lot of time tracing stuff, fixing stuff that made no sense, etc. The HVAC guy is up there running tubing that will go out to the new A/C compressor (yay!). I don't really know what else he's doing down there, but I'm glad he's doing it, lol.

Whoops, forgot to lighten this picture up. Anyway, I'm working on hacking some of these bushes out so the compressor can go here. Those lower windows are proving pretty handy for getting stuff into the basement. Passing it through there beats the heck out of hauling everything around the corner and down the stairs.

Meanwhile, back up in the kitchen, the drywall came down here. This is where the stove was, and where the new sink will be. It does tend to give you pause when the electrician comes in, takes one look, and says Wow.

This is what he's looking at. Really, would it have take SO much longer to do the job right, rather than slap wires together with what looked like an entire roll of tape?? We've been finding stuff like this everywhere since we moved in. Things that make you say either Hmmm, or What on EARTH were they thinking?!?

Here's another of those things. Its hard to see here, but apparently they got a new fridge at some point that didn't quite fit, so they cut the wall out. They didn't even do it straight, it came to a V at the bottom.

Now it will be a straight wall, and come out far enough to cover the new cabinet-depth refrigerator. It kills me to pay more money for less space in a cabinet depth fridge. But, since we have so little floor space in the kitchen I'm choosing to look at it as paying for more floor space, not less fridge space.

Framed out for the new window over the sink. You can see where they used to have a vent for the stove, but that was covered by the drywall. I still can't imagine having no venting for the stove. Maybe they never burned stuff like I do...

The new bar wall is framed. I think the awful fluorescent light box is coming down on Monday. We'll be adding more can lights in the ceiling, and the two that are there will be replaced by pendant lights. We still have to shop for those.

Day 9

2011-09-08T15:43:00.000-07:00

It was a pretty big day today. Downstairs the new furnace went in. The old one was 28 years so it was time...

We lost the kitchen today!! I was SO excited! But not fast enough with the camera because John had the countertops and the bar cabinets out of there SO fast.

That big circle was a lazy susan. We'll have 2 of those in the new kitchen. These cabinets were built in place, so it wasn't pretty taking them apart. If you look closely, you can see that all of the insides were really ugly plywood. Guess that's why the previous owners covered everything with contact paper (which was also ugly)

And...there goes the flooring. All of the tile and the layer of subfloor under it.

This is what is left at the end of the day. The stove is going to friends tomorrow. The trash can and buckets are covering heating vent holes. Apparently there was an old, unused register inside the cabinet.

Sophie checking out the changes. That yellow hideousness is the original linoleum floor, and was the footprint of the original kitchen. This house was built in 1964. Wow, what a tiny kitchen!

There are LOTS of nails sticking up everywhere, so the plastic is staying up for now. At some point all those nails have to come out or get pounded in before the new floor can go in.

And here's the sink, sitting outside. How trailer trash is that?? Its there because I asked them to save it for me. I'm thinking of using it for a garden/potting area sink at some point. Or we can use it in the barn, when we build one. Oh, so many projects...

Day 8

2011-09-08T08:37:00.000-07:00

The biggest thing that happened downstairs today was framing the soffitt to hide the ductwork and main support beam.

So here is the temporary kitchen area.

And the temporary dining area.

And the last photo of the hideous kitchen still intact.

Day 7

2011-09-06T16:32:00.000-07:00

Got the powder bath and mechanical room framed out, and the pocket door frame for the powder bath. The bummer is those furnace silver furnace vents up there can't move, and are above the toilet in the powder bath, so they'll get have to get framed around and hidden behind a drywall bumpout.

The pocket door in the master closet.

This door is coming out completely, and widened to that next stud to the left. Its a load-bearing wall though, so the engineer came out today to figure out what we've got to do above the doorway.

Oh, and also figured out today that the floor slopes over 2 inches from one side to the other, mostly on one half. I forgot to take a picture of that though. This is an issue since we want to put laminate flooring in down here. We'll see what the flooring guy says about it.

Day 6

2011-09-05T15:33:00.000-07:00

I thought Labor Day was for doing no labor, but John disagreed. Now we have another bedroom wall.

Master bath and master closet are framed in.

And Sophie has given her approval.

Day 5

2011-09-02T20:18:00.000-07:00

Now that the concrete is dry, the framing can start. The closest wood on the floor will be this end of the master bedroom. I'm standing in what will be the new TV room. That ladder is in my bedroom.

The bit that runs out of the picture is the mechanical room, the little bit above that is the powder bath, then the master bath, then the master closet.

This will be the closet in the office/sewing room.

My bed will go on this wall, that sewing room closet will be on the other side of it.

A more distant shot of the sewing room closet, the bedroom, and the TV room.

This is the least exciting sounding part, but I'm ecstatic to have a mechanical room. That water heater will move to the right, beside the furnace. The existing furnace is 28 years old, so it's time for a new one of those too. NOT seeing that stuff makes me very happy.

And here is one of the most important things so far, the Port-A-Potty was delivered today!! Now we technically have more than 1 bathroom again. At least this one has walls.

Day 4

2011-09-02T19:10:00.000-07:00

After waiting a good bit of the morning for the county inspector to come sign off on the underground portion of the plumbing, (we passed, YAY!) John and Ron started pouring the concrete to fill in the holes. This has got to be the hardest way to mix concrete. The job isn't big enough to warrant a real mixer, so they had to do it by hand in the wheelbarrow. It looked so easy from behind the camera, lol.

After pouring it in, they had to level it out and make it all pretty. 4 different holes. This took the rest of Day 4.

Days 2 and 3

2011-08-31T15:32:00.000-07:00

New underground plumbing installed for the master bath and powder bath. That end closest to the bottom of the picture is floor drain for the water heater. It will be in the mechanical room now instead of stuck out in the middle of the floor.

This is the drain pipe for the kitchen and upstairs bathroom. It had been several inches out from the wall. Now it will be hidden in the wall like it should be.

Here's the trash dumpster, a load of 2x4s for the framing that will start Friday, and a pallet of concrete.

Day 1

2011-08-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

It looks so much better already, just getting that nasty carpet out of there.

We have to move a bunch of plumbing, which requires big holes in the floor. John is starting to cut the concrete. They let me run the saw too, great fun! I tried the sledgehammer too but after 3 swings I decided to stick to power tools, lol.

Starting to break out the chunks. I helped a little with this too because it was more fun than the work I was actually supposed to be doing.

Here is the biggest hole. There are 3 smaller ones around the room too. I was tired just from the little bit I did, and these guys did it for hours on end. Either they are Men of Steel or I'm a big baby. I'm gonna go with mostly big baby, lol.

Before pics of the basement

2011-08-28T21:40:00.000-07:00

I'm standing just inside the doorway, looking at what has been our lovely office since we moved in.

I had already cleaned up most of the mess before I remembered to take pictures. Kids sure can scatter their stuff everywhere.

That door to the left leads to the root cellar. Not sure why they never put in a step, I know they used it all the time.

That pellet stove on the back wall is just about the only thing staying.

This corner was intended to be a mother-in-law kitchen area. There is 220 power for a stove, and plumbing. I have no idea what the deal is with the window. The room on the other side is a storage room, and there is no window from that side.

I might miss the door a little bit. The last owner was a maintenance man at the hospital, and salvaged a lot of stuff. I'm pretty sure the door came from the psych ward.

The stairs will be getting new carpet and new tile on the landing.

We built this little box room as we unpacked. You'll see why in the next photo. The kids had a fabulous time demolishing it today.

Why yes, yes that IS a functional toilet out there in the middle of the room. With nary a window covering in sight. What's that? You'd like a closer look because you just can't believe that would be true?

And yes, it IS up on a box. There is nothing weird about the plumbing. The guy was just a tall guy and it was more comfortable this way. The curling linoleum is a nice touch I think.

I'm still astounded that these people lived here for over 20 years and never finished the basement. 20 years of looking at insulation and that butt ugly carpet. And a toilet with no privacy. Wow.

Next Monday!

2011-08-25T13:08:00.000-07:00

Next Monday they will begin demo of the basement. You wouldn't think there would be much demo since it was never finished, but there is a bit. We are moving some plumbing so part of the concrete has to come up. All of this nasty old carpet has to come out. The Psych Ward door is coming out. The 28 year old furnace is coming out.

Good news is that they won't start on the kitchen until the 8th, so we'll still have that for a little while longer.

Renovation

2011-08-15T17:24:00.000-07:00

Oh my, FINALLY getting started with this! We moved to this house in late April, but started interviewing contractors a month before. The kitchen is *desperately* in need of updating, and the basement has never been finished (in 20+ years!). After talking to probably 8 different contractors, I lost count long ago, and getting ridiculous prices, or a complete runaround, or people flaking out on us, we finally found a contractor who seemed extremely professional and reasonable - ABD. Even after we picked a contractor, it was still a very painful process, because what we want done really costs so much more than we wanted to spend, lol. Anyway, the contract has been signed and we are now moving ahead. Work should start sometime after Labor Day.

I'll start with the kitchen. Here are some 'before' pictures, before we moved in actually. It hasn't been this clean since then. So all the stuff you see isn't ours.

Yes, that is PINK 20+ year old laminate countertops. And a cabinet door that won't close.

That empty spot was supposed to be for a dishwasher that was never installed, nor was plumbing run for it.

I can't decide which part is most hideous, the pink counter, that awful white tile wall, the light on that wall, or the amazingly grotesque light on the ceiling. The upper cabinets and that soffit are all coming down.

The stove has no ventilation. There used to be a fan mounted in the wall above it, but that was drywalled over at some point.

There is a lot of counter space though.

But wow, those cabinets are ugly, and very poor construction. That's a lazy susan there in the left corner that doesn't really close all the way.

Okay, here is a drawing of how it is now.

Here is what it will be. We are swapping the stove and sink, adding a pantry (there isn't one at all now), adding a window over where the sink will be, and switching to a gas stove rather than electric. Now is the time to do that since all of the piping is exposed in the basement. We are adding a microwave cubby in the pantry area to get it off the regular counter.

This isn't exactly accurate anymore, since the new tile will also go behind the open, floating shelves on the stove wall. The cabinet elevations are also filler, since that isn't quite what it will look like.

The old tile is awful, that's our new laminate that looks like tile on the left.

This is pretty hard to see, but the little tiles on the top left are accent pieces with a wavy shape to them, the tan tile is a smaller piece of what will be the backsplash, the wood piece is the cabinet color. The bigger reddish piece of laminate will be an accent color on the raised bar, the dark brown piece will be the main countertops, and the black piece is what will be the sink. I can't remember what its called but its supposed to be maintenance/scratch/damage free. I've never had a dark sink but know that I hate porcelain and Corian, and stainless scratches so easily too, so we'll give this a try.

Kids' rooms

2011-06-27T09:16:00.000-07:00

Here's one wall in Ian's room, its the neutral color that most of the house is painted. A little dark, but okay.

This is what is on half the walls in his room. Its a prime example of that awful, 80's, faux fad. The worst part is that the mauve and white colors don't even go with the neutral color. This stuff had to go ASAP.

This is what it Ian picked. I thought it would be too dark in this fairly small room, but I really like it. The best part is that this gallon was one of those returned gallons on sale at Lowe's for $5.

Caitlin picked Dreamy Memory for her room. It is very pink, but it doesn't make me feel like I'm gonna puke Pepto-Bismol like I thought it would. I can't believe I didn't get any Before photos of her room. It was an awful teal color.

Here We Go

2011-06-25T16:53:00.000-07:00

This blog will be all about our new house on 3 acres, and ramblings about what we want to do with it. This house sat on the market for over a year. While I think it has fabulous potential, most of it hidden, some of it downright buried, I can see why it got passed up over and over again. I intend to make a list of projects we'd like to do, both short and long term. It will be fun to look back and see what actually gets done over the years.

The first priority is to get started on building a chicken coop, since we bought 9 chicks while still in our rental house. You can read the Chicken Palace Saga over here.

Following are the photos from the real estate listing -

I can't even tell you how much I hate the yellow color, and how much I hate that red deck with it.

The pond doesn't look as big as it is, until you see it from the air. The previous owners have an aerial photo of the property that they left with us. I'll take a pic of it as soon as I remember.

This is the sunroom, and is my favorite room. There is are huge windows along the front, and side windows like the one shown. We can see so much going on in the front yard from here. I put out a couple of bird feeders, so we've seen lots of grackles and sparrows, house finches, and goldfinches. We've got at least 5 robin and grackle nests on the property, and that's just what I've seen without paying too much attention. At least 3 bunnies frequent the front yard, we had a pair of Canada geese here over the winter, now we have a Great Blue Heron who frequents the pond, and a muskrat who lives there. Oh, and the fox that we've seen a few times.

Here is the living room. The dog is their English Mastiff, who is a real sweetheart. She and Sophie got along great. The house came with a big floor loom, and the previous owner came back several times to finish a set of rugs on it. It was so nice to be able to talk to her at length.

Yeah, the purple wall had to go. But those window seats have a lot of storage underneath. One of the things on the list is to make cushions for them, they are wonderful reading spots. And the kids will fit in the storage bins.

View across part of the front yard and pond. Over on the right is a line of 5 apple trees. That tree right in the middle, on the other side of the pond, is almost to the property line. There is a secondary driveway over there, which is great since the main driveway is a little tight for big vehicles.

LOTS more pics to come...