Just a peek

The kitchen is almost finished and it is looking great!  However, I am not going to show you pictures just yet because it will ruin the surprise at the end!  The cabinets, sink and some doors were installed last week.  The appliances are still in the garage and scattered throughout the house, but will be installed this week.  Here's a little peek...

This is our new bay window bench (as a work in progress).  I love it!

A peek at the style of our cabinets.  Lots of drawers!  Love those drawers!

I have always loved a white kitchen.  And I love the clean lines of shaker style cabinets.  We have them with these sort-of farm house pulls, which I love, but the clean lines of the cabinets allow us to go totally modern with the pulls years down the road if we ever want to change it up.

Brett has been hard at work paneling the kids bath.  He bought some new toys to get the job done - a circular saw and nail gun... not sure what else.  Does anyone find it odd that all over the country people are ripping down paneling and we are putting it up?  It's going to look great!  Here's the beginning of it. We plan to whitewash it, and if it's still too cabin-y and rustic, we'll paint it white.

Like the barn light for a vanity light?

I decided to research the Cape Cod style house online today and find out a little about its origins and the typical styles and colors used inside. (Shouldn't I have done this about two months ago?)  I was thrilled to discover that Cape Cod interiors are characterized by lots of white (phew!), hardwoods throughout the entire house (yippee!), and accents of blues (for the ocean), red, and tans (the color of sand).  I think I'll take this information to heart when decorating and embrace the blues and reds.  Cape Cods are so charming - I need to do this cute little house justice.

We got to see our 2 slabs of Carrera marble at the stoneyard this week and are so excited that they will be installed on Tuesday.  We are in the final stretch here.  The plan is to move in November 16, but every time I say that to someone I get funny looks!  Doubters!  I am pushing forward and pushing for that date, because I've learned that in this business if you don't give people firm deadlines, nothing will be finished and work will drag on forever.  We'll see if I get my move-in date!  I'm sticking to it until someone tells me it can't be done.

Turning Point

I think we are at a turning point.  I think the pictures I post from here on out will be getting progressively better.  No more exposed studs, walls will be gradually painted, dust will eventually start to clear, counters and appliances will start to fill the empty space.  It started last week with the drywall going up (and us passing all our inspections!) and will continue tomorrow with the installation of the kitchen cabinets.  Here's what the kitchen looked like yesterday morning. 

I love this picture - Grant and the glow of the morning light pouring through the bay window. 
Feels like home looking at this shot.

We slid the existing pantry down about 2 feet to create a larger space for cabinetry
(and lost the utility sink from the laundry room to do that).

We widened the doorway to the dining room from the kitchen seen here by about a foot.

To the average eye, this kitchen probably looks pretty dire!  But to me, it is spectacular.  Seeing the walls up made such a huge difference.  And the morning light pouring through the bay windows just warmed the space and allowed me to envision it as the heart of our home.

I'll post pictures after the cabinets and appliances go in (Wednesday through Friday of this week).

Busy week!

It was a seriously busy week at the new house.  I mean so busy that every waking moment Brett and I had available to work on house projects, that's what we were doing.  If I wasn't driving someone to school or feeding someone or dressing someone, I was either buying tubs, faucets and door knobs, meeting with appliance sales people, designing bathroom cabinets, talking with the plumber, checking on the painter, measuring all sorts of things to make sure everything will fit and function properly, selecting tile... and so on. Brett's spare time involved marking out our bathroom tub on the floor for our plumber (so he doesn't screw it up installing it!), measuring shower head heights, shower basin widths and depths, talking with gas line installers, multiple trips to Lowes and Home Depot, trips to the outskirts of town to pick up plumbing valves for 3 shower heads, meetings with sales reps at Fergusons, late night shopping online for tubs and tub fillers.  It has been NONSTOP and very little sleep around here.

A bit of unsolicited advice for anyone contemplating a major renovation... don't do it unless you really like this stuff.  I mean REALLY like this stuff.  Decorating, space planning, designing, engineering.  I love these sorts of things, and the parts I enjoy (decorating, space planning, organizing, designing) compliment nicely the parts Brett enjoys (engineering, mechanics, functionality, etc.).  So, in the same sick and twisted sort of way that marathon runners enjoy running 13 miles on a Saturday morning to prepare for a race (no thank you!), we really enjoy the remodeling process.  Now, at about 11:30 pm each night this week when Brett and I were frantically searching online for tubs and faucets because our plumber said, "You need to have a tub picked out by tomorrow morning so that I can get the plumbing roughed in before the inspector comes and we can pass inspection and get these walls closed up," I can't really say we were having FUN.  But, we did find an awesome tub (at 11:15 pm, after days of looking at other lesser tubs!).  She's a beauty!

And we selected tile (in less than an hour - nothing like a deadline to get you motivated to make decisions).  The tiles we selected were quite reasonably priced (yay for us!), but then we got the bid for the labor to install the tile.  Gulp.  My estimate that I had used in our budget for the master bathroom planning was about 70% LESS than the actual cost.  OUCH!  Time to revise the tile plans a little.  We had planned to do white subway tiles about 4 feet up the wall all around the bathroom (and subway tiles are CHEAP), but the labor is outrageous, so we are going to have to rethink that part of the vision for our bathroom.  I think we're planning to only tile the wall behind and around the tub and leave the rest alone!

We are having custom vanities made by a local cabinet maker because we can get the exact size, height, look and drawer configuration we want in the bathroom and at only a slightly higher price than shopping online (and, FYI, we can get custom handmade solid wood cabinets for LESS than the Pottery Barn bath vanities - so buyer be warned!).  This is the design I came up with at 11:30 at night.

Oh, and did I mention that at the eleventh hour we decided to add the kids bath remodel to the mix?  It looked like this a few days ago:

Now it looks like this:

I've designed this cabinet (11:35 pm!):

The space under the cabinet will accommodate step stools and a basket for laundry or towels.

To compliment this rockin' sink!

Are we crazy?  Yes.  But, now that we are doing the kids bath too, we can get all the bad plumbing out of the house.  And while I was designing one vanity, I figured I should just do the second and not have to worry about it later.  All the cabinets (including our kitchen cabinets, which are ready to install as soon as we get the walls closed up) in the house will be shaker style, clean lines.  The bathroom vanities will be painted (ours light grey, the kids maybe blue?), and the kitchen cabinets will be all white.

We'll do this light (which we found at Lowes for $40) and this horizontal boarding on the walls in the kids bath.  The pine board project will only cost about $100 and will really change the look of the space for plain to interesting (you can get them at Lowes or Home Depot).  Nice little project for Brett to add to his list.

We are keeping the neutral tiles and leaving the tub alone for now... Simpler, faster and less expensive!

And yes, the move-in date is pushed back to mid-November.  And now our master bedroom ceiling looks like this (to get to the plumbing in the kids bath):

 

Such an inviting master retreat, isn't it!

As for paint... we are going with Valspar's "Du Jour."  It's white.  White white.  Here's what our dining room looked like in the decision making process. 

How did I manage to work from right to left?  So funny!

This picture is very inaccurate in translating the colors (because we have NO electricity in our house and the flash on my camera ruined the colors).  But anyway, #1 is what we chose, #2 was too bright, #3 was too grey, #4 was too creamy, and #5 was just right but too expensive.  Basically, we couldn't tell the difference between #1 (Valspar Du Jour) and #5 (Benjamin Moore Chantilly Lace), and choosing #1 saved $200-$300.  So, there you have it. We had several people walk in the house over the past few weeks and ask what the squares on the wall were (seriously?  Isn't it obvious?).  Brett or I would explain, and each time the person would reply, "But they all look the same?"  Ha!  They are definitely not the same - I promise!

Oh, one last thing.  The playroom addition rocks.  Lots of usable space.  Here's a decent picture of the opened space.

Lots of barely visible progress

Lots has been accomplished in the last week or so, but there is little evidence of the progress when you walk through the house.  Many of our walls still look mostly like this:

And this:

We have no water, some electric.  Dust is everywhere.  Nothing is finished.  But the good news is that everything is started and lots of things are past the halfway point, dare I say almost finished?  (Ok, that is a bit of a stretch!)  We are still relatively on "schedule."  Not that we ever had a schedule, but when we bought the house, Brett and I calculated what we thought this would all require as far as time, and we estimated a move-in at the end of October.  We *might* be in by Halloween.  If not, the first weekend or two in November.  Not too bad.

All the hardwoods are in (upstairs and down) and they look great.  They have not yet been sanded and finished, that will be the last step in the renovation.  For now, then can just get trashed!  We are thrilled to have them upstairs as well.  Thanks for all your input.

We do have all new electrical in the kitchen (notice those holes in the walls!).  Light switches have been moved and added to work with the new kitchen layout.  Cable outlets removed and relocated in many places.  We have added recessed lighting as well as pendant lighting for over the island.  We have all new plumbing on the entire first floor - the plumber had to remove the 1980s Polybutalene piping which will no longer pass inspection and replace ALL of it.

See those new recessed lights in the kitchen!

 

We even have a new stove!  It's on our floor in the family room - right where stoves belong, right?  It's a Bertazzoni and I can't wait to show it to you - it is beautiful.  A little piece of jewelry for our kitchen!

 



We have a new 80 gallon water heater, now in the garage instead of the hall closet (which is going to give us a bigger shower!).

Brett stripped all the closets of their wire shelving so he can repaint them and build in wooden shelves and maximize their usable space.  The closets in this house are generally a little smaller than in our last house, so adding shelves and double hanging rods and shoe shelves and things like that will be really helpful over the long run.  That's his next big project.

Before all the closets had some type of wire shelving like this.

Now they are all "naked" like this!

The master bath is plumbed and rewired - new light over the shower, wired for a chandelier over the tub, etc.

The black box will hold a chandelier over our (yet-to-be-selected-or-purchased) free-standing tub.

 

Oh, and my new addition to the playroom is lookin' good.  We have a light switch, recessed light and two electrical outlets in there now.  The room feels (and is) much bigger.

To be honest, this weekend we mostly did this:

And this:

 



 And a little of this:

Instead of this:

But, hey, you gotta play a little, too, right?

A little painting...and some more demo

So we decided to get our hands a little dirty on this big ol' house project.  There are so many pieces to this puzzle, and many of them Brett could do himself (in theory), but with a full time job, a side project, and three kids, there is really no time for him to do much of the remodel.  He did decide to get the garage in ship shape before we moved in.  We never got our garage organized and cleaned up in our last house, so Brett was determined to get this one all set up BEFORE we dumped all our clutter in it!  So, he painted it and used one of the shades of white we are considering for the inside - a nice big test swatch!  It was A LOT of work as it turned out and made him feel even better about our decision to hire out the painting for the rest of the house. 

The kids got to help, too.  They love to paint and since it was "just a garage" Brett let them dive in and didn't have to worry too much about the mess.  They loved it and would have covered the entire garage (or at least the bottom 4 feet of it), but time was precious and Brett had to finish it up before the sun set, so they just helped for about an hour.  Next step is to hang the kitchen cabinets we took out and saved on the back wall for storage and get some bike storage set up.

 

 

(Sorry there is no "after" picture - it's just a white garage!)

As for me, I took on a much smaller painting project.  I decided to save this 1980's beauty of a brass chandelier from our dining room by spray painting it Rustoleum's "Antique Bronze." 

 

It cost $8 and took just a few minutes to spray each coat (I did about 3 coats).  A simple project for me and it will save us several hundred dollars by not having to buy another chandelier.  I think it will go in our breakfast nook, and we'll get a new one in the dining room.

And for the master bath... Before:

Now:

Notice the big hole in the back of the shower?  We didn't do that.  It was like that, if you can believe it.  The hot water heater was crammed in the back of the adjoining coat closet and it was too big for the space so the builder cut out the drywall so it would fit.  What a mess!  So, we decided to move the hot water heater (and get a new one) to the garage.  By moving it to the garage, we don't have to worry about the potential disaster of a leak (on our hardwoods) and we got to extend the relatively small master shower back almost 2 feet.  Win win.  Now we need to pick out and order some finishes for our master bath so it doesn't look like this when we move in!  (Actually, these pictures were taken yesterday.  I went by today, and the room is now completely down to the studs - no drywall left AT ALL.  The wallpaper was so thick (2-3 layers, it appears), that it was easier to just re-drywall it than try to salvage the existing walls.)

Progress

A lot has been accomplished this week at the new house.  Lots of demolition and mess-making for most of the week, but then at the end a little bit of reassembling.  It had to get really ugly before it started to get better, but I think (and hope) we are rounding that corner.  Evidence of the mess is here in our lovely dumpster:

I was in charge of this project alone this week as Brett was in NY for work.  Each time I went to the house to check in (I try to go twice a day) I had AT LEAST one child with me (in a construction zone).  It was very hard to take decent pictures while making sure Grant didn't tumble down the stairs or stick his hand down the exposed sewer pipe or play in the insulation or step on a nail... you get the picture.  Toddlers and construction zones don't mix!  So I do have a few pictures to share, but not as many as I'd like and most of them aren't that great (since I had only one eye on the camera and the other on Grant!).

A few updates:

1.  We decided to put hardwoods in the entire house.  It'll cost us about $2,500 more upfront than high quality carpet, but in the long run it will save a lot of money because they will never need to be replaced (we could never replace 1300 sf of space with even the worst carpet for $2,500).  Plus, we do prefer the look of hardwood and the cleanliness factor. In the end, I just couldn't bring myself to write that check for such a large amount of money for basically a disposable product. Short term pain for long term gain here!  Plus with young kids, the inevitable potty accidents, throwing up, spitting up, spilling paint, dropping pens, and other incidents will not cause permanent damage!  Yay for that!

Here are some pictures of the hardwoods installed in the master and kitchen (unfinished).  They look great.  We are considering leaving them natural, but will try a few light stains on them as well and decided once we've seen our choices on the floors.

2. Once we saw (and mentally processed) what a MESS taking out tile creates, we decided to go ahead and start the remodel on our master bath also.  We were going to do it in 3-6 months, but the messy reality of demolition changed our minds.  Envisioning all that dust and noise and strange people in and out of our personal space for weeks while we lived there just became a very unappealing prospect.  We have an idea of what we want to do in there, but now we need to make some decisions and order some tile and fixtures.

Here is the tile removing mess I am referring to (serious noise and serious dust, people):

3.  Although last week I was thrilled to see the demo and the cleared out space in our kitchen, I must admit that I did have a brief but powerful moment of panic this week in the face of all the mess.  I was walking in the house with Pierce and Grant.  Pierce had to go potty (bad!).  We tried the half bath - no toilet.  Tried the master bath - people in there doing demo work.  Tried to go upstairs to the kids bath - no stairs!  Moment of panic.  I thought, "What have I done?  I have a house with no accessible toilets, no stairs, and a bunch of people I don't know inside.  Agh!!!"  Then Pierce reminded me to try the back stairs and go through the attic space connecting the two separate upstairs spaces.  So we did.  And we arrived a one functioning toilet.  I think I am over my panic.  It caught me off guard.  But it has passed and I hope it won't come back.

4. We did decide to open up the closet in the playroom to create more usable space.  And it is awesome.  I am so glad we did it.  The pictures don't do the space justice (according to Brett who was not impressed with the pictures I texted him this week in NY, but when he saw it in person was also thrilled).  The kids agreed to model for us to give a little bit of perspective on size.

Before:

A wall with a closet behind it.  Hi, Sydney!  Hi, Pierce!

After:

A serious addition to our formerly SMALL playroom.

Ignore the pipe running down the middle of the space - an unfortunate discovery that will be rerouted.  And the hanging wires and missing drywall will be remedied also.

That's all for now.  Next time I'll show you our totally trashed master bath!  Agh!!!  Will anything be put back together???