The last time I blogged we were painting... we are still painting! Finally last week I broke down and went searching for someone we could pay to finish the job, and I did! I am so glad too, cause it's almost done and this weekend we were able to take on a new project, changing the columns on the car port and porch. So this past weekend we started out by taking down the old lattice between the columns, took off the fascia and shingles covering the columns and structure that supports the roof to the car port. Of course this little project could not go without a hitch, and this time it was rot... and a lot of it. So we had to rebuild the entire structure, everything except the roof. It was a major undertaking, stressful and exhausting, but everybody worked really hard the entire weekend and now it looks so pretty! We built a railing between the columns and are still going to dress them up with trim and all that jazz, when we are done with it, it will look right out of a magazine... ha!

The exterior is slowly coming along, it's been a super hot summer so it's a real challenge working outside, but even so, our GC is a total trooper and has re glazed several of the windows, including the front ones, and now the front of the house looks really beautiful! We get compliments all the time from passers by... we are so proud!

We also had a little get together for Max's birthday, so we rushed to hang some art on the walls and make it a little more cozy in here. It really feels like home now!

Max's b-day

paint!

After we did the floors we took it easy for a while, you could say we are a little bit burnt out from all this remodeling, but as we were leaving for a weekend trip to Effingham Illinois, right after doing the last coat of varnish on the floors we opened a letter from the city of Roeland Park that said: bla bla bla "you have 60 days to paint your house"... so that made it quite clear, our next big project to dive into would be painting the exterior.

It's been 3 weekends of scraping, priming and picking out paint. You'd never know we've put in as many hours as we have, there is still so much to do. And we've even had help! But we finally found our color, and we are making way with the scraping and priming, so hopefully 1 o 2 more weekends and it will look completely different!

Right now it's a bit of an eye sore... but our neighbors should be used to that... it's looked ugly for many years, a few more weeks should be just fine.

Sneak Peek

And we are out...

We were in, and now we are back at Max's parents' house... because we are refinishing the hardwood floors! We must have broken some sort of record this weekend, because we started sanding at 7 pm on Saturday and were done by 10 pm on Sunday! And even though it's a small house, it has hardwoods throughout! Of course we can barely move, and every cell in our bodies is in pain, but hey, we saved a ton of money by just renting the equipment for one day!

The floors are looking super, and we are almost ready to put down the varnish, we just have to do the stairs by hand, cause the "little" machine was too heavy for me to handle down the stairs, and Max was doing the monster belt sander (I tried for a second, no way...) so I'll tackle them with a hand sander, then thoroughly clean the entire house, and the first coat of urethane goes down tonight! We should be back in our house sometime Thursday, after 3 coats of finish and enough time for it to cure, I hope... and ready to move in for real! All our furniture, all our stuff... oh boy!

Photos

We are in!

We spent our first night in our new home on Sunday! On Easter Sunday, exactly 7 months after buying the house, we strapped the mattress and spring box to the roof of the Jeep and packed the car full of boxes with clothes, some kitchen stuff, a dresser and a lamp and took off! We had spent a lot of time earlier that day cleaning up the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen enough to move some stuff in and spend the night. So around 10 at night we unloaded the car, put the bed frame together, hung up the shower curtain and put a few things in the kitchen cabinets. It felt so great to be there finally! We were exhausted and ready to go to sleep by 12 but realized we had no blinds in the bedroom! We'd been warned by friends about precisely that, since they also forgot to buy blinds on their first night at their new home, and still we forgot! But we quickly covered the windows with kraft paper and went to sleep.

The past few days have been great! Lots of cleaning and stuffing things in the garage (mostly trash). Several carloads of boxes and bags, mostly with kitchen stuff, and 2 big trips to the grocery store later, our kitchen is almost there! It was so exciting to open a bunch of our wedding gifts again and pick a spot for each one, each decision so carefully considered. Even though we are really tired we are so happy to be in our own house!

There's still so much work to do, starting with hooking up the washer and dryer, building some storage in the basement, a bookshelf in the living room, putting up crown throughout the house, patching up walls painting them and refinishing the hardwood floors, which we plan to get to pretty soon, hence the reason we haven't moved all the furniture in. And then, when we are done with all that we'll take it outside! Paint, yard work, porch, deck, herb garden, new garden shed...maybe calling that Australian guy on HGTV to come make an "outdoor room" for us... And then the attic... which we'll get to next year maybe.

I'm predicting this blog is nowhere near its end.

Pictures will come... here they are

We finally have counter tops! We've been anxiously waiting for the day when we'd put in our beloved counter tops, and the day finally arrived yesterday! They gave us some trouble because they were bowed from sitting around the house too long (absorbing moisture) but our GC concocted a contraption that slowly straightened them back to flat and then, someone, we can't decide who, came up with a brilliant idea to anchor them securely to the cabinets so they won't bow back. Well it all worked, and now the kitchen looks so great! We still have to put the sink in and all the trim to make it look really really nice, but we definitely conquered the dreaded challenge of the counter tops, and we are super happy! It was a good weekend.

LOOK!

Big steps!

It's starting to look like we are close to being done. The tile in the kitchen looks awesome and every time I walk into the house I get excited and still can't believe it's all there, grouted, buffed out and totally great to walk on! The cabinets are in and the top doors too, the counter tops are going in this weekend and it should be fun cause I'm sure we will find it's not quite as simple as they make it look on HGTV... We have to make sure ours are not going to bow back like they were before we braced them, so we'll have to screw in a few iron brackets, and build up the low wall so they will sit at the right height... fun fun fun!

Two days ago we finished purchasing the remaining appliances! We have new and amazing front loaders (washer and dryer) in the basement, and a super sweet dishwasher (we decided that the one we "acquired" was not going to cut it next to the very new fridge and stove... so we bought a new stainless steel one! And we also finally got the hood we had been going back and forth on... It's all there waiting to be installed and broken in! We also picked out all the moldings for the kitchen and the bedroom, so we are almost done spending money!

The bathroom is almost done, we bought curtain rods and painted the walls, installed the doors on the built in cabinet, grouted and cleaned the tile, and caulked EVERYTHING! We are only missing the mirror for the medicine cabinet which we are in no rush to get, and I'm also waiting to find the perfect shower curtain, any good places to look?

So the bathroom is almost done, and this weekend we'll probably finish the bedroom (prime ceiling, paint walls, put up crown and fix closet hole...).

So all that will be left is finishing he kitchen, and THOROUGHLY cleaning the entire house before we can move in!

Check it out

Checking off stuff from that damn list!

We are so close! The electrical is all done, inspected and approved. We have a new water heater and it's all installed and working. For the first time since we've owned this house there's hot water in it, huge step!

A couple weeks ago we put up sheet rock on the ceiling in the bedroom downstairs, it was one of the hardest things we've done so far... definitely not something I'd like to do again. Anyway, now it's mudded and sanded and soon will be primed and beautiful! After that, just paint and crown molding and we're done! (oh and also the closet has a giant hole we have to address... minor fix)

The bathroom is all primed, we had to scrape the 5 thousand layers of plastic paper and paint on the shelves, and it was a mayor headache... first I tried soapy water thinking it was the same as wall paper, but I quickly found that it was not cutting it, so Dan told me to use the torch, and I used that for a while, a long while, so I ended up using a super strong chemical paint stripper and that did the trick! I spent like 5 days on those damn shelves, between striping sanding and priming, but now they looks so nice and clean, it was worth it. The walls are all patched up and, the window has been scraped and primed, and tomorrow we are tiling the walls! After that we'll pick a paint color and call that room done! (I'm sure there's about 10 things I'm forgetting right now... cause when you think it's done, you're always wrong...one of the many things I've leaned on this journey).

The Kitchen is looking awesome, with a new back door and beautiful tile on the floor! I finished that today, we still have to grout, but on the pictures you'd never know... ha! we still have quite the list of things to check off on the kitchen, but it's moving, and every step is oh so exciting!

So there it is, so much progress despite a minor set back (a few days in the hospital, it's all good now, no worries it was not house related, just a side effect of being so tall, poor Max) and many, many cuts on Lilo's left hand and a few boxes of band aids (all house related) but we are going strong and moving forward, quickly approaching our move in date!!

Here are some pictures of the surprise Valentine's day picnic I made for Max... and some more progress...cheers!

Freezing shower anyone?

This past weekend a giant step as made, we got the toilet, sink, bathtub and shower installed and working! It looks amazing and it feels great to know that a big one is out of the way. We still have to tile the walls in the shower and install the new water heater in order to have a fully usable and incredible all new bathroom, but we are excited for this achievement nonetheless.

Before we had this grand breakthrough the week was tough... our G.C. was away on a really cool adventure of his own, and I, like the good worker bee that I am (ha!) decided to continue hacking away at whatever I could. I chose the very difficult project of getting the rest of the Durock on the bathroom walls in order to be ready for tile. The previous weekend Max and I had started with a couple walls (the easy ones...) and I had no idea it would be so hard to do it alone... and after sweat, blood and many frustrated tears I managed to do it right the 2nd time... we won't talk about the first. So last week was long and difficult, but the weekend made it all worth it! And now Dan is back, and we are back on electrical detail.

PICS

Victory!

All our hours of hard work paid off yesterday when we very nervously turned on the water main to our house... first the cold water. We heard it rushing in and quickly followed the pipe line walking through the basement pointing our flashlights up, carefully scrutinizing each and every soldered joint... NO LEAKS! But wait! We heard water rushing out of the tub faucet, ah!!! the handles were put in the wrong way! But the crisis was quickly averted, we just turned it off, no mayor damage, just a bit of water accumulation in the not yet sealed sewer lines, oops! But it was good! No leaks! one down, one to go. Then the hot water... NO LEAKS!

Before that moment I really never thought I could get so excited about anything related to plumbing, but just knowing that we did everything right, in the first try, I was beside myself! After a few minutes we did find a couple very very slow leaks, but I'm happy to say, they were all easy fixes, some valves just needed a bit more tightening.

I had nightmares about every single spot I'd soldered bursting and water spraying every corner of the basement... my biggest worry was that everyone would know which ones I did, the ones that leaked! But all my worries have subsided, and now I feel pretty good about my new skill set... Dan says i might be getting too confident! pshh!

But for the sake of full disclosure I will confess I burnt a cable while soldering a very tricky spot last week... and I panicked and called Max who had no help to offer... and then Dan who calmed me down and then came to fix my mess... so I don't think I'm quite ready to graduate.

This week... more electrical stuff.

CLICK HERE!

Two steps forward one step back...

It is the second day of the second week of my new work routine... since the new year I've been going over to the house to work every afternoon. I've learned so much about plumbing, running copper piping, "sweating pipes", not to connect galvanized to copper without a connector thingy (haven't learned that much apparently). It is surprisingly fun, i actually kind of like it, but would not go as far as to say I found a new career path, as Max suggested.

Last week we made huge progress and over the weekend we even had a guest appearance! It was so fun, our friend Cary helped us out with plumbing stuff and provided much needed comic relief to the work session. And then.... we found an electrical nightmare! There's a huge mess behind the walls in the bathroom and the further we dug the bigger the mess got... so a brave a wise decision was made by our G.C... we are redoing the wiring to the rest of the house! who knows what else they just covered up! It's the perfect time to call Holmes on Homes (great show on HGTV about this awesome guy who comes to peoples houses and fixes all the messes previous builders have done, and says "tear is all down!").

Anyway, we are not calling Holmes, we are hacking away at it ourselves and just adding a little more to our "TO DO before moving in" list. It was definitely a discouraging set back, but we'll feel better when we're done, and we'll know our house is safe and solid!

It's a New Year!

It's been a long time since the last update, but that's because there were a few slow weeks in the renovation efforts. Between Thanksgiving, wedding number 2 in Isla Mujeres and then Christmas we haven't been going at full speed like we started. However, as soon as we got back from the wedding we got busy with the plumbing (by "we" I mean the boys) and us girls have sanded and painted the cabinets, and they are looking so great! We chose a beautiful vanilla ice cream color, and we are done with the first coat on everything. We also have our counter tops ready to finish. They are made from salvaged barn wood from a barn that was about 150 years old and was torn down like a 100 years ago, so we have the most amazing OLD walnut counter tops you've ever seen! We are so excited!!! Those were made during our little Christmas break and we picked them up yesterday!

We have also made progress with picking out stuff, we have a super awesome old harvest table for the dining room and new chairs, we also picked out tile for the kitchen floors, a white cast iron sink, brushed nickel faucet and brushed stainless hardware for the cabinets. And got a garbage disposal for Christmas!

As far as the bathroom goes the toilet and sink are not in place yet, but the toilet has been fully restored to its 1936 state! and we'll be putting it in as soon as the plumbing is further along. Turns out we are doing the whole thing! New sewer, new plumbing in the kitchen and bathroom, and leaving things ready to do more work for when we decide to do the bathroom upstairs!

We also bought a really cool pedestal sink and nice hardware to go with it and located the right tile to match the existing wall tile so we can continue it all the way to the ceiling when we put in a shower (the house is that old... no shower, just a tub).

Lots of work to be done still... probably not moving in for a while... but we did spend our first night of the new year camping out with our sleeping bags in the living room and received 2010 in our own house! It was cool, however a day later the furnace went out and we found out it was leaking carbon monoxide and found 2 dead birds in the exhaust tubes (which were rusted all the way through). But no worries, we are alive and well, we did not see any ghosts and "we" have already fixed the furnace, replaced the rusted tubes and have one more cool story to add to our repertoire! All I can say is, it is awesome to have a husband and father in law who can do everything, fix everything, and if they can't they always figure it out.

Thank you GC!

Pictures will come... AND HERE THEY ARE!

(just realized my camera has the date WAY OFF! these were not taken in 2006...ha!)