DONE! ... for now

Sorry I have been MIA for a good long time now... I hit a wall in motivation and had 0 desire to do anything about it. We worked non-stop from the day we signed to the first week of November. We were working until midnight the day before the house-warming party and putting finishing touches in up until the first guest showed up. But... it paid off. We had a blast at the party and so appreciated everyone coming.

The house truly felt like a home on Thanksgiving when for the first time in a long time, we didn't drive to more than one dinner. Family and friends came to us and it was glorious. After Thanksgiving, Christmas decorations came up and the house didn't get cleaned again for a few weeks. Instead of splitting the work based on task (you do the kitchen and vacuum, I'll do the bathrooms and dust), we now have to take floors. We are lucky if we can get to more than 1 floor a day!

Here's a look at the progress we made since we began:

Now that we have had a nice break from the stress of remodeling and holiday shenanigans, we are starting to think about what's next. Basement, patio, windows and bush removal are at the top of my list! Until next time!

Weekend without the Hubby = Productive

This weekend, Luke was out of town for a hunting trip. I kept super busy to try and stave off the loneliness. Thus, this weekend was quite productive, singing, dancing, cleaning and painting at all hours of the night.

We got our washer installed and man, oh man is it pretty! It plays me a song to start and to let me know it has finished. Kitty loves sitting on top of it while it's running; he spins his head in circles watching the clothes go round and round. After not having clean clothes for about a month, it was quite a treat to do some laundry!

Saturday I hit the jackpot at 2 garage sales. It is truly amazing what you can find at garage sales. I live for them. My mom (who was given the bug from her dad) taught me how to find the good stuff and passed along the love for treasure hunting. The trick is to know where to go, what to look for and have a positive attitude.

The major accomplishment for the weekend was that the kitchen cabinets no longer look like grandma's. After much debate over getting new cabinets (WAY too expensive), getting new doors (also a ding on the savings) or painting, we decided to paint. It may be temporary for now but I think they look pretty good for price.

I started by scrubbing them all (years of home cooking caked on... ewww). Then a good coat of Grey Gripper and 2 coats of Chocolate Swirl.

UP NEXT:
New microwave and stove range, installing the closet doors and finishing the bathroom in the basement. Countdown to Housewarming in 13 days! AHH!

It's just a little geometry...

This weekend was a productive one. We spent much of Saturday shopping and the evening was devoted to trim and baseboards. The pre-cut door trim kits made the door frames quite easy. For the baseboards, we went with a contractors pack at Home Depot that worked out great.

The project was a lot of detail work, 45 degree angles and downward driven nails. For some reason, I seem to always get stuck with my dear friend, Mr. Hammer. Once again, Luke thought he had a sailor for a wife as my fingers took some abuse. Luke was a pro at the cuts though and quickly we made short work of the baseboards. After that was all finished, we started decorating and that was really fun. Its really starting to come together!

I spent Sunday morning cleaning. Yes, our first real clean. The bathrooms and our bedroom no longer have paint chips, wood chunks, screws, boxes, gunk, you name it... What a beautiful feeling a clean room can give you.

On a side note, you can now tell that Fall weather has hit. Our cats have resorted to eagerly waiting for us to sit down (a rare occasion so far) so they can fight over cuddle time on laps or, as you can see below, pawing our faces until we let them in under the covers.

UP NEXT:

Painting the kitchen (walls and cabinets). I'm sooo over painting by now so if anyone is interested in helping!?!?

So when is the fun part?

Another weekend gone and still didn't get to everything we wanted to do. We did manage to: hookup the dishwasher, hang the hall lights, reattach the handrails, scrub more bar tile, hem and iron the drapes, unpack the closets, put new drawpulls on the bathroom cabinets, move the office and couch to the basement, put the 2nd coat of paint on the banisters, paint the bathroom and nook ceilings, hang some pictures, find matching pillows for the bedroom, do the dishes, go to a housewarming party, work, take out the hideous brass fixtures in the guest bathroom, and paint the nook. Needless to say, it might be a quiet Monday night.

Here's some pictures of the bathroom and nook...
NOOK BEFORE:

NOOK AFTER:

GUEST BATHROOM BEFORE:

GUEST BATHROOM AFTER:

Floors Galore - a 500 piece puzzle

This weekend was one full of puzzles, strenous labor, teamwork, precision tinkering and pain. 4 days in the making and the floors are in and look AMAZING (if I do say so myself).

Thursday:

Luke and I ripped all the carpet out of the room. It was full of dirt, drywall mud and who knows what else. While not exactly difficult, carpet is just bulky and heavy to remove. The pad also kind of grossed me out thinking of the years of spills.

The tile in the entry way also had to be removed and that was no picnic either. Between prying sheets of tile off plywood and the damn Pergo removal, my pent up aggression is now at bay.

Friday:
After realizing that real hardwood floors didn't fit into our budget and to be honest, looked like WAY more work than we were willing to put in, we agreed on click-and-lock laminate floors from IKEA. The laminate is pretty much exactly what you expect from Ikea. It looks really great and while not the best quality, it gets the job done for a fraction of the price. The tool kit also was along these same lines.

Friday night, Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning were all devoted to ripping this damn Pergo out. Piece by piece (and I don't mean square piece but each 1 inch strip), had to be individually removed using a hammer and crowbar. My ears were ringing, my back aching and I definitely lost track of the number of times I hit my hand with the hammer, but it was worth it and we worked for it.

Saturday:
Uncle Blaine, Luke's Dad and Luke and I started on the floors about 4PM on Saturday. By 11PM, we were more than half way done. We read the ambigous paragraph of directions from IKEA (complete with odd cartoons and had watched a few YouTube videos on how to install. It all looks easier than it is.

Starting was the hardest part. Since it's a floating floor (no glue or nails), you have to be careful about keeping the whole thing parallel to the wall and not going cock-eyed. The spacers ended up being more of a pain than a help and the click-and-lock wasn't as easy as it sounds (until you learn the secret trick - about halfway into laying the floors). Eventually, we got a system going of 1-2 people measuring and cutting, 2 people installing and Cheryl laying the underlayment.

Sunday:

Luke and I woke up to inspect our work and realized that we needed to apply the secret technique to the planks that we started with. So we spent an hour redo-ing a few lines and then moved on to the demolition room. After finally removing all the Pergo from the dining nook, we were ready to resume laying the laminate into the next room. 3 times was about par for the day on the number of times everyone hit their head on the low-hanging light fixtures. Luke's brother also came over and was a big help finishing some of the difficult cuts in the entryway/closet.

After all the floors were finished in the late afternoon, my Mom helped us move all the furniture back in.

Now, it finally starts to look like home!

UP NEXT:
Baseboards, dishwasher/dryer hook-up, and trim - how hard can that be?



Bohemoth is in!

Horray! Our besties Chad and Kassi came over last night to help us move the bohemoth armoire. We had 1 inch of clearance fitting into our bedroom but it was much smoother than I suspected. THANK YOU so much for the help friends!

On a side note... it looks as though we have become a gathering place for the neighborhood cats. This one was hanging out on our grill one morning. Looks like Ellie might have a boyfriend!

Tired Kitty!

Luke and I have been going non-stop since we got the house. While it's just amazing what we've accomplished, we are definitely feeling the burn. This weekend, we thought we'd take it easy and redo the tile in the bar. Our notions about how relaxing tiling would be, missed the mark a bit.

A couple weeks ago, Luke and his dad ripped out the dated tile that was in the bar. I thankfully wasn't involved in the project as it looked tedious. Once everything was off, Luke and I found some great new tile

We purposely bought sheets with small tiles so that we wouldn't have to worry about cutting tile. Everything fit in quite well and the laying of the tile wasn't too bad at all. Sunday we put in the grout. As we were about to start wiping the excess grout off the tile, we had to go pick up some kitchen appliances and that took much longer than expected. We didn't actually make it back to the project until 9:00pm at night. That was a big mistake.

The hours of drying meant that the grout had already dried on top of the tile and the "smart" small tiles meant that we have to scrap every single tile to get the grout off. So until about midnight last night, we scraped as many tiles as possible. We still have about 1/3 to do to finish but the hard work is paying off. We love the look!

The rest of the weekend involved more unpacking, some garage saleing and a severe uptick in my hatred of hanging doors and installing door knobs.

COMING UP NEXT WEEK:
Laminate hardwood floors on the main level... a whole new world.