Day 38

So for me this week I've picked out my backsplash (sort of) worked on hardware and all around feel like I've gotten almost nowhere.  My only job is to pick out stuff, but since I want it to be perfect, well it seems to take a while.  Better luck next week.

Not too much change, but Jer is out of the walls.  Here is the dining area...
Here is Leon the drywall guy. Yea! getting rid  of my swirly celings.  He'll also be patching op all the walls and texturing them so they match the parts of the walls we tore up.  He's really good at walking with that bucket under his feet.  He just scoots along with out climbing down.  I would absolutely kill myself.  I guess that's why I sit at a computer instead of putting up and texturing drywall.  It was my second carreer choice, after taxi driver, landing zone for throw up, incessent whine listener toer.
This is the main area of the kitchen, by the end of next week it will look ton's different.  The lowers will be installed and then we'll be waiting for the granite, or marble we can't decide which.
The office looks the same.  Jeremy still has to put up the drywall in here, then Leon will come back and texture this room.  It'll be sometime in the next couple of weeks.
Another view of the kitchen.  The sink goes Monday, I'll miss you sink!  I think I'll be doing dishes with a garden hose!  Just for a few weeks, hopefully, an adventure!  That's it for today, I was just excited.  These are technically the first guys other than Jer to come in and do anything.  Of course the cabinet guy has been working on it, but since he's not here I don't think of it that way.

Day 35

Yesterday Jer didn't have as much time to work, he played golf with some friends, but when he got home and finished up his "real job"  He put the drywall up on one of the  old entrances to the craft room. 
This is a picture of the skylight.  I think he's going to be putting the drywall on that today.  So I wanted to make sure I had a good picture of it, before it got all closed up.Here's the girls having breakfast at what's left of the kitchen counter.  It's a sink, a dishwasher, and a bank of small drawers!  As you can see Jeremy got out the rest last night!  Today we're hopefully picking up and installing the door (it came in yesterday, a week early!)  The kids are getting freaked out by the mosquito eaters that seem to have full rein of the house right now.  Sadie is scared to death of them, but she won't let anybody hurt them either.  So when she goes to bed we have to quick run around and kill them all!

Day Thirty Four

This is what the entry looks like right now.  It's a little hard to see but you can see (on the right behind the drywall) that Jer has framed in the existing dining/office room doorway.  Mainly the only other thing that will change is the floor.  Which will be the same wood that will go in the rest of the remodel section.  Were also adding sconces and changing out the closet door, and the solatube.
Here is the new opening into the dining/office room.  The view is from the kitchen.  Jer has finished all the electrical in the office.  He has been working for weeks on the electrical there are a lot of changes to the existing and it is all way too complicated for me to get but he and Scott seem to be doing a great job because everything works!
This is the view of what used to be a little eating nookish area that went out to the deck and had a huge slider.  Jer has put in the framing for the new door, which should arrive next week sometime.  You can also see one of the skylight opening.  Jer has framed that in as well, but not drywall yet.  You can also see that he took down my uppers.  I still have the use of my sink, my dish washer, and my range.
Here is what the kitchen looks like.  Jer has framed in the new window, the other skylight, done most of the wiring and all the can lights.  He's been a busy guy.  I'm so thankful he knows what he's doing.  We'd never be able to afford the kind of kitchen I'm getting if he couldn't do so much himself.
Not much has happened here, but really not that much is changing.  New window, new lights, floors, baseboards, and of course no more swirly ceiling texture.  Right now this is where we keep the Fridge.

The appliances arrived a couple days ago.  I haven't seen them yet because they're still in boxes.  I'm still working on the pendant lights, tile, what color to paint the cabinets.  So it hasn't changed all that much because the in the wall work is slow going.  Soon Jer will be patching up the drywall and the drywall guy will come in to texture the walls and ceiling.  I'll post more pictures when things change a little.  Still enjoying every minute, I know that sounds weird, nut after waiting so long to do this I still smile every time I walk through this mess.

Lisa

Surprise! (on day three)

I went out for sushi and this is what I came home to!

I thought Jer was done for the night when I left him with all three kids, but no.  I get up this morning with Madison beaming.  "Mom I got to tear out the tile!"  And of course true to form Sophia was pouting , lower lip jutting out,  "I didn't, Dad said I would get too dirty, after my bath."  Reasonable and fast what else!  I need to go out more often.

Day Three

Some of the tile was torn out today!!!  Jer got all the tile out of the eating area.  It didn't seem too bad, but of course I wasn't the one wielding the digging bar.  Also today we met with our cabinet guy, Tom, to get the layout better nailed down.  We had a few changes to make to the layouts I came up with work better.  He is giving us a new estimate with our changes and getting drawings done for Friday.

So we'll meet with him again then.  I also purchased our appliances today.  That was difficult, I knew exactly what I wanted, I just didn't want to pay that much for it.  We saved about $1300 in comparison to the lowest prices I could find on the internet and over $2400 over manufacture suggested retail.  I feel pretty good about it.  I really don't think I could have gotten it any lower.  Sears has a price match guarantee, they match the price plus give you 10% of the difference.  They also have a rebate, that ends today, and I get 20% of my purchase price back.  So we went for it.  Tomorrow  I will have to clear out the craft/office room!  But first sushi with my ladies tonight!

Day One

I moved the furniture into the toy room so this is what the eating area looks like bare...

I thought it was important to show this angle as well, so I can show off the lovely shag carpet strip in the back!  One wouldn't want to tile the entire floor when you can just tile around the furniture, right?

Here's the line Jer cut in the tile, where the wood floors will stop.

This is the most exciting part for me, three half tiles were removed, this was just a sample for Jer to see how the tiles that were laid directly onto the sub flooring would come out, but since it is actual demo, I do believe there's no turning back!!!  I'll be working on the furniture in the dining room (now office) tonight and tomorrow night.

Finally! Start of Day One

So I haven't written anything in the last several months because I've been busy on some projects, but I have one I'm going to be writing about.  For years we've been wanting to remodel the disco 70's house.  Actually the first time we saw the house and decided to buy it it was painfully obvious that this is a fixer upper.  It would need many hours of work to get it to look and feel like "our house."  We have worked on a few projects and even finished some projects.  We re-did the bar, the powder room, the fireplace, the yard, and half of the family room.  However the thing I've been after for coming up on 11 years now is the Kitchen area.  After getting close twice, this time it's really going to happen.  I'm thrilled!  Finally a range that works every time I turn it on, no more built in toasters or blenders!  My goal was to start on March first, which was yesterday.  But today is close enough for me.  I don't know that moving furniture actually counts as starting but to me it does.  Lets see what I can get done today!

These are two pictures of the current dining area, It won't change too much but this is the first area we'll be doing demo on.   So this is my first project.

 Today I will move the dining table and buffet into the toy room (which has the kids bewildered, why can't we move everything into Mom and Dads bedroom?).  Next I'll empty out my office, again into the toy room.  These are my projects for the next few days, as soon as I get them done we should be able to start demo on the floors and once the first tile goes there's no turning back.  So I'll be posting our progress and uploading pictures.  This will help me keep motivated to keep going.