Monday, November 30, 2009

Windows

Our windows came in today! Tim came over and did some prep work and said they would be back to install on Wednsday!

Friday, November 27, 2009

Lights!

We went holiday shopping today and stopped by to pick up our light order! Here is a pic of our full trunk! Can't wait to get them installed :)


Wednsday

Wednsday we had more shockingly beautiful weather so we headed over to the house early. I put a coat of paint on the hallway ceiling.



Then the boys dug into those blackberry bushes again.
They also tore down the bits of old fence and transported a whole pile of rocks to another pile.

It was a long day, but we got a lot accomplished.
When I got home I had a voicemail saying my lighting has come in! I'm off today to pick it up.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Yard Work

We got a lot of little things accomplished today. We showed up at the house around 9:30 this morning, coffee cups in hand. I put a second coat of paint on the entry and hallway.


Tim, our contractor stopped by to measure the doors and spent some time giving us some helpful hints on how to patch up some ugly spots in the house. I then had Dan install the new hallway light to match the entryway one he installed last week. If you don't remember, here are the previous fixtures.

My helpful hubby working away.

Voila!

At about 2pm a drainage guy came by to work out a quote to fix the water that keeps seeping into the crawlspace under the house. The inspector told us due to the flat lot all the water when it rains tends to accumulate under the house. We are looking into a french drain. Shortly after he started his measuring our second plumber showed up. Bad news. We were hoping the first bid was just trying to get us scared, but this guy also told us almost all of the plumbing was put together badly and is completely falling apart. He'll give us a bid tomorrow for a complete re-pipe! So that's the bad news, but I can't figure it can get any worse from here because we have a new roof, new windows, new floors, some new walls, new wiring, foundation is great. What else could there possibly be to go wrong? It's all uphill from here right? :P

While the guys were talking this all over I started chop chop chopping my way through the 30 feet of blackberry brambles that had taken over our entire fence adjoining the park. I got about a quarter of the way before I ran out of steam and was screaming what have I gotten myself into? I left it to the boys to finish.

Nemi and I decided to check out the park next door. If you look up the path behind her you can see our house on the left. It's the second roof :)
We met a really nice man probably nearing his 50's and his little Daschund. Nemi pet his dog, and I told him we'd purchased the house. He said he'd been watching it and peeking in at the progress every time he walked his dog! We told him, way to put pressure on us! He was really nice and excited to see what we accomplish with the house.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Painting

Today I put a second coat of white on the nursery ceiling. Then I started in the hallway. My mom and I decided to try and add some white to the gallon of ugly paint and it turned into something I really love!

Here's what the hall originally looked like.

Here you can see the original darker color I had chosen, and the lighter version I made by mixing in the white.

Come on, nobody looks good in overalls.


This is what it looks like now!



Mmmm reminds me of a latte! Tomorrow hopefully I can get a second coat on. I can't wait until the bathroom is finished. Right now this entire wing of the house has no power, therefore no lights! It's really hard to get an even finish when you can hardly see what your doing!

Friday, November 20, 2009

Lights Camera Action!

Let me explain my extremely functional but somewhat odd family structure before I get started. I have three dads. No none of them are gay. My biological father passed away almost 4 years ago, and while I loved him very much, I also call my first stepfather Dad. He's a wonderful man who raised my brother from the time he was 3 years old and is still in our lives. My mother and him have remained close friends and she is now married to an old close family friend who is now my step dad. Now that I have explained, my relatives who read my blog won't be upset when I call Landon Dad. :)

This morning my Dad came over to help me with some electrical work. He didn't have a lot of time so he did some basic stuff and will come back at a later date possibly next Thursday to climb into the attic and start rewiring!

He started by installing a new doorbell! It goes ding dong now :) Notice the NOT orange walls behind him :P Yes it's just primer, because I haven't found the right color for the hallway yet. Any suggestions?


Then he removed this old fixture from beside the garage door.


And installed this one!


He also removed this mismatched ugly light from the front door.


And installed this matching one!

I am in love with these lights. Unfortunately the previous owners put this light too far up, but I don't really want to drill another hole into the brick and leave a gaping hole where this one is, so we'll deal with it and just be glad the lights in the courtyard match now!

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Dry Rot

The bathroom of this house seems to be a giant hole of dry rot. The more we rip out, the more we find. Unfortunately Dan also cracked the drywall on the other side of the wall also. Now we have to replace the entire wall and a whole floor beam that was rotted under 2 levels of subflooring under the tub. It's also affected the edge of the hardwood floors in the entryway. We are hoping with resurfacing and some wide trim the discoloration won't show up on the hardwood floors.

He looks overjoyed to have just discovered the floor is rotten.



So beautiful


Our Supervisor


The great news is Dan installed this new lighting fixture in the entryway! Sorry the before pic was taken from the front door, the after is looking at it. I'll get better at this I promise :)
Before

After

Dan goes back to work tomorrow for ten 12 hour nights so this blog will be rather erratic in the coming 2 weeks. I plan to get some painting done on the days I have a babysitter but none of the big work will get done until Dan is off work again.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Catchup

Aright, so I've missed photos over the last few days so I'll catch you up on this post. I finally got a chance to get over there today and brought two cameras! This will be a long post, but there are plenty of photos at the end. Here we go!!!

We met the guy from Sears today to talk about central air. He measured and talked us through and gave us a nice bid. I told him I used to work for Sears and he offered me the friends and family discount of 10% on the whole job! We are still waiting for our quote from the private contractor yesterday. Lennart said he was happy to work with either of them, very nice guys. So I guess it comes down to the mullah.

We also had a 3:00 appointment with a plumber to talk about some makeshift plumbing the previous owners had thrown together hap hazardly under the house, but he never showed. We have no cell phones or phone service at the new house so we weren't able to call him. Gotta do something about that.

Dan proceeded to get some more work done on the bathroom and found even more dry rot. We will be lucky if we can save the adjoining entryway wall. The studs and footer need to be completely replaced as well as the sub floor. We did however come up with a great plan to patch the kitchen ceiling and walls before the cabinet's get here. It would have been alright to just cover the holes with the cabinet's but we decided to throw some plywood up instead. We also came up with a plan for the flooring in the bathroom. They originally had two thick sub floors down, we are ripping up the top layer and then will leave it off and just put our cement board on top of that and tile to avoid a step up from the hardwoods to the tile.

Dry rot


Soffett Box the boys tore out yesterday.


Dan busily ripping out the flooring.


Tomorrow we'll measure the bathrooms and kitchen so we can order the tiles for the floors, tub surround, back splash and counter tops. We'll also order the carpet we'd picked out. Hopefully sometime this week I can also find the square sinks I am lusting after for the bathrooms.

When we first looked at this house we'd noticed somebody had broken into the house by punching in a pane in the backdoor and opening it. Until we could replace the door and locks we had been locking the screen door to deter anyone. Well, I noticed today that somebody in the past 2 days had tried to kick in the screen door and busted the lock on it. That scared me so before we left I had Dan drill a piece of plywood from the old cabinet's onto the back of the door. It's not pretty but it'll work. I also put fabric and paper over many of the open windows to avoid anybody looking in. Then Dan cut some lumber for the big picture window as one of the side locks is broken. We also left 2 lights on in the house and the outdoor lights. I'm hoping this will solve the problem. Tomorrow I'll bring over some curtains and start thinking about a security system. I am also going to put in some motion activated lights on the whole backyard.

Broken Pane


Ghetto patch


Here's a picture of the light fixture I chose for the hallway by the bedrooms. I also purchased a slightly larger size of the same fixture for the entryway.
I also purchased two of these for the front entry outside.
I wanted to show everybody the brown paint I'd originally purchased for the entryway and kitchen. I opened the can and it was super yellowy and looked like baby poo and I hated it. But I decided I'd better try a swatch and see how it dried. Well the photo looks much better. It's awful. And I feel terrible that we spent $40 on this ugly paint because we purchased the Eco Friendly baby safe paint. Now I'm stuck with a whole gallon of this poop color.
I promise I'm almost finished. The last item is a question for all of my readers! I found this fireplace screen at Ross for $30 and I thought what a find! They are hard to find and that's a great price! I think the leg's are a little flimsy but thought, my sheet metal work hubby can make new ones right? I tell him about it and he says to go back and tell him the price. He didn't want me to spend over $25 so I took this picture and ran back to the car where he was waiting with the sleeping baby I didn't want to disturb. He saw the picture and told me it was too gaudy. What do you think? Would this look good against the white fireplace?

Monday, November 16, 2009

Hard Labor

The boys spent the day at the house today. We got a quote on a new forced air system. We have another one tomorrow to compare.
The guys cleaned the insulation out of the old soffett area and completely opened it up in the kitchen to move the wiring and prepare to sheetrock. They also removed the soffett in the bathroom.
Dan stuck his foot through the floor at one point and discovered the dry rot was much more extensive than we originally thought. He is confident he can fix it :) We had intended on replacing some of the subflooring in there anyway so it's not too much of a shock.

The boys drool and suck because they took no pictures for you!

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Fireplace

Our main accomplishment today was the big fireplace in the living room. We also painted my daughter's ceiling white to match the pretty green we put on the walls last week. The ceiling previously was lavender. What a change. It's beautiful. The fireplace however... is stunning. And I forgot my camera so these photos were taken with my camcorder without a flash in the dark. I plan to paint the rest of the living room to match after some small wall patches are finished. We used Sherwin Williams Harmony in 6112 Biscuit.

Before




After

Bedding

Woooooah Momma! Am I in love with this bedding! I was inspired this morning by my Tully's Coffee cup. Red, white and tan in my bedroom.
Too bad I can't afford it.

http://www1.macys.com/catalog/product/index.ognc?ID=383920&CategoryID=26980

Then I found this and it was on super sale

http://www1.macys.com/catalog/product/index.ognc?ID=332962&CategoryID=26980

But I guess it sold out as I was trying to purchase it because it won't let me purchase it!!!!

SIGH...

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Black and White Diva

You see them in all of those old black and white movies. The beautiful women in the tailored black dress, white gloves, an enormous hat. They're leaving Macy's with an entourage of dark men in white suits carrying piles and piles of dress and hat boxes.

Today that was me. Except at Home Depot, Sherwin Williams, and Globe Lighting. I filled two truckloads with light fixtures, faucets, showerheads, towel racks, fixtures I could only dream of. Mine. All Mine. I had brief thoughts of sitting in the middle of all of the boxes and swimming in their bubble wrap among all of the aged bronze finishes and frosted glass.

Of course I forgot my camera. So you'll just have to wait for a peek at what I got.

Friday, November 13, 2009

A Day Off

We took a day off from house renovations to just be ourselves. But here's a picture that inspires me. Hopfully my bathroom will be as beautiful. I will bring in a lot of the same elements, the dark wood, dual sinks and dual mirrors. Hopefully some beautiful twin lighting as well.


By Pottery Barn & Benjamin Moore

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Much Ado about Everything

Paint, Paint, and more Paint. We finished off our 5 gallon bucket of Kilz Primer today. Geri and I had a ton of fun... er.... okay it was incredibly stressful getting that darned paint gun to work! But after much screaming and pounding on it, we did what any self respecting woman would do. We called a man. And my daddy fixed it. He was our hero in leather. Then it took a matter of minutes to do the next coat of primer. We later went through and filled in all of the lines by hand. And I couldn't be happier! Imagine a chair rail in the middle, I'll fill in the cracks on the top half and paint it oh so pretty. Any ideas on what kind of window treatments I should use? We will be removing those old baseboards under the windows. I'm thinking of putting some built in shelving under them also. What do you think?
Here is the before picture. Dark and dingy wood paneling from the 70's.
And after. You'll notice there are still a lot of particles in the air. Imagine a gorgeous new white mantle! And that carpet I posted yesterday will replace the old neon blue.
We next tackled my daughter's room which was a violent sponged purple, the top half had stains where old glue was poking through.
Before
Sherwin Williams Harmony paint 6437 Haven in an Eg-Shell is Eco Friendly
During cleanup I found a new use for the old ugly chandelier in the kitchen that I hated so much.
Voila!!! eh? eh? It's a brush drying rack!!! Who knew how crafty I was :)
Ahhh, but I must admit that I was topped by Geri when I realized she was amusing herself by creating artwork in the paint that had coated the old screen door. I may be a little teary eyed when we throw it away.
It was a long day, and we are exhausted and coated in a fine mist of white and green paint.
A lady turned around at the super market this evening and saw us and cracked up laughing. Doing a little painting she asked? I thought... what was your first clue? The overalls, the speckled bandana, or my white wiped mustache?
I love this job.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

We designed our kitchen today!
Early this morning we woke up and headed to Tigard, OR to meet my parents. We all headed to see Carl at Cabinet Broker to pick out cabinets!

Here are the layouts of the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room.




We chose these maple cabinets in an espresso finish. No Hardware.

This is what it may look like when we are finished :)

Then we headed over to CFM and picked out this carpet for the family room. In previous posts you can see it currently has bright royal blue carpet.
Shaw XVO54 in Foothills 719

We also chose our counter tops, floor tiles, and back splashes. I had a hard time getting photos of them, it just came out a blur. But the counter tops are Corian, the color is Bone. The tiles are all Mannington Pietra Porcelain in Oyster.
13x13 mosaics for the back splashes
6 1/2x 6 1/2 square for the tub surround
13x13 flooring
You can see them here
We stopped for some fish and chips, then split up. The boys went to The Home Depot to pick up some tools and supplies. Mom and I headed over to Sherwin Williams to look at paint colors. The boys there were very accommodating and let us take home an entire paint sampler. We walked around and finally chose colors for the Kitchen, both bathrooms, living room, and my daughters room. I still can't decide on my own bedroom, but I told my mother I'll just have to buy all new bedding and then I can match the paint ;) I didn't write down the colors I chose so I will try to post them tomorrow along with some pictures!
The whole day was a blur of paint chips, tiles, wood, stone, and I haven't even thought about grout colors, faucets, toilets, or sinks. I'm so in love with this house, and I can't wait to slap some paint on the walls tomorrow! Maybe I'll get brave and try out my new paint gun!

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Cabinetry

I woke up bright and early this morning and after some slight complications from the carseat being in my sister in laws car headed over to the new house by myself to meet Cabinet Carl. He was a fun guy and he measured the kitchen and both bathrooms. We have an appointment at his office tomorrow morning to look at samples and order some cabinets!

After some Dutch Brother's Coffee I sent Dan and his brother Matt over to do some more Demo. They also stopped by Home Depot and spent a little Moolah. After much work they were able to pull the solid metal tub out and the drywall off of the walls in the bathroom. Unfortunately 2 of the 2x4's need to be replaced due to some rot. We also have to replace the entire subfloor! A minor setback in a tiny room. This will only take one more day to fix and we'll be secure.

The boys came back for a little rest, and I sent them back with pen and paper telling them to make detailed lists of all the projects and supplies/tools we need to buy tomorrow for the rest of the week.

Bathroom- Remove Soffett and Replace subfloor and 2x4's.

Kitchen- Scrape texture from ceilings and put drywall up where the soffett's used to be and make pretty swirlies on the entire ceiling ;) Replace the entire subfloor with a thinner denser material to avoid step up after tiling in the adjoining threshold to the hardwood floors. Sand walls where they painted around the old cabinets.

Hopefully later tonight Geri and I will get over there and start edging the family room and put a second coat of primer up. I'll post pictures of progress tomorrow.

I found this neat quiz on another blog I follow http://www.younghouselove.com/
It's a quiz from Ethan Allen, they use picture association to tell you your decorator style.
www.ethanallen.com/style_quiz
Mine is Villa
Romance reinvented. A high end decorator look. Refined without fuss. Serene yet strong. Pedigreed while also modern. Inspired by French and Scandinavian design. A mingling of carved woods, handcrafted artisanship and the dressmaker detail.
Sounds pretty spot on to me!!!!


This is my inspiration photo for today.


This photo is from Kitchenz.com