happyflamily

After weeks of prep in the way of demo, drywall, plumbing and electricity, we finally began tiling this weekend.

First mixing concrete…

This is the shower, with tar paper, all built and ready for slate tiles…

Taping the seams for a flat surface…

And the tiling begins…

Jason came down to help us, he was very helpful and you should all be ashamed that you haven’t done the same…

This was what we had at the end of day two. There is much more to do. But we are pleased with the start.

Hard at work, Sophie and I found another layer of linoleum underneath the one we started to rip up. So the light stuff was on top and this brown stuff that we are working on is the linoleum under the white stuff and glued directly onto the hardware we are trying to unearth. Sophie was very helpful and all of it is now up. Well, the top layer is. For all of that hard work, we now have uglier linoleum with headless nails poking out of it. But I still feel like we are closer to something.

Lillie meanwhile was helping Daddy by “handing him nails and giving him kisses.” She felt this required the use of safety goggles.

Despite the large bathroom, it is difficult to take very nice pictures. Here is one from about a week ago. We are further along now and those photos will be posted soon, maybe tomorrow.

The half wall is going to be the only barrier between the shower and the rest of the bathroom, we are not going to have a shower curtain or a will between the shower and the tub. Basically, what is in there so far is how it’s going to be, plus tile, vanities and a toilet, of course.

For all of you keeping track, we move out of the rental on the 20th of June, but we hope to actually be done moving the weekend before that so we have some time to clean out the rental and tie up loose ends. Let’s see how that goes.

Shad and I took Wednesday off of work to make more progress on the house. Of course, we had goals that could not be met, but we did try. We feel that we worked hard and didn’t dawdle and still we didn’t get through a third of the list of things to do.

For those of you keeping track, however, note that we:

- Finished the venting for the bathroom fan

- Put up the rest of the ceiling in the bathroom

- Put in the subflooring of the bathroom (yes, that is the flooring under the flooring but on top of the other flooring)

- Began building the wall of the shower

- Began tar papering the walls to prepare them for the drywall

But, alas, tomorrow begins the weekend and we will have two days to complete the list. Every Frida we say, “By next weekend we will be ready to tile.” And every Sunday night we condole each other, saying, “Well, we did get some stuff done.”

This Friday we really mean it though!

Before begining work on the house this weekend, Sophie and I volunteered at a fun run to benefit CASA of Lane County, an organization dear to my heart. Sophie and  got up early and had some special time before hitting the remodel work. I wanted to get some photos of us in action, but  Sophie and I were so busy there wasn’t anytime! I had to put this in because she’s so cute!

And work officially begins…

A few weeks ago Jason came from Portland to help us replace the giant sliders we had with a set of french doors and large window. Saturday, Shad and Gromper finally got them square and functional. We have a lot more finish work to do, but we are proud of where we are so far. The paint around the edges are possible living room colors, so enjoy your sneak peak!

Though not quite done, the kitchen is very close to done. We have a handful of things left to do, including paint the ceiling, replace the light fixture, put the oven door back on the oven and get a new fridge. But here is the kitchen so far…

This weekend was full of miscellaneous projects, including pulling up the carpet. Because we need the large area of the living room for projects, we didn’t want to leave the hardwood exposed to hardcore wear and tear. I cut the carpet into sections, rolled it up, removed all of the padding and the nails and staples holding it all down. Then I unrolled the carpet to cover the area just cleaned up. Because of this we didn’t get any photos of the living room all finished, but here is the next best thing, a sideways picture of a hallway your probably didn’t even know was carpeted in the first place. So tilt your head and enjoy!

Our home is extremely well built and was very well cared for. In taking down walls and such, we have found good materials and it seems to have good bones.  I keep waiting to pull down some sheet rock and find that there was an electrical fire in the wall and all this time and money we have put into remodeling is making the home better than it was before. But we have run into no such thing – thus most of the projects just feel like changing decor- more like opinions than quality.But the carpet was different. This was the first place that I knew I was making the world a better place. All of the carpet and padding was soaked in pee-pee. What a time to be a super-smeller!  And the bottom layer of padding had mostly disintegrated. It was like picking up a layer of slightly hard sand that crumbles in your hands. So I am sure now, that, whether future owners would rather have hard wood or have carpet, everyone has to be happy that I ripped out all what can only be called a carpet pad of of kitty litter. Non-clumping.

Photos of this weekend’s work will be posted tonight. We are hoping to have more to show if you give us another day!

I was removing the carpet in the living room and hall yesterday and the archaeologist in me came out. I started digging test pits and digging past the assumed bottom of the flooring in the dining room. Under two layers of linoleum and a layer of plywood, I found the original hardwood!

We were planning to try to match the hardwood in the living room to re-do the floors in the dinning room and kitchen. Now we will have the original, totally matching, real hardwood. Cost effective flooring may have called for an inferior product, but now, even with the possible cost of refinishing the long-covered hardwood, we will have a wonderful floor at a good price.

Before anyone says, “Wood in the kitchen and dinning room? Is that a good idea?”, noted.

I have endeavored to keep this blog light and happy, like I am about my new house. However, we are men of action and lies do not become us. Permits and inspections suck. We should all rally against the man and stop the oppression. We are TWO WEEKS behind because of inspections. The permits were not that much trouble, but because they lead to inspections, they suck, too.