happyflamily

I finished painting the kitchen last night. I will post some photos as soon as I take some. It was very exciting to finally have that over with. It was getting very depressing to see a kitchen half painted, half primed. The ceiling still needs to be painted but I think I’m going to wait and do the entire house at the same time.

As I was leaving the house I could not help but open up the paint I’d just gotten for the living room. I painted a little patch on the wall of the living room. SO GROSS! It is the worst color ever. I am so bummed. A friend told me this morning that the paint store can change the color slightly so I’m going to try that before I invest in another gallon. However, I count myself lucky that this is the first design problem I’ve hit and that I’m wise enough to recognize it early enough to fix it. Other colors have worked out just fine.

In other news, the faucet for the bathroom has come in. Wow, we have good taste. It’s the most beautiful tub faucet I’ve ever seen. We drilled the holes in the tub surround and it is good to go for the plumber whenever he decides that he has time to put it in.

We have found that a lot of the work we do on this house is not something anyone will ever see. For instance, no one is going to walk into the new bathroom and say, “Wow, I bet this ceiling is blocking some really well done venting.” Sub-flooring is equally impressive. But we will know that it’s done and remember the good times doing it. And if we forget, the bill for re-plumbing the entire house should bring it all back.

We got into a dance with the plumber and the inspector and had to postpone our remodel plans. We intended to fix the floor and walls, but as we could not cover up pipes that had yet to be inspected, we took the weekend to finish up a few projects we’d not had time to get to.

To expand our bathroom, we knocked out a closet, leaving a hole in the wall. As there was a pipe at the bottom, I taped the opening off for safety. Then Lillie got ahold of the tape…

While Shad worked on some venting, I drywalled and plastered the wall. The girls wanted something to do, so I invited them to help. They spent about 4 minutes with me, got completely covered in plaster and declared it was boring and suddenly they remembered a million fun things they could be doing instead.

Lillie did however come back to ham it up for the “after” photo…

Here is a panel of the wall covered in green board and a panel on the ceiling as well. Shad almost died putting it up and I bet my life on his biceps as I drilled it in, so we both deserve some respect for this one.

Apparently we only know how to use the saw in the rain, as every time we were ready to make a cut, a downpour ensued. Still, Shad is a good carpenter to the end, and even in thunder and lightening, he measures twice. (I still had to run out and stand on the board when it came time to cut, so Go Me, too.)

I almost forgot, we built and tiled the tub surround. We did that without electricity. At the point we could no longer see the measuring tape or what we were doing, we fired up the gas generator the electricians left for us. Note: Light is an important component of construction. We realized that when the lights went on and everything was a little screwy. They don’t tell you that on the home improvement shows.

Our Masterpiece…

The tub will drop in that opening and the sides will also be tiled. We couldn’t finish it because of the afore mentioned inspections, hopefully they will be finished Wednesday and we will be able to make faster progress.

I would also like to gripe for one moment. I think that there should be more professional “Jack Of All Trades.” The plumbers came in and laid pipe, leaving a hole in our roof and one in our floor. The electricians left a hole in my kitchen wall. When asked when that will all get repaired they say, “Hey, I’m not a contractor, I just do <fill in the blank>.” So I am left with holes all over my house because these guys only want to do exactly what is on their business card. Bring on the Jack of All Trades and fix all of these holes!

As always, more photos to come!

The plumber started work today and we meet with the electrician later this afternoon. Things are starting to roll along!

After talking to a plumber and thinking about it some more, we realized that we should probably take down the other two walls and the ceiling.

Shad spent a good part of the morning crouched in the attic, wading through and tossing insulation trying to reveal the ceiling to the bathroom. I was down in the bathroom demolishing the rest of the bathroom.

Now THIS is a complete demolition…

Sunday we had no more work to do, so we took the day to go shopping. We bought the tile, lighting and some construction materials that we will need for the upcoming weeks.

Next week we will be framing and drywalling, preparing for the following week of tile, the weekend I am the most excited about. Congratulations to Jason Stafford for being the first to sign up for our Construction Tourism weekend! You’re gonna love it! For the rest of you, there are still openings. Hurry, this offer won’t last long (I hope).

And so the demolition of the house commences. Mima came down to help us, and what a help she was. She and I basically did everything, although Shad did turn up in the afternoon sometime.

There was a closet in the hall way and using a sawsall and a lot of kicking, Mima and I took it down to make more room for the new bathroom.

This is the view of the progress from the living room. Not that there is still a tub, a vanity and a dividing wall…

Same picture but from the bathroom, looking into the hall…

All of the walls were drywall, plastered over with some kind of concrete and chicken wire.

Somehow hard work isn’t that hard when it’s your bathroom. Now the vanity and tub are gone and I’m taking down the dividing wall.

Things are a little cleaner in this picture. We will have to take more photos though because as of now the bathroom is mostly studs and there is no toilet (and we only have one bathroom so we’ve been running back and forth to the park). The toilet paper is still there though.

This weekend we are planning to demo the remaining (exterior) wall (the toilet paper holder will have to go now) and to take down the ceiling so the the elecrician can reach the wires.

If asked to weigh in on the popular belief that remodels are hell and their worth should be carefully considered before begining something so horrible, I would say, it’s not that big of a deal… unless you are me. I want it all done now. And if I am the one to do it, that’s fine. But plumbers and such annoy me. Why don’t they want a beautiful bathroom for me as quickly as possible? I mean, I want a beautiful bathroom for me as quickly as possible.

I’m sure that things will get worse before they get better, but for now, I’m pretty pleased.

I’ve been working after dinner on painting and sanding and filling holes in other rooms. I feel very fortunate that we don’t have to live there while we are doing the work. But time is ticking and eventually we will have to stop paying a mortgage and rent.

So there is this new thing called Agricultural Tourism — you take a vacation to a farm and they let you make butter and feed chickens and the like. We are now offering Construction Tourism: openings at the Stafford Manor in demolition, painting, drywall and plumbing. Inquire today!