Just about done!!

We are very close to having our house back!  The kitchen is 95% done, and it looks great.  It feels like we are in a different house.  I made the first meal with the new stove last night.  After 2 1/2 weeks of not having a stove, this was very exciting.  Spaghetti and sausage! 

 The countertop looks nice with the flooring.  And now we have so much counter and cabinet space!  I'm going to forget where things are.  I can't reach the top shelves of the cabinets, so they will have to be saved for something we don't use often. 

 We are waiting on the backsplash that is on backorder and should be in soon, then the window will be framed out as well, and everything will be complete.  The is our new copper sink.  We love it, and I hope that it stays pretty, and I don't regret the choice. 

The stairs and flooring is complete.  WE love how the stairs turned out.  They originally had ugly carpet on them, and this is just the plain boards underneath that were stained and painted.  Nice job!

 The wooden floor is nice and cool apparently, Samurai enjoys laying on it for naps. 

So very soon, we no longer have Rudy, the contractor at our house each day.  We will be rid of the porti-potti in front yard, and the contractor sign! 

We are planning an open house soon to show off our completed house, so stay turned for details!

Kitchen and flooring

 All the cabinets are in...  we are waiting for the counter top to be cut and delivered.  The trim is going up and other small things.  The cabinets are so tall, it's hard to reach some of the shelves.  We have started to move a few things back in.  Without being able to fully use the kitchen, its hard to know where I want everything to go.  We may end up rearranging anyways.  But the sooner I don't have to run up and down the stairs to get stuff from the basement then better!

The one new appliance that we have is our new microwave. 

the new flooring is in!  Its prefinished hardwood.  Bamboo.  It looks great and is a tad darker than it shows in this picture.   

We had to keep the cardboard down over the weekend to protect the new floor.  The boys enjoyed it.  It was like one big canvas!  Its not often they get the chance to write on the floor!  I am hoping though that it will all be gone soon, and we get the living room back into shape.  It would be great if the stove gets installed too.  I can make due with the toaster oven and microwave, but with out the stove top to  make pasta and boil water etc, its getting to be challenging!  Its been about 6 weeks, I am ready to have my house back! 

Just a quick post.... The cabinets are going in and they look great.  We are very happy with them so far. 

This is our old fridge, the new one gets delivered today, but probably won't go in until the flooring is installed.    We are going to have so much storage space, we won't know what to do with it all!  It'll be a big change from our old kitchen.  It already is starting to look like a different house!

I am glad we will be away for a few days since we are now without a stove or a kitchen sink.  I can function without the stove since we have the grill and a large toaster oven and microwave (which are located in the garage), but washing dishes in the bathroom is inconvienent and sort of gross somehow.  Hopefully, though I don't know the exact plan the flooring will be going in the next few days so that when we get home on Monday evening, the appliances will be in too!  But I have a feeling that won't be quite what happens, especially since I don't see boxes of flooring in the garage yet! 

Bathroom is done, and painting has started.

 YEA!!  The bathroom is done!  We really like it.  And it is nice to have the room finished.  I love the counter top and Len's favorite is the faucets.  I think the boys love the "magic" closing drawers and the silent closing toilet seat, because it closes slowly.

There is so much more storage with the medicine cabinets.  We were thinking the walls which are grey would look strange with the floors, but all of it really pulls together.

Really, it looks great.

 Downstairs, and on the stairs, the destruction and construction continues.  The carpet has been removed all over.  I am glad I missed out on tearing out the carpet!  That would have been a pretty dirty job!  We are not sorry to see it go. The stairs are pretty noisy now though.  Especially for the dogs.

 All the way around downstairs we are walking on the plywood.

 The kitchen is now painted.  We aren't sure why they painted all the walls since only a very small part of it of it is actually going to be showing.  Seems like a waste of money and paint.   But the color is good.

So we are hoping that this week will be cabinets, the rest of the rooms getting painting and maybe the flooring started.  We'll see, what happens.  

Its been a slow process.   

Another week, some more progress...

 Lots going on this week at the house.  The kitchen's electrical was run and all the junction boxes and all that stuff are in. The recessed lights are installed in the kitchen.  This was terribly exciting to see, but  once they got the dry wall up, the kitchen was much much better.  It feels so much cleaner in the kitchen now with out all the exposed walls and insulation!  We still have plywood flooring, but I think that is suppose to change this week. I can't wait to see the new floor!
Walls,  then flooring, then cabinets!  We are getting closer!

 The Back 1/2  wall is where the new stove is going to be.  The electric line hanging down is for the new exhaust hood.

Len is cooking dinner!  

Our bathroom is very, very close to being done!  So far I love it! The counter top is so nice and so easy to clean.    We had a small issue with them not recessing the medicine cabinets, but the contractor went back and fixed them.  If they aren't recessed, the lights above them look ridiculous!    My only other issue is the color of the outlets and switches.  I want them  white, and they are the same color as our old bathroom, but we'll fix them later.  If we asked them to change them all now, the electrician would have to come back and that would cost us a lot more!  The only things left to do are to touch up the paint, and put up the hardware, such as the towel bars and toilet paper holder.  And then... that room will be finished!  

Kitchen progress...

This Week has shown progress in the kitchen.  They took out both old windows....  It went from this...

to this...   Framed out the spot for the new window....

 The next day, our new window was in.  This one is centered on the wall and will be over the new sink.

I believe that early this week we'll loss our sink and they will start working on the floor.  Our dining room and living room are just about empty, except for the biggest pieces of furniture, which they will move from one side to the other.  Those rooms look like we are either moving in or moving out!


Our bathroom is just about done.  The new counter with sinks is in, and the faucets.  Early this week the medicine cabinets and lights will go in and the finishing touches, towel bars etc will be put in and that room will be done.  I have started bringing things  back into the bathroom, so we have some organization upstairs, since the first floor is a mess!  Once the bathroom is finished, I will post pictures!  You'll have to wait to see the final results.  I do LOVE The counter top!

And the walls come tumbling down... as well as the ceiling... and the floor.

 The walls in the kitchen are coming down day by day...  As is the ceiling and the flooring is taken up...
We have the stove, sink and diswasher, and the refrigerator.  Everything else is gone from the kitchen.

 This wasp next was in the ceiling.   Luckily, the wasps are gone or poor Rudy the carpenter, would have had an awful day!  and we won't have been able to come in the house.  The wasps would have been angry!

Our garage is FULL of our old cabinets, as well as boxes full of our new cabinets.  

 Our vanity in the bathroom, with plywood top.  Our real counter top is back ordered and will be delivered in 3 weeks!  They can't put in the mirrors or lights until the sinks are in, so they get them in the right place.  

Rained out, home early!

So the camping trip to the Adirondacks did not go as planned this weekend.  Mother Nature had other ideas, mainly cold weather (about 40 degrees), and constant rain.  So after a day we packed up everything wet and headed home.  When the forecast mentioned snow, we called it quits.  In our absence, the kitchen is starting to be demolished.  At least we still have the stove and the sink, but no counters or cabinets nearby.  It is challenging to cook without anywhere to put things.  Now we have spent the rest of our weekend home emptying the remainder of the kitchen cupboards.  So everything is on shelves in the basement.  This will give me lots of exercise.  I have to plan out what to cook, what food is needed and what bowls, utensils, pots and pans I need or else I am up and down the stairs constantly.
I do like the open wall though.  It gives up a start of an idea of what the end will look like when the entire wall is down and you can see all the way through the rooms.  That will be nice.  Every once and a while we need a glimpse of the finished product for encouragement!
Since this work was done and things were removed from the kitchen, something funny is going on with our electric upstairs.  Some things will now only work if the night light in the hall is plugged into the right socket and on... hmmm that is strange... Something more for the electrician to check out!
As for camping, we had two very disappointed boys, (not to mention the parents). So we are going to do a short make up trip this weekend, close to home.  It is forcasted to be in the upper 80's.

Camping Bound!

The new toilet is in, and the wall paper in the hallway up the stairs is off.  Thankfully!  I hated that wallpaper the entire 6 years we've been here.  With the walls smoothed out and paint on, its going to be sooo much nicer!  We are heading out to go camping in the rain soon and leaving the house for a few days.  We have been going at about 100 mph everyday that even with the rainy weather, camping will be a nice break.  When we are camping, things slow down to about 20 mph!  Life has to slow down camping, that's the beauty of it!
Have a  great Memorial Day weekend everyone!

And the week goes on...

The new floor is in...  and there is no more pink toilet!  Yea!  I was happy to see that in the dumpster!

and this is our dining room wall.  This wall is being taken out and a counter only will be there with in all open in between the kitchen and dining room.... I guess they wanted to see what is in the wall they are knocking down!  Nothing really... 

Monday, Monday, Day 4

Well, Monday Monday. .. what happened on Monday?  Well the shower head did NOT get put back on.  I am not happy about that!  After not getting a shower over the weekend, that is the one thing I was hoping would get done.  Instead it was lights and the bathroom fan and outlets so obviously the electrician was here.  Also the walls that were opened for the plumbing were patched, but nothing too exciting.  Of course the boys love to run and see what new changes occured.  As we pulled in the driveway, Kaedan said we could tell what happened by the new garbage in the dumpster (which is really a trailer with an open end so they can see the items inside).  But much to the disappointment of the boys, there was no new items to be seen really.   
Today should be the flooring maybe and the painting I think.  Once the floor is in, the new toilet can go in as well.  No more pink toilet.  That is something to look forward to.  Hopefully this new one won't get clogged as easily by little boys!

Builders website link...

As promised, the contractors website is Otterbeck Builders,  this will take you to our work in progress photos.  So far there are just the before pics.  I will let you know when new pics are
 up!

We have a new window in the dining room and the tub minus the shower head was installed on Friday.  We can use it for a bath, but not showers over the weekend.  Interesting.  I am going to pretend we are back in the old days...  wash my hair in the sink or something.  oh well just a few days.

Tomorrow the shower head and more of the bathroom should be done.  We've spent the weekend emptying the kitchen and moving furniture for the start of downstairs soon to come.  Oh my!  The house is chaos.

Day One...

Well at least I have a toilet still! 

No sink, vanity, large mirror or flooring for that matter.  All of it is gone.  At least we can still use the shower and the toilet if needed.  Luckily we have a 1/2 bath downstairs with a sink for brushing our teeth and washing up etc.   It was interesting this morning getting ready for work with our toiletries in various room.  Though I did get a compliment on my hair this morning, so not being able to see into the mirror in the bedroom when I blew dry my hair turned out OK.  Maybe I should do that more often! 

Tomorrow!

Everything will start tomorrow.  At 7:30 the project head will be at the house to do a walk thru and decide where to put the important things like the dumpster and the port-a-potty.   Yea,  a port-a-potty on my front lawn!  But just a small price to pay I guess.  I have to say, we have been very impressed with how considerate the contractor has been so far.  On our last meeting he asked about pets, wanting to know what pets can go in or out.  We just want to keep the dogs out of their way and not have the workers going crazy because Samurai is barking in the basement all day.  (We crate him in the basement where it is cooler, but you can hear him barking all thru the house, even on the second floor where the bathroom is.This is more of a house issue rather than the dog having a super loud bark.)  Our contractor really tries to make this process go as smoothly as possible for us, the homeowners.  We will be able to use the shower and toilet most of the time they are working in the bathroom.  This is only because they don't want to inconvenience us any more than they have to.   Let's hope in the end we still like them all as much as we do before they started two months of work at our house!  Next post will have demo pictures.  I wish I could be there to take a sledge hammer to the pink toilet and sink!  The contractors will also post pictures throught the process on thier website, so I will include a link as soon as they do that.

Freaking out!

So I have been freaking out a bit lately on everything we have to do before they start work on the house... in two weeks.  And we don't have any free weekends really.  The day before they come and start the bathroom, hubby and I are taking an all day trip to Boston to a Red Sox game.  That might be a good time to be home and clean out the bathroom before they  demolish it.  But I guess we'll do that another day.  After the bathroom is done, they will begin the downstairs, which involves new flooring throughout.  This should begin right after Memorial day.   We are going camping Memorial day weekend in the Adirondacks.  Since we have to move all the furniture out of the downstairs and empty the kitchen, this might be a good weekend to be home as well.  But I guess we will do that another day as well. This is not to mention all the other things we have to do around the house inside and out.   The garden needs work, the fence has to be fixed, the lawn mowed, the garden planted, the flowers planted... Wow.  Any volunteers to come over and help?  At least swim lessons are over so we don't need to be going to the YMCA anymore Saturday mornings.  And K. is not going to be doing baseball for a while with his broken wrist, so no more Sunday afternoon games.  So we do have a bit more free time than we thought, maybe. 
I wish there were some strong high school boys on the street we could pay to move all the furniture.  But no, I think we will be doing it ourselves.  I guess our garage will be holding all our living room and dining room and kitchen items for a few weeks! At least its good weather for the cars to be in the driveway.   We won't have room for everything to go back into our kitchen and dining room, so what to do with the extra furniture?  Hold on to it, until Brother moves back to the US?  Yard sale?  Craig's List?  Right now I can't decide.  I have enough to worry about. 
There isn't really an option of not going away on these trips.  We need to do them.  Hubby and I need some time away to enjoy by ourselves.  We all need to go camping for Memorial Day weekend.  The boys LOVE camping and we always go on Memorial day weekend.  It is our start to summer.  So we'll carry and and figure the rest out as we go!  Somehow everything will work out in its own crazy way.

Bathroom before photos...

 Our bathroom, before pictures.  Yes, just about everything you see is going. Chloe, the dog who's end you see here, will stay with Mom while construction work is taking place.  The upstairs of the house is pretty much her domain, and this will really upset her.  (The construction noise, not visiting the country for a couple of weeks!)

The pink sink, the pink toilet, the pink lights; its all on the way out.  We are lucky to have a very large counter top so we will have plenty of room for two sinks.  The huge mirror is going to change into two medicine cabinets for additional, hidden storage.   Then maybe we won't have so many things sitting on the counter for all to see.
I can't wait for the finished product! 

The Date is set

We now have a start date for our "project".   Monday, May 13th, our house will be taken over, well at least the bathroom.   The current plan is to start in the upstairs bathroom and then move downstairs for the rest of the work.  I like the idea of completing the smaller project first.    That way, when the rest of the house is in shambles, I will at least have a beautiful bathroom to enjoy.   The bathroom itself should take about 2 weeks, and the overall the "project" will continue for a total of 8 weeks. 
I will not be sad to see our pink toilet go.  Hopefully the new toilet will have better flush power that little boys can't clog nearly everytime they go!  I am also very excited about our removeable toilet seat for easy cleaning!  Those little boys don't always hit the right spot! 
We are told that we will be able to use the bathroom most of the time throughout.  We won't be without a shower for example.  They will prep it and then remove and reinstall the new tub and shower in one day.  They will do the finish work the next day.  Another reason why we like this contractor so much.  They really seem to consider the needs of the homeowner.  We'll see if I feel the same way when we are in the middle of everything.

Next post-  the before photos! 

Choices, choices...

I think we are almost ready to begin.  As I said it is quite a process before any work actually starts.  Once we picked our contractor, we had to pick all the items in the kitchen and bathroom.  This involved separate trips to the kitchen cabinet place to pick out cabinets and counter tops, to the bathroom store for a vanity, sink, toilet, tub and tub surround, bathroom faucets, etc, etc,  Then there is paint colors, appliances, lighting, backsplash to pick out at the tile store, and flooring to choose.  Choosing items has taken many weeks.  It is not easy to do with two little boys.  They are not interested in sitting still and waiting while we discuss tile or flooring choices.  Luckily Len and I generally like the same thing, or at least have a similar idea, so we don't go back and forth too much.   This weekend was our last stop we think.  And that was for backsplash tiles.  The tile store we went to was very nice. It had a great show room, with lots and lots of beautiful tile.  Luckily we weren't looking for anything fancy and had a clear idea when we went in.  We managed to be in and out in just over 30 minutes.    We need to finalize the tile, but we've made our choices.
This process is difficult.  And if you and your spouse don't agree or have different ideas, it can be even more challenging.  Len and I are very that we have similar taste.  It has made,and will continue to make this process a bit easier.

The Start of it all...

We need a bigger kitchen.  Well not NEED exactly, but I want a bigger kitchen.  I would LOVE a bigger kitchen, and another bathroom, and another bed room.  Hence the home redo.  Well, not completely redo, we didn't get everything on our wish list.  Too expensive.  But we are going to completely redo the kitchen/ dining room areas, the flooring on most of the first floor, and redo the upstairs bathroom.  We are not going to be able to add on another bedroom and bathroom.  We had wanted to do this over the garage, but we were a bit naive as to what something like that costs.  Right now, its WAY out of our price range.    

So we've  gone through the "bidding process"  which was new to us, and took a lot longer then either Len and I thought it would.  I would say we started talking to a few contractors in October, and its April and work hasn't started yet.  It took us until January to pick a contractor and get that part settled. We got bids from 3 different contractors.  So if you undergo something like this, don't be in a hurry.  We ended up picking the one who was slightly more expensive, but we liked A LOT better, and overall we feel his company will do the best job.  After all , we are going to have to live with it for the next 20 years.