Hey Friends!
First of all, let me apologize to everyone out there who has been watching. I did not realize how popular this site had become! I have received many, many calls and emails asking when the next update would be. Honestly, I didn't think anyone was really watching this site? Boy, was I wrong! So sorry for leaving you all in the dark the past few weeks.
Explanation: Kathy and I have been working night and day to get this project wrapped up! PLUS, I have two home remodels I'm trying to wrap up for some very important people, so any extra time I have had has been focused on their projects, not my blogspot.
Cure: I'm taking a break, a breather, and thought it would be nice to update the crew. I am very, very tire right now -- but somewhat relieved. Today we are getting carpet, which means that we are moving upstairs TONIGHT!!! Crazy, eh? Last night I had a punchlist a mile long in order to compete everything in time for the carpet installers today. Plus we had to clean out the 3 months of accumulated CRAP that was everywhere! Wait, I need to back up a bit.
The last posting I showed you some great shots of our fireplace install, John helping us mud, and Kathy painting.
So the fireplace is finally hooked up and RUNNING! We got the pilot light lit, and the gas is burning -- it's a beautiful unit, great install! Not too shabby for my first attempt as a mason!
Kathy's been a trooper with the painting. The colors are GREAT! We recently stained the wood beams and the color for the beams is fantastic. Really brings the theme together! We did, however, manage to drop 2 (not 1) quarts of stain in our house. One downstairs on our dining room carpet (that was suppose to STAY!), and one more quart upstairs in the m. bedroom -- it fell off of a wobbly ladder that I was adjusting -- duh! Oh well, :-)
John, our faithful drywall mudder, showed up at our doorstep in crutches a few weeks ago. We were on the edge of being done with the mudding, and he injured his knee. He's better now, but we were really concerned for him at the time. And there was no way he was getting back onto a ladder to mud our walls! So on the downside, that left just me to finish the mudding, and the tiling, and the trim, and the .....oh, you get the point!
Bathroom: It's done! We set the LAST PIECE OF TILE last night, around 10:30pm. I would have been done sooner, but I had to abandon the tile so I could focus on mudding so that Kat could get the walls primed and painted. One thing I did learn about mudding: it's not worth it! Hire it out to a professional. It literally took me 5 weeks to complete this task when I could have paid a crew $500 to do it in 3 days. This is the biggest reason why we are so behind. Anywhoo, I did save $500??
Sorry all these mugshots are of me. Kathy called me a camera hog last night. Hey, I wanted her to do the tile, but she told me she couldn't reach that high! Hah!
The tub made it thru the window, the vanities are in place, the shower is all tiled in, the toilet is set, the medicine cabinets are in and electrified, and the floors are grouted. We have a few vertical walls to grout in this weekend, then we'll seal up the tile and be done! Gotta tell you, the bathtub is AMAZING! We got the unit from Sansiro USA, and it runs as beautifully as it looks! Last night we had a major thunderstorm roll thru (about 1:30am). I had just finished my work for the night, so I filled up the tub, turned on the jets and the heater, grabbed a beer and soaked. I stayed for an hour. It was AWESOME! Many thanks to Bill from Sansiro for the best looking tub in any house in Aurora!
Carpet: We're getting carpet today. YEAH! I'll take some shots tonight and update the blog, or at least I'll
try to update the blog!
Electrical: My sparky came out this week and got the place fired up. All the lights, all the switches, all the outlets -- up and hot. It's great. It felt nice to get rid off all of the extension cords and plug my tools into the new outlets. It's the fans and accent lights that make it all worth it, thought. They are GORGEOUS! They match the paint and stain perfectly and really make the fireplace POP to life! Honestly, though -- it's just nice to have lights in the space that aren't attached to a big fat orange cord.
Plumbing: My plumber was out this week too. He got most of the fixtures set and the bathtub up and running. He was not able to complete the sinks and toilet installs, so I will do this tomorrow (add some flex lines, putty in the drains, fire up the supply lines). The shower will have to wait another week or so, as I need to finish grouting in the tile and stones. He did get my fireplace up and running, which was a big sigh of relief! And he also helped me find a leak that we were having with the downstairs shower: the caulk around the soap dish is worn out, needs to be redone. YEA! Much cheaper than replacing pipes!
You know, I forgot to tell you a very important piece of information. We have had great weather for our project....and almost
no injuries. But......I was playing softball Tuesday night and cracked a triple. I had to run pretty fast to beat the throw to third, but I knew I could beat the throw. However, I also knew I had to stay on base or be tagged out. So as I hit the bag, my foot stopped....but my body didn't. POP! A very loud pop was heard, not a snap, just a pop. But I was done. I had to get a replacement runner and I hobbled over to the bench, grabbed two cold beers (on for the ankle) and tried to nurse my wound. When the dust settled (we lost the game, but my replacement runner scored for me), I think the popping noise was my ankle tendon. Not sure what the technical name is for my injury, but it hurt like hell. I could not walk on my right foot Wednesday morning. But my buddy Jeff brought over a "miracle" splint, and once I wrapped my ankle in the splint I could walk around like normal, just couldn't fit a shoe on! So I took a sick from work, rested the ankle, and played gopher for my sparking and plumber. It worked out, but I've been working the past 3 days on a bummed ankle. It's fine, just can't put my weight on the right foot....gotta stand on my ladders and scaffolding with most the weight on my left leg and foot. And I got 'er done! And at least it happened at the END of the project, rather than during the framing portion!
What else? Kathy's having a dinner party this weekend, so our big push is to have the living room back in order, our clothes upstairs in our new closet, our bed upstairs tonight for our first night, and then start focusing on the final punch list. I'll have a ton of trim and loose ends to wrap up before I can call the project complete...but at least we'll be living in the space! And we're also going to turn our old bedroom into Jade's this weekend, and the kids are looking forward to having their own bedrooms finally!
Budget wise: we broke the budget back around the first of July! But I've managed to build the space for around $100/sf. This is considerably LOW for a construction project. And my bathroom along is a $200-225/sf space, so that's pretty amazing. I would project the space to cost a home owner around $150-175/sf to build using a contractor, so we're pretty happy about that savings. Still gotta find the extra $$ to pay for it, though!
What else? The family is doing well. I think everyone is ready for this construction project to be OVER! We're going camping next weekend, taking out the bullet, get some fishing in. Jade's back to school, and Kaleb starts Kindergarten on Monday. We should hear some news regarding the adoption in September....we'll keep you posted as things develop!
Looking forward to some good, very good rest tonight! Thank you so much for your support and interest. It's been a long and tiring project, but we're almost to the finish line!
Ciao!
Wow! I didn't realize how many of you were checking in on us. You will note a new feature I've added to the site to track where people are watching us from. Portugal? India? Athens? Peru? Wow! Crazy stuff! I;m really hoping for a hit from Africa (Madagascar?) and Australia, so if you know anyone there....please pass long the link!
We got the carpet installed on Friday. It looks fantastic! We spent the weekend moving our stuff out of the living room and into our new space. Didn't take too long to fill up the new closet. Can Americans ever really have enough closet space?
The lighting is just perfect for us. We have the accent lights that shine on the fireplace. The ceiling fan lights that add a comfortable level for the space. And the reading lights above the bed which I took much advantage of this weekend, diving into a Clive Cussler novel. I just love the way the steel, and electrical conduit, and light fixtures, and beams interact with each other and are exposed on the ceiling. The pictures really don't do this composition justice: it's a must see!
Those of you who (embarrassingly) visited our house and witnessed the massive pile of STUFF in the living room: it's all gone! Hard to believe, but Kathy spent the weekend clearing it out and restoring the room (and house) to order. It looks great! No clutter -- and I had forgotten that we had a couch in there!
But our big accomplishment of moving our bed into the space and Jade's bed into her new space is complete.
