Good start

Steve worked from home yesterday. He used his extra two hours of home time to get started on the wainscoting in the hall. He is off to a great start. I can't believe what a difference it makes already.

Here is what he got done yesterday 

The next part is the tricky part. We are still trying to figure out how to the stairs should look. Here is what we are working with.

 

This might take a while.  Its kind of like a jigsaw puzzle.

powder room

After the crazy excavation in our family room, powder room and entryway we got to pick out a new floor. We picked out a gray stone looking ceramic tile. We did not do this our selves. We had a brand new baby and a two year old that kept us both busy and I was recovering from a c-section. Getting back my usual DIY shape took a while.

Anyway we did decide to take this opportunity to redo the bathroom. I did peel some wallpaper but Steve did the rest.  He found a picture frame from the barn sale we go to and spray painted it (I picked out the paint) then he attached it to the mirror. We picked out a small vanity to replace the elementary school bathroom sink. We also got a wainscoting kit and then painted the top half. So here is the before and after:

 

Here you can see the new paint, wainscoting, vanity, floor and the frame Steve added to the mirror.

                                       And here is a terrible picture of the new light fixture

The other project we have going right now is the entry way. Here is the before, from the opposite side of the hall:

 This is after we removed wallpaper. We did paint it a very boring cream color and then left it for a year. We hated it so now we are re doing it.

So here it is with the kitchen doors removed, crown molding added and molding added around the door into the living room. Today we painted the bottom half white and we bought the materials to add the wainscoting.  It has a long way to go but it already looks a lot better. I can't wait until its done!

How jackhammering through your house can induce labor.

Our neighborhood has a high water table so a lot of us here have damp basements. The summer we moved in was soooooo rainy and the basement walls were  wet in several places all season.

However the following spring and summer (2012) were very dry and most of the basement was drying out. So we were very perplexed when we saw this huge wet spot on the basement wall:

This wall runs along the side of the main part of the house and borders the part of our house that is on a slab. The rooms on the slab from front to back are the garage, the bathroom/laundry area, and the family room.

We had seen this wet spot before but at the time the whole basement was damp so we didn't think much of it. But in the middle of this early summer drought we were confused. Then suddenly it hit us, above and behind this spot is the powder room/ half bath on the main floor. We called a plummer right away.

The brilliant design of our plumbing system has the main waste pipe for the house running under the the slab floor through the garage bath/laundry and family room to the back of the house.  The plumber accesed the pipe in the garage and scoped it and the whole thing was filled with water.

So here I was 38 weeks pregnant and a plumber is telling me he has to dig up the cement floor through the entire length of my house front to back. Yay.

The pipe had rubber gaskets that had ruptured and so the pipe was zig zagged up and down. Then once they ripped up the floor they discovered HUGE hole in the pipe at the bottom of the toilet. That is exactly what was was causing the leak. Gross. Our basement wall was soaked in poop water.

Thank goodness for home owners insurance because this was NOT a planned expense.  The only good thing that came out of it is that insurance paid for a new floor in the laundry room, garage entryway and powder room, and that it prompted us to re-do the powder room.  Here is the lovely photo documentation:
 The start of the waste pipe comes from the upstairs plumbing and goes through the garage. It broke as soon as they started jack hammering the cement.

What our bathroom looked like after day 1

Our family room after day 1. The waste pipe is lying at the bottom of this trench. To the right is our kitchen.

 The trench from the other side of the room

 Close up of the powder room showing  the pipe that had the hole at the bottom.

 The "bridge" from our entry to the garage.

A very pregnant me pointing out the broken pipe.

If you look at the very bottom middle of the T pipe you can see the giant hole that was spilling yuck into the ground that eventually seeped into our basement wall. bleeeehhhh I still get shivers thinking about it.

                                                          Yay new pipes!!!

 Backfill and cement

 So eventually they fixed the cement and cleaned up. The last bit of cement was finished exactly 12 hours before I went into labor.  The cleaning company we hired arrived at the house just as we were leaving for the hospital.   It took an entire month before we had our carpet cleaned, and reinstalled and all our furniture back in the room. But at least we didn't have any heavy construction happening when Clark came home from the hospital.

So we survived and looking back 6 months later I was astoundingly calm for the situation I was in. I do suspect that Clark arriving 5 days early had something to do with the stress of the whole thing. After all Ev was 2 weeks late!
 But all is well and the home improvement carries on.  Later I'll try to post pics of the now updated bathroom.

3 little updates

When we found out Clark was coming we first had to move Everett into what was the spare bedroom:

 

The carpet was already out of this room but we had to remove the wallpaper, paint, and decorate. We have yet to add the crown molding but here is a peak at his room now:

 

Then we removed the wallpaper from the room Everett was sleeping in (this is the room with the old carpet and previous owners furniture. I don't have a pic of it when Ev was sleeping in there):

 

 We painted and decorated. We also still have to add the crown in this room but here is another  wallpaper free room.

 

Another little update was some toy organization. I know this doesn't look super organized but its a huge improvement from before when it was just piles of milk crates in the corner.  We talked about doing some custom built-ins but Steve and I couldn't agree on how the room would end up being long term (someday we want to add windows and reface the fireplace...SOMEDAY!) So we ended up with some Target storage shelves and fabric bins. It works great and wasn't so expensive that we will feel guilty eventually replacing it. Some of the bins have picture labels on them so Everett can put things away on his own. He's been doing a great job with it too!

 

Next time I'll fill you in on the 30 foot trench we had dug through the middle of our house just days before Clark was born. THAT was TONS of fun!

a very cute side project

So shortly after I started this blog I found out I was pregnant.  It sidetracked me a bit and I totally stopped posting once the whole "morning" sickness (in my case afternoon sickness) and bionic super sleepiness set in.  Anyway this is our little side project, Clark:

There has been lots of work going on in our house this last year but I just haven't taken  the time to blog about it. Today  my sister asked for the link to this blog so she could show somebody our cabinets. I thought I would make an attempt to update it. We are slowly wiping the 70's out in this house room by room. But where we left off was the kitchen.

BEFORE:

When I last blogged:

 

And here are a few recent updates. 1. our fridge and microwave died  so we had to replace them. It really wasn't in the plan but when you need a fridge you need a fridge. So we have new stainless steel appliances. Steve also replaced the pantry door with chalkboards. I love it!

 

 Then Steve and his brother put crown molding in. They did a great job and it makes a big difference to the feel of the room.

 We also HAD to, simply could not pass up this kitchen cart from Crate & Barrel. It has the exact same pulls and trim work on the doors as our cabinets have now. We previously had an open bottom cart from Ikea. Everything under there was always dirty and had to be rewashed before using. This is a much better solution. It also has a fold out section on the back side, and towel rods.

 We also converted from oil  heat to natural gas so we got a gas stove.  This is such an improvement. I know some people love electric but I burned EVERYTHING on our old stove. Now  I only burn about 1/4 of our meals.

Its not fancy or top of the line but I'm really really happy with the updates to our kitchen. It made such a difference in the feel of the entire house. Its my favorite room right now. But we have a long way to go to get the rest of the house to catch up. I'll try and post about some of the other projects we have "mostly" completed, and the ones that we are in the middle of right now.