A confession...

So. As it turns out, when one half of a married couple is in charge of two small children 24/7 and the other is working a full time job and recording an album, all DIY all the time gets a liiiiiiiiiiiiitle bit tricky.
As a result, we have hired out a few jobs.

Some of them going back a while. In no particular order, we have hired folks to:

- Convert the house from oil to natural gas, and install a new furnace and kitchen stove
- Flooring install (except the kitchen, we did that ourselves!!!)
- Exterior soffit vents to the attic
- French drain in the basement
- New main wastepipe
- Structural attic collar ties (as a result of wastepipe jack hammering... Ugh...I'll post more on this later. )
-HOUSE PAINTING!!!!!!

I loooove that our house is painted. I love that not everything is green anymore. We debated residing but it was just too expensive for right now. Especially since we are in the middle of several other projects.

What projects you ask? Coming soon....

Another year another dozen projects.

It has been over a year since I last posted! After Steve finished the wainscoting and light fixture in the hall :

...We took a bit of a break. We did little things like rearrange furniture and hung a few instruments in the living room (which is now the music room, but its a mess right now so no pics!)

Winter was getting me antsy so we started some little projects. We cleaned up the basement, patched some of the cracks in the floor to prepare for eventually sealing it. Very eventually. But once it was an accessible space the kids wanted to go down there all the time which meant that the wide open stair case was terrifying!
So Steve did this:

With the new railing and balusters making the stairs feel safer, my 3 year old wants to be down there when the rest of us are up stairs. We don't really want to leave the door wide open, especially with a toddler romping around up here so we have started work on making a dutch door. So far we just replaced the ugly old door with a solid panel door:

The old door was so dark I didn't even realize how much of a black hole it felt like. We have to add two more hinges and then make the cut and add a ledge. Then I'll paint it and we'll attach the latch to keep the top and bottom together.

Another project that has been on my list for a while is our front storm door. The one we had wasn't terrible, but it had its problems. It hid the front door, and it was kind of falling off the frame. It didn't latch or lock right and switching between screen and glass was a pain. And it provided no insulation whatsover. It was hardly even a bug barrier. Hmmm maybe it was worse than I thought. This is the only pic I could find. Also pictured is my 2nd cousin Mela, with our dog Sprocket:

 I wanted a full glass door with retractable screen and low e glass so I could leave the front door open to get light/air in. We picked one out and we were all ready to pay the hundred something bucks to Home Depot to have it installed. But the guy came to measure it and told us we'd need a custom door  (that wasn't even the same model that we wanted) and they'd have to build up the frame and rip out our trim work.  We couldn't understand how our door was soooo different. Steve talked to the guy at home depot for a while trying to figure out WHY they thought we needed to pay over $400 extra to get this door installed. Steve remeasured on his own and concluded they were full of BS. We ordered the door and Steve screwed a 1 inch thick piece of wood to the inside of the frame and followed the instructions in the box. There you have it. Our beautiful new storm door.

Next up, we hit the garage doors. They were fine. Not a thing wrong with them. They were even fairly new. But I saw something on pinterest, and since our garage doors face the street and are pretty much the focal point of our house from the curb I figured we'd try to dress it up a bit.

Before shot of the garage:

We moved the window panels up a row and added some decorative hardware to give it a bit of carriage house door feeling:

And there you have it. All of our updates.

On the list for the spring is the front windows (which are all in desperate need of replacement) and I'm really really hoping to paint the exterior. We shall see. Oh yeah, and I started peeling the wallpaper in my bedroom. Who knows when that will be finished. I'm not in any hurry.

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.

Long time no post.

Its been almost a month since I've posted!!!
I guess I'm not a very good blogger.

Anyway its been side track after sidetrack. First there was that crazy October snow storm and two full weeks of clean up. We lost a lot of branches. Halloween kept us distracted from the kitchen, as did our fall leaf clean up. Then last weekend we finally finished our move. We had a basement and garage full of stuff left up in Bloomfield and we finally rented a u-haul and got it done.

So what have we accomplished in the kitchen? Here and there we managed to do some work. The cabinet doors are all on, the new pulls screwed in and most of the back splash is up (but not grouted yet.)

Here is how it looks.

 

The only part of back splash that isn't done yet is the part behind the stove.  There is a bit of a story to why. It actually was done at one point and we had to take it down.

When I went to get thin set for the tiles the guy at home depot talked me into buying this...

It is like double sided tape for tile back splash. It was really really easy to put up the mat on the wall. It was easy to cut to the right size and it stuck really well. No mixing, and you didn't have a limited amount of time before drying like you would with thin set.

The tricky part is actually putting the tile up.  Our tiles are penny round on a 12 inch square mesh. If we were using subway tile or individual square tile it would have been perfect. Since the mesh is flexible you have to line up several spots before you press it on to the glue. Once you press it on it is stuck. There is no adjusting. Thin set would have been more forgiving with tile adjustment.

So I was putting the tiles up while Steve was at work and Ev was napping. One mesh sheet of tiles didn't quite line up right. I tried to make adjustments as I went and continued putting up tile. It was a mess, not level and unevenly spaced. So we had to rip the whole thing down.  Luckily we have enough spare mat and tile to replace it.  We have to sand the drywall seal it with primer and try again.

Then we can finally grout the tile!

Once that is done we have to finish getting the wallpaper off and then we can paint.

I'm thinking that our goal of getting this done by Christmas was a good choice. We've slowed down significantly. Working on the kitchen all weekend every weekend and every night after Ev's bedtime got to be too much after a while.

Its not done yet but it looks like a totally different room!

Want to help?

Our backsplash tile came yesterday and although it's a slightly different color than I imagined it would be ( that's right, we just ordered it no sample. The price was right and I am impulsive) I LOVE it!!!

Here are the colors for all the materials in the kitchen so far.

White cabinet, hickory wood floor, moss penny round tile, stone-ish laminate counter.

Sooo I need help! What color for the wall. We're thinking a grayish blue or a teal-ish sea blue. Maybe something like this?

 

Ideas? Please share!