Our House Remodel

9:10:21 AM PDT
Feeling Happy
Hearing Anything's Possible, by Jonny Lang Time does fly! The house is still a work in progress, I don't think that will ever end. We changed out the living room ceiling color, the lilac just did not work for us. We used the same ceiling color I had upstairs (a nice pale peach) and love how that blends with our purple and dark green walls on the main floor :)

One of the best things about the new space is my back door entry. It is right off the driveway and we use it as our main entry now, I adore it! It leads right into the kitchen which makes it so much more handy, not to mention it only has 2 steps unlike the front door!

We hosted a dinner party for 22 this summer, and it was fantastic! How divine to finally have a place that has enough room to have that many folks over and be comfortable at the same time :) The party was for the electrical folks I meet up with several times a year to edit electrical text books. They come from all parts of the country and it was very nice to have them finally be able to see in person how the house turned out.

We will be hosting a large open house type of party for my Mom's 80th birthday this October so I have a new deadline for getting more of the detail work finished. Hopefully, we will have things completed by then :)


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12:05:07 AM PST
Feeling Quiet
Hearing Yes I Believe, by the Moody Blues Details, details, details, it is all down to the finish details now! During November the bathroom tiles went in, and the glass block in the shower was finally put in which made our bathroom useable! I love our new shower!  The baseboard trims in the living room and halls stated getting installed as well. With the trim work installed we can start painting the walls! It will be so nice to get all that stark white of the primer on all that new sheetrock changed to the rich deep colors we have chosen!  We picked a deep sage green for all of the West walls starting from the living room and continuing all the way through to the dining room. The rest of the walls in the living room will be a deep purple called Soulmate. We are thinking of going with a lighter shade of purple for the ceiling. The samples look wonderful with all the yellows, green and reds of my kitchen. Can you tell that we want LOTS of color in our new house? <g>

The exterior of our house was painted this month, it is now "artichoke" on the main body, "oak moss" (one step darker than the artichoke) on the base with white trim on all the windows and belly band. The doors will be a dark red once the weather warms up enough to let us do them.

We hosted Thanksgiving here,  we only had 11 people but it was a very nice family gathering to celebrate our new house. The new kitchen, dining room and living room worked out perfectly - just as I had hoped for when we first began dreaming of a remodel! The kitchen was large enough to have all of us in there, doing our thing and not get in each others way.  The dining room was spacious enough to seat us all without feeling cramped or crowded.  Everyone felt very relaxed and comfy, which is what I wanted to achieve when we started this project :)

Guess who is hosting Christmas? <g>


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9:44:16 AM PST
Feeling Hopeful
Hearing Almost Home,  by Mary Chapin Carpenter The kitchen is looking more and more glorious now, I really love the rich color of the venitian plaster I used on the back wall of the kitchen. Despite how much work it is, I think I will do that technique throughout the rest of the kitchen and possibly on three of the dining room walls.
Kimmy and I started painting the upstairs hallway but when Tim saw the color he freaked <g> It was a bit too yellow for him, so I got a burnt sienna glaze and did a color wash over it. That turned out gorgeous too! but, sigh.. now Tim wants that same effect on the ceilings in the living room and alcove. (acks, my aching arms!) 
The correct bathroom tiles finally arrived and were installed at long last. That meant the bamboo flooring could be installed too so now, we have new floors everywhere! Progress at last :)
Our porches even have new treads and railings, made out of TREX, a product made of recyled wood and plastic. In fact, many of the materials we chose (the richlite countertops,  the trex deck and railings, and the bamboo floors) were chosen because of how environmentally green they are.
Check out the latest pictures at the comcast site :)


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10:44:48 AM PDT
Feeling Ecstatic
Hearing You're Beautiful, by James Blunt Not just one oven, but TWO ovens! - and, the upper is a combination thermal-convection oven. Sigh, all the modern things too such as a clock, timer, probe and accurate temperatures :) Cooking is amazing with the new ovens!  The range I have used since 1974 is an old apartment style, 20" wide with no clock, timers, probes or other fancy gadgets. How nice it is to finally replace that thing :)

We also hung the pendant lights along the center counter. They turned out quite nice, we really love how they look :)

Once the floors go in we can make our final choice of wall and ceiling colors and get them painted to finish the new look :)  We just might indeed, be ready to host thanksgiving this year!


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10:28:59 PM PDT
Feeling Mischievous
Hearing Trouble, by Ray LaMontagne Today a friend of ours from Iowa was able to visit with us for a little bit.  He was blown away by how much the house had changed since he was last here, which was about two years ago. He has been teasing us about how long our project has taken but that all stopped the moment we drove up to our house and he saw the full scope of what we have been doing :)  What he loved the most though is the same thing just about all the guys working on the house have loved which is the magnetic control knob on the new cooktop. It lifts off to provide an utterly smooth surface for cleaning. I figure.. it must be a guy thing <g>

Oh yeah, the uppers have been installed, the cooktop, hoodfan, and disposal are working and by Tuesday I should have my dishwasher and ovens! I am hoping that by the end of the week we will have our flooring installed and the bathroom finished! Life is looking pretty good :)


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9:22:22 PM PDT
Feeling Happy
Hearing Nos Da Cariad, by David Gray WOW, the countertops came in while I was away teaching a seminar! It was great to come home and finally get to see them.  Mike put a sign up telling us to keep off the counter - "don't touch til Monday" so that we would not lean on the overhanging dining counter. I saw paw prints on the sign..... <g>

We are both absolutely in love with our kitchen even without the uppers, I cannot wait to see them finally installed. I find myself starting to think about what will go in which drawers, which cupboard and how to arrange all the clutter one amasses over the years :) Slowly the dream is becoming more and more real :)


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8:09:40 PM PDT
Feeling Silly
Hearing Come to my Window, by Melissa Etheridge It is the end of August so I have put the latest pictures or our progress up in the comcast site. (see the link on th left) On Friday the backordered windows finally came in, so now the last bit of exterior siding can be finished - yeah!! The interior doors have also arrived.  This month should see the countertops put in, the floors put in, the plumbing hooked up and my appliances installed! The end is almost in sight :)

The kitty windows in the stairway are a BIG hit with the boys, they love to perch there and check out what is happening in the house. As each of the construction trades notices the openings and finds out what they are for they all laugh

Our response to them is - What, you don't have kitty perches in your house? 


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8:48:22 PM PDT
Feeling Happy
Hearing Good Things (live) by the Bodeans Wow oh wow :) what a difference getting the wallboard up makes! It looks so wonderful now, we absolutely love it!

It took a bit to get all the framing done - oh  the joys of trying to square up walls in old houses! <g> But, once that was done and our wiring finished it was a quick job to insulate the ceilings and walls. With minor setback... when you staple insulation to ceiling joists and depend solely on the staples through the plastic encasing the insulation to hold it up you will find it works well UNLESS you have cats that like attics.

Each morning Mike would come and have to poke the insulation back up where Toby had pushed it down the night before. Today the wall board went up, so now the insulation wont fall through anymore :)


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10:42:07 AM PDT
Feeling Chillin'
Hearing One Love, by Hootie & the Blowfish It is the middle of August and we just finished the electrical rough-in wiring in the living room and alcove. Once we get our cover inspection passed they can start insulating and sheetrocking :) From that point on, it will be all about finishing details. Such as floors, cabinets hung, pulls and knobs installed, baseboards and window trims installed, the new plumbing fixtures connected, the new furnace and painting. (phew!) such a lot for almost being at the end of the project :) It is all good though, and that is the best part. We still love the project!


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10:40:15 PM PDT
Feeling Ecstatic
Hearing Change (Single) by Tracy Chapman The demolition of the living room happened, opening up the walls and ceiling made a huge difference in how it feels in our living room now! Adding in the bay window bump-out as well as taking out the old stairs to the basement increased the floor space in the living room just enough to make it feel very spacious in there.  We are so thrilled with how it feels now! I find myself pausing each time I pass by the living room just to soak up the new look and feel, its absolutely wonderful :)

The demolition of the living room brought us back to living in a constant state of dust and debris, which mostly means we have many more kitty paw tracks on the white primed walls. (They tap the walls as they leap up to counter tops and leave "evidence" of their passing)  During construction it is a tradition to use the framing as  notepads by crews, so all around the new construction we have various notes, phone numbers, and calculations written on the studs. To make our own mark on the bones of our house, I got a stamp pad and stamper ... of a kitty paw <g> Ive gone around stamping paw prints in various patterns as if the boys had climbed across the face of the studs - When a friend of ours first saw one set of paw prints he thought our boys had stepped in green paint and wondered how the heck they managed to climb the walls.

The boys (our cats) are enjoying the new space, especially playing chase up and down the stairs from our bedroom, to the living room level and down again to the dining room. For such small things (14 lbs and 12 lbs) they sure can sound like a thundering heard of elephants as they thump up and down the stairs <g>  Toby likes to play chase with me, but poor Einstein has no idea of what we are doing yet, we will see how long it takes him to learn to play tag <g>


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