Happy Singles Awareness Day

Hey Everyone!!!  Well today is not only my birthday, but singles awareness day!  So what am I doing? Relaxing in my bed (still...it's almost 2pm) and catching up on the computer.  I've been away visiting folks for a few weeks but I am now back...for now LOL.  I wanted to give an update on some things that have been completed and some stuff that I have done.  The really cool thing about doing this renovation, as opposed to all the things that really suck about it, is that I have realized that I absolutely love working with my hands and I have a strong desire to properly learn more...and eventually get another house to work on and be more hands on from beginning to end.  So anyway here's the first item:

The main part of the kitchen cabinets are done and the walls are painted.  The left wall had to be evened out because when they closed in the back door they did a mediocre job evening out the wall to say the least.  So that's closed in the gap a bit.  They also had to level the cabinet and dishwasher, etc, because the floor is terribly unlevel.  It would have been nice if the contractor would have suggested in the beginning leveling the floor, but as I wasn't there and he didn't, it didn't get done so it is what it is.  But then again, the house is so old who knows what that would have entailed.  The upper cabinet above the dishwasher is now also installed and I will put open shelving to the left of it.

This is the guest bedroom, which is temporarily my bedroom until the attic is completed.  We painted the floors with an oil based paint, which looks good in the pic, but because the floors weren't prepped properly they paint alligatored (dried looking like alligator skin) in some areas so the only thing to do is at a later time sand the floors a bit (not down to the raw wood) and paint another coat...kind of hard to do since we are already in...another genius move from my contractor.

The 2nd floor vanity is in and I think it's so cute.  We are waiting to put on the doors until everything else is completed.  BTW...the toilet (to the right) is in now LOL

This is the tub with the surround...which doesn't look too bad from a distance....but then you get closer and...

What the......??????  Yeah I was not happy AT ALL when I saw that and I decided that I needed to take an evening and remove the caulk TAPE (who really uses that I mean come on), clean, and properly caulk the tub and surround.  This is after I removed the tape and then after I cleaned:

Then this is how you tape a surround to caulk:

It took me 5 hours to complete from beginning to end and I also learned and important lesson in the order in which to tape.  Caulk dries pretty fast.  But it looks professional and I am happy with it.  I know I am paying someone to do all this stuff for me, but at the end of the day I want to be happy and I want it to look good, so whatever I have to do to get it that way I will!!!

Until next time...happy remodeling!!!!

Christmas Comes Early!

So it's been a while since I've posted but I've been super busy AND a lot of good things have happened!  The countertop came in early...there was a chance that with the holidays it wouldn't have come in until January, but I think maybe at the end of the year they weren't too busy.  We ordered Wilsonart HD High Definition Laminate in the color Bella Noche.   This type of countertop will resist scratching and has the look of granite.  

 






Almost all of our fixtures/handles will be brushed nickel color to match the stainless steel.  I prefer silver over gold because I think silver is a cooler or less intense color.  I really love how the colors go together...from the walls (Gold Coast White) to the cabinets and the fixtures - I think it's such a pretty look.  Although I went over the placement of the cabinets with the contractors, they set it up wrong.  Why they didn't ask me, I don't know, but I always try to give people enough rope to hang themselves first.  Now I write notes for everything.  Had I done that in the beginning, they may have taken offense, but I say "I just want to make sure we are clear and on the same page."  The 60" cabinet that you see is supposed to be all the way to the right edge of the counter.  Against the left wall will be an 18" drawer cabinet and then the dishwasher.  This was all explained with them and I went over the measurements with them in person before placing the order for the countertop...Ah well...lesson learned :)

My Mom and I went back over to Restore which sells used furniture...hmmm, what to refinish NOW??? So I found a dining table that I want, which I will get either tomorrow or Thursday and I also bought a cabinet to go over the stove.  I needed a 30" cabinet to put the stove exhaust under.  The smaller cabinet that I do have is 36" and we are going to use that over the fridge.

I don't know if you can see the price in the upper left hand corner of the cabinet, but it says $10.  All furniture was 50% off so I got it for $5...heck YEAH!!!  It was a little dirty so I cleaned it out and then sanded it to prep for priming.  I realized after priming it that I needed to caulk the seams so I will do that today and then paint the first coat.  I also have some touch ups to do on the other cabinets.

The contractors were working on finishing the 2nd floor, which involved painting the walls and trim and finishing the floors.  They think that I needed just 2 days for the floors to dry before I could start moving stuff in...we shall see what I find today!

I hope everyone's having an awesome holiday!!!

Patience!!!!!

I am still coming to terms with the fact that patience is the understanding that things will happen naturally as they should and I must have respect for the process.  Forcing things will only serve to disrupt the natural flow and I do believe that my best interest will be accommodated.  Also, doing things the right way will lead to the best results.  Often times the right way may take longer or require more effort, but I would rather be happier in the long run than satiate laziness.  I have been going to the house quite frequently to do the things that I feel need to be done but are time consuming.  Yesterday my Mom and I had a couple tasks at hand.  First was to clean out the basement.  There really wasn't that much stuff in there but it was quite dirty.  Before vacuuming the floor, I vacuumed the ceiling, which is actually the floor of the house, to remove all the creepy cobwebs.  I also needed to organize what was down there and make room for me to continue painting the kitchen cabinet doors.  We got there about 9:30am and cleaned until 12, took an hour lunch break and then finished up cleaning/painting by about 4...that's a LOT of sweeping!!  Actually, sweeping will really only pick up a certain about of dust and I needed it super clean so that my drying cabinet doors wouldn't get dusty.  Also, I wanted all of the stuff we were working on to be out of the way of the contractors; the last thing I want is to get on their nerves being in the way.

So we are finished painting the cabinets...just need to polyurethane them in a few days...want to make sure they have time to dry completely.

This is the way I have been painting the doors...paint the sides and the front first; then hang them to paint the back.  A nail/screw is used to hold it for stabilizing while it's being painted.  Cup holders are used on the edge that's not seen once hung on the cabinet to hang it for painting.  After hanging overnight, I move them to the canvas drop cloth to dry further.  Since I can really only do 3 at a time this is a lengthy process, but I feel is worth taking my time with so that I have the best results possible.  It is recommended that the doors be left off for at least a week after painting to make sure they don't stick.

Here is another look at the almost completed vanity...I really can't wait for the bathroom to be done.  It's going to be so cute!!

Of course we have to sand between coats...the roller brushes had a really bad problem of shedding...so annoying - painting tip I just found out...use masking tape to pull off the loose fibers :)

So at my last trip to Home Depot, we were daydreaming, which happens quite often, and we ran across this carpet!!!  I love the textured look and this has inspired me to look for one that has animal print (although this looks really close).  The third floor (my room) won't be completed in this portion of the remodeling process due to time, but next year it's a GO!!!  Good thing I have 4 other bedrooms to choose from :)

Things Are Coming Along

So it looks as though things will be moving quicker now.  The plumbing was inspected and passed (yay) so there is actually one more inspection before was can move in, but we are going to wait until the floors are done...no sense moving in all our stuff and then have to keep moving it from room to room so the workers can finish.  Remember that last post about vision??  Well here's another bit to show how far we've come...

So this is what was left of the bathroom on the second floor...there is a bathroom on the third floor as well.  I am so glad that when people came in to steal stuff they didn't go nuts and just tear up the place...actually the third floor was worse, but still we could have been a lot worse off.  As I said before having everything pulled from the house was a blessing - we were able to go in and start new.  Here's where we are now with the bathroom...

I can't wait to see what it will look like with the vanity in it...when you actually put effort into making something it always means that much more.  Another issue we had to figure out was what to do about the floor in the bathroom and hallway area.  We have talked about several different options, favoring the luxury vinyl tile (which is less expensive than ceramic but can still be grouted to give the tile look).  We figure that this can be something that we do ourselves so that we can take more time to research and pick instead of rush just to get done.  Places like Home Depot and Lowes have such a limited selection anyway.  This window will get waterproof moulding and privacy film once everything else is completed.

I've also finished removing the paint, filling holes, sanding, priming and caulking the window sills and door frames that needed a little extra attention.  Amazing what a little caulk can do to make everything look better!!!  There were some things that I thought instead of being fixed just needed to be replaced (like some of the baseboards and moulding), but I thought it better to wait until everything is done and we are moved in to see what really was noticeable.  Of course I would love to be able to fix everything, but I have to think about time and cost at this point.

Painting should start on Monday from what I've been told...after painting the walls then they will do the floors which will be either polyurethaned or painted depending.

You Must Have Vision...

Being that my Mom and I are creative people, when we saw the inside of the house our brains started going a mile a minute with ideas on cool things to do.  Before when I purchased a new house in Vegas I was given options for what I wanted to do, but they were preset and any further upgrades would have resulted in over pricing the house for the neighborhood.  So now, yes there would be options that would over price the house, but my choices within what are reasonable are much more vast with buying an old house.

Lets talk about the kitchen...here's what it was in the beginning:

OMG what a mess!!!  I will never understand what people possibly do to get so much grime.  Any of you who know me or have lived with me know I don't play when it comes to being clean.  So you can see the back door (on the left) that we closed in.  All the cabinets had been removed - good I don't want someone's old nasty cabinets!!

What's going on with this color? A little strong I'd say!  So yeah all the flooring had to be pulled up and the walls fixed and painted.  Here's where we are now:

This is the wall area where the door was...you can see they pulled up the flooring to reveal the hardwood...the white stuff on it is dust from sanding the walls.  The alcove on the left is where the fridge will go.

Walls have been fixed.  The almond color on the walls is what the final color will be but they painted it originally in a flat color and I asked them to finish in a semi-gloss.  This wall from left to right will be drawers, dishwasher, cabinet with sink, stove/microwave.  In front of that we will have an island with another set of drawers and smaller cabinet.  The island countertop will have a small overhang so that we can put a stool under it to eat.

We purchased unfinished cabinets to save some money and to have a bit of fun as well.  Before they can be painted (white) they have to be sanded.  Safety first...must wear goggles and mask.  We had plastic up against the other room because they were sanding the ceiling and we didn't want the cabinets to get all dusty(er) again.

Oops...got a little crazy with the hammer...I hammered my thumb.  You wouldn't believe how long it bled you would have thought I was dying!!  We can't finish the kitchen (put in the cabinets) until the plumbing has been inspected.  The cabinets can be painted after they are installed so we have primed them but we aren't in a rush to paint.  Also we just ordered the countertop for the wall space and that takes three weeks to get here so we are looking at the end of the year, first couple weeks in January anyway until we can really use the kitchen.  We will probably move in before then since we will have a sink in the basement and the bathrooms will be done by then.  But then again...we can't move in until we have a certificate of occupancy so who know when that will be LOL Pray for us!!!

Living Practically

Soooooooooo...yeah I bought a house.  Well, I looked online at places and with my Mom's help we agreed on a property and she bought it with my money LOL.  There were many factors that went into this decision, but the biggest thing was affordability in the present and down the line.  The great thing about the Internet is that you can look up almost anything and get an answer.  We looked at properties within a certain price range, but then we also looked at property taxes that were due.  There were comparably priced places that ranged from $1000/year to $4000/year in property taxes...so we were able to weed out the more expensive zip codes quite easily.  I wanted a place for us that would be big enough to give us enough space to live under the same roof and not be up under each other at all times. I also wanted enough space so that my Mom could have her sewing room and I could have a place to practice. Here's a pic of the living room in my house I short sold in Vegas...

We had just moved in and you can see the curtains my Mom was making on the bottom right.  It was small about 1100 Sq. ft., but it was brand new and that was nice.  I picked out everything inside which of course is super FUN!!

I contemplated moving back to Vegas...prices are amazing there. BUT of course the short sale is being reflected as a foreclosure on my credit, the bastards, so I couldn't get a loan.  So anyway, we picked out this one in Cleveland:

It was owned by the bank and was boarded up to prevent (more) vandalism seeing as the property was empty. 4 bedroom with a finished attic...so really 5 bedrooms.  Because the economy took a downturn, people were looking for any way to make a buck...well that meant they were breaking into empty houses and stealing the electrical wiring and plumbing to sell.  We took this as a good thing because that meant we would be able to update everything quite easily.  The house was built in like 1904 or something like that so it definitely would have needed some updating anyway.

Before we bought it we had several contractors take a look at it to give us quotes for renovation and to ensure that it was structurally sound.  The siding had been redone recently, which was a plus because that's a huge expense and also shows that the house was cared for - maybe someone lost their job and couldn't continue with the improvements/house payments.

One of the first things that we did was to close in the back door.  This not only gave us extra wall/counter space in the kitchen, it gave us security of only having 2 instead of 3 doors, and it's one less place for arctic air to come into the house.

We also want to have several of the 1st floor windows closed in as well...BUT baby steps.  Because we had to replace the entire electrical, heating, and plumbing components, permits had to be pulled and the city had to inspect the work (huge plus - this also means that the contractors and subs have to be properly licensed and the work is double checked for quality).  Still the plumbing hasn't been inspected so that's holding up completion of one of the bathrooms and the kitchen.  Can't move in until those are done.

This house is in a mixed neighborhood...there are many new homes, many renovated homes, and many homes that need to be torn down.  This is a great example of what I mean.  The house on the right clearly has been recently renovated and the one on the left has the condemned sign on it.  The other day the house to the left of the one on the left was torn down as well...it was an eyesore!!!

I kinda wish I could buy and renovate the one on the left...it's a two suite house you can see the doors on either side of the property.  But I am sure that would take much more money than I have now...baby steps; maybe one day :)

So far this process is seeming to live up to my dream I had watching those TLC renovation programs.  It's a lot of work and you have to be really patient with everyone involved.  You all know patience is not one of my strong suits, but I am getting better and luckily for me the contractors are lovely people.  It's taken us some time to get on the same page, but we are getting there and I am so excited to see what it will look like in the coming month as they should be finishing soon.

More to come!!!  Wait until you see the inside!! Oh my!

Oh and by the way...the house cost plus the renovation is paid for...the only financial responsibility I will have is property taxes and utilities...YAY for financial freedom!