Out Like a Lamb

I can't say I'm sorry to see March draw to an end. This kitchen project has consumed our lives for the last four weeks. We have been bad friends. We have neglected any exercise regime. Our DVR is almost full of shows we haven't had time to watch. I'm hopeful that all of this will change in the month of April, but with all of the finish work we have ahead of us we might not resurface until May. Bear with us!

So we've had the sheet rocking guys here for two days and it turns out they'll need two more days to complete the job. All I can say is THANK GOD we came to our senses and asked them to take care of the kitchen walls. I can't believe we even thought about doing it ourselves. Sometimes, you've got to know when to the fold them.

They've been hard at work. Here's a little before:

And after:



Much better, no?

 And here's the view from the family room into the kitchen:

Isn't it so much brighter? And did you notice all of the touch-up work they've done? That would have taken us forever. Let's just say, I would be puttying right now and not blogging.



This has definitely been the easiest week of the renovation to date. Jeremy was out of town earlier in the week and has a work obligation tonight so I've been able to relax a little. I'm feeling recharged!  So, wife of the year over here got a jump start on some of the weekend painting tonight. I'll leave you with a sneak peek.

Doesn't look like much, but that was two coats! And there were 5 pieces. You do the math.

Ripple Effects of Gutting Your Kitchen

By now you're probably as sick of looking at pictures of my gutted kitchen as I am. So today I have a special treat for you! I'm going to show you the current state of the rest of our house.  Warning: it ain't pretty.

Let's start with the entryway. When you come in the front door, besides an inch of dust, you'll find our...washing machine!

Behind the washing machine you can see into the living room. Here's a closer look:

We have way too much furniture for our reduced-sized living room so some of it will have to go. This is also where we keep the sheet rock, naturally.

If you went straight through the entryway again you'd be in the dining room. This has become our make-shift kitchen. We have our fridge, stove (not plugged in), and microwave in here.

And this is what our beautiful dining room table looks like these days.

Next up is the family room. These days we're keeping the kitchen table and dryer in here.

We're keeping the toaster over, spices, Summer's food, etc. in the built-in bookcases.



And in the back corner of this room we're storing all of the food from the old pantry in a giant Tupperware bin. Oh, and we've thrown a few kitchen chairs in the corner for good measure.

Now let's head upstairs. We have beach towels, pillows, bleach, roasting pans, dinnerware, and salad bowls in the linen closet.



And, last but not least, is the empty bedroom which has become a catch all.

Lovely, no? And, let's not forget the current state of the basement. And now for the fun part: I actually work from home 3 days week which means...I'm here 5 days a week! Jealous?

With a Little Help from Our Friends

We're officially 23 days into the renovation. In 23 days we've completey demo'd our old kitchen and bathroom, built walls for our new pantry and bathroom, and implemented an entire new electric plan. Not too shabby! Except for some help from our carpenter and Jeremy's dad, Jeremy and I had done all of the work on this project ourselves up to this point. It's been exhausting, exciting, terrifying, frustrating, grueling, gratifying, and an experience I'll never forget. However, I had hit my breaking point.

Thankfully, this weekend we got a little reprieve. We finally had some help! The plumber, electrician, and carpenter spent the last couple of days whipping our kitchen into shape. The plumber is a childhood friend of Jeremy's and the electrician was someone Jeremy met through his yacht club in Southie. It was great having friends on the project.

They laid a new subfloor...

They built the peninsula wall



My shadow, Summer

 Here's a closer look at the plumbing in the peninsula. My beautiful, cast iron sink will sit right in the middle of the peninsula.

They set up our new laundry closet...

And remember how I talked about enjoying sheet rocking? Forget it! I didn't realize we'd have to putty, sand, putty again, and sand again. I hate sheet rocking!

Puttying and sanding is the worst.

The good news is we've decided to have the guys finish up the rest of the sheet rocking when they come to install the ceilings TOMORROW! That's right, starting tomorrow we'll have ceilings and walls. Wahoo! And the best part is, I don't have to hang them.

We spent a few hours last night getting the walls ready. We had to pull out any nails or screws from the old walls. And we insullated. Insulation is not a fun material to work with. I was wheezing up a storm! I hope I don't see the insides of the ceilings or walls ever again.

The Last Phase of Demo

Up until this point, we had a pretty functioning kitchen. It certainly wasn't pretty but it still worked. The fridge was around the corner in the dining room but we had a sink, dishwasher, stove, and enough counter space for a little prep work. I was able to whip up pasta or a frozen skillet meal (side note: the PF Chang ones are pretty good!) without any trouble. But that all changed last night. Here she is around 5 pm:


My working space. Told you it wasn't pretty!

And here we are at around 9 pm last night:

And this is the finished product:

The plumbers are here as we speak moving all those pipes around to make way for our new layout. The water and heat are turned off for the day. Don't worry, it's a balmy 32 degrees out there today so we didn't really need heat anyway. And Summer, the little devil, chose today--the day we have no running water-- to roll around in some mysterious animal droppings. She's been whisked off to the groomers because she wasn't allowed back in the house. Good times! 

Do me a favor and go pour yourself a nice glass water on my behalf this weekend. Thanks! To end this post on a positive note, this was the final stage of demo. Wahoo! Moving onward and upward from here on out.

Have a great weekend!

Now We're Really Putting Up Walls

We have walls! Last night and early this morning we hung sheet rock on our new living room wall and in the new little hallway that will lead to the pantry and bathroom. Yay!

We started with this:

Then Brian, our master carpenter, built us some frames:

And now we have walls:

And here's a view of the hall (from inside the bathroom):

 And here's a shot of what the hall looks like from the kitchen:

I have decided that sheet rocking is by far my favorite job to date. Any job where you see immediate results is so gratifying and gets my seal of approval. Plus, this one isn't too labor intensive. You have to be meticulous with your measurements and cuts but once you get a system down you can move pretty quickly. Which is definitely a good thing because we have one night to complete the remaining walls. We need to leave them open for the plumber but then we only have one night to hang the sheet rock because the ceiling guys come the next day!

And since the pictures above are kind of boring (plain white walls) here's an action shot of our process:



Thrilling stuff, no?



Sorry, I know this isn't the most exciting post but it's all a part of the process! Getting these walls up means I'll be able to start painting this weekend. We're getting a little closer each day...

The Dog Days of Summer

One of my loyal readers--my dad--asked how Summer was doing with the renovation. She's a pretty mild-mannered dog but I think it's getting a little old for her. She's always hated the sound of the drill but now she hates the hammering and banging. Knowing this, we sent her to my in-laws for our first weekend of demolition. With the worst behind us, we decided to keep her last weekend.

She was my shadow. If I vacuumed, she was right next to me.


This really isn't staged. When I realized how ridiculous this was I had to grab the camera. I had to ask her to move so I could vacuum under where she was sitting!

 If I was running trash out to the trailer, she was right behind me. If I was pulling up nails from the bathroom floor, she was curled up next to me.  She usually spends her days cat napping. This past weekend she was too busy trying to keep up with me and didn't take a single nap.

On Sunday night Jeremy discovered a problem with one of his wiring jobs. We had hoped to finish everything up around 7 so we could relax but we knew it wasn't wise to leave a faulty wire live. He worked to fix that wire until 11:30. Exhausted but wanting to help,  I manned the circuit breaker. At one point, I noticed Summer staring me down. We usually head up to bed between 10 and 10:30. This poor pup had had it. At least someone had some good sense to call it a day! I let her out, gave her her evening cookie, and sent her up to bed while we worked for another hour and a half.

I can't decide who's more excited to wrap up this renovation..Summer or me.

It's Electric

We had another jam-packed weekend but for some reason there isn’t as much to show for it. We put in another 30 hours of labor over the course of a 3-day period (this sounds perfectly reasonable but just to note: we started up Friday night after work). We took 4 trips to Lowe’s. And we brought 750 pounds to the dump, which is nothing compared to last weekend.

The biggest accomplishment was finishing up the majority of the electrical work. There’s still some final pieces to wrap up (reinstall the doorbell, add surround-sound speakers to the ceiling, etc.) but the lion’s share of this work is finished. Thank God!  We now have:

·         1 chandelier fixture

·         1 fixture in case we decide to add an island somewhere down the road

·         3 peninsula fixtures

·         16 recessed lights (I refuse to call them cans—I hate that word for some reason)

·         4 under cabinet lights (just the wiring—obviously the cabinets aren’t in yet)

·         1 overhead light for the bathroom

·         16 outlets

And we ran three new lines down to the circuit breaker. We’re having an electrician check our work (and I use “our” very loosely) and tie everything into the breaker for us. My one attempt to help resulted in my getting shocked because I accidentally grabbed a live wire. Good times!



Note the two rows of recessed lights are up and running!

If you’ve ever done any electrical work you’ll know that the biggest challenge is snaking the wires through the ceilings and walls. It can be relatively painless or it can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. It’s probably one of the more frustrating jobs out there, especially when there’s insulation in the interior walls for no good reason.  This house has so many quirks. My very gracious, generous father-in-law dedicated his entire day on Saturday to helping us. He is a master snaker, and it probably would have taken Jeremy and me three times as long to snake everything ourselves. I cannot thank him enough.  We owe him! 



The snaking master at work.



The other big job this weekend was tearing down some more walls and ripping up the old bathroom's sub floor. Our plumber came out on Friday to assess the project and realized he’d need some additional walls opened up. While Jeremy and his dad snaked, I tore out a couple of walls. No big deal. We also removed the upper cabinets and took out two soffits (one in the kitchen and one in the garage—our plumbing will run through the garage ceiling).





The walls once I was through with them.

Sunday morning I had Jack Hart’s Breakfast Roast and the Southie St. Patrick’s Day Parade on in the background while we worked which might not have been my best idea. I had a big case of the FOMS (Fear of Missing Something) about not being a part of the revelry. The parade used to pass by behind our house and the last couple of years we hosted a brunch with Bloody Mary’s and Mimosas. I would have given my eye teeth to be back in Southie yesterday instead of ripping apart my kitchen in the burbs.

Jeremy keeps telling me we’re in great shape. I guess I’ll have to trust him because to me, it seems like we’re a pretty far ways away from a finished product. At the end of a very long weekend we pulled together a to-do list for the upcoming week. Looks like it’s going to be another busy week!

A March Edition of Cheers and Boos

Cheers to...

• An excuse to shop! Email me if you want a link for 30% off at The Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy this weekend, with proceeds going to Juvenile Diabetes. Additionally, all sales from Forever 21 today will go towards Japanese Relief Efforts. It's not a problem if you're 30 and still shopping at Forever 21. Really.
• Snow officially melting and 60 degree weather. Hello Spring, I thought you'd never get here!
• Day light savings. That extra hour of light in the evening is doing wonders to improve my spirits.
• Shamrock shakes. Had one last night and it was the highlight of my St. Patrick's day.
• Fairfield basketball. I know no one cares about the NIT but it's exciting for us! Go Stags!

Boos to...

• Not one, not two, but THREE of my credit cards having fraudulent activity on them this month. Such a pain.
• Ticks. We've already pulled 5 off of Summer and it's only March.
• Charlie Sheen. Enough already.
• Another working weekend. This is the second weekend in a row where we'll be working around the clock. Hopefully we'll get a lot accomplished. We're hoping to wrap up the electrical work, Sheetrock, and paint whatever we can.

Go out there and have some fun this weekend on my behalf!

Top O the Morning to You!

For each petal on the shamrock.
This brings a wish your way
Good health, good luck, and happiness
For today and every day.



Happy St. Paddy's Day to you, lads and lassies! This is one of my favorite holidays although this year I'm not doing much to celebrate. I even forgot to wear green today! I'll just have to listen to the Clancy Brothers Pandora station at work. If you had told my 21 year old self this is what it would come to...I wouldn't have been impressed.

 

Hope your day includes a Guinness, corned beef, or a shamrock shake!

Putting up Walls (In a Good Way)

So we had another big day! Today was our contractor's first day on the job. It's a rainy mess of a day so it was the perfect day to frame the interior walls.

A few weeks ago, Jeremy and I used painters' tape to lay out where each wall, door, and appliance would go in our newly created pantry and bathroom. We had drawn up a plan in CAD but we wanted to make sure that everything would actually fit since we were working in tight quarters. It's a good thing we did this because we ended up scrapping a closet in the bathroom because it felt too crowded.

And here it is framed out...this is really happening!



The bathroom/laundry closet will be on the left-hand side and the pantry is on the right. Unfortunately, we're losing that beautiful window but hopefully we can find a new home for it soon.

Here's a close up of the pantry:

And here's what the reduced living room will look like. It's being cut in half (size-wise) but I'm happy we'll still have three windows. We may convert this to an office/study area because we really don't need two sitting rooms. We'll see what happens!



And, finally, Brian (our contractor/friend) opened up the hallway for us. We weren't sure if this was a load-bearing wall so we left it for the expert to handle.

Before:

After:



Tomorrow the new windows go in! I have to say I'm enjoying this part of the process far more than the demolition.

Special Delivery

Yesterday morning we had a very exciting delivery!

Our cabinets arrived! There were 46 boxes, and all 46 were carried in by a very strong delivery man who worked solo.

You can see the screens in this shot...I didn't want to scare him so I had to be stealth with my pictures.

I was a little nervous that all 46 boxes would fit in the basement because we were already pretty full but we were able to make it work. Thank God!

Yes, we have a refrigerator, toilet, and a lobster trap in our basement. No big deal.

Of course there had to be one little glitch. The boxes that contained our two lazy susans were too large to fit through the door. The delivery guy told me he couldn't help so Jeremy and I had to take the lazy susans out of their boxes and remove the basement door to get them into the house. It was a little painful--and cut into The Bachelor a bit-- but it wasn't the end of the world. However, we'll have to remove the basement door AND the front door to get them upstairs. Should be fun!  

According to our schedule, these are being installed April 4th. I should note though that we're running a week ahead of schedule so cross your fingers they go in on March 28th instead!



Blood, Sweat, and Tears

This past weekend was dedicated to kitchen demo. This was the hardest I’ve ever worked in my life. I thought moving ourselves in alone was grueling but that was NOTHING compared to this weekend. When all was said and done, we experienced blood (Jeremy’s dad’s finger was sliced open by a nail), sweat (no need to be graphic but we were both dripping), and tears (Jer accidentally hit me in the head with the back of the jackhammer and I was so startled and exhausted I burst into tears). So what did we accomplish? They say a picture is worth a thousand words and I’m way too tired to write so we’ll let the pictures do the talking.

We went from this:

To this:

And ended with this:

And, here’s the bathroom view. This is a terrible “before” photo. This bathroom was so awkward to photograph.

We started with this:

Last week it looked like this:

And this morning it looks like this:

And here’s a shot from another angle:

Not only did we tear out walls but we also pulled up the tile floor. This was the biggest pain of the weekend. On Friday night, Jeremy ripped up the tiles in the kitchen. He started with a sledge hammer which had worked well in the bathroom but it wasn’t going to cut it in the kitchen. We rented a jack hammer to speed things along.

See how cloudy that picture looks? There was dust everywhere. When I threw my clothes the hamper a big poof of dust flew up…just call me Pigpen.  We tried to limit the dust to the kitchen by hanging plastic over all the door openings. It worked marginally.  As always, I was in charge of the clean up and, after this job, it wasn’t fun.

We had enough debris to warrant 3 trips to the dump on Saturday.

Remember how proud I was of bringing 500 pounds to the dump last week? Well, that was nothing. We brought 3,100 pounds on Saturday. We’re on a first name basis with the crew at the Duxbury Transfer Station.

Sunday we spent the day working on the kitchen lights. Did I mention Jeremy is doing all of the electric work himself? That’s a post for another day.

When all was said and done we:

·    Spent 32 hours (6 hours Friday, 12 hours Saturday, and 14 hours Sunday, which was a 23-hour day) working

·    Paid $320 on debris removal

·    Moved 3 major appliances (a full refrigerator, washer and dryer)

·    Took 3 hours to re-label our circuit breaker

·    Rented one power tool: jack hammer

·    Took one trip to our favorite home improvement store to buy a new shop vac and some new 2 x 4s.

·    Pulled hundreds, if not thousands, of screws up from the sub floor

·    Installed 10 recessed lights in the kitchen

·    Ate 4 meals from fast food restaurants. Gross. I hadn't eaten 4 meals at a fast food restaurant in the past 4 years.

I couldn’t be happier that this weekend is behind me. I was actually looking forward to work this morning! Jeremy assures me that this was the hardest work we’ll have to do and that the worst is behind us. I certainly hope so!