The kitchen is the heart of the home

The kitchen is nearly complete! The cabinets and counter tops are in. When designing the kitchen, we asked a lot of people for advice on the colors to go with for cabinets, counters, walls and tile. We ended up deciding on a color called Cashmere for the cabinets and a dark granite counter that has some browns and tans in it.  Looking at it all together, I think it's tied together very nicely. It's very hard to imagine everything when you're choosing out of a showroom. You can see how the pieces match, but it's hard to know for sure that it will look good until everything is installed.

Fred went to the house after the cabinets and counters were installed and had kind of a freak out because the counters seemed different from the sample we picked. I tried to assure him that with granite, each piece was a little different. He was convinced it was black and pink, instead of black/brown. So he decided at 7:30 on Friday night that he wanted me to see it. I kept telling him that even if it was wrong, there's nothing that could be done until Monday and we'd be at the house anyway that weekend. He didn't care and off to the house we went. I was starting to get nervous that it was black and pink cause Fred kept freaking out, so when we got to the house I was hesitant to go in. When I walked into the kitchen and looked at the counter in the light, it looked fine. It looked black/brown. I explained to him that the difference is that the brown parts were bigger than what was on the sample, but it looked good. I think Fred saw the counter in the afternoon light and it looked more pink than brown. So all is well for that. Looking at the kitchen nearly complete, I'm so excited to finish everything and get moved in. It is exactly the kitchen I've dreamed of and will certainly be the heart of our home.

Upstairs bath tile- not yet grouted

We still have a lot to do though. We're still working on the upstairs bathroom. I hope to knock that out this weekend and hopefully the Master bedroom. If we can have a weekend where there isn't four million things going on, we may actually get some work done. The tile guys have put down all the tile in the bathrooms and laundry room, so those are almost ready to go!

Downstairs bath tile

The guys are supposed to come this weekend to do the outside. From what I hear a whole crew is coming and they're going to work Fri-Mon to get it all done. I'm hesitant to believe it will be completed that quickly. We're painting the outside trim white and some of the doors will be white and the front door will be red.

The electrician is also supposed to finish up this week, thankfully! We've had several issues lately with the breakers. I'm also hoping he'll get the track lighting in the kitchen up and the ceiling fans in the living room and bedrooms up. It would be nice to have overhead lights in those rooms- currently there is none. The best part is that the appliances are supposed to be delivered this weekend. Hopefully, the plumber will get out there soon to finish up his stuff, so we can get the dishwasher and faucet installed.

Laundry room tile

Our ETA is November. Hopefully before Thanksgiving, but we still have so much scraping, sanding, priming and painting to do, I'm just praying we're done by the end of the year. Looking around the house, I can see how far we've come. We're trying to keep the integrity of the house, but make it into the home it should be. The home was built with so much stability and character, that we would be doing it a great disservice to renovate instead of rehabilitate. We've been doing research on the house trying to find information on what the inside and outside looked like after it was built, because we want to restore the original charm. I hope we can accomplish the task.

Another weekend gone

New tile floor!

We have tile! And it looks good!   The cabinets are supposed to go in this week. The kitchen is getting closer to being finished. We're also getting closer to having all of the tile work in the house done. (Tile is being done in the downstairs bath, laundry room, and upstairs bathroom wall (around the shower)).

Fred and his parents worked hard on Saturday scraping the windows in the upstairs bath. I had my sisters in town, so I had the day off. We did go by to show see the house and say hello.  Sunday was a lot more productive.

Trim scraped to the wood

A friend of the family, who is a professional painter, came with us Sunday to help out. He gave us some great tips and helped a bunch scraping windows. He told about how a heat gun can melt the paint off of the trim to easily remove it. He even brought his over to show Fred how to use it. Fred is in love! He went and got one for himself and went to town on the trim in the upstairs bath. The heat gun gets up to 1000º and melts the paint, so you can easily scrape strips off. It was able to get three layers of paint off and get it down to the wood! So after some sanding to make it smooth, we'll be ready to prime and paint the bathroom.... which we finally decided on the color- it's called Bee's Wax (yellow).

Sweeping up paint chips

I got started priming the shelves that go to the closets and linen closet.  One side of them is done and drying. We're estimating that the cabinets and maybe counters will be going in this week. I hope they do. Our task continues to be scraping and sanding, but we're getting closer. We now have 16 windows scraped! We're more than half way there! Of course we still need to sand, prime and paint 12 of them. I'm hoping we'll be able to get the upstairs bathroom completed this weekend and start on the bedrooms.

Two rooms primed and painted.... eight more to go

How much can we get done in a three-day weekend?  A lot.

Most of Saturday was spent at Lowe's, where we bought the appliances, four ceiling fans, a mailbox and post, a new lock, and lots of other misc items. Let's just say that Lowe's loves us now. After scouring the internet for deals on appliances and reading reviews, we decided on the Frigidaire Gallery series and the Frigidaire Professional series. Due to a great Labor Day sale, we were able to get the appliances we wanted- Stainless Steel. We also went ahead and bought most of the paint and primer we need for the house.

When we finally got to the house, we decided to go ahead and finish cleaning up the yard from the hurricane, so the grass could be cut. Fred continued to get large limbs and I grabbed the smaller stuff. We had to get all the yard debris to the street since pick up was Tuesday (the 6th). They don't give much time. Fred also decided it was a good time to start cleaning out from under the trees of other fallen limbs that have been there a while, since it's "free." We were going to wait to do it but since the city is picking up debris, we figured we should go ahead and get as much done as possible, so we don't have to pay for bulk removal later. A lot of the baby pines were pulled up, but there is still plenty if any one wants some pines or magnolia seedlings. We have plenty to spare, just let us know.

Painted kitchen- color is called Canoe

Sunday... fun day. The day to paint. Since the tile is being put down this week, we want as much paint up as possible in the rooms needing tile. Fred and his dad started cleaning up in the kitchen. They pulled the rest of the linoleum floor up and took apart the refrigerator that was already at the house and put it in the basement. This gave an open room, with no obstacles. My mom and her friend came to help us and we promptly put paint brushes in their hands. My mom primed the trim in the stairwell, while her friend worked on painting the ceiling in the kitchen. I was busy in the pink bathroom, scraping and sanding. I was determined to get that room primed that day. Fred worked on scraping the window in the bathroom and while I wanted on him, I primed more door frames in the kitchen... there are five door frames that connect to the kitchen.  Once Fred was finished, I went to town priming the bathroom. Finally, some of the pink would be gone! We still have the pink tile, but it felt so good covering up the pink trim. Of course I ended up wearing as much paint as I got on the wall. Fred's dad is far more patient and steady than I am, so he painted all the trim to the windows in the kitchen and bathroom, making them look almost new! Sunday was a very late night trying to get stuff done, but ended up being very productive... the kitchen and bathroom were ready for paint.

Labor Day was certainly that.... a day of hard labor. The day had finally arrived that we could get some color on the walls. While Fred and his dad started painting in the kitchen, I went and painted the trim in the bathroom. I think I may need a second coat to hide the pink. The primer and one coat may not be enough. A little pink keeps coming through :-/ But, it is a big improvement. When I got to the kitchen, the wall painting was under way and looking good. I really like the color. At first I was afraid it was too dark, but I think the light-colored cabinets will brighten it up. I worked on painting the trim on the door frames I had primed the day before. Finally, the kitchen is primed, painted and trimed, and ready for tile!!

Design/layout

We didn't get many pictures cause we forgot the camera, but I snapped a couple with my phone. The latest is that the subfloor in the kitchen has to be replaced before they can tile, but tile is still supposed to start this week. The cabinets are ready and should be installed next week, so, I think we can reveal the design and hope that nothing happens....

Design/layout

Fred and his dad also put up the mailbox and post and then continued to clean up in the yard, cutting dead limbs and cleaning up debris. It's finally starting to look like a kept yard- sort of. I stayed busy working on the other bathroom, scraping the trim and walls. There's still a lot to do in that bathroom, but hopefully it won't take too long. It was a very productive three-day weekend, although I think I need a week to really make a dent in the to-do list and then another week to recover.

Design/layout

Hurricane Irene

Saturday was supposed to be a work day... we had it all planned... then Hurricane Irene decided to grace us with her presence. Thanks, but no thanks. That chick is messy! So, we prepared for the storm as much as possible- removing items from the yard and making sure everything is as sturdy as possible. We decided not to board up the windows because we'd have to buy out the lumber yard to cover 30 windows. Besides, we were thinking that the western part of the area wouldn't get much. Boy, were we wrong!

The tree that landed on the neighbors

We hunkered down at the house in Suffolk and prayed for the best. The lights flickered some and we had a few large limbs come down but nothing major. We thought we were in the clear.... until about 10 am when the contractor called us (he lives close and was nice enough to go check on the house)..... There were no trees on our house, but one of our trees landed on the neighbors roof.... My heart sunk. It was one of my worst fears- that one of our trees would hit our house or a neighbors'. We know we have several to take down, but unbelievably the one that fell, wasn't on that list.  It was perfectly healthy, but down it went... straight into the neighbors living room. Thank God no one was hurt.

We quickly gathered our things and headed to the house. It took longer than normal as we had to detour a lot due to trees blocking off the regular route. As we got to the house, we noticed the neighbor standing out front, so we parked and went to talk to him. The tree man was there cutting up the tree and getting everything straight. Amazingly, they never lost power, even though the tree took the line down to the ground. They assured us that they were ok and that they would get it fixed. The tree landed on their roof at the living room and broke the rafters. The neighbors joked that it allowed them to get a new living room. I'm glad they are being optimistic, as I nearly had a heart attack. Apparently, several trees in the neighborhood came down on houses, but it didn't look like too much damage was done. Although, the area was hit very hard.

Fallen trees

So, after talking to the neighbors and being assured that everything was fine, we went to check out the house.... sure enough, we had some trees down too. Thankfully, they're not near the house. A pine and some other kind of holly-looking tree. They could wait... so we headed inside to see if any windows had broken. Amazingly, none had. Then, we went to the basement.... where we had an indoor swimming pool!

Indoor swimming pool. Also known as the flooded basement.

Even though the power was still on in the house, for some reason, the sump pump decided not to work. We had nearly a foot of water in the basement. After messing with the sump pump, we got it to start pumping the water out. So, I walked out the where the pipe goes out of the basement to make sure everything was pumping ok...it was a geyser! Something was wrong with the pipe and water was spraying everywhere! We quickly turned the pump off. After some reviewing of the pipe we thought we had the issue fixed and tried it again... now water was bubbling up from the ground (we have dry wells that the pipe and gutter downspouts go to. We think they need to be cleaned though). So, we shut it down again. I saw some PVC in the basement and figured we could disconnect the pipe to the dry well and just run the water into the yard. One way or another the water had to go! Well, it worked.... So, then Fred sees what looks like a small spring coming down one of the walls in the basement- but it's an interior wall, so he climbs into the crawl space to discover 8 inches of water in there!! After a trip to Lowe's to get a pump, Fred and his dad hooked it up to pump the water from the crawl space to the well in the basement, to be sucked out by the sump pump. It was proving to be a long process, so we decided to head home and Fred's dad would come back to check the water and turn off the pump. When he returned, the sump pump wasn't working- again, so water was filling up the well. We decided we'd look at it the next day.

When we arrived today, the crawl space had a lot less water than the night before, but the basement had about 2 inches of water in it. And of course, it was raining again. So, Fred and his dad disassembled the sump pump and cleaned it out. Then, they got a new connector to the pipe since the old one was split. After reassembling everything the sump pump seemed to work again, so we were able to pump out the rest of the water in just a few minutes... one crises down.

Break time from cutting trees and removing debris

Then, we went outside to tackle the downed trees. Man, were they a mess! Fred's dad started sawing them down so we could move limbs to the street for the city to pick up... In the midst of limbs and leaves and poison ivy, we trekked back and forth, limb by limb. We're still not done. We did manage to make a dent in the tree debris... maybe we'll finish it off this up-coming weekend. I'm all for letting nature do it's thing and leaving them there to compost. I figured if God can take them down, he can clean them up too. The worst part about it is none of the trees we need to take down came down... so, we have to clean up these and cut down more... grrrr, Irene knocked us down, but we're coming up swinging! And if that doesn't work, I'll get my raft and float around in the basement.

Blackwater River nearly to the top of the boat ramp

One issue we have to consider is that the Blackwater River is expected to flood again. It's not supposed to be as bad as Hurricane Floyd, but it could potentially flood downtown. We're not in the flood zone, but the company doing the kitchen is.... hopefully the cabinets aren't there, or they've moved everything to higher ground. We hope it doesn't flood and the latest figures show it cresting at 18 ft, but with the additional rain, anything is possible.

In other news on the house... the trim is up for the bathroom door frame and laundry room, which we now get to scrape and paint :-/. Hopefully, there won't be any more surprises in store weather-wise, so we can actually get some work done on the house instead of clean-up. Now that the storm is over, I want to tell Irene to stick it where the sun don't shine for dumping a foot of rain on the house and taking down perfectly good trees, but instead, I'm thankful it wasn't worse.

Finally, some visible signs of progress

So, it's been a while since I've posted and A LOT has been accomplished on the house... not so much by us, but by the contractor. We didn't actually do anything last weekend, but check things out and take pictures.

Laundry room

First off, we have WALLS!!! There are no more holes! They have finished off the laundry room walls and repaired the ceiling and wall in the dining room. The places in the ceiling where the plaster was coming down have been repaired as well. It's starting to look like a real house!

The contractor also went ahead and took out the tile to the downstairs bathroom, so we are down a bathroom again. There was an issues with the floor sagging, so it has to be fixed. The plus side is that the pink tile on the floor is gone... the downside is that the pink tile to the bathtub is still there :-/

Replacing tile floor in bath

Probably the most exciting part is that the railing on the patio is up and looks fantastic! They did such a great job putting it up and not destroying the brickwork to the patio. Even though it's not original to the house and we're trying to keep so much of the character, we had to put it up to bring it up to code. I'm just really glad it looks so good.

Railing for the patio

On to this week.....
 
Saturday, we got a very late start, so we just worked to wipe down the walls and trim in the kitchen and back stairwell from where we sanded everything down. We have found that damp paper towels work well for this. Sunday, we finished wiping everything down and then came the fun part....

Multitasking

I do actually do some work :-)

Painted partially up the stairs

We finally got to start painting... well priming. Finally the robin's egg blue color would vanish from the walls! Sort of. It's harder to cover up than we anticipated. Hopefully, the coffee color that we picked for the walls will cover it up. I had forgotten what a pain in the butt using oil-based paint is. Since the blue is oil-based and the white, which mostly peeled off, is latex, the very knowledgeable guy at the paint store suggested we paint over the oil-based paint with oil-based primer and then we can top-coat with latex. That should prevent peeling in the future. So note- If you have oil-based painted walls, you can still paint with latex, just prime the walls with an oil-based primer first. Thankfully, we don't have to use the oil-based primer in the whole house, just where the latex peeled off and the oil-based paint is showing. So, back to the oil-based primer being awful to deal with. I'm not a neat painter. I never pretended to be and I always wear as much paint as I get on the walls. This time was no different. The difference with oil and latex- oil doesn't just wash off. NO, you have to basically bathe in mineral spirits to get it off. My hands were completely covered in primer and poor Fred had it all over his arms and face from when he painted the ceiling and it sprayed down. He's as neat of a painter as I am. The only one of who actually stayed clean was Fred's dad and I'm still not sure how he did it. I think I'll need to invest in mineral spirits if we have to do much more oil-based priming. But, we got the kitchen primed and part of the stairwell before we ran out of paint. We probably would have had enough if I hadn't been wearing most of it. :-/

Primed wall

The next couple of weekends will be slammed full, trying to get as much done as possible. Our schedules are getting a bit hectic, so that should make this project even more interesting to maneuver. Our to-do list for next weekend: Finish scraping and sanding the trim in the Mater, 2nd bedroom, living room, and hopefully office, and them prime all of it. Can we get it all done? Gosh, I hope so :-)

Raindrops are falling on my head... and that's good!

Well that didn't last long..... we went to the house last weekend and the NEW downstairs HVAC unit wasn't working properly, and of course it was 400­° outside (that may be a slight exaggeration)... but we needed to work on the house, so we just suffered through it. I walked through the house to see what had been worked on for the week by the contractor, and he's moving right a long. He took the gutters down; which is awesome! Normally, I wouldn't think so since I don't like water pouring on my head as I go into the house when it's raining (like it was Saturday), but in this case, it's a good thing. The gutters were growing trees and were so damaged and clogged up that removing them was a necessity. The clogged gutters were causing water to go down the side of the house, and we believe is the source of a lot of the moisture in the basement. The contractor took down a few of the shutters, as well. He's also framed the door to the bathroom and laundry room, so they're not just gaping holes now. Hopefully this week, they'll be putting up walls!

Gutters removed

With and without shutters

Scraped door frame

So we continued our task of scraping and sanding the walls. Fred and his dad finished the kitchen and back stairwell, so once the walls are repaired, we can go ahead and prime them. While they worked on the kitchen, I started on the trim in the living room. There's a lot of trim in there! In two days, I completed 1 and a half walls. The large door frame really took it's toll on me as I had to scrape all the paint off and then sand. There are three layers of paint... two tones of blue and the top layer of green.  The frame has a lot of detail work that I had to carefully scrape and sand each section. Unfortunately, all the door frames have that detail work and I've only completed 3. :-(  Before we called it a weekend, I did manage to get to one of the built-in bookcases.

Notice anything missing? The antenna is gone! 

We have 10 windows scraped... only 20 more to go!

Our big accomplishment last week was meeting with the kitchen designer. We tweaked the design a bit, and picked out the color of the cabinets, granite, and tiles. Once we have everything ordered, I'll post the pictures of the design.... I don't want to jinx it.

The signs of progress

Laundry room and new opening to bathroom

It's amazing what can be done in a few days..... Last week, when we went to the house there were holes in walls, but it still looked like demolition was in full swing. This week, walls are being framed and new electrical and plumbing is going in. A lot has happened in just a few days....

The contractor has started framing the laundry room that will be on the second floor. It borrowed room from the bathroom, took out a linen closet in the hall (there's another one in the bathroom) and part of a closet in the guest room (there's another full closet in the guest room). The electrical and plumbing for the laundry room is starting to be roughed in and it shouldn't be long before walls go up!

Framed laundry room

The electrician was working hard to get the downstairs electrical upgraded. Side note- the house had two prong outlets in majority of the house. We have to upgrade to three prongs per code. The downstairs is upgraded and he'll soon be upgrading the upstairs. You'd be amazed at how three prong outlets are taken for granted, until you need to plug in the shop-vac and there's only one three prong outlet downstairs, so you're running extension cords through the whole house!  Thankfully, that is no longer an issue.

Fred doing some vacuuming

Our blonde moment of the week.... we've been working at the house for weeks with no running water. There is a leak from the upstairs toilet that we still need to fix and a few other leaks have popped up, so we keep the water off to the house. This means bathroom runs are usually taken at a local store and wet wipes help to wash hands (trying not to be graphic). So we worked yesterday thinking that there is no water to the house. We were covered in paint chips and plaster dust, so we tried to wipe as much as we could with wet wipes before leaving the house to meet Fred's parent for supper. While we were changing clothes, Fred sat on the side of the tub to put on his shoes (no furniture in the house either). He leaned back a bit and hit the nozzle for the shower and POOF water came out! We realized that the water was on in the house! It was amazing! I immediately grabbed the hand soap I brought to the house for when water was running and started scrubbing my arms and hands. It's incredible how something as simple as running water can make you feel stupid for not realizing it's on, but also be so comforting. Running water = progress! The leak upstairs hasn't been fixed yet and isn't a problem as long as no one messes with the toilet.

Fred and I are currently reviewing the quotes from cabinetmakers for the kitchen..... ouch. Thankfully, there does seems to be a couple that are reasonable that we want to discuss further details with them. Most of the quotes also include counters... a few include granite, which would be awesome, but I'm not holding my breath. At this point, we want good quality cabinets and floors (tile), and if we need to upgrade counters later, that's fine. So, now it's working on the details of the quotes and see where it goes from here.

We got our first rug for the house. It's red with gold and ivory details on it. It's planned for the dining room and I'm going to pair it with gold curtains. Thus, the great paint debate continues... I want a medium to dark brown for the walls and Fred wants something like cream.... I need more color than that. He also has suggested the living room be red. That may be a little too bold for me. We're also trying to decide on a color for the bathroom... we're both kinda thinking yellow, but I want more of a deep yellow and he's looking at sunshine yellow. We were able to decide on the colors for the Master (slate blue) and guest room (sage green).  Hopefully, we'll be able to find colors that we can both live with.... the sanding continues!