Before:
During
Category Archives: Renovations
I’ve mentioned some delays. Well, this was a big one. And an expensive one. Turns out the house was NOT re-plumbed. Soooooo. Now it is! We got a great deal from Scott Dykehouse of Tiger Plumbing. Nate did the work and everything is working well now. And now there are (among other improvements) beautiful pipes coming off of our hot water heater instead of bowing PVC piped that look like they might pop off at any moment! This photo is the plaster repair that Vicky did in Robbie’s office where they had to cut out an access panel.
An example if one of those little details that make a big difference. This was rewarding to clean up. Had to take a razor blade to the marble threshold.
These were taken in various stages of unpacking.
This was another annoying hold up. We had a dryer with a 4 prong plug. The house had a 3 prong outlet. The big unknown was had it been retrofitted at some point. If so then the fourth wire (a second ground wire introduced for fire safety) would be in the wall. If not the would have to run a wire from the circuit breaker to the dryer outlet box, which are of course at opposite ends of the house. That wire also apparently costs $20 per linear foot WHOLESALE. Oh joy.
Well I’m happy yo day that this is the first thing that ended up being the cheaper option. Whew. The wire was there and after a few weeks of rapidly growing dirty laundry piles we finally had our washer and dryer running.
The before and after ..,
So this should give you an idea of how much gunk the pool filter has had to clean up. This is the NEW filter after about a week of use. It’s been cleaned again since then and will probsbly get another rinse in a few days. It’s wiring very hard!
We haven’t posted much lately. Let me just share that these elusive buggers are a large part of the reason why!!! I don’t think I can adequately verbalize what a success it was to find these. For those of you who remember the ad campaign: “It’s Miller time.”
Movers are about 50% done with storage unit. They packed this thing perfectly using every inch! Spatially brilliant!
To quote the seller “and I’m CERTAINLY not going to put electric garage doors in.” Dude.
Abbey approves of the bedroom color.
The master bath is coming along. Paint color looks good. Needs a little more touch up and we’re done! Although I just realized this morning that I’m not sure we have towels that match this. Later, later…
Good company makes this stuff go so much faster! And it becomes downright fun! Lori S. did a lovely job helping to paint Robbie’s office. Jorelle and Jason came to our rescue as we were just about to feel overwhelmed! They jumped in to help us tackle the incredibly unpleasant task of scraping off wallpaper plus they helped us paint the living room Santorini Blue. Thanks you guys! I have a feeling there will be plenty of painting parties still to come! **as an audible groan emanates from the vicinity of the Phillips Center Box Office
This picture is Jorelle painting the living room and Robbie scraping away at the wallpaper in the foyer. 
Ahhhhhh. Scraping wallpaper. Sheer misery. Thank you mom for getting us started. Thank you David for tackling another huge percentage of it. And thank you Jorelle for helping us finish it. And Robbie and Allison would like to thank Robbie and Allison for our hard work too. (Pat self on back.)
One down…. Many to go….
Thank you to everyone who’s helping us out. The whole crew is helping! My mom and dad, Dylan and his tutor David, Vicky and Sherry, our friend Lori (her handy work will be posted tomorrow), and even Abbey and William are getting involved! Oh and of course we’ve also had plumbers, electricians, pest control, and so on!
The house had been “cleaned” before closing, but there was still so much to be done. A little sample of what we’re faced with. This was the kitchen pantry. Thank goodness for my hero Vicky. She really makes all of these projects possible. She’s smart, works her tail off and has made some major progress! Not only has she been tackling things like this, she’s making repairs, dismantling drapery rigging, painting…. what a multi-tallented woman! And on top of that, her partner Sherry made us a delicious fratatta for lunch Saturday.
How do you like your new yard William? Based on the way he pranced around the yard, frolicking with joy….. I’d say he approves!
My office floor was an adventure in itself… We pulled up the old carpet to find what looked like possibly an original carpet pad. It was an unpleasant experience. We expected to find a layer of sandy, dusty debris under the carpet — there always is — but there was a layer of caked dirt and grime under the carpet pad that was an eighth of an inch thick in some places. It filled the whole room with an overwhelming odor of must, dust, dirt, age and grossness. It’s a nice reminder of why even if you have a carpet that looks ok, if it’s older than a certain point it just needs to come up!
The last two photos show the tests that Mark at Plantation Carpet Cleaning ran in order to figure out how to attack this challenge. And then a quick snapshot of after the clean. Mark did an AMAZING job!
This just makes me feel warm and fuzzy. I’ve narrowed colors down to these but there are still way too many. And I’d be happy with any of these!
Wow, lots of work work to get done before I can get back to house thinking! Looking forward to it!
Plan as of right now: Pull up the carpet in the den (soon to be office). Then someone is coming to steam clean the tile in the bathrooms and the tile that is (theoretically) underneath the carpet in the den. Next we tackle the wallpaper. Then we’re going to paint the master bedroom, robbie’s office and my office so that we can move in and not be overwhelmed by paint smell. Hopefully the kitchen too. That’s the plan anyway….
I know it’s not particularly pretty, but I’ve been eyeing this for a long time. It’s a sit-stand desk that will enable me to leave my desk in one piece but transition from sitting to standing using the crank. This could be a really great thing! I’ll figure out some way to make it prettier….
I would flip the blades on all of these probably to be the lighter and or white options….
We’re getting excited. Getting the paint brushes warmed up. I think we’ve got one color picked out so far.
Check out the Before Pictures to see our starting point.
Gotta love Google Street View’s ability to capture odd candid shots. Aren’t these two ladies great?