Floors & Kitchen Cabinets

Hiiii!  I was going to wait another week and a half before I posted because that is when some seriously exciting pictures will be ready...but I decided to throw in a small  huge post to catch you up on where we are at currently. 

I kind of feel bad for the floor.  Poor floor didn't get our full attention after it went down.  Don't get me wrong, we "ooooh-ed" and "aaaaah-ed" big time, but we so quickly got moving with the kitchen cabinets that the excitement of the hardwood floor actually being in took a back seat.  And that's not where it belongs, it totally belongs in the front seat.  I didn't even get a shot of the entire floor looking all nice and snazzy before we started dragging kitchen cabinet parts out of boxes! 

During the week we had off, we were able to finish the floors by Tuesday.  Wednesday, we hit a brick wall.  We both went home about an hour after being at the house looking at cabinets and piddling around, and did something extraordinary.....   we took a nap!!!  And oohhhhh was it glorious.  I see many more in my future once we are moved in and have our weekends back.  I may even get to cook meals that takes longer than 15 minutes!  And I'll be able to wash clothes without having to round up quarters!  We might...just might...even get cable!  My car might be clean for the first time in a year and a half?   Can you tell I'm excited at the idea of moving in and getting settled?  Bring. It. On. 

Sorry, I got sidetracked with how awesome life looks from the view of the house almost being done :)  So, Wednesday was nap, jammies, lounging, awesome.  Thursday, we got back to it and by the end of the week had the cabinets assembled and hung. 

This weekend we will be building a little platform for the island cabinets to sit on and secure that, as well as the cabinets, to the floor.  It's not SUPER exciting to look at just yet because we decided to leave the doors off of the cabinets for the time being.  Whyyyy, you might ask?!  Well, we are waiting for the 16th.  On the 16th our electrician is coming back to hang lights, ceiling fans, pot rack, install our over the range hood, etc.  We thought he was doing this a couple of months ago, but in the middle of working on it he called us and asked if we would mind if he held off.  He made a good point...if they were hung too early they could get really dusty and dirty with the remainder of the work that needed to be done, not to mention they could get damaged in the process. So, as bummed as we were to agree, it really was for the best I think.  Plus, it will look a lot more finished when he does it on the 16th than it would have a couple months ago. 

After he installs all of his stuff, we can put our cabinet doors on, our hardware, and I'm thinking our countertops will be in by then (or at least close).  So, needless to say I cannot WAIT to see how it all turns out and take lots of good pictures!

At this point our task list is really dwindling.  This weekend we will also be working on building a platform for our kitchen sink.  We got an old farmhouse apron sink...

...and since the dimensions are so goofy we are having to build our own base for it.  Which means we will actually hang an "apron", a really cute piece of fabric under our sink like you see in old houses.  I like the idea of that, so was kind of happy when we couldn't find cabinets for the sink to fit on top of. 

Oh, and we have to schedule the plumbers to come back and set all the toilets and sinks and whatnot.  Kind of nice we just have to schedule it and not do it.  Maybe we will get to take another nap....    :)

Here are a few pictures of what we got into last week:

Before we started the floor in the kitchen/living room/dining room (this picture pretty much sums up what our life has been like for the past year and a half...messy): 

 Cleaner....

   Help from Lee's brother.  Thanks Andy!!

  Help from Lee's dad.  Thanks Charlie!

**I have to throw in a side note that BJ helped with our spare room floor...thanks to you, too BJ!

An after shot (I should have moved that box!):

 After, with the island up!

                                 View from the dining room into the kitchen:

Then it was all about cabinets!!

                               Wall where the stove will go, before:

After:  (Note: Still need to have the hood installed!)

                 We realized we needed to cut a hole in our drywall to secure some wood to a stud.  This needed to be done so we could screw the hood to the wall so it would be fully stable once assembled and hung:

 A couple more views just for fun:

I will say that the Ikea cabinets were overwhelming to look at in a million pieces, but once we got our groove down of putting them in piles (of what went with what) the assembly process was pretty easy.  It would be especially easy in a new(er) home where the walls were more flat and square than that of a 100 year old home. And the best part of all...there are slow-stops on the doors and drawers.  I literally did some weird crazy dance the first time I pushed one of our drawers in, it felt so good to just watch it easy on in rather than slamming!  Here's a video of what it's like in case you don't know what I'm referring to....

Goodbye tile, hello kitchen cabinets...and a pretty floor.

For some reason...

That I can't quite figure out...

I keep getting sidetracked during this whole floor-laying process...

Flooring is quickly becoming my favorite project to date ;)

(I get way too big of a kick out of taking pictures of him when he has no idea that I am doing it)

We really are making some good progress, and I was able to squeeze in a few shots of that stuff as well!  A lot has happened since my last post.  We have finished the tile (grout and all) in both bathrooms.  It's hard to get a good shot with the small angles of the bathroom, but here are a couple pictures...

Before Grout in Bathroom 1:

After Grout in Bathroom 1:

(We still need to caulk around the tub, etc, but it's looking much more put-together these days with the addition of the grout)

Before Grout in Bathroom 2:

After Grout in Bathroom 2:

All the final fixtures have been picked out and ordered, so now we just need to schedule our plumbing "finish". That is when they will come to put in all of our sinks, faucets, toilets, etc.  They will also hook up our kitchen sink, and washer/dryer.  I guess that means a washer/dryer will be next our our "things to buy" list.

After we finshed up the tile, my mind was on kitchen cabinets.  We both took off the week between Christmas and New Years in hopes that it would be the perfect week to assemble and hang all of our cabinets.  So, in order to do that we needed to get on the cabinet situation.  That's where Ikea came in.  We headed up there around noon last Thursday, and we left around 9:30pm with this...

And that's it.  That is our kitchen!  Can't wait to show you the "after" shot on that one!!

On top of all that, here are a couple floor shots.  We started laying it in our bedroom incase we ran into any snags/learning curves. 

First we had to fill in the holes that were in our bedroom floor (from the closets that were there when we bought it):

Then we had to lay down the black stuff. I forget what this is for.  It's some kind of barrier for something.

Then we started laying the floor down:

With this handy-dandy nailing device (you just bop the little black knob thing with the hammer thing and it produces a staple that is virtually impossible to remove...which we learned first hand):

And here's a better shot of most of the bedroom floor:

And just like that, the bedroom floor is done. Hopefully the rest of the house will be laid by Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas...I hope you have a very merry one.  We totally slacked on Christmas cards this year, but we wish you a very, very happy holiday season and a healthy and happy New Year.

Flooring, More Tile, A Christmas Tree & Chalkboard Wall Fun

This morning before work, Lowes came and delivered our hardwood flooring.  39 boxes to be exact.

 Here's a little teaser of what it looks like...

We are pretty much in love with it.  We went to visit it at lunch just to remind ourselves of just how much we love it.  I just sit and stare at it for way longer than I probably should.  And then I picture everything that will go along with it, and end up staring at it some more before Lee finally snaps me out of my daydream and we go on about our day. 

On top of flooring, we have made some tile progress in the main bathroom. 

Floor: 

Bath Surround:

Lee even decided to get action shots of me this time around:

We still have to do the wall behind the toilet and sink, then do the grout (in both bathrooms), and theeeeen we can lay that beautiful floor I just showed you above!

And on top of all that, we decided to get festive.  Check out our tree...lol.



And if you couldn't tell, we I have been having so much fun with the chalkboard wall already.  Lee's family was in from MI over the holiday weekend so I put it to good use:

Notice my two little gingerbread men at the bottom...Adam and Evan stopped by to play :)

Tile Progress!

After much preparation and anticipation, the tiling has finally begun!  Here are a couple “before and afters" from our efforts this past weekend.

Shower Before:

 After:

 Custom shower pan Before:

After:  (take note of the little seat Lee built - I'm going to have to focus a little more on portion control)  :)

And here are a couple of the corner shelves we put in. We had to tape them to the wall so they could set up:

I'll post some more pictures when it's complete! 

I love that from this point forward it’s all stuff that will actually add to the décor of the house…tile, hardwood floors, lighting, built-ins, etc.  It’s coming to life!



Not As Planned

Frustration, sore arms, little patience, botched wall, stupid angles, wrong color, bad texture, neck issues.   Those are the first words that come to mind when I think about the last 5 days. 

This makes me think of an older lady that lives in our condo complex.  One day I saw her out in the parking lot and I asked her how she was doing.  She said "Do you ever have those days where you have your whole day planned out and you know exactly what you want to get done, but you quickly realize that God has a whole different plan for your day? ".  That really stuck with me.  I thought that was such a wonderful way of looking at it.  Not all days are going to go how YOU want them to, big woop.  Things happen.  Life goes on :)  

In this case, our weekend did not go as planned.  You all remember my last post, right?  I was all “tiling woohoo!! painting woohoo!!! Life is great, progress is being made, I can’t wait to inhale those paint fumes and see tiles on the wall.”  Ha!  That was until every single thing we set out to do that weekend went wrong.  I was in a pretty great mood until we were riding home from Sunday dinner and it hit me.  I turned to Lee in the car and said “Ya know?  All in all that was a pretty crappy weekend now that I think about it” (well, crappy wasn’t really the word I used, but for blog-sake we will leave it at that).  He kind of chuckled and asked me what I meant.  That’s when I broke it down for him….

1)       It took him 5 hours to hang backer-board in ONE bathroom (all thanks to our weird angles, non-level walls and floors...and the fact that the concrete board stuff is a doozy to cut).

                   

 Finished product:

2)      I painted the living room/dining room and it did not turn out the color that was on the swatch (whyyyyyyy are there so many options if they can't get it to match anyways?!)  However it is still a light neutral so I guess that's a plus, no sense in dwelling on it..

3)      I also started on our chalkboard wall in the kitchen.  I had the fantastic stupid idea of using something called Magnetic Primer on a big long strip across the wall. The point of that primer is that once you paint over it, that section of the wall is magnetic.  I was thinking we could hang Christmas cards, birthday cards, pictures, etc. across our chalkboard wall.  Well, turns out that stuff is a pretty thick texture (meaning once painted over, you could really see this section of primer since the texture is so thick).  While it seemed like a good idea, it just really wasn’t.   Flash forward to last night. Remember the “sore arms” bit I wrote in the first sentence of this post?  That is because I sanded every bit of that magnetic primer off the wall to try and smooth it all back out to where the big strip won’t be visible across the wall anymore.  I painted another coat of chalkboard paint over it, held my breath, crossed my fingers, did some kind of weird hopeful chalkboard dance, and then drove by this morning to check out the results.  Better.  Not perfect, but better.  Here’s to hoping another coat of paint will do the trick. 

Before (this is the magnetic primer):

 After painted over with chalkboard paint. Can you see the line across the middle of the wall below?  It was even worse in person.

 Here's the line again:

 Sanding, sanding, and more sanding:

 Here it is with another coat of paint over all of the sanding. Better!! ALMOST unrecognizable.

 I still have a couple more things to do to work my magic, though.  Wish me luck!!

So in better news, the chalkboard wall seems to be on the mend, Lee finished our custom shower pan last night in our 2^nd bathroom (!), and I will continue painting the rest of the house this weekend.   I don’t usually dwell on negative stuff, it was just funny to me that so much frustration went down in one weekend.  I think when we only have 2 solid days per week (at best) to work on projects, we just really hope for the best in getting things done in that short of a time frame. It's bound to happen that things go wrong or slower than we expect, we might as well laugh about it when things don't go as planned.

Here are some progress pictures of Lee’s custom shower pan.  This was quite the process, two layers of concrete, a moisture barrier between them, some kind of wire lathe, setting the slope correctly so that the water drains, etc.  I think Lee's pretty happy to have this behind him:



Now it's all set to be tiled, except we have to hang the backer board stuff in this shower too...I really hope it goes smoother than the main bath.  This bathroom is a lot more square, so let's hope. 

I can't wait to see how far we get this weekend!