These piggies went to the potty

One of the main things that James and I had decided from the moment we bought this house was that we needed heated floors in the main bathroom. Needed. We. Have you ever been so cold that the only thing that could warm you up was a hot shower? Then after your shower imagine you step out onto a toasty tile floor. The warmth travels up through your feet and legs, and radiates through the rest of your body. Oh. It’s life changing. But, Bridgette, nobody spends that much time in the bathroom! Yes, they do. Have you seen my hair? Most of it needs dried on a regular basis. This happens in the bathroom for me. Must have toasty tootsies! 

After much research and some youtubing, we landed on Laticrete floor warming systems. Due to their affordability and ease of installation I felt this was the best choice for us. We only needed a small section done - only where you walk - and since we had to tile the bathroom floors anyways, our total cost was minimal. Minimal meaning - I think I spent more money on lightbulbs for the new recessed lights. That’s awesome. About the floors at least. Damn, lightbulbs

Installation was easy peasy. We cleaned the subfloor, unrolled the mat, checked it, attached it to the thermostat wires and fished them through the walls, then poured a self leveling quick set on top of it. Really, that was it. It took all of twenty minutes. The hardest part was trying to get the curled up ends of the mat to stay straight.

This was a short post but there will be another, more detailed post coming soon, because we have really made some progress in the past two weeks! The ironic thing about blogging is that you have to actually do the things you want to blog about. When you are blogging about your home renovations, that leaves very little time to sit and write, much less think about anything else. Remember when we thought we would move in by January 1st?

Invest in area rugs

Last you left off, we were slowly making progress on the floors in our house. That process is still... slowly.. progressing...

Over the weekend we had a mom party at the house and everyone came prepped to paint the walls. Instead of actually being able to paint the walls, though, we were left to sand them (because this is still not completed - when will it end? The horror!). Then we vacuumed. Then we sanded. Then we vacuumed.

By the end of the "Painting weekend", we had accomplished the following:
1. Primer on the dining room walls
2. Primer on the dining room ceiling
3. Ceiling paint on the dining room ceiling.
4. Kitchen ceiling painted
5. Kitchen painted (an actual color, or, at least "neutral" is a color for James and I)
6. Living room finished with primer
7. Hallway half primed

Oh... and we also attempted to paint the ceilings in the upstairs bedrooms. Ugh. HGTV Should've-seen-it-coming Upset #2. (I think #1 was the beer chute?). The ceilings bubbled and peeled and look like they should really go to the doctor and get that siti'ation all checked out. We're still pondering on how to get that all worked out.

We also started on sanding the floors. Here is where I am going to impart on you a lesson. Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Do not use an orbital sander on your 80 year old wood floors! They are DENSE and it will lead to an entire 13 hour day of disappointment. Fortunately, we were able to return the sander to Home Depot, and they rented us a Drum Sander instead. Boom. Done. Everything you spend the entire day before orbital sanding - finished in about 2 hours. Now you know. And you are welcome.

The only problem with the drum sander is that it cannot reach the edges. This means you need to go back around each room with a hand sander. These do a decent job, it is time consuming, but... as you will soon find out... may not be the best option.

We actually were able to put a first coat of stain on the kitchen and dining room floors and they are currently drying with their first or second coats of polyurethane. So far so good, right?! Nope.

Upstairs, the hardwood floors are a little bit different from the first floor. Not really sure why or how. Regardless, the sander took to them a bit differently. There are some deep gouges from where previous homeowners had carpeting removed (beautiful room-length slices in the middle of the floors). There is also a drastic ring around each room upstairs from the hand sander.

James is a little particular. I would like to think of this as a compliment - seeing as we have been dating for so long. Whenever we ran into a small gash in the floors or darker spot "We'll just throw a rug over it". A rough spot on the walls, or lumpy plaster? "I think that's a great spot for a picture!". But upstairs... I don't think they make the kinds of rugs we would need to cover this up.

These are examples of the "good" floors. No pros needed here!

So today and Monday we have *gasp!* a professional coming in to clean up our mess. This means the floors will be finished by Tuesday, though, and that means we can start on installing a bathroom! Finally! Oh, and maybe get a furnace?

Kitchen cabinets will be installed on Sunday (we hope) and the appliances are going to be put into place, as well. Once this is finished the kitchen will be DONE. Mostly. It will probably realistically be finished when the sink we ordered arrives, the counters are measured, cut, and installed, and we pick out some knobs and pulls.

So, the bottom line is - when you come over to the house and think to yourself, "Self, isn't that an odd place for a picture..." You best keep those thoughts to yourself or you can stay in the one part of the house we didn't have to renovate - the garage.

Progress comes in a warm and scratchy pink package

It has been almost three weeks since my last post. I know! I am sorry. Forgive me. I tend to have holiday-related panic attacks around this time of year and that, on top of rebuilding a house, has just about been enough to kill me.

This is what the electrical system of the house looked like.

Needless to say, a lot has happened over this time. Luckily, for you, most of it has been the non-exciting, can't really take pictures of it kind of work. Such as... electrical and plumbing. The good news is we have one room in the house with fully functional electric! The kitchen! It is amazing... you walk in... flip on the light switch... and voila! Everything you expect to happen, happens. Room by room we are hooking switches and outlets up, then patching the giant holes that appeared every 6 foot of wall space.
We also have functional plumbing! There isn't a toilet or a sink to be found, so this is really just an assumption until everything is put in place. Which will be soon!

We have also been able to insulate around the windows and rooms without walls with roll-out insulation. The other exterior walls received some much-needed blow-in insulation. This means; more holes. Unfortunately I was not in town for this adventure, but I have been the assistant on several other insulation projects. It's amusing. James likened it to a pink cotton candy christmas wonderland. I imagine that is exactly what it was.

In the meantime, our windows have finally arrived. All but one is installed. That one fell out of James' truck into the middle of Taylorsville Road, and was run over several hundred times before he found it. In his haste to retrieve the smashed window, he sliced his finger open. By the time he showed up at Home Depot to complain about his window, he had a handful of blood and some seriously tested patience.

This is actually the third time we have spilled blood over the house. The first, being when I ripped my thumbnail back pulling nails. The second, being when I was helping James strip the rubber coating off of our old copper wires. Razor blade to the pinky finger. Double points for difficulty.

Fortunately, we have yet to make it to the emergency room and have a stockpile of camouflage band-aids.

The two of us were able to haul several hundred pounds of scrap to the scrap yard together, and what an adventure that was. If any of you have seen The Brave Little Toaster you know exactly what I am talking about. It was terrifying. At least we were able to make enough cash to pay for the window we broke destroyed, right?

Little by little, ceilings and walls are beginning to go back up. The house is starting to feel more and more like an actual house and not just a shell. Soon enough we will be painting and decorating!

You may have noticed, by now, that I am trying not to post too many whole-room pictures. I am saving these for you. I decided since we won't get to have the big HGTV-style reveal, that someone should. So, I am weening you off of the photos, until we can do some totally badass before and after side-by-sides. Trust me, it will be worth it. At least that is what everyone keeps telling me.

Built like a brick...

For your weekly installment of house updates: This week we tackled the old kitchen door, scavenged a little, and wired some more.

I wrote, earlier, about having to re-wire the electrical panel box in the basement... however, upon the encouragement of our inspector and James' electrician uncle, this project has ballooned to now include re-wiring the entire house. This has meant punching a hole every 6 feet in the walls of every room and we no longer have any ceilings on the first floor. We were able to pull all of the old wiring out (pictures of what that looks like to come soon), and snake the new wire throughout the house. We are currently in the process of "loop to looping" the circuits and switches. Whew. The place is a MESS. It no longer resembles a house and I am bitterly remembering the words "All it needs is some paint" spilling from my lying mouth.

We were only able to do this, though, thanks to the quick action of our chosen brick mason, Bentley Masonry. As much as I dreaded this interaction, it was actually quite rewarding. When we had been working in the house the weekend or two before, it was raining. Inside. Due to the dilapidation of the back porch and the mortar cracking, water was running down the inside of the walls. Thank goodness we had not moved forward with insulation and drywall at this point. We were able to call and have a brick mason come out and estimate the damage that day.

Bentley was the first to respond and the ONLY company we called which would have the job started within two weeks. In fact, he was out there two days later with a load of salvaged bricks. Within 3 days he had gone around and tuck pointed every crack and crevice on the house, bricked in the old kitchen door, filled in the terrariums, and, when he had leftover mortar pre-mixed, re-laid all of our front porch and most of our walkway. It looks fantastic. Being serenaded "A country boy can survive" by four brick masons isn't bad, either. Very strange. But not bad.

Between working, picking at the wallpaper on the house, and sleeping I was actually able to manage to swing by the coolest place ever. I took my lunch break one day and went to Architectural Salvage - in downtown Louisville. An hour was NOT enough time. They have everything. I mean it. Need a spittoon? Got one of those. A million fireplace covers? All of those. I cannot wait to go back when the house has actual walls and start picking things out with James.

I was also able to find the deal of the century on Craigslist. Woo! I had been eyeballing a crystal chandelier for over a month - the first thing I saw that made me decide I needed a chandelier in the bathroom. I finally broke down and texted the ad. Still available, you say? And working? I'll be there tonight.

A short drive and $23 later I had myself a genuine antique crystal chandelier. All it needs is a little cleaning up and hang that baby from the ceiling!

We also broke down and finally placed the order for the everything. THE EVERYTHING. The kitchen cabinets, the lights, the appliances, the tile, the toilets, the vanity, the grout, the windows, etc. Holy shitzkies. Hopefully in 2-6 weeks I am feeling better about it.

Next up: plumbing, drywall, flooring, refinishing, and. more. wallpaper.

Gingerbread chai lattes and a sledgehammer

What did these two things have in common? I got all too familiar with both over the long weekend. James and I had each requested off work this past Friday because we planned to devote all 3 days to renovations. We got a LOT accomplished. Some of it more noticeable than the rest, but regardless, everything needed to be done.

The work started at 7 am Friday and did not end until 7pm Sunday. We worked 12 hours each day. Due to this - I will give you a glimpse of some of the larger items we checked off the list, versus a timeline. When you spend 3 straight days wearing goggles, gloves, and a respirator, sledgehammer and shovel in hand, time is really obsolete. I resorted to "bathroom tiles removed" to determine chronology.

Note: boo-boo #1.

One of the main items on our agenda was demo-ing the rest of the bathroom. Below are a series of photos (the same before/during/after demo as the last post) to show you how hard I worked. This was my project. I worked with a crowbar pulling tiles out of the shower. Apparently back in the 30s you used a metal wire mesh and an inch and a half of concrete to adhere tiles to the walls. This made for a very taxing task.

 Another agenda item that came up somewhat unexpected was replacing the door to the sunroom. Since we are sealing up the kitchen exterior door, we needed a way to move in and out of the house to the dumpster in the driveway. The existing "original" door had a bent lock and, of course, the skeleton key that opened it had probably not been seen in decades. Oh well, one less thing to un-paint green.

 Next, and my favorite part of the weekend, was beginning the transformation of the butler's pantry to a powder room! We had no idea what to do about adding a bathroom to the first floor, until we had our plumber over. We had also waffled over what to use the butler's pantry for. He suggested turning it into a powder room. I was not keen on the idea at first, but now that I can see the walls taking shape, it definitely made the most sense.

We were able to remove the walls and are waiting on the large window to come in still. We framed out the wall and the pocket door. The way we designed the floor plan in this area of the house, the new powder room will create a perfect hallway from the kitchen directly into the living room, now that we have created a door in that wall. When you walk in the front door you can look down the main hallway and you will see a wall (somewhere we can hang badass local art, of course).

Those were some of the more rewarding jobs this weekend. To summarize for you, since I know you are reading this at work and need it to be short and sweet (get back to those TPS reports, mmmkay?) here are some of the accomplishments and crises from the weekend:

Good:
Framed out the powder room
Installed headers over new doorways
Demo-ed the bathroom shower tile and walls
Replaced exterior back door
Started running electrical wire
Placed switch and outlet boxes in the kitchen
Mounted recessed lighting wells in the kitchen and hallway
Demo-ed the living room ceiling
Removed flooring from butler's pantry
Installed 2 new windows in the kitchen
Found a 1938 newspaper stuffed into the bathroom walls

Bad:
The 1938 newspaper in the walls was the only insulation in the entire house
We blew the electrical box and need to replace it
Had to install lighting wells by flashlight

I hit my thumb and bent the nail back, which led to lots of blood and a much needed early morning break



Ugly:

It rained. A lot. The  basement window terrariums turned into aquariums
I sneezed in my respirator

Mr. Smashy and the Killer Banana

The first thing I want to publicly address is an appreciation of all of the support James and I have received from our friends and family so far. I know buying a house isn't as life-changing an event as others, but it is amazing to see who comes out of the woodwork when you need something.

So, thank you to our real estate agent who encouraged us to dream, and sent us pictures of her own experiences to comfort us. Thank you to the friends who have stopped by this weekend and let us know it really "isn't that bad". Thank you to the contractors who tell us anything is possible (for the right price). Thanks to the volunteered contractor who showed up swinging, no questions asked.

And thank you to my Momma. A good parent doesn't question your life choices. A great parent doesn't question your spontaneous life choices, shows up with a sledgehammer, and takes you out for a beer after.

So we began the weekend with the continuation of the Contractor Parade. A friend had offered up her husband to come and take a look at the house. Being a general contractor, the plan was to have him come take a look and hear out all of our ideas, beginning to end, and let us know what was feasible. Since, what we had to this point, were just pieces of the puzzle from a plumber here, an electrician there, etc.

James walked him through the house, explaining the "grand plan", and after about half an hour he stated he would be there again the next day, at 9am to help get things started.

And he was.

James and I started the project Saturday night, by tearing out all of the cabinetry in the kitchen, the counter tops, and back splash. We stacked the cabinets outside and waited until the next day to get smashy smashy. We had no idea what we were in for.

When our volunteered contractor showed up he picked up a sledgehammer and promptly put a hole through the hall closet, for our plan to expand the kitchen. It began.

Little by little, he and James worked through the wall, tearing down the plaster as they went. They removed non-supporting beams and cleaned up as they went. In no time the hall closet had been turned into kitchen square footage. It is amazing to see what a little closet, when added to the right room, can do.

 

They also removed a soffit from the kitchen, so our new cabinets can extend to the ceiling. This will help a lot with storage in the small room. The plaster was heavy and dusty, and held together by metal mesh. They used sledgehammers to get most of it down, but required a grinder or a saw to remove the edges. We had also decided to open up a little more of the entrance to the dining room and the hallway to the living room, to give the house a more modern almost-open-concept design.

 

While they were working on the walls, we decided on the fly, to demolish part of the wall blocking the hallway from the butler's pantry. This header above the existing door was pointless, as it was not load-bearing, and we had planned to remove the door anyway. So they took the hallway all the way up to the ceiling and when they are finished it will be a smooth transition to the back of the house. This was important to us since we were planning to add a powder room to the existing butler's pantry, and we didn't like the look of the divided hallway. However, without my mom's design eye and our contractor's approval, we probably wouldn't have even thought of it.

While they were busy downstairs, my mom and I worked on removing the cedar planks from our soon-to-be walk-in shower, and she was able to take down the existing linen closet built-in, as well as the connecting closet-to-bathroom wall. I'll post pictures of this soon! There is still more work to be done in the bathroom, and we are optimistic that this will be finished this week, with our volunteered contractor's help.

Things are happening in the house faster than either of us had anticipated and it is incredible to see the transformation we were able to make in under one day! Yes - that's right. We did ALL of this in one Sunday with just 4 people, a sledgehammer and a giant crow-bar we call the 'Killer Banana" (after an HGTV episode of 'Renovation Realities").

Of course - I would also like to thank James: for at least acting like he knows what he is doing during all of this mess, being the only person I can imagine by my side, and letting me sledgehammer the kitchen cabinets.

Detritus

Although bee business kept us busy most of the day Saturday, James and I were able to carve out some time to hit the new house before our mold remediation (not recommended). He has been a superb project manager and has been able to schedule a plethora of contractor visits in the little time we have to get everything in working order before our actual move.

When I say a "plethora" I mean: slap a revolving door on this brick bia cause the parade is coming to town! Dah-daDah-daDah-da-Duh-Duh! We had approximately 3 nights of ownership before the mold people sealed up our house, and in that time we had about 5 contractors come by and give us quotes for various services. We aren't allowed in the house until Friday or Saturday, but we have several more waiting to see the place, afterwards. James even surprised me by scheduling a contractor to estimate the cost of installing heated bathroom floors! Sure, we may not get eachother nice Christmas presents, but you can damn well bet when that time rolls around and it is 16 degrees outside I will be curled up on our bathroom floor with Chloe, loving life.

While we had the opportunity to get into the house this past weekend we had two goals in mind: one was his - to clean out the garage, one mine - the tear down that awful drop ceiling in one of the bedrooms.

So we headed to the house with some gloves, masks, and garbage bags. We were grossly unprepared. The garage had apparently been used solely as a hoarding station for the past several decades and, although most of the larger items had been removed, we were left with 75 years of detritus resting on the floors. Without shovels, we improvised and scooped the dirt, rotten wood, spare roller skate wheels, broken legos, twist-ties, etc, into bags with slabs of rotten particleboard. Yes. We live a glamorous life, people, get over it.

After 6-8 garbage bags weighing roughly 50lbs a piece, we headed indoors. Now, why anyone would install a drop ceiling in one bedroom of a house is beyond me. The lighting worked fine and there was nothing terrifying above the tiles (no water damage, mold, creepy crawlies). We made quick work of the tiles (like.. 15 minutes and it was GONE)and we obtained an extra 10 inches or so of head space. It's just one little thing we can check off our lists.

With a feeling of minor accomplishment, we were able to retire for the week, knowing for the next few days our home is in the hands of our mold people. Bye bye basement!