Day 5 - Success! And Failure!

Saturday saw a lazy start for me - I could barely move until 8 AM after putting in a full day Friday. My wife was at the house bright and early, as the seller was coming back to reclaim more of her stuff she'd left behind. I arrived on the scene about 10:30, then left at 11:30 for yet another Lowe's run to pick up kitchen paint.

We're painting the kitchen Stunning Sapphire Satin from Olympic. It matches very well with the tiles we'll be putting behind the kitchen.

Also while at Lowe's, I put in the order for our stove. I can't find it online though. Frigidaire, gas range with a convection oven and electronic oven controls.

Family room demolition is complete! We got the last of the cabinetry out finally and cleaned up the floor. All that's left now is to fix the plumbing - my cap for the cold water supply isn't sealing properly, and that line has no shutoff, so I had to cut water to the whole house. We're seriously contemplating doing some fresh drywall in the room - we put lots of holes in while doing demo and portions are just not confidence-inspiring. That could be a major undertaking though. On the up side, we could put some insulation into the walls to help the heating bills some.

Utterly exhausted, and I've still got another day left in this weekend. But progress is being made! The kitchen is coming along nicely, we really just need to get the trim stripped. The door between the kitchen and the old kitchen/new family room came out today, but not without a fight. It really opens the kitchen up and it was pretty useless to us. The trim is pretty well wrecked though. I had to drill the hinge screws out and even then it took a lot of pry bar work to break it all loose.

Day 4

Our (my) first full day of working in daylight. I took the day off as we had a number of people coming over to do things, and accomplished quite a bit of demolition in the process. Found a lot more surprises as I took down the cabinets and punched a few more holes in the drywall.

Other items of note:

• All doors have been re-keyed thanks to Reggie at Curtis Locksmithing
• Sears was out to fix the TV, but the part they had shipped to the house was nowhere to be found. So, it's been re-ordered and they'll be back on the 24th. Good news: they did transfer the warranty to our name
• Plumber was over to check things out for his estimate on relocating the laundry. Also found that the sink drain has a negative grade - it drops straight down to the basement, then goes horizontal, but the end of the horizontal that's away from the vertical drain is 2" higher - so he'll have to redo part of that too.

Pictures!

Photos of the work in progress, as promised.

House Day 3 - Progress!

Major progress tonight with a little help from a friend.

• Family room cabinets about 2/3 demolished. We've got a lot of drywall patching to do.
• Washer moved (temporarily) to the dining room
• Kitchen walls mostly primered. We're painting over black, so some tinted primer should help the color out some.
• Checked out the plumbing & wiring some more in the basement. Whoever did the infrastructure of this house was either a genius or a complete nut.
• Most of the current cabinet debris moved to the porch and neatly stacked - just to get it out of the way

Friday (Day 4) will be a full day of work at the house for me.

• Sears is coming to fix the TV (hopefully for good) sometime between 8 and 5 (worse than UPS!)
• The heating & plumbing guy is coming at 1 to give an estimate on relocating the washer/dryer hookups
• Cabinet demolition should get wrapped up
• I'll open up the cabinet under the TV in the master bedroom (it's painted shut)
• The locksmith is re-keying all our doors at 10
• I'll hopefully make some calls to arrange for trash removal, a dumpster (demolition debris) and make sure we got the water & sewer correctly billing to us.
• I'd like to map out the plumbing & wiring in the basement

And maybe, just maybe I can find a charitable neighbor w/ an open Wi-Fi spot.

I promise, pictures are coming soon. I'd have had them tonight but it appears I left the camera at the house.

House Day 2

We're putting tiles on the wall behind the stove in the kitchen. Originally it was to be 3 custom-painted tiles in a field of cobalt blue 2" tiles on the backsplash behind the stove. We've since re-checked the stove we're purchasing, and realized that it will cover that area!

So, back to Pottery Painters Plus (the folks there are great) to pick up the 3 tiles we made last week, and to paint up 3 more. We're going to arrange them on the wall, higher up. Rather than arrange our custom tiles horizontally, they'll be vertical on either side of the mural on the wall.

Locked ourselves out of the house, so we couldn't do any actual work.

Starting to look like we're going to put down an Adirondack White Pine floor from Pioneer Millworks in the old kitchen/new family room.

House Status

Not everything is roses with the new house. It's to be expected, sure, but some things just have to get resolved right away.

For example, the previous owner left some stuff in the basement. And the toolshed. And next to the toolshed. We're not talking bags of stuff - we'll need a dumpster. We have no keys to one of the exterior doors (luckily it locks, we just can't get in). We need to relocate the washer and dryer into the pantry. Lots of paint. Landscaping. It'll be a lot of work this year.

House Day 1

Exhausted from last night's efforts, we settled for a quick Lowe's run tonight to pick up supplies and tools. Also started working on a decision for what we'll put on the floor of the family room.

House Day 0

Immediately after closing, we drove back to the new digs. We had 2 carloads of stuff already packed; mostly stuff we don't need at the apartment anymore, but also tools & supplies for demolition.

We're remodelling the old kitchen in the house and turning it into a family room. It's about 12x15 and lots of usable space - once we remove the kitchen fixtures and washer/dryer.

Accomplishments tonight:

• Door keys figured out
• Washer disconnected
• 25% of carpet ripped up
• Cabinet doors removed
• Cabinet demolition started
• Gas fireplace figured out

We've got a long road ahead

No more apartments!

We closed on the purchase of our house today. Assuming I remember to, I'll attempt to chronicle our remodelling and move-in.