Michael & Sandy's Old Kentucky Home

Crazy Work Weekend

2008-08-17T20:21:00.000-07:00

If working on the house was an olympic event, I think we would have at least won a silver this weekend :)

BEFORE:

Friday: My mom and I drove to Nashville to Lumber Liquidators to pick up bamboo flooring. Friday evening was taking apart the cabinets, and Michael creating his awesome paneling!

The beautiful view from our front porch.

The super scary light "fixture" in our kitchen. The third fixture we've found to be burnt and black inside.

Saturday: Michael finished his paneling, adjusted the cabinets to fit the fridge and the over-the-range microwave we bought LAST YEAR. We didn't think we would be able to get it in until we did a full reno of the kitchen, but our mini reno is turning out amazing! Mom spent the day priming the cabinets with the excellent multipurpose primer which didn't require stripping of the cabinets, yay! (Thanks Mom!) I spent the day priming and painting.

Sunday: Michael installed almost all of the bamboo flooring, it's beautiful! Mom painted the cabinets, awesome! And I finished priming the foyer and spare bedroom, and began painting. I love the colors so far!

"Scottish Shortbread", beautiful color!!

Now to attempt to postpone the appraisal for one week :)

Quick Kitchen Update

2008-08-03T16:50:00.000-07:00

Our friends came over to help today, which was amazing!! We got a lot done, and one of the most exciting things was to remove and move some of our cabinets to fit the fridge where it is supposed to go. It looks great and the kitchen feels so much bigger!

Thanks Monica and Kyle!

Kyle enjoying all the empty space in the kitchen.

Michael making burgers.

Monica cleaning the gunk off the fireplace, it looks great!

Appraisal is coming soon!

2008-08-03T07:06:00.000-07:00

Yikes! We are working really hard this weekend to knock out some projects to improve our appraisal. We went to the bank last week & applied for permanent financing, we've had a construction loan up to now. Now we are working and waiting for the appraiser to call us this week to schedule the appraisal.

I have been making good progress in the spare room, and the foyer is looking MUCH better. Yesterday I worked on mudding the spare room and Michael installed a ceiling fan in our bedroom and dining room. It is so exciting to finally have a light in the dining room! And although I've never been a fan of ceiling fans (ha!), now that we are living with almost no a/c in August in Kentucky, I have a new appreciation. It's so much quieter than the fan we were moving from room to room before.

We've had an eventful couple of months at the house since I last posted. We had a limb from one of our trees, the size of a regular tree, fall on our house during a wind storm. Which luckily did not do severe damage, but was not cheap. And then we had our second major plumbing disaster. Which involved sewage backing up into the cellar. But we now have 100% new plumbing from the water main to the sewer.

Here is the tree, and now that the limb is gone you can actually really see the front of our house for the first time, although you still can't see it from the street with all the other trees:

Here is some of my progress on the spare room, I swear they used super glue or something to put the wallpaper on, it took forever to get it all off and damaged the walls. I have been putting on a skim coat of mud to smooth it all out, which is turning out pretty well:

The foyer is looking great now that it has been cleared out and clean up. We're still trying to get the wallpaper off there too!

And here are Rosie and Charley. Michael says that Charley is his helper because she follows him around when he's working.

And ceiling fans!

Michael's little helper :)

Living Room is ALMOST complete

2008-05-08T16:52:00.000-07:00

I finally finished painting the living room (with some assistance from my mom & Michael). I think it looks pretty good. It still needs baseboard mouldings and the wiring to be tied into the circuit breakers, but all in it looks like a complete room. Yay! Now onto the spare bedroom :)

Here are some photos:

Charley absolutely loves hanging out on the window seat and looking out the window. I'm sure we'll never be able to get her off it once we actually make cushions for it.

Our foyer is halfway cleaned out, it may not look like much, but it's a significant improvement :)

Our new lamp!

The walls in the front bedroom were pretty damaged in our efforts to remove the awful wallpaper that seemed to be crazy glued on to every surface. So our two options now are to skim coat it with mud, or do a textured plaster-like surface. I'm torn, honestly, at this point, I just want to do what will be easier and look good. I don't want to totally sacrifice quality, but I also need to make some serious progress. Any opinions?

Living Room Progress

2008-05-04T18:40:00.000-07:00

I've had some extra time to work on the house lately since I am currently unemployed. So the up-side is that we are making some serious progress, the down-side of the situation doesn't really need to be explained.

I spent most of the last week touching up the drywall in the living room, mudding and sanding, over and over. Now we have primed the entire room and given the walls the first coat of Martha Stewart "Cake Stand Blue".

Here is what it is supposed to look like:

We picked the color out last year, and when I looked at it again I decided I hated it. I don't hate it anymore, but I don't love it. I think it will work, and Michael really really likes it. It's hard to choose a color for such a big room.

Anyway, here are some photos of our progess this week:

Fun times sanding drywall.

Michael getting ready to prime the ceiling.

It's finally starting to look like a room, not just a collection of drywall. The color is only on the walls in the last photo, but it didn't show up very well as it's only one coat and lighting wasn't great. It's all very exciting and rewarding. I can't wait to finish it up and start moving in to it, it will really make a huge change in the whole dynamic of the house as we will have a dining room once we aren't using it for a living room anymore, and the ktichen will be much more spacious without the dining room table in it.

Hopefully we will have some new and exciting photos soon.

Moving Forward

2008-03-17T18:01:00.000-07:00

I am very slowly gearing up for some serious work. Today we created our game-plan to have the house ready to be appraised in 1 month.

We are almost done a lot of things, but there are very few things that have been actually completed.

This evening we did some cleaning up in the yard, which felt good. We finally got rid of the gate to nowhere, but left the strangely located netless soccer goal for another day.

Here is the gate to nowhere when we first moved in:

And here is Michael examining the big muddy holes it left behind when we knocked it over today:

The outside of the house looks pretty much the same as it did when we moved in, I think it looks at least a little better though!

Our main projects to take care of in the next month are (1) finish the details in the bathrrom (hopefully by the end of the week); (2) finish mudding the living room, prime & paint it, and try to organize, clean up and reinstall the mouldings; (3) finish removing the wallpaper in the guest room, put a floor & walls in the closet, prime & pain.

There are a bunch of other things I would like to do, but that list already looks somewhat ridiculous considering we have plans this weekend and next weekend. After that we will have to dedicate the rest of our free time to getting as much done as possible. I feel somewhat optimistic though :)

Here are some photos of the nearly complete living room, it will be exciting to move in!

Exciting Discovery & Back in the House

2008-01-23T18:50:00.000-08:00

So we are finally officially back in the house, and it feels really good to come home at the end of the day.

There is no longer a single piece of old plumbing in the house, everything is new and working great. Here are a few pictures of the now 95% complete bathroom:

The saddest thing about the whole redoing the bathroom for the second time was having to rip up half of the new tile floor which means we no longer have warm tiles :( But at least it's all back together.

On a happier note, while Michael was taking down some non-original paneling in the living room he discovered that the doors into our dining room (which is currently being used as a living room) were originally pocket doors! We were very excited, and Michael has already managed to get them working again and they look great.

Here is a photo of the living room before...

And after (this is where the mantel used to be! It's waiting to go back though, don't worry.):

And the dining room doors before:

And after:

And here are some general pics of the pocket doors.

Finally, here's our (future) dining room & kitchen, looking very messy but more like a real home at least :)

Quick Update

2008-01-03T08:53:00.000-08:00

I have not been feeling much like taking pictures of the house...and for some reason I feel bad about posting without pictures...so I haven't been posting.

But here's a quick recap of the last 2 months.

November 4th or so, we moved in. Exciting, yay!

I lose almost all motivation to work on the house other than some organizing and cleaning, and barely any of that either!

We decide we can't afford to redo the kitchen, so we focus on insulating and drywalling the living room and spare room.

Around December 10th or so our toilet decided to explode (not literally of course). We are very sad. The plumber who comes to see if the drain is plugged tells us his best suggestion is to MOVE THE BATHROOM. Ridiculous. Apparently the one pipe we didn't replace because it was buried under the ground has worn out and most likely partially collapsed. Michael and I simultaneously wonder if the house is actually becoming a money pit.

We move back in with my parents. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.

Michael has a plan that seems like it will not cost a bazillion dollars and will not take forever. I am optimistic that we will be able to move back in before the end of January. Unfortunately the plan involves ripping up half of our beautiful tile, and therefore the remainder of the warm tile system that was working, but we do have 2 extra boxes of tile, so hopefully we will be okay.

So now I just need to get back to actually helping with the house and hopefully I will be back to taking pictures and making progress soon!

And because I feel bad posting without pictures, here is a photo of my adorable niece:

Bathroom is Almost Done!

2007-10-30T19:34:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween :)

We are planning on moving in this weekend! It doesn't seem real!

We have decided to put off redoing the kitchen and will instead use the rest of our reno loan on the rest of the house.

Here a pictures of the beautiful tile and fixtures (I really like the faucet). You may notice that there are several elements in the bathroom that are done, and then become undone. I have decided that finishing is really hard! We agonized over decisions, and change our mind too much. At least we are moving in in a few days and will be able to enjoy our hard work.

I will post a play by play of the toilet installation later this week, so you have that to look forward to :)

No Colors Anymore...

2007-10-22T12:33:00.000-07:00

I want them to turn black.

Not really, but I'm really happy with how our black & white bathroom is turning out.

We put in a lot of work this weekend, and have been making miraculous progress - we might actually start moving in next week!!

I had a bit of a battle with a patch of drywall that looked awful once we started priming, but I managed to prevail and things are looking great.

I am posting several photos of the new black beadboard wainscoting and window trim. This picture was taken after one coat. It looks even better after the second coat, and we may even do a third. Michael is hoping to start working on the tile tomorrow, which is very exciting. Anyway, here are the new bathroom photos - we had to take out the ceiling light fixture to paint the ceiling, so the light is a little odd:

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

2007-10-17T19:23:00.000-07:00

A Bathroom!!

Very exciting. Michael has taken an unexpected hiatus from work, and it's been good for our progress. I was very sick with possibly-the-flu last week and was not able to work on the house at all. So no progress last week. And then we had a early birthday celebration for Michael on the weekend, which was fun. We went to a totally terrifying haunted woods/house called Skeleton's Lair, if you're anywhere in the area I definitely recommend it!

Michael somehow magically got the new drywall up on the ceiling by himself, which is awesome! (It does worry me that the text on the drywall might show through the primer and paint though). And then he got the crown moulding done, and primed everything! Here are some lovely photos of our bathroom today (except the first pic which is a little older):

the cabinet with the stain on, just needs the polyurethane over everything now.

the primed bathroom, it looks like the inside of a real house!

this is where the sink will go, we have it wired for two sconces, and the mirror will go between it.

I LOVE this pottery barn mirror... I don't know why, I've really never felt like this about a mirror before. Here it is:

(http://www.potterybarn.com/products/p4985/toolbox.cfm?tool=vAlt&page=3) but $249 just sounds like so much - but it's the perfect size!!

Here is the wall behind the built-in. We decided not to do beadboard, just white paint. But it will have a light fixture, and a mirror too, so it should be fine.

look it's crown moulding! sweet :)

So now all that we need to do for the bathroom is: (1) paint; (2) do the last bit of staining & poly on the built-in and get the glass for the cabinet door; (3) install the lighting fixtures - we've already wired for them; (4) tile (hopefully this won't take forever); (5) choose a sink faucet & mirror; (6) finish sanding and painting the window and door trim; (7) paint the tub; (8) and install everything. Does that sound like a lot? I actually feel like we're really close now!

And once the bathroom is done, just a few finishing touches on our room & closet, and then we can move in!!

We Could Get a Lot More Done...

2007-10-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

If everything didn't take so long.

We managed to make decent progress this weekend. Not quite as much as I'd hoped, but not terrible.

The waincscoting panels are now all up. The drywall is completely finished (YAY!). And the built-in cabinet is essentially finished. I'm a little sad that the pictures don't appear to show much progress, but that will change soon.

Michael contemplating the space for the last wainscoting panel:

And it's up!:

(the window still needs its top & bottom trim, and no I that is not what they will actually look like when they are finished.)

Today when I get home I will either start staining the built-in or priming the drywall, whichever sounds more exciting to me.

We also have the supplies I need to work on the bathtub. I'm excited to see how that turns out.

I guess it's still possible we could start moving in the weekend of the 12th, but it's probably more realistic to think the weekend after. But I will still tell myself the 12th to try keep my motivation up. The same way I like to keep the clock in the car a few minutes fast to try to get places on time. But based on that philosophy I shouldn't have to use too many tricks because we thought we might move in 3 months ago, and that clearly didn't help all that much.

Well never mind about the built-in then!

2007-09-28T05:33:00.000-07:00

After the overwhelming response, we have decided to leave the built-in as is, as far as the top part goes. I just really want to finish the bathroom and decided I was crazy for suggesting any extra work.

We are trying to pump ourselves up for a big weekend of work. I think we could make some awesome progress if we could put in 2 eight hour days. I would still like to move in in the next few weeks.

Most of the wainscoting is up, we haven't started the mouldings yet. But I really think this weekend we can finish the built-in, finish the wainscoting, and I can start priming and painting... that of course still leaves cleaning up the tub and laying the tile. I might be psychotically optimistic, but I'm hoping we can do that NEXT weekend. Then we could actually move in the weekend of the 12th (which is the same day the bar exam results come out, so now no one needs to ask about that).

Here are a few photos of our progress...

The bathroom window trim that is taking FOREVER to strip:

The sorry state of our back porch: (Neighbors I am truly sorry and I have been trying to clean it up.)

Our new wainscoting, it's beadboard paneling, and it's actually not bad. We went for the slightly better stuff that actually has some depth instead of those yucky flat panels with tiny ridges for the beads:

And the built-in yet again. It's a great thing to have, but I will be very glad when it's done:

Wish us luck this weekend, I will try to document our progress and hopefully be able to do a triumphant post on Monday :)

The Great Cabinet Debate

2007-09-25T11:08:00.001-07:00

Work is continuing - just not very quickly.

My parents were out of town last week, so we had to rush home every day to check on the dogs.

I also managed to half-way dislocate my shoulder, so that really slowed me down. I'm okay though.

Anyway, we're still hoping to finish the bathroom in the next few weeks. But right now we're trying to decide on whether the two upper halves of the built-in cabinet in the bathroom should be the same height. Here are a few photos:

It was really hard to get a good shot of it - I need to get a wide-angle lens. But anyway, we can't agree whether it's fine as is, or whether it looks extremely off balance and the right side should be brought up to the same height as the left. Any opinions would be appreciated :)

Housecleaning

2007-09-10T09:10:00.000-07:00

This weekend I was mostly on my own since Michael went camping with a friend on Saturday night. It's hard to resist taking some time for ourselves, but we are also anxious to get in the house... we struggle with that. But I had a nice time working at the house and did some reading in the evening.

The photos show the result of a simple sweeping and mopping of the floors. It really made me happy to see that they look pretty great under all that filth. We aren't planning on refinishing them, just giving them a good cleaning and then waxing them. (The floor was still wet in the photos, thus the shininess). Oh, and that's the guest bedroom, the bathtub is just living in there until we're ready to refinish the outside and install it.

We went for a drive to the nearby "big town" of Bowling Green in our search for beadboard wainscoting on Friday night. We were in luck because they were in stock, and while they were slightly water damaged, they gave us an irresistible price on them.

I was hoping to start mudding the drywall yesterday, since all the drywall is up in the bathroom, but I had some issues getting the bucket of mud open (i.e. I could not open it!) Today after I walk home I'm going to try really hard again and see if I can't get that started, and then Michael wants to go get all the mouldings for the wainscoting so we can start to put that up. It's nice that we only really have to finish the upper half of the drywall, so I guess I can practice on the lower half.

We had decided to go to the Bourbon Festival this weekend in Bardstown after hearing how much fun it was, but I think we've managed to convince ourselves that we really need to work on the house. It's already almost halfway through September, I don't know how this keeps happening.

Our New Bathroom Inspiration

2007-09-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

Isn't it beautiful? We were already talking about painting the outside of the tub black, and now we've pretty much decided to do a full on black and white bathroom. I'm excited about the black, I think it looks really elegant and is not a very commonly used color (or non-color or whatever it is). I just hope we can pull it off, choosing the right paint will be very important!

Michael started working this week, which is exciting, but not good news for house progress. I've been trying to make an extra effort to go to the house after work and I've been sanding the trim for the built-in. I was actually having fun with it yesterday, it really helped listening to my mp3 player. I'm really enjoying an album I put on it by Mika.

Here are some updated photos of our built-in. It looks great. We're having a debate about the beadboard on the wall. I think we're going to keep it up, but we're not sure if we should paint if black or if that will be overwhelming. We're thinking that we'll stain the cabinet with a semi-transparent white stain which will be beautiful and break up all the black. Anyway, here are the photos of the cabinet and a sample pic of the stain:

So the stain doesn't seem to show up very well online, but it will be more like the white stain, but you will be able to see the grain more like in the gray stain:

We were bad renovators again last weekend and went camping, but I think we will get lots done this weekend, and we had a great time so it was worth it :) I had to share a couple of photos of Michael, from when we were out on our friends' boat:

Anyone feel like helping us make a decision?

2007-08-30T06:28:00.000-07:00

I have started looking at lighting fixtures for the bathroom. If anyone recalls,
this is our light fixture (and exhaust fan) on the ceiling:

We are currently looking for a set of sconces to go on either side of the mirror over the sink (we haven't chosen the mirror yet) but the sink looks like this:

And our fixtures so far have all been in a polished nickel finish.

We are also looking for a light fixture to go on the wall above the built-in.

Here are a couple of my options so far:

SCONCES

Over built-in options:

The more I look at the first sconce the more I like it, but I'm worried that the matching two-light fixture will be too small to go over the built-in. I'm also open to any suggestions from anyone who has a feel for what we're looking for :)

Michael explores the world of carpentry

2007-08-28T19:03:00.000-07:00

Well, the last of our guests have left (it was fun Peter!).

I managed to be some help to Michael last week, I made an effort to go after work and help put up some drywall. And today Michael started making the built-in cabinet he designed. I can't believe how far along he came in just one day - it looks so great already! And it gives me hope that we may finish the bathroom sometime in the next month... which of course is very exciting :)

Here are some shots of the general progress on the bathroom, the built-in is where the second door used to be.

Our plan is to work on the house Friday evening & most of Saturday, and then take the rest of the long weekend off and camp at the local lake with our friends. We should be able to get the rest of the drywall up pretty easily, and then my job will be sanding/taping/spackling etc. while Michael continues on the built-in.

Which reminds me - we really need to choose a color, or two I guess since the first four feet of the wall will be beadboard. I actually kind of like the look of the green drywall, but I'm pretty stuck on green for the kitchen now. We've talked about doing the bathroom in a turquoise or something like that, I think it could look really good with the black and white tile.

Then on to the tile. But we won't worry about that yet.

Who Knew Visitors Could be So Distracting!

2007-08-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

I know I've been neglecting the blog, but I really truly hope that things will start settling down somewhat now.

I have barely been to the house since our last post. Michael is working there during the day, and usually doesn't want to go back at night, and then every weekend this month we've had guests!

We love having guests, and are really happy they came, but we would also like to be able to move into our house at some point. Our last visitor is coming this weekend so that should really help. And hopefully Michael won't mind putting in a couple of evenings, because I'm starting to feel like I haven't done anything on the house at all (except the roof!)

Michael has been able to make some progress on the bathroom. There is now a subfloor - so no more standing on the dirt in the bathroom! There is also insulation and most of the drywall. He is currently trying to get the drywall finished up and then will be working on the built-in. I'm really hoping that in a couple of weeks we'll be ready to lay tile, and once that's done we'll be very very close to having a finished bathroom - and be able to try out our fancy clawfoot tub fixtures.

We are also currently discussing what to do about the kitchen. We had really hoped to get new cabinets, but at this point it looks like the smartest thing to do will be to remove the cabinets, put in new flooring and clean up the walls. We will attempt to refurbish the cabinets then replace and rearrange, and put in a new countertop. We're also thinking about removing the doors from some of the cabinets, which I think will modernize it a bit - and new hardware of course. I think we can still make it look really good, although of course it won't be as nice as having new cabinets. But that's okay, maybe we'll renovate someday :)

I found some great kitchen ideas from a link on one of my new favorite blogs (schmichschack.blogspot.com) to the following bhg article: http://tinyurl.com/2wpg65
and found the following inspiring ideas (I'm not a fan of the big clock though!):

Our cabinets are a similar style to those above, it would be great if we could make them look that nice!

Okay, now we're really back!

2007-07-31T17:33:00.000-07:00

We put in a couple of good days of work last week, and then took off for a few days of camping before I start work again tomorrow.

Michael and I attempted to make some progress on the electrical work this weekend, and were not very successful. It's quite difficult to run the new wires through the walls when you can't see what's inside them blocking the path of the wire. I had my arm inside the wall almost up to my elbow! Michael had the harder job as usual though, he was up in the attic in the lowest part trying not to get a nail in the back.

Oh, and Michael found a newspaper from 1964 in the wall! It features a Barren County family as Kentucky's Safest Farm Family...and some pretty sweet shoes.

We've had a request for our review of the vintagetub.com clawfoot tub supplies. Hopefully we can start putting the bathroom back together soon, and then we can let everyone know how we like them - they look and feel really nice, very high quality. So we're happy with them so far, let's hope the installation goes smoothly & quickly.

Michael's little brother and sister will be visiting this weekend, so it probably won't be a big working weekend, but we'll have a few evenings this week and things should settle down soon (I hope!) It would be nice to be able to actually move in to our house!

And for those of you who know us and might want to see them, here are a few shots from our camping trip to Laurel River Lake. We had a really nice time, and were crazy enough to go canoeing with Charley & Rosie! We also stopped by Cumberland Falls on our way back, which was nice but rather muddy looking. And Michael rediscovered his love for fruit rollups :)

And We're Back!

2007-07-27T19:29:00.000-07:00

Ouch! My hands are not used to working on the house anymore!

It was nice to finally get back to the house and to finally be finished with the bar.

Today we focussed on cleaning up the yard and trying to fill in the 270 foot ditch that was left over from Michael running the new water lines. We moved over 2 tonnes of dirt by hand today! It took two trips to Lowes, and the second time our poor car looked like it had been lowered it was sagging so much - the entire car was full of dirt!

I'm really itching to get started on putting the bathroom back together, but we STILL haven't finished the trim on the edge of the roof, and now it looks like the gutters may have to be replaced. I just want to have the outside completely done. But I'm also eager to work on the bathroom so we can move in at last.

No matter what we decide to work on tomorrow, at least we'll continue the progress, and now I'll have time to actually update the blog regularaly!

Just a quick check in

2007-07-13T08:44:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo of my adorable niece who is coming to visit along with my sister next week. Unfortunately no pictures of the house because I have not been there a single time this week! I'm kind of sad about it, but it's good that I'm studying.

Michael on the other hand has been working on the house almost constantly. The plumbing is almost entirely done - for the whole house! Of course the finishing still needs to be done, but there are pipes running everywhere they need to be, and they have mostly filled in the big ditch that was in our yard - or so he says, I have no way of verifying this of course as I'm stranded at my parents without a car in the middle of nowhere all day. Maybe tonight I'll take a little break and go back there with Michael if he feels like doing some more work this evening. Michael also completed most of the electricity for the bathroom, and mostly installed our new fan/light fixture. I'm excited to see the progress, and can't wait until we are actually putting the bathroom back together!

Tomorrow I have scheduled time off to go to a demolition derby at one of the local county fairs - we have been promised much redneck entertainment.

11 more days until the bar exam, and then I can get back to working on the house. Of course I just about had a heart attack writing "11 more days", but in a small way I'm glad it's soon because that means it will soon be over.

Oh and here is a picture of our front porch that I don't think I posted before - I love the porch and the swing, not so much the carpet that Michael tore out in May and decided to leave there.

The Bar Exam does NOT leave alot of time for house fun :(

2007-07-05T19:25:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been two weeks since I posted last.

Unfortunately there hasn't been too much progress. Whereas we were originally just going to replace what was visible as far as plumbing in the bathroom, everytime we do one thing, something else comes up that needs to be replaced. The joys of an old house. So Michael has spent the last couple of weeks replacing almost all of the plumbing in the house, and running a new line to the water main - which is all the way at the front of our .78 acre yard. Here are a couple of photos of Michael's work - it looks like a mutant groundhog came through the yard - and Michael's plumbing progress in the bathroom!

We both took some time off (me from studying & Michael from the house) to celebrate our second anniversary. We went up to Louisville for the night and had an awesome dinner at a local restaurant called 610 Magnolia. It was supposed to be the best in Louisville - it was really fabulous, and the service was excellent.

Only 19 days left until the bar exam, and then hopefully Michael and I can really make some progress working together. It would be great if we could have the bathroom done by the end of the month and finally move in! Oh, and our tub fixtures came in and they look awesome - now if we could only decide on the sink faucets, who knew it could be so hard!

Big Bathroom Purchases

2007-06-21T15:02:00.000-07:00

Here's a reminder of the bathroom before...not that we're done, but you can at least imagine the tub in it's new setting once we're done!

We have finally made our decision on the bathroom shower enclosure, supply lines, and drain for the clawfoot tub. It's a splurge, but I think it will be worth it. They are all from vintagetub.com. We have also purchased the "Warm Tiles" system to install under the tiles, which our feet will really appreciate in the winter - I'm guessing we'll have to keep the house pretty cool unless we want to bankrupt ourselves with gas bills. We purchased the system from AplusSupply.com, thinking it would probably take a long time, but we ordered it on Monday night and it arrived yesterday, so that's a pleasant surprise. Hopefully we will be able to start attempting the installation in a week or two. (Famous last words!)

Here are our official new bathtub accessories. Everything will be in polished nickel. I'm also looking forward to getting a nice tub rack that spans across the tub. But to be honest, it will be nice just to have a bathroom so we can move in!

Let the Plumbing Begin!

2007-06-20T13:02:00.000-07:00

I haven't been much help to Michael lately because of my studying, but he seems to be doing pretty well on his own. We have been brainstorming and figuring out things together, so at least I'm still some help.

We are developing our plan for plumbing and electricity. We have managed to completely disconnect the bathroom from the old wiring, so it will be all new when we are done. It was somewhat more complicated than you might expect since one breaker in the panel went to 3 other rooms and the attic on top of supplying the bathroom! I'm just glad we're doing as much new wiring as possible!

But for now, Michael has decided to attack the plumbing first. We will have all new pipes from where the main enters the house, new hot water supplies, but will leave the waste pipes and vent alone. At least the waste pipes have been redone somewhat recently as they are pvc. We managed to add a lot of extra work to our plate by planning out where the bathroom would be upstairs if or when we get around to finishing the attic. We wanted to run all the supply and wastes up to the attic while we have everything open in the bathroom. So it's a lot more now, but hopefully we really pay off down the road.

A little explanation of the photo of Michael. We had a bit of an adventure at the local plumbing store today, which was way better than going to a big box store by the way. Anyway, Michael has invented a device for testing his copper soldering with air, it's pretty cool. I think he should patent it :)

I've also posted a pic of our new combo bathroom ceiling light/exhaust fan. It should go with whatever type of fixtures we end up putting in - we're leaning towards matte nickel, but it's a lot more expensive than chrome, so we'll see. And the faux marble isn't nearly as yellow as it looks in this picture, it's pretty much white.

I also had a question about the shower enclosure in my last post - I'm pretty sure we're going with vintagetub.com. Their site seems really good, and I've seen some good comments about them - but we're still looking around if anyone has some input. And I saw that someone was checking out our blog looking for info about insulating old bathroom walls. Having the walls torn out is obviously going to make it pretty easy for us, but in the rest of the house where we're not gutting it we're going to try to do the blown in insulation from the outside.

Well, I guess that's enough rambling for now!

Work continues, but we try to have a life too...

2007-06-17T07:10:00.000-07:00

After consulting several people we have decided it would probably be best not to jack up the whole house to deal with a sag in one short hallway. But yesterday Michael and Phillip Doyle, a local homebuilder who knows Michael, managed to jack up, even out and reinforce the bathroom floor joists, so we are pretty much ready to move on to the subfloor.

For a break from the house we did some lounging around and went to a drag race last night. It was pretty fun - very Kentucky :) Here are some pictures.

Hopefully we will be making some serious progress on the bathroom this week, so I will be able to add pictures of that soon. For now, here's a picture of the tub enclosure we're planning to get for our clawfoot tub, it should look really good! I think we are going to paint the outside of the tub black, which will look nice with the black and white tile!

Moving On...

2007-06-11T09:55:00.001-07:00

Okay, we still have a few details to take care of on the roof, but since it's been crazy hot and we don't want to damage the shingles - and the roof is essentially done, we've allowed ourselves to start on the bathroom.

Now this is a violation of one of the main rules we set for ourselves - not starting a new project until we've finished the first one, but I think we'll be okay here. I've been studying a LOT for the bar exam, and Michael can't really finish up the soffits on the roof alone, so we started demo on the bathroom on Saturday, and he's been working on that ever since.

I managed to take a few photos of our progress so far. We are basically completely gutting the bathroom. It's kind of funny having our own house, and being able to just decide, "hey, let's go rip the walls off of the bathroom!" Of course it's a messy job, and taking longer than we might have thought, but we had to tear out drywall, then the horribly damaged plaster covered by the drywall, and then the lathe since we are not capable of repairing it, and would really like to insulate the bathroom and redo the wiring anyway.

So here are the photos, hope no one is grossed out too much by the disgusting remnants of the old toilet seal and the cigarette butt we found there.

Aren't we fancy!

2007-06-07T08:52:00.000-07:00

Michael is probably proudly riding this around the yard right about now - showing the neighbors that we do intend to keep care of our lawn!

The roof is fully shingled, and the roof ridge is installed. Now there are just the last few details to take care of - which of course are the most annoying - and then we can move on to the bathroom. Unfortunately I also need to study for the bar, and Michael is probably going to start looking for a job, so who knows how long our next project will take. But at least our lawn will look good :)

SO close!

2007-06-05T19:27:00.000-07:00

We are almost done the roof!

Hooray - I know it may seem crazy that it's been over two weeks and we still aren't done, but we've literally worked hard on it every day. We finished the last shingle on the roof today by working about half an hour past dark, proving again that we are going a little bit crazy.

Unfortunately we aren't totally done, there are some details to take care of. But it looks like we should definitely be done by Thursday, then we can take Friday off if we want and start the bathroom on Saturday! We're excited :)

Hopefully we'll have pictures of the completed roof soon!

sandy

We are very very lucky

2007-06-03T18:24:00.000-07:00

Although thunderstorms and rain have been forecast for almost every day lately, with the exception of a few showers yesterday, it has been dry for almost two weeks.

It's ironic that we live in such a rural area, and everyone is talking everyday about how they wish it would rain, while we are thinking just the opposite.

Michael and I proved that we are truly hardcore yesterday. We had briefly given up when it started to rain, and just covered up the roof and left. But we returned a few hours later despite the omnious skies and continuing thunder.

We had removed a section of rotten wood earlier in the day, so we had a gaping hole exposed to the elements that we were desperate to cover. So we worked on the roof in the rain like crazy. Michael was sawing, I was nailing, and by the time we were done we had it completely patched up and had every surface covered with either shingle or tar paper!

We are now about 1/2 way done the second side, we are definitely moving a lot faster.

Here's hoping that by next weekend we will be working on the bathroom, once that's done we can officially move in!

Here's a picture of Michael and me not working on the house, since I haven't made it into the blog yet :)

sandy

Here Comes the Rain...

2007-06-02T13:06:00.000-07:00

Which is not a good thing considering we are only a little over half way through roofing. I can't believe we've been at it for 12 days already, but the first side was way more work than the second side, so hopefully we will be done in 3 or 4 days.

Our next project is the bathroom, and while it will also require alot of work, it shouldn't be anywhere as grueling, or as important to get it done to quickly to avoid a flood in our attic.

Since I haven't taken any pictures in a few days, here is one from the Owens Corning site of what our shingles are supposed to look like - I think they look better on our roof, and the shingles don't really seem as black in this photo as they are in real life.

Hopefully we will have more fun photos next week when we start doing demo on the bathroom.

Roofing Continues

2007-05-29T11:05:00.001-07:00

Sigh.

Our roof is enormous.

It is very hard work.

We both can't wait until it is done!

I can't believe how much I've done on the roof, not as much as Michael of course, but I'm pretty proud of myself :) I'm also very proud of Michael, he's doing an awesome job :) We are also very glad and lucky that there has been no rain since we tore off the roof, and it looks like there won't be any until Saturday!

Here are some photos of my bravery, and Michael working hard. (Yes that is me on the ridge of the roof!)

Progress Update

2007-05-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

Michael has ripped all of the shingles, and some of the old sheathing off of the roof. It looks like we have almost perfect roofing weather for the next 10 days, but we are still anxious to get it done as soon as possible. It's hard though when it get's up to almost 90 degrees during the day. I'm hoping to help as much as I can this weekend - I'm already more comfortable up on the roof after my second time up there on Wednesday.

Last night we ordered our bathroom tiles which was exciting, but took an annoyingly long time. It probably wouldn't have seemed so bad if we weren't so tired. But the order is in, and we should have them in 7 to 10 days, which is probably well before we'll actually be ready to put them in. I've attached a photo of the tiles we chose, we love them - although I'm not sure the photo does them justice, they are 1" hex and should really suit the style we're going for, and the black is glossy. We've also decided to do a tall beadboard on the walls, paint the outside of the clawfoot tub black, and do a 2" border of black square tiles. We think it will look great!

sandy

Exhaustion

2007-05-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

It's the end of our second day in the house, and we are TIRED!

Yesterday we tore out the carpet to find beautiful hardwood, which was very exciting :) Then we painted our temporary bedroom, cleaned the floor and enjoyed hanging out in the house.

Today I worked a half day, and Michael ran to Lowe's and got everything we need to do the roof. It took several trips, but it's all in the yard now. We also got our giant dumpster delivered, and the water was finally turned on!

It doesn't seem like we've made too much progress, but at least it's a start. I managed to get up on the roof today, but it's going to take awhile before I'm comfortable up there. Michael and I are devising a winch system to get all the materials on the roof, as the shingles are very very heavy.

I'm posting a few pics from our first day, including one of my mom who was helping us out with the painting, and Michael examining the bizarre gate to nowhere, and the crazy remnants of the carpet in the dining room, our beautiful front door, and the poor cat who decided to stay at the house until today.

Totally Sweet New Appliances!

2007-05-18T07:56:00.000-07:00

We had a big time at Best Buy last night.

We weren't sure when we got there that we were going to buy last night - and had only planned on getting a fridge and stove for now, but we left the proud owners of a full set of LG kitchen appliances. We can't wait to get them, they should be delivered next Wednesday. I had no idea that you could bargain with big stores like Best Buy, but we got an excellent deal, and we LOVE the appliances. I'm sure now one else will be as excited, but here are some stock photos so you can share our excitement. We especially like the fancy blue interior of the range :)

We move in on Sunday, so we should have some actual photos of the house then!

sandy

Our Plan of Attack

2007-05-16T21:46:00.000-07:00

We've started arranging for the utilities to be hooked up.

We take possession on Sunday, and the plan is to spend as much of Sunday as we have cleaning and then painting the bedroom we are going to occupy initially.

Today we decided on our budget for our initial draw on our construction loan, and chose appliances! We had debated whether or not we should order appliances before we are ready to actually do the kitchen, but ended up choosing most of the appliances and will probably just get the fridge and stove for now. We are in love with the French-door style fridges, and that will be our big splurge. We are getting an Amana from A.J. Madison's, which seems to be a great online store - so far, we haven't ordered yet :)

Wish us luck on getting in, and our crazy plan of doing immediate demo on the bathroom - here's hoping our friends are okay with our plan of utilizing their facilities for the next little while!

No new pics today, but don't worry, there will be plenty soon!

One of our big goals is to work on ONE project at a time, but that being said, I think the first week will be a little haphazard. We will be ordering things and getting settled a bit. But the first three things on the agenda are: check the foundations (really hoping my dad doesn't think it needs too much work!); new roof - shingles already chosen; gut and begin work on the one and only bathroom!; order appliances. Oh wait, that's four things!

But of course nothing can happen until I give our friendly banker a call in the morning to arrange the funding!

good night and and keep your fingers crossed for a smooth move!

sandy

Our New to us Old House!

2007-05-08T16:06:00.000-07:00

We bought this house in a small Kentucky town last week. We have lots of plans for it!

The estimated age is about 80 years, but we're hoping to do some research and find out more.

We take possession in less than two weeks, and will get straight to work. Our first two projects are putting on a new roof and carefully examining the foundation (even though the inspector gave it a pass) and maybe shoring it up.

We're hoping to post our progress regularly.

Sandy & Michael