The counters are in! Well, most of them.
I've decided to post the progress of each day this week - hopefully things will be moving along nicely soon.
bungalow
leveled
I thought I should post this before they "knock it all out in a week"
Nothing like waiting until the last minute. I have been assured that this kitchen will be done for Thanksgiving, yet I have my doubts on this. After 2 weeks away we thought we'd come home to some appliances in the actual kitchen, just unpainted doors. It's taken some time, but I do believe that everything is now level and straight and hung.
With the help of many, many, many shims.
But then they took it all down again to get painted....and there we waited , and waited.
So with 12 days and counting until T-day - still left to do:
- Reinstall of cabinet doors, moulding, misc wood
- install hardware
- install all appliances
- install lights, under cabinet and pendant
- finish island
- install sink/disposal
- put in countertops
- install ladder poll and hardware
- paint
Not to mention actually unpacking the kitchen items that have been spread throughout the whole house at this point.worried?? who's worried?
:)
kitchen progress...we have progress
We have started seeing progress and it's great. The cabinets were delivered and are being put together. They've told us that our walls are not straight (the house was built in the 1900s, I know the walls aren't even close to being straight - hahaha) and they've had to use a lot of shims to get everything straight. BUT we have progress and we have been promised that it will be done in time for Thanksgiving. The cabinet doors, counters, and island should all get done while we're across the ocean. We're hoping that all goes well, as I am not sure how or when we will be able to get to the internet to answer emails.
(this is the wall where the stove/fridge/pantry will be)
We traveled to Thomaston,GA to pick up an old library ladder we found on craigslist the other weekend. It is in great shape, I'm hoping this hole ladder thing works out :) We have also been shopping around for a kitchen table. Finally settled on one over the weekend, we're also keeping our fingers crossed that that will be done by thanksgiving....otherwise maybe we can have a picnic on the floor . HA!
There should be a lot more done for the next post - so keep checking back!
we have floors!
Yep you read correctly. We finally have floors, real ones. Can't tell you how exciting it is to walk on floors that aren't sticky from old linoleum. Sullivan was checking them out to make sure it was the white oak he ordered. The first floors delivered were the wrong wood, so he had to double check.
Floors are now in, stained and varnished. They look amazing. Now we just need to get some cabinets in there!
this one's for you pops
While waiting on this to progress with the kitchen - we've decided to go ahead and tackle some of the smaller things in the other rooms - heaven forbid we have one room that isn't ripped apart and disgusting.
This coffee table has been through it all. An old library table (with the legs chopped off), that was one of the first pieces of furniture my parents owned as a married couple. It made it through my childhood and came with us to atlanta when we moved. Not having space for it in our old house it became a porch table and got a bit.....weathered.
While it is still a porch table at the new place - the porch is much bigger and more covered - I thought it could use a bit of a facelift. So it got sanded, stained and sealed and is back on the porch.
kitchen part 2: the plans
Finally some forward progress. After months of back and forth - we've finally solidified the plans - and they are mostly within budget. While negotiating we had to do some reconfiguring and I ended up doing some (oh so amazing) sketches - i've posted them next to their real drawing counter parts.
Looking towards the front of the house:
Looking out over the sink:
Looking out the back door and the kitchen/bar nook:
In preparation for the (hopefully soon) start of our kitchen renovation - we spent a good part of sunday scraping up all the old glue left on the floor after pulling up the linoleum - exciting I know. And john dismantled the island and frank got moved to a new home in another part of the house.
Starting to look a bit empty in there...
SOLD
Yep you read correctly - Rockyford is SOLD - making our lives so much less crazy (but still crazy).
After many back and forths, fixes, inspections, more fixes, more inspections, texts asking about paint colors and if they could keep our lock box ( ummmm no.....), we have finally closed. It's done.done.done. While I will miss our little house on Rockyford - I am definitely happy to be rid of it - now we can move on to bigger and better things - like the kitchen (coming soon to a blog near you)
nowaks 1 - rat 0
After many traps and a late night chase through the house (sullivan found him hiding in the bookcase) ending in the rat leaping through a hole in the kitchen wall - we thought all was lost. Although proud that our dog had managed to find him and "tree" him. We set a trap or him inside the hole and as our luck would have it - we got him...we were overjoyed:
and on a lesser note - While settling in to his new home Sullivan has yet to learn that the 2nd door on the porch won't open to let him in. No matter how hard the tries:
kitchen part one of many parts
the kitchen.we've been without a working kitchen since we moved in. The sink kinda works but really only one side and only if you're gentle. If you bump it too hard the pipe fitting will come lose and spill water all over the floor and your shoes...I found this out the hard way. It also has no hot water.we were able to get 1 of the burners working which has been a bit of salvation, but not much. Most of our meals are now cooked on the grill outside - which has been quite entertaining.To save a bit of money we decided to do the demo ourselves and we got the go ahead from our contractor. So we spent all weekend ripping up linoleum and pulling down cabinets. Still have a ways to go. BUT we'll hopefully be starting this renovation soon. I want my kitchen back!
cancellation of services
I got an email from our insurance agent the other day stating that they were canceling our coverage. The reason state was that our gutters were not clear and the back door needed painting...ummm really? He apologized and said it was out of his hands and thought is was silly.
So we set to work cleaning and painting. To be fair we did have a few trees growing out of our gutters at the time and all of these things were on our todo list...just hadn't made it there quite yet.
smelly closet
Our closet smells.
You can smell it when you walk into the room. You can smell it in the hallway. When we moved in the first thing john did was remove the 'smelly' carpet from the closet in hopes that would rid us of the smell. That was a fail.
I started noticing the clothes in the closet were smelling too - We tried febreezing the floor and walls to no avail, it still stunk.
While stuck inside all last weekend because of the rain - we decided to tackle the stinky floor to see what was under the plywood that had been under the carpet.
In our exploration we did however find a mouse:
We think he was dead.
And beneath the plywood - there was wood floors!
We have been dousing the newly found floors with febreeze and sanding them down to get all the gunk off of them seems to have helped with the smell - so far.....
A Quiet Thought
I found this old weathered note taped to the inside of our medicine cabinet today, overlooked by the previous owners while clearing the house out years ago.
a father's day porch cleaning
The past few years I have had the pleasure of spending father's day with my very own pops, this year was no different. We prepped the new house as best we could, alas the place is still a huge mess. Not even batting an eye at the unfinished - scuffed up floors, and nonexistent kitchen - we set out on a beautiful weekend.While the boys went in search of a crappy fridge to replace our tiny one that had died the night before. My mom and I set out to make the front of the house a bit more pleasant.Weeds were everywhere no plant was safe! I'm pretty sure we pulled out some nice plants - oh well - at least it looks better.
Day 2 we tackled the porch. Pops power washed the porch down while we cleaned other various items and put it back together again when he was done. I think it turned out pretty good. Now it looks like someone lives here instead of a hobo camp..haha!
it's the little things
We spent this weekend doing a few of the little things to spruce up the place a bit to make it a tad more inhabitable. Like finding door knobs - which involved a several hour hunt at scotts' antiques where we oogled all the things we wanted to buy...someday...for this new house of ours - so we could actually close the door the the bathrooms.But of course all those little things add up and a lot of them are old and require a good cleaning off of rust before installation.
There's also the stairs - they've been grossing me out since we moved in. Someone must have stained them before moving out, but refused to tape off the sections they weren't staining - the stain sprayed all over the white parts of the stairs - very closely resembling vomit splash back. Now I even knew it was stain and it grossed me out every time I looked at it - the better part of my afternoon was spent painting over the splatter with white paint. Ahh so much better:
Hanging blinds so our neighbors don't have to watch us eating our take out in front of the tv and in the guest room so they don't have to watch my parents sleep when they get here on thursday. Painting the guest bath which was, prior to painting, about 4 different colors - hanging towel racks and i got to install a new doorbel - yep we have a doorbell.
hill street walk through
Ask and you shall receive - more photos of the house. It is already starting to look better with furniture in the rooms and things put away - but don't let these photos fool you - this place needs a lot of work ;)
Also I have a giant furry shadow following me around - he's in most of the pics checking out his new fortress.
front porch:
front room:
guest room: it's amazing how much even some cheap curtains can help a room look better.
living room:
upstairs rooms + bathroom:
guest bath (ground floor):
kitchen:
deck/yard:
basement/laundry:
our grant park bungalow - it begins
We're moving on. On to bigger, newer and better. - by newer I mean older and by better I mean a shit hole that needs a ton of work and is mostly inhabitable.
We've got a LONG laundry list of things to do to this place - I will try my best to post before and after pics as we progress. The house is 'livable' which is at least a place to start. Listed as a 4/3 on a lot of almost 3/4 of an acre we've definitely got our work cut out for us.We spent the entire holiday weekend moving in. Back and forth trips from the old house in Kirkwood. All the boxes are here - now we just need to make a path through the house as we play musical rooms with the boxes we don't know where to put.This house hasn't been inhabited in around 4 years - airing it out, cleaning and getting working toilets are among our first priority. Second would be to find some latches and knobs as none of the interior doors have any knobs. The hunt on Ebay has begun. And Third - We've been talking with a contractor about the kitchen. It is in pretty bad shape. Now normally we like to pride ourselves on doing our own renovations - a lot of the time with the help of my in-laws - who are always up for some hard work and a trip down to see us. But this kitchen is in need of a complete overhaul - we've decided to call in a professional - photos of the demo and progress soon.I thought I would start this blog - for friends and family that wanted to keep tabs on us and what we were doing. This house is going to be a big project - but it should at least be a fun one. I don't think Sullivan has even had a chance to sniff the whole yard yet!