Adventures in Remodeling - The Bathroom

Here we go again!  The pain of the kitchen remodel has subsided and now we are ready to enter the adventures of remodeling again.  We want to remodel the master bathroom and are considering doing the other two bathrooms on the top floor as well if the price is right.  It's kind of like when I had my deviated septum repaired at the same time as the sinus surgery since "they would already be in there".  That was a bad decision, but hopefully doing 3 bathrooms at the same time will save us money and inconvenience.  We've met with 2 contractors and are going to get the first proposal tomorrow.  I'm hoping they can make the numbers work so that we can do all three.  There are trade offs of course and I'll have to put all my spending on hold for the rest of the year...including travel.  I already have a short trip to Jamaica planned for next month so I still get to do that, but nothing else. 

It's All About the TV

The family room project is just about done. We just need to paint the window trim and install the baseboard. The point of this project was to get a plasma TV on the wall and try to make the room more inviting. When people would come to our house they never wanted to be in this room. We've been able to rearrange the furniture and now people gravitate to it so I'm happy. I miss having the mantle, but I can't have everything. We had to remove the mantle to be able to mount the TV lower. Otherwise it will be too uncomfortable to look up so high to see the TV. We still need new furniture, but that's going to have a to wait a little while.

Before:














After:

What a Mess

We bought a plasma TV a few weeks ago with the idea of mounting it above the fireplace and redecorating the family room. One thing after another keeps going wrong. We were supposed to have the TV mounted yesterday, but the place emailed me at 9pm the night before saying they couldn't do it until Sunday. I was annoyed by this because I had planned on painting later in the day on Saturday and all day Sunday once the TV was out of the way. So today they came and mounted it and it looked great...except none of the HDMI ports work. They all worked before, now they don't. So now I get to sit home and wait for the Panasonic repair man to come out sometime between 1 and 4 on Wednesday to try to fix it. Ugh. Oh and they won't look at it if its on the wall so it's back on the stand and the area above the fireplace is a mess of holes and wired. The goal was to try to have the room all done before my dad comes to visit (in less than two weeks). We have been working on this room for a while and we keep having problems every step of the way. We have a lot of work to do to get the room ready before he arrives and I'm going to be gone for 3 days next weekend. I've just accepted that it will be a mess when my dad gets here...although relatively clean since the last time he was here we were in the middle of the kitchen remodel.

Blah Blah Blah

I haven't been in the mood to write much lately. There are pictures of the kitchen on my Facebook page. We are waiting on a new counter depth fridge, but other than that it is done. Now we need bar stools and at a table and chairs. I keep meaning to post some pictures here but never get around to it. We are considering having the master bathroom done next. I need to find some inspiration though on the design. The place we used for the kitchen said if we sign a contract in May for the bathroom that they can start work in October...you'd never know we were in the middle of a recession based on their bookings. I think back in the boom time it was a 12 to 18 month wait. I have completely lost my motivation to lose weight and have gained back about 5 or 6 pounds. My head still hurts all the time. I finally got a referral to a neurologist and have an appointment next month. I call every day to see if they have any cancellations to get me in sooner. My cats keep peeing on the floor outside the litter box and my husband is getting really upset about it. I have no idea why they do this, even when the litter is brand new. My company is once again doing summer Fridays so I get to go home at 1pm on Fridays from Memorial Day to Labor Day...yay! That is assuming all the work is done. I'm excited for the Biggest Loser finale tonight. It's my favorite show. I love the finale where you get to see the before and afters. My husband got us great tickets to see the Dodgers while we are in CA next month. We will be right behind home plate. I'm bummed about the Manny suspension though since now I won't get to see him play and chant his name. It rained for something like 9 straight days here recently. Great for the plants, not great for my mood. I think it's sunny today. I find it amusing that Donald Trump makes the decision on if Miss California gets to keep her crown. I know he owns it and all, but that is just weird to me.

Getting Back to Normal

My life is getting back to normal. The kitchen is just about done...the floors are being finished today and there is a list of minor things to be done as well. We have to stay at a hotel tonite to let the floor dry and apparently it will smell bad too. The cats are locked in the bedroom so hopefully the smell will not get to them. My family has come and gone. It was a busy trip and I am completely exhausted. Today should be a quiet day at work for me to get caught up and then this weekend we will unpack the kitchen.

Stress...What Stress?

To say I'm stressed right now is a bit of an understatement. I have a busy week at work, my family is coming to visit on Saturday and my house is a mess because of the kitchen remodel. When this is all done and the visitors are gone, my husband and I need to do something fun and relaxing. Until then...I will continue to stress...because I'm pretty good at it.

It's Coming Along

The kitchen is starting to look like a room again. Once the electrical and plumbing were done and inspected, things have moved along very quickly. Drywall is up and the floors are done (except for 1 more coat later). The cabinets are in the garage...although the drawer style is not what we ordered, but my husband likes it better...I like it less. Not sure what to do with that. I would post a picture, but the floors are wet and I can't go in there.

Kitchen Update

The kitchen project has been a little too sore of a subject to talk or write about lately. It's going very slowly...there have been 16 work days since it started and they have been here for only 7 of them. On most of those days it didn't look like too much work was done either.

Here are some "before" pictures and some pictures taken today.

Let the Games Begin!

The kitchen remodel is (hopefully) about to start! It is scheduled for February 23rd and tonite we have the walk through. This weekend we plan on packing up the kitchen and setting up a mini kitchen in the office. I really hope everything goes as planned. I told my husband to expect me to break down crying at least once. To add to the stress of the kitchen remodel...I now have 3 family members coming to visit in April...before the kitchen will be done! I really wish they would have picked other dates, but they didn't, so now I'm preparing for guests while going thru the remodel and they will have to deal with the noise/mess while they are here. Not really how I wanted my dad to see my house for the first time. We also don't have sleeping arrangements for all 3 of them in the house so I'm turning another room into a guest room. So far I scraped the wallpaper and now I need to paint and get furniture.

108 Bottles of Wine

My husband turned the weird under the stairs closet in the basement into a wine rack that holds 108 bottle of wine. I'm so impressed since he bought rough wood and turned it into this.

Kitchen Update

I got a call a couple weeks ago from the kitchen remodelers saying they were going to start on January 26th, which is right on schedule. Then a few days later they called my husband and said it would not start until late February. You wouldn't know the economy was bad based on us having to wait 6 months to get the kitchen done! Now my dad says he may come visit at the end of March. I really hope the kitchen is done by then so he doesn't have to stay in a construction zone with us.

New Kitchen!

Well, we did it. We signed a contract yesterday to have our kitchen remodeled. We have the floor plan but still need to pick everything out. Construction doesn't start until late January so sometime in March I will have my new kitchen! It's exciting, but at the same time scary because it is so much money. My husband told me today to not plan any big vacations next year...what? Wait...ummm, could you have brought this up BEFORE we signed the contract? Nothing will happen for a while, but I'll post pictures of the project along the way.

Yep, It's Frozen

I came home from work tonight to a hot house. I knew something was wrong the minute I walked in. I checked the thermostat and it said 77 even though I set it to 72. I suspected the dirty filter since I don't clean it as often as I should. My husband then cleaned it and my test was to see if the A/C worked better without it. Nope. The A/C unit is only a little over a year old so I was really surprised that it wasn't working. It was running, but the air was not very cold. So I got all cranky and called the repair service (we have an annual contract so these repair visits do not cost extra). I was told it would be a "few hours". Ugh, oh well, that's better than waiting until tomorrow. The guy ended up getting here about an hour later. We told him that the filter was really dirty so he knew right away what to look for. Before I even got out of the basement he called me back to show me that it was frozen. He showed me the ice that was caused by the dirty filter. Yikes, I knew this could happen, but had no idea waiting three months to clean it would do this. True, my husband creates lots and lots of dust from his workshop, but I did not think this would happen. So now the unit is turned off and we are waiting for it to thaw. Hopefully it will thaw before it’s time for bed so that there is some hope of cooling off the bedroom. Lesson learned.

Kitchen Remodel

Well, we've decided to do it. My husband and I are going to look into having our kitchen completely redone. I've been hesitant to do this for a long time because I hate dealing with contractors since all of them we have dealt with in the past have let us down, I don't want to live with the mess and without a kitchen for months, and of course, it is really expensive. We have a dollar amount we are willing to spend so now we are going to get some people out here to see what they will charge us. We tend to be way off when guessing how much something costs, so if it's over our budget, we just won't do it.