A reprieve, but we are still working our tushes off.....

So, last night we decided we couldn't make it in by June 1.  It's a combination of things, but it sure felt good to acknowledge that we were both feeling too much pressure and starting to make mistakes because of it. We are giving ourselves a week or 10 days more to get farther along the road to completion - our hope is to get most of the indoor doors, some of the trim, all of the railings, most of the plumbing installed and .......  you get the picture.  We had a great day, albeit a very long one.  (The dogs were very happy when we walked in the door about 6:15 and insisted we go out  - that's down 4 floors - immediately.) The long run of railing along the loft and walkway is done - now for the part over the entry way and along the stairs.  Bill will start wrapping the outdoor porch beams and post tomorrow while I finish the interior sections.  Hopefully our plumber will come install the tub and faucets.  I cleaned the kitchen cupboards this afternoon so they are all ready for stuff and we had the cabinet maker install a couple more of those pull out shelves.  He and his crew are great - they've taught me all kinds of wood working tricks. So, here are some pics.......

So the fun thing about this railing is that putting it together is a bit like a
puzzle or quilt.  You have to figure out the size of the spacers, but then its a regular
pattern - big spacer, picket, little spacer, picket, little spacer, picket, etc...

Bill suggested I might be wasting time laying out each panel before actually starting
to install each "panel," but it helps me avoid spacing issues at the end and it
makes for quick installation.

Yay! The right side is done, the left is the framing that Bill finished late today -
I hope to have it all done tomorrow!

Bilie working on the "frame" for the stair railing.  He did a beautiful job - I
hate to cover some of the board surface with the pickets!

The cooktop and hood are in!  We need to add the vent cover to the hood,
but that will take a little work first, so....  But you get the idea!  Boy, do we
need a backsplash of some kind here! Any ideas?

The two new pull-out shelves on the top are great!  I don't know why
we didn't order them in the first place!  I vacuumed and washed
all the kitchen cupboards this afternoon so they are ready to
be filled!  Can't wait to get going on that, but the railings are
calling my name for tomorrow.

And all the appliances are in!  Yahoo!  You'll probably never see the island this clean again, so enjoy it!  It was FULL of all kinds of stuff about an hour before this shot was taken.

Now you can see how the railing relates to the kitchen.  I am standing where the dining/living room is.  The beam  over the island is where the wall was previously.  There is soooo much more light now.

Dad's bevel square!  It sure has come in handy with all the weird angles we
have encountered.  People warned us that in a remodel there are no 90° angles -
I think they are right!  It helped a lot for the stair railing also! Thanks, Howie!

Alone again.....

Seems our plumber didn't like us that much, he didn't come back today.  Hopefully, we'll see him tomorrow.  The HVAC guy did come and we (yes, Bill and I) installed the cooking hood so he could connect the ducts (?) and he set up the fireplace logs - no gas it seems, but.....  We spent most of the day by ourselves working on the railings - Bill worked on the skeleton while I worked on the pickets.  If you've been to our old house this will look very familiar!

My sister Pat's comment on seeing the new railing was 'I thought you moved!"
Yeah, it's' the same pattern.  I have two panels finished - 5 to go!  Argh!
Gotta get these in for the inspection! Once again I thought a lot about my mom
and dad and all the work they did on our homes.  I am so thankful they taught
us how to use various tools (from table saws to knitting needles) to create things.

The plumber is back - yahoo!!!

We have water inside the house!!!  Yahoo!  The kitchen sink is hooked up, as is the dishwasher and a real live toilet!  Time to say good bye to the Porta Potty!  I can't wait!  What a joy it will be to see that lovely blue structure leave the driveway.  (And I am imagining that if we are feeling that way, our neighbors will really be rejoicing!)  The railing structure for the loft and walkway is in and finished  - we have to add the pickets tomorrow - and the posts for the stair rails are almost in.  It's beginning to look like we might actually have a functioning (okay, semi- functioning) place to live when we leave the apartment on the 31st.  (And there was a moment of real excitement today - I got to go to Costco!  It was the first time in a very long time!  I had to look at some countertop material for the powder room and it was in the neighborhood.  The shopping list consisted of a rotisserie chicken, frozen shrimp and of course, Ibuprofen!)

The doors have been delivered!  They are Doug Fir and are ready
for installation - that will start next week - the railings have to
get finished first.

The new bathroom countertop.  And Meredith thought I had gone out of the
box with the kitchen counter - these are even more wild!  I think Bill was a little
stunned, but they'll work.  This vanity will have a maple tower in the middle
for all those toothbrushes, etc.  The faucets are to arrive tomorrow........

The entire view of the master bath vanity, linen closet, and lights I tied to
take a picture of the other day.  Now we need some mirrors - time for a trip to
IKEA for the same mirrors we had in the last house....... There seems to be a
pattern here.

Okay, now here is cause for real celebration!  The first
working toilet in the house!  We couldn't christen it today
because we didn't have any toilet paper!!  What were we  thinking?
These are dual flush Toto toilets - supposedly water savers - we'll see.

The posts for the stairs.... hopefully we'll get the rails in
tomorrow and then the pickets. 

Yes, that's water coming from the kitchen faucet!  Yahoo!
Indoor plumbing at last!  Can't wait for the rest of the faucets to
get installed tomorrow and Thursday.    

And last, but not least, a working dishwasher!  After dealing with the one in
our condo/apartment I can't wait to have a decent one again.  Look at how the
island is already gathering stuff - that's the problem with horizontal surfaces!
 

Railings, refrigerators and a break.....

So, slowly, but surely we are making progress.  The refrigerator was installed (and is now holding some cherries, a can of soda and ice), it still has some dings that need to be taken care of, but it works!  The railings are on their way up and having finished grouting the floors in both bathrooms, I am taking a tiling breaking to help Bill get the railings done (and give my wrist a bit of a rest) so we can pass inspection an get moved in.  (Even though it it will be more like indoor camping for a while.) We just got a call that the interior doors are ready!  Oh no - we aren't ready for them!  The joys of being your own contractor! It'll be fine, we just have to find someplace for them to be stored before they go in.

Our niece Meredith and me in motion!  It was constant as we applied
epoxy grout to the shower!  What weird stuff to work with.  She
was such a great help!  Thanks, Mere!

Lights, camera - oops!  These are the new master bath lights and they really
are quite bright, but I hadn't checked the camera settings so ......  I am so
glad to have the lighting decisions behind us!

The fridge is in!  The great thing about this fridge (other than being
on a great sale) is that it is actually counter depth, which in a kitchen our
size is really a good deal.  When we bought the house, which is only 23'6"
wide, the kitchen was all of 7'6" wide.  Now it open to the living/dining
room, so even if it isn't much wider, it sure seems it.

Bill working on joining the two sections of the railing for  the
loft and walkway.  The really cool thing about this railing is that
it is actually the old railing that has been trimmed down and
reused!  I love that fact that we are reusing some of the original
materials.  Hope to get the railing up in the early part of this week.

The upstairs bath floor is grouted and ready for the toilet!  (The film you see
on the tile has been polished off - interesting, but not what I would call fun, work.)
We'll wait a bit for the shower to be complete, other things need to be done to pas
inspection so we can move in next week!  (What were we thinking?!?!?) 

It's all grouted and ready for the bathtub (that big hole to
the left), toilet, counter tops and sinks! Those are all to be
installed in the next couple of days!

These are a couple of aluminum accent tiles!  (Ha!!!) Well, they are, but they
are really handmade spacers and repeated throughout the bathroom,
so they hopefully look like they belong.

Kitchen countertops and .....

The kitchen countertops arrived today and all that searching was worth it!  They look great!  (Well, we'll let you decide that after you see the pictures below.) There is a lot of color in there, though with my lack of photographic skill they look mostly black.  In addition, our niece Meredith is in town and helped me get the master bathroom ready for grouting tomorrow.  Bill's been working on getting all the wood to build the railings ready for installation.  He loves his new planer!! Meredith also helped me pick out carpet for the upstairs and vinyl for the laundry room!  Poor woman just happened to be here when there was a big sale that started at 8:00 this morning so off we went....  She was a great help!

We're getting there....... 12 days!

This is "Phil, the granite guy" (I have all our subs list by their first name and what they
do in my iPhone, its the only way I can remember them! as I call him, bringing in the
 top for the island.  His helper figure it weighed about 525 pounds!  How they got it on
top of the cabinet is beyond me!

Here's what it looks like installed.  Believe it or not there are a lot of colors in there - oranges, greens, creme.  I tried to take a close up photo, but my lack a photographic skills left me with nothing I should post. The fridge arrives tomorrow!

Meredith helped me clean all the tile in the master bathroom
so we can grout it tomorrow.  Sorry for the fuzziness, one of these
days I will get a good photo of this room! The front of the tub
(lower left white space with lettering)  is going to be wood to match the cabinets.  

Two weeks and ....

Yup, we gave the condo owners our notice - we have two weeks to get enough done to move into the house!  It (the process, not the house) isn't going to be pretty, but we'll make it.  The tiling in the master bathroom is almost finished (today was not a good day as far as tiling was concerned - there was this lump in the wall - grrrr!), there is just a little back splash to be completed and that one tile that goes over the lump. Bill started on the loft/stairs railings (now called guards - when did they change that?) and the first appliance was installed today!!!  Yahoo!  The kitchen countertops are to be installed Thursday, the bathroom ones maybe the same day or Monday, with the plumber and HVAC guys soon to follow.  We have a lot to do before the inspector shows up next Thursday, but......

Now for a little stock tip - buy the manufacturers of Aspercreme and Ibuprofen - there is always going to be someone or some couple who thinks they are still young enough to do a remodel like this who will need lots of pain medication at the end of the day.  I am surprised those of you in Wisconsin can't hear us moaning as we walk in the door at eh end of the day.  We're a sad sight for sore eyes - just ask our poor pups!

Here's a picture of the new, corner fireplace and the beautiful wood floor Bill and Paul have been installing.  I know there have been some other pics, previous ones, but I liked the color on this one.  Doesn't our back porch look great? Ha! Those are most of the old kitchen cupboards that will find a new home in the shop or at the Restore! The porch is covered so it has also been our tile sawing location when it is raining - we've had 6" more rain this year than last, so you can guess where we've been doing most of that sawing.

Billie adding the bottom trim piece to his new ovens!  He's thrilled about having double ovens.
Maybe I'll even bake more - then again!  The installation was a multi-day process - there was an
issue of missing parts (be sure if you buy a display model, they include all the parts) and the
reading of instructions.  Enough said - even our Electrician - a GREAT guy - said something
about not liking to read them.........

Yahoo!  The ovens are in!!!  This is the first appliance in place and it really made us feel
good after a somewhat disappointing day yesterday.  We find that doing something at the house
is very rewarding, but running errands to get the supplies or order things isn't.  Can you guess
what we did more of yesterday?

Tiles, tiles and more tiles....

Oh yeah, and a lot of wood, too! Well, its come down to Bill and me working at the house by ourselves most of the time with occasional visits from Mike our electrician and friends checking the progress.  (Don't worry, we planned it this way.) Bill has been filling in the small spaces adjacent to the living room and kitchen that still needed wood flooring. He finished those spaces today, now onto the master bedroom, which he can't do until I finish tiling!!!

Boy, have we learned a lot about tiling and heated floors as of late!   Since there is no heat duct in the guest bathroom upstairs we decided to treat our guests to toasty feet by using a heat mat under the tiles.  We considered doing the same in our bathroom, but backed out after installing the one upstairs - we're safe, there is a heating duct in there anyway.  So, here are a few of the lessons we learned:

•  If you install a heat mat use a glue gun (or strong tape) to adhere the loop ends to the subfloor (even if they say the mat itself is adhesive) - they like to creep up otherwise.
•  If you are working with self-leveling cement (the brand we used smelled like bubble gum - yuck!) you have a VERY short window to work.  Be well organized before you start.  Even with doing that, it was a zoo.  Don't use duct tape to seal the holes between the walls and the floors (as the suppliers and or internet suggest), put down a small piece of board the height of the finished depth you want.  Pour it slowly and as evenly as possible over the surface and use a hoe or some other LONG handled tool to push or pull the cement to that height before it settles.  It looks great when it is done and it's easy to work on.  
• Laying Hardiboard (TM) isn't really any easier than pouring the self-leveling concrete...... in fact it may be more of a hassle and your arm will be really sore afterwards from spreading all that thinset!   
• Let your tools do the work!  Those little margin trowels are great for cleaning up excess thinset! That way you don't get it all over your gloves and transfer it to other tiles.  And those little 'X' tile spacers are great for cleaning out excess thinset/mastic that in between the tiles.  Your grout needs that space!

And the tiling just goes on and on and on.  We gave the house a good cleaning yesterday afternoon  (that felt good) and didn't go in this morning!!!  My arm was too sore (now I understand Bill's taking 2 ibuprofen at a time!) and we had a lot of organizing (our thoughts as much as anything else), ordering and paperwork to catch up on, so!  It felt great to get that accomplished.  On to the pictures......

Here is the result of Bill and Paul's hard work in laying the oak flooring.  They
did a great job and it is beautiful (just ask Alfred)!  It looks so different in the
two rooms because one (the dining nook) is on the west side (left) with windows
surrounding it and the other, the "den," is on the east side and it is afternoon!
Bill's planning on building some cool built in cabinetry in those two holes in
the wall in the dining nook.

The master bathroom shower is starting to take shape....
can't wait until the room flooring is in so I can wrap it up.
Each of those tiles on the shower floor( about 3" x 3") was hand
cut, because they don't make that specific style of tile in anything
less than 12" x 12"!   

Bill placing the Hardiboard (tm) after I spread the thinset.  Then he attached it with
screws and I taped the seams. After tiling the bathroom floor upstairs in the morning, we
tackled this in the afternoon.  Besides the fact that you are supposed to wait 24 hours to
work on top of the Hardiboad, my arm hurt so much this morning that  we gave ourselves
a day break from the "hard" labor.  Boy, did it feel good.

Our master bedroom has become tool and materials central!  I wonder if we
will ever get to move a bed in! We have a great view out the back now that we
removed that questionable sunroom!

The guest bathroom floor now that it is tiled!  What a job.  See that little ring in the upper
right?  That is where the toilet will be and getting the tile to fit around it  was
just about enough to get me to think outdoor toilets aren't such a bad idea!
Okay, so that might be a bit of an exaggeration! 

27 Years, Three Homes, Two Houses .....

Yep, today we've been together 27 years!  And we're still enjoying working together on our house projects - we have been falling asleep a lot earlier (in the chairs) as we work on this latest project, but.....  Today was tiling day! After several nights of dreaming that the walls were tiled in numerous ways, (some good, some not so good) I decided it was time to bite the bullet and get started.  I think I had asked every question and researched every issue about tiling showers, tub surrounds and floors that there is, but I was still a bit anxious about the whole thing.  Oh well!!!  After a moment of panic (and a couple of short cuts (not shortcuts, mind you), Bill was kind enough to run the saw for a while.  So, while there are only one and a quarter walls tiled and many more to go, I think we've hit a rhythm that will make things go quicker in the future - at least I hope so!

Here's a little trick I read about and saw in a video that helps the cuts, when
there is a 90° angle involved, be a bit more precise.  Hold the tile firmly at an
angle to the blade to get a cleaner corner cut. Works great!
Thanks to our friend Bob for the use of his tile saw, what a time saver!!

Another action shot!  We are using 12 x 12" porcelain tiles so I have been
"buttering" the back of the tile to ensure good coverage.  It's a little more work,
but I think it will be worth it.  The little white circles are tile spacers - who knows
what they did before they were around, but they are great.  The tile is medium grey,
but we think it ill work well  with the white tub and sinks and maple cabinetry.
Keep your fingers crossed!
The tile in the guest bathroom will be a bit lighter. 

Yahoo! Cabinets!!!

It has been a few busy days!  Up early and early to sleep - not early to bed as you might think, just early to sleep in the chairs!!  But it has all been worth it.  We made our cabinet installation deadline - today.  Right now everything looks a little "blond" if you ask me, but things will change as the countertops arrive and we decide on some "accent" painting!

Our friend Phil saw this truck a few blocks away and called to ask us if
we were expecting our cabinets today!  Yup!  They were ours!

The very beginning.  Doesn't that floor look good?  Bill and Paul worked
their tushes off this weekend  installing just enough (the entire "great room" )
so that the cabinets could be installed today.  

Another shot, you can see the cabinet in the loft, too, if you squint really hard.

It's like a big puzzle.  The crew really knew what they were doing.  They are two
brothers and they have the system down - they had all the cabinets (2 bathrooms,
one in the loft and those in the kitchen) in in about 6 1/2 hours.

The master bath cabinets - a linen "closet" and the vanity.

I know this isn't a cabinet, but it is the tub surround now that it is ready
for tile - along with the shower.  Isn't that waterproof membrane in the shower
a lovely color and sheen, perhaps we should just forget the tile.
(I think I may be wearing more of that membrane than the walls!)

Now we are talking excitement.  The guest bathroom vanity.  There is
more of that lovely waterproofing membrane in the background. I do so
hope the tiles look better!

And there they are!  The kitchen cabinets.  I'll take a better picture tomorrow,
but they are really nice.  They are natural maple and really change the looks
of the space.  The countertop folks come to measure tomorrow,
but it will be a bit before they are installed.