I’m still in the early stages of figuring out what’s going on with this one. Here are some pictures:
So far, I’ve had Pedro and his crew over to clear out the yard and get rid of some cedar trees that had branches laying on the roof. Next up is to get the outside repairs done and the house painted.
With the exception of the kitchen – still have a problem with the installation of the dishwasher but hopefully that will be fixed soon! Plus, the logs are installed but the – I’m not sure what you call it – deflector, maybe? – still has to be put in so that the mantel doesn’t get so hot. All in all, though, I am almost there. Now to move the rest of my stuff in! Since I am almost all done (deadline Christmas, which means the second week of January), I tried to take some pictures to compare to the original pictures and here they are:
Front of the house:
Side of the front of the house:
Bathroom – after extending it about 3 feet because it was beyond claustrophobic before:
The living room – there are a couple of angles here and the Christmas tree did force me to move around what is normally in the “picture window” but hey, it’s Christmas! I made a couple of comments about getting a 3 or 4 foot tree and my sister-in-law went crazy about my not-even-here-yet Charlie Brown Christmas tree so I just got a big one. 🙂
Ack – wrong angle!
Fireplace:
Kitchen:
Removing the wall between the dining room and kitchen really opened everything up!
The den/office:
All of the saloon doors are gone!
That chair will be painted and have a seat eventually…
I am now applying this phrase to my reaction to the work done at the house in the past two days. Somehow, some way, a whole shit-load of stuff was accomplished all the while I was saving money. I was, of course, most in awe of the counters that were installed, just because I’ve been waiting on those to be shipped here for a really long time. The molding was installed everywhere but the bathroom and den and the tile was laid in the den with grouting to be done tomorrow, I believe. I was so busy getting pictures of the counters and tile that I neglected to get pics of the molding but you can see at least the crown molding in the kitchen pictures. I honestly don’t know how these guys got all of this stuff finished so quickly based on the timeframes I was used to before. Plus, old-timey drywall tape? Apparently useless and creates more work while giving a less than stellar finished product. My brother told me that a few months ago, but I just chose to not listen to him. I was told that twice today by two different people. Let me move on – at least for this post. And now that the tile’s being done, I can’t even go into that closet to stare at the little square holes of that crappy drywall tape, so I can pretend it’s not there. Ha.
On the bright side:
One column on the front porch is up:
And the back door came in and is sitting in its new home – those awful sliding doors are GONE! Actually, they weren’t quite as awful once the s-nephew pulled that flowery sticker stuff off of them, but still, this is an improvement:
And no pictures, but there was a massive rain storm yesterday so there was water flowing into the bathroom through the light fixture into the new tub, which of course doesn’t have a drain or anything so it just went through the hole where the drain would be and got the entire subfloor soaked. Great!
What have we accomplished while DB was on vacation? We’ve painted the entire house, less some touch ups that need to be done. “We’ve” meaning Alan has put up 4 ceiling fans and two light fixtures on his birthday, no less, so kudos to my brother. And if you’re wondering if I paid him anything, I did buy the niece $60 worth of shorts for the summer so we are counting that as payment. We all win. Oh, also kudos to the s-nephew who was an awesome helper today – aside from his constant practical jokes, he was a trooper and didn’t complain unlike the nephew who would have bitched the entire day about having to do work. Plus, kudos to the s-niece who helped paint today. I’m a-scared to tell the niece that all the painting is done since she threatened her grandmaw with violence if we didn’t let her paint. Sorry!
DB went on vacation for the week. Before he left, we had our second “come to Jesus” meeting. The first one took place the day I had to pay the mf’ing IRS and SC Dept of Revenue way more money than I had expected PLUS estimated quarterlies for this year which, of course, eats into my house budget. If you know me, you know that I will usually only afford people one of these “meetings”. Some people I don’t even allow the one. Occasionally I will allow two.
I now have NF installing the kitchen cabinets while DB is vacationing. Apparently you really can accomplish a lot in one day. ONE DAY.
(Plus Mom and I painted the two bedrooms and hall the other day and painted the den today!)
To draw out the excitement of the cabinets, I’ll post the painting pics first:
And here’s the kitchen!
Exciting!!!!!!!!!!!!
If all works out, we’ll knock out some more painting tomorrow and this weekend and may be finished (except for the bathroom and impending touchups)!
DB gets back from vacation in a few days. I’m sure he’ll have something to say about NF’s work – but I’m telling you, it looks great!
F moved this week so there was a halt in construction or at least a major slow down for a day or so. I did make it by there to take a picture after the first tearing off the aluminum siding day.
Now all of the siding is gone – here’s a picture from today:
Wow!
Inside the house, some more electrical improvements that you can’t see, and most of the drywall is up now. Some lights are up in the living room but still bare. Also all of the windows are in except for the bathroom which is still just sitting there gutted.
Note – these aren’t the greatest pictures. I didn’t take my camera down there and had to use my iPod camera, but they’ll do.
Here is the living room earlier this week – at least the ceiling:
Here is the dining room into the back den:
Here is the kitchen – also earlier this week:
Before I post the picture of the kitchen from today, I have to say that I did receive a couple of calls today from F that I couldn’t answer but called him back and he says, “Now don’t freak out but…” This had to do with putting up drywall in the kitchen without my specifications of the size and place of the doorway into the back den and with no cutout for the fridge to be inset a little bit. Freak out? Me?
Here is the dining room/kitchen with a little view of the doorway into the den:
The new kitchen window:
And the old window that has been closed in:
Den and its new windows:
New den windows and closed up hole where AC unit used to be:
Laundry room/pantry:
Whew! Hopefully tomorrow I will get some more information on the timeline for the projects. And write another check.
Most of the new windows are in!
Yesterday, fiberglass insulation was blown into the exterior walls where there was nothing. They cut holes in the drywall, blew it in, then F and the crew have been patching up the holes with the puzzle pieces. The picture above is of the new windows – that insulation was surprisingly in those walls. Below are some of the patched-up holes.
I finally met with the kitchen cabinet lady again today – preliminary results – saving at least $2000 by going with a local company rather than HD or Lowes. I’m going to meet with her again in the a.m. and hopefully place the order.
The awnings are gone! I think it makes a big difference but maybe I am just looking for a difference.
The back room’s floor has hopefully been successfully leveled out in preparation for whatever floor I decide to put back there.
There has been some progress on the front porch floor.
Now, DB wanted to pour concrete on top of the existing floor that has cracked and looks awful. He says this would save money but the plan would have an end result of the concrete floor having a lip on top of the existing brick edging that I like, and the lip would be a couple of inches higher than the brick edging which I imagine would eventually result in my stepping up on the top step, toe hitting the concrete lip, falling over and breaking my front teeth out and then I would have to hunt DB down and break his front teeth. Not to mention the UPS guy, FedEx guy, friends and family members who would also trip over that and get hurt and sue me for their injuries.
DB swears it wouldn’t be that bad.
I had to put my foot down so now the concrete will be removed and replaced with something else – concrete again but dyed to a darker color? DB did talk to a guy about pea gravel with epoxy and I did some research online but can’t decide on anything.
Meanwhile, I still can’t manage to get the girl at Florence Carpet and Tile to return my phone call or finish my cabinet plan/quote/etc. and really can’t figure out what is going on with that. If I don’t hear from her Monday, I’ll call and stop by and post a link to their website here to see if that drums up a response.
The entrance cubby hole is now gone. I am thinking I will replace the front door and make the new one open the opposite way – towards the closet – so that when you walk into the house, you walk right in and don’t have to deal with the door hitting the furniture.
Now there’s some old termite damage in a little wall that we had discussed taking out before – the wall at the front door – it did seem uncomfortable that you walk into the house into that tiny cubby – if you want a foyer, do a foyer, not some sad, tiny excuse for a foyer, so maybe this has worked out for the best? I don’t know – we’ll rule on that later. Either way, more walls have come down. So here are the updated pictures:
Bedroom 2 – bad sheetrock gone, good sheetrock put in to replace it:
Bedroom 1 – bad sheetrock gone, good sheetrock put in to replace it – plus the closet has lost its awful paneling.
And yet another kind of wallpaper!
Let’s go back to the front room/living room/entry way:
All of the walls are gone plus the ceiling! I did decide to do away with the little wall, move the supporting beam up into the attic, then just make this one room which does away with my sectioning off the picture window area as either an area for a daybed or an area for a couple of armchairs and a table, but I will just have to adapt.
Back to the den/old porch/back room – here’s a view from the living room:
Closer view of the closet:
Now that they have removed the existing ceiling, we find out that we can raise the ceiling so taller people that may live here in the future could actually do their laundry without kneeling down! That’s a good thing!
The old AC unit has been taken out and the hole has been patched up:
I did decide to move the door to the laundry/pantry down and may be able to put the piano in that corner if this all works, which will be great, although with all the changes in the living room, I may have a spot there, but don’t let me get ahead of myself
A lot has been done, but I still can’t manage to decide on a kitchen cabinet door. Or a kitchen floor. Or a backsplash. And I haven’t even talked to the contractor about the bathroom. Or the deck. My head hurts. Wait – what am I doing about the front porch? Shut up. I’m going to bed!
Renovating Madison 