We moved back into the house at the end of January. We are definitely not finished, but it is so nice to be IN the house. I have a spare bedroom now, so I have somewhere to stash unpacked boxes without getting distressed.

I have our pantry, laundry and bedroom closet FUNCTIONAL, so I can tolerate being without kitchen drawers for a while. It’s a luxury to cook in our house. It’s also easier to plug away on projects with Ty in the house…much easier than shuttling between the house and the temporary apartment.

We are STILL waiting for our trim guys to finish straggling door items. It’s a little two steps forward and one step back. The trim guys are really nice guys and do good work, but they work too quickly and often make careless decisions. (Like leaving the paint tape INSIDE of the peek-a-boo door window (I don’t know what that is called). They will fix it, but it adds time and stresses me out. So, I’m trying to stay calm and just keep asking them to fix everything.

Our favorite stain guy, Jim, is back after working a more permanent job. He is great! He started staining the outstanding wood left in the house. Of course, he CAN’T finish until the trim guys finish their stuff. Aagghhhh

Here are a few pics…notice that there are no cabinet doors or drawers. And, lots of things not put away.

Click on any of the pics to visit the entire Flickr stream.

We painted the old block…we’re not sure we got the right grey, but we went ahead for now. I’m working on restoring old furniture for this room and am still trying to figure out the rugs.

We got the vintage globe lights hung last week. I think they look pretty good and am glad I got to avoid the heftier price tags of newer ones. The stain is being applied on the stairway this week.

We’d love a bigger dining table, but we’ll have to settle for our old one for now. Those walls are screaming for some art, so I better get on that.

We’re loving the layout of the kitchen. It’s very similar to our old kitchen layout, but a little stretched out. I’m hoping Tim will be able to get the sliders on the top cabinets over the next week. They are exactly like the original cabinets.

I just liked this picture of the new snow in the sun.

Catching Tim on his iphone.

What’s happening this week?
- I’m HOPING that the trim guys finish everything
- More stain work done…the stairway is in progress now
- More painting baseboards
- Tim is going to make our closet doors (or at least start)
- MORE cleaning of windows (lots of tape is stuck on them)
- loading up the dumpster with all of the leftover junk in our backyard

Has it really been 3 months since our last post? That is so sad! Lots going on in the remodel. I got so sucked into actual house work that I’ve had very little time to post anything. Also, I think I felt so defeated the last three months that I haven’t felt very motivated to post. We’ve had great highs and great lows. We get really excited by our progress and then defeated by the thought of all of the work to come.

AND, Tim is now traveling to Hong Kong two weeks a month! We are so happy he has a job, but it definitely puts our projects a little behind.

Here are some setbacks/challenges:

- We needed about twice as much wood trim than we expected.

- The custom wood milling takes a lot of time, which throws schedules behind.

- The staining of the old wood and the new wood in the house has been much more difficult than we thought.

- We’ve gotten hit by significantly more cold weather and snow, which has monkeyed with our exterior work.

- We got hit with a last minute inspection surprise yesterday on our last CO inspection. We can’t get our CO until we have “landings” outside of all of our exterior entrances. We weren’t planning to do landscaping and exterior work until the spring, but now I have to scramble and get patios in the next two weeks.

- Our 50 year old house has some quirks…like different size door frame strikes, which don’t fit new standard door hardware. This is requiring some creative hunting.

- Did I mention that Tim is traveling 50% to Hong Kong now? I haven’t figured out how to clone him yet.

Good news/Progress:

- The wood trim is 99% done. The trim team is finishing up the very last minute items. They have such tiny things left and our front door is getting installed on Thursday. AND, all of the wood looks really great.

- We have countertops. We are so afraid of hurting them in the last stages of construction that I have them covered in bubble wrap and plastic and paper.

- The stain around the house looks great. And, you get a free contact high if you’re around when they are applying the stain.

- I am now an expert sander and wood prepper. Because I’ve had to deal with all of my mistakes, I’ve gotten better and better at prepping wood.

- The restored stairway built from mahogany looks fabulous. We THINK we’ve re-built it similarly to what may have existed.

- Tim has finished the kitchen cabinets. As a rookie cabinet maker, he struggled on some items, but I think they look great. He has not made the cabinet drawer fronts, but we plan on doing those after we move in. Those can be done in stages so I didn’t want to worry about them now.

What’s upcoming in the next few weeks?

- Trim guys finishing the the last details on the wood, including the front door.

- Some punch list stuff on our concrete block (no hurry because it doesn’t affect our moving in).

- Prepping the remainder of the woodwork for staining.

- Finish staining the kitchen, stairway and old wood pieces scattered throughout house.

- Finish drywall touch-up & paint.

- Floors (refinishing old oak floors & installing new cork floors)

- Need to get “landings” outside of all our door entrances.

- Get appliances installed.

What we will be doing AFTER we move into the house:

- Finish the kitchen drawer fronts & drawers

- Install baseboards

- Work on bathrooms (We have the vintage sinks and Tim has all of the wood to build the cabinets)

- Build closet doors

- Install very basic closet hardware (shelves & clothing rail)

Here are a few pictures from the house progress:

View from Family Room looking into Kitchen. The shallow pantry is original (sans doors that will be re-installed). The cabinets are all new, but based on the original cabinet design.

View from Family Room looking straight at kitchen. The countertops are installed, but buried under protection. You can also see a little of the new wood panels on the walls. They are not finished. They will look a little deeper in color once the final color and seal is applied. Also, that wall between the kitchen and family room is the old exterior wall of the house. Also, the paper is covering exposed concrete blocks.

View looking into kitchen on the bar side. What do you think of Tim’s rookie cabinets?

View of kitchen from the house entrance looking toward the family room.

View looking into the galley kitchen. We kept almost the original layout with modifications for different appliances. All of the utilities are almost in their exact former locations.

The new stairway. Our front door is on the ground level and the living spaces are above the garage and house. Because our property is sloped from north to south up, our one level house is even with the backyard. One of our neighbors says that in Pittsburgh, this would have been called a “High-Low” House.

View of the stairway from the bedroom hall looking into the living room.

We’re still here! No blog posts because we’ve been working day and night to get everything done at the house. As expected with most house projects, we are a little behind. Which means that I’ve officially entered the exhausted, fatigued and wacky stage. I haven’t gotten the pics off of my phone, but I almost want to wait because you won’t believe the things that have gone up in the last month.

- The outside trim is almost done. I think there are only a few pieces of wood left to be installed.

- The inside trim is 90% done. We are waiting on more materials to finish up baseboards, some mahogany trim, cabinet trim and the stairway.

- Tim  has finished the cabinet installation. He has NOT built the drawers and drawer fronts. This will wait until after we move in. Which is just dandy.

- Our finishers have started staining the mahogany and wood. Apparently, I am now a finishing assistant. Which means that I tape and sand. And sand. And sand. And sand.

- Tim and I did some speed painting on the poplar fascia to protect it in the weather. We’ll do all of our exterior painting after the winter, but we had one good day of warm weather, so we got as much done as possible.

The bad news? Tim is leaving for China on Sunday and not returning until December 19. So, he has a lot of work to do at night between now and Sunday.

The good news? I’m trying to surrender to the remodeling gods. Whatever gets done gets done. Whatever doesn’t, we’ll deal with after we move in.

I promise more pictures soon!

We’ve been so focused on the remodel and haven’t spent much time on our future decor. Actually, our serious lack of funds is dictating that for now. But, I’ve been doing occasional scouring for mid-mod goodies. We can’t afford any great stuff (can you say a Womb chair), but we’ve been picking up some fun things. They ALL need lots of love and work, but here are some previews of fun to come.

Three Nelson lamps – notice how they are stashed in my closet. One small round, one medium round and one large saucer. The small round one is perfect. The medium round has a tear and the large one has a light bulb burn. But, I got them all for $300 and I sorta love them for being imperfect. And, I wouldn’t have been able to afford three perfect Nelson lamps.

My cool little white leather chair. Once upon a time, it was salmon colored. Not so nice. But, after fading and after stripping the leather, it is now just off-white. Who knew you could strip leather? I’m about to re-dye the leather…I’m starting with off-white because I like it so much. It only cost $69 and it is so comfy. This is a placeholder for the Womb chair that I’ll buy after I win lottery.

I don’t have a great picture of these, but my mom found a pair of nice 1950’s green vinyl chairs. They are low slung and cute, but they need to be re-built. My mom and I are trying to re-upholster them in a nice neutral pattern so that I can drag them around the house to any room. I just like the lines on them. And, my mom got to meet the granddaughter of the original owner.

This is my favorite find. It is a beautiful buffet. The side doors slide and lock. The middle drawers are lined for silverware. It’s only 16 inches deep. I had my eye on it for a while, but then my favorite local shop lost their lease and did some deep cuts. I can’t wait to share a home with it.

This light needs a little love, but I really like it. It telescopes up and down. It’s a bit more than I would have paid for a light, but we loved it. And, the new ones (they are still produced) are over $700 or something.

This was my first purchase for the house. I actually bought it before we moved into the house a year ago. It’s the most compact little desk. It was refinished by the same guy that is staining our ceiling, even though we didn’t know him back then.

We got one other light, but it’s all wrapped up and I never got a picture of it. But, it’s one of those swoopy kind of floor lamps that hangs over the room. Not the $2000 famous one, but a knockoff.

Ty and I are fighting colds (hopefully not the flu) and are laying low, but we stopped by the house today to check progress. Our Nanawall was installed today! It is our almost 10 foot tall by 12 feet long window wall. Rather than sliding, the window panels fold back towards the house. It’s one of the key features of our addition, as it allows us to have truly an indoor/outdoor living space. The fixed glass windows around it go in this week.

Also, our stain guy doing the beams and ceiling is amazing. I can’t believe how good it all looks. Sure, we’ll be drinking the cheap wine for a long time, but I’m glad we made the plunge.

So much happening at the house. So much happening that I haven’t had much time to post any updates. Let’s just say that we’re AT THAT POINT. Remodeling fatigue. We’re tired and broke, but seeing the light. We’re on the countdown, but we have SO much left to do. Here’s some highlights.

We finally got our roof. We don’t have the fascia and flashing yet, but we have an actual functioning roof. We went from an R-Value of 5.3 something to an R-Value of 38 something. Don’t quite understand it, but it means we might actually have some energy efficiency now. We went from NO roof insulation to 6 inches of poly-iso foam. It’s really beautiful. It hasn’t been without angst. Our roofing contractor is a complete grumpy jack-ass. I simply told our contractor to keep him away from me!

We also have a slight slope in our roof so that the water actually DRAINS to the back of the house. No more draining to non-functional gutters on the front of our house. AND, the gutters are hidden. They’ll be behind the fascia, so they’ll be invisible little soldiers.

The Milgard operable windows have arrived. Two of them have been installed. The sliding glass door in the dining room is basic and simple, but nice. It will be really nice when we ditch the plastic faux wood handle circa 1976 and get a matching aluminum handle. Tim & I sorta dropped the ball on this one. We thought we were getting a 3 panel slider where two of the panels slid to the side. Wrong. It is a 3 panel slider where only the middle slider opens. We didn’t scrutinize this enough. Our bad. We were so focused on our big Nana-Wall coming next week that we kind of blew off this detail.

They installed our floor to ceiling window in our study. We went for a similar dimension as our original windows. The exterior is nice, but that is really more the “service” side of the yard…not where any entertaining will happen. But, it looks really fabulous from the inside and it really allows great light into the room. I’m really happy with our decision on this room and window.

I’ve been working on cleaning up our original aluminum windows. They are in bad shape. They had awful storm windows attached and layers and layers of paint. We are working with our windows guy, Randy, from Andersen Exteriors, to remediate the original windows instead of replacing. We’re testing one window now and I’m stripping off the crap loads of paint & digging our the glazing. They already look great, but it’s a pain. Randy is going to put double-pane glass into the original panes and reglaze them and get them all tight for us. I can’t wait to bring them back to life.

We received our order of custom redwood siding for the addition. It is milled identical to the original redwood siding that had held up beautifully for the last 50 years. The redwood was expensive and felt a bit shameful for killing a redwood tree, but we didn’t need a ton (since we have so many windows and concrete block exteriors) and we know it’s the most hearty thing we could do that we wouldn’t have to replace. We hate to paint it!

More plumbing work is coming along. The rough-in has been done and the plumbers have “cleaned-up” the mess of crap from the last house flipper that did the most recent round of work without permits and most decidedly not to code. The tankless water heater goes in next week, but we are all ready for our new laundry in the house. No more going to the basement OUTSIDE in the winter for laundry. (Okay, that really meant that I didn’t do a lot of laundry last winter).

The electricians got our new services located and they are ready to get our permanent power back up. No, it’s not a sexy feature, but won’t it be nice when I don’t constantly trip the circuits?

The highlight of our week has been working with a STAIN EXPERT…AKA The Lacquer Man to stain our ceiling and beams. Staining the ceiling and beams is a bit more complicated (and toxic) than we had anticipated, but we were lucky enough to hire a professional finisher for two weeks. He is custom mixing our stains and getting our beams and ceiling tongue & groove done. Which means that we are busting our butts getting the stripping all done. We WOULD have been done, but we had to back-track a bit to clean up water stains from the water coming into the house when we didn’t have a roof. We’re a little peeved about that, but we had freakish amounts or rain, so we’re just trying to suck it up and drink a bit more until we don’t care.
So, by next week, all of ceiling & beams should be done!

So what’s next?
- Build out fascia & flashing & finish downspouts
- Install rest of windows – all of the fixed glass (no frames, just fixed between wood stops)
- Hang drywall – Can’t wait to have walls!
- Install HVAC system – Lots of work has been happening, but it will be nice when the furnace is installed this week.
- Install electric outlets, switches, etc.
- Trim EVERYTHING – steel beams, windows, wall panels
- Put down first layer of floor leveler – This was supposed to happen this week, but our lovely floor guy’s family got hit by the piggy flu. I insisted that he stay home with his family & get better and wait a week!
- Finish staining ceiling & beams
- Resume kitchen cabinet building
- Finish stripping & finishing mahogany scattered throughout house
- Get permanent power hooked back up.
- Get back to stripping concrete block
- Figure out paint & sealers for concrete block
- Get paint color matched for our original house colors – Stealth Grey!

Lots happening, but we’re trying to stay motivated. We’re dreaming of the days when we get to hang out and enjoy our house instead of the constant weekends that we wear face masks & eat dust.

Our architect created 3D Sketch-Up Images so we could visualize our new space. I kept forgetting to put them up here. Also, I just figured out how to move around in Google SketchUp. I’m slow like that.

It doesn’t look like a lot happened this week, but quite a few things got done. Somehow, the ceiling tongue & groove was underestimated, so a rush custom order was needed for about 300 more square feet. AND, there was a fire at the lumber yard, so we lost a few days. But other work continued.

• The ceiling tongue & groove is finished (after the straggling materials arrived).
• The framing is completely done. All of the walls and windows are roughed out now.
• All of the final trim decisions were made. There is a lot more wood than anyone anticipated, so we have some BUDGET additions. I’m not sure why this is a surprise and it was perfectly clear to me. :> . It’s on the plans, but Tim’s says he’s surprised, too.
• Electric has been roughed in and passed electrical inspection
• HVAC ducting has been roughed in & mechanicals should arrive next week.
• The custom redwood siding to match our existing house has been ordered.
• I finally finished grinding out the stupid drywall and caulk from the beam cracks.
• We’ve been testing stain colors for all of the wood in the house
• My Dad and I got all of our phone, cable and A/V wiring done. I can now say what it’s like to crawl around in the crawl space.

Upcoming Fun

• The roofing starts Tuesday. Hoorah for actual roofing that drains properly and has some insulation. Can’t wait.
• HVAC & Plumbing mechanicals should be arriving & begin to be installed
• Our West facing wall/window is on its way from California. It’s scheduled to arrive late next week.
• Our windows guy may start cutting glass for all of our fixed windows this week.
• I need to get my butt in gear and finish ordering our kitchen faucet, lighting, a few hinges, and heat registers.

I’ll post lots more pictures this week. This weekend, it seemed to just be more of the same!

I’ve been short on the posts lately, but we’ve been deep in the remodel. Here’s what we have going on this week.

• Stripping hell continues. I seriously think I am paying penance for property damage I must have inflicted in a previous life.
• The back of the house has been completely ripped out & is ready for the addition.
• All of the sub-floors in the addition and the existing house have been installed. Our existing sub-floors in our house were flimsy!
• The new concrete block wall between the kitchen & our addition was installed. We originally thought we’d simply be opening the wall, but realized that our concrete block wall was FAUX…as in fake. We only had pavers that looked like whole concrete blocks, so I’m really glad we replaced the wall with real, complete concrete blocks now. And, it looks fabulous!
• The steel beams were delivered and lifted by crane over the house. Very cool. The welder still needs to come out and do his thing next week.
• We found a flooring guy to refinish our existing oak floors and to install our new cork floors. Our mortgage broker hooked us up with him. He looks twelve, but I’m impressed by his professionalism so far.
• Tim has finished making all of the base kitchen cabinets. Pictures forthcoming.
• The retaining walls are all finished now.
• The foundation and property drains have been installed.
• I finished stripping the exterior concrete block fireplace on the roof.
• I got our cork flooring ordered.
• I am now the proud owner of TWO Dremel tools. They are mine. Tim gets his fancy table saws, but the Dremels are mine. A girl’s gotta have fun, right?

Here is what’s happening next week.

• Welder coming out next week to do his magic on our steel beams. (Note: We would have LOVED to have matched the original wood beams from our house, but those current, pesky building codes and structural engineers (RIP) wouldn’t let us. So, we’re installing steel beams and then wrapping them in wood to match our existing house.
• Framing should continue & hopefully get finished.
• Please tell me that damn fence is getting done soon.
• We’re trying to finish the stripping & sanding hell.
• I’m going to try and start our inside wiring in anticipation of my Dad coming out to do all of our phone, cable, A/V wiring. (Thankfully, my Dad is a retired phone/DSL installer and I’m shamelessly using his services).
• I think they’ll be ripping off the roof and the ceiling tongue and groove next week. Which means we might have a new roof soon!

No remodeling project is without a little angst. And, we’re significantly uptight, so we feel a bit bad for the scrutiny that we subject our contractor and architect to. But, they’ve both been great and have humored us. We have a few small hurdles…nothing large, but just a few minor interesting things.

• Our back wall currently is concrete block. That wall is being “popped” out, but the concrete block wall was to remain for support and architectural detailing. Because of the intricate cutting and stripping, we went ahead and decided to have the 4 foot wide wall rebuilt. Good thing we decided that. The crew demo’d the wall this week. Turns out that it wasn’t a weight bearing concrete block wall. They were DECORATIVE! They were not solid blocks…just half blocks in front of very flimsy 2×4 frames. Our architect was surprised how little was holding up our entire back wall.

• Our architect has worked with a structural engineer to do all of the complex weight bearing design issues. We’ve never met him, as our architect worked directly with him. The structural engineer just completed some consultation and city inspector required work. We thought we needed to call him again for more clarification on our beam hangers. (Yea, what are those? I’ll take pictures once I learn more). Our contractor called the engineer and was told that the structural had died a few days before in a motorcycle accident. Shocking! Selfishly, we’re so glad that he got most of the complex work done already and we’re hoping we don’t need more structural engineer engagement. Apparently, he was an avid cyclist. Geez, they scare me.

• Our fence and retaining walls have been difficult. Tim did the drainage and retaining wall plan. We had to totally redesign the slope of the yard (away from house), while building structurally sound retaining walls. Our east neighbor’s lot is about 3-4 feet higher than ours. Our southern neighbor is about 4 feet higher than us. Tim staked out the retaining wall heights before hand and consulted with the guys setting the walls. Well, they sorta ignored him. Our contractor is taking care of everything and it is all good now, but we are learning that many people don’t understand grading plans, including the fence guys (and me).

Morals of story:

1. A lot of things are simply out of our control.

2. Even when you are in control and have perfectly planned, sometimes the plans aren’t used  we just need to roll with them a little

3. There is no way to perfectly plan (or see through walls).