No rest for the weary...

Ever been so stressed, so sleep deprived, so worn out on so many levels where you start to do things a bit out of the ordinary?

I feel like I'm running around with my head cut off.  Seriously.  Let's see... this weekend I went through two or maybe three serious fits in a store with Mary while one of my best friends was there to catch it all (by serious fit I mean, pearl necklace broke and pearls running all over the floor in a store...).  Yes, Mary throws fits.  But NOT AT ALL like these ones.  Ick.  She was hungry and very tired - shoulda known but didn't of course.

What else?  Today I spilled a smoothie all over the floor in Kohls.  Of course, the smoothie was brown.  Imagine that.  Geez.

Rick was at the house by himself today.  Tom and I came around 2ish.  Tom put in 7 hours - I only did a couple. 

But paint is going up!  Its amazing how long it takes.  Truly.  Especially with all the BIG windows we have!!  

Our master bedroom took 3 men 4 hours to paint.  Truly.  Now, should I do the math on how long it is going to take to paint THE REST OF THE ENTIRE HOUSE?!?!  :)

Check it out!!:

Master Bedroom - its a grayish/bluish white

Mary's room went from yellow to pink!!  Purple stripes to come later :)

Tata for now!  Pretty much painting the rest of this week and countertops installed next TUESDAY!!! Yahoo!  AND we get to go to Boston to see Tom's brother get married!! :)  

PARTY ON WAYNE!!

Stain baby STAIN! :)

ITS CRUNCH TIME.

Do you know why?

Thats a little hard to see...

21 DAYS UNTIL MOVE IN!!!  Thanks to Rick we have a reminder on the window in the kitchen :)

What we are working on today:

• Hired a babysitter for 6 hours today.  In that time, pretty much all I did was make a Lowe's run (I wanted to do a yoga class and also get some shopping in, but couldn't.  Tom's brother's wedding is next week and I don't have anything that fits!!).  
• $400 later and 3 hours later, I came back with some:
• wood glue
• recessed lighting
• rosin paper (to protect hardwood floor - a little late for that)
• toe kicks to cover kitchen cabinets
• nitrile gloves for all the staining
• marble mosaic for kitchen behind stove
• some hooks for the 'mudroom'
• and thats about it.
• Tom has put up almost ALL the quarter round and baseboards.  He had to make quite a bit.  Also, hung all the door casings.  Again, had to fabricate quite a bit. 
• Josh and Rick were staining interior doors.  THEY LOOK SO AWESOME!!

Schweet!  And that's just the first coat of stain!

I don't know how many interior doors we have, its a BOAT LOAD!

 Some walls are ready for paint... I can't hold in my excitement!!!  

Poor Tom.  Mary and I are going to Columbus this weekend to see friends, he is staying here to work on the house ALL weekend.  He said, pretty much he will stay at Noble all day until he needs to sleep.  :/

HAVE A FANTASTIC WEEKEND!  Another update coming before our Boston trip next Thurs.

MUCH LOVE TO YOU AND YOURS!!

What are you doing this Sunday morning? + VIDEO!!!

At 6:30am on a Sunday morning, Tom and I are already up and discussing the vanity top for the kids bathroom (what size, where the sink goes, etc).  I am SO ready for this to be over.

I'm ALSO ready for the stress to be over.  I feel very bad that I have a million sources of stress in my life.  Stress is not at all good for a baby in womb.  

We are approaching the FINAL days here.  We have a countdown - thanks to Rick - written on the window :)  26 days!!  I will be packing everything in our house the next few weeks!!! YAHOO!!!

Tom and his Dad worked hard yesterday.  (So did Josh and Mickey and Beth!)  They put up all the trim work in the kitchen - looks great!  Tom's mom also, literally, hand wiped every square inch of our master bedroom, master closet, and Mary's bedroom down with water, cleaning solution and a rag.  Whew. BUT ITS READY FOR PAINT!   

I could keep talking, but I think this video will say more!  Please excuse the pregnant, out-of-breath, depressed sounding voice behind the video (its been a rough week):

560 feet of quarter round

I mean, really?!?!?

Can you imagine how much quarter round is 560 feet?  I cant.  And its taken loads of man hours to stain!!!

Realities of a Rehab

Here are some realities of rehabbing an entire 3,000 sq. ft. house (while working full-time and taking care of a 2 yr old):

• We normally eat dinner between 6-7pm (to keep Mary's bedtime at 8pm).
• Last night we ate dinner at 9.
• The night before I met Tom straight from the airport at a diner and we ate at 9:30.
• A few nights before that, we ate dinner at 10 (Mary was at grandma's).
• I keep forgetting when the last time I showered was.  I've actually been smelling myself and realizing its been a while... :/
• I got 4 hours with Tom at home the other day (floors were being polyurethaned).  We were updating things with our new address, canceling utility service, and doing that type of 'stuff' at home.  Was totally quality time with each other though!  I was loving it!!
• I've heard you should add 30% to your estimated rehab budget, as well as 30% to your timeline.  Well, for us - it would be probably add 50% in costs and 100% to your time.  Do that math.  That SUCKS.

So, some updates on what we have been working on:

• It has taken 2 weeks to refinish the hardwood floors - originally estimated 1 week.  They look great!!  They don't look exactly like what I was hoping for, but I can be okay with that.
• Furnace installed upstairs.  YAHOO for a home warranty!
• So, the guys  have not been able to access the house.  They have spent two weeks stripping interior doors of paint and sanding.  Two doors have been stained - but two whole weeks from them was spent just stripping doors of paint!!!  Whew!!



The Noble Crew!  I FINALLY was there when all the guys + Tom were there.  They weren't too thrilled about taking a photo but I don't care.  Left to right:  Tom, Rick, Josh, and Dave!!  Rick has helped ~30 hours/week and here since Sept.  Josh has helped ~50 hours/week and here since July.  Dave has helped ~15 hours/week and been with us since Sept.  Don't know where we'd be without them, they are SO helpful.  But when I think about what I just typed - Holy Moly.  Do that math!!!!  This was the Fri. before Thanksgiving.

I have PICKED OUT countertops!!!  WOOT WOOT!!!  Thanks to Rick for being my 'designer' and helping make one of the most expensive purchases yet.  Yeah - actually THE most expensive.  I started looking about 1.5 months ago.  Visited all the granite 'stores' - or installers.  Visited quite a few of them but none had what I was looking for.  Granite is one of the hardest stones you can put in your kitchen so that is why we are going with it.  It will last a life time.

So, then I visited their suppliers.  Monte Granite was thankfully down the street!  Vangura was quite a drive, and they put on the dance when I showed up.  Don't care for that.  I had to wear safety glasses in their 'warehouse'... I am ALL about being safe, but there was NO reason for that.  PLUS, I couldn't even see the stone easily since they were so scratched.  Pft.

The granite suppliers warehouse.

Went to Dente - awesome experience.  Highly recommend them if you are picky like me - GREAT selection.  CHECK OUT WHAT OUR COUNTERTOPS ARE GOING TO BE!!!!!!!!!

That is Dennis.  There were 6 slabs of the color I liked - so we looked at them all!!

Blurry picture, sorry, but this is going in our new kitchen!!

I feel like once the countertops are in - it will feel SO much more complete.  I'm hoping 2-4 weeks.

Things are going to start flying by!  (I HOPE!  A little more than 1 month left, and STILL NO completely finished rooms.  Uh-oh).

Tom is working his tail off today.  Woke up at 6 on a Saturday.  Went to lumberyard, got $500 more worth of pine/poplar to make baseboards and went to Lowe's to pick up our 2 kitchen cabinets we had to order.  Whew!

I'm going to Giant Eagle today or tomorrow to get gift cards to spend at HD & Lowe's (20cents off fuel perks!).  Also going to buy the tile for the kitchen backsplash.

We ordered our stove too!!  AND our hood for over the stove!  Yippeeee!!!  (all these decisions are not easy.  I mean really - how many types of stoves are there?  TOO MANY)

Okay, I need to go shower.  Seriously.   :)

FLOORING

Kitchen floor is 90% installed!!  :)  Just need to put more under the fridge.  (also need to order some more - we had JUST enough to finish.  Whoops!)  Finished that at 9pm last night.  Yuck.

Tom is actually at home at 4pm on a Sunday - WEIRD!

Flooring got their second coat of polyeurethane today - so the smell was so strong he came home (plus I convinced him, I need all the help I can get around here!  SO much to do!)

Here are some shots from last night:

How sweet looking are those floors?!?!  YAHOO!!

MORE PROGRESS

This is happening as I type!  Can't wait to see it in person!!! :)

I hope this looks as great as it does in this picture!!!

That's all I got right now.  Two blog posts in one day - I'm feeling fabulous! :)

Leonardo DaVinci

We are painting the stencil in the powder room!!   Well, Josh is doing it.  It kind of looks like a bit much, but im hoping that the sink and toilet will tone it down.

Also, Tom and Evan laid the pre-floor surface down.  Tom said Evan was like Leonardo DaVinci with the utility knife.  :) 

We took a few days off for thanksgiving but wont take any more between now and move in day!!!  (Jan 18th)

Hardwood floors getting refinished this week and finalizing the kitchen countertops!!! :)  Walls getting cleaned and paint going in asap after floors are done!!!  We are rounding third base!!

Check!

MORE PROGRESS!!  Of course, life doesn't stop while you're renovating so I've added some big milestones to my list (in my opinion, of course!)

• New tires on car... Check!
• 5 MORE gallons of ceiling paint (already spent 5)... Check! 
• Metro Heating and Cooling FINALLY scheduled to come replace furnace... Check!
• Duct cleaning for two units - with two different companies, scheduled.  Check!
• Jimmy The Sandman scheduled to refinished 2,300 sq. ft. of hardwoods... Check!
• ALL Christmas gifts purchased & wrapped... Check!
• 2 baby shower gifts + wrapped... Check!
• Tom's brother's wedding gift + wrapped + delivered... Check!  (i'll stop with the check! thing now)
• Beam in kitchen stained... I can't take credit - Rick and Josh did this, but its done!
• MORE casing cut to exactly replicate existing casing AND some of it is INSTALLED!

Nice smile Josh!!  Josh and Tom were using our custom made router bit to cut casing to exactly match the existing.  I think its pretty neat we did this - those bits were NOT cheap!

The router they were using... thankfully they did it safely!

We were at the house until 9:45 last night.  Then - got dinner.  Ick.

Tom has two nice cuts from his recent work.  :/

Last night we were installing flooring in the powder room.  I had this great idea of replacing some white tiles (in an all white tile pattern) with navy blue ones.  I've seen people do it before, but no idea how time consuming it was.  I don't think it would have been that bad, had Tom not spent all day working and it was 9 at night.  Plus, this was his first time EVER laying tile.  I don't think he read anything about how to do it - as he started at two ends and tried to meet in the middle.  He measured and measured and measured the floor, but when it came for the last two rows to meet in the middle, they were off by a 1/4".  That sucks.  So, today he is ripping up some of what he did.  I feel for him.  :/

Each of those blue tiles there you see were individually cut out.  Then we had to cut off the glue from each side of each 1x1 inch square.  We also had to cut out the tiles from the 1ft. square of them to fit the blue in.  I think it will look pretty awesome, hopefully pretty custom when its all done.  But man, a bit of extra work.  Tom was not happy with me for wanting to do this... :)  It definitely did take a lot more time.

Those are navy blue walls :)  Stencil pattern yet to be applied. :)

Also, the lady that used to own the house (it was foreclosed on her) - has been living with someone down the street.  Weird, eh?  So, the person she has been living with off and on down the street stopped by the other day.  She gave us the below lantern, that her 'friend' took from the house when it was foreclosed on.  It is apparently original and used to be on the back porch.  Looks pretty sweet I'd have to say!!!!  Let's hope she has more stuff to return - that's original to the house!!!

OH!  And more cabinets are going up today!  Just a few, then we wait on the special order ones.  BUT the wall in the kitchen, where the brick was, is now dry-walled and painted - looks pretty cool!  Frigde is also in place too!  Yahoo!!! :)

Next two/three weeks are EXTREMELY busy for me.  So my early apologies if I'm MIA for a lil.  

Thanks for reading.  Love you all.

H

Of course...

Of course...

• I would make our FINAL scrap run - and NOT take a picture.  AND - it was our biggest one yet!!  Just about $300  (1,750 lbs of cast iron pipe.  HOLY MOLY)
• my daughter wakes up when I begin to type.
• I special order 2 cabinets and two small misc. things from Kraftmaid - and it costs about 1/4 what it cost me to buy 32 cabinets.  Geesh!  I even got the cheapest cabinets you could imagine - no special anything and our 32 cabinets have ALL the bells and whistles!
• Tom and his Dad spent quite a lot of time futsing with our french doors.  Tom and I did the same thing about a month ago (I did post some pics of that).

I could probably keep going - but think I need to start my day!

HAPPY MONDAY YA'LL!!!  Have a great one.

'Shit'

Is what Tom was described as looking early this morning by his boss.

Yowzers.

But, he was up at 4am the last two days and came home at 9pm both days.  I actually fell asleep on the couch waiting for him last night :/  I just want to be able to spend some time with my husband.... but enough of my sappy shit about how tough this reno is.  I think you've gotten that point.

IVE GOT SOME GREAT PICTURES!!!!

But, some updates:

• Ordered flooring, and it came in early!! Yahoo!!!  Here's what it'll look like.  It has some brown from the cabinets, and blue/gray in it too.  I'm thinking it will look great.  To be installed very soon hopefully!

• Electrician is pretty much 98% finished - YAHOO!
• Stain is going well.  Its amazing how much time it takes!  (I'm bummed.  I thought I had a picture of this wood Josh and I stained.  Took 2 of us 45 min. to do the 1st coat of stain.  It was on pieces of wood that go below the window.  Tiny piece of wood, but decorative that make a difference.  Bummer)
• Rick scrubbed the jack n jill floor the other day.  We are trying to salvage the original black and white tile we found underneath tile.  The black and white tile has a bunch of glue stuck to it.  But apparently it is looking pretty good!

  

  Tiled bathroom when we bought the place

  

  Tile we found under tile.

  Jonathan Moran finished the woodwork and vanity.  The vanity was pretty expensive, but it is solidly built - and built by a local woodworker :)  I have been to the house at least 3 times since we got it in, but keep forgetting to find it and look at it!!
• Mickey is moving and groovin.  Its amazing how much drywall work needs done, and patching of plaster, geesh.  Seriously.  And, he worked 33 days without a day off, probably still counting.(he has a day job, he works for us on the nights/wknds).  So, I made Mickey a pumpkin pie (all from scratch, no cans used) to say thank you.  He brought a friend the next day.  :)

Okay, so I wanted to show some house pics in chronological order.  Here goes the kitchen:

 That shit makes me happy!!! :)  And here is another angle, from the dining room, in chronological order :)

And one more set of shots, from the living room, in chronological order :)

Mary Alice literally just saw these picks.  And says, 'That's the new house!... Where Daddy lives.'

That breaks my heart.

But she also said, 'Is Mickey there?'.  'Not Mickey Mouse, Mom.'   :)  She does love Mickey!

CABINETS!

CABINETS ARE IN!!!

CABINETS ARE IN!!!

CABINETS ARE IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

East wall of kitchen

That frosted glass will eventually be changed out with some sort of clear glass and I think the one next to it as well (but that will maybe be after we move in) and all the hardware will be changed too.  

I started looking at pictures of the house before we did anything to it this morning... WOW, what change there has been!!

Tom left the house at 6am yesterday and got home at 8:30.  Left this morning, around 6:30am.

ITS GO TIME!!!

Speaking of which, I should probably go do something productive... BUT... CABINETS ARE IN!!!

A momentous occasion

FIRST COAT OF PAINT ON THE WALLS!!!

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



East wall of the Kitchen



South wall of the Kitchen.  Fridge is going where the radio is plugged in. 


Oh - and in the spirit of Halloween - I thought you might like to see some of the artwork from the scrap yard. 

And those pictures are not distorted in any way - that's really what is was!! Crazy!  But those guys liked me and were very helpful :)  I told Tom not to go with me.  :)

This wknd, we also got some top coat (urethane) on the woodwork.  LOOKING DAMN GOOD if I say so myself

This is a handle to our french doors.  Isn't it beautiful?  The other side of it broke off and I'm tasked with trying to find a replica.  That ain't easy!

I'm at a conference in Hershey, PA today.  This was from the hotel room tonight.  Baby boy is getting very big very fast!  I'm already busting out of this shirt (19 weeks along) and with Mary I busted out of this shirt at about 26 weeks.  Oh boy!!

Goodnight ya'll!  I just got off the phone with Tom.  We talked about which range we may buy, who we may hire to refinish the floors, and more!  Business business business!! 

Happy remodeling dreams :)