STROKE OF GENIUS! ...ah-hem...maybe...

Can I tell you the last BIG project we will work on in our house?  (when I say that, I mean it will be a year+ before we start this one)

Our own bathroom.

Funny.  That happened at our last house too.  Strange.

My stroke of genius was this:    We plan to completely demo our master bath....

Do you see that shower on the left side?  We plan to close that off from inside the bathroom and make an opening from the hallway.  We plan to put our washer/dryer there.  Shower will then be in front of window with a big soaker/jetted (hopefully) tub.  It's going to look great!

Today, I think I've done 9 loads of laundry so far?  (its only 3pm too!  Go mama go!!)  And I did the hand-wash only items.  Its a pain because I have to clean the sinks out first then rinse them in the tub because the sink has the soapy water in it, etc.

I see a lot of 'modern' laundry rooms with sinks in them, and I think that would be nice.  However, the area where we are putting our washer/dryer is literally as big as a standard size shower.  So, we are going to have to stack the machines.

SO - that will leave room on ONE side for a small sink.  And you know what else I see in 'fancy-pants' laundry rooms?  Countertop surface above cabinets to fold clothes on, etc.  

SO - you know what I'm going to ask my ever-so-talented-handy-man husband to do?  Put a sink in there with a countertop that folds to the side of the sink (so the sink can be covered with a countertop or used as a sink).

GENIUS!

Isn't it?  

If I had any time on my hands... I'd make a drawing, measure out the space, etc.

But I don't.

And, I've been slacking on my blog posts.  BIG time apologies.  I swear, we did go to Florida right after my last post, and we were there for a week - so I went MIA from all electronics pretty much.  

BUT we're back at it.  We hired a babysitter last sunday to work on the 4th bedroom.  We are hiring her again this Sunday.

We made BIG time progress in the bathroom, of course, its all underneath the floor so will all be covered up someday soon hopefully... can't wait to share our pics from that!  

But ta-ta for now.  Much love to you and yours!  

ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND!!

Trials and Tribulations

This blog is about our renovations... but I always find myself blabbling about personal stuff.

The reason is - welp, because all that personal stuff affects our ability TO GET ANYTHING DONE!

Went to Boston last weekend.  

Looking for 'geeses' with Uncle Joey

TWO days of lunch at a park!
Kids table for the adults!

Went to a wedding on Saturday -
It was truly BEAUTIFUL!

AND THEN - got to go to Fenway Sun.  Kid free too!
Uncle Joey and Aunt Steph are AWESOME.

Yes, my husband is an engineer.  :)

\

Went to Ohio wknd before that (and Mary's 3rd Birthday was then).  Wknd before that saw Lady Gaga in concert in Cleveland at the Q with my brother who came in from Indy.  Oh yes, I did.   :)

I was incredibly impressed, actually!  Here are just a small portion of her costumes.

Off to Orlando this Sat. until next Sat.  COME ON SLOW DOWN SOME is what I keep saying to myself.

We will not be going anywhere... hopefully... for the rest of the year.  All that travel costs $ too!

BACK TO THE HOUSE.

and the BIGGEST UPDATE!!!

(at least that we are excited to share)

Do you remember me mentioning our air conditioning unit was from 1980?  Ha.


Hahahaha.  Scary looking, eh?  Scarier in person.

I don't believe I posted about the fact that we also - LAST FALL - had our A/C units checked out so we could have the home warranty cover it if they were bad.  Well, they were bad.  Craft Heating and Cooling told them that.  

They wanted a second opinion.  Metro Heating and Cooling  ALSO told them that.  PLUS they told them our furnace needed replaced.  But, it was too cold at that time for Metro to thoroughly check the A/Cs.  

So, we got our furnace replaced...  $3,000 that we didn't have to pay a dime on... Thank you home warranty people.  Aka Old Republic.

NOW - it finally got warm in Pittsburgh and we had them come look at the ACs on May 6th.  The tech actually got them both to run.  But there is just about everything wrong with them - however, he told me the units could be fixed.  And home warranties usually do that any day over replacing them. 

So, I nudged him a little bit.  :)

Went back and forth with Craft and Old Republic.  Tom did actually, not me. 

AND WE ARE GETTING TWO NEW AC units!!! YAHOOOO!!!

Because, I mean really, these look like they are radiating carcinogens or something... really.



And here are some pics of my kiddos today, boy how I love them both!

 

Weekend's work + Day 4 = TILE IN!!

We gave up.

Remember we were trying to use leftover tile?

Well.  6 man hours later we had half of two boxes worth of tile finished.  Here was the process:

Let the tiles soak in hot water for 1 hr +

Scrape.  Scrape.  And Scrape.
Remove grout on edges and glue on back.

After 3 hours of us BOTH scrapping, this is all the tile we had done.
At this instance, Tom was saying 'I bet these are only $1 a sq. ft.  Would cost $50 for the whole bathroom!'

I wish we could have used the tile we saved.  I think we could have, had we started the scrapping process a week ago or so.

We ended up buying the tile at $1.29 a square foot.  The funny thing was though, after holding those old tiles in my hands for hours - then picking up a brand new tile - the difference was incredible!  The new one was MUCH thinner, felt much more fragile. 

They just don't make things like they used to.

The design I came up with.
The pencil tile is new.

Justin was here yesterday for Day 4.  He did a lot of mudding and wall-work.  ALSO INSTALLED SOME TILE!  WOOT WOOT!

At least I am saving something from a landfill.

This is the mirror that my friend was getting rid of.
Going to paint it and use different colors for the ridges.

AND - in the mean time, our family of four is also adjusting :)

Pictures were requested! :)  I love these toes!!

He is adjusting rather well.  That pacifier sure does the trick!

Our FIRST time out as a family of 4.
LITERALLY - the first time all four of us went out together! 

We don't get out much because we are too busy catching up on sleep!

Day 3 - DRY WALL

I am starting to see it look more like a bathroom!

I've thought long and hard about colors, design, hardware, etc.  


We are going to be re-using my best-friends old mirror.  (I need to paint the trim).  A neighbor of ours at our old place was working on someone's bathroom, and they got rid of their old cabinet and he asked if we wanted it - of course we took it!  BUT we will need to paint it... So I've been browsing pinterest and happened to find some colors I'm kind of in love with!  I think its very soft and inviting for a bathroom!  

We are also re-using our tile... and this weekend we need to clean off all the old grout, etc.  That is going to be a CHORE!!  But, will be worth it.  Plus, we saved them from a landfill!

I'll share a pic of my shower tile design this weekend.  I'm kind of getting excited!

Happy ANOTHER WEEKEND OF DIY-ING!!  Much love to you.

Day 2 - MORE progress

Day 1's progress actually... wanted to share it right before Day 2's progress!

Plumbing takes a bit of work!  This is for the shower.

Actually, no progress from this view from Day 1.

Day 2 - Can you spot the progress here?  Here.  Below is Day 1's photo from the same view.

After Day 1 :) And... below is before we started!

Studs are 'studded' out with dry-wall... not really sure why.

This is probably where the BIGGEST progress was made.  See that valve installed for shower?
The walls got Hardibacker  placed on them.
Hardibacker goes behind the tile.  We will be using tile we saved from the Jack n Jill shower.

 Actually - I should show you that tile now!  All the photos above, the bathroom Justin is working on, is the guest bathroom.  This Jack n Jill bathroom is between the two kids rooms.  (I mean, someone had REALLY forward thinking back in 1930!  Its practically UNHEARD of for a 1930s home to have a jack n jill bath!)

That is the original Jack n Jill bathroom.  We saved as much tile as we could!

Now I remember... there was quite a bit of mold behind that tile!  Yuck.

On that note... I wanted to show you an update on that too so here ya go!

The B&W checkered tile was original tile flooring found under the white tile.
The cabinet is by Jonathan Moran.
(and has turned out to be a pain in the @$$ because he didn't make it a standard size)
Concrete countertop.  Next time we do that I will takes pics and share the steps with you!
Sink from repurposed store:  Construction Junction.
Still need to put tile backsplash in and hang the mirror.

Door still needs handles.
Trim around door needs finished (after tile work).

Oh - and one other very unfinished part of the house - but SO CLOSE to being finished - William's closet.  What a PITA! :)  (for you Becky!)

Baseboard installed.  Nail holes need filled.  Needs painted on top.
Melamine shelf needs extended and needs one finished edge.

Posting these pics make me REALLY excited for when we have our open house!  We are inviting EVERYONE we know in Pittsburgh to come check out our home!  Maybe this fall... maybe next year.  But we want to show off our hard work.  And I'm going to print out easel-sized before pictures and place them on an easel in each room!  CAN'T WAIT!

Whew - all this blogging and thinking about all this work we've done makes me tired... so...  I'm toasting a margarita to you tonight!!  

(actually, I'm going to hot yoga to forget about it all!  then maybe a margarita)

Day 1 - Set-up & Game Plan

Justin is only working 40 hours for us.  Its had to justify paying for that when you can do most of it yourself!!  :/  He worked 8 hours yesterday.

Justin KIND-of looks like Mickey... but for all my fellow soccer players I thought this looked more like him?  Can you name this old star?!?!  :)

Didn't get a TON done, I thought... but Tom said he was happy with what he did.  (Every day we will both be going up there to talk over the progress I'm sure!)  Tom said, "Well, an hour to bring up all his tools, an hour to figure out his game plan..."

Dry-wall up already!
You need to (or I guess should) use moisture-resistant dry-wall in bathrooms.  That is why this dry-wall is blue.
He had to put some studs in behind it.
And that is one interesting cut out of a piece of dry-wall

Studs added!
AND - we have LIGHT! 

Electrical lines ran... Some 'dead' Knob and Tube removed

As Tom would say 'fart-fan' installed!

Plumbing was worked on...

A bit of plumbing removed...

I had to run to Busy Beaver to get the Ball Valves (the piece with the yellow handle)
(haha, yes - that is the real name of a real store.  I think its too appropriate)
See the copper pipes to the bottom left?  Justin took those out.  Tom said he spent the better part of an hour last weekend putting those caps on it.  That is the problem with do-it-yourselving... is that sometimes you spend A LOT more time working on something when you really don't need to or shouldn't.

On a SUPER positive note?  Remember I had extra kitchen cabinets to sell?  (we got a 'kitchen set' from the warehouse... and had 11 cabinets leftover).  I SOLD THEM!!  For $750!  Yahooo!!  (the set cost $5,500)

Gotta run & get lunch ready - then taking Mary TO HER FIRST DANCE CLASS!!

Happy HUMP Day!!