Down to Studs

Today we had Ken's help and I can now see my toilet from the kitchen...that is an odd feeling. The dumpster is also full... luckily the contractor is coming by tomorrow to see how we're doing, so he'll get us another one asap.

Dust, dust and more dust

Yesterday was a major demo day with the help of our friend, Mark. The brick floor is now gone! As are the wall cabinets and most of the wood paneling. The boys fashioned a brick moving device that involved our wheel barrow on top of our dolly. Apparently, the wheel barrow wheel, couldn't handle the weight.
Unfortunately, due to stiff winds that would whip through the house anytime the front door was opened (which was alot when you're hauling out a floor and things). This lead to a layer of brick colored dust on EVERYTHING in the living room and family room. Oy. When I got back from our day trip with Keagan, we decided to go out to dinner and then go straight to Keagan's room for night time. When Keagan was asleep, Erik cleaned every dish (and anything that could be put in the sink), while I wiped the couch, floor, rug and all horizontal surfaces with a hot soapy cloth diaper... I think we both slept pretty well last night. We have yet to tackle the living room.

Welcome to my Plastic world

We put up the plastic dust screens today. It really says "homey" to me, I think we should keep them up all the time. We also met with our contractor to sign the contract and give him a deposit. Our wallet feels a bit lighter for some reason... The workers will start on Tuesday. Do you think it's a bad idea to start a project like this on April 1st?

Day Before Demo!

Today has been a very productive day. I finished packing up the kitchen. You know, you never really appreciate all the nooks and crannies of storage space your house hass until you have to put your whole kitchen into it. Then Erik and I moved the refridgerator into the family room. It's pretty handy having your fridge next to your dining table- you know, in case you forget the ketchup. We also moved our kitchen cart into the family room with our microwave, toaster oven, coffee maker and an electric kettle (knew I should save that for some reason). So we have our essentials. It will be a drag when the kitchen sink is gone, but we'll use the bathroom sink conveniently located right behind our new makeshift kitchen. Erik loaded the dishwasher one last time after the kitchen was all cleaned out- it's hand washing from now on (of course I bought a large supply of disposable dishes and flatware too). We also had our dumpster delivered today- a cute little half height version with a door in the back for easy loading. Tomorrow demo begins!

The living room gets a makeover

We realized we need to make as much room as possible for the contractors coming in and out of the front door with various pieces of new furniture/fixtures, our existing appliances which we are keeping, and all the stuff we bought so far until it's installed. Whew! So, we put our recliner in storage and moved the little couch around to make our living room more open. Keagan has since made the coffee table a train table and loves the new arrangement ;)

More shopping!

Ok, I love shopping, but this is getting ridiculous! We are shopping all the time and spending at least a couple hundred dollars everytime we are in a home store. Today we go a hand truck to help Erik and friends with the demo, and moving our appliances around. That was the easy purchase for the day. Then it was off to the lighting department. My head nearly spun around! I picked out some very simple recessed lights for the kitchen, but I don't know if I got the right size for the room, so I have an inquiry in to the electrician. Then I bought some under cabinet lighting, but I don't know if the electrician meant for me to get "plug-in" or a hard wired option... another inquiry. I really hope my emails to these guys do not make me come off as some dumb blond. I honestly did research into my options before going to buy, but even still, it was overwhelming! We also picked out some wall tile for the tub surround, if we can't get a 6 foot fiberglass surround. Phew!

Sub-contractor walk-through

Today our contractor brought a plumber and an electrician by the house to walk through the project and get their input and estimates. Things are harder for the plumber with the slab foundation, but certainly doable. He did call back shortly after he left saying his supplier does not make a 3 sided tub surround for a 6 foot tub, only 5 foot. So our contractor is going to do some research on finding one, if we can't find one (that's an affordable option) then we'll go with a tile surround. We really want the 6 foot tub :)
The electrician was happy to see we had updated our electrical to a 220 box and that we had adaquate space to get around in the attic for dropping lines. We do have a "mystery switch" in the kitchen and after everything is gutted we might actually be able to see it's purpose! He may even be able to make use of it.
Demo is scheduled for the last weekend in March, with construction beginning April 1st or 2nd. WOHOO!! We can't wait to start, especially since our light and/or GFI outlet in the bathroom decided to short two nights ago, so we've already moved things into the smaller bathroom.

Shopping Begins!!

We've had a couple of exciting shopping days since this weekend and our kitchen is starting to pile up with the smaller things like faucets, light fixtures, etc. I also went on a trip to a counter store with our contractor this morning and we picked out our countertop! We decided on Corian, with a semi gloss finish, in the Maui pattern, which is like a brown/charcoal color with lighter flecks throughout. We have also bought our floor tile, which is a beige color that is textured so as not to be slippery and the texture makes some swirly-type patterns in the tile. We have chosen the wood for our cabinets (Natural Maple), but not the actual cut-out design for the doors. I tried to take a picture of our samples all together, but I don't know if the colors are accurately portrayed in the photo. Gives some idea though (click on the photo for a larger view).

Floor survey

Erik took up a couple feet of our brick tile to make sure the subfloor was in decent shape. Our contractor is happy to let Erik (and friends) do a bunch of the demo work for the remodel to save us a ton of money on labor, but he wanted to make sure we all knew what was under the brick tile so he would be prepared for the kind of prep work involved before laying new tile. Erik was happy to oblige and had some fun the other day while Keagan and I left the house for a while. I then put a little gate around the pulled up tile so a certain little toddler wouldn't go poking around the area. Our contractor has since come to visit and is happy with the condition of the subfloor. One potentially scary result concured- about 115 more to go!

Packing Begins!

Although I'm hesitant to pack up too much of my kitchen before I know a firm date is set for the construction to begin, there is a lot of packing that needs to be done and it can't all wait until the last minute. I have put a lot of what was on the baker's rack up against the wall into the hall closet and started packing our less-used kitchen gear into boxes. We got a 50 sq ft storage unit in Hudson for putting a bunch of stuff in (as our storage room in our house is already full) and Erik has already taken a couple trips there. I also put the baker's rack on Craigslist so we can sell it since we'll have better storage in the new kitchen. Wohoo!!

Welcome to our remodel!!

For those that don't know, we are about to embark on a large remodeling project involving our kitchen, front bathroom, and our bedroom. Through lots of brainstorming we have decided to completely gut the kitchen and bathroom. The wall between them is going to move about 3 ft into the kitchen to make the bathroom larger and make a wall-length closet in our bedroom. The kitchen will still be plenty big, and remain an "eat in" as well- except now we might actually put a table in it because we won't need extra storage space where a table should be. We are ridiculously excited about this whole project and very eager for it to get underway. We have chosen a contractor and are currently starting to pack up and get ready to remodel!