You say white... I say almond

May 30, 2012

I hope that all of you spent your Memorial Day weekend having as much fun as we did. We spend from 11am to 8pm (minus 2 hours for Men in Black 3D) on Sunday at Lowes, Menards, and Home Depot.  Gotta love it.  We also got to spend about 1 zillion dollars at the 3 stores, buying uber exciting things like light switches.  In all actuality, we did buy new sinks for the kitchen, new faucets, and all of the tile for the apartment bathroom.  I'm 99% sure that we bought more, but my brain won't let me remember (even though my credit card bill will).  Alok was forced to take the day off of the house due to our air conditioner not working (yes, spending all days at home improvement stores is a day off).

We also looked at our master bathroom floor tile again, which is viewed here:

We are waiting on the bathroom, but I'm trying to convince Alok that we should lay the floor so that we can at least put in the vanities and toilet before we move it (all of which we own). We can wait to tile the whirpool tub and the walk in shower until we somehow have a financial windfall (because when you are spending all of your money/credit on a house and having a baby, this is very likely to happy).

The next day, Alok went to the house to start to tile the apartment shower with the bright white subway tile we bought.  We then learned the danger of not buying all of your tile at once. Apparently, we bought the extra, extra bright white basket weave, because the "bright white" subway tile looks almond.  Now, Alok tend to completely ruminate on small issues (flashback to him using a very serious voice and telling me to look up at the house and what was happening.... I expected to see water gushing through the ceiling and he was showing me that the surround sound speakers were like .5 inches off.... totally unnoticeable), so I didn't know how serious it was.  Anyway, after looking online and going back to the stores and realizing this was as bright white as it gets, he proceeded. 

Now the lighting isn't totally accurate in this picture, but judge for yourself:

OK.... maybe he wasn't kidding. Short of ripping up the basketweave, this is the best we could do.  Oh well. Nothing a shower curtain won't hide.  

Here he is working on the shower:

Looking good, as long as you don't compare ;-)

Live and learn.

Anyway, our kitchen is still under construction. The dirty-yellow colored cabinets are being painted bright white (don't worry, the cherry is staying cherry!)

Much cleaner!  The appliances will be delivered on Saturday too. Only the fridge will be installed, but they will be there.  Oh yes, that's what I forgot. We bought new countertops. And by new, I mean the "cheapest thing that we could do to cover up the hunter green" countertops (black laminate that goes directly on top).  I almost laughed when they said that they were $149 total!  The countertops we want are $80 a square foot.  That sure made the laminate look even better! Regardless, it will make the kitchen look less ridiculous for the time being and we can always change that later.

Once we finish the cabinets and install what we've bought (countertops, appliances, sinks, faucets), the kitchen is (gasp) finished.....  (well, minus the missing trim, but who will notice!)

That's all for now,

Jessica

When are you moving in?

 May 25, 2012

Of course, the question that we are asked approximately 55 times a day is "When are you moving in?"  The real answer is I don't know. What I tell people is "by November."  What Alok says is "2 months" (BTW, he always says 2 months, no matter how long he thinks).  

The 2nd most asked question, is "what do you have left?"  While I can always try to make a list, I thought that I would let the pictures do the talking.  So, this is your answer.  This is what we have left (in no order):  

Fixing the windows....repairing the windows...replacing the windows.... who know?

 

Fix the gaps... literally. Check out the gaps in the floor:

 Paint the cabinets:

Clean up the rooms of random stuff:

Tile the apartment bathroom shower:

 

Take care of the fireplaces (3 total, I don't think I have all the pics):

Get the fixtures installed, like in the small bathroom under the stairs here...  just in all 5.5 baths:

Install the stained glass window:

Figure out what to do with the destroyed stairs:

Cap off the areas in the ceiling/ceiling beams in the attic:

Do something to the attic stairs... ideas? 

Do something to these chimney things...

Install the fixtures in the laundry room.  We will eventually also install cabinets:

 Finish the upstairs hallway bath (later)

Put fixtures in closets to make them closets:

Finish the master bath (and all 5.5 baths, not all are shown here):

Finish the attic bath.... paint the tub, get some fixtures, grout the tile, and seal the window of death:

 Finish the rest of the outside (we've done about 1/8th)

 

  Alok is also still working on scrapping off paint.  Looking pretty good:

In good news, many of these things are being accomplished.  The kitchen was just painted:

Although they still require fixing, Alok has been stripping the paint off the windows in the nursery...looking much better!

 Some of the 7000 weeds were taken out too:

Here is a complete video tour of the house from the top down. Again, take your Dramamine before watching:

3rd floor


2nd floor


1st floor


That's all for now.

Jessica

The clampetts

May 16, 2012 (backdated to the date of pics) 

People often say, "I bet your neighbors are thrilled that the house is being restored."  Apparently, these people haven't been to the house.  Here it is right now:

 

These are mutant weeds.  This is seriously as tall as me

When we arrived at the house, I found this:

Hint, anyone?

In good news for us (but irrelevant to the neighbors), our kitchen is slowly undergoing transformation. Here it is:

We also had just enough left over wood floor from the attic to have it put down in the yellow bedroom (or the room formerly known as the yellow bedroom).  Looking good!

 

 

We are very slowing getting there!!

Jessica