Some insight

In reviewing the process we are going through on the first floor, there are definitely some things to consider before jumping head first in....

PLAN, PLAN, PLAN....we are basically doing the first floor on a whim.  Our original scope of work was to remove one 5 ft section of an existing wall, redo the bathroom, replace the baseboards, paint and refinish the floors.  Where did we end up - a total kitchen/dining/den/bathroom gut.  We removed all walls, redid the bathroom into a powder room, added niches, nooks and closets.  The biggest change is the idea of redoing the kitchen.  This just fell into our lap basically - a wall came out and there was no turning back.  If this happens, you have 2 choices - JUMP in and act fast or STOP, regroup and develop a plan.

Make sure no mater what you do, stay within your budget - the stress from the reno alone can bring you down, add money problems and you may not make it out as a couple!!

Don't be afraid of ordering items on line. I saved $500 alone on my powder room fixtures.  I ordered ALL of my lights and door hardware on line, saving hundreds of dollars.  If you order early enough you will have time to exchange, etc if things won't work out.  You can order all supplies, finishes and decor on line nowadays.

Be creative in terms of resourcing your items - there are countertop fabricators, cabinet wholesalers, and building surplus places in ever city.  Check them out, walk their yards for supplies for your project.  I got a new glass/wood front door slab for $350 - normal price on average over $850 (even with my contractor discount).  I got my quartz countertops from a remnant yard at 40% less than normal industry prices.  It takes a bit of time and effort but again, you can get the high end finishes for much much less.

KEEP up with the dust for your peace of mind.  As much as cleaning and vacuuming a construction site can be a hassle, the peace of mind we have that dust is being controlled up and downstairs is well worth it.  Living in the house during construction takes a particular personality - on the one side you are in the thick of things, you can watch and control just about everything.  On the other side, you have no "normalcy" to balance the chaos.  Keeping the debris to a minimum gives us the false sense of control that keeps us sane!!

Most Important, remember to take a step back and admire your work...I forget to do that most days...I need to look at what we have finished through a less scrutinizing eye in order to be able to appreciate it all.  The process is over as soon as it starts - just like with having a baby - you forget the worst of it just weeks after moving in!! 

Day 280 something!

We are now all plastered up.  We decided to plaster all of the walls on the first floor since the existing had all texture on them adn patching would have been impossible.  I also like the idea of plaster verses sheet rock because the latter is sooo sensitive.  We have dinged and dented hte NEW upstairs in teh first 4 weeks of us living there.  It is terrible.  Plaster offers a buffer and is very durable.  Plus I like the juxdaposition of modern with old world wall texture.  The plasterer we used was a true artist adn does AMAZING work.

Now you didn't think this phase would go off without a hitch on my house did ya?  Imeanhow hard can it be to slap mud on a wall and make textures, right?  WRONG...I have a haunted house.  He spent 2 days applying th eplaster and he noticed some yellow stains showing through on one wall in teh family room.  Now we had brown walls so where teh yellowish spots came from is anyone's guess.  Anyway, he decided to redo the entire wall.  It looked great.  I left teh house and came back 2 hours later - the wall started "crying and bubbling" up like it was possessed with evil juices or something.  it was something straight out of a horror flick.  The plaster master is bewildered and has NO idea how to fix it.  So now we are sitting and waiting for it to dry completely before we make a plan of attck...check it out..

 The tears you can see and in the one below you can see a bump - but the wall is filled with them!!

Other than that - the rest of the walls look amazing>  Everything is so bright and white - nice and clean.

 The textureis called "medium sand" so there are "grains" on the walls..but note how bright it is now without our old darker wall colors!

 We have a truly bright kitchen now.  You can stand at the front door and see the backyard from the right and left!!  I LOVE that.

 Now we just have to pick out a kitchen.  Tilo and I spent this weekend looking at all options - of course about 3-4 weeks too late but what else is new or expected from us.

We are looking at Ikea vs,. carpenter made vs. a combo..these are 2 kitchens we love the look of..

What do you think?

Sheet Rock is up on 1st floor - we have a defined living space

So we are moving forward...sheet rock went up and we now have true walls.  It was a longer process than normal (did we expect otherwise on MY project?) because of the LAYERS of mud required to get the sheet rock flush to the existing plaster.

Next step is to re-plaster all of the new walls, patch existing walls and "tidy" things up to make the first floor look like it is all new. The cost to do this ranges from a few dollars to MANY - do we go with the artist type of plasterer or the fix it up type of guy??  We want it done right but there is a HUGE price difference. I went to look at a $5 million home the plaster artist just completed...WOW. Are we worth it??

For now, take a look at our space - this should help you "visualize" our final interior layout...

 This is the open kitchen/den (computer room for us).  That knee wall will house the base cabinets with cooktop and stove.

 These cabinets will get pushed against the right wall and the fridge will go there as well.

This is the NEW pantry that will offer lots of storage for things PLUS Tilo's sterio equipment.  The hall leads to the family room - no doors there any more.

 This is the other end of the hallway. Below is the closet that is in the hallway.

 Here is the powder room - it will have a raised ceiling for a chandelier..

And here is the family room with the 2 openings that got raised to the ceiling.  We will have 9 ft barn doors slide to the center of the FR wall to keep the room "open".  We are also installing a new frosted glass front door to keep the light in the room.

 And finally the sunroom with the newly exposed brick above the windows. 

Tomorrow is the WORST day - they will sand all of this mud to create smooth ceilings and walls.  It will create a dust that is deadly!!  I have our upstairs securely taped off but the basement is a free for all for dust collection.  I will be cleaning the next days to try to work through the disaster. After tomorrow things should settle down and we should be able to take down our zipper separation and live somewhat "normally" upstairs.  

For NOW however, this is the wall that separates us from the rest of the world and yes our fridge which sits down stairs in the dust bowl....

 Doesnt it look like fun???  More pics to come this week....

"Designing within Reach"

SO we are moving along with the first floor -  a bit slower than I would like but my workload, combined with Viola's middle school transition and Tilo's traveling has us moving along at a snail's pace.

Demo is FINALLY done.  We took down the wall between the dining room and eat in kitchen, then we thought another wall should come out, and THEN we decided the refrigerator had to move so more wall could come out.  NOT recommending to do ti that way!  It is really better if you can think the process through beforehand and stick to the plan :)!!  It was tough though because in our neighborhood, size is everything.  We needed a BIGGER kitchen and we have finally achieved that.

Insulation has now gone in.  What we found out through the demo process is that we have NO insulation in the exterior walls on the first floor.  Funny thing is on the second floor we had insulation in EVERY interior and exterior wall!  Insulation is key to energy efficiency so I had my sub come in and put insulation in any open cavity they could find.  When we removed the existing kitchen backsplash, the sheet rock also came off opening up the wall cavities on most of the kitchen walls.  We then stuffed batt insulation up and down in those cavities.  Hopefully we will see the difference in our power bills.  We also insulated between the 1st and 2nd floors for soundproofing.  These things make a difference in the "feel" of the home.

Sheet rock will be installed this week, then we head into interior trim, hardwoods, cabinet/countertop installs and painting.  Now is crunch time for me as ALL design decisions have to be made.  I am struggling because my tastes do not exactly match our budget.

First decision is countertops.  Granite is the most common matl used, the newest is Quartz.  Quartz is an engineered product made from natural quartz.  it is super durable but also expensive.  You can buy "remnant" pieces from most fabricators but I need almost 50sf.  I have found one place with enough "random" pieces of a quartz by Zodiaq but I am still not 100% sold.  This is a HUGE investment so it needs to work with our taste and for resale.

The colors I like are "Biana Carrara" by Zodiaq and true Concrete by Dex Industries.  Have a look...

 This is the Bianca Carrara with dark cabinets - we would do dark gray cabinets..

 This is a concrete countertop which I love, just not sure about the resale value. It is an up and coming tread for sure....just need to evaluate it!! What do you think?? Let me know!

Then we have the backspash to choose - I am actually leaning toward solid panels of glass...AM I crazy??

It will add size and brightness to the kitchen and honestly I am a cleaner anyway and it is a whole lot easier to wipe a smooth glass surface than a tiled surface!!

Once we have those decisions made, it is cabinet color - we are having our maple cabinets painted and new door fronts made. Then it is paint colors - EASY white on white, hardwood floor color - going with another "custom color" - light gray!  YES we are asking for trouble after having to redo the floors upstairs 4 times!  But my hardwood floor guy seems to think he has the process down now so the color shouldn't be an issue!!  Keep your fingers crossed for us!!

Last stop - FURNITURE.  we sold everything on the first floor before we started so we need to replace it all!!

Will post some pictures of insulation and sheet rock on Tuesday.  You will be able to envision the space once the rock is in place!  Thanks for following!!

Day 251 - a gluton for punishment

PHASE 2 - lordy lordy what am I doing?

Once again we turned Ruben and his crew loose on our first floor and look at the results...

New opening from hall into open kithen floor plan,....no more doors!!

 

 The open kitchen before we finialized the design....more to be knocked out....

New pantry closet

 
New open kitchen plan - all open in all 3 rooms on left side of the house....crazy right??

We discovered more brick under the sheet rock above the windows and recaptured it!!

 The new large hall closet..

House had to be redone with electrical - had some crazy wiring going on. HVAC ducts were rerun as well.  Plumbing installed.  have some loose ends to tie up but will head into insulation and sheet rock next week!!  K

Day 251 - The RECAP of Phase 1

I had sooo much fun the first go round on the second floor that I decided to go ahead and gut the first floor!!  What started out as "changing a few baseboards and making a cased opening" turned into a new bathroom, pantry, kitchen, computer room, and vestibule!!  The fun just keeps on coming!

There has been so much that has happened over the last 6 weeks with PHASE 1 that I just couldnt keep up the writing - mostly negative stuff...whatever COULD happen in a renovation project DID happen to us!  Here's a quick recap:

1. Hardwood floor color was "difficult - it required 4 weeks of "trying" to make it work - 4 times resanding, restaining and reapplying the poly!!  Now we have beautiful pickled floors but the process was horrific!
2.  They delivered and installed the wrong master vanity cabinet TWICE!  We got settled in last week and kept thinking the sink is too low.  I was so frustrated thinking I had ordered the low height - NOOOO I did NOT.  They simply installed it too low - by 6".  Now my countertops and hutch were on...they came in this week and tore it all up again to raise the toe kick to get me a 35" countertop!! I have holes in my sheet rock, crud on the countertop, and no running water!!!  Once again the family of 3 is using one tiny bathroom - renovated but small!!
3.  The master bathroom mirrors had to be made TWICE - how can someone hang a mirror and cut the hole for hte vanity sconce 2" off center?  I don't know but that is exactly what happened. I came home, stood in front of the sink and had to bend right to get underneath the light.  I LOVE this business!!
4. We go to move upstairs and EVERY time we touch a wall the paint comes off or it leaves a HUGE ding.  First day of moving up til puts a quarter size dent in Viola's wall!  We are yelling and screaming at each other not to TOUCH the walls!  No way to live - what I wouldn't give to have my concrete plaster walls back at this point!  Urgh!!

SO rather than gripe and moan to you guys out there, I just let it go until I found myself in a better more humorous state!!

Here are our results upstairs so far....
Master walk in Closet

Our super modern landing and stair well

V's Closet - lots of organization!!

Master bathroom - still needs backsplash...

 V's bedroom...such a peaceful color

 Guest bedroom that is temporarily our kitchen/family room during PHASE 2

 The Master Suite - needs some pictures but we are in!!

So now we are full swing in to PHASE 2 - the first floor.  We are in the demo/framing stages which are the most stressful.  Every time the bang something downstairs I hope and pray that it doesn't crack something upstairs that is finished!!!  So far so good...Will send PHASE 2 pictures next!  Thanks for still following!!  K

Day 229 - Have you given up on me yet???

SO it has been a while and YES I am ...oh...let me see.....160 days OVER schedule....BUT we moved in over the last 3 days.  We have finally reclaimed our 2nd floor.  Now mid you, our move is not your typical - "let me get the things from storage and move in" type of move. No, we have to dig through millions of boxes to see what we can and can not unpack at this point because we are vacating the 1st floor for PHASE 2....So over the last 3 days we have moved our existence from floor 1 to floor 2, added a few boxes of missing clothes, shoes, books and toys while eliminating things we wont need any more on floor 1.

Ruben will start this week with the 1st floor demo.  We have decided to remove a major wall between teh DR and Kitchen area, add a kitchen peninsula, create a pantry space where there used to be a tub, redo the powder room, repaint, retrim and redo the hardwoods.  Should take us about 8 weeks but who's counting - certainly not me this time around.

Check out our process over the last 72 hours:

 This is the first floor after 48 hours of moving.

 The hardest part was deciding what we'd need upstairs and what not as "living space" is way more limited upstairs.

 The site of our future family room - mini- kitchen - dining room over the next 8 weeks!

 Prepare, Prepare, Prepare for the worst.  We are trying to salvage our paint job that we paid for twice.

We got a lot unpacked and made the space livable by our newly set lower standards :).  Actually it will be fine for 8-10 weeks.  We are so tired that it truly doesnt matter.

Check out our latest "looks"...

Vs Room....her bed and piano corner.

 The :big picture:  she is bust as a little bee getting things organized and ready!!  First sleep over with a friend in her new room is Friday!

 This is our new mini Kitchen - family room - dining room...We still have to get our final inspection tomorrow - if the inspector asks why my kitchen table is upstairs now I will tell him we have to wait a few weeks to get our floors finished and needed to get in so this was how we are handling it.  Could be trouble for us!

Master Vanity - I added a second upper cabinet since the last pictures.  waiting on mirrors to come in this week and then it will be ready.. a dream come true.

The once HUGE master closet looks shrunken down by the amount of sh_t we have!!!

The master hallway above and the new maser glass shower doors - how upscale do we feel now???

This is Tilo's pride and joy - our VERY own steel and glass landing railings. They look AMAZING in the space making i feel so wide and open. Crazy that they are in our house!!!

The future master bedroom - furniture is being restained so we are bare minimum right now~~it'll all be worth it come Thanks giving!!

Vs bathroom...

I will post tomorrow when I feel better - too tired tonight but wanted to up date you on our progress as slow as it may be..I will outline our delays tomorrow while offering pointers for your own renovation - things ot catch early on before they catapult and wind up costing you 100% ore...