Day 386 - AND we have offically stepped into the Home Stretch!!

The countertops went in today and they are everything i wanted!  I am so glad I stuck to my guns and had them redo the edges. It made the BIGGEST difference.  There are a few hick ups in that they have to come back and polish the seam of the waterfall because there is a slight lip and it should be flush, but all in all it is beautiful.

 I have also selected the backsplash.  Went with the :newest thing" that I found at a fraction of the cost...back painted solid glass sheets applied to the walls.  It is super easy to clean, very sleek and modern plush it brings in a slight pop in color to my otherwise very white/grey kitchen.  These can be priced upwards of $30-40 per sf and I found a LOCAL manufacturer at half price which is what one would pay for normal tile backsplash material and labor.  It just takes a little online work and you can find almost any high end finish at a reduced price.  Talking to people always makes a difference.  I call vendors and am upfront about my budget and they then tailor their product search to my needs.  Often I am able to find something that I didnt know existed or was not shown in a catalog online.  Never hurts to ask...
Here is the countertop color next to this dreamy yellowy-cream-weird color that we have chosen....I love it!  Not for everyone I am sure but we love it...

SO plumber couldnt squeeze me in tomorrow, I have him set for Monday because of the schedule the countertop people gave me originally. They, after giving me such a HARD time and pushing me back 2 weeks in my schedule by placing me on a friday install, called yesterday and said "we will be there Thursday and if that didnt work then it would have to be NEXT week".  FRUSTRATING!!
so we will have to wait over the weekend with no activity once again...this is all about HURRY up and WAIT.
Painting will be Tuesday, Hardwood floor finish Wednesday, sofa delivery next Friday and we are officially in!

What will i do without the blog??? Oh wait - we have heavy duty hard - & landscape coming up.  No just kidding!

Day 383 - Hurry up and WAIT

Patience is a virtue, more so in construction than in ANYTHING else.  We are patiently awaiting the countertops which are due to arrive on Friday.  In the meantime we did a few more things ourselves to help save money.  This weekend we hung up our new ceiling mounted range hood....

Now we are really ready to cook.  We hooked up the range and did a few odds and end things.
  Tilo installed his NEW TV...this was the one thing he wanted out of all of this a big TV with surround sound speakers through out the house!!!!

We are sooo looking forward to movie night with an honest to goodness sofa that we can curl up on!
We also had our entry door cabinet installed. We will use this to store cell phones, car keys and shoes.  There is also a piece of countertop that will go on top to tie it into the kitchen...

 

And we have been busy with making choices, like area rugs/carpets and even our glass kitchen backsplash.  The dark grey at the bottom is our concrete countertop color and the light yellowish color at teh top right is what we are thinking about for the backsplash - an entire wall of glass.  YES glass..it is so much easier to wipe down adn keep clean than the 1000 grout lines of a glass mosaics.  We'll see...

 

The silvery color is a jute we like for our bedroom. The larger upper brownish-grey swatch is possibly for the kitchen area.  Or we are going to go totally crazy in that area - super modern and bright nad pick some floor squares from FLOR (which are amazingly affordable) and do something like this....

Go totally outside of the box. It is getting fun now - decorations, furniture, personal touches...the process seems unfair though.  Why do we have to wait until the end when we are exhausted, out of money, time and patience to strat the fun stuff?? 

Day??? Now you see it....Now you dont

I bet you all think I havent been able to post this week because we were soooo busy getting ready to move in this weekend.  Now did you honestly think the last week of this disasterous renovation would go as planned???  Unfortunately I did.  We had a great schedule: Countertops Monday, Plumbing Tuesday, Painting Wed/Thurs, Floors Friday and Move in Saturday.

Well Monday the countertops came in, now you see them....

Now you dont...

Gone again...

  We choose Ceasarstoen Quartz in "Concrete"..the color looked great and upon close inspection, we found that they had cut the WRONG edges on the tops. They lobbed off the corners to create a 1/8" bevel instad of just slightly nipping the corner off.  The look we were going for was very square and modern and what they brought looked more old fashioned.  So AWAY they went, back to the shop.

I was so distraught and dissappointed ot say the least. I had to postpone every other conctractor.  I speant all week going back adn forth to the stone place, arguing and then finally convincing them to redo  it.  I even went so far as to have my OTHER fabricator make me a sample of the edging i wanted and gave that to them to duplicate.  The new install date got pushed WAY back adn there was nothing i could do.  We are on their schedule for Friday!! Which means I cant get the plumber or anyone out until the following week.  We lost 2 weeks!!! 

This is what they brought...
See the edge, upper left?

And this is what we wanted.

Lesson here, do NOT give up at the end, especially when you are exhausted and think you can not make it anymore.  That is when I see people concede to things that are not necessarily what they want.  I almost did it here, but I have come this far and want what I want.  I am tired, upset and disappointed but it is worth MORE to have what I want. Don't give up..hang in there and wait out the process!!

So I will post some pics later this afternoon of things we are getting done while we WAIT.  We hung the range hood, made some decisions about carpets and steel details...now it is getting fun!!

Day 375 - Let the FINAL countdown begin!!!!!

This is hell week for us.  The schedule is insane and there are a million things still to do before we move in next weekend.  I will post each day as the things going on are what will make a huge difference visually.  Here is the schedule:

Monday - Countertop installs with bar
Tuesday - plumbing and electricla fixutres installs PLUS appliance hook ups - except for the hood because we have no idea who or how to do it!!
Wednesday - Paint touch up for 2 days
Thursdday - paint touch up and handle install on cabinets... and ANY other last minutes things we need to do like hang up the TV
Friday - Apply the FINAL coat of poly on the hardwood floors

WEEKEND - Move in!!!

Stay posted....

Purchasing fixtures..some insight into online shopping

Over the last year I have become what I would like to think - an expert at online home decor shopping.  Give me a model number of an accessory, fixture, you name it and I will find it on line for LESS.  I have lots of light fixtures from Europe that I bought at a fraction of what they cost in the Atlanta stores even with my "trade discount".  You have to just give yourself time in case you need to return something, swap something out or start over because what you purchased just didnt work with the space. 

I have returned a ton of stuff online with NO problems and always received a full refund.  I bought all toilets, faucets, sinks, lighting and plumbing fixtures on line.  We bought our door knobs (saved BIG money there), hinges, and even our pillow covers on line.  I have probably saved $5-8000 total on the items we purchased. 

My favorite sites are Build.com (which also owns faucetdirect, lightingdirect, pullsdirect, handlesets.com), Homeclick.com (set up a pro account there with free shipping!), and even Amazon.  A MODERN lighting fixture site with great pictures and sometimes better pricing is Lumens.com.  Looking for make up mirrors, check out mirrors4makeup.com.  Need cabinet inserts for organization, check out Opentip.com or cabinetmakerssupply.com.  And do NOT forget to search "Coupons" on the web.  Type in your request for coupons for a particular website and many sites pop up.  Do not use the ones that require you to give your email address.  there are a million others that simply give you a coupon code with the success rate of it's use.  I have gotten luck y there with free shipping coupons, etc.

The easiest way to do price comparisons is to type in the manufacturer's model number of the item into google and let them bring up the list of stores that carry the item.  It will tell you the item cost plus any S&H charges.  If you set up a trade account you will get a discount on top of most prices.  KEY when looking at Build.com, go to the "sale" or "Coupon" tab to get sales on specific brands.  They give you the coupon code right there, type it in a check out and enjoy the extra savings.

When you received your purchased items, check them immediately and notify the company right then and there if something is missing or damaged.  A few times we received damaged goods.  I took a picture of the product, emailed that to the customer service department and both times they sent me a replacement WITHOUT me having to send the damaged item back!  Online shopping can save you thousands on a large scale renovation project.  Don't be scared, take the plunge and use the extra cash to buy an extra special something for your home.

A year PLUS.....we are heading down the home stretch

Finally I had enough energy at night to upload the photos I have taken over the last weeks and get them to this spot.  It has been a whirlwind of decisions to make that have taken a lot out of us....doing things "on the fly" is not a trait I am good at.  I need to have a plan - without one I am LOST.  So LESSON learned, do NOT, I repeat, do NOT start a renovaiton project, no matter how big or small, without a plan. It is normal to change things up, add a closet here and there, but to tear out wall after wall, demo cabinet after cabinet without knowing what you will go back with....BIG mistake!

It will be great when we are done which by the way is a few weeks away.  This week is dead time as we wait for the kitchen countertops to be fabricated.  They are scheduled to be installed on Jan. 16th, plumbers and electrician will be back on the 17th for the final fixture installs, the painters will come in on the 18-19th for touch up and then the final coat of poly goes down on the 20th....24 hrs dry time and we MOVE in.  I can't believe it!!

Here is where we are so far....
All walls were plastered and painted...

Then we started to design the kitchen - with hours and hours of design time, trying to make IKEA cabinets work, we found a fantastic cabinet maker - Amir at Royal Custom Cabinets who helped us create the modern space we wanted.  We taped off the kitchen to get used to the layout..

We are gaining tons of storage space in our little kitchen.  Next up were appliances - we LUCKED out and got a SubZero Fridge - the Mac-Daddy of fridges for a fraction of it's cost, bought a new stove, new dishwasher and even a new microwave.  I sold all of the other ones we had along with my cabinets and countertops!!

Here she is....Tahdaaaaaah..

Then we finalzed the remaining design details and started cabinet production.  We had a pantry built in and even installed a new front door...
 

As we awaited the cabinet install, we had our stairs redone a SECOND time because the first time turned out horrible.  It was money wasted and was unfortunately an amount we could have used to upgrade to concrete treads.  We did wood again and this time it turned out great. We also picked an awesome color for the floors downstairs - Stone Gray.  It is woody but with a gray tint that makes it modern.  We love the color....

 

Now we are on our way!!  The painting was completed, some of the lights installed and then came SOME of the cabinets -

Hallway between kitchen and family room

Powder Rm disco light...

Kitchen Cabinets....partially installed...YES white cabinets!!!

View looking into computer room - the old DR

Glass Upper Cabinets

My cool Orb light in the hallway...will hang over a mirror

New Sexy sultry Powder Rm!!

New stove and peninsula cabinets...

SO now we are waiting on the rest of the cabinets to come in this week and then the countertops next week.  Let's just hope a snow storm doesn't settle in and cause any more details!!