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...

Day 160 something...we are so close yet soooo far away

So in the last few weeks we have been working to finalize the details of the finishes of our 2nd floor.   We have been dealing with "fixing" the imperfections that the american subcontractors obviously do not see.  If nothing else I am sure that this is probably not the industry for me and my eye for perfection. I walk into a space and can tell you every imperfection, mistake and mishap. It is a curse but great for my clients!!  It is horrible in this situation because nothign is good enough for my own house but I can't reemthe guys because i have ot work with them at my projects!!  They think I am crazy, but you knwo what ..I am paying for this and I want what I want.

Please in your own process be very clear about your expectations providing pictures, samples of the finishes you are looking for. The clearer and more precise you are the easier it will be to request a "redo" at no extra charge.  If you state your desire upfront with samples and pictures the contractor has the chance to say "that is not how I priced the work" or to tell you he can not achieve that level of finish. if he does not speak up, he has officially bought into your concept and agreed to it. I made the mistake of not being as demanding with the guys as I am on a regular job site..I did show examples but didn't see it through - checking them every step of the way, and more importantly stopping them when they lost their course.  What am I left with now? well...

We are finishing our floors next week and the painter is back on Thursday to redo ALL of the new trim.  The paint job was horrendous and my new expensive trim material looks like it has been painted 6 times over and is 10+ years old!  SO yes he is redoing it ALL...I am even willing to pay someone to fix it if he cant.  Paint is the most important finish - trim paint is what it is all about!! Cut corners on wall painting and do it yourself, but pay a TOP professional to paint your trim!!

There are some positives - the lights are up and the countertops are going in Tuesday..check us out...

Master Bedroom - Gray wall, can lights and fan..

Master WALK IN Closet!!

Master bathroom pendant lights...

  Our bathroom uncovered - waiting on countertops..
 
Viola's blue room! Actually totally relaxing..like in the ocean...

My DISCO Stairwell....have glass disco balls!  Will change to back wall to gray to make the lights POP...

Viola's "green" bathroom...she loves it...

Viola's bathroom sconce..

Now we have to pick floor colors - we are going LIGHT upstairs and dark downstairs...we like the middle slightly pink color and the the second dark one from the left for the main floor and stairs.

More pics to come with more finishes...We are starting with the design selection for the 1st floor and GUESS WHAT - the scope has increased 10 fold....LIKE always....you cant touch something old and not want to fix it ALL!!!!!!!

Where are we now??

Again it has been a while since I last posted.  It has been a roller coaster ride trying to be my own general contractor, project manager and client.  I need to  hire "me" to manage my own project and things would happen a lot faster.  I am so busy getting things done they way Tilo and I want them done (hard task given we use German standards and not American!) and still try to make all of the design and finish decisions in a timely manner so as not to hold up the entire project.

Where are we now?  Well exterior painting is complete and we have brand new gutters on the entire home.  All that is left is the front door and the garage door which will both be stripped and stained, and then the landscaping which is a HUGE task in itself and will not be done until the heat wave breaks here in Atlanta - maybe mid September.  Here are some exterior pictures....

 We used a Sherwin Williams gray color and "tweaked" it to add a tint of green.  Sometimes the house looks gray, sometimes silvery and some times green.  We are really happy with the choice.

 The rear elevation looks so much better - like it is also brand new.  Now Tilo and Viola will have to paint the little garden house to match - nice fall project for dad and daughter.

 We chose a new gutter color - never been used by my installer before and it turned out really cool.   A silvery gray that adds alot to the front with the granite stone.  Tilo had them come back after I took this picture to tweak the gutter connections to make all the water lead away from the house. 

 New paint, Gutters, and stone - looks like a $300k remodel right?  We love it!!

We have also got a lot done on the interior.  All of the ceilings and walls have been painted and they will finish up with the interior trim Monday - Tuesday.  We went white on white for most of the rooms, adding an accent wall to the master.  Viola's room is a light blue and her bath a very faint green to go with her accent tile band.  All tile has been completed and sealed but due to the construction mess, I think I will have to re-grout my dark floor when it is all said and done..URGH..wasn't here to manage the subs that came in after it was complete.  Frustrating really...have a look at the new Master shower....

 Limestone was used throughout on all the floors in the Master Bath - this is the shower floor and curb.  I added a limestone bench and niche ledge after the fact - making ALL the difference in the world in the final product.  Having my installer tear out the left wall was the hardest but best decision I have made thus far. 

 Glass accents where the shower heads are located....

 Chrome accents around the niches - make them sparkle and look that much more modern.

I will go up and take paint pictures and shower/toilet fixture pictures - everything went in on Friday.  The last thing that will go in - and of course they are all waiting on me to make up my mind about - are the countertops.  Viola's is a gray limestone and mine ..well I am thinking of resin??  I need modern so granite really does not work and that is my struggle.  cant mess that decision up!  I should have them in by the end of this week with the sinks.....More pictures to come this evening..