Progress... So Close, But So Far

 My street looks crazy. This whole time we have had a leak and repairs, our neighbor across the street has had the same problem. Nonetheless, I love driving down the street to see work trucks all over the place. It means progress.

This projects has had a lot of mess, a few set backs and some waiting around for people. But we are getting it fixed right. Every room in this house is now touched. It is like a brand new home. Look, no more hole in my kitchen! Not counting the cement they filled in that hole, they used 5 bags of cement to stuff in the void under the slab that was created by water shooting out for a month.

Since that repair in the nick of time, we got to keep our cabinet install date for today. The cabinets are back!

This is such a great feeling. Yesterday I dropped my husband off at the air port for a 4 day conference. I was a little stressed because I knew I was on call and likely going to be called to a birth. I also have 2 awards assemblies for my kids today, 4 soccer games for the them this weekend and last night alone both of the kids had to be in 3 places. So, sure enough as I was leaving the airport, I get a text from my client (5 cm but going leaving the hospital and going grocery shopping). It was an amazing birth! and I made home in the middle of the night to get a little sleep and make it to both kids assemblies. My kids also got to all their places and the dog got taken care of all because of my amazing community of helpers.

Needless to say, I started off the day a little tired and as it goes on that tired wears on my. When I am tired my patients are short. I have mostly been very excited about this project because we get to change a few things in the kitchen that I don't like, things I thought I would never be able to do. But, not just that, this time NONE of the work is being done by us. It is a different kind of stress, actually a ton less stress having a project that I know will be cleaned up when done, workers will protect my floor, it will be finished in a certain amount of time and my husband and I won't be exhausted in the process. There is a certain level I expect when people are being paid to do things. So, today when I come home and the cabinet guys are leaving with saw dust ALL OVER, I ask them  if they were going to clean it up before they leave. He told me he would sweep, but he doesn't have his vacuum with him... Ok, that's fine, I suppose. He swept and left. I went down stairs to take a look at my finished cabinets only to find sawdust crunching under my feet every where. I was so excited to take a nap before school got so I was just ignoring it. I'll clean later. But, there is so much and as I am looking around, I notice he didn't add the pull outs I asked for and he did this!

This is SO not a professional job! I was so upset. I sent a text to the project manager immediately and told him this is specifically something I said in the beginning I did not want. Then I told him about his rude cabinet guy and the mess he made. (By the way, I am the one that covered and protected my floor!) Long story short (and yes, there is more) This ugly disaster under the cabinets is getting fixed Monday and it will not anything else back, in particular the granite and sink. 

So, there is my complaint and I am extremely grateful for all this work and now, I am taking a nap for 30 minutes. Not enough time! (Plus, the darn dog is out snoring in my room like is so easy to be sound asleep in the middle of the day.) Maybe my kids will go to bed early with me tonight. Hopefully Monday more changed.

Oh, one more thing, the holes in the garage are all gone and it's painted today. My garage is put back and all new again.

Kristen

It's a Whole New Level of Dust!

Yesterday, after a week of no work, we had a portion of the foundation in our kitchen cut out. Our cabinets were supposed to go in last Wednesday, but we put that on hold because the hallow sounding sinking slab was a big concern to us. We decided to have Inline Construction come and check it out. We are glad we did! They squeezed us in to saw cut out a portion of slab that was sinking and fill any hole under it then repour new slab. I was in my room working and came out to a gray haze all over the house. Can you see in the picture? It looks kind of hazy? The picture just doesn't do it justice, that haze isn't the lighting, it is gray dust. 

Here is part of my kitchen, the part we are kind of using.

Then the other side. In the back left, you can see a gap under the slab. That gap was about 3 inches. There was nothing between the dirt and slab.

This picture is blurry, but you can see again a big gap. This gives a new meaning to a floating floor.

I don't know that they were thinking in the 60's, but they build houses with no rebar in the foundation and in some parts, it is only about an inch thick.

Today all the cement is cleaned out, it's filled and compacted. Now we are ready for some re bar and some new cement.

Another fuzzy picture of a gap under the foundation.

Hopefully this dust will settle soon and Friday my cabinets should be put back and soon I will have a normal house.

Until then, I finally went to Home Depot for paper and tape to protect my wood floor. I feel like every day of construction there is a new scratch.

Kristen

Can There Be Any More Dust?

Can there be any more dust? I don't think so. I wipe down a chair and come back just a bit later and it looks like I never wiped it down to begin with!

Before all those pictures, we must go backwards to yesterday. Yesterday was a day where I had nothing, no appointments, nowhere to be, all was quiet. The kids didn't even have practice! We decided to take a nice leisurely walk around the park where everyone including the dog took their time looking at all the ducks in the pond.

Today, is a totally different day! I remembered I have a burner on my barbecue so I hiked over to the boxes and climbed steep couches and chairs to dig out buried pots all in the name of breakfast. Little C has been wanting oatmeal so, he got oatmeal this morning cooked like a true camping family, outside in the wonderful fall air.

Mr. C and I take the dog on a 4 mile hike Thursday mornings before I go to bible study. When I got home from bible study, this is what I saw just inside my front door.

To the right is my living room and this is what it looks like. This is now how we are living.

Even with all this mess, there is a huge load off my shoulders this time knowing I am not the one doing the work. When we do it our selves, the job always takes longer then expected and is more work then expected. This time, someone else gets to do all the dirty work and haul away heavy bags of tile. Someone else gets to tape all this up and vacuum up after. Someone else gets to put all the tools away. It is amazing!

Except I still get to deal with what flies through the air and lands on everything.

Maybe the kids bathroom was feeling a little left out that the kitchen was getting all the attention so it decided to reveal to us a bad wax seal under the toilet. I happened to be in the garage the other day when L was going to the bathroom and when she flushed water came dripping down through one of the new holes in the garage (yes, those are still there). Mr. C investigated and figured the wax seal went bad. Turns out it was a bad wax seal. It never squished and molded to the toilet. And all this time when there was yellow around the edge of the toilet that I had to clean, I thought something happened and little C who was so good at pee-ing IN the toilet had suddenly started missing and pee-ing over the side. I am glad to know my son can still manage to pee in the toilet.

So, anyway, this is what the kids bathroom looks like. Yes, those are clean dishes that I just washed in the bathtub. I am aware they are on the floor next to the toilet. But in my defense, I did just spray the floor with a very strong chemical antibacterial that I NEVER buy. Mr. C only bought it because this was an emergency that he felt needed something a little stronger then my homemade bathroom cleaner.

Tomorrow should be the last dusty day. But we will see. I won't get my hopes up, there is always something.

Kristen

The demolition begins!

Today it all begins! The granite came out, back splash, tile and I have no usable kitchen. Here is my entry...

See the kitchen. I get to go look at new granite tomorrow. 

here is my dinning room. This area needs to be cleared out by Thursday.

What a mess! I needed to get some organizing done once the guys left today.

That's better, I have a kitchenette (without a sink) in my living room. I was able to get my hands on a nice electric skillet from a wonderful, generous friend. So, I can still make the kids eggs for breakfast and gluten free pancakes on game days.

The damaged tile started to get removed and we found that there was some previous repairs by the previous owner. Lovely, we had no idea and it just leaked again. Also, it's a big drop beside the crack.

This section that is lighter is where the new cracking was along the edge. Once the tile came out, we saw huge cracks, like this chunk is just sinking. Also, one someone walks on it or stomps, the whole thing moves. just on the other side of the crack, it's solid, no movement.

Some up close of the cracking.

Tomorrow the drywall is getting repaired and a cabinet guy is coming to talk to us about options if I want to take the time to change the color. That will be a huge deciding factor on what I do with the flooring, granite and backsplash. But first, we need to talk to the project manager about this sinking chunk in the kitchen.

Kristen

Prepping for kitchen work to be done...

In preparation for the kitchen project we are trying to save money by doing things ourselves so we can put it elsewhere in the kitchen. 

So, I packed a ton of boxes...

Took off all the cabinet doors and drawers and had the kids move them to the garage...

And took out the dishwasher...

Oh, wait, the cabinet doors are drawers are back on. Weird...

Yep, they had to be put back on. Apparently the cabinets are not coming out, the floor is not dropping in that area so to take out the tile, they will go up to the cabinets and instal new floor up to the cabinets. They don't need to bother with the tile underneath. So, we need to leave the cabinet doors in place. I still took off my hardware because I am getting new. Little changes I have been wanting to do to the kitchen, I am finally getting to do.

See ya tomorrow with more removed!

Kristen

Update on the plumbing mess

Remember this from last week?

After it got it's initial cleaning from the men, this is what it looked like. Fine drywall dust was EVERYWHERE!

We are at a stand still with the work because insurance must approve the next step. That mean's I have plumbing, so I have running water. I can clean again, do laundry in my own machine and cook meals. I can even flush the toilet when ever I want with out running outside to turn the water back on for a few seconds to fill the tank while tons of water leaks under my house.

Anyway, I spent 3 hours Monday cleaning this room and getting most of the dust out of the garage. I used the shop vac on everything, including the cabinets, then wiped the floors with water and then I used my Bona wood floor cleaner. Now it looks like this:

I love walking barefoot on a clean floor. It's a beautiful thing to have floors this clean. It will be clean for a little over a week and it's back to work with my kitchen getting torn out. Tile needs to come out, so cabinets need to come out. Granite is chipped from the work, so that is getting replaced, since the granite is getting replaced, they have to replace the backsplash. Also, since the granite is getting replace, I will take advantage of the new granite and get a sink and stove top that works for me. Yay!

I may have clean floors, but my counters are not as happy. It is ridiculous to try to wash a big pot in this little tiny garbage disposal side of the sink. Silly design. I am going to have just one big sink, none of this 2 separate sides.

It's hard to tell in this picture, but the front burners are a little toward the middle which makes it so a big pot can not fit on the back and leave the front 2 burners useable. I have a 5 burner stove, but I can only use about 3 burners at a time unless all my pots or sauce pans are tiny. I will be taking my pans shopping with me.

Work is supposed to start October 19th. So, until then, I get to cook, make lotion and deodorant in my kitchen. Maybe I will get a little project in. We will see.

If you want a great wood floor cleaner that is easy to use, this is what I use. There is also one for natural stone that I use on my travertine.


Kristen

More Mess and More Holes!

It's been a little while since an update because I had to work for 36 hours straight. Tuesday night to Thursday morning. After Thursday, I needed to catch up on some sleep, which mean's no blogging. I did however take some pictures.

First, here are our plumbers that worked crazy hours on trying to figure out the puzzle of our plumbing. We were admit on getting a re-route instead of a re-pipe because if a re-route is cheaper then fixing the leak through the slab, there is a good chance the insurance will cover it. These boys sure had their work cut out for them!

Last time, I did show you that the cabinets were removed, but here is the mess of the kitchen. See in those holes? We have pipes! The plumbing is starting after 2 days of searching and trying to figure out how our water loops in the in the pipes that are underground.

Here is a close up that is hard to see of the chunk of granite that is missing.

Here are some more holes in the garage.

But where there are holes, now there are pipes.

More pipes!

So, I mentioned I was gone from Tuesday night to Thursday morning. Being a doula, when I work, I don't get much sleep, 15 minutes here maybe 5 minutes there... an occasional 1/2 hour stretch. On lack of sleep I get a message that somehow the water flowed through pipes up stairs to the kids sinks, then went back down under the slab before returning to the kids shower. This was the reason why after the first night their shower had no water. Then I get a picture like this of more holes!

Not only more holes, BUT, look at that floor! I was horrified. Our wonderful plumbers didn't think to put down plastic first. That would have helped minimize my mess to clean up.

They did try to clean up after themselves. This is what I came home to Thursday morning...

And this...

I came inside, went upstairs and went to bed for all of 2.5 hours before the plumbers arrived back (to finish a few things), rang the door bell and made the dog bark like crazy. (See, it took me all these days to catch up on sleep. Now I'm off to bed again. Well, after I put my kids to bed.

Next time, I will let you know what our next steps are now that we have running water and can use our kitchen for maybe a week.

Kristen