We Have a Countertop!

We finally got our countertop in! I am so excited. Our sink and stove will get hooked up tomorrow. I can use my kitchen again! But just when I can use it, I have to empty it all out. 

Here is my kitchen now. Today the granite went in and the drawer faces and doors came off.

Tomorrow I will get to use this beauty! It will be so nice to not have to walk upstairs to use the bathtub to wash some dishes.

In about 8 days, I will get to take all my pots and pans out of boxes to see how well they fit on the new stove top. The nice square stove top with no weird angles.

Tonight, the kids got to eat dinner at their favorite spot, at the bar. We are becoming very close with Chipotle. There are not many organic options when eating out.

See that door below? That is what my kitchen is changing to, Dove White from Benjamin More.

Now, I just need to come to a decision on the back splash. Both have things I love. The blue is hand crafted and the color just makes me happy. The gray arabesque is a very unique shape...

But what I love most about it is the aged look it has.

The thing I don't like about it is I feel like the color will get lost unless I have a ton of color on my counter. I have 2 more samples of arabesque tile I am picking up tomorrow, but they are just plain porcelain. If I am going to go with the more bland color, I at least have to have the aged look with the lighter edges.

I don't know, maybe I will come up with something completely different after making a 3rd trip to the tile store. I'll let you know next week what I decide.

Kristen

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

One of those days...

Have you ever had one of those days where everything is just chaos? The alarm goes off and I'm reminded by my husband that I have to work at his office starting 15 minutes before our kids get out of school (it was put in my calendar as am instead of pm so I missed the reminder), so, I ask him to pick up the kids but he scheduled a patient at the same time for an hour appointment. Then, I am scrambling texting people I trust with my kids to take them home. My wonderful friend that does not have a child my youngest's age took both my kids till I could get the little one and kept the other for practice tonight. Then I am realizing that I have appointments all morning and no food, cause I never made it to the store yesterday and I have to take the dog on a walk cause she will be crated all day since my Mr. ended up having appointments all morning also. I wake the kids to tell them to start with cereal for breakfast while my husband is in the shower and we are down to 1 toilet right now we the other 3 of us frantically need to use the bathroom at the same time. Then Mr. C is done with the shower and it's my turn because there will be absolutely no other time today for a shower. I asked him to make the kids eggs so he asks, why can't you (I need a shower) then he asks me how (remember we don't have a kitchen) so, little C finds the skillet we borrowed and then Mr. C tells me the plug won't fit, I tell him to get an extension cord he then asks, "Where?" (He has 5 extension cords in the garage hanging on the wall right in the spot he specifically made for the many extension cords we need). So, I tell him where and by then, I'm done getting ready and make the eggs while I look for something I can actually eat (I can't eat simple carbs or eggs and I can't cook oatmeal without a stove) I realized I don't have any food for me. The kids scrounged together lunches while I just try to get them out on time to walk with the other kids in the neighborhood. It is now past time we are supposed to meet and they are waiting for us. I run out with the dog and tell them to come on now. L appears outside in shoes she can't wear because it's P.E. day, so I tell her to go back in grab her shoes and socks, she can change at the light and I'll carry her other shoes home.s Now Mr. C tells me little C does not have his shoes on, so I just yell grab them and lets go! Another minute goes by, turns out L is making everyone wait while she puts her socks on and they both finally come out running down the street barefoot for one and socks for the other. As we are walking they are putting on shoes and the dog is playing tug-a-war with one of the other kids walking with us as I am trying to calm her down and have her just walk.

It was just one of those days! But... I did get to pick out new granite, I think this is what I will be going with, but I'm not sure yet.

I am taking this opportunity to do a total face lift on my kitchen and having my cabinets done white. So, it will all be worth it in the end!

I also have less holes in my house...

I think tomorrow should be much less crazy. I hope so at least. Little has to finish a project by Thursday that he has hardly worked on and has had a month to do. That should be fun. Nothing like cramming for the last day.

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

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

What a Mess!

I have a swiss cheese house now. 

Nothing in this house is normal! Craig and his dad realized that when they were dealing with electrical, he just had to abandon things and run new lines. Why should it be any different with plumbing? There are some strange loops and weird things going on around here.

2 plumbers spend an entire day here on Friday trying to abandon the underground lines, but were unsuccessful in doing that. I don't know much about plumbing but where there should be one 3/4 inch pipe there are 2 and in those 2 pipes water is coming up not one and down another.

So, here is where we are at for today. We are going to re-route everything out of the slab, but the plumber needs to open the walls behind the cabinets so insurance gave us approval to take the cabinets out first. Hopefully we won't see sunken floors under those cabinets when they come out!

Last week was such a roller coaster! Insurance doesn't pay for plumbing and we have had a couple different plumbers come in (maybe I am repeating my self). But one said almost $10,000 to replumb the whole house, but we just want everything out of the slab, another said like $2,500, then $5,000 but if we want copper $11,000. Ugh! All this with our deductible factored in is a bit of a nightmare. We are re-routing everything out of the slab and not going through the floors. So, this seems to be our best option. Hopefully plumbing will get done this week.

As the process goes on, I will be sharing more because this is my life and I don't have much else to blog about when I can't use the main part of my house.

Stairs Before & After

When we bought this house, we noticed right away that the railing shook about an inch on either side. This was a safety project that absolutely needed to be done. I wasn't terribly upset about that though. The 80's oak isn't exactly my favorite wood.

You can also get a good view of what used to be a closet at the top of the stairs. We took that out to make our master shower bigger. You can see that post here. Our hall way was lined with doors and I didn't like that, so that was another reason to get rid of that closet. Don't worry, we have tons of closet space.

Mr. C started with taking out the railing to put wood on the stairs. That was a big job! I was able to lay wood everywhere else, but I didn't have the patience to even attempt this! (Not to mention, he didn't trust my patience with it as well.)

Home Depot has banisters, railing and the big posts in pine, oak and metal. We went with the pine because I didn't want the wood grain and I wanted the stain to really show up. After staining and sealing the wood parts, Craig got to work on the spindles. We were so happy to see this go up finally about a year after we moved in. The railing came out the week we got the keys, so the top floor was off limits to the kids.

The most difficult part of this project was getting the angle correct on the banister. The top set of stairs was not built to code and they are not quite as tall as a normal step so the angle on the banister is different then standard. I think Mr. C had to buy a new railing and post because of mess ups. He felt like Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad, No Good Day. From what I remember he woke up, tripped on a hole in his jeans, pealed his toe nail off, cut the railing too short, realized the post was cut too short and a lot in between. I wish I could remember it all because it was quite comical.

Here is the finished stairs. Wood with white risers, no more door at the top of the stairs and new railing. I am so happy with the way it turned out. I love Mr. C's suggestion of the white risers. They do get dirty, but they are not hard to clean or touch up with a little white paint.

By the way, this too is a project that is incomplete. You can barley tell, but at the bottom of the top section of stairs there are 2 spindles missing. Your guess is as good as mine for when it will get finished.

Just some more views. This picture you can see the pattern of spindles we choose.

Now we are safe on our stairs again.

Kristen