Week in Review

We're continuing to plod along at the house.  This week, we focused on three main projects.  We've been avoiding the shower and floorboard projects for awhile now, but this week we attacked!  Here are the pics:

FINISHING TOUCHES:

Mirrors, trim, towel bars, door handles...all that good stuff. 

The master bathroom and second full bath are the two rooms that are the closest to finished.

MASTER SHOWER:

On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, I tiled the shower ceiling and door frame.

Today we tackled the walls.  Let's just say that, when tiling, gravity is not your friend.  We had to get creative in setting the first row, but it got better from there.  We made our own shampoo shelves by cutting two tiles into triangles and mortaring them together.  Ours were waaaay cheaper than buying shelves, plus they match perfectly. 

I am not a neat tiler.  Who needs rags when you've got jeans on? 

This was only about half-way through the day...they got much worse... : )

And about 10 hours later, the walls were finished!!  We hope all those tiles are still in place tomorrow...and ten years from now.  This is one thing I don't want to have to redo!!  It was a lot of work!

FLOORBOARD REPLACEMENT:

My dad's been working on replacing the floorboards in the entry way so we can re-tile.  You may remember that we had to tear up the old tile because we're changing out the stair railing and front door, and when we tore up the old tile, the floorboards underneath were in rough shape.  Now that the floorboards are replaced, those projects can move ahead!

Losing Momentum

It feels like the brakes have been put on.  Between my dad's vacation, Pete's out of town & overtime work requirements and our builder's other jobs, not much has been done at the house lately.  It's looking less and less likely that we'll make our end of March move in goal.  Oh well...all projects take more time and money than expected right?
Here are a few pictures of what we've accomplished in the past week:

While Pete was out of state for work, I laid and grouted the 2nd bathroom floor.  Practice makes perfect - this was my best tile job yet. : )

I also "red guarded" the master shower.  Red Guard is a water proofing product that applies like paint on cement board.  It's in place of a plastic liner.

We finally pulled the trigger on tile for the master shower.  The white tiles are rectangular and will be on the walls.  The square brown tiles are for the floor, ceiling, curb and threshold.  The greenish glass tile will wrap around as an accent.

We have two working toilets!!  (And one shower curtain : )

The 2nd bathroom vanity, top, faucet and hardware have been set.

Pete replaced the 2nd bath light fixture.

Some of the doors are trimmed and the trim is painted.  This view is looking into the master bedroom.  The first door on the right is the master bath and the second door is the master closet.

The wine rack has arrived!!  (You have to picture this slid up into the hole directly above it.)

More Progress

We're back to work at the house.  Nothing majorly exciting happened yesterday, but lots of little things are being done that are putting us steps closer to moving in.  Here are a few pictures from this past week...

On Monday, we picked out granite for the kitchen countertops.  Here is is against the tile that will be the backsplash.  (Granite is Silver Cloud from Great Lakes Granite & the backsplash is from Lowes)

We hope to have the countertops installed in the next few weeks with the backsplash install to follow.

Speaking of the kitchen, here it is!  We're not actually doing the cabinet work ourselves and the they're not completely finished yet, but we're getting closer!  (White, shaker style Armstrong Cabinets)

 

My dad installed all (except one) the doors on the second floor yesterady!  Yay!!  Doors go a long way in making a house look finished.  Now we have to paint them.  Boo.  Remember back at the beginning when I said I loved everything about my last remodel?  Well, I lied.  I hated painting doors.  And door frames.  And trim.  Guess what?  I still hate it.  Bleck.  Anyway, these doors are three-panel primed doors that we got at Menards for $40-50/each!  Next steps in this department are to trim out the doors, add baseboards to the floor and start on the built-in projects.  After that....?  Flooring!!

 

Detail time!!  We now have cabinet hardware and a toilet paper holder in the master bathroom.  Right now, this room is the closest to completion, but the master shower is not finished yet.  We're getting it ready to tile.  The Hardie Backer is up and mudded.  This week, I hope to apply the waterproofing redguard and then we can get going on tile.

We painted, replaced the light fixture, and set the vanity in the 2nd upstairs bathroom.  I got this vanity and the one in the master bathroom from the Williams Outlet on Richmond.  Nothing fancy, but it does the job.  Also, we laid hardie backer on the floor so it's all ready to tile - my objective this week. 

Thanks, Lisa for painting all this trim (this picture represents maybe a tenth of the trim that will be painted)!!  As previously mentioned, I hate this job!!

People have been asking when we think we'll be able to move in.  Answer...we don't know!  We're still hoping to be in by Pete's birthday at the end of March, but we'll see.  Several of the project timelines are out of our hands, but we are still optimistic that we'll meet our goal!

Can't Get Away

We can't escape it!  They have "Home Depot" in St. Lucia!!  Aahh! 
But seriously, we missed the house while we were gone.  You know how parents talk about their kids when they're on vacation without them?  Well, that's how we talked about the house all week.  It's sick, I know.  We're excited to get back to work on it this week...I just wish that it was 85 degrees and sunny here, and that we could waltz on up to the buffet in between projects. 

Week in Review

A LOT has been accomplished this week at Summerbreeze.  It looks more and more like a house every day.  This was a pretty typical work week.  In addition to the hours Pete & I put in this week, my Grandpa has been helping with a lot of painting, Pete's dad has been finishing up the electrical work, my dad has been working on carpentry and other finish projects, and Lisa has been helping with painting and other odd jobs.  Here's a brief update of some of what we've done each day this week, complete with photos.

MONDAY:
Because Pete plays volleyball with some guys from church on Monday nights & I get groceries, we're usually only at the house for 2.5-3 hours - a shorter night than our usual 4-5 hours.  One of the things we attempted to tackle this Monday was tearing up the entry tile.  This proved to be NOT SO EASY!!  Let's just say it's way more fun to lay tile than tear it up.  It is not coming up cleanly, so we'll need to do some leveling/repair to the subfloor before re-tiling.  Boo.

Here's Pete destroying tile.

And here's what the floor looks like underneath.  Boo.

TUESDAY:

Tuesday was our entry into the world of laying tile.  (Which, by the way, is a super fun world!!)  I'm somewhat afraid of saws, similar to how I feel about ladders - I will use them if I need to, but I'd rather not.  So, Pete was in charge of using the tile saw and I was in charge of everything else.  Pete started cutting the tiles on Tuesday, but when I went to lay them, I realized that we'd left the trowel at home.  Sadly, Meijer does not sell trowels.

WEDNESDAY:

I had meetings and choir rehearsals at church and didn't work at the house on Wednesday, but Pete finished cutting all the tiles.

Here's the tile master - doing work.

THURSDAY:

Tile day - part two!  I actually remembered the trowel, so I spent the evening laying tile.  (Have I mentioned that this is way fun?)

This is the laundry room tile.

And here is the master bathroom tile.  Notice I abandoned the use of tile spacers.  Yes, I'm that good.  Or...I screwed up that badly.  Oops.  It all worked out in the end... : )

While I was tiling, Pete & his dad were tackling the entry chandelier, which, as suspected, proved to be a challenging project.  It was like reverse "Phantom of the Opera" (you know, the scene where the phantom releases the chandelier and it comes crashing down on the crowd).  It looks amazing!!

Pete hanging the light.

Pete's dad hooking up the electrical.

Ta Da!!

FRIDAY:

The cabinets came today!  The timing of delivery worked out perfectly so that we didn't have to wait until Monday to get them.  Hopefully, they will be installed next week...stay tuned...

Here they are...minus the wine rack.  Sadly, that won't be here until Feb 4. : (

Imagine this on it's side....this is what the door style is like.

Typically, we take Fridays off from the house for "date night", which generally involves shopping for things for the house.  This week, we went in search of the perfect toilet.  Pete has very specific toilet needs & is being quite choosy about which one we buy.  At Home Depot the toilets were displayed on a second level shelf so we could see them, but couldn't see in them.  He wanted to see what type of hole they had as this affects a toilet's plungability.  So, I climbed up on the shelving, lifted the lid, reached my phone inside the toilet & took a picture of the hole for every single toilet in our price range.  None of them have the right kind of hole. 

Here's an example of the wrong kind of hole.

SATURDAY:

Tile day - part three!  I finished the grout in the laundry room first thing this morning.  Way satisfying.... : )  Gotta love grout.  Little work, big impact.  I am quite proud of myself.

I did that!!!!  Sometimes I just stand in the doorway and marvel.

I did not finish the grout in the master bathroom because there were several other projects we were working on in there.  We set the vanity top and faucets (sorry...I forgot to take a picture).  We also started placing tile backer board in the shower.  We started with the ceiling, and this involved a major insulation shower.  Pete had the privilege of climbing around in the attic twice to play with fiberglass.  Fun times.

 

Here's my dad knee deep in insulation, working on the shower ceiling.

Lots of other punch-list-type items were accomplished this week, as well, but these were the highlights.

BONUS PHOTO:

For those of you who enjoy the more decorative elements of the renovation process, here's one for you. This is a photo of the shade we hung last week in Bedroom #2.  I'm a big fan of Roman Shades, and when I found this patterned one at World Market, I thought it was perfect.  I picked the cool green wall color to match the green in the shade. 



Look what I did!!

That's right folks, I laid Hardie Backer!!  Well, not all by myself...my dad cut the pieces and pretty much told me what to do, but I mixed the mortar, slopped it down, set the pieces and nailed them in place.  Considering that neither of us has done this before, it wasn't too bad!  I also assisted my dad in placing the master bath and laundry room cabinetry...well, I held stuff and drove a few screws, anyway... : ) 
Pete finished painting the foyer on the big extension ladder (scary!) and got the ceiling speakers working, and Lisa painted doors and put on switch and outlet plates.  All in all, it was a great day!

Here's the laundry room...all ready to be tiled... : )

And here's the master bathroom all ready to be tiled.  Note the lovely vanity, placed so levelly... : )  There is also a matching linen cabinet opposite the vanity, just to the right of this shot.