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.