Easter weekend

Finally getting around to installing the drawer organizers from our trip to Texas...another IKEA find!

The second drawer is a little lighter on the organization, but everything still has a place.

The highlight of Easter was looking through piles of old family photo albums and laughing at everyone's hairstyles :)

Two-fer Tuesday

Just a quick picture update to keep you up to speed on the progress. We’re really humming along, and it’s looking better and better all the time!

Test-fitting pieces of the range hood.

Now we're getting somewhere...

Dad finished it up this morning! Ready for paint! :)

The living room before..



..and after paint!





I imagine it will look better when I'm not using painters canvas for curtains, but you get the idea :)

It's a kitchen! And color! Whoa!

So, “beeswax polish night” turned into “beeswax polish week.” It turns out, the beeswax I used made the counters look like someone had peed all over them..just kind of generally yellow with bright yellow spots where the grout holes are.

I will say this, the countertop was super smooth and shiny after the beeswax. It just had that...urine..tint to it I wasn't crazy about :)

Not what you’re 'going for' in a kitchen.

I’m still confused by that because everything I’ve read has said beeswax is the way to go – all natural, food-safe, blah blah blah. So, I don’t know if I got the wrong kind of beeswax, or if there’s more than one type? Again, because nothing out there is really specifically marketed to concrete countertops, no one at any hardware store knows ANYTHING about making them or what to sell you to finish them.

My giant beeswax. I chopped it up and melted it down so I could remove any impurities, many of those were just stuck on the outside, though. I wonder if there's a lighter colored beeswax that wouldn't yellow? I should have known this one would - being yellow to begin with and all.. 

Oh well. A little wax remover and a couple days of random, half-hearted sanding here and there and it all worked out.

We set the tops in place a few days ago and I’ll seal them in the near future. Not as convenient this way, but the show must go on.

Speaking of the show going on: I’ve got cupboard doors and drawer fronts! I’ve even got knobs and pulls! And a sink! And a dishwasher! Holy freaking moly!

Giving everything a test fit. Of course, it had nothing to do with my need to take pictures of everything..

Coming together!

A place for everything! Now I'll just finish painting the cabinets and we'll really be in business!

I called my favorite local plumber – the crew that installed my new furnace/AC/water heater – and he had all of the above knocked out in a couple hours. He also installed a new outside spigot for my hose, and hooked up the garbage disposal. For the first time ever, I was really happy to be doing dishes J


The maiden voyage. I was making sure the dishwasher wouldn't explode and figured I'd get the hang of my giant faucet in the meantime. Big fan of this sink!

 I’ve also picked out some paint – I’m just in the process of deciding where it will go. My friend Anna is coming over this afternoon to paint. She volunteered, I accepted. Things are going to start looking a lot different very soon! :D

The brown in the upper left will go in the living room, the blue in the dining room, and I haven't totally decided on the other colors. Suggestions?

Walls closing in...

Busy weekend!

So busy, in fact, we were able to have all the cabinets hung and set by the time Sunday afternoon rolled around... even after taking Saturday off. Thanks to the adjustable cabinet legs my parents picked up at IKEA on their Texas trip, installation was pretty easy! All you’ve got to do is set the box in place and check it for level and plumb every which way. Check that each face is in line with the adjacent cabinet’s face, lock it in place with a couple screws and you’ve got it made.

I'm road-testing an island. I like the added prep space, but I wonder if it's too big?

All set! Making counter tops, cabinet doors, and drawers over the next few days.

It’s been so long since there have been cabinets in this kitchen – it’s starting to look so small comparatively! That said, it will be a good day when I don’t have to look at all of my groceries out in the open all the time J

Up, up, and away!

Quick picture update from our progress last night: more upper cabinets!!

An addition to the large cabinet seen in the post yesterday. It should look good with a pair of doors, don't you think? All the cabinets will get another coat of paint before I'll be totally happy with them, but for now I think they look just fine! :)

All of them, actually. All that’s left now is the hood over the range, but that’s a project for another day. 

These are the upper cabinets on either side of the range hood that doesn't yet exist. The cabinet on the left has shelves that are set back a few inches to accomodate a spice rack that hangs on the inside of the door.  

As you can see, I really don’t have that many cabinets, but we had to find the wiring we left wound up in the wall for the under cabinet lighting. So between that and the fact the neither my dad nor myself had hung cabinets, I think we made pretty good progress in an hour and a half J

I didn't get a picture of the cabinet hanging in the other corner over the hypothetical dishwasher, but once you've seen one, you've seen them all. The backsplash area behind the stove will be covered with a piece of stainless steel, and I'll wrap the stove-sides of the upper cabinets with it, too. Should be pretty snazzy!

This weekend is a busy one – I’ll be volunteering Saturday morning for a large, community-wide service project, and there’s a graduation party for a family friend that night..so my guess is there won’t be a lot of base cabinet setting happening that day. Tonight and Sunday might be productive, though…I guess we’ll all just have to wait and see!

CABINETS!

So, you’ve seen pictures of the cabinets during assembly out in the garage… how about one up on the wall?

That's a bad mamma jamma-sized cabinet.

Yep, last night was a pretty big night in my kitchen. No food was made, but I learned how to hang a cabinet and prep for the under-cabinet lighting I bought at IKEA a while back. More on lighting to come.

I’ll admit, I haven’t been terrific about taking pictures of the cabinets throughout the process. I blame this on the fact that their construction goes pretty quickly and I don’t have many opportunities to take pictures. That said, I will have plenty of updates as we hang more of the upper cabinets tonight.

I'm keeping the same basic layout (the new sink will be centered on the windows, though). Notice the older upper cabinets didn't reach all the way to the ceiling; I hope the taller uppers will look more in keeping with the age of the house, while providing more storage.



Pre-hanging. You can kind of see the paneling on the exposed side of the cabinet - this is something I've seen in magazines for the last couple years. It looks older, but also a little more "custom." Hopefully it will look like someone built these by hand...in a GOOD way!

 On my lunch break, I went out looking for countertop-making supplies. My boss – the same guy that tought me how to lay tile – has made concrete countertops before, and I’ve wanted to learn for quite a while. In the next few days/weeks, I hope to be building forms and working through that process, so stick around and learn with us!

"Roughing It"

When I titled this entry, I knew I was completely full of it. I am in no way roughing it, as the name would imply. Though I have to make do without some of the things you might expect in a house…namely, a kitchen.

The kitchen has been somewhat delayed because my cabinet maker may or may not be going to prison. Which is interesting..

Initially, we thought we would build the cabinets ourselves because my former roommate/Dad has experience doing it. Then the jailbird..excuse me: potential jailbird stepped in and said he could do it better, faster, cheaper..blah blah blah. I don’t know how many times I’m going to fall for that line.

To (hopefully) put you at ease: he isn’t going to jail for butchering children or small animals. (For your own future reference, there is apparently a limit to the number of times you can get pulled over while driving and reeking of whiskey.) I trust the work he does..just not the personal choices he makes. My main concern was that he shows up when he said he was supposed to and do the work he said he was going to do. Now that I know that won’t happen, I get to regroup: He called the other night and said he didn’t want to start on it this close to his court date.

There is no shortage of interesting circumstances, is there?

I’ve looked at buying stock cabinets from IKEA, but I’m just not sold on that idea. I know they’re reasonably good cabinets for their price, but the styles aren’t what I’m looking for and the sizes are what they are..No customizing.

I’m also going to look at purchasing cabinets from a home store. To this point, I haven’t looked at stock cabinets at all because I’ve been on the build-my-own track for a while now.

Anyway, as I said, I’m doing without a “kitchen” and have since made my own. While washing dishes in the bathroom sink isn’t as convenient, the cooking setup isn’t horrible.

I have a big cutting board and a toaster. Who needs more?

I made a roast beef with vegetables and mashed potatoes the other night, and an apple crisp Monday night. Anytime I’ve ever lived on my own I’ll make these big family-sized meals and eat the leftovers for a week. Most of the time I’ll make two different meals so I can eat one thing for lunch and the other for dinner. That’s my solution to cooking for one. Plus, if someone comes over around dinner time, I have plenty of home-cooked food to offer them!

My "pantry" in the laundry room all ready to go. I've never had a spot like this before, and so far I'm really, really liking it!

Oh! Tomorrow is my birthday – the big 2-5. The number itself isn’t that big of a deal..I won’t be paying that additional fee to rent a car. But I never rent cars anyway..  No, this birthday will be a big one because I’ll be spending it with friends in my new, old house J

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck..

We have been woodchucks here at the house the last few nights. Chucking old wood trim up onto the wall and giving things a more finished look. Granted, I still have holes to fill and another coat or two of paint to apply, but things are looking really good so far!

The old trim we're using came from the house next door that's being demolished soon. It has these nice blocks at the baseboard level that make the doors look like somebody wealthy lives in this house instead of me :)

The molding over my bedroom door - the kitchen side.

My bedroom door from the inside. Fancy pants.



The trim around the window in the office.



The doors and windows that I know how to trim have been trimmed, and now I’m waiting for my knowledgeable reinforcements for guidance on the pocket doors and longer window “tops” to match the molding over the doors.

Aside from that, we vented the dryer and I did my first FULL load of laundry in the house. It was a very successful first run, and very nice to not have to lug a bag of clothes to a laundry far, far away. I’m also having a water softener installed. Water softeners might be more of a Midwest thing: when you talk to people out East, they kind of look at you funny. Because of the mineral content in the water here and the damage it can do to faucets and water heaters – not to mention how dry it makes your skin in the middle of winter – it’s a nice thing to have.

Otherwise, I’ve been nurturing my little Wal-Mart plants, testing out my new toaster, and getting my things organized.

And eating dinner, of course..

The garage has been taken over by sawdust and lumber again for the trim projects, so I have had to scrape the ice off my windshield in the mornings before work, but I can deal with that.

IKEA finally came through for me! BOTH lights hanging in the dining room!

The register covers I got for the hardwood floors. They have a brushed finish that doesn't come across in this picture, but I think they look pretty alright.

Things are coming along – trim isn’t as big a deal as I had made it out to be. Once the doors are finished up, we can start on the baseboard.. I bought all kinds of lumber last weekend for that project, and I’m excited to get started. What a difference THAT will make!  

Floor sander, why do you hate me?

Well, the disc-style sander (You know, the one that looked like a floor waxer?) was horrible! Which was really frustrating because so many people had used it successfully and even recommended it. My only guess is that there was some kind of finish on the floor that just didn’t agree with the sandpaper. With the age of the floors, it’s possible there were several layers of finish that didn’t agree with the sandpaper, but oh well. The roommates and I tried our best and stayed late into the night, but our results didn’t come close to matching our efforts.

Another option might have been a chemical stripper – this would have taken the finish(es) and gone about its business. Stripping the floor also would have “saved” the wood, because every time you sand a floor you take away a little bit.. sometimes up to ¼” per sanding. I didn’t like the idea of using a stripper, though. The chemicals are harsh and generally not good for you. Not to mention, cleaning up the stripper is sometimes, itself, a pretty big task.

So, just shy of driving off to the carpet store and scrapping the whole idea, we decided to try a different style sander from a different store. This sander was the older-style belt sander that I’ve heard so many horror stories about (“It’s too fast!” “It gouges the floor!” “It’s so dusty you can’t see!”), but I wanted something that would kick the floor’s ass and this thing did it. Not only was it aggressive enough with the finish, it wasn’t as bad as everyone said. You did have to hang onto it, but it wouldn’t drag you behind it like in the horror stories; it would really only gouge the floor if you weren’t paying attention or if you hit a spot that was significantly higher than another; and this model had a vacuum attachment like the other, so the dust was minimal. We had the floors completely sanded in a day! The better part of a day, but a day nonetheless. There are a few spots I’d like to hit with a finish sander, but all in all, we’re in good shape.

Wood floors in the living room. Leaning toward leaving them a lighter color - any thoughts?

There was also an edge tool that would take care of the area closest to the walls, door openings, or registers where the larger sander couldn’t reach. Everyone pretty much agreed that, while it did the job, it was just too heavy to use for any length of time. We’ve loaded up a handheld belt sander with the appropriate grit and it seems to take care of the edges without too much of a problem.

The other thing our “licensed electrician” (wink) has been working on is light fixtures! There are quite a few of them..or at least it seems that way when your arms are above your head all afternoon. Some of them installed without much of a problem, and some did not. Because the ones we are currently working on came from IKEA, many of them didn’t come with all the parts we need to hang them properly. So, you take the good with the bad with IKEA – super affordable, nice design, never have all the parts J

Close, but no cigar. We need all the parts, IKEA!

With the lights, we’re working on installing the rest of the outlets and switches. The outlets aren’t presenting a problem.. the fact that I’d like to have dimmer switches is. Especially where there are three way switches. If anyone has any ideas about this, feel free to chime in and I’ll pass it along!

Pendant over the kitchen sink.

Progress, progress! Every day!

It's getting hot in here..

With a heat wave sweeping the Midwest and much of the East coast, I think today might be a good time to concentrate on the blog! “Fun” fact: Knoxville, Iowa was noted as the hottest part of the country yesterday – yay?

Anyway, the house continues to buzz with activity. We’ve nearly finished drywalling the front half of the house, which means all the new electrical lines have been run, new insulation hung, and structural issues dealt with – I’ll show more detail on these items soon. I have the pictures, but not the TIME!
The next phase will include work on the back half of the house. We’ll be demo-ing down to the studs to deal with electrical concerns here as well, but the truer reason for the gut job is because the roofline will be undergoing some pretty drastic changes. Part of said changes will include a new ATTACHED two-car garage!

As we’ve talked about in previous posts, the original garage was in a bad way…crooked, cock-eyed, lop-sided, and Wizard-of-Oz-esque would all be equally fitting descriptors.

The original intent was always to tear down the garage and rebuild a new, squarer version on the property. Well, one beer lead to another and before you knew it we started thinking “If we’re going to the trouble of pouring footings and building a whole new structure, why not put it where I might actually want it as opposed to where they put it 80 years ago?” The initial rationale included saying things like, “It really won’t cost that much more,” and, “Well, while we’re at it…”

Dangerous.

A couple hours and one truck later.

While the total cost of the garage project will probably be slightly higher in the end, it’s going to be infinitely better to be able to walk to and from my truck without getting drenched in a rainstorm, my pants soaked up to my knee in a snowstorm, or just generally inconvenienced by the outdoors.

After all, a gentleman can't be bothered with the out of doors, Lovey.

Not to mention, I really don’t know how long I’ll live here: it could be five years, it could be 30 years. Bottom line, I want it this way as will most potential buyers somewhere down the road.

I did have to go through the proper channels in order to rebuild in a new location. Upon applying for a building permit with the City, I was notified that I would also need to be granted a variance because the new structure would sit too close to the alleyway and the neighboring property. I walked around, meeting my neighbors and asking for their support. I found that many of them will be building new garages soon, so it helps to have empathy on your side! After that, I had to wait for the Board of Adjustment to hand down their verdict before I could begin any work in earnest.

Once that was completed…

To meet with City code, the footings must be dug to a certain depth and poured a certain width. Once these dimensions are inspected, the cement contractor can back his truck up and begin the pour. In my (very positive) experience, the cement contractor started digging around 9:45am and was driving on the hardened concrete by 5 o’clock the next day. Small town service at its finest J

Once the footings had ample time to cure without totally drying, my contractor returned to set a few rows of concrete block on top. This way, he can fill that area with gravel, steel, and cement and we’ll have a slab in no time! The other benefit is that there will be a small gap between the floor of the garage and any wall material I may want to hang in the future, cutting down on moisture issues.

But now we’re back to the heat wave. It’s too hot to make the final pour, so we’ll wait it out. Once the slab has been finished, we’ll start framing the walls of the garage and relocate the electrical meter to be closer to the pole in the alley – loves me some buried power lines!

See the neighbors house?

One cool thing to note: since we've been busy at my place, the neighbors have decided to spruce up their house with new insulation and siding - it's contagious! (You can see their house, sans siding, in the second to last picture)

There are literally hundreds more pictures to come, so stay tuned! J