The long winter…

Finally I got all the kids back to school and I could focus on finishing.  I would like to have the whole thing done by May when they all return.  Can it be done?  Only the Lord knows.  I am going to try my best.

At least the deck and overhang and doors are all finished!  Just need final painting I will tackle when its warmer.   Stonegate Construction is the bomb and they built exactly what we envisioned..

Before Justin left for school, he took all the drywall down in the kitchen.  This would make it easier for the plumbing and electrical and its a good thing we did because we found a hidden nasty rotten beam near the outside kitchen door.  This was caused by the filled gutters all those years where the water had no where to go but sit there and rot the wood.   Not only that, but when Stonegate went to fix this spot,  they found a spliced electrical wire that had 3 nails stuck thru it!  Could have started a fire, too bad it didn’t before we started renovation.  We always wonder if we should have knocked the main house down from the beginning.  It’s so frustrating.  All the insulation in the ceiling had mice poop in it and was taken out too. I need to go back and figure out the dump fees we have incurred, we have literally hauled the whole house to the dump over the last year.  Everytime we go they ask if we have tires in our trailer.  That is all they are ever worried about.  Weird, they don’t care if we dump anything else, just tires.

Tearing down all the drywall now in the kitchen!

after Kitchen all gutted

The rotten wall in the kitchen with the wire and 3 nails thru it

all fixed!

I decided to let Stonegate Construction continue on and help with my kitchen.  They are finished the deck and when the weather gets bad they can work inside.  They have done an incredible job on the deck and overhang.  The floor between the dining room and laundry room seems to have sunk. The dining room especially sloped about 2 inches down. Omars Hardwood came to give me a quote on the flooring and said they cannot fix the dining room its too drastic.  Stonegate to the rescue again!  They pulled up all the floor in the dining room and leveled it by scabbing new beams along side the old sagging ones.   They also addressed the wall between the dining room and laundry room that seemed to be settled.  They supported it with beams in the crawlspace so it will not fall further.

all the subfloor pulled up to level it

A funny story, my moms dog came trotting in to say hello to the workers and stepped right on the insulation and fell thru to the crawl space.  Luckily the insulation broke his fall and its only about 3 feet down.  SO funny.

Dining room all leveled and ready for hard wood

Back to the kitchen…I met with Dezra from Ferguson Enterprises and she helped me design my kitchen.  I took her recommendations and met with Stonegates to get their ideas.  Between the both of them I think its ready to go!   I decided on a painted navy blue island with quartersawn oak cabinets on the outside wall cabinets. I originally decided rustic alder and Dezra ordered the quartersawn oak door because she thought it was nicer.  She was so right.  I know everyone wants a white kitchen but it only looks good for about 10 years and starts to peel and fall apart.  Do not do it!!!!   The first thing was moving all the electric and plumbing in the  wall we are taking down between the kitchen and dining room.   I am going next week to finalize all the appliances and cabinets because I have to get them on order before the price increase end of Feb.

view from dining room into kitchen with the wall finally down

View from kitchen to dining with wall down

 

I had to finalize my appliances before finalizing the cabinets. My kitchen is fairly small it feels like all appliances and I do not have much wall space for upper cabinets.  So I opted for mostly drawers under the counter to store stuff like plates and pots and pans.

I finalized the stone choice for the fireplace and went to Easy Stone in Vienna with my templates for the mantel and hearthstone.  They are delivering the stone tomorrow and my mason starts Wednesday.  He washed all the stone down first to make sure I have enough different colors so it doesn’t look like a big castle wall. I didn’t think Easy Stone would take 3 weeks to get the mantel so now the stone is held up waiting for that first.

I called Ricks Custom Cabinets to come look at the space next to the fireplace.  We needed some built -ins to work around the fireplace and we are hanging our TV over that.  The owner and his brother have been in business for years and seem great.  Glad I found them.  Pretty affordable too.

New built ins next to fireplace

We are removing the stairwell going upstairs, its like a big drywall nightmare.  They were delivered Friday, built off site and brought in, they will be hard wood oak and white risers with the iron balusters to match the upstairs loft.

Stairwell sitting in the dining room right now

this is the current dark drywall stairwell

Stairs in and ready for Hardwood. After stained and finished, the balusters will go in

In between the inside work, we finally combined all the propane lines together and was able to get rid of those ugly propane tanks next to the other side of the house.  They were so ugly.  We waited until they were almost empty before switching the line over, it was a little stressful because it was very cold and heat is needed…finally the register read 10 left so we called our faithful plumber Dave in to plumb the new line in.

Ugly Propane tanks we finally got rid of 

 

We also had Donegans Tree come back and clear more land covered with Russian Olives and cedars.  Some trees like Dogwoods are choked by nasty vines it looks like something out of Little Shop of Horrors, some of the vines look human. When its warm we run out there and clear the trees before the bugs, snakes and weeds arrive again.

One of the vines we cut stuck in a dogwood tree

 

We gutted the laundry room and now are working on getting the old linoleum up.  Of course it was glued and screwed down.  Mark’s tool actually broke trying to get it up.

laundry gutting

My mom came up for a few days to help me gut the master bedroom.  Still not sure what we are doing in there but its so chopped up with little rooms and this hateful tile that was put on with thick cement board just beating on it doesn’t break it.  We started on the tub surround and was able to break that up more easily. My mom was in there beating on the tile and broke open a hole in the surround.  I looked in and saw a huge snake skin.  She got out of there fast and we closed it up.  I figured I would wait for Mark to get the guts to look back in.  There was nothing there.  Either the snake is gone or hibernating.  All the construction maybe made him leave?  I hope.

Breaking up tile in master bath. (Yes that is a bike stored in the tub right now haha) the corner over by the shower is where the hole is and the snake skin

 

The long snake skin inside the hole

My next post probably will occur after the kitchen is in and the hardwood in and the fireplace…lots to be done and spring is coming, thankfully!

 

 

 

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