Long Time Coming

Since we've lived in this house, the outdoor stairs have been the bane of my existence. I fear for my life every time I set foot on them. Okay... that's an exaggeration. But perhaps not totally out of the realm, considering the minor slip I had on our interior stairs... when I was 7 months pregnant... that resulted in a fractured elbow.

Anyway.

I'm a klutz, is what it is. And these stairs are not klutz friendly. Especially when the klutz is carrying a 30-pound squirming toddler up and down them.

See for yourselves:



They were built on a diagonal to compensate for... something. I don't know. Also, no balusters. The wood was splintering with age. And the concrete block of a bottom step was chipping away.



To give you some spacial perspective, the main entry is not at the front of the house. It's off to the side. The door at the front of the house is actually the entrance to the in-law apartment downstairs. This proves to be a bit confusing for first-time visitors and pizza delivery guys.


Dizzy yet?

So when we talked about re-doing the stairs, all those many years ago, we wanted to make them safer, nicer, and look more prominent.

To get the job done we called our boys from Choice Woodworking, who happen to include our brother-in-law Nick and good friend Paul, and who basically did our entire interior remodel (so far). Despite our obvious bias, these guys are skilled artists. And I want to marry them. Or have my sister marry one of them, either way.

Tony tore the stairs down the day before, and The Boys spent a couple days building the new stairs. Needless to say, I was giddy with excitement with the whole shebang. It only took a few days, but it was quite a journey.

Day 1: Demo and wood delivery


Des supervised the demo.


Which went fairly quick.

Then the supplies came... Another job for Supervisor Des. There was a big truck, a cool forklift, and huge planks of wood involved. He was all over this.


Look at the size of that truck.


If toddlers could say "OMG!"


Here he comes!


This'll do.


Get back to work!

Day 2: There was a jackhammer. And some framing. And some ass kicking.


New dad, Nick, hard at work.


Mhmm, mhmm. Lookin' good.


It came together fast!


Remnants of their art.

Day 3: Finished product


Ooooooh...


Aaaaah...


Eeeeee!!


Thank you, thank you, thank you.

So there's our new stairway!

I leave the front door open so I can stare at it all day. The first night I pulled a sleeping bag out there and slept on the deck. Not really. But I thought about it. Tony's really excited about putting a pumpkin out there. Which, obviously yeah. There will be pumpkins. It's just so cute that he said that.

A final side by side, before/after comparison:




Our new stairway survived its first hurricane unscathed. Obviously. I mean, looka that thing!

Slated for an updated...

Sarah promised pictures, so I am here to deliver.

As mentioned, the boys are hard at work on the slate tile. Here are some before and after (well, in progrss) shots

Kitchen:

Entry way

As you can see, Nick is on the ground doing the grunt work. Number one, he is shorter so he doesn't have to bend over as far. Number two, he is half Italian so working with stone and mortar is in his blood. Paul used his skills to make all of the cuts on the tile.

And now for a big surprise that Sarah doesn't even know about! (until she reads this). Work has begun on the steps! On my visit home for lunch today, I was surprised to hear a nail gun.

This is what they looked like when we left the house this morning.

When I delivered burritos for lunch, muco progresso had been made

You can see Paul taking pride in his work. He didn't even drink a beer for lunch because he wanted to stay sharp, or choice, as we call it. Many props to both of those guys.

I'm psyched to see what the place looks like when I get home...

Update... sorta

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. We've settled in quite comfortably to our new space and our routine within it. Even if it's not quite finished, it's just nice to come home to a warm, inviting place.

We've added a few minor pieces to the living area, including a chair and rug. The bar is set up, ready for a party. The recessed lighting throughout is fabulous. And something that I'm surprise how much I enjoy are the speakers in the ceiling. They're set up in zones, so I can hook up my Ipod to the stereo in the living room and zone it to the kitchen speakers for mood music as I prep for cooking. With the sun shining bright through the kitchen windows, I can dance and chop and sing at the cutting board. Simple pleasures.

We purchased the flooring for the front entry way and the kitchen. We picked a 12" natural slate stone tile. I love it because of the warm gray and how it feels like river rock under bare feet. I also love all the variations in color between the tiles. Oranges, blues, greens. It's going to be beautiful. But so far the boxes have been sitting in a corner of the dining room. Hopefully we can tackle that project within the next few weeks.

But for now things have kinda stayed in neutral. I have to say, the break from the chaos is nice. This weekend we're heading down to beautiful Newport, RI for a college graduation, and in two weeks we're heading way down to the Caribbean for our 3rd trip to paradise, the island of St. John. Tony and I are celebrating 10 years together. If we're not sick of eachother by now, I think we're in the clear for another few decades more.

For the next update I hope to have some progress photos. Or maybe just a pic of a blue ocean and sandy beach. We'll see.

This new house

I guess I’ll add my $0.02 from this past weekend. Simply put, the new floor looks great. It was easy to lay, especially since we had 3 of us working on it. The boards were all the same length, but you’d never really notice that unless I told you. But, because they are the same length, it made it easier (ie faster) to layout. I’d say it took 12 hours to install over two days, tops. That’s figuring in the lunch breaks. The payoff is a floor that works perfectly with the wall colors we chose. I can’t wait to see how the light floor looks against the dark stained maple treads on the stairs. We’ll see in a few weeks.

Another big step forward this weekend was electricity! We now have lights in the kitchen and living area. All of the sockets are working as well. They were all replaced with nice new white plugs and white trim. We hung a chandelier in the dining room the day after the electrician left, but it doesn’t work. I’m hoping it’s just not tied in yet. We’ll see when he comes back to finish a few of the switched. The lights in the kitchen and family room are on dimmers. They’re such a modern day convenience that we’ve overlooked for a long time.

There has been a lot of work done on this house in the last 4.5 months. We’ve checked some big items off the list along the way. To see the floor done on the first floor has been one of, if not, the most rewarding. It’s hard to describe, but that’s where we live! Getting the bedrooms done upstairs was great. But that’s sort of our own space. Now that the first floor is live-able again, it’s a space we can share with everyone. It’s exciting! We can’t wait to have a party and have everyone over to scuff up our new floors! Take those shoes off at the door!!!

A new house

Where to start, where to start...

So much has happened in the past couple of weeks, it's hard to sum up in a single entry. So I'll just cover a couple of the major bullet points and then maybe Tony can expand.

1. Paint
My nemesis. From the point of choosing a color, slapping it on, second coats, washing brushes. The whole process makes me both anxious and bored to tears. But after poring over countless swatches, choosing a number of test samples, buying 2 gallons of a paint color I ended up hating, and repeating the process all over again... I think we finally nailed it.

In the main living area we went with a basic taupe/tan/whatever you want to call it. And in the kitchen/dining we went with a blue-gray. Here's a decent picture of how the 2 colors play off eachother:



Check out those moldings, huh? Another recent dramatic update.

And please note the 2 chairs and TV tray that were temporarily acting as "couch" and "coffee table."

Also regarding paint, we had new ceilings, moldings, window trim, etc that all needed to be primed and painted. Luckily Nick and Paul own a sprayer, so after taping everything off, hanging sheets over the kitchen, and donning a dashing gas mask or two (I hid in the bedroom), the whole process probably took 1/4 of the time it would have with standard rollers and brushes. Those boys always come through for us.

And here's the biggest change that happened this weekend:

2. The floors
Because the upstairs floors are so dark and cozy, we wanted some contrast with the downstairs, so we were going with something light and airy. The original natural maple we picked out ended up coming back from the mill defective. So it was back to the drawing board. I had always loved the idea of bamboo, so when the maple didn't work out I floated the idea to Tony again. With Nick's approval, he went for it. It also helped that it was a heck of a lot more affordable. So we chose a light 3 3/4" bamboo for the downstairs living and dining areas, and we could not be happier. CHECK IT OUT!

Laying it down:


Halfway done:


Pretty much there:


I love how you can see the subtle striations of the bamboo.

And here we are set up with our new couch:





The bar will go back where the stools are sitting, and we're in the process of finding an area rug, among other furnishings. But I can't believe the difference in the matter of a single weekend.

Friday night we were on our dusty subfloors watching TV in a wooden chair with TV trays in front of us. Last night we were on our new floors sitting on a couch watching the Amazing Race with Janet and Nick.

Mama said there'd be days like this.

Before and After

I spent a little time w/ Google SketchUp and rendered these 3d drawings of the first floor layout. It's not to scale, but it's pretty close.

Before

After

Bigest differences:

• No wall separating the front room and living room.
• The wall on your left hand side when you walk in the house is now smaller, making the opening bigger
• The wall behind the bar (that used to have a mirror on it) was removed
  Kitchen island is gone
• A new wall blocking the back bedroom from the bar area

Other stuff that has been going on...

We're in the home stretch. Can you feel it? We're waiting on our first floor flooring to arrive. We order a 4 1/4 inch maple. It has a natural grain to it so it should be a good mix of light and dark pieces.

All of the crown molding is up, primed and painted with 2 coats of Ultra White. The walls and ceilings have both been primed. The ceilings have been painted white, and one set of walls has their first coat of paint. We've been dreading the painting stage, but it has been painless through this point. The boys have a paint sprayer that made it super easy. It took about an hour and fifteen minutes to prime all of the walls, trim, and celing with the sprayer. We're talking almost 800 sq feet of ceiling and who knows how much wall space. This would have been an all day job to do manually.

Once we figured out how to clean the machine and reset it, it took about 20 minutes to do each coat of Ultra White on the crown, window trim and doors. Just goes to show how valuable Nick+Paul are to have as friends.

We celebrated our success last night with a grill fest of BBQ chicken and sausages on a make shift plywood table!

One note: We had our first real casualty of the project. Nick+Paul had to take the french doors out of the bar while leveling the floor. The set it out on the deck and continued working. They heard a big crash and couldn't figure out what it was. Apparently the doors blew over and half of the glash was smashed! Nobody was hurt but as the supervisor of the job, I had to take it out of both of their paychecks. They understood and each drank one less beer that night.

The progress continues

As I type this we have 2 irishmen plastering our walls and ceilings on the first floor. That's right folks, walls AND ceilings. Here is one of their stands with a bunch of muddy plaster on it...

Over the past two days, and the last week in general, we've taken some huge steps. The Choice Woodworking boys finished all of the trim upstairs. This included installing the doors, baseboard and casing around the windows. Sarah and I painted all the trim "Ultra White." It looks great against the dark floor.

Remember the nightmare of a baseboard heating situation in the bedroom?

I'd say it looks a little better now!

I cleaned up the soon to be bedroom and set up a temporary lounge area. This is the Crate and Barrel couch that we bought off of Craigslist.

Our office is a mess right now consisting of the unbuilt bed and tape on the floor from painting the trim. We had to turn our focus to the downstairs as the plaster guys were coming on Friday to hang the blue-board.

Nick and Paul finished some touch ups to the framing. They "blocked out" an area to mount a TV to the wall. We also layed out exactly where all of our in-ceiling and in-wall speakers will go. Note that we have a 42" TV right now, but I conventienty layed out the in-wall speakers so we could mount at least a 60" without any issues :-)

Here you can see how the wires run through the wall to the back of where the TV will be. No cables will be seen!

The hanging of the board went surprisingly quick with just two guys working on it. They were very Irish! We just kept pouring Guinness down their throats as it seemed to make them work faster.

That's not a circus clown. It's an Irishman on stilts.

While the plaster guys worked inside, Nick and Paul helped me remove the 3 piles of demolition that have been building up for nearly 3 months. I've been getting rid of as much of the small stuff as possible in the trash, but getting a dumpster was a must. We had a 20 yard dumpster delivered at 9am. We had a 20 yard dumpster filled by 11:30am. I called them back to remove the 20 and deliver another 15. The 15 is a little more than half way full. We have plenty of stuff in the cellar to fill it (spring cleaning time!) as well as the old first floor flooring. We are hoping to cut the floor out on Sunday and get the dumpster out of here by Monday. By the end of Saturday, we'll have first floor walls that are ready to be primed and painted.

Until next time!

Oh but wait... Congrats to Maureen and Bill on the newest addition to the family! Katherine (Katie) Sarah Gerety was born at 3:42am on Friday morning. Everyone is doing well. Even Liam who finally held his baby sister without any monetary compensation. Congrats Cawley-Gerety fam! We can't wait to see her!

Tony is a rockstar

The floors are done upstairs.

Do you mind if I say that one more time? Okay, here I go...

THE FLOORS ARE DONE UPSTAIRS.

Thanks. That felt too good to say just once.

And my rockstar husband did it all with his own two hands. And one very sore back. He researched everything, he bought the proper tools, and then he, as they say, 'got her done.' Little by little, row by row, Tony lay the dark wood planks over the level subflooring. (It might take me a while to stop stressing the 'level' part.) He spent weekends and weeknights working, when he could have been doing a million other much more enjoyable things I'm sure. And now the project that started it all is finally complete.

SAP ALERT: I realize how lucky I am to have a man in my life who takes the initiative to do these kinds of projects, as my mom loves to remind me (Hi Mom!). To do them well and to do them right. And when he doesn't know something, he gets someone else to do it, without being all, "Me man. Me strong and me know all! Grunt." Ya know?

He's a real good cuddler too. Teehee. Blush. Boof. /END SAP.

Anyway, we were so excited that the floors were done, we rolled out the area rugs we bought months ago and started to get the office set up. Now Tony has a place other than the kitchen island to do his school work.

Don't mind the temporary pads under the feet of the desk.

Desk and file cabinet are Craigslist finds... More on those in a future entry.

This will also be our guest room, otherwise known as "Chad's room." Here's Chad's bed.

Loki and Neely will keep it warm for him while he's on his New Zealand adventure.

I didn't take any pictures of the wall to the right, because it's covered with boxes. The boxes contain our new bed for the master which we bought back in November and have yet to set up... For obvious reasons.

Tony's standing in front of my closet here. The closets are another entry for another time. Lots to say about those. All good things, I assure you.

Master:

I still haven't decided if this rug works in here. It might be banished to the dining room. But we'll see once we get some other stuff in there.

Looking across the hall to the office.

The boys still have to finish up all the trim work and put in some doors. We have to get new socket covers, window treatments, light fixtures, etc. etc. But I'm just so excited to have another room in which to hang out, words can't express.



Here's me in my 'commuter shoes', happy as can be. :-)