Looking to the past

When my great grandmother had to give up sewing, I inherited her stash of machines and fabric and other goodies, and she had a lot let me tell you. I found these pieces (pictured below) that she hand embroidered tucked in her sewing basket. I assume that she was probably going to make pillows or something with them. I also found her sewing measuring tape and about a million pins and zippers and all sorts of other paraphernalia, some of which  I had to research to see what it was and how to use it (like pattern stuff). I still have her sewing machine, a Singer Touch and Sew, that at the time was top of the line and cutting edge and was really a turning point in what machines could do with decorative stitching and other helpful features. I bet she sewed a million miles of thread on that machine.
The machine still works and I keep it tucked neatly in its cabinet for safe keeping. I fire it up about once a year just to put it through the paces and if something breaks, I take it in to have it serviced. I have my sewing machine sitting on top of the closed cabinet so that when I sew I sit down at the very same sewing table that she did when she sewed. I really think that I got my creativity from her and my (grand) mom through the trickle down theory. Some of it was learned, but I really think that most of it is just genetic. I finally got around to framing these pieces to hang on the wall in my office. I'm searching for just the right spot of honor, but I'm sure she'd think that any old place was fine. I really think that she watches over me with my sewing creativity and though hand embroidery isn't  really my cup of tea, I find it interesting that we both found sewing relaxing.

In loving memory of my Gangy

One bite at a time

This post is really just a way for me to realize what I've accomplished so that I can stop feeling so much anxiety. Today is one of those days that anxiety is kicking my butt but I'm determined to come out on top. I've spent the last who knows how long because I've lost count of the days painting and prepping and moving and unpacking and organizing and installing and building and whatever else I've been doing. I don't even know what all I've done in the last two months but I'm choosing to believe that the excess chaos is winding down and I'll soon be able to shift to normal things. Here are some of the finer points of what we've done since Saturday.

• With Henry's help I've managed to shuttle things from the storage unit to home which made it look like we just moved in. If things looked bad before due to construction, they were about equally bad after bringing all of our things home and piling them up. At least we put them in the appropriate rooms for the most part which made the rest of my week smoother.
• Jonas's room has been set up, organized, and he's settling in. I think that he's excited to have his own space where no one tells him what to do. 
• Colin's room has also been set up and organized and he's elated that he's now allowed to stay up until 9 which is a secret from the other kids. 
• Kinsley's room has been combed through, all of the excess things have been put away or purged, and she has room to play in there again. Going through all of her clothes and toys really sucked but it's done for the next season. 
• Henry's room has been gone through and all of our things have been removed. I also went through his clothes and toys. Shoot me now. 
• All of the furniture for our master bedroom is in our room and assembled. We are finally sleeping on a real bed like adults. I also hung our roman shade so that we don't have to use a sheet as a curtain. Speaking of sheets, we even bought new sheets because our other ones were toast after being on the air mattress for so long. #deadelastic
• I've purchased and assembled our closet system and Henry installed it and finished setting it up. We have our own closet again!
• Speaking of our clothes, we've gone through all of them and purged some and put the rest away. I can now find socks and pajamas and I don't have to dig through a laundry basket like a rat. 
• The master bathroom is functional. Like I put up the shower bar and curtains and shower head and cleaned it and we can take a shower in there. I also installed the towel bars and toilet paper holder, the vanity light. the mirror, and Henry and I put in the new vanity. Props to him for installing the faucet and reworking the plumbing so that it fit inside the new vanity. The new vanity has so many drawers which really helped when putting away all of the things that go in there. I also purged a box of stuff like old hair gel and dead cold medicines etc.
• Henry turned lemons into lemonade with a crazy purchase that I made that didn't really work out for what I bought it for but was perfect for what he needed. He's set up his office and it's looking pretty smooth. 
• Last but not least, I finally got to my office today and stacked the boxes up so that I can open the door and start working. It's still a total disaster and the flooring is just a chunk of old carpet that was left over from Jonas's room but at least my feet won't get all cold and chalky from the slab. Ick. Here's a pic of a less chaotic office. It's still not great but at this point I don't care. 
  

We still have a long way to go to have everything "finished" which as you know never really happens here. We've made a huge pile of things on the front porch and we're having a yard sale Saturday. Whatever doesn't sell is going to goodwill or the dump. I really want the front of my house to not look ghetto anymore. I'm off to do a little lunch and retail therapy now, but eventually I'll get pics posted of the rest of the house. ~Kellie~

Moving in and moving on

I apologize that I still haven't posted pics of our amazing new floors or any of the finished rooms in the house. Honestly I haven't had time to take any since I've been trying to shuttle things from the storage unit to the house and shove them into the appropriate room. We spent the weekend arranging things in the kids' rooms so that we can begin the process of getting the living spaces free of random things like soccer cleats and nerf guns. It feels like we've just moved in. Nothing in the house is really totally organized or decorated or even clean yet, but we're getting there. I feel sorry for the flooring guys since they have to install the last bit of hardwood in our room and it's just a total sty in there. I mean I couldn't find pants if I had to so it's a good thing that I have some mostly clean pajama pants to wear until I do laundry. I do have one pic to show you. Those with OCD or who are just neat freaks you might want to shield your eyes. This  is my office.



























I'd have gotten a more complete picture of the chaos, but I couldn't get the door open far enough. See the office chair with the cricut on it? That's where I'm sitting right now and the cricut is still in the chair because there's no where else to put it. Those of you who have seen my office know that there are sliding doors that take up most of one wall in here so the logical thing would be to open them and move things out and bring them back in in a more organized fashion. Well, I can't and do you want to know why? Because this is going on outside those doors.

That is the yardsale pile that was put there after I crammed my office full by throwing things through the door. I can't even reach the door handle let alone open the door and access the outside space. The purge pile is growing daily as we put things away and slide things out before the kids notice. We're telling them that they got lost in storage. The worst part about the mess that is my office is that I have to make a sloth puppet for Colin's school performance by May 4th. The equipment I need is in here somewhere, but there's no way that I can reach it. I'm hoping to clean up some of this disaster this week but I don't know what's in the cards for that sort of activity. The office is sort of a low priority but a necessary evil if I want to start replenishing the bank account that I just depleted for amazing storage in the master bedroom. Like I said it's a priority thing, pants or puppets- you be the judge. 

In other news, I sent a polite email to the head of the building codes department down at city hall asking him to throw us a bone and give us a pass on this inspection so that we can all just move on. I'll keep you posted on how well that goes over. I guess that's all the news that I have to report for now. Stay tuned! ~Kellie~

The Murphy's Law of Renovation

     When we decided to renovate the house and build the addition, we had no idea that the same Murphy's Law that tormented us with the sliding door in my office would continually haunt us throughout the entire renovation. This whole experience has been a total comedy of errors. It started with the original "contractor" and his arguments with the permits and codes office, then the fact that he had the framers build the addition even though he didn't have the permit in hand. It continued to the point that we had to fire him for sending unqualified people to do shoddy work that had to be redone by a real professional. We've had failed inspections for stupid things like calling them in in the wrong order and having an electrical junction box that was two cubic inches too small. We've tried to upgrade things that we didn't even have to and make wise choices that will serve us well in the future. We haven't skirted any significant rules though we did move the toilet without a plumbing permit but lord knows what kind of red tape and how many failed inspections we'd have had if we'd have put in for a plumbing inspection. We tried to get a pass on the light in the bathroom, and even thought about skirting the rule on it since they just changed it last May  but in the end we complied with their silly rule. I'll know soon enough if it's now too dark in the shower to shave my legs without a flashlight.
     I'm annoyed that even though we hired professionals for some things, we got so so work that is no better than what we could have done ourselves. The drywall guys were sweet, but some of their work sucks and I'll eventually go back and fix it when I've recovered from this trauma. The siding guys did an ok job, but there are still little things that I don't think are right. The flooring guys did a fantastic job and the floors are beautiful, but they ran two boxes short so our master isn't complete and we can't set our furniture up in there because they will need the room to work when they come to finish. I also can't finish things in the master bath because there was a miscommunication about some shoe molding and I can't set up the new vanity until that molding is in place and painted. *choke*
     Our latest run in with Murphy's Law involves our final inspection. The same guy came that has been inspecting the framing from day one, so he's familiar with all of the crap that's gone on. He even admitted that he thought the original contractor was a jack-ass which made me like him that much more. He's been pretty decent as far as giving us a head's up on things to complete so that we don't fail. When he showed up today for the final inspection, he pointed out a couple of little things that our new contractor took care of immediately. He marked those things as complete and proceeded to check other things. He measured the window in the master bedroom, the same window that's been there since he came for the original framing inspection. That's when all hell broke loose. He stated that it was too small to be considered as an egress for the room because the code states that it has to be something like 5.8 cubic feet and ours is like 4. Now this window has aggravated me since the beginning because the contractor measured our other windows so that they'd be the same size, but actually this one should have been bigger because the other windows are replacement windows and therefore he should have measured farther out on the windows than he did due to the way that replacement windows are installed. If you don't know about replacement windows, you should know that they cut out the window but leave the original window frame and set the new window inside the old frame so you actually end up with a slightly smaller window than you started out with. So back to the inspector, we were kind of shocked that he'd make such a fuss over that window at this point in the game. He said that we failed the inspection because that window (which is the same size as all of the other windows but due to the fact that it's new construction is held to a different standard) was too small. Our contractor did his best to talk him into a pass and they chatted back and forth for a bit before we all decided to call it a day and mill it over more later.
     After the inspector left, our contractor suggested that it might pass because it is a double hung window and therefore can actually have a much larger opening. He called the office to check but of course no one answered at 3:00 on a Friday afternoon. He also suggested that we write a nice email to the inspector and his supervisor and politely explain and recap the situation and ask for a pass on this. I mean really, it's about a piece of paper rule and not an actual safety thing. I know that the windows in bedrooms are supposed to be that size because they need to be large enough for a firefighter in full gear to get through, but in all honesty since it's an addition and all of the other windows in all of the other bedrooms are the same size I really wish that they'd let it go. I mean I go out that window all the time and though I've never had on a raincoat and scuba gear, I'm confident that I could make it through if it really mattered. I'm really pissed that he's just now bringing the window size up now. Isn't that something that he should have checked in framing? You know, before the siding was up and the drywall was finished, and the brand freaking new floors were in?? The fact that he didn't check it then alone should make it a pass. He should have said "ooh, I goofed so I'm going to let you slide, but if you ever add on again or replace this window make sure that you get larger windows".
     So what are our options at this point? Well, there are a few. 1. We can write a pleading email and hope that they feel it in their hearts to pass us. 2. We can rip out the window, enlarge the opening, and add a larger window. OR 3. We can do nothing. I mean what are they going to do? Yes we'd have an open permit and yes we'd have to bring it up to code if we were going to sell the house, but by that time I'm sure they'll have changed their software and or lost the notes about the window. We've agreed to do options 1 & 3 because quite frankly I am not interested in cutting into my house again and I'm sick of hemorrhaging money. We just want and need for this to be over. We need to function as a normal family again, and feel like normal humans for a while. This project should have not been this complicated or took nearly this long. I'm not sure why we always get the most incompetent people and have the worst experiences every time we try to do the right thing. If you have a great experience with something, you should thank us because chances are that if we tried it we'd have the worst luck ever so you're welcome that we absorb all of the worst case scenarios. Now that I've finished painting for today and the next several weeks, I'm dragging my tired, frustrated, disappointed ass to the kids' shower before inflating my air mattress in my new unfinished not to code bedroom and passing out. If there is a fire, just know that I'll be sailing through that window like a tiger at the circus and they can rescue me with a step ladder since I'll be standing on the roof of the front porch. ~Kellie~

Shedding light

I haven't gotten to taking pics of the new hardwoods or rooms yet, but I did snag a few pics of the new front door and therefore the totally completed exterior of our house. Let's do a little time travel.

Here's the house the day that we bought it back in 2009.

Here's the house after we painted it later that same year. Every time I see this pic I think it looks like a cartoon because the colors are so vivid. The sky and the grass are crazy bright, but that's just how it was that day.

 This was last week, April 2015, after all of the construction and siding was done. Yes we know it's almost the same color, the whole point of painting it that color was to see if we could live with it long term. No we aren't putting shutters back on it for now. I kind of want to, Henry doesn't, so we're waiting a bit to see how we feel later. Just as an FYI, the new siding is vinyl with a 7" reveal (almost identical to the old siding) and it has a foam backing that gives us an extra R value of 5 which is better than nothing extra.

Here's the house this morning after the new front door was installed. I personally think that it's a huge difference even though it's just the front door.

Here's a closer pic of the little beauty. It's a fiberglass door so that it doesn't warp and swell. It has simulated wood grain and is stained cherry. The hardware is oil rubbed bronze and matches the new porch lights. The handle is just a handle but the lock is a keyless entry system so that the kids don't accidentally lock us out which has happened on several occasions. The glass has black caming (the leaded part) which was the closest to oil rubbed bronze that we could get unless we wanted to pay stupid amounts of money. All in the door cost us a little over a grand including installation and hardware. I totally love it from every angle.

I even love it from the inside because it keeps the foyer/hallway and stairway from becoming a deep dark hole after you close the door. It really kind of felt like you were getting locked in prison before because the old door had no glass so it was just dark in those areas. This door offers a bright inviting hallway by day and a nice glow by night thanks to the landscape lighting. I still haven't stained the inside or added the poly to the outside but I'll get there soon. 

So there you have it, those are the latest improvements. Stay tuned for a series of posts that will showcase the work that we've done/had done in other areas. We're still trying to get over feeling like someone has left the front door open. :) ~Kellie~

Social Media Scouting

I got a good chuckle this morning followed by a hmm and then a oh hell no! as I was checking facebook. Apparently, word of my awesomeness has spread and facebook is picking up what I'm putting down because I got a "suggested post" for painters. Not to hire a painter, to BE a painter. There's a company looking to hire 4+ guys that have to come with their own tools and "whites" and the pay is $15-$18/hour based on experience. Let's cover the points of this ad, shall we?

1. I'm hoping that they are using the term "guys" loosely because almost anything a guy can do I can do. That whole peeing while standing up thing is a little challenging but aside from that...
2. I do in fact have my own tools. I have my own brushes, my own roller handles, my own extension handle, poor spouts, can openers, stir sticks, drill paddle and drill for when I get tired of stirring by hand, and step stools and ladders. Heck, I even ALMOST sucked it up and bought one of those multi position ladders on sale the other day. If they still have some on what has become my daily trip to Home Depot, I might have one by the end of the day because we have stairs and I'm not that poor. 
3. I don't own any "whites". I paint in whatever the crappiest clean to semi clean because I wore it painting the day before while painting clothing I have available is. That includes but is not limited to gym shorts, tank tops, t-shirts, and yoga pants. I've thought about getting some overalls, but the 80s and 90s called and they wanted their clothes back. There was a time when I wore overalls religiously, but that ship has sailed. They also were not white. 
4. Let's talk about this experience thing. I have experience painting. In fact, I have a lot of experience especially lately. I don't get paid to paint, but I'm willing to bet that I can paint almost as well if not as well as some of those who do. You see, something that I've learned during all of this remodeling is that just because you pay a professional to do something doesn't mean that they will do a better job than what you could have done yourself. It also doesn't mean that they will get it done faster either because they have other jobs to start and work on and finish, so you get put in their queue as opposed to everything else getting dropped because it needs to get done. That's understandable and how a professional service works and I'm not faulting them for that, I'm just saying that you have to remember that you're just another job on the way to yet another job so you need to accept that before you hire someone. My next point is very important so pay close attention. 

Professional does NOT mean perfectionist!!!

Are those who do things all the time faster and more practiced? Theoretically yes, but it still doesn't mean that they will show up first thing in the morning work until dark or the job is complete  or complete it in half the time it would have taken you. It also does not mean that they will not make mistakes and that your house will look like a movie set when they are finished. They are human and it's a job in their queue. Most will slap things together just like you would because they want to get it done and get paid and move on. Did we hire painters? No, and from what I've see that the other professionals did, I'm glad that I saved that three grand. Did the other professionals do bad jobs? Well some did, yes, but most only did good enough. We had a few guys that really hustled and we're amazed at their work and we actually monetarily tipped them for their work ethic and a job well done, but the rest, meh. I'll be posting some ratings and contact information later on. Now, I'm off to paint! ~Kellie~

Light at the end of the tunnel

I feel like we are nearing the end of this project. FINALLY, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are finally down to a realistic and manageable time line and amount of work left to be completed. If push came to shove we could handle completing these remaining items ourselves, not that we'd want to but just the same. I'll start with a grand plan and then a trip back in time and then current events.

Let's start with the floor plan for the house.

 Now, way way back when we bought the house, the master looked like this. Entry door on the far right (just to the left of the stairs if you're following along), bathroom door in the middle, closet #1 on the left. There's another larger closet in this room that would be on the bottom right of this pic. Now, part of this room is now Jonas's room. This closet was demo'd and the bathroom door was moved, and the entry way was turned into an extension of the hallway. That will make more sense later.

So here's what you saw (minus the closet because it had already been removed in this pic) when you looked into the entry door before the addition.















So here's a not so great pic of what that same entry way looks like now. The doorway is gone and it's smooth and open up to the ceiling. The door to what is now Jonas's room is on the left and the door to the master suite is straight ahead. The original bathroom door used to be in the area that's on the right, but as you can see, that's been closed in.

 If you open the master door, this is what you see. We demo'd the original small closet to make room for the hallway, but we added a new closet to take its place that is on the other side and goes into Jonas's room (sorry Jonas). The new door for the bathroom is pretty much where the doorway for the old closet was and is now a pocket door so that you're not opening a door in a hallway or swinging it into the tub. Henry's office door is the next one down the line (also a pocket door) and the master closet is all the way at the end on the right.







This is what you see when you look at the wall with the closet and his office. It's very similar to what it looked like in the original master. We chose to do that both because it made sense, and because it kept the feel of the house similar to the original. Now that white thing on the wall between the doors, that's the new mini split system that will heat and cool the new area. I have a love hate relationship with it. I love the fact that we can control the temp in that room independently of the rest of the house, but I hate looking at it. I know they're all the rage in Europe, but I think that here in the U.S. we don't want to see the mechanical workings of the house so it's sort of a functional yet sleek eye sore in the room. No we couldn't use the existing unit/duct work for this room nor could we put it anywhere else in the room, trust me I asked. The external part of the unit is outside next to the big unit for the house, which is pretty much right under H's window so the line set to the new unit had to be there.

I've painted so much in the last week and a half, it's not even funny. We were going to hire a painter and got his very reasonable estimate, but decided that it was money that we could shave off the budget so we are doing it ourselves and by ourselves I mean mostly me. Henry helped prime but he has to do that whole work thing during the day so he's been watching the kids when they weren't somewhere else (yay for neighbors!) so he's not able to paint. The trim and electrical things have been installed and we're waiting for the flooring guys to come, then we can get a final inspection and move in!

In other news, the outside of the house is coming together and we finally have siding on the chimney, YAY! Here are some current pics of the house. I'll even give you some way way back ones to compare.
Here we have how the house looked when we bought it, then how it looked when we started construction.

And here we have it now! We still don't have the new front door in, but it should be here next week.It's really going to make a huge difference inside and out since it has full glass. It will give a totally different look and feel to the outside of the house and provide much needed light to the hallway. As an added bonus, if you're coming around the stairs you'll be able to tell if you're about to get hit in the face with the front door. #awkwardentry. I totally love that the porch goes all the way across now. It's super nice when you're standing on the porch as it gives it that warm inviting country feel, not that country is the style or goal of our house. It's also great so that you can hustle under a covered area faster if you drive up and it's raining, and you can go from the front door to my office without getting wet or going through the bathroom. It even looks awesome in the dark because we got some snazzy new lights! There are now TWO on the front porch, and a much larger matching single one on the back of the house. It's like the liiiiight of the suuuuun!

Oh, I almost forgot, here's my painting list. Shoot me now! It's almost done though. Ssshhh, just let me think that.

~ Kellie~

So you want to remodel?

I guess this is more of a renovation reality post than anything else. I probably have a few random pics of progress but honestly I've been too busy working on the house to take many and now I'm too tired to find them and post them here. It's a sad sad truth but there you have it. I feel like we're maybe in the home stretch but even that is questionable. I suppose that out of the things that are left, we could possibly do all of them ourselves or hire a few random people so all in all we feel a little more in control. Here is a list of things that still have to be done.

• Put approximately 12 shingles on part of the roof that got overlooked. The shingles are here and sitting in the driveway.
• Put vinyl siding on the side of the chimney that couldn't be done before because A: The chimney guy had to come and fix the flu, and B: They ran out of siding to finish it anyway. 
• Paint. OMGEEEEEE at the painting. Now we actually had someone give us an estimate on this but holy cow, I can paint to save three grand plus the cost of paint. It's a LOT of painting, let me just tell you that. #ICantPutMyArmsDown
• Add crown molding (where applicable) and baseboards to the remodeled areas. 
• Add interior doors to the new areas
• Add flooring (the cost of this made me wanna hurl and we didn't even pick really expensive stuff)
• Have the electrician install the plugs, switches, and lights (it's part of his original bid)
• Have the new front door installed (it's ordered and I so hope that it's as epic as we hope it is)
• Have the insulation guy do the blown in insulation in the attic (you know, since there's drywall now to hold it up)
• Have the HVAC guy hook up the new unit in the master
• Random other trim fixes, hardware installs, touch ups, etc.

There may be other things to add to the list but I can't think of them right now. At the current moment, we are only signed up to do the painting but we theoretically could do most of the things on that list. Eventually. If we had to. But we reeeeeally don't wanna.

So here comes the part of the post where I list things that you should really know if you're thinking of adding on or hiring people for a major renovation.

• You should go to your local codes department and ask them the basic standard procedures for getting permits, requesting inspections, scheduling inspections, inspection order (like which one comes first), and if they have any suggestions on contractors. You might even consider pulling your own permit and sub-contracting a contractor in case you have to fire him since all of the other permits are pulled/linked to the main one. 
• Consider putting something in the contract that says if they go over their allotted amount of time by more than X weeks, they have to start deducting $X off the final bill (which you pay in installments- very important fact there) for every week they go over.
• Accept that it's going to be way more expensive than you think. I know you get estimates and there's always something that comes up, blah blah blah. I watch HGTV so I knew about that and we had extra money on top of the contractor's extra money and it's a good thing because we're gonna be over budget at the end. You find that you make small changes along the way when your house is totally torn apart. You'll have the following conversation: Well, we've been wanting to do that and have plans to do it so why don't we just do it now since everything is wide open so that we don't have to tear it up again. 
• Accept that it's going to take way more time than you thought. There will be delays like weather, illness, another job ran over (that's a BIG one), something got back ordered, something arrived broken, something was broken after it arrived and now they have to order a new one, something is out of stock and you have to repeat the painstaking process of choosing another one, something is going to be waaaay more expensive than you thought and you have to repeat previous line, your inspection failed for some random reason and you have to fix it and have it reinspected, and the list goes on. 
• Accept that in order to afford those really cool upgrades that you wanted and stay anywhere in the general vicinity of your budget, you might have to buckle down and do some of the work yourself. you have to consider your strengths in this. For example, I'm not skilled at hanging doors and I'd rather paint than hang trim, so I'm paying the trim guy and doing the painting myself. I'm probably not that great of a painter either, but it's what I've got. 
• Tell your boss or your clients or your kids that you'll be semi unavailable for the next undetermined amount of time. 
• If you are going to put yourself in a position similar to ours, be prepared to eat a bunch of take-out or quick meals at the coffee table before scrounging through a laundry basket for a clean towel and some underwear so that you can take your tired paint covered ass to the bathroom and get a shower before you drag your exhausted self to your inflatable bed to pass out for the night. You should also add money to your HSA to cover all those chiropractic bills due to the strain that you're putting on your body from working and sleeping on said air mattress. You should also kiss your love life good-bye because by the time you actually go to bed, you're too tired to do anything else and let's face it, air mattresses aren't really made for that kind of action. No, that is NOT how or why our first one broke. If it were, I would fess up to that because it would have made a hilarious blog post. 

So there you have it kids, that's how my days are going. I have managed to regain use of my dining table which has made life infinitely more tolerable. We are scheduled to wrap all of this up within the next two weeks if there are no more delays. Remember that line in The Money Pit? Two weeks, two weeks? Yeah, it's like that. I'll post a follow up post later to let you know if I think it was all worth it. ~Kellie~

...and that's how you end up on the roof at 4 in the morning.

For those of you who read my post on facebook and wanted to know why I was on the roof  at four in the morning, it's story time! 
So I was sleeping not so awesomely when I woke up to this sound. It sounded like a computer when it's grinding away in deep thought, you know the sound. My first thought was just that, Henry's computer is basically in our room. I laid there a few minutes and realized that the noise was coming from the other side of the room. I determined that it was water hitting something in an awkward non consistent manner. It sort of sounded like the roof, but sort of not. My brain started calculating how far away the elbow in the gutter was, and then the fact that we'd added on so the edge of the house isn't at the corner of our room anymore and that there is no gutter there now and even if we were on the end of the house, the gutter goes all the way down before there's an elbow. This sound was clearly hitting the roof of the porch outside the window. Those of you who know me know that repetitive noises like that drive me nuts. Water dripping is definitely a mental insanity trigger for me. I tried to resist the urge to check it out, really I did. I pulled the blankets up, tried to put my arm over my ear, nothing worked. It was an Edgar Allen Poe moment for sure. By now Henry had heard it and was awake too. I got out of bed, opened the window, and stuck my head out to see what was up. It was too dark to see what it was. I asked him if he has a flashlight, he didn't. He suggests the flashlight on his phone, so I grabbed my phone instead because it was closer and tried to take a look. I still couldn't see, the light wasn't bright enough, I should have used his app I guess. By now I'm wide awake and mad and determined to see where the noise is coming from. I'm going to need a better look. I put on my pajama pants, sweater and boots, and head out the window with my dimly lit phone to investigate. That's when I see that there's a spot where the water is coming off the roof and running between the house and the gutter. Its dripping onto the metal flashing and roof. Drip, drip drip, driiiiiiip, driiiiiip. OMG!!!! I must make it stop. I mentally refuse to suggest that Henry go get the ladder and come out on the roof with me to really fix this. I just want to introduce a temporary solution so that I can sleep until it's daylight when I can get the ladder and ensure that this never happens again. Then it occurs to me that if I put something on the roof to soften the drips I could go back to sleep since I'm very cranky by now. I go back inside through the window, grab a washcloth from the bathroom, go back outside through the window, place the washcloth so that it dampens the sound. Mwahahahaha! I feel like a winner! I go back inside, take off all the extra stuff, crawl back into bed and listen to the much softer dripping that just sounds like rain. I doze off until the washcloth becomes so saturated with water that it's making a louder noise. By then the baby is awake for his early morning rave and he's talking loudly to himself in his crib. I almost doze back off and then Henry's alarm goes off. It's 5 a.m. now. I laid there for a moment contemplating how to handle this situation before determining that my restless night's sleep was over and that I should just get up and pray that Henry had started the coffee, which he had. So there you have it, that's why I was on the roof at four this morning. 

On a side note: Theoretically the HVAC guys and electrician will be here today to fix things so that we can move on. I hope that they are quick and thorough about it because after all that, I am in no mood to play. :-p ~Kellie~

Evolving ideas

So the electrician came yesterday and started wiring things up. He's not done and we found out that he's kinda working us in when he's not on this really huge job that he's also doing. That's ok with us, it gives us time to ponder things. Like not getting that tankless water heater that we were going to get. We just decided against it, it's not really worth the cost to us so we scrapped the idea. If we had gas piped to the house then it would be a different decision entirely, but we don't so that's that. So back to pondering things. We are somewhat masters of using almost every inch of available space. When you have a relatively small house and a bunch of people and lots of things, you get creative on how to organize and store things. Let's look back at out very first act of creating usable space from "dead" or hard to access space, the coffee bar.

Here's the before and after on that. The cavity for the coffee bar existed before, but it was accessed from inside the pantry. As you can see, (refer to the finished picture or this description will get weird) it's not a terribly deep space, but it's wide. When you put that into perspective with the previous version, that makes it narrow and long so basically you could fit your arm in there but not the rest of your body so it made this really awkward space to say stash a broom, have it fall to the back, then you couldn't reach it without serious effort. We have neighbors who have put shelves in that area and that would have been a great solution except that the idea of a coffee bar was super appealing to us. Also, if you do shelves for that entire area, you still have the issue of not reaching what's in the back and if you didn't make them go all the way back you're wasting space so whatever, we made a coffee bar. This has been a fabulous feature for us as it frees up counter space in the kitchen and we think that it is visually appealing. We still have plans to trick it out a little more but for now this is what it's like. (See Henry there in the corner of that pic? His "desk/office" is right there for now so he's really digging the coffee bar ;) LOL)
So what other space saving/space using plans do we have now?? I have that answer along with a poorly photo shopped proposed "after" shot. When the framing was done upstairs to create the hallway, it created a dead space between two of the walls. We've been racking our brains trying to come up with ideas for that space so that it's not wasted. Henry to the rescue when he said that it would be great to put shelves in, and not only shelves for his office, but shelves for the bathroom. His office shares the wall with the back of the tub (complete with its own toilet! - just overlook that) So anyway, if he has shelves or custom drawers in there, he could put books or cds or photos or all of those random cables and usb sticks and such in there. His office is really small and that little bit of extra space for all of the little things that clutter up everything could make a huge difference. The area between the walls is only like 12" wide, but it's deep so that's when the idea for the bathroom shelves came in so that we could utilize all of the dead space. I didn't photoshop his side, but I did photoshop the bathroom side so in theory it could look something like this----------------------------------------------------------->
It could be a space for towels or wash cloths or makeup or extra toilet paper (in baskets) or something else pretty and decorative. It could also help alleviate that jumbled mess that's under the bathroom sink. By both rooms sharing the space, it ensures that the shelves won't bee too deep to reach things that go to the back of them. So there you have it, our latest brainstorm and plan to utilize all of the extra space that we can. ~Kellie~

No news isn't necessarily good news

Some of you have asked how things with the house are going, and the answer is that they really aren't. The only thing that has been done since my last blog post is that the contractor came out himself and put shingles on the house portion of the addition so that water would stop pouring in when it rained. Apparently there was some issue with the actual roofer and blah blah blah, he couldn't get him to come out and he (the contractor) didn't want to leave us hanging so he and one other guy came out and roofed it. The porch still isn't roofed but Henry and I did get up there and put tar paper on it so it's not raining under the porch anymore. As far as the construction, that's really all that there is to report other than the funny call we got from the permit office but that has all been straightened out. The city didn't want to give him one permit for $50k, but they'd gladly give him two permits for $24,999 for a small fee and he could go on his merry way and carry on with his plans. That's just stupid and another way for the city to make money. I feel bad for him, but welcome to Franklin I suppose.
Sort of related to the renovation, Henry and I finally ordered the new stove and dishwasher that we've been eying for like ten months. We were told that black Friday would be the lowest prices that there would be all year so we patiently waited for that day. The dishwasher was on sale, the stove was not (wth??), but we got $50 off for buying two appliances. That does not equate to a sale price on the stove but at least it's something. They did tell us that if it went on sale during the next thirty days that they'd refund the difference so there's that. To top it off we will get some cheap gas on our next fill up because of that whole rewards program thing so all in all I suppose it's not too bad. Our purchasing experience was overly complicated and drawn out as usual (Home Depot, when will we ever learn??) but we eventually got it paid for and left the store. They will not be installing it because the laminate does not go under the dishwasher and makes a small lip so they won't install. Again, wth?? It's like a quarter of an inch and doesn't interfere with removing the dishwasher. Ask me how I know, go ahead. It's not a big deal because we know how to install it, but it's still ridiculous. It's also ridiculous that they don't charge you sales tax on the dishwasher if you have it installed because it's considered a "service" and therefore not taxable but since we aren't having it installed we had to pay sales tax on it. I guess that makes that fifty dollars off for buying two appliances irrelevant. The install was $69 extra which is basically the same as the sales tax that we paid so whatever.

So, who wants pictures?!?!?!?

This is the dishwasher that we got. The controls are at the top so little fingers don't push all the buttons and melt all my tupperware. The picture on the right? See those little blue things? Those are special bottle/glass cleaner wands that fit up in the container and shoot water into the bottom thus removing the sludge of chocolate milk or whatever else might have been lurking in there.

Below is the stove that we got. It has a smooth top, five burners (do you still call them burners if there is no flame?), and double ovens. Just look at all the pizzas I can cook in there at a time! I have no idea what I will do with all of the pans that used to live in the bottom drawer but I smell another kitchen remodel to figure it out. *Note: We actually do know what to do with them but it really is another project for another day. I'm super glad that when I boil over stuff, it won't go all down in the eyes resulting in a tear down and scrubbing of parts of the stove that normal humans are not meant to see. I've had a smooth top before so I'm aware of the whole no cast iron on them, don't use scrubby pads, etc. so no harping on that in the comments. I'm also super stoked that the elements in the stove are covered so there's no crazy mess around them either. I think that a stove with two ovens is a good choice for us because we have a bunch of kids. We can do two pizzas and breadsticks at the same time, or dinner and dessert, or just use the small one on top when it's just Henry and I. In any case, I'm really excited to have a new stove and dishwasher since I have had the same ones for like thirteen years and they weren't that great to begin with. I know that that's probably not a long time to have (cheap) appliances, but it's two marriages, two houses, and four kids later and I'm thrilled for the change. I'm glad that I got to pick out what I wanted and didn't just choose the cheapest ones in the store because they were functional (and cheap). So there you have it, that's all that's new with us. ~Kellie~

Drying it in

When I last checked in on Day:1 (three days ago), they had ripped off the roof, framed in the new exterior walls, and added one truss. By the end of Day:2, they had turned their attention to how they were going to connect the new space with the old space. Some of these pics probably won't make a whole lot of sense but I'll try to explain the best that I can. Some I made notes on, some I didn't so just bear with me. I've included the "plans" so that you can orient yourself.
So this first photo is taken from the doorway of the original master (which will become a hallway opening and Jonas's room). You can see that they have removed the small closet that was there so that they can frame in the other end of the hall opening.

By the end of Day:2, the outside of the house looked something like this. The roof trusses were up and the sheathing was on it, and they had started adding the sheathing to the the walls. They were also beginning to frame in the new porch extension. I guess that seems like not a whole lot for an entire day's work, but there were many many things that had to be figured out and measured and planned for so that things could go on.

Day: 3 arrived and they started really framing the porch. Now I was out running errands so I missed this part. If I had been home I would have caught a little error that's showing here. I'll explain more about that later.
Some of you have asked how things are going living in the house while all of this is going on, and the answer to that is well, it's interesting. For example, they removed the ceiling and all of that jazz from the downstairs portion of the addition area which meant
that my dryer vent was removed. We have a lot of laundry here,
so after just a few days of construction things were getting pretty tight on the whole clothing thing so being as creative as we are, we engineered a solution to the problem of venting all that hot wet air into the construction area. With just a little well placed duct tape and a partially opened window, we vented the dryer. YAY, now we can have clean clothes again. The lack of laundry did leave me wearing a dress until all of my jeans were washed, but Joy said that I looked festive so I guess it wasn't all bad. :-p

Speaking of Joy, I was out running craft fair errands while they were framing the porch so when I came home and they were almost finished I noticed this glaring error. I guess you can't see it very well in this picture but I noticed it right away and immediately hated it. The porch did not go all the way to the corner of the house. They did it that way on purpose to allow for trim and gutters, but I wasn't having it and when the contractor saw it he was right there with me in the no, no, no, this can't happen, let's do this instead. I felt kinda bad but the guys were really good sports about it and quickly adjusted things
so that it did go all the way to the edge. 

Earlier that morning they had cut open the master and started framing. I had a little bit of a "Money Pit" moment when I was grabbing a few forgotten things from the master bath and I walked out of the door to see that the wall had been removed and I was staring at construction workers first thing in the morning. Hi guys! (Yes, I had clothes on.) So anyway this pic is obviously from later in the day and you can see the framing starting to take shape. The pic on the left is from the hallway in, and the pic on the right is from the new master out. I did think to label that one so that you can see what you're looking at. The door for the bathroom looks really small but it's only the angle, it's the same size as it was before. It's also going to be a pocket door so that changes things as well.

Speaking of the new master, here are some shots from within that area. The first one here is the front of the house which will be the bedroom part. It does look really narrow, but it's the same size as the one that we had before so we're used to it. We only go there to sleep and hide from the kids anyway so we don't need a ton of room. We do gain a little additional room due to the face that we now also get a hallway to the bathroom so I guess there's that. On the other end of this is the area that will be the closet and Henry's new office. If you look really closely you can see the stud that looks thicker than the others, that's where the wall will divide the two spaces. It also looks tiny but it is what it is. Our goal with the addition wasn't to have huge sprawling rooms, it was just to give everyone their own dedicated space. I know that some would say oh you have five bedrooms but they are all small, and that is correct. The master and Kinsley's room are the biggest (I'm sure we'll hear about that later) but even they aren't huge. The simple facts of the matter are that the footprint of the house is only so big and that expanding that footprint (which is an option that we previously considered) would have taken way more money than we wanted to

spend. Other facts about this are that we totally love our location and our neighborhood and even our crazy neighbors, so we didn't want to move. We actually did check into moving and let me tell you that a decent five bedroom house in any kind of decent location in Franklin is waaay more than we wanted to spend or than we will have invested in our house after all of this. Even a really crappy outdated house (like this one was when we bought it) was more to start than we have invested in ours so far so for all those who wondered, that's why we did what we did. Anyway, back to the addition.
By the end of Day: 3, here's where we are. The photo above shows that the hall closet (that little part jutting into the room) and all of the other interior walls up there have been framed. This closet will take the place of the one that we ripped down on the other side. No we couldn't leave it because it was in the way of where the bathroom door needed to be. (Refer back to the "plans" above if you're not sure.) They also added plywood over the hall opening to keep the cold air from rushing in.

There was a little additional framing done downstairs. It's kinda dark, but you can see that they have framed in a new closet for Colin's room as well as new walls on top of the lip left from the cement blocks that formed the garage. Previously there were walls on that lip, but they framed them in such an odd way that you couldn't hand shelves or anything on the wall so we ripped out the old ones and had them add these new ones. This will also allow us to have some hella thick insulation in there so no more temperature fluctuations when the sun goes down. We're also getting a tankless water heater so this closet area will make more sense.
So here we are on Day:4 and the outside of the house looks a little like this. They have boarded up the windows and wrapped the house in plastic to keep it dry. I've also posted a pic of the back of the house but it's not really very exciting. The roofers are due to be here this morning. The dumpster is full and I'm sure the contractor will make a call to have it swapped out because they still have to remove the siding and replace it with vinyl.  I'm not really sure when that's scheduled but I presume that it will not be until after the holidays. Aside from the roofers, I have no idea what's going to go on in the house today. We really liked our framers and were sad to see them go. They did great work, they were very polite, and they were fast. They didn't even mind our random questions and changes and gawking. Henry will be taking the kids to our parents's houses while he and I attend a craft fair this weekend. (That'll be another blog post all to itself I'm sure.) I'm a little nervous about it as I don't want to bring everything back home but I also don't want to sell out on the first day. Given those choices, I'd rather have the latter but in any case I hope that I do well enough to be invited back next year. So if you guys need something awesome to do this weekend, hit us up at the Centennial Craft Fair in Franklin. ~Kellie~

Raise Da Roof! (after you tear it off first)

 Well here it is, the last photo of our house looking structurally the way that it was built. I have to admit that I've been a little nervous about the construction but I've been preoccupied with other things so that's helped. Our construction crew showed up yesterday morning and got to work. I was sort of surprised at the number of work vans and people who filled my driveway, yard and street. The more the merrier I always say. I guess it takes a big crew to raise da roof!!

 Well, I mean first they had to tear it off but anyway. These guys were fast, and within two hours they had the roof off. They took a little lunch break to defrost and regroup from demolition mode to construction mode. We went out to have a look at things so that we didn't seem like we were micro managing things. It really is hard to just sit inside and try to work on what you need to be doing while they rip part of your house apart. Henry said that it was like when you're at the dentist and all numbed up and they are pulling your tooth. You can hear the commotion, but you can't see it or feel it (though it did get a little chilly in here with no roof on there). We both find construction fascinating and honestly I think that we could have just sat out there and watched them all day. We'd have seemed like creepers if we had so I was glad that it was too cold to do that and we both had work to do. Here are the old roof trusses next to the new ones. This struck me as interesting on a deep level. It's like seeing death and birth at the same time. Or maybe like a retiring worker standing next to his younger and newer replacement so that the job can go on. Either way, I got a picture.

Now the fun began. They came back from lunch and slammed through putting the floor trusses on. Those are the part that look like a pallet under the walls. They were pre-built to speed things along as well as because that's how the rest of the house is framed. All of the operating guts of the house like plumbing, electrical, and HVAC live there between the floors. It keeps things tidy but it does mean that if you ever have to work on those systems you have to either remove part of the ceiling or part of the floor to access them. Not my problem, I'll pay someone else to do that. So anyway, I had no idea that they were this far when I hustled out to put a package in the mail so man was I surprised when I turned around to come back and there were walls! By the end of the day, they had all of the walls up and the end roof truss! It makes me laugh to see the house look like shipping containers stacked together with this weird extra piece filling in the gap. It's almost like when people have a trailer and they build on a room. I suppose I think that because the rest of the house is finished and this part isn't I dunno, but it still makes me laugh. Here's another thing that I found amusing while we're on the subject of me being easily entertained. Here are some pics of what the inside of that room looks like.  I didn't realize that they had all of this bracing in there to help support the existing walls and keep them square while they did all of the other work until later after they had all gone. I kept wondering why there were guys down in that room working since they were only supposed to be framing the outside that day. Remember what I said about not wanting to be nosy though, so I just sat at my little desk and ran my little machine and tried to stay out of it. Today they will get the rest of the roof trusses up, get the interior walls up for the

closet and Henry's office, get everything covered in sheathing and maybe even get the shingles on. They have to tear off part of the existing roof in order to tie it all together so that there aren't any big bumps in it that would point out where the new roof started. Meanwhile, we have Thanksgiving meals to eat with the boys at school and another fireplace guy is coming to talk to us about replacing this beast. I'm afraid to see what that's going to cost as it's not in the amount with the contractor but more of an item that we are taking the opportunity to address since everything is torn apart anyway.
So there you have it, that's where we are as of nearly 7 a.m. on day two. We are just waiting on the crews to roll in and get started for the day. Stay tuned tomorrow for another exciting run down of construction at our house. :-p ~Kellie~