Setting Goals

A few weeks ago I had a little bit of a meltdown, it probably stemmed from a lot of issues but the last straw was the roof leaking...again! I'll admit sobbing uncontrollably on the floor when Brett got home from work was definitely the low point. After some careful thought I decided I needed to set some serious goals with respect to finishing house related projects. So I picked a date - January 1st. On January 1st we will have a roof that does not leak (don't worry it will be tested before we declare victory here!), walls in the kitchenette and den, and properly installed/rerouted electrical. Is this ambitious? Absolutely! But since my kitchenette has been missing walls for approximately 5 months I think it is time for some ambitious goals. 

I find the hardest part about setting goals is actually taking the first steps to meet them. After I picked January 1st as our milestone, I was ready to take on any project. Unfortunately for Brett I have some 'rules' when it comes to home improvement projects - I call it the home improvement buddy system. Essentially I do not want Brett doing roof work or electrical work alone. Call it paranoia, call it being overprotective, call it whatever you want I just feel better if someone else around. All of that to tell you this, the first weekend after I set the deadline it rained....all weekend. While it gave us/Brett a really great opportunity to plan out exactly how we were going to meet the deadline, the bad weather definitely took the wind out of our sails a bit. The next weekend we were ready to go until I remembered I had signed up for a volunteer thing from 10am-1pm on Saturday and because of my 'rules' it meant Brett couldn't get started on the roof like we had planned. So it was 2pm before we really got started last Saturday. On Sunday we woke up early and started working, then around 3pm our friends offered us tickets to the Saints game that night. Of course I wanted to go which meant we had to wrap up our roof work a little earlier than we expected. 

While we made a lot of progress last weekend we are nowhere near where we thought we'd be. I know I give Brett a hard time about being timely challenged from time to time but I'll take full responsibility for this last weekend's hold ups. I've come to the realization that meeting this goal is going to be a lot harder than I thought but I still think we can do it! 

Oh, Isaac

Thank goodness last week is over. Thanks to Hurricane Isaac we evacuated, had to work remotely, cancel a trip to Boston (that I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to go on!), and had a car break down. Having said all that we are SO lucky – our house never lost power, cable or internet during the storm. Yes, our house did sustain some damage – leaking roof, downed fences, a tree that fell on the garage and carport, and an A/C unit that makes an awful squealing noise. But things could have been much worse and I’m very thankful they weren’t. We are SO lucky! Others weren’t as lucky, some people I know have lost everything, please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

On Sunday we returned home from our week long evacuation to a very messy yard. Thanks to our awesome plastic leaf scoopers and trash bag stand, cleaning up the leaves wasn’t that bad. I mean it was still about 14 bags full of leaves and debris but at least we didn’t wake up quite as sore as the last time we raked leaves. Brett tried to cut down as much of the tree as he could, which was about 4 huge piles of branches.

After all the yard work was done we decided to reassess and reprioritize our home improvement projects. It looks like new siding and gutters may have just taken over the top spot.

Window Installation Part 2

Between the random thunderstorms last weekend we were finally able to get the second kitchenette window installed. I’ll be honest, I was almost no help this time – for the record it was a bad idea to give blood before trying to assist with a home improvement project. Regardless of my inability to help and the inclement weather, Brett got the window installed in record time!

This time we didn’t have to completely reframe the window, but we did need to adjust the height and size. Thankfully we had plenty of room to work with since the previous window had not been installed or anchored correctly.

Yep, that screw is supposed to be touching something

The plans - Always remember to measure twice cut once!

The old window is out, now to frame the new window

Building the new window frame

This makes me so nervous...

Waterproofing

Second window installed!

More waterproofing

Tada! Window installation complete!

Weekend Laziness

Another weekend in the books and to be honest we never really started working on the second window. It was a combination of exhaustion and laziness; did I mention it was hot this weekend too? But most importantly the Olympics were on! I spent most of the weekend on the couch watching swimming, rowing, gymnastics, volleyball, and diving. While I love watching the Olympics it makes me acutely aware of how out of shape I am – not that I was ever as “in shape” as any of the athletes but you know what I mean. Yesterday I even made a halfhearted attempt at doing Pilates while watching the Men’s Gymnastics Final.

Anyway, as I was sitting on my couch I realized we had quite the collection of magazines all being home décor...

This pretty much sums up the phase of life we're in right now! 

Window Installation Part 1

Last weekend we started installing two new windows in our Kitchenette, I thought we'd be able to wrap it all up in one weekend....not so much! Yet another reminder that home improvement projects will take about 10 times as long as you think they will.  We were only able to get one of the windows installed but it was the window that was going to take the most work. 

Here's the play by play - we have an exterior door in our Kitchen/Kitchenette area that we hate. We removed the door, framed the space for a window and installed the window (Wow, when I write it out it seems so much easier than it was).

The Before...

And the door is gone!

And now to take out the door frame...

Shelby likes her new doggie door

Using a nail gun for the first time

Snoball break - yes, it was totally necessary!

Moving some of the electrical 

Framing the window

Brett using his new nail gun!

All the necessary power tools

Brett even let me use the nail gun

The exterior

The exterior waterproofed

Window (finally) installed...

And perfectly level!

Now for the second window...

Rainy Days...

As luck would have it I have today off (which I totally grateful for) but it's also raining like cats and dogs (not as grateful for). Oh well, at least this bad weather will give me a chance to catch up on my blogging and housework....bet you can't guess which one I'm procrastinating.

So here's been our lives as of late - we FINALLY got around to getting Brett's birthday present! Woohoo - it's an air compressor!

Despite how he looks in the picture he really was excited about it! Although I think this present goes into the category of "You know you're an adult when..." But in order to frame out the kitchenette and eventually Hardie plank the exterior we needed the air compressor. Although I think deep down Brett just loves tools.

Next we got my birthday present.  While this can also go in the "You know when you're an adult when..." category, it's slightly more self serving than the air compressor. For those of you that guessed a Nikon D5100 - you are correct!

After we got the camera we had to get a better lens, then camera bag, then lens protector, then the memory card....suffice it to say the camera wasn't the most expensive part of the present. I'd been wanting to pick up photography as a hobby and of course needed the camera to better document our home renovation! So far I've taken approximately 100 pictures of Shelby! She's quickly becoming one of the world's most photographed dogs.

Shelby certainly doesn't seem to mind the attention!

Besides my camera I got another big birthday present, my Mom and Grandma were able to come to town and celebrate with me. They even made me pot roast, mashed potatoes, and gravy on my birthday! And of course Shelby and Grandma got some quality time in...

Provided the weather cooperates we will be framing out and installing new windows this weekend. I promise there will be a post and lots of pictures from that!

I'm Grateful For...

I read my friend, Ashley's blog and I borrowed this idea. I've been so overwhelmed with work recently that making a list of what I'm grateful for seemed like a good way to put things in perspective. So here goes:

• I'm grateful for my amazing husband and his super handy ingenious ideas. No matter how annoying the phrase "We're making progress" is when I ask how a project is going. I'm actually grateful he puts up with me!
• I'm grateful for a fulfilling (and busy) job, even though it's stressful now I'm grateful to be employed, enjoying my job, and learning new things everyday.
• I'm grateful for our house. While I think I may always be a work in progress, I take so much pride in doing improvements ourselves.
• I'm grateful for my husband's job, as stressful as it is. He always works hard to keep a roof over our head and plan for our future.
• I'm grateful for our dog, Shelby. She's just the best cuddle bug!
• I'm grateful for our amazing friends who are always a great source of support and entertainment. Between dinner parties, happy hours, beach weekends, random hula hoop contests, festivals, wedding showers, weddings, baby showers, and kid's birthday parties we're so blessed to have amazing friends!
• I'm grateful I get to be an Aunt. It's such as blessing to be a part of my nieces and nephew's lives. I love them more and more everyday!
• I'm grateful for my family and Brett's family. We may not always see eye to eye but I know there's nothing we wouldn't do for each other. 
• I'm grateful for my parents and everything they've done and continue to do to support me. They never pressure or push, they offer advice and support and expect nothing in return. Truly amazing examples of selfless love. 
• I'm SO grateful I took a leap of faith and moved to New Orleans to attend Tulane, where I met my amazing husband!
• I'm grateful my husband and I are healthy. We know too many people who have to struggle with various health problems and we are so blessed to be healthy.
• I'm grateful my Mom and Grandma are coming to New Orleans to us visit for my birthday! I couldn't ask for a better birthday present!
• I'm grateful I get to attend my niece's 2nd birthday party today! We are so blessed to have a happy, healthy and super cute niece!

Whew, that definitely put me in a better place! So thankful for my life!

Cabinets are how much!?!

Being a home owner has made me appreciate how hard my parents worked to keep a roof over our heads.  I really just had NO idea how much home improvements, furniture, and other decor costs! I mean everytime I turn around we are faced with another set of expenses and unfortunately, I'm a numbers person so I quickly start adding everything up, adding in tax, cost of installation, etc. That's about the time the room start spinning, walls start closing in and I feel lightheaded!

This latest pricing panic attack came while figuring out how to finish out our kitchenette. Since we want to install cabinets around and above the washer and dryer we got into a debate about what to do with the rest of the kitchen. Should we finish the kitchenette the way we want the whole kitchen to look? Should we wait and remodel the kitchen at one time? What about granite, we need to install all the granite at once not piecemeal......ahhhhh!

It's no secret that I would LOVE a new kitchen, but that wasn't really top on the list of repairs/improvements. Nonetheless, I decided to do some price comparisons. I figured if nothing else it would give me a goal to work towards. Well, after shopping around I learned the kitchen remodel was going to be a big goal to work towards. I think my exact words when I saw the quote we, "Are you kidding me? It's just pretty wood!" The guy working at Home Depot clearly new I was a first time home owner!

Basically, for a new kitchen including cabinets, installation, countertops and some creative construction to make one wall of cabinets fit we are looking at $17,500. Ugh! I guess it makes sense, people always say you spend the most money on kitchens and bathrooms and unfortunately that's what our house needs. I know that we could trim the price of the kitchen by doing installation ourselves (which we were planning to do anyway) but it's still overwhelming.

Enter the resourceful husband - Brett spent much of home depot trip inspecting the kitchen displays and he's pretty confident he can build us custom cabinets. Honestly, since we were going to have to do some creative construction anyway, having the custom cabinets would make the most sense. For the time being we're going to leave the kitchenette unfinished but it is good to know when the time comes to upgrade the kitchen we have some better priced options.

Another Wall Bites the Dust

After deconstructing the kitchenette we considered the idea of opening up the den and kitchen. I wasn't quite sure how I would feel about taking out the entire wall between the kitchen/kitchenette and den so we pulled down the wood paneling on the den side of the wall. We were already planning on replacing the wood paneling so we figured we might as well tear it down now and to see how it would look completely open.

Once we got the paneling down, I loved it! Opening up this space makes creates a much better flow to the house.

Now we just have to figure out how to reinforce the load bearing wall and configure our furniture!

Last weekend's fun - waterproofing and deconstruction

In my last post I mentioned we uncovered a water leak and some rotted wood during our demo of the laundry area and kitchenette. Since this is only one of the many problems we discovered we are going to TRY to tackle one problem at a time!

Kitchenette and Laundry Area Renovation

And so the big renovations have begun…we have taken our entire kitchenette and laundry area down to the studs. We got smart this time and hung visqueen at the two entry ways to the kitchenette so that we minimize the dust and mess.

Next we started the fun stuff – demolition! Turns out I’m pretty good at this! Especially prying nails out of walls, oh I’m so talented. Brett is good at all of it including hauling it all out side (that’s usually the point I lose interest). Overall, we took out the accordion doors to the laundry area, the laundry area walls, the peg board in the laundry area, and the wood paneling for 2 more walls. It’s so much more impressive if you see the pictures so here goes:

Yep, that's brick inspired linoleum under the tile

We’ve uncovered so many other problems too. Word to the wise – if you’re doing home improvements and you ever think it’s a good idea to cut through a stud and not reinforce it, put down the tools and go call a contractor – a licensed one! And if your solution to fixing a water leak is painters tape and electrical tape – call a contractor! Literally both of those problems exist in our house, on the same wall no less. Oh did I mention that there was no insulation in the walls, yeah that was interesting too.

We figured out some other weird things too. Based on the framing of the wall between the kitchenette and den, the kitchenette was built long before the den was. It looks like at one point there was a window that overlooked the area that is now the den. Since we think this den was added on much later the doorway between the kitchenette and den was obviously added later too, this would explain why we are missing two studs above the doorway.   

Despite the weird stuff we have a game plan! We found so awesome old rustic wood at an architectural salvage store. We are going to use the wood to transition from the kitchen (9 ft ceilings) to the kitchenette (8 ft ceiling). We are going to insulate the room and sheet rock but leave the exposed beam ceiling. In the laundry area we are building a small panty/storage space for mops, brooms, Swiffer, etc., build counter tops over the washer and dryer and install cabinets above the countertops.  We are also toying with the idea of installing a nice big bay window to overlook the back yard. But before we get to that fun stuff we have a ton of repairs to make. We need to relocate the electrical box on the outside of the house, reroute the electrical inside the house, repairs a few spots of rotted wood, reframe the doorway to the den, remove and reframe the door in the kitchenette, and last but not least reinforce the studs that were cut.


Before we started tearing things down, I asked Brett for a timeline for this little project. You know a guesstimate as to how long this would take. He looked at me, laughed and said, “Seriously?” At the time I was slightly offended, but now I get why he didn’t want to commit to a deadline…needless to say this little project is going to take a while! It's also going to take a lot of energy!

Shelby and I resting up!