trashy to classy

We've gone from trashy....

to classy...

Well, maybe "classy" is a stretch but we feel much more civilized now that our walls aren't naked anymore.

Wes came over to help Chris put up all the drywall and Chris borrowed an awesome SENCO automatic screw gun from his coworker Don.  I wish I had a video of it in action.  It's pretty awesome and made the job go by much faster.  Probably saved them several hours.  So thanks Don! (Or course now I'm sure Chris will want one of his own...)

Wes the artist signing their work... Chris also signed his own initials, but apparently he missed the lesson on bubble letters.  It was hard to tell if it said CDB or COD or CO8 or what.

Seeing this you wouldn't even know Chris is an established artist whose artwork has been on display in a local art museum :)

baby it's cold outside

Well... not really.

But we put up some new insulation on the exterior walls nonetheless.  To keep the heat out and the cold in, mostly.  (Not that I really let Chris run the A/C or heater much being the good 'ole cheap German girl and daughter-of-an-A/C-man that I am.)

Pretty, snow white insulation. Much better than the yucky ole pink stuff.

This is a pretty sweet little gadget we added a few months ago.  We have our front and back porch lights on a timer so we don't have to turn them on/off every night/morning. And it has a cool +/- 15min. feature so it doesn't always come on at the exact same time in case anyone is spying!!!

zen and the art of wallpaper removal

We're pretty much "pros" at removing wallpaper now.  Doesn't mean we dislike it any less than we did on our first bathroom project.  Everyone has their own techniques, and apparently a lot depends on how old the paper is, the type of glue that was used at the time, yada yada.  For us, the best method has proven to be using a steamer (which I borrowed from work - Thank you CE Group!) to soak the paper really well then scraping and peeling the paper layer, then the glue layer, with a scraper/your fingernails.  The glue comes off nicely when heated with the steamer then forms a lovely concrete mass under your fingernails, on the floor, in your hair, on the scraper, and everywhere else.

Enough complaining because... OUR HOUSE IS OFFICIALLY WALLPAPER FREE!!!  And no offense to any of you wallpaper lovers, but we vow to never put wallpaper in this house or any future home just so no one ever has to take it off.

We couldn't have done it without this guy... I'm almost sad our relationship has ended.

Goodbye Harvest Wheat!

Check out that sweet Bonsai Tree - it was sort of a funny Christmas present from Chris.  (There's a little lady that sells bonsai trees at a corner gas station that we pass every Sunday morning on the way to church.  Every week when we drive by, we say - Bonsai tree?  Funny thing is I almost bought him the same thing for Christmas.  We'll see how long we can keep it alive...)

the westside is popcorn-free

Hooray... half of our house is officially POPCORN FREE!

Chris was at the deer lease (we need more meat or we won't have anything to cook in our new kitchen!) and I surprised him by scraping the ceiling in the laundry room.  Yes... we are so romantic.  This is the first time I've done one room all at once.  It's a small room, but still. It felt good to knock it out in one fell swoop. So now the entry, living, kitchen/dining, and laundry are popcorn free.  The 3 bedrooms and hallway have yet to meet their popcorn-maker!  (I crack myself up...)

It's unbelievable how much popcorn can come from one tiny 6 x 10 room.

Seriously... ridiculous.

I know it's old school, but I actually really love this fixture.  I'm trying to decide what color to re-finish the base in?  Suggestions?  My stand-by is "oil rubbed bronze" but I'm thinking that may be too dark for this milk glass-looking fixture.  Polished nickel maybe?

Look at that beautiful naked ceiling! (Oh and to the left you'll see the beginning of my other little surprise project I started... extending the shelves above the cabinets and installing a dowel to hang clothes to dry.)

electrical shmectrical

So my eyes pretty much glaze over when it comes to all the electrical work we have to do.  But I try to be the best apprentice I can... Helping feed romex through holes in the ceiling and walls, taking off outlets, sealing wires with wire nuts, watching lights go off and yelling to Chris that he's found the correct breaker, and comforting him when he shocks himself with 110 volts (only happened once).  The rest is up to Chris, with some phone consultation from my cousin Bobby, my dad, and his dad.

The plan is somewhat complex, but to sum it up, here's what we have to rewire for:

• General Lighting - We're going from 1 ugly fluorescent light, 2 halogen can lights (which we installed), and fluorescent under-cabinet lighting to 8 LED can lights on the perimeter, 2 pendant lights above the island, and LED under-cabinet lighting.  The complicated part is that these are all on 3-way switches (meaning you can turn them on from 2 diff. locations) and a dimmer on the LED can lights to set the mood. .
• Move the 220v circuit that powers the oven to the other wall.
• Add additional wiring and outlets to our new wall of cabinets.
• Run new wiring for 2 breakers for the microwave and range hood.
• Move lots of outlets and switches around to accommodate for our new plans.

We've worked on the electrical for about 1 1/2 weeks now which means lots of crawling around and getting itchy in the attic for Chris.  It also means a lot of us yelling through the ceiling - push the black one up, okay pull the yellow one through until the tape comes through, is it enough to reach the box with a little extra?...etc.  The nuisance is that we only have a few hours of daylight after work so when we turn the breakers off we're in the dark for awhile, working via headlamp, work lights, and candlelight.  Oh... and resetting all the clocks basically every day.

We call him Cyclops.  This is where the fluorescent light was.

3-way wiring diagram - seems so simple, right?!?!

This is the front wall of cabinets - we added the upper outlets.

Wiring for an outlet and back porch light/switch

We've spent a pretty penny on Romex...

Breaker box in the garage.  Plus an Old School Shiner calendar we found at my Great Aunt and Uncle's and a poster of a studly running back.  Go Tigers.

A somewhat "major" problem we discovered... Initially, the wiring to the outlet below the gas cooktop was wired for a 220v range and at some point it was remodeled and split into 2 breakers, both 110v with 2 hot wires, one ground, and no neutral.  This = bad idea = dangerous.  So Chris fixed that, which meant going into the main breaker panel outside and putting in new conduit, wiring, etc.  Had to be extra careful here.  Getting shocked at the main breaker would be considerably more serious than a little jolt from a light switch.  Even Chris won't let himself work on it without me beside him, watching.

Being very, very careful...

New copper wiring going in...

As you can see, our house is wired with aluminum.  It was built in `71 which fell in a small window where aluminum wiring was used instead of copper.  We updated all the outlets inside to make this safer, but like my dad said - If there haven't been any electrical problems at this point, 40 years after the house was built, the aluminum wiring isn't really a safety concern.

That flexible conduit at the top outside the box is what we added and ran through the attic to the cooktop area.

That's the area with all the new copper.

Just a sampling of all the little lizard skeletons we found in the main breaker box... poor little guys didn't know what hit `em.

newsflash: white house selects new cabinet

[does anybody get that?  chris didn't find it very clever... but I'm rolling with it since it's the season of the caucuses and all... is "caucuses" a word?]

The cabinet story:

We went to Lowe's and worked with Bernie - who was so nice - to design semi-custom cabinets.  We spent a good deal of time and came up with a pretty sweet configuration with him using their CAD program.  Only downfall - the price tag was $8500 without installation and that didn't include anything to replace our built-in "pantry" in the nook.  We probably would have gotten some discounts bringing it closer to $7500 but that was still considerably more than we wanted to spend.

Here's what we came up with:

Then we met with the Casiano brothers - of Casiano Cabinets.  They're a local, family-owned business that our plumber told us about, and we're so glad he did.  They've been great to work with, it's all completely custom, and they're really flexible.  Plus the whole thing - including installation and a custom built-in in the nook - is going to set us back about $7200.  We're really confident with our decision and are happy to be supporting local business.  Lowe's gets enough out of our paychecks as it is.  (But I still get nervous and hide every time we walk by Bernie's area at Lowe's because I feel bad.  Chris thinks I'm ridiculous.)

Here's their old school CAD (as in Casiano-aided design) drawing:

This is the new wall of cabinets.  From left to right beginning on the left with angled open shelves and ending with the double oven on the left.

This is the side wall with the cooktop in the middle.  We want a big "statement" hood above the range.  The the fridge on the right with open shelves above.

This is the island with the sink and dishwasher.  To the left I want a shelf with baskets like this, which I thought was silly/trendy at first when I saw it in magazines.  But I like the idea of storing things like potatoes and onions in there.

the small stuff

We didn't sweat it.

Here are a couple of the mini-projects that had to be done to accommodate our new layout.

Consultation from Pops - talking plumbing and HVAC.

Blue tape on the ground is where the island will go.

There are 2 vents in the room - one in the middle of the former kitchen by the fridge, which stays.  This one will be right in the middle of the island of the new kitchen. So we're moving it over so it'll be more functional and more evenly spaced in the room.

Goof.

The vent in the foreground will be covered; the one in the background is the new one Chris and Roscoe put in, complete with a new box, flexible duct, etc.

The new cabinets will go almost to the door, just to the right of the light switch.  So we have to move the thermostat into the hall.

Thermostat's future home.  Using rope with wiring attached to it.  Feeding it to the alarm panel opening to get it there. 

Our thermostat's new home.  We call this the command center. (Oh and next to it is the Serenity Prayer that Amy's grandma cross-stitched for me... so sweet.)

paneling is so five minutes ago

We knew we were doing away with the paneling on the "front" wall where the new bank of cabinets are going, but we thought we were going to keep it on the other 2 walls.  However, when we were pulling off the crown molding to scrape popcorn, we proceeded to pretty much destroy a lot of the paneling near the ceiling.  It was probably our subconscious which really despised that paneling that caused us to be so careless with it.  End result - no more paneling in the kitchen.  We ripped it all out and will replace it with drywall.

Seems to be the way most everything has gone with this project... we plan to do something small, but it always turns into something bigger, more complex.

You can't tell, but this corner where the paneling meets the drywall in the nook is where we really screwed up the paneling.  This was the moment of the "complete-paneling-removal" decision.

The nook had paneling only on the bottom half, under the chair rail.  We were excited to discover drywall behind this paneling.

We were hoping to find some hidden treasure in between the walls, in the framing.  Or at least something cool like human bones or something.  Nope... just rat poo, dust, dirt, old insulation.  Boring.

Tearing it down was pretty fun...

 The realness of this project is really starting to sink in.