Author Archives: Kellie W

Well I wasn’t sore from last weekend, woke up rolling out of bed on Wednesday in pain (shoulder). Chad claims it was from all of the brick removal, but come on man…I made it to Wednesday with ZERO pain. After conversations with other peeps, thinking it was just a trigger point since I carry stress in my shoulders. Well Thursday was no better and suffered through the day and went to the walk-in clinic where they told me it was a strain. I now do not agree with that diagnosis as I think it is a pinched nerve as my fingers are numb. The plan is to see the chiropractor on Monday to see if I can get this thing to stop hurting. I do like my wine/drinks, but when that is all you can lift, not a good thing. Therefore, the weekend progress was slow as it was only what Chad could do by himself.

Chad did get the sheetrock removed in the living room where we knew we needed to put up new. He also got the patio prepped for where the new door will be. Progress, but slow!

The framing is up around the old fireplace so ready for the new sheetrock. To the left of the fireplace that is where the new door will go. We are putting in French doors and will be closing off where the current door is.

New patio pad will be here – door does get in until Dec 21, but that will give the concrete enough time to cure.

We have started the destruction of the living room. We did get ALL of the bricks torn down this weekend. I have to say it makes the room look bigger, but I don’t think the pictures do it justice. When we did get the bricks off of the full wall, there was (you will see it in the picture) a huge tear in the sheetrock – not made by us – and the original construction peeps wrote a note to “tape the crack”, obviously they did not do this, so we will fix it right. The fireplace was the killer, instead of just the normal mortar, it was a concrete mixture. That was no fun, but it is demolished to the point where we can fill it in, and put up sheetrock and no one will ever know. Thank goodness! I apologize for the amount of pictures, but have the before pictures first and then the pictures of the walls without the bricks. We have a long way to go as we are moving the door and blocking off where some windows are and adding others. Hard to explain at this point, but trust me, it will look FABULOUS when we are done. See you next week!

The fireplace bench is GONE.

This is part of the fireplace bench, think they had enough mortar there?

Fireplace progress

Fireplace is done!

Start of the full east wall.

See that big gash – that is the tear in the wall that they were supposed to fix initially.

No more bricks!!!

Had to include my funny picture, this is the dining room as a make-shift living room. Hahahaha

Ok, you have to think back to one of our very first posts and rooms that we remodeled. The closet off of my office had a twin mattress in it when we moved in, so I named it the Harry Potter closet (which is now my tanning room/storage closet). Also recall how I’ve mentioned that the house dictates what we are going to do, whether that was our intention or not? Well put those 2 things together and that was our weekend! Saturday we both did our own thing, meaning I went to Corpus Christi with Ciera as she wanted to look at Christmas decorations and Chad and Rodney stayed home to tidy up the garage. When I got home, we decided to go out and well, the closet was wet. That meant only 1 thing… the water heater in the Harry Potter closet was leaking. On Sunday, we were going to move things out of the living room so we could start to remove all of the brick and flooring, but that was changed to pulling up the flooring in the closet, drying the plywood, reflooring and installing a new water heater. Now, when you look at the new flooring, it DOES NOT match my vibe or the house. I decided to trick the universe. Meaning, if I went with flooring that was my style and matched the rest of the house, this new water heater would eventually quit. Therefore, go with something that is so off and backwards, this water heater will last forever!

One side note, I bought this chair for my office that Chad and Ciera will sit in when I’m spending WAY too much time working. I sat in it for the first time this weekend. I do have to say, no wonder they like it – it has a great lumbar support and is that velvet material, so it is super soft. Now I’m trying to think how I can sit in it more. I definitely need to get Rodney to learn how to type – then he can sit at my desk, and I’ll sit in that chair. I say all of this to say I’m super THANKFUL that I have a Chad that makes my workspace super fabulous for all of the hours that I spend in that 1 room in this house. So the least I can do is have a comfy chair for him to sit in when he is patiently waiting for my day to end.

My closet with the wet ceiling

When we opened up the where the electrical comes out, this is how they had the wiring held up. Needless to say, we put in an electrical box and fixed it right.

Installing the new floor… yes a light brown (and I’m trying to get rid of all the brown in this house).

DONE! This water heater does have a sensor to tell me via an app that it is leaking! This better work!

October as you all know was our month off due to all of the decorations. We had every intention of working on the garage but ended up having something to do every weekend. (not a bad thing). Last weekend we left for our family vacation and now are back. We didn’t sit still, while getting the laundry caught up and loving on the fur-babies, we did get the new blinds installed. Yahoo! We have mapped out what we want the kitchen as well as the master bathroom to look like. Let’s just say there are many walls to be moved and built. We will get there. Other than that, we are getting ready to start on the living room. As I write this, Chad is looking into the best tool to remove all of the brick and dump trailers that we can rent. I’m 100% ready to get back into the remodel. The only “bummer” is that this year no Thanksgiving or Christmas decorations as it will be a disaster for quite a while. That is ok – it will all be worth it in the end.

The dining room is complete! I still need to hang the wall art, but next weekend I’ll be putting up the Halloween art and decorations so no point to put up the “non-holiday” stuff at this point. 🙂 We also were able to put the liquid level down on the atrium floor and painted the fireplace, so it is ready for Halloween. Just so everyone knows, there will be ZERO inside projects starting next weekend until we get past Halloween. I do not want all of my decorations to be covered in construction dust/dirt/grime. I asked Chad if we were going to take a month off or what we should do. He took too long to answer, so I decided we will work on the garage. Ciera teases that we are going to jinx ourselves, as normally the garage is the LAST thing we do and then I end up selling the house. I promise, that is not happening this time around. After the garage is complete, then it should be November and we will work on the living room. We are getting there!

Before – EEK!

After…

We were able to get most of the dining room done this weekend. The moisture barrier is down, flooring laid, floorboards put in and trim around the doors. We need to put the shelf in on the art nook and paint the trim and then it will be complete. We will still need to put the crown molding up, but we do that one floor at a time, so once all the other rooms on the main floor are done, the final step is the crown molding. Hopefully the pictures show it well, but the floor color is a very dark gray, almost black, they call it slate.

The next room will be the living room, but we will have the Halloween party on Oct 21, so we may need to take a break. We may just start to destroy and add that all into the decorations. The only reason we won’t, is because I really don’t want construction dust on all of my Halloween stuff. Regardless, you will either see Halloween stuff or destruction in the next week or 2.

Flooring for the dining room and living room.

moisture barrier and the start of the flooring

All in – just need the trim

Ok, what I mean by that is we are now starting on the main floor! We opted to start with the atrium and dining room as they tie together. That meant pulling up the floor, finding ANOTHER mystery box, sanding the ceiling, and putting up a wall to block the dining room from the entry way. When you see the wall that we built to separate the atrium from the dining room, this will not be “open” as it is today but will become an art niche. I think we all know I love to decorate for all of the holidays and seasons, and one thing I miss from our Little Elm house was the art niches. Therefore, we are putting one in, which makes my heart happy. 🙂

Before

Before…

No more floor!

The plywood you see was laying down here making a box in the floor. We have decided that they had an indoor garden/flowers as you could smell dirt. Anyway, that had to go and be fixed RIGHT!

This was under the brown carpet stuff in the above picture

Sand base!

Concrete base and then we will put the floor leveling on top before we put down new flooring.

Wall framed and partial sheet rock. This little area will become where we will keep our shoes, jackets, etc.

The other view – remember this open spot will become an art niche! Cannot wait to show our progress next week!

Well, I have once again fell off my weekly update. I’m hoping with the NFL starting preseason, that will get me back into my normal Sunday updates (as the computer is with the TV and with NFL, it becomes my favorite room). Anyway, we did venture out to Port O’Connor which is on the Gulf Coast and cannot wait to show you the pictures. The water in this area of the Gulf is perfectly clear. I did not expect it and have to say, right now this will be my beach of choice.

We also found that a bird decided to use my wreath on the door as a great place to build a next. Needless to say, when we opened the door the one night to bring in some packages, there they were – baby birds!

On the home front, we did get the mini splits done in the extra bedroom, Ciera’s room and only have Ciera’s bathroom left. We were going to do that this weekend but decided to take in some racing on Saturday (there were some fights between drivers, and one got mad enough after the race to plow into another driver and turned its truck (yes truck races) on its top. It was fabulous! Since we need 2 good days for the mini split, we decided to spend Sunday getting the framing done for the second landing in the Atrium. We will get the atrium all completed then this week in the evenings.

The far landing is what we completed a few weeks ago that comes out of Ciera’s bedroom (see previous blog post). The closest will be enclosed with a landing that will come out of the extra bedroom

Framing is done and we will get it sheet rocked yet this week.

I know you would think we would have gotten more done, but Chad is right, these split units can be an ass-kicking. The 2nd split unit is in, this is in the upstairs hall/entry way leaving us with 3 more left to install. I do have to say, I love mine in the office now having a full week of using it and so I’m very excited to get the rest of these in. The old duct work is leaking so much, no wonder the unit for the upstairs cannot keep up in this heat. I’m super excited not only for the coolness, but a lower electric bill.

Before…

Hole is cut and the board at the bottom will support the unit while getting it all in place and the wiring/drain lines all connected.

Here is the unit and only needs the cover and we are done.

COMPLETED!

We have had a few things that we’ve worked on since the last update. We decided to build a “cat-io” think patio but for the kitties (well and us). Off of the master bedroom there is a porch that we were not using; I normally like to sit outside, but the mosquitos NEVER die here, and they make it unbearable. Then add to this the fact that I only have 1 window for the girls to sit in, they needed somewhere to get their fresh air. (Trust me when I say they have not been happy to not be able to have a window open and watch the outside world). What you cannot see in the pictures is that we did put in a cat door, so the girls can go in and out whenever they want to.

The other ‘fun’ stuff we have accomplished was replacing siding under a couple of windows and painted with what I think will be the new house color. You will see the difference in one of the ‘catio’ pictures. Ciera and I spent part of the 4th of July back home and while we were back in Nebraska, Chad put in the first of many mini-split units in my office. I worked some today and I was actually COLD; therefore, money well spent in my mind. Chad may disagree as to quote him “this was an ass kicking” and did tell me he missed me helping. (I’m taking that all as a win).

Inside looking out and yes that is a portable AC – the girls (and obviously Rodney) deserve the best of both worlds. Yes, they are ALL spoiled!

Gamora is super happy – yes, purple lights, that is the color she likes best.

New siding and this will be both the siding and brick color.

If you look at the top in the middle this will show you what a difference the color will be.

Mini-Split prep

Completed!!!

We can have 3 units total hooked to this one outside unit. Yes. we will have 2 more hooked to this one and have another whole unit that will have 3 other units. This will allow each room and the upstairs hall to each have their own unit and individual temperatures.