Uncategorized – Bones to Beauty

Happy 2026!

Hi all! We are back, holidays are over, so we must get back to work (reality). We spent this first weekend in January starting to lay the tile in the kitchen. This tile will end up being in all of the kitchen/pantry, main-level hallways and as you enter the front door, meaning there is a TON of tile to get laid. Since you are to stay off the floor for 48 hours to let it set and no grouting for 72 hours, we are having to be strategic on what is getting laid and when. The extended kitchen area, main part of the kitchen and part of the pantry are tiled and drying. Next weekend we will at a minimum get the grout under where the refrigerator sits so it can get back to its normal ‘home’ vs by the laundry room. LOL! Soon the kitchen will really be complete. In the one picture you will see what I think I’m going to use as my backsplash. I have 4 more samples coming. Once I get that decided, then we can get the backsplash done and FINALLY get the pot filler installed. I cannot wait!

Ciera did “book” us for this coming Saturday as they need some electrical work done at their house, so next weekend, is going to be limited, but as long as we can get the fridge back in its rightful place, I’ll be happy. Happy New Year All!

We have countertops!

Happy Holidays to all! Like I mentioned in earlier posts, we were going to slow down and not do a lot until first of the year. However, I’m happy to report that the countertops are in! When you look at the pictures, you will see the faucet (both sink and pot filler) are still missing and doing those tonight. Also, I know the TV is not centered – that is where it originally hung and going to see if I can cash in on a Black Friday deal for a little bit bigger TV. The pantry picture, the shelf looks CRAMMED – it is as the installers did not want us to put the 2nd shelf up until they installed the countertop, so yes, there will be a 2nd shelf AND it will look much better.

I hope you all enjoy the holiday season and take a moment or two to just breathe and take it all in. Even with the chaos the season brings, remember it is the little things that mean the most. Love to all!

Imagination Land

We have actually made good progress on the kitchen and the pictures will give you an idea of what the finish product will look like. I titled this one as Imagination Land, as you do have to do some imagining to visualize the final product. Why? Because what you will see is a temporary sink and countertops (plywood with dry erase board on top). You will see concrete floors as that cannot be laid until the countertops are in (you cannot get quotes for the countertops until all of the cabinets are in). We still have one wall (by the fridge) that we have to put in upper cabinets, but I’m 1 short…so yeah that is gonna be a week or two out. When you look at the pictures, think of very glossy black granite countertops with a sliver back tile backsplash where the stove is and a beautiful black stainless-steel sink. The pantry is ready to be stocked! YES!! but you will see the toaster there – giving you an idea of what should be on those countertops. I think I want to add a shelf above the cabinets (about halfway up) and put those snacks (that we all know I love – thank you Little Debbie) in baskets.

Enjoy going back to your childhood and using your imagination. It will be hit and miss for postings for the rest of the year as I don’t know what time schedule the countertop folks will have and then the tile, toe kicks would follow. I did promise Chad we would just stop and enjoy life for the rest of the year…so just know we are on a break (so to speak). We will definitely be back at it hard first of the year as we will have 1 room left and I so want that pool to start to be in April – May 2026!

If you look to the right, you can see one cabinet and that is where the “bar” area will be – again imagine

Water lines are moved!

Talk about an ass-killing Saturday to move the water lines. The plus, it is done, all of the lines are moved, and new concrete is laid. The refrigerator is in its new permanent spot – progress! Now we should really be able to kick the rest out. I’m so super excited (I know, I keep saying that). The range hood came in this weekend, so I think (fingers crossed) outside of the countertops, we have everything to put this kitchen back together. Thank goodness!

Lines are cut so the jackhammering can begin

Thank you Dylan! We actually had 2 jackhammers – the one above that Dylan was running and Chad had one. (it was NOISY)!

Pot filler waterline is done too! I had to put up a sign as Chad kept forgetting we needed that.

Progress and some set backs

Chad did have this past week off but was on call for everything after 5pm until 7am the next day and then on call all of this weekend. He did great but this weekend was not so friendly to us. He basically worked all weekend, and then chaos on what should have been an easy water line move. I swear I live in Mayberry – I love this little town, but if you want anything “modern” or “out of the box thinking” this is not the town! Let’s just say, Chad had to educate the plumber on how you could run a sink and dishwasher to the middle of the room without having the venting run into the attic/outside wall. I’m just glad I was working at that time, or I would have “mansplained” to the MAN. Needless to say, we received the quote for what would be half-ass work, and I said…absolutely NOT, I have a Chad, and we will just do it ourselves, and we are!

So, we have all of the walls up for the pantry, all walls in the pantry and expansion area have been mudded, textured and painted! In the main part of the kitchen, all of the lights are up/wiring where it needs to be and we started on the hole in the middle of the kitchen. We did find the hot water line and had to wait for my Amazon driver (adding days to the work deliverable) to deliver the tool to find the drainage line. That did show up, and now we know where we need to cut the rest of the way to move the lines. All good – but as I said at the beginning, Chad worked most of this weekend and although he lets me run the jackhammer, not the saw (see picture below); therefore, that will be next weekend’s work!

little more ceiling demolition for the can lights in that section of the room

main kitchen area with all the lights/new ceiling up

this now has a hole, and I’ll share that next week, but the hot water line is between where the cut is and the saw.

A little demolition, building and cleaning.

We seemed to do a little bit of everything this weekend but feel like we didn’t get a thing done all at the same time. I hate weekends like this because it is the little things that you have to do to move the project forward, but then you stop and ask yourself what you actually got accomplished. It is what it is, and next week we will have 3 full days and then Chad is taking that first week off in September….so good vibes in the universe that by the end of that week, A LOT will be done and I’ll be feeling good about the progress.

This weekend, we needed to get the dust down as every time you walk on the old floor, I swear a bucket of dust went in the air. We purchased a cheesy carpet cleaner (knowing we would ruin it) and cleaned the floors, that has helped. I have decided I’m going to get some remnants and put those down to help as well as the tile is the LAST thing to get done and I going a little crazy with this dust. We did get the rest of the ceiling down in the one part of the kitchen, started moving wiring, put in the extended AC duct work, demolished the walls of the old pantry and put up the walls to the new pantry! Here is to a fast work week so we can hammer a lot out next week!

This is the old pantry wall – that is halfway in.

I had to add this, you will be able to see this in the pictures to follow that there will be a hidden empty spot here. Not really as on the other side is the laundry room and we will cut out the back area to expand the laundry room by this little bit. It will be hidden for awhile though!

Tore it down to make the whole area the new walk-in gourmet pantry

That will be the new pantry – 5.5×11 and you can see the expanded duct work at the top middle.

Not our first rodeo, Home Depot!

Before I explain the heading, first a big thank you to Dylan and Ciera for the help on Saturday. This weekend was full of pulling up the tile, grinding the mortar down and getting the rest of the kitchen demolished. We did want to get the drop-down ceiling in the kitchen down too, but that did not happen as….wait for it… the rental peeps at Home Depot are idiots!

We rented the title jackhammer/cart to get the tile off and that went as expected. I then told Chad and Dylan to go rent an electric cement grinder so we could get the mortar off faster (we did this for the porch). Well, lesson learned, I should have went with them. They got suckered into a floor grinder that is supposed to be for mortar, but not really great for old school 1980s stuff. We tried that until I realized this was not going to work down the hallways at is MESSY. We ended up returning it Saturday evening and Sunday back to Home Depot we went to get the electric grinder.

I think now we will be cleaning and cleaning and cleaning, but the hard part is done, and we can now move to mudding and installation. Yahoo! I’ll start with the before pictures with the tile and then after pictures.

What we should have got at the beginning if Home Depot were not idiots.

Remember they tiled under the front door – they did the same with the garage – yes, Chad did fix this temporarily as no critters!!!!

We have walls!

The kitchen expansion is making progress as we now have walls up (as in real walls). We were able to finish getting the ceiling insulation installed, sheetrock up and lights installed. Our cabinets were also delivered, so there shouldn’t be much to stop us now. I do have to order the pot filler and range hood, but that does not make a kitchen functional, so I think it is ok that I have not figured out those 2 things yet.

You will see in the one view of the sheetrock our non-OSHA approved way to get 2 sheets up on the upper most part of the ceiling. We got them up and no one got hurt, so calling it a win. The other picture, you will see that we still need sheetrock up on the one wall and the higher part of the one wall. We need to router out a groove in the one wall for the internet cables (so we needed to ensure we take our time…anyone who knows me well, if my internet goes down, I’m not a happy person). The other high wall, right now has the temporary water line to the refrigerator, so that needs to get drained and moved – again something we need to take our time with as no ice probably comes right after no internet in my world. It is one of those ‘ugh’ things as that is not where the fridge’s permanent home will be so do I need ice, yes, is it a pain in the butt for Chad, yes…

Chad is on call again next week for service calls, the shop and service truck, so we will we see what we can accomplish. Hopefully soon he’ll only have to be on call for service calls only as he had 2 guys start this past Friday and another starts the 15th of August. Then maybe just maybe, we can get this stuff done.

Cabinets – yes we do have to assemble them.

A little sketchy, but Ciera wasn’t here to stop us, so we did it, and it worked.

Oh what a weekend

We did get some stuff done, but with Chad on call, we had some delays and a few rain delays too. The one happy delay was Ciera made me a chocolate cake with chocolate cheesecake in the middle all from scratch for my birthday. Yes, it is a month delayed, but she was busy, so all is good in my book! She also made it gluten free so she could enjoy some too. Got to say, it is delicious and will be my breakfast all week! I’m glad we are calling it a weekend, but at the same time, there is so much to do. After next weekend, we will in a place that things are going to get really crazy – like a chicken and the egg scenario and not sure what will happen. Stay tuned!

This weekend we did get the mini-split installed, wired and installed the little lights in the ceiling and started to get the ceiling insulation in. I don’t think the ceiling photos show it, but we do have the holes drilled to run the wiring and lights in the main ceiling section. Next weekend, we should again see some good progress.

It was a good kitchen weekend

I gotta say, this weekend felt good. We accomplished what I like to say is our normal – FINALLY! The floor got leveled throughout the week so we were ready to just work, work, work. We were able to get the wiring done for the mini-split, where the fridge is gonna go and then plugins around the room. We have the water line ran for the fridge so the fridge is soon going to have a new permanent spot. If an appliance had feelings, I think my fridge would be super happy with the progress. LOL! We also are trying a new insulation from Henry. This insulation is made out of recycled jeans, supposed to be a good sound barrier and for me, no itchy installation (no gloves required). I’m happy to say, I’m a fan! We also were able to get sheetrock up on 2 of the walls.

Chad is on call next weekend, so we will see what we can get done, but I’m feeling really good after this weekend. The main goal is to get the mini-split installed and the ceiling insulated and sheet rocked, we will see!