renovation – Bones to Beauty

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.

Kitchen Expansion Underway!

We had a great weekend! I didn’t get this posted last night (Sunday night) as I was again miserable with my allergies so opted for a shower and doing a little bit of Optum work before calling it a weekend. Chad and Dylan framed the expansion to the kitchen while I had a lot of fun taking down the siding. Now, we all know I love the destruction of things and I had a blasty, blast taking the siding off. My arms are a little sore, but I just kept remembering all the things that tend to irritate me and that siding did not have a chance!

We have to put a couple more spots of ISO up and then Tyvex and we will be ready for the next step in the remodel. Chad is on call this weekend, so we will see how much he is home so could be a ho-hum weekend, but once we get the windows in, door in and siding up, destruction time inside with the walls. I know I have to be careful as the one is a load bearing wall and we need to support it during the remodel, but patiently awaiting my date with the sledgehammer.

The open area in the ISO in this picture is where the door will be.

This picture above, I think I posted with the “concrete” post, is here to make a point. The guys that Chad work with keep thinking I don’t do any of the work…well that is the siding I took off as well as on the other wall to the left. Now I have more “irritant” when we go to destroy the wall (yes that one above) and all of the cabinets. I know how to run a crowbar and a sledgehammer. 🙂

Holiday Happenings

I gotta say the 3-day weekends has been great and so wish we had these all the time as we got a lot done over these past couple of weekends. I hope the holiday’s were great for everyone and that you are excited for the New Year!

We got the double windows removed, the new French doors in and the water pipe capped (the water pipe came out where the new French doors are) over the Christmas holiday. This New Year’s weekend we removed the two windows and door from the west side of the room, got it all sealed back up, installed a new window and got 2 of the 3 sections of the popcorn ceiling removed. I did get a new ceiling fan ordered and 8 pendant lights which should be arriving in the next couple of weeks which will be perfect timing. It will take next weekend to get the first coat of mudding on, and finish the remainder of the popcorn ceiling removal. Then fingers crossed we will be ready the weekend after that to texture the room. We are getting there!!!

This the brace to keep the ceiling up as we took out these windows and needed to reenforce the area for the door.

Notice at the top the reinforcement, so we could remove the ceiling brace to install the doors.

Doors installed

West wall – before, we took out the windows and this door and closed it in with just a window where the door is now.

Outside looking in – this is now closed up and just a window.

Basically a completed view – just needed to do the side where the single door is (which is above where we removed it and put in a window).

Popcorn ceiling removed on 2 of 3 sections

I wanted to include this picture, this is the very top section of the ceiling that bumps up to the upstairs walkway. The builders did not texture the wall here, instead just had it popcorn textured and ran a brush over it. Needless to say, it all fell off with just touching it. Thank goodness we are doing it all over again!

And we are back at it…

I was still sore last weekend, so we didn’t get a lot accomplished and by the time I should have sat down to write the blog, my shoulder and arm were just over doing anything. However, I’m feeling much better now! Still have the tingling in a couple fingers, but I don’t feel like I can’t lift anything, so we jumped back into things this weekend. Chad worked most of the day Saturday, so pretty much Sunday work, but happy with the progress. Last weekend we got new wiring ran, decided to replace the old insulation and got the patio pad poured. This weekend, the sheetrock went up and we pulled down the temp wall that led into the hallway so we could put up sheetrock to close that off. We did take out some sheetrock on the wall that bumps up to the kitchen. I wanted to open up that wall – for an open floor design. We knew it was a load bearing wall, which meant we would have to reinforce it. What did we find instead… the upstairs sewage lines and water lines. That answers that question, that wall cannot be opened up. There is no way I’m up to messing with moving those lines. We have the kitchen and master bath water/sewage lines to play with, so I opted to give up that designing makeover dream (the opening of the kitchen to living room).

Next weekend we will be in San Antonio so I most likely won’t have an update. We do plan on working on both Dec 24-25 as Ciera is spending the weekend with us in San Antonio and therefore spending the holiday with her boyfriends family. I asked Chad what he wanted for his birthday (12/24) and what he wanted to do for Christmas, he said work on the house. So we will be working on the house. I’m dreaming of a completed remodel (like of I’m dreaming of a white Christmas). Look for an update then after Christmas!

patio pad poured. The new door is to be ready for pick up on 12/21!

New wiring on the wall that doesn’t have the black insulation. New insulation in this side wall and then replace what is on the back wall (got rid of the insulation in black).

This is the living room looking into the hallway – framing so we could put up sheetrock.

Sheetrock on the fireplace wall and the wall that will become the entertainment center.

This is the hallway looking into the living room (if you could see in there). What is the blue tape for? To help keep any dust from coming through until we are ready to tape it properly for mudding/texturing.

Crushed designing dream – not even going to try and move all of those lines to open up the wall between the living room and kitchen.