Thursday, July 28, 2011

Day 10

Finally, after a first full day back to work I got home and went back to work on the house.  We got us some flooring on the floor. It feels like I got over the top of the hill and heading I'm downward fast.  We'll keep installing the floor but we are ready to install the cabinets in the kitchen.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Day 9

I’ve learned two things in the past week of this little adventure.  First, I can grossly underestimate the amount of time it can take a task. Second, take your time and do the task right…and not get frustrated by rushing to get it done.  I’m sure I can apply those lessons to other aspects of life.
 It took me the best part of the day to lay the new underlayment in the kitchen and living room.  But it’s down and now we are prepped to start laying the TrafficMaster Allure flooring.   I have a feeling this flooring will take more than I have planned.

Today was my last day of vacation.  I was hoping to be further along than I am at this point. But we will get there soon.  Back to my day job tomorrow. I cant wait...I'll be able to rest at work from all the work I've done at home!

We did stop and take time this afternoon to thank God.  This moment made the hard work of the last week all worth it.  It was a very special time for us and an emotional moment for me.  We told the girls just as our house sat on its foundation how important it was to remember that Jesus is our foundation.  We are blessed with family, health, a home and the finances to be able to remodel our home this summer. We all picked verses that meant something to us, shared them and said why they were special.  Then we took sharpies and found a spot on the new floor underlayment and wrote those verses out.  We will always be reminded of that verse when we walk over that spot on the floor.  It’s also our little way of honoring God with our house.  I hope we have more opportunities to use the house in that way.





Monday, July 25, 2011

Day 8....

Paint is on the walls!
Still can’t decide if we like the accent wall in the living room.  We wanted to do some color but decided to keep it in the family.  I dont know...whats your opinion?  We’re happy with the way the rest of the walls in the living room and kitchen came out.  And I’m loving my ceiling – I know, it’s sad but I hate that popcorn ceiling.
Started to work on prepping the floor and decided to change my plans.  I was gonna drop a new layer of underlayment over the current floor.  But once I got into all of it I decided to rip up the old tile and underlayment layer.  The removal was a bit more time consuming but went well.  Although I realized not to long after that my 40 cubic foot dumpster was picked up today.  So now I have to dispose of the underlayment somehow.  If you happen to find it in your front yard I have no idea how it got there.
Tomorrow is day of this little adventure.  The last day of my vacation.  I hope to have the new underlayment and finish up the flooring tomorrow….if all goes well.  So with the change of plans and setbacks I think Im about two days behind my original schedule.  Im not sure how realistic that schedule is but hopefully after tomorrow night ( a very late night, Im sure ) all we’ll have left will be the cabinet install, trim (woohoo) and the ceiling fan.
I’m seeing daylight!







Day 7

We finally got our walls back from the drywall taper, who, by the way, did an excellent job on our walls.  Not sure we could have expected any better.  It did take a day longer than I was planning and since that ‘day longer’ landed on a Sunday and he attends our church, well we had to wait for him to come and finish up after church.  We finally got to clean off the mud dust off the walls and prep to put the primer coat on around 7pm tonight.  Six hours later (are we slow or what?), Teresa and I finished up the ceiling and the walls of the kitchen and living room.

Tomorrow, color on the walls and ceiling paint on the…ceiling.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Time to paint

Drywall hung, taped, mud, sanded and wiped down. Now it is time to
paint!

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Almost ready

These last two days have been in a holding pattern while we wait on
the drywall taper to do his thang. He's doing an excellent job and
the result will be stellar, just wish it didn't take this long. But if
you need a taper in the St Charles/St Louis area I have one for ya.

Tomorrow our walls will be sanded and then we get to jump back in and
do some painting prep, apply primer and then some color to the walls.

I'm looking forward to getting this part of the project wrapped up and
start moving and seeing progress.

Picking out paint colors...

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Day Four

Today we wrapped up everything needed for the drywall tapper to go full on to have the walls ready for paint.  The process takes a couple days so things will ease up for us for a bit.  We will be working on the floors and prepping them for the underlayment to go down as soon as we finish up painting and will jump into installing the flooring as soon as we can.
We have a three foot by three foot spot at the entry way that will need tile removed and the 1/2” plywood removed.  That will be my next nemesis!





Day Three

It doesn’t seem like I got much done today but I think through all the small details that I got knocked out and realize it was a good day.
The highlight of the day was finally meeting our drywall taper/mudder guy.  He arrived a bit early, surveyed the damage..I mean progress I made and gave us a dollar number that we were hoping for.  He grab his tools from the truck and jumped right into doing his thing.  We had a running conversation between our times of doing what we were working on.  Come to find out he attends the church Im on staff at.  He told me his story.  I look forward to seeing what this guy can do…and what God has planned here.



Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Day Two

Day two started off a bit slower than Day one did. Mostly because I could barely move from the day before.  Overall, day two was a better day for me just because I didn’t have to mess with any popcorn ceiling.
We started the day off by making sure the kitchen walls were ready for drywall.  I built out the wall to the length in the kitchen we need for the fridge and tall pantry cabinet we are installing. Then I moved on to the living room and worked on removing the raised tile area that was next to the fireplace. We were in the middle of pulling drywall in the living room when my friends Michael arrived to help hang drywall. Soon after my brother –in-law Jason arrived and the three of us went full tilt to covering the kitchen walls.  Later in the evening, my neighbor Doug showed up and jumped in helping hang drywall.
We found we didn’t need that many guys so Jason moved into the living room…. That’s when I heard a conversation with my wife and Jason about the closet.  Next thing I knew the closet was coming out.  This was something we talked about months ago doing to help open up the living room but Teresa didn’t want us to get into the mess, time or cost of making it happen.  It was a bit surreal to see the stud walls coming down.  Our attic access is in that closet so we had to do some figuring out where we move that and how to close it up well.  As we discussed that I suggested that we go ahead and wire for a ceiling fan for the living. 
So my plan of pulling the drywall out and hanging new sheets back today was changed.  We pulled the stud walls of the closet down, adjusted the studs in the wall to accommodate the air return that we had to move, re wire the thermostat, add bracing over the access hole and drywall over and install the mount and wire up for the ceiling fan.
And we got the drywall in the kitchen down!
I hope tomorrow brings no surprises for us.
Although I think this will be a surprise that we will be happy with.








Monday, July 18, 2011

Day One

Good thing I got a head start on the project.  It took me most of the day to finish up removing the popcorn ceiling from the living room.  But I conquered the popcorn ceiling!
The next task was to pull the drywall off of the kitchen walls and create the walk through into the living room.  We finished up the day by starting to remove the drywall in the living room.