The Remodel: Days 5 through 8 or 9-ish...

Whew! My goodness...I've been so busy I haven't even had time to share! Sorry 'bout that. We've moved along pretty well in the last few days completing the vital parts of the reno. We did have to send the right and left side of the counter tops back to the store--they were too long. Now, I'm not going to fault anyone, but our measurements were pretty precise; I think it was just an oversight. It happens. At least they were too long and not too short. Easy fix (I hope). We just have to wait another week to get them back before we can put them together.

Anyway, here are the next few steps that we have accomplished so far and there are many more to come...

                                                                                                                           

Here are a couple of pictures of each side of the floor where we thought there was the dreaded black mold. Thank God we were wrong--just stained sub floor...

We had removed the worst part of the flooring replacing it with a sheet of 3/4" plywood until the floor installers came back. They cut out and tore up the linoleum covered lauan and we worked on the dry rotted floor later that night to ready it for them to put in the nice new flooring the next day, but more about that in a bit.

In some of the above pictures you can see that there is plastic covering the wall. The hubby cut that back and we bought some green board drywall to cut and fill in the space.  

Looking better already, don't you think? Next, the hard work was about to commence. We had to rip out what should have been a 4x8 foot section of that terrible floor. We got out the pry-bars and hammers and got to work...

Some of it was rather easy to tear out because it was so dry-rotted, and some was really nailed down with 20 year old nails. And that floor underneath? It's 116 years old...

Looks pretty good for it's age. It held up where the "new" floor did not.

Then we had to fill in the newly made hole with 3/4" tongue and groove sub floor. Noah had used the circular saw to cut the sections of the floor that did not want to budge, and we ripped that out with the pry-bars, but we were not able to get it to a 4x8 size. So, he just cut the plywood to size: a perfect 4x6 foot piece. It fit like a glove, and he got high praise from the carpenters!

Noah: 1    Hideous floor: 0

Here's a candid shot of how we work. I was snapping pics of him working and I got this. He aimed the screw gun at me and made a "Thbbbffft" sound. Nice. At least we weren't fighting.

Here are the precise cuts the floor installer cut around the plumbing. Now, usually you really would not want to put your bottom cabinets on top of your flooring (I've been told), but we had not had the bottom cabinets in yet, so he didn't know where to run the floors up to (as in up to the edge of the bottom of the base cabinets), does that make sense? I asked him about this and he said it's really because they (Installers/product specialists) worry about the weight distribution sitting on the floors. But, he said my refrigerator was a monolith, and the cabinets are distributed evenly and the counters aren't heavy stone, so he was not worried. If he's not, then I'm not. Besides, the work is guaranteed and under warranty (not that I ever want to go through this ever again. Ever.) and I love the thought of everything sitting on an extra layer between the basement and my cabinet bottoms. After smelling the musty basement air rising up from above for all these years, I'm grateful.

Another angle of the cuts around the plumbing. That looks gross, but it's just glue...

All nice and clean. A big improvement from a few days earlier.

Here is a shot of our back room. It's the addition part of the house added in 1989. It holds our laundry room and bathroom (that remodel is for another day). It was the final room to have the floors installed. They used the same 3/4" tongue and groove sub floor to level the floors out to each height difference, and got to work.

Here is a shot of the kitchen from the back room...

And here is the finished product. Of all the boxes of flooring, that is all we have left. Always keep your leftovers for repairs, if ever you should have one. It will save a trip to the store later, plus, you never know when the manufacturer will discontinue that particular product.

Finished. And I love it. We have since moved into fixing the sink (even though the counters are not all together--we'll just settle it in for good when they do come in), picking our house colors (finally!), and painting the living room (at least). We will start to bring in our stuff from the storage pod this week and weekend, paint the foyer and back room and hopefully start on clearing out our bedroom and bathroom for the next phase of the "Remodel." Oh, and we want to visit Noah's grandma, too.

It's going to be a very busy weekend...

Thanks for reading here, and have a great weekend, yourselves!

Nanette

Day 4: The Remodel Continues

Hi there! 

Welcome to day 4 of "The Remodel." By day three I was definitely feeling like I was never EVER going to do anything like this again. Hanging cabinets, with just two people, most days, was not fun. Then came the worry about whether or not we were going to get the carpet in the living room up in time. After all, we didn't even have the room cleared out, let alone totally packed up, yet. So much to do in one day. I was losing my motivation...and my hope.

Que my wonderful sister. When she found out that we were changing our floors,she asked what we were going to do with all of our carpet. It was not old, at all, and we like to save as much 'moolah' as possible on these types of things. Plus, I abhor the thought of all that carpet and padding going to a landfill. So it was a win-win. She needed carpet for her daughters bedroom and other projects, and I need to be as environmentally conscious as I could. Speaking of being environmentally friendly, remember how I said in my first post that we were going to donate our cabinets and counters? Well, we still are, but amazingly, our neighbor stopped by with his dad from out of town who was visiting for our Harvest Fest, and wanted some of them. He took some to make a work station out of in his work shop. I had just put them on my "curb" like I said and, viola! Works every time. We will keep the three cabinets that fit above the stove, fridge and microwave for some other projects we want to do, and donate all the rest.

So, why was I having those feelings of regret about ever doing a remodel again? Ugh...yesterday, the day before and last night was exhausting. No joke. For a minute I was worried that all my lovey-dovey Facebook posts about how well Noah and I were getting along and how cordial and compatible we are was jinxing us. It seemed like a ridiculous amount of work was needing to happen...laying in wait. To destroy us and prove us wrong.

Well, it was tough, tiring, maddening at times, but we pulled it off. It smoothed out before we knew it. Luckily. Thankfully. And I am SO grateful. Follow along below for a pictorial play-by-play of the last couple of days...

These are our old cabinets. Custom made in 1989. I know this because when we were carrying one of them out it was stamped "Inspector 12 1989." Solid wood doors, heavy MDF shells. That is our sad attempt at lightening up the kitchen by painting the uppers. We never got around to painting the lowers because we knew that someday we would be replacing them. It just happened to take y-e-a-r-s.

Cabinets all down on the one side! Boy, were they heavy!

Our first cabinet is up! Whew! So far, we are getting along fabulously! Team Stein, all the way! And it wasn't really hard at all...

Second corner cabinet up, and it's partner. Not too bad. Except...why is it so hard to find the studs in these walls? A stud finder? Useless. While I was pretty confused and a little mad that they cut out the drywall behind the sink base before install (why...?) and replaced it with plastic instead of green drywall, I became totally ok with it when I was able to find the studs and measure over the 16" to find the next ones for the screws. Now, why didn't they do that when they put those up in '89? Because the didn't. Not all of the screws were in studs. A majority were in drywall. Then, they just screwed the cabinets together. Sometimes they put screws on top of screws. Noah had a real good time getting those out...

All during the daylight hours yesterday we hung most of the upper cabinets. MOST. (This pic is actually from today because last night I would have thrown the camera). It was nothing like the show "Renovation Realities", at all! Not snapping at me to "hold it straight!" or me yelling at him to "hurry up!" It was more like "I got it, Babe. You just do your tool man thing" and him asking "You got it, Love?" and "You alright, Love?" Then we had to run to the home improvement store because three cabinets were wrong. And we needed three right cabinets. And a fourth one that wasn't even there. Plus some green drywall, plywood, screws, shims, knee pads (for my date with the 500 staples in the living room) and I think that was it. Then it was back home to put the remaining cabinets up, pull staples and tack strip, rip up the damaged floor that we thought had black mold (it didn't!!!), fix said floor, put up drywall...oh yeah, and eat an egg salad sandwich because I hadn't eaten all day. It was 7:30...

Well, we got most of the cabinets up. We couldn't get the one next to the fridge or above the fridge up. We were literally so exhausted neither of us could keep it held up. By now it was 9:00. Noah had the plywood cut at the lumber department so all he had to do was cut out the section and screw in the wood. While he did that, I took to the staples. Fun. Do any of you have a dog? Our dog will be 11 in February. She doesn't know this. To her, she is 2. She acts like a two year old; puppy and human child. I couldn't get anything done without appeasing her first. I had to get her bed out, give her a rawhide bone to occupy her. Get her a 'baby'. She had to know what I was doing at ALL TIMES. I'm shocked she didn't get a staple in her foot. I swept as I went. I was exhausted just from her...

We did as much as we could and finally called it quits at 11:30, took our showers, and decided sleep was well deserved. We got to bed at 12:30 with the plan to get up at 6;30. The floor installers were coming in the morning and we had to finish getting all the tack strip up, staples out, tons of stuff out of the foyer, kitchen and living room...this is where the regret started to creep in. How were we ever going to get this done? Were we going to be scolded when they showed up? Did we do enough prep work? The guy who came to measure for materials said to have the bottom cabinets in. Oops.

This is the floor before Noah ripped up the bad lauan and linoleum. We were terrified we would find black mold under there. But it was just dry rotted plywood. Easily fixed. And fix they did. We will take out the worst section of the floor and replace it with the 3/4 inch sheets they delivered, but the installer and his son got rid of the rest of the floor in a heart beat today. My absolute new BFF's.

Yuck.

Here's the living room floor, staples and all. Now, a very important story needs to be told here. Remember how I told you my sister was taking my carpet? Well, she brought my niece and nephew, their boyfriend and girlfriend, three male buddies and an extra girl over to pull up that carpet and pad. But, first, they cleared out my front room of the remaining furniture, boxes, this-and-that's, and even loaded some of our furniture into my brother-in-law's truck that we were borrowing to take to a climate controlled storage unit until we put the house back together. I have several precious antiques I will not part with, and they must stay safe! I am forever grateful to those kids! Wow... 

We did get up at 6:30/7:00 and dove right in to those staples and tack strip. Noah beat me, of course. When the installers showed up, there was no scolding. He was very laid back and said we hadn't needed to put in the lower cabinets, after all. The day went smooth, and they've done a great job, so far. They'll be back again tomorrow to finish up. 

My new art form I am discovering. I call it "construction is a dirty job."

Oh ma goodness. I have waited 10 years for this moment. These floors are the most beautiful thing. Laminate gets a bad rap sometimes. It used to look, and sound, cheap and hollow with really fake looking wood grain. But, as picky as I am, I totally approve of this. The handscraped look is just what I wanted, and the grain is beautiful. I didn't want to use hardwood, unless it was bamboo, and we just could not justify the expense. These are 10mm thick, the thickest you can get, I think. And they are wonderful. 

And Sophers loves them, too!


All-in-all, this had been a good experience. No bickering between the Hubs and I; we make a great team. Tyer, too. He's really been pitching in. We are all either getting over colds (me), fighting a lingering one (Noah) or just starting one (Tyler). I think we are doing a bang up job. I've waited so long for this, I can't believe it's actually happening!

Ok...gotta go! There's a lot of work to do...We still have to replace a bigger piece of the kitchen floor, put in the drywall for behind the sink, and who knows what else.

Oh! Before I forget...I bought a dishwasher today! Our first one! I am SO excited!!!

Thanks for sharing in this with me. Your comments and questions are always welcome, I'd LOVE to hear from you!

Until next time

Nanette

The Remodel: Day One

Hi friends,

Well, today the floors, cabinets and counters are getting delivered. I'm (not-so-secretly) hoping to get a little sleep in this morning before they do. I worked last night and I am still recovering from the "cold-that-won't-quit." As the day to getting into the nitty gritty of it all in this kitchen grows ever nearer, so does our anxiety. Noah has taken out one cabinet.

One.

Now, I'm not criticizing him. All the cabinets are detached from the counter, just the sink is left to detach, and we do need to wait until the last moment to haul all of the cabinets and counters out or else we wouldn't have anything to set the beloved Krueg on, or fix anything to eat or drink, and we'll be without that convenience soon enough. My point is: he has only removed one cabinet, a base cabinet farthest from the sink, along the wall adjoining the back room. It has no water source anywhere near it. At all. And, yet, what he found back there behind the baseboard scares me to death. Que mystery track here...
Dun...
      Dun...
           Dun.....


Black mold.

Not a lot, and it was superficial enough for him to clean up himself with bleach and fans. We were told by a contractor that if it is not a large area we could test it with bleach by wiping it away and air drying it with fans (wearing a mask and gloves, of course). If the drywall stays "clear" and does not re-stain, then you are ok to proceed. If it does stain or appear to come back-call in a professional-STAT!

*Please note: we are not professionals. We are not giving you advice on removal of mold or any other hazardous material. Call your health department or local HAZMAT office if you have one. This is merely our experience, and we are not trying to "cut corners" to save money. Being safe should always come first. We got the advice of a professional, whether that advice was sound or not for us is our experience and I am just sharing that experience with you here. You, however, should always seek professional advice.

So, we have no idea where it came from. The 116 year old basement, maybe? If so, we are looking at a professional basement drying and waterproofing team along with mold removal. Can't wait to see how much that might run...First, we will move the stove and the other cabinets, one at a time and take a look behind the baseboards. It could have come from under the sink. There had been a leak under there when we bough the house. We had it inspected and nothing came back on the report, but the linoleum was tinged a slightly darker hue in front of the sink. Then a few years later we had another leak that we fixed, but could never afford to rip out all of the cabinets and floor and repair or replace any of that, as it would require a whole new floor, bottom cabinets and counter tops. Or, at least we never thought we could.

That's why I'm mostly writing about this remodel, now. If we had had the confidence to know that we could achieve whatever we put our minds to, we would have fixed some of the things that needed fixed and replaced years ago, before it got too far gone, costing us potentially more in the long run. If we had had the confidence in ourselves that we could manage a remodel like this, a little at a time, instead of becoming overwhelmed at the thought and instead  managing ourselves toward that goal, we could already be halfway there instead of living for nearly 10 years with the dream of a reno instead of the reality of one. I'm not saying we lived in shambles for 10 years. We put in new carpet, painted the whole inside of the house including changing out all of the trim to white, and cosmetically changed the bathroom a few years back, but that has all since become outdated to us. Now that we actually do have the money to do all the things we've dreamed, we are going to, especially if it helps us sell for top dollar later.

I am really hoping that this is not a major mold issue, because if it is, we must have a professional come in to contain it, and we would need to repair studs, joists and whatever else is affected by it. That is a cost I really do not want to have to cover.

Boy, I can't wait to dig into the bathroom...

Oh! The floors are here...gotta go!

YAY LOWES DELIVERY GUY!!

Hey, keep checking back for more, there will be a ton (I hope...IF I'm not run asunder by the weight of  "The Remodel" that is...Dun...Dun...Dun...)

Ok, well, I've got some work to do. Until tomorrow...

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Nanette

*Note: I received no endorsements from Lowes for anything said in this post

Compost bin done...FINALLY!!!

Well! We finally got it done. After one wash-out weekend, uneven work schedules, and even Noah's 39th birthday, we got the compost bin built and the new compost pile started. I have a ton of pics, but will try to condense. I have plenty of instructions, and a link to a great site I used for reference in compiling the compost layers. I will share all the trial's and error's we encountered, and what worked and what we will do better next time.

I'll try to keep it as brief as possible...  :)




Ok, remember the pallets from my last compost post? Well, we took those three and this is what we did.
 We set them up 'tall' instead of short and stout in case the pile gets high through the fall with the mulched leaves. It looks a little funny, but that's what we decided to do. You can see it a few pics down. Anyway, Noah used a drill to first drill a long pilot hole in the wood. These pallets were so hard to get through. He did have to get his more powerful drill. We now recommend using thicker, stronger screws. Ours were 3" x 8mm. They worked well, but we had to go in from the back after this first initial try...

This worked so much better!

It really is nice and sturdy. We were going to use some rebar down the inside channels formed by the slats for stability, that's another reason we set them up this way, but it really is sturdy enough this way. This particular wood is so very heavy! We plan on making one or two more bins attached to this one. It's good to have a place to store your mulched leaves and grass clippings to add to your compost pile, and to start a new one after the first gets going really well, that way you can keep turning the first, and generate your broken down material, move that out and store it, and just keep it up by doing the same with the second bin, while making a fresh bin out of the emptied first.

I raked the old compost dirt bed out to get it ready...

Then I put down the first layer--the "brown" layer--old dried leaves. I found a really great step by step guide here, on composting.

 Then I added a layer of dried grass clippings from mowing the day before that had dried out well in the sun. We just swept them up like we usually do after mowing the yard...

 The next step is to add some compost starter. I used my compost from the previous years. It has all the materials already broken down into a rich black 'soil'. This helps to start the compost cycle quicker...

I then spread out my "green" materials--food stuff. This is the heat-producing (rotting) stuff, and the reason I started composting. All my kitchen scraps go here instead of filling the trash with them. Leftover fruit and vegetable scraps, egg shells, teabags, some coffee grounds (and the filters, too!), all that stuff that will sit in your garbage disposal or trash smelling up your kitchen is great for your flower beds and vegetable gardens, so why not reduce, reuse, and recycle that, too?

A little yucky, but SO valuable...

 

I also needed "wet stuff". I dug through my old compost area and found the wet leaves and very broken down veggie matter to layer on top of the new pile. Moisture is important in your composting process, too. If it gets too dry, and your "green" items and old wet compost isn't enough to keep it moist, you can wet it every so often.

Be careful digging around in damp decaying areas...This guy climbed out just after I pulled up a few handfuls of the stuff above...

So...I layered my "wet" old compost on top of the food stuff, then added more of my starter soil as above...

Then another layer of grass clippings...

 Then more starter soil...

 Then more dried leaves...
You just have to keep adding to your layers, making sure the food stuff is covered well, in case of animals. You also want to keep a check on it for smells...if that fruit isn't covered well in the heat...well, it stinks! You don't want your neighbors mad at you, or a bunch of flies. Just keep a check on it, keep it moist, turn it every couple weeks, and by next year you could have some nice rich mulch to add to your new plantings. Ideally, you would want to start a compost heap in spring, that way you might have good dark soil by the next spring, but it will compost throughout the autumn and winter. There are even ways to compost indoors during winter months using a large Rubbermaid type tote and lid (read how here), and red worms. I've read about it being done in the basement, with no offensive odors at all. It's something to think about if you want to keep composting your scraps all year instead of trudging out in the snow and digging a spot to bury it.

And that's it! We actually got it all done in a little less than two hours! Start to finish. It was Noah's birthday the day before, so we wanted to leave town to visit his grandmother and go to dinner. We finished this, cleaned up and drove the hour to see her. We had a wonderful visit and dinner. It was a very full weekend, but very accomplished.
I hope this encouraged you to try your own compost bin. It's really not as hard as it may seem, and good for the environment too.
There are bins for sale, even by Rubbermaid through sites such as Walmart.com, but the whole idea is to make usable FREE nutrient rich soil for planting, and to reuse what you've got on-hand. This is a great way to teach your children nature cycles, recycling, planting and harvesting, and gardening.
Give it a try...see what you think!

Have a wonderful rest of the week...
N