New Arch

These arches weren't framed according to our plans; they were flat on top and the cap piece at the top of the vertical trim did not line up with those on the doors in the dining room. So, the arches are being reframed and retrimmed. The new version is the second and rounder arch. Our dining room has to be repainted (WAH!!!) so that pale base coat isn't going to stay.

Look at little Lyra running around down there! What is she going to do when we get all our furniture out of storage???

Here is the view of the new arch from the kitchen.

Here is our teeny weeny powder room. Old Dominion Trim Specialists did a very nice job on these built in cabinets. This color is a maritime blue. I missed the pretty blue that used to be in our kitchen so it will be in here now instead.

The renovation is finishing up but it does feel like the 20% of the fininsh work is taking a long time. We got rid of the chamois color in the hallway. The west wall is now a tiger lily color so this big sideboard pops out instead of fading into the wall. the rest of the hall (downstairs and up) is a pal mushroom color. It is even called "Shiitake."

Don't worry, I am going to "decorate" the sideboard. Right now it is a staging area for stuff, as is much of the rest of our living area. Hopefully we will putting the house back together soon!

New Construction

I can't remember if we posted pictures of the pergola or not. The pergola goes along the house and other sideof the garden too. The big trenches are for electrical conduits because we will finally have some proper landscape lighting. Josh was supposed to lay the pavers in the patio this week but it is too cold (19 F today!). So, that part will be on hold until it is warm enough to be sure everything can be packed down and level.

Here's the view back into the dining room. That space under there is where my microwave is going go. We just picked out some beautiful tile. It's called Tantrum by Sonoma Tilemakers. I can't wait to get that part taken care of. That is the last big thing for us to order.

Here's a view of the southeast corner. Our stove and dishwasher are back and we've GOTTEN TO USE THEM! Everyone was very excited about that new development. There will be a butcher block counter there to the right of the stove. That counter is in my hallway at the moment.

As I am publishing these entries, I notice the text is all mashed up against the picture. I do not know what is going on in blogger. All I can say is this new version of blogger operates a little bit differently every time I use it and this time, it makes me log in for every single entry. This is very annoying. Maybe I'll come back tomorrow and try to reformat these and see if the process is any different. I hope this isn't their last and final version.

The new appliances are in. I am very excited to have a second oven. That is our new refrigerator in the foreground there. The transom over the door is being redone to make the windows wider. You can see our new floor too, these floors are going to be refinished this week. Wish us luck that the color is close to that of the floors in the front of the house.

New Floor, New Trim

I haven't posted any pictures for a long time. I think we have hit the phase in the project where the last 20% takes a very long time. You can see the new trim in the dining room and over the arches. The archway going into the kitchen is not the right shape. I'd like it if it were to be left untrimmed but since it is going to be trimmed out like everything else, it is going to be reframed to be rounder on top like all the other arches in this room.

Lots of Progress!

Because the floors in the front of the house are being refinished, we moved out for a few days. I took the kids by today to see what's been happening and boy were they excited!

Here is the new pergola going up in our garden. We are also, finally, having some proper landscape lighting done to do our garden justice! That big structure to the left is the porta-potty which did double duty as a stabilization device for the posts while the concrete was setting. Bill went out there with a level and the work was perfect!

We have this one cabinet that is stained greened and the granite looks nice here too. My built in desk area is also green like this and I will post a picture later when I can get to that part of the house.

We are also having a small moveable island for the kitchen in this same green. The top will be wood.

This counter has our new kitchen sink in it. The sink caused a bit of a scare.

I ran by the house this morning to check on the kitty cats (Noelle and KC are having kitty-cat-camp in our bedroom while the floors are being refinished downstairs) and the countertop was just being delivered. The sink looked ENORMOUS, so enormous that we thought it couldn't possibly be right. The sink matched the drawings but it didn't look like it would fit centered over the cabinet below. However, our granite already had a hole in it to center the sink over the cabinet. I went upstairs to see the cats to relieve some stress (mine and theirs!).

When I came back downstairs, disaster was averted because the granite guys said they could cut some of the flange off the sink so it would fit in the countertop centered over the cabinet. PHEW! I wonder how many times there have been problems like that I don't even know about! I don't know. And I don't WANNA KNOW. All I can say is that we are very excited to use this kitchen!

Our countertop was delivered today! We had originally planned marble countertops but when we went to pick out a slab, everything in our favorite marble was already reserved. We ended up picking out a slab of very cool black and gold granite I wish I could remember the details about where it was from and exactly what it was but I can't. It was delivered today and we think it looks magnificient!

New Cabinets

Just about all of our new kitchen cabinets have now been installed. This picture is taken looking south out the window to the garden. The sink will be in the cabinet under the window, with the dishwasher in the open space to the right. I almost hesitate to say this, but it feels like we are getting close the end of the trim carpentry. It seems like it has been going on forever (or at least since before Christmas). We have granite picked out for the counter tops, and I go so see it Monday to decide how it should be cut to show it off to best effect. The wood for the pergola in the garden was delivered today, so I expect that work to start soon. It is great to see the progress being made, but we can't wait for the work to be finished!

More Progress!

The barrier between the front of the house and the construction zone is temporarily down, so you can kind of see where this renovation is going. I wish I'd taken a picture of the floor before all the thermaply was put back down but I missed my chance.

There is dust EVERYWHERE. It has even migrated up to the attic. It will get worse during the drywall work. I think we will be putting our cleaning lady's children through college trying to clean up after this is all done. 

This is from the kitchen looking towards the front of the house. 

The windows are finally in. There used to be a window on the lefthand wall and another to the right of the door. Now we have a larger window to the left of the door and the door is further to the right than it was. The old radiator is gone and we are looking forward to having heat in the back of the house! 

Renovation Update

It's been about 3 weeks since we've posted about the renovation, but that doesn't mean that things haven't been moving. It just means that there's been a bunch of messy infrastructural work going on that isn't very interesting to look at.

The trench in the dining room floor is filled in now and there was a week and a half of work to lay radiant heat in the floor of the back half of the house. This turned out to be a good time for us to stay at our friends', the Juneaus (Juneaux?) while they were in Brazil. We were able to contribute to the Thanksgiving cooking effort and the their house had heat when ours didn't.
Our wood floor was delivered yesterday to acclimate to the house and (I hope) will be installed next week. The cabinets will arrive then also. The HVAC guy was here to do some duct work and the electrician was working away too. I bought what I hope is a beautiful light fixture off eBay and I will post pictures when that is installed.

What else? KC, our oldest and largest cat, has proved able to leap tall buildings at a single bound. No matter how high the wood barrier to the back part of the house is, he can get over it. When this project is done, he is going to PetSmart for a bath. I swear that the challenge of these plywood barriers is the only thing keeping him sane through all the chaos. That and Noelle....I am so glad we have two kitties and not one. The superintendent on our job finally barricaded the space up to the ceiling and built a hinged door perpendicular to the stair so it is more difficult for KC to get over there. But I am sure he will have that figured out by tomorrow morning.

Now, I realize I have been making our project sound perfect and painless. So, just to bring some reality to it all, I should tell you that we can only run our cooking appliances one at a time (the coffee maker OR the microwave OR the toaster oven). We've been having to take trash out the front door and walk all the way around the corner and down the alley to put it in the big trash bin. The new door to the back half of the house has fixed that, thankfully! And, (drum roll please....) our poor neighbor came out of her 2nd floor flat which overlooks our garden only to spy one of the contractors in the portajohn. There's no top on that thing! How's that for a SNAFU? I was mortified (so was she)! But fortunately, we have a responsive team and there is now a raised plywood ceiling over the portajohn. We hope that whole contraption will be gone in a week when the floor is in and they can reinstall the old toilet.

The windows are supposed to be installed tomorrow. I am sure in a week or two we will have pictures that show more interesting progress. :)

What a Mess!

I thought when the first round of demolition was complete our backyard looked like a mess, but now it is really bad. Our old brick patio has been pulled up, and the bricks are being recycled into the reconfigured rear wall of the house.