Let the Finish Work Begin

I can't believe it's been two weeks since my last post, especially since so much has happened in the past 14 days. We were thrilled that Chris' parents were able to come and see our progress this weekend. They loved the house, the street, everything! Here's some of the progress we were able to show them:

Lots of tiling...

My brother Kevin and Chris spent all day Saturday tiling the breezeway (soon to be den). We used these awesome porcelain tiles that look like thick wooden planks. Love them and love the look of this room.

Chris and I started grouting on Sunday morning but decided to spend Sunday afternoon visiting with his parents. We'll finish up next weekend.


Looks great though, right?

The tiles on the floor of the master bath are also coming along.

You can see where Kel started the charcoal grout. Looks great with our clawfoot tub. The walls will have white subway tiles and the floor of the shower will be the hexagon mosaic just like the bathroom floor - but all white, no black.

Lots of thought given to the mantel...

I found a mantel surround kit at Lowes on clearance, primed it and then Kel installed it. But, before doing that, Ryan tiled around the fireplace. And, before doing that, I had to pick out the tiles. It was a tough decision, but I narrowed it down to six and then three options.

Black Galaxy won out. Here's what the mantel + tiling looks like pre-grouting. The "hearth" is just for show and has not yet been tiled. But this is about what it will look like.

Before we tile the hearth, we are having the tiles "bullnosed" so we can tile right on top of the hard wood and avoid having rough, unfinished edges. Grossman's Bargain Outlet in Peabody is where we found the money granite tiles (for only $4.99 a sq foot) and they referred me to someone who can do the bullnosing.

LOTS of trimming...

In addition to tiling, Kel spent the last four days trimming the doors and windows. And what a task that has been. We bought 3.5 inch trim from Builder's Supply in Peabody and Kel set up a work station in our dining room.

It's quite a process, but he's doing a great job and it makes the whole house feel that much more finished.


And a good amount of cleaning...

Before Louann and Greg came to visit, Chris wanted to make sure the basement was cleaned. It was covered with insulation, old tools, inches of dust. Really, the most disgusting place you've ever been in. This is due to the fact that the demolition and pulled up floor boards on the first floor created holes through which dust, insulation and any particles could fall through. If you were ever in the basement while someone was doing work, you would leave with some sort of grey dandruff. But not anymore! I brought Chris a surgeon's mask to protect his lungs but it was a bit too late. He coughed up black soot for a day or two.


Floor and stairs related stress...

Since my last post, there has been a TON of drama with the floors and stairs. Suffice to say, don't ever let floor guys install stairs. The floors are installed (though not yet finished and let's not even talk about the weird water/oil stains that are seeping through wood right now) and the stairs have been fixed (by a different contractor after our floor guys walked out mid-project never to return) so crisis is (almost) averted... It will make for a good story some day - and an excellent blog post...one that my husband is in the midst of writing.

That's all for now!

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

After picking up some tile and selecting our kitchen appliances, we patiently await the skilled laborers to come bearing lumber. In the meantime, we had some more work we could do and only one day before our first dumpster was full and ready to be picked up.



This past Sunday was all Salt Wall Lane! On 7/31/11 we met with a couple of specialists starting at 9am (sleeping in is looked down upon up here). First we met a gas fireplace dealer/installer. He took measurements, helped us reiterate our feelings towards a Regency 36" model and gave us a quote for everything we needed to get it installed. Although a little rough around the edges, he was quite popular. Katie's mom recognized him when she walked in and come to find out, he had installed her gas fireplace a few years earlier. When we broached the topic of purchasing the unit on tax-free weekend, Aug. 13-14, he said he’d be out of town then and was not too interested in working with us to run the payment on that day. So the following day we thought we’d send him an email stating the job was his if we could work on paying over that weekend, but we soon discovered he didn't have an email address. Oh well! We might have to do it the old fashioned way...by phone. But saving $300 in taxes on a $3,500 gas fireplace might be well worth it.

Next up was the radon mitigation specialist. He was a quite a talker and Katie had questions! Our basement is set up to easily accommodate the suction-based system, including running an additional line from beneath the breezeway slab if need be. We will get a test done in the breezeway after the summer heat, as we only tested the basement in May. Our radon level there was 4.8 pCi/L. Anything over 4 pCi/L, the EPA recommends getting mitigated.

Beyond radon, this gent had some great suggestions for getting moisture out of our basement and some ideas on sealing it. First order of business was getting the masonite walls the previous owner installed out of there. These have really only served as sponges for moisture and odor the last three decades and it took me 4 hours to remove. Again, no bag of money. Just an old Roy Rogers poster behind one wall. This task left me not only filthy, but ready for some fresh air.

I ventured upstairs where our contractor/uncle was hard at work. He had set the electric on a separate 2x4 post, disassembled the front porch, staked out the new wrap-around farmer's porch and was working on tearing down the top 7' of the chimney (which the fireplace installer had offered to remove that same day for $750...no thanks!) With a few hacks of a sledge hammer, removing the flashing and pushing and pulling, down came this massive chunk of chimney with a street rattling thud!





Kel had one of her cousins come by to help. He and his friend Ryan took out all of the existing upstairs windows and sealed the holes with plastic. We're going to hold on to these double-hung windows and find a place to recycle some of them. They really are not that old compared to the rest of the house. Probably replaced within the last 10 years.

On Mon. we found out a storm front was rolling in and it was likely to rain the next three days. This left the framer to make the executive decision to hold off a week before "raising the roof" and throwing that baby in the dumpster. We were bummed, because we had been really looking forward to this stage. Not only will it be the fastest stage at an approx. 3 weeks of work, but it will show us what our house will look like permanently from the outside. I guess we can wait one week for good weather, but that's it!