Framing, Footing and Tax-Free Shopping

On Friday, Jim’s crew roofed the whole house and the back of the garage, rebuilt our staircase so it was wider and to code, and framed out the whole inside of the upstairs.


The master bedroom window (big window on left) isn't closed up yet because it served as an entry way for some really large items like our shower/tub insert and all the lumber.

For the first time we were able to walk up stairs to our new second level and actually envision what it would look like. Doorways, walls, rooms and closets were all framed out. We started talking about where beds and vanities and other items would actually go in the various rooms.

Here's our master bath:

We actually want the shower to be on the right and the vanity to be on the left, but we need to confirm with the plumber that we'll be able to run the water pipes up through the floor for the vanity since you're not supposed to have plumbing on exterior walls because pipes freeze in this area.

Chris joined Black Tie Property (Kel’s company) on Saturday in some real manly work: digging up the footings for the porch. It was quite an undertaking, I hear. The builders are off this week because we’re waiting for the building inspector to come out and inspect the holes (they need to be 4 feet deep). Then, once we get the building inspector’s sign off, concrete can be poured. It takes a couple days for the concrete to dry so that needs to be factored in (and this rainy weather doesn’t help things!). Windows arrive on Thursday. If all goes well, Jim could potentially be back on Friday framing out the porch, installing windows and siding the house. Monday at the latest.

In addition to digging the footings, the boys also finished taking off the shingles and took the rest of the chimney down. Kel also installed the awning windows at the back of the mudroom/breezeway/den – whatever you want to call it – and finished patching up the exterior wall yesterday evening.




While the men were hard at work, I was hard on the credit card. After all, it was tax-free weekend in Massachusetts. Knowing this weeks ago, I teed up a whole bunch of purchases and ensured that the transactions would go through on Saturday or Sunday.

Here are the items we officially purchased this weekend:
Granite for kitchen countertop and island, guest bathroom tiles, all of our appliances, all of our windows, kitchen island base cabinets, white 36in vanity for guest bath, mirror for guest bath, door handles for all doors in the house, tiles for half bath (first floor), tiles for master bedroom, backsplash tiles for kitchen, all of the interior doors for the entire house.

Grand total: $16,837.26
Savings from tax-free weekend: $1,052.33

I won't show photos of everything - esp since I've featured a lot of these items already in the blog, but here are some photos of stuff you haven't seen before.

Interior doors: we're going two panel instead of 6 panel:


Master bath tiles - these will go great with the clawfoot tub:


Half bath tiles - these are neutral and will allow for a darker wood vanity, off-white built in cabinets and the cream/tan striped walls I want:


Oh - and I almost forgot - we also bought our gas fireplace. It's a Regency P36D. We'll buy or build a flush mantel like this eventually.


It was quite a busy weekend!

Lights, camera...

This was our first weekend away from Salt Wall Lane since we moved. We went up to Lake Winnipesauke to visit Sarah and Ramin Taheri and the Bruson family. It was wonderful to get away from all the stress of the house and chill on a boat on the lake on a gorgeous New England summer day. Chris even caught a fish!

But, fear not, Salt Wall was still on the mind. Even before we got up to the lake, we made a stop at the homestead to see that Kel had already ripped off almost all of the shingles on the front of the house in preparation for the building/siding job that commenced THIS MORNING! That’s right, as I type, the “raising of the roof” is taking place.

We needed to pull the shingles off so we can accommodate new windows on the first floor in the front of the house when we put the new vinyl siding on. We only need to do this to the front of the house because we're only replacing the first floor windows in the front.

After snapping a photo of the shingle-less house (which you'll see in our next post), we headed north to tax-free New Hampshire, stopping along the way at Stone One in Methuen, Mass. where we're getting our granite and tile so Chris could give the "stamp of approval" on the tiles I picked out for the guest bathroom.



Score! He liked them.

The rest of the day was renovation-free, though we did talk shop with the Taheris who are going through the same type of project with their new house in Capitol Hill.

On Sunday, we were trying to kill time before meeting the Mlinar family for breakfast at Sunshine & Pa's in Meredith, NH. Randomly and conveniently, Amanda, Gavin and Halsey were up at Lake Winnepesauke this week, as well, so we were lucky to have the chance to meet up with them before we all departed. As any home renovator would know, Lowes and Home Depot are two of the only places open for business at 6:30am, which was around the time the Taheris left us for the airport. We took full advantage of our small pocket of time and picked out some cool indoor/outdoor fans for the porch. We plan to have two of them on our wraparound.

Unfortunately (or fortunately as you'll learn), it was "donkey day" at the Lowes in Meredith and they couldn't find my account number and phones were down and we were about to be late for brekkie. We pulled the ripcord and decided we'd hit up another Lowes before crossing the border to Taxachusetts.

We had a field day at the Lowes in Tilton, NH.

Maybe it was the slight hangover or egg-induced food coma, but we were (read: I was) uncharacteristically decisive.

We grabbed our fans and then spent some time in Lighting.

A lot of time.

"I'm so excited about our pendant lights!" Chris just exclaimed as I write this blog on my blackberry, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on 93 South.




It is true - we found and somehow agreed on pendant lights at Lowes. It is a type that is new to Lowes so maybe that's why we'd never seen them before. We'd actually found and almost purchased similar pendant lights online for $160 a piece. The Restoration Hardware ones I loved were upwards of $450 each! These were such a steal that we got three. We can always return one if we only use two, though I read somewhere that "there's something about the number three when it comes to pendant lights." (I think 3 is a good number for a lot of things when it comes to decor/design, btw.)

We didn't stop at pendant lights.

We found wall sconces for our master...






...and guest bathrooms.




I read (and the awesome bathroom designer I met with on Friday confirmed this - more on bathroom design in a future post) that light strips over vanity/medicine cabinet mirrors are the dated way of lighting a bathroom. Sconces on either side of the mirror are a preferable, esp for makeup application, and more flattering. The master bath light fixtures are chrome and align well with the 1920s vintage luxury look we're going for. The brushed nickel fixtures will be great for our New England cottage-style guest bath.

We also got a flush ceiling mount light for the upstairs hallway...

...and black motion censor outdoor sconces for either side of the garage door.
That was it for lighting.

We were similarly decisive in the bathroom section and purchased our faucet and shower head/valve set for the guest bathroom. We went a classic/traditional Moen brushed nickel matching set.




While we were in the faucet aisle, we decided to buy our kitchen faucet. To match the polished nickel pendant lights, we got a chrome Delta model that looked traditional yet sleek and had the features we cared most about: one handle for hot/cold, matching soap dispenser, a button you press that serves as a toggle between a concentrated stream (think: filling up a glass of water) and a rain-like stream (think: doing dishes), and good warranty. We also really like my mom's Delta faucet.

Last but not least: Chris did some in-store research on disposals and bought an In-Sinkerater "Evolution Premier." He was pleased with the reviews, particularly those commending the disposal for purring like a kitten and chomping like a beaver. (His words.)


Before heading to checkout, we strolled down the tile aisle and found two final candidates for the powder room, though decided we'd table that decision.

Debbie, the head cashier, was a dream. She looked up my credit card number with no problem, honored a 10% off coupon that we didn't even have, and gave us 6 months of 0% APR.

Our savvy shopping saved us $110 (coupon) plus another $78 in avoided state sales tax. If we can find a way to convince the state of NH that the energy-saving electrical fixtures we purchased (8 total), we can get an $80 rebate.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Bruson, thank you for allowing us to stay at your lovely lake house in Gilford, NH. Can we please borrow your address for a rebate form? We promise these fixtures will be installed there! Your (cheap) friends, the Paynes.