Moving on Up

The rain held out for Jim’s crew today. By the time we stopped by at lunch, they had already put down the subfloor on the second level, as well as the carrying beam, which will actually go in between the first floor ceiling and second level flooring.


Jim Delaney actually had us up on the roof, I mean, FLOOR, of our second level, pointing out where various windows, walls and closets would go. Amazing how quickly things are moving!


View from top of stairs down to the front door at 1pm:

In the photo above, you can see the old fiberglass insulation in between some of the beams. Guess who accidentally stepped there and not on the subfloor? Good thing I had a light lunch - or else I could have ended up in our dining room. Not joking.

We had a 5pm meeting with our personal kitchen cabinet/island designer Janet Desimone at Home Depot in Danvers, who, by the way, is the most helpful Home Depot employee we have ever encountered (more on the kitchen island we decided on in a future post - we're going one level, folks!). So we didn't do our end-of-day driveby until it was almost dark (no wine this time). The guys had added in an extra stair at the top of the staircase (the space created by the enclosed carrying beam required it) and covered the entire floor decking with rubber rolled roofing. As Kel explained, that will protect it against any rain that might come (which it did at around 8pm). Jim and his guys will build the walls on top of the rubber, then once the house is roofed, he will cut away the remaining rubber material.

Ol' Salt Wall at 7:30pm:


We're quickly becoming big fans of JD Builders. Check out the mailbox they jerry-rigged for us. Now only if the mailman would actually leave us our mail...and if the rain would stop by 7am.

Monday PM: It's Raining, It's Pouring!

But the boys are still hard at work. Covering ol' Salt Wall with a tarp.

Photo is courtesy of Rich Girard's iphone. I love getting the play by play from Rich, especially when I was so curious what was going on just a few blocks away (while on a conference call), well aware of the MONSOON we are experiencing in Salem.

We really have the best neighbors. Our builder even commented on that...which is probably not the norm when you start tearing down a home at 7am on a Monday morning

When Chris and I stopped by at around lunch time, many neighbors were watching the demo from inside their homes or even outside on their driveways, like a drive-in movie. "We're watching your house disappear," our next door neighbor said. The guy across the street who is recovering from an illness was watching from his deck in a lawn chair. "It's entertaining me as I recover," he said. Funny thing is, I used to deliver newspapers to all of these people when I was 11. And my dad delivered their mail for 30 years. Maybe that's why they're so nice!

Salt Wall Got a Hair Cut!

What a difference a couple hours makes!






Jim Delaney of JD Builders out of Middleton works quickly.

...ACTION!

Today is the day, everyone.

RAISE THE ROOF!

Thanks to our awesome neighbor Rich Girard who, upon noticing two giant holes in the roof and a lumber truck in front of 3 Salt Wall at around 10 a.m., grabbed some GREAT material for our blog! We officially have people monitoring and reporting on progress for us, which is awesome, since I'm not sure either of our employers would appreciate it if we made blogging a full-time job -- which it very well could be.

Rich gave Chris and I these some real-time updates this morning via email and text, so I thought I'd share them with our loyal followers (aka our moms). Pretty exciting!

We're about to place a $4k order for windows this week. Now that the framing has begun, all decisions on exterior walls and windows are FINAL. Which actually feels pretty good.







To quote an email from Chris: "Wake me up when it's over."

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.

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!

Appliances - Check!

We completely geeked out at Yale Appliance this weekend and ended up doing what we do best: finding the best product possible at the top of our price range (okay, maybe SLIGHTLY outside of our price range – ha! “range” - no pun intended) that looks like we spent a LOT more money than we did. That’s always our goal. We won’t cheap out, but we will go to great strides to find things that appear to have cost more than they did – even if that means paying a few bucks more than we budgeted. Sometimes a small amount of money can bring something from decent to phenomenal. Usually, it’s a detail here or there that just makes an item “sing.” Finding what my dad calls the “suck appeal” without breaking the bank is something I kind of get a high off of. We really mastered this with our wedding planning. And we have it down when it comes to wine purchasing, as well: There’s a lot of crap out there for under 10 bucks. But there’s also a lot of good, lesser known wine for under 10 bucks. Some very lovely wines cost as much as your Barefoot or Yellow Tail but aren’t embarrassing to serve to friends at a dinner party – in terms of label and taste.

So that’s the approach we’ve taken with everything from tiles to cabinets to, most recently, appliances.

How do you get the look of a pro-style Viking or Wolf kitchen without spending $5,000+ on JUST a stove that looks like this?


Well, you go to Yale Appliance in South Boston – which is basically the IKEA of appliances and lighting and you look at quality, aesthetics and manufacturers’ rebates. The more you buy from a manufacturer, the more you save. We really liked the looks (and the reviews and data re: servicing needs/complaints) of the Jenn-Air pro line.

Here's the look of the items in an actual kitchen:


Gas convection range, french door shallow depth refrigerator (so it looks built in), over the range microwave hood and stainless interior dishwasher (Chris is stoked about this $1300 high-end dishwasher!). And there is something industrial about the handles on all of these appliances that scream Chef Ramsey!

Get a closer look at the stove. Sure, it's no Wolf, but it's damn near it in looks - and, according to reviews, not far behind when it comes to performance either.

So we bought the fridge on Sat to enable us to take advantage of the $150 Massachusetts tax rebate, as well as Yale’s $150 match. Regular price: $1999. Our price: $1249.


And we have the rest of the package teed up to buy on August 13th, which will save us a few hundred bucks in taxes (for those of you Bay Staters who don’t know already, the weekend of August 13/14 is tax-free weekend in the Commonwealth).

We won’t get all of the rebates on our new kitchen until the items are delivered (probably late September/early October, right before the cabinets are refaced), but we will certainly make sure we get cash in on the rebates. You’ve probably heard about $50 rebates for phones costing $250. How about $1200+ in rebates on a $6,000 kitchen? We’re listening…

Interesting fact I found online: The average breakage, or people who do not turn in rebates is 80-90% in groceries. So instead of lowering wholesale price, manuacturers bet on this "breakage". But $1,175 is a little different than a coupon for 75 cents off that Green Giants peas.

We budgeted $3,000 for all of our appliances. When all is said and done, this kitchen will cost us about $4,800. We love to cook. The reviews are good. Everything matches and looks legit. We’re getting a really good bang for our buck. We are happy to move on from this decision.

One other update worth sharing – before picking up our appliances, we took 3 cars to Fitzgerald Tile in Woburn and left with 1,300 lbs of tile and 25 lbs of grout for the “mudroom turned sunroom.” All in all, a very productive Saturday! (Yes, I am strategically trying to have very productive Saturdays with Chris before football starts. Then, I know I’m on my own. Well, I’ll have Mom…who has been so so helpful!)