Hello, Blog! It's Me, Katie

I have the best husband in the world. After dropping me off at Logan Airport on Monday, he returned to his unairconditioned basement apartment at my parents’ house and created a blog to track the renovations of 3 Salt Wall Lane – our new house.

And he even wrote postings to memorialize some of the important milestones to date: the actual settlement (just be happy we didn’t include you on any communications about the painstaking 3-month, highly tumultuous and stressful journey from “offer accepted” to closing – it weren’t pretty); the shrub removal (the term “shrub” implies a size of plantation that sounds much, much smaller than the size roots the boys pulled out); demolition; and kitchen planning. Another biggie was the former owner cleaning out the home. As Chris mentioned, when we “passed papahs” as they say in Massachusetts when people talk about closing, the house still didn’t really feel like ours because it was chock-full of old furniture and belongings from the previous owner. Even her Maalox and toothbrush were still out in the open!

Luckily 95% of the items are gone now. The remaining 5% include a dishwasher full of (presumably) clean dishes, a ton of old tools and cans of paint, curtains and old liquor…oh and, yes, the tooth brush is still there. Regardless, it does feel a bit more like ours…but not as much as it will once our plans are implanted and it really is OUR house. Every stinkin detail.

Speaking of plans… they’re pretty much set in stone. I mean, as much as any decision I ever make it “set in stone.” If landing on a final plan is anything like landing on a final lipstick color or wedding dress, I will pick something, research 10,000,000 other, potentially better options, and end up with something very very close to the first option (much to CKP's chagrin). He is the hunter; I the gatherer. I slow his decisions down; He speeds mine up. We're kind of good at this stuff when we do it together. Part of why we can actually DO this and do it well. I know we can. So, I’m hoping this blog will help us talk out some decisions we're (okay I'm) having a hard time making…allow you all to roll up your sleeves and play project manager/designer…give me an outlet that is healthier than drinking wine and driving my husband crazy by second guessing items on our "decisions made list" (yes, we have one and I am already renegging a few decisions on it based on recent research - details to come)…provide a mechanism to update people on our progress… The purposes are endless. And hopefully highly therapeutic.

So there you have it. My first blog posting. And probably the most boring one yet.

-KCPXOX

What To Do With The Kitchen?

We spent this Sunday at The Home Depot in Danvers, MA with a lovely woman named Janice. She convinced us of a few things. 1) Sometimes it's better to make your current cabinets work if they are made from nice wood. 2) New cabinets ain't cheap!

After chatting with Janice for 2 hours, we decided to see if we can salvage the current cabinets to accommodate all of our appliances and plan to add additional counter space by way of an island.

Katie has convinced me to look into repainting the cabinets and frames to a lighter color. Her ideas have shifted and evolved. As I type this entry, she is back in DC at a crumby hotel probably having changed her kitchen design again. It was white cabinets, light granite and a carrera marble subway tile backsplash. Oh and mini yoke pendants above the island. We are going to have the island break up the kitchen and dining area since this constricting wall will be gone.

It will be our most beautiful kitchen EVER.

Demo Days!

As much as I wanted to break stuff, our contractor (Katie's uncle Kel) and her two cousins got an early start July 8. With sledgehammers at the ready, much of the small second level and some non-load bearing walls on the first floor were opened up. This helped us envision what we had planned to do and brought somethings we had not considered to light. Once the building permits are in hand, the load bearing walls will be replaced by a support LVL beam and the framer will be in action.

Getting Dirty

On Friday, July 1, we had a Bay State 500 ton dumpster dropped off. This was the beginning of the construction. It was really happening.

On the following Saturday, July 2, Katie and I went over to the house to do some removal of all of the shrubs where our 34' farmer's porch would lie. These 50 year old roots proved to be more of a challenge than we anticipated.

Battery-operated saws-alls couldn't cut it. Nor unsharpened chainsaw chains. With a shovel, an axe, a prybar and a 6-pack of Bush Light, Chris and the Carr men finally cleared out the 11 shrubs, their roots and anything else in our way. All that remained was the potmarked earth and that damn horse-tie-er-upper post. We've dug about 3 ft. and it still won't budge vertically!

Proud New Home Owners

Finally! After the lender's appraisal, the property probates and the transferring of our savings from a southern bank to a northern bank, WE ARE GOING TO CLOSE ON 3 SALT WALL LANE, SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS 01970!!!

We closed on our cape Thursday, June 29. We couldn't/didn't want to do much until the seller got all of his deceased mother's belongings out of the house. We had to add an agreement to our closing documentation that he would have all personal belongings out by July 11 or else we owned them ...not that we wanted much of anything, with the exception of the human lift bolted to the ceiling.