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!)

Dis-stressed Out!

I suppose it's my turn to contribute to the blog since Katie is posting like a mad woman! Not only is she posting blog entries, she is really pulling together some beautiful ideas for the house.

I spent a few hours on Sunday clearing out the basement. Only one corner of it had stuff occupying it, but boy, what a lot of stuff was there. Fifty years of collecting.

I had hoped to find a secret stash of money, babseball cards or even a mint condition Colt, but no dice. I did however find an abundance of tools. And not the "Made in China" kind. America baby! I discovered power tools from the 60s and 70s, an old spinning reel, a huge pulley, about 6 vintage Stanley wood working planes and God knows how many hand tools. The previous owner must have had over 30 files, 50 screwdrivers, tons of drill bits and over 200 lbs of hardware.

I don't need all this stuff, so I am still working to determine what is of value and how I can move the other stuff with a quickness. If you know anyone interested in buying old tools, let me know!

In other news, I began looking how to take the interior 10-lite french doors we plan to hang with the barn rig and make them appear like they didn't come from aisle 32 at Peabody Building Supply. I had envisioned some really rustic, heavy wooden doors. The kind of doors that oozed character and made you think, "If these doors could talk!"

Well we don't have the time to play the American Pickers, so I think I found the next best thing on Katie's second favorite site - http://www.younghouselove.com/

With a few hours of work and some serious aggression, we plan to beat these doors into submission. Round one we'll sand the sharp corners into a more rounded edge. Then round two, we'll hit the doors with bags of screws, careful not to break any glass, but nicking the wood into perfection. Then we plan to take a hammer Tony Soprano-style to the panels to add some more "character".

These indentions will really come to life when we add the first quick coat of dark stain. All the nooks and crannies will really POP! Then we hit it with the walnut stain and the results will be breath-taking! (We'll be sure to post more when we undertake this process, which will surely be quite messy.)

We want each room to have a unique accent or focal point. And between the funky floor tiles to the barn door partition to the throwback master bath, this is going to be a cool crib!

Cha-Ching!

Though I don’t have photos to show of progress on the house itself, it was a busy, busy and productive weekend. It was also exhausting! While Chris was outside in 105 degree weather at a Salem Five event with Dustin Pedroia (and thousands of young fans) at the North Shore Mall, my mom and I were on a mission to gather intel on everything from tile to fireplaces to dehumidifiers to fans to clawfoot bath tubs to doors to kitchen islands to SO much more. We went to two tile stores, Lowes and Home Depot 3 x each, a bath and plumbing store, 3 x lumber stores... I learned a lot, took lots of notes and narrowed things down so that Chris could come in and help make some decisions. (I’m playing to both of our strengths – me being the gatherer/researcher and Chris being the hunter/decisionmaker.) Over the course of a few days, we did make a lot of purchases and decisions. Take a gander…

Some Purchases

• Hardware for front door (which we're going to keep and refinish, saving us a couple Gs)
  
  
  
• Hardware/deadbolt for door to mudroom (which will be our sunroom/den) – Home Depot



• 5 ceiling fans with remote controls (Hunter 52” fan with brushed nickel - a total steal for $89 with remote control, regularly $159!); had to go to two separate Home Depots and, when I asked if the second Home Depot would honor a coupon I had used at the previous one, the woman was unfriendly and said “No, it's not my fault they ran out of fans.” When I told her that she was being unfriendly, she gave me $20 off!!! It pays to call people on their rudeness




• One piece fiberglass tub insert for guest bathroom upstairs with right drain (who knew there were left and right drains?) – got the last one at Builder Supply Warehouse in Peabody. Love that store - it's like the Building 19 for builders, as Kel said. I’ll spare you the photo of the tub. It's pretty basic, but fine for a guest bath. (We'll save the tiling for our 1920s master bath.)



• 10 lite solid wood interior French doors for office entryway – plan is to stain mahogany and hang with barn hardware (see previous post)




• Three 2’x2’ awning windows mulled together with interior grid/panes for back of mudroom (which will be our sunroom/den). Kind of like this but with white trim, normal 4 panes and square.




• 6’ sliding door – Silverline (made by Anderson) – with grid panes in between glass – makes it easier to clean – super steal at Builder Supply Warehouse in Peabody
  

Top Ten Decisions (much more exciting than the purchases)

1. House color!!! We’re going with Pacific Blue, Certainteed vinyl siding – looks just like wood. My mom picked it out and we fell in love!




2. Roof color/type: Timberline charcoal black architectural shingles





3. Cabinets: We are refacing our current cabinets and chose a refacing company after getting quotes from 4 companies: Affordable Refacing – http://www.refacingdepot.com/! Sears was more than twice the price. Home Depot was also up there. This guy comes highly recommended, does great work and was very professional. He'll make a place for our counter-depth fridge (which will look built in) and our microwave (which will vent above the stove), will re-do the lazy susans, give us new soffits, crown molding. It'll be a great before and after photo! This won't happen for a couple of months but it's good to have a plan for the most important room of our house.



4. Cabinet style and color: White (not off white cabinets); raised (not shaker style); painted wood (not thermafoil) (Note: these were three big decisions in and of themselves...pros and cons to all. I'll spare you.)
   
   Countertop: We are going with a granite that actually looks like a Carrera marble but is not porous and doesn’t stain like a marble. Because it’s granite! We fell in love with it at Stone One in Methuen – awesome store with great selection of granite, quartz and tile/stoneware.





5. Kitchen tile: We thought we had decided on a cool slate-looking porcelain tile from Lowes. Until we went to Stone One in Methuen and saw this in a 12 x 24 shape:





6. Backsplash: We liked the 2x4 marble mosaic tiles from Lowes but found very similar tiles in the 3x6 size at Home Depot for half as much. It pays to shop around!




7. Tiles for mudroom (soon to be sunroom/den): We found AWESOME 3x12 porcelain tiles that are woodgrain – a super cool indoor/outdoor look that we’re very excited about. Regularly $8 per square foot. Got them on closeout at a place in Woburn for $2.99 per sq foot. It's a good deal...though doesn't seem like it when there's 250 sq ft to tile! Oh well. It will look nice.




8. Gas fireplace: We’re going to put one in our living room, and we decided to have Kel build a “bump out” or “dog house” on the outside of our house so that we don’t need to frame the fireplace in the living room, which would take up space. Instead, the fireplace will sit flush on our living room wall. Now we’re looking for the right fireplace – and the right mantel piece. I’m delegating that project to Chris. Btw, we had no idea that gas fireplaces cost upwards of $2,500 – and that’s just for the unit itself! Oh and the whole venting to code crap? Totally complicated, but I feel like an expert now.


9. Front door: We decided to save some money and just paint the front door that’s there. We’ll put it toward the countertop!


10. Okay one more for good luck: Interior door type - ARLINGTON. It's only appropriate ;-) And we can get solid core Masonite, primed for $55 per door or $79 pre-hung at Builders Supply Warehouse! Sad how excited that gets me...
    

We also went back and paid Janice at Home Depot in Danvers a visit. She priced out some base cabinets for our kitchen island…which will likely be a dark almost black wood. (Great suggestion, Amanda!) More on that in another post…

Space-Saving Altneratives to Interior French doors

Since we have a small cape and we're trying to maximize space, I pulled together some alternatives to 5" French doors that would separate our living room from my office. We couldn't decide whether French doors would open into living room or office because we didn't want to lose the space in either, especially since, unless I'm in the office and on a conference call, we will likely keep the entrance-way open. So that's what prompted this search. I like the barn door look, as well as the external hardware. One thing to keep in mind, though is that you need to have as much wall space as you have open space in order to actually keep the entranceway open. Kind of an obvious point but worth mentioning. Pocket doors are also an option and a space saver, but I find that they can be a pain and I know they're expensive to install. Instead of one big barn/carriage door, perhaps we could have two 2.5 or 3 foot doors that can be slid apart...or on one side for variation.

The Fun Continues

The dumpster is getting filled! Ty Pennington would be proud. If only the Payne Family could be in Disney World during all of this like on the show...

Kel, Dan and Dan's friend Ryan got a lot accomplished this weekend, knocking down walls, sledgehammering a bathtub to get it out of the house... Already, the house feels bigger and more open, which allows us to get a better sense of layout and what will go where. We spent hours at the house yesterday just talking through different ideas and formulating opinions on things that we had no idea we'd ever have to even have an opinion on!

Here are more "before" photos, followed by what we are using as inspiration for eventual "after" photos. So, you walk in through the front door and the stair case is straight ahead... Here is the view from the dining room.

Imagine this staircase being flipped in the finished product. The full/more opened staircase will be on the dining room side and just 3 stairs will be seen from the living room. Kind of like this... but again flipped, since the living room is on the right.

Now for the mudroom/enclosed breezeway that connects the house to the garage. It's currently not viewed as "living area," but we're putting a heating element out there and opening up the doorway into the kitchen, making those ugly cement stairs look pretty rounded and "internal" looking. This will be our sunroom/den with tile floors, comfy furniture, lots of light. We will be replacing the door and front windows that you see here. The back of the room will have 3 square awning windows that pop out and look a bit more modern. A 6 foot slider door will slide open to our patio. Two ceiling fans. You get the picture.

Some inspiration for this new living space...

Not a big fan of the animal print rug or tile, but those double doors to the left will be an opening to our kitchen and a nice step up. Oh - and see where the desk is, that's where we want a cute built-in bench with storage and hooks etc. Like this on a smaller scale...

The first floor bath, which used to have a gross tub...

We toyed with the idea of putting a glass shower stall here, but, since we will have a clawfoot tub and tiled shower in the master bath and a tub/shower combo in the guest bath (all upstairs), we just don't know that it is necessary. Instead, we thought we could do some sort of storage. Like this:

But less overwhelming...and white?

Here is another view of the bathroom that will be a powder room...

Leaning toward a pedestal sink, nice clean-looking mirror and ditchinig the old vanity/cabinet...though a case could be made for refinishing them...but they're low, so we'll see. As for the wallpaper and toothbrush...we'll probably keep those. I mean, they say combine the old with the new, right?

Happy Sunday everyone! We're off to Barnes and Noble to read magazines that cost $15 while sipping lattes that cost $15...and might stop by Lowes and a tile store for inspiration. Living the dream!

Guess Who Got a Building Permit?

That's right! It's official.