Laurie's World

So I spent yesterday and today finishing the hardwood in the closet and tiling the entrance at the front door. Yesterday and today up to 2pm was all about the prep…I laid 1/4" backerboard, and then screwed it down, then cut cut cut…Note the 5 decorative glass tiles in the centre of the centre row (not sure how to describe…)

I laid the tiles in about 2 hours…One thing I have learned with tiling is that it is getting ready that takes the time…They have not been cleaned or grouted yet…so ignore all the splotches and white stuff (thin set) in between…

Also, started the process to get Rachael and Jackie’s rooms put back together…

Terry took the cabinet, the toilet and the last of the flooring out of the main floor bathroom and mudroom hall for me today…No small task!! This would be the last plywood standing…and if i never see plywood again, that would still be too soon…

I would have taken pictures of the closet, but it has a drop cloth in there bcz Bonnie is painting for me

Wahoo!

I will tomorrow though…

Well, I can be very productive when I am left alone for a few days…Troy is off in Idaho for his yearly geek-end (yes I am allowed to call it that) so I am here just "working" on a few things

I decided to lay the hardwood up the hall and up to the front door…I had to learn to use Troy’s table saw…It is pretty much just like my tile saw except bigger and less wet

If you are wondering what the piles of wood are down by the door…they are holding down the last row that will go right next to the tile. I had to cut the tongue off so there is nothing to nail it down with, so glue is it

Need I say more??

and we have light in the sunroom

OK…now we are making some progress

"Kevin the carpet guy"…yes that is his company name…was here today with 2 guys to get the carpet laid. It took them a little over 4 hours to do the 2 rooms downstairs, the stairs and the hall upstairs. They also patched the hole in Jackie’s room from where her old heat register was relocated. So here are the last few pictures of our beautiful plywood floors (for the very last time!)

And here are the ugly old stairs and upstairs halls (with underlay only) Weird how they look like they are sagging in the middle…but it is just wear on the carpet…

And here is what the stairs look like nowLove ’em!!

I finished my tiling of the backsplash yesterday…It will be a day or 2 before I get to the grouting…I have to seal the tiles first, and before I do that I have to clean them…They are natural slate, so a lot of grooves etc, so not easy to get the dust out them, but I am persistant

I unpacked the rest of the kitchen today…and let me just say every nook and cranny is jammed…there are no empty cupbboards in Old Mother Hubbards kitchen. I thought the kitchen would fill up with gadgets…but in reality…it is food that is taking up all the room. It would appear that between the ketchup, BBQ and chocolate sauce noodles, and salad dressing, we are stocked for a while. I guess we lost track of what we had for condiments in the old set up…

So what is left you ask…well other than just putting the house back together, we have to finish the hardwood to the front door, finish the tiling at both doors and in the mud room/powder room, have Leroy come back to finish the base trim, have Neils come back to finsh the electrical, install the warming drawer, have the installation of the dishwasher completed (it needs clips, door panel and electric connection)…that is all I can think of right now…

Took me all day, but I am very happy with how this is goingOnce again….ignore the mess…SIGH!

Well…It was a busy week…Leroy and an assortment of helpers (some of whom I liked better than others) were here working until Friday about 4:30pm. They totally finished the kitchen and so I can really start to unpack now. Troy and I worked this morning (and Troy continued while I went to Jackie’s soccer game) to get the ventilation installed for over the range. Leroy has to come back in a week or two once we have the rest of the flooring installed and he will put the trim up then that is all done. We are missing one door and one drawer in the island that are being replaced, as well as the panel for the front of the dishwasher… but other than that the kitchen is done…oh yeah…Leroy has to assemble the pop up mixer stand and we have to install the warming drawer…but really…other than that the kicthen is done now. We got the second fridge in today…so that is nice…Thanks to Peter and Steve for coming over on short notice to help with that.So here are some pictures of the kitchen…please ignore all the clutter…I am working on getting everything put away…

We got the hardwood in the girl’s dormers so that Leroy and gang could do the trim in there. The girls have been living in crazy cramped quarters for a long time now and it has become a priority to get them their rooms back. SO we had Leroy do the trim in the girl’s rooms before the main floor base trim…Ahhh…the sarifices parents make for their children! Unfortunately we were short a piece of the window liner to do both rooms, so Jackie’s room does not have the window trim, but that will not stop us from putting the room together and Leroy will do that window when he comes back.

I would also like to show you my new "favourite" thingThe trim that I picked for over the doors and windows on the main floor…it is called architrave…and I am happy I went this direction…It is a nice touch and kind of decorative without being too ornate…

I have the doors all painted on the main floor, and all the hardware swapped out to satin nickel also…See I have been a busy girl…

Also…I wanted to show you the colour I painted the sunroom…which I have now officially changed the name of to the "coffee room" for a couple of reason…First I plan to drink a lot of coffee in there and secondly…it is the colour of coffee (not black coffee–but coffee with milk like I drink it)

So that is basically it…We are getting carpet on Tuesday (assuming the carpet arrives–which I have not heard that it has yet) and then Leroy comes back when we give him the call that we are done with the hardwood and the tiling…so that is all about me I guess. I also have to do the backspash before we can get the rest of the electrical to go live in the kitchen as Neils needs to set the outlet boxes after he knows the depth with the tile on…

OK…so when this all started, I did not really think I would be blogging in October…but here I am

I have some pictures of Rachael and Jackie’s rooms. We did some fun painting in there this weekend.

Here is the outside of the house…

and my grass

Leroy (and helper) are here working on the cabinets, trim etc. So they are going at it pretty hard and think they will only be here a few days…SO…that means we gotta get crackin’ on some stuff…mainly painting (so that would be me!) Which I got done last night. The flooring (which is a dilemna as to what to do with that wood still) but we are going to go ahead and do the girl’s dormers as there should not be a moisture problem up there–which is what we believe we are going to get as the final word from the lumber company. No…still not contact from them…I thought maybe when they got my chargeback form the credit card company, they would move a little fasterThe hardwood in the hall going to the front door and the tiling are just not going to get done before Leroy packs up his tools and goes home, so we are going to try to get him to come back after we are done to finish the trim work there.

That all for now…got lots to do

Oh HAPPY day…After a delay of 5 days…we got our granite today. First I will let you know how we ended up with an installation date of the 26th. There were some scheduling errors at FineLine and they gave our appointment away last week, one day before our appointment. They have made amends with us…and now that the granite is actually in, all is forgiven! I am so delighted with my colour choice! It is gorgeous and Troy is happy…he had not laid eyes on this granite choice until today when they showed up with it…all 3000 pounds or so of itWell, that being said, he actually had no idea what cabinets were coming, what floor was coming, the lights that I had bought or paint colours—you get the idea

So this is what the "kitchen" looked like this morning when the guys got here and laid out the templates one last time…

Here are the guys working on it…They got here about 10:45 this morning and were still here at 6:45 when I left to go pick up Jackie from her friend’s house…this installation thing is much more of a process than I ever imagined! The work to make the seams as invisible as possible…as well as installing the sinks–WOW! Oh yeah…and smelly too…the epoxy is nasty stuff…like brain damage nasty stuff. SO between my painting (I have to do something to keep me busy) and the epoxy…it was a no kid zone in our house today!!

Now…here is the finished product tonight after it has been cleaned and sealed…NO TOUCHING til the morning…so one last fast food meal tonight for us

If it helps give some persepctive…that corner sink you see is 33" wide–that is almost 3 feet–it looks small in this picture

And they even managed to get the granite on the cabinets in the sunroom…despite all the upper cabinets and clutter!

So the plumber (provided by FineLine–see I told you they are trying to make it up to us) is going to be here between 10 and 12 tomorrow…He is going to hook up all our taps and sinks, hot water dispenser, garberator –and this is very VERY good!! As I am sure you can imagine…Lowes is coming to install the dishwasher on Friday–then life will be REALLY good!The millwork is being delivered on Friday and Leroy (cabinet guy) is coming back next Tuesday or Wed to finish installing the upper cabinets, the cabinet hardware and the trim. IHe will stay until he is done…then it is all about me and tile at that point. I got all the doors and their jams in the mudroom area scraped and painted and new (silver nickel) door knobs and hinges installed in the last three days. I am going to order carpet tomorrow, so we will have carpet installed within the next two weeks in the family room, sunroom, stairs and hallway upstairs.

We are still waiting on the floor warranty determination…not holding much hope on this one being easy. And we do not know if we should carry on with the installation or not…GRRR!…Oh well, I am not going to let this spoil my GREAT day!

Long story, but no granite today…

On the 26th they say…

Hi everyone…well…I am going to write a blog entry for the last night before we officially start our battle with the flooring company. I am planning for the worst and if it is not a fight, then that will be great…and if it is a fight…I won’t be surprised. The flooring inspector is scheduled for tomorrow am. SO wish me luck….

John and Jose were here again today…sanding and texturing the places where we wanted the drywall fixed. OK…so I saw something today that amazed me and caused me to cringe like nothing so far in this renovation. John took an orbital sander to the dry mud on the walls. Now in the essence of getting the job done quickly…I thought it seemed reasonable…but I have never seen a mess like this…He did not put up any sheeting to protect any part of the house, did not drape anything, did not seem to notice that the dust was so thick in the air, it was hard to see the other side of the room. SO…nice guy…but not recommending him…that and he told me on Monday he is getting out of the business…GO FIGURE!

Our appointment for granite installation was confirmed for this Friday (the 21st) between 1 and 5…WAHOO!! I got the dry layout for the Butterfly Blue on Monday night…It has one area of "movement" (see how I have reframed that??) in the island, but I think it looks fine and I am sure I will be very happy…so I "OK’d" it and they moved ahead. SO…very excited!!

We got our gutters installed last Friday and Saurday…JUST in time for the rain that started on Sunday! Looks great…so now other than sealing the rest of the concrete and having Manuel come back to finish the retainaing wall (that is a whole ‘nuther story), the outside is done. The grass is starting to grow…we have nice green peach fuzz out there…
Manuel has kind of disappeared…He has not been here since last Wednesday, spoke with him briefly yesterday morning, he assured me he is coming back. I am assuming that since he is not here, he must be at my pal Rick’s getting his grass seed down (I hope!)

I got the handles (knobs and pulls) for the cabinets yesterday. 89 knobs and 50 pulls. That includes 20 knobs for the bathroom cabinets…so it is not like there are that many cabinets or anythingand some of the drawers are getting 2 pulls (any drawers over 24" get 2). They are simple satin nickel–thought with that many they had to be simple or it would be a little much…and the cabinets are simple…

I have been caulking the trim on the colums outside to be ready for Mario who is coming back this weekend to paint the front door, the french door and the four columns…so I guess that is one other thing that needs to be finished outside…that and Troy has 2 more septic cover lids to build.