Frustration...It's Electric

When we hired our electrician back in September, his goal was to be done by the end of October...which is this weekend...or the first weekend in November at the very latest. He said it wouldn't be a problem and he kept telling us he was still on track. Well, this weekend he informed us that he still had at least three, maybe FOUR weeks of work left. Especially since his real job was moving from a four-day work week to a five-day work week and he would only be able to work on the house on Saturday and Sundays, instead of  Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. And there was no way he would be done with enough to have everything sheetrocked next weekend. The upstairs was done, but the downstairs is not even close. And he has no sense of urgency about it. Awesome.

We've been waiting on the electrician ALL month long in order to do sheetrock, and since the sheetrockers have been scheduled for the past month to come NEXT weekend, which was the weekend he said he'd definitely be done, I about flipped. I didn't flip at the electrician, though in retrospect maybe I should have!? But I was/am SO annoyed. I asked him about hiring someone to help him so he could get it done in the next two weeks, and he had the nerve to tell me that while it was possible, hiring someone to help him would cost extra for us!? I didn't dismiss the idea of extra compensation right away, as we're willing to do almost anything at this point to just get the electric finished already and get this lazy electrian out of our lives!?

We contracted with this guy to do all of electrical work for $9,000, so paying him the full amount, PLUS paying another guy to do what this first guy won't have to do because his hired guy is doing it, is absurd. Completely absurd. Right?? Longer story short, this guy just doesn't impressed me at all. And I really don't like his work ethic...haven't from day one. If it looked like he was working his tail off and doing everything possible to finish on time, I might not be so bugged. But that has not been the case, at all. And while he appears to have done a fine job on what he's gotten done with the electrical so far, it really boils my blood that he has no respect for the timeline we agreed to. But, I guess that's the world of contractors, eh!? It's seriously a wonder that any of them stay in business!? Grrrr.

However, a contractor I do love?? Billy King. He installed our windows this past week, and they look amazing!

And a contractor, I HOPE to love? Our roofer. They should be here this next week. I'm crossing my fingers and praying real hard that next weekend I'll have pretty little picture of a brand new roof for you.

This weekend I painted a few ceilings white in the rooms that had ceilings. Then we tried out our new paint color in the bathroom and dining nook. I don't exactly love it, but it's not like there's much to hate about tan, but it just doesn't do much for me. Or it might have been that I was just in a terribly bad mood whilst painting, so I have something against it!? What do you think of the color? At this point I would be ready and willing to change it, before we paint the entire place a color that is totally blah.

This weekend we also installed new panes of glass on the back porch add-on that had been broken out. These three windows were previously covered with plastic, so we think this is a nice improvement.

This last week my grandpa has been working on sealing the foundation with cement. It's a rock foundation, and the original layer of cement that used to be covering the giant rocks had started to crumble. So we removed the crumbling layer and my grandpa put on a new layer. It looks SO much better and is much more functional.

And over the weekend grannie went above and beyond by scraping off all the disgusting black carpet pad that had been glued to the floor. It definitely needed to be done, and it was not a job I was looking forward to!?  She got it all up, and it looks so much better. We can now lay new carpet in good conscience.

And as for a few hiccups...in the upstairs bathroom there use to by vinyl halfway up the wall. We removed the vinyl, but it left this horrible black glue that we just cannot get off. We have tried everything and it is here to stay. So we were planning to cover it up with bead board. We got the beadboard last week so we could put it up this weekend, however, our 4ft beadboard is about 6 inches too short...blast! Now we're just hoping we can texture over the black goo and walls, and still use the 4ft beadboard.

When we had Bill King order the windows, the right window was going to be in the bathroom. Since my mom recently moved the wall over, now both windows are in the bedroom, which makes the foggy bathroom glass a problem. A bit of a woops on our part, but nothing a new $150 window can't fix though. Money down the drain...

And this is a sad sight for me....

Remember when removing the chimney was under consideration? Well my mom and grandpa started demo-ing right away, dismantling the perfectly functional book shelf (below), and leaving a lovely hole in the wall (above). I think we'll just be sheetrocking the hole closed, but I'm really going to miss this bookshelf. I thought it was such a nice feature.

And that's about it for this week. I'm getting really bored of looking at this ugly, old, disaster of a house, so I really can't wait for sheetrock next weekend! And a new roof! I am SO ready to get out of the disaster house phase.

Kitchen Design

This last weekend was an off weekend. My sister needed some help with a few things in Boise, so my mom and I took the weekend off to go help, and visit, and PLAY with her. We're really hoping the electrical was worked on this weekend, since nothing else was accomplished. But to give you something to look at, let me show you our recently purchased kitchen...to be installed soon! 

Let me preface this post by you that we are working with a pretty small kitchen with fairly limited design options. That being said, I do think we've come up with the best design possible for this space. Or I should say Home Depot came up with the best design for this space. I can not rave about Temina at the Home Depot enough...she rocked my world and effortlessly designed what will be a really sweet kitchen.

First, I feel that I need to explain why we eliminated the only window in the kitchen. At first we weren't sure how much leeway would have in moving the plumbing and electrical, and if the stove couldn't be moved, we needed to be able to put a fan/microwave combo above the stove. And even when we found out we could adjust plumbing and electrical, we couldn't think of a better way to position the appliances so that we could functionally fit in a fridge, stove, microwave/fan, sink, and dishwasher. So my mom made the decision to close up the window so we could install the microwave/fan above the stove. It really was the only way. We will try to make up for no window with some fancy under cabinet lighting. And the huge window from the dining room should allow plenty of natural light in into the kitchen during the day.  

We debated back and forth about whether to include a peninsula or just leave it in an L shape. A normal-sized peninsula would take up a lot of space, and no matter how Temina designed it, there was no room for a bank of pull drawers for silverware, cooking utensils, or kitchen towels. While we like countertops, pull drawers are kind of essential to have too. So we decided that an L-shaped kitchen would be sufficient for an average homemaker. However, we Oberg women like to cook and we really value our counterspace, (and think that everyone else should too!?), so the more we thought about it, the more we really wanted a peninsula to work. I took our demands to Temina and she factored in a smaller-sized peninsula with no bar overhand, and walah, we could fit in everything we had ever dreamed of.  

The before...

And the anticipated after...here is an the aerial view...

 The view from the living room...

Closer View...

View from the dining nook...we played with the idea of covering up a pipe in the corner with an appliance garage, but decided that would take up way too much counterspace, so that idea was X'd. The appliance garage to the left of the sink will not be included. And we may actually be able to just get rid of the pipe altogether...we shall see. 

And there you have it. Our future kitchen, which will be made up of beautiful, ceiling-high hickory cabinets. What do you think? Will it do??

And what do you think...should we add cabinet hardware to the cabinets, or let the new owner decide on whether they would like cabinet hardware and what style? If I were the buyer I would want to choose and install my own hardware after purchasing the house, but my mom would rather someone else make those decisions for her and have it already included in the house. She has a good point. So, what do you think?? Take the poll at the top or leave a comment! Cabinet hardware? Or no cabinet hardware?

Chimney Decision, Electricity, and More Subfloors

First things first...we have decided that we are NOT going to be taking out the chimney. Which means I can stop having nightmares at night about chimney removal. I figured that if my mom and grandpa were so set on taking it out, I'd better do some research on how to get it done. The more research I did on-line, the more I was sure that this was not a job we wanted to tackle, nor did we have the skills to tackle it. It would require tools we don't have, skills we don't have, lots of manual labor we don't have, lots of dirt and soot, and time, time, time. After my grandpa slept on the idea for a night, he decided, as I did, that we probably didn't want to pick a fight with a chimney if we didn't have to (which we don't). He then convinced my mom. I had no sway with my mom, but my grandpa did!? Oh, how I love him! So, the perfectly good chimney is staying. And while the house won't be getting 20 square feet larger, I'm pretty sure no one will even notice.

Would you like to climb on that scary, steep roof and remove even the top of that chimney, let alone 2.5 stories of it?? Yeah, me neither!

This week has been very productive. First, we have a new water line. The old one's shut-off valve was broken at the street, meaning that water to the house couldn't be turned off...ever!? So the city came in and fixed things up. Now we have a new shut-off valve, clean new pipes, and normal water pressure...all for a bill of around $500 plus some landscaping work.

The electrician, Sam, has been hard at work the past two weekends. The upstairs is almost completely done being rewired and it is SOOO exciting! I never thought yellow wire could invoke such happiness in me, but it sure does. And boy is Sam a trooper, as re-wiring a remodel looks to be incredibly messy, dirty and complicated...but I guess that's why he's getting paid the big bucks to figure it all out!?

Also, my grandpa made a really good suggestion to remove a nook in the bathroom to make the master bedroom bigger. The bathroom used to have a small little nook that claimed the window on the right below. We removed that small nook and built a new wall (which includes a door into the bathroom) and walah, we have master that feels so much bigger and brighter. The bathroom now has no window, which was sad for me as I love having natural light everwhere, but most bathrooms don't have windows anyway so I don't think it will be a deal breaker for anyone.

Here are some pretty terrible pictures of the master bedroom...the left side of the room and the new right side of the room. It's still a pretty small room for a master, but now it could conceivably fit a king bed if needed without filling up the ENTIRE room.

This weekend I was only in Cokeville on Friday night and Saturday, so it felt like a slow weekend as far as work getting done, but we still managed to be quite productive. On Friday evening I put the third coat of epoxy in the downstairs bathroom's tub enclosure. It now officially looks amazing!? And it only cost us $150 in epoxy paint. That price sounds a little steep to me for just a little paint, but it sure beat removing all that tile and starting over. Totally worth it! Here is the before and after for your veiwing pleasure... 

On Saturday morning my mom and I continued our subflooring venture. We laid subfloor in the back porch  area...

And in the laundry room area...

And in the downstairs bathroom...

And in the half-bath off the kitchen...

And my grannie scraped, sanded, and caulked ALL these window sills so that we can prime and paint them. Oh how I love her!

And that was about it for this weekend. The windows have arrived and should start to be put it any day, and the roofer should be arriving any week now!? We did have a change of contractors with our plumber, but we are back on track and the plumbing should be done by the end of October. And Sam, our electrician, said that he would be done by the first week in November. And this last week I ordered our kitchen cabinets...pictures of the kitchen design coming soon! Things are rolling right along.

And now to end, I will leave you with a picture of the completely completed paint job.

Before...

And after...

  

Mid-Week Poll - Chimney Drama

So, my grandparents from Alaska are in town. My grandpa is a builder and fix-it man, and can fix anything and everything. So, upon seeing our fixer-upper, he threw out a few suggestions for my mom to consider. Namely, removing the big cinder block chimney that goes up through the center of the house. My mom says yes to this idea. I say no.

There are pros and cons to this scenario. First, the pros...

1. It would give us a bit of extra space in the kitchen pantry and a bit of extra space in the upstairs hallway.
2. The chimney serves absolutely no purpose anymore, and if someone were to ever take it out, now would be the time as we are putting on a new roof and putting up new sheetrock everywhere.
3. It would be less of a liability later. Eventually the chimney will deteriote and need taken down...but it's probably 100-years from deterioting to that point.

Now, the cons...

1. We would need to remove a cinderblock chimney. Remember back in college when you carried a mere four cinderblocks 2 flights up the stairs to your college dorm room to set your bed on? I do...it sucked. I can't even imagine how miserable it would be to take down a two-story solid cinderblock chimney. First just getting the cinderblocks apart, then hauling them outside, then hauling them up to the muddy dump, then unloading them into the dump!? It would be miserable.
2. I don't think it will affect the sale price at all. Chimney or no chimney, no one is going to notice or care. So, we will get the same price for the house, but will have done an enormous amount of hard, manual labor.  I'm not interested in working my tail off for no good reason.
3. The demolition crew would consist of me and my mom. My grandma and grandpa would want to help, but they aren't exactly spring chickens. While my mom apparently has a death wish for them, I, for one, do not!

Now for some pictures of the possibly afftected areas:

On the far left of this picture, to the left of the pantry doorway is the chimney location. Removing the chimney would make that pantry area larger...which would then probably warrant the removal of the dividing wall, which would in turn warrant the removal of the archway. It would be quite the can of worms...and would that extra open space add any value? It is a flip, afterall. It is perfectly functional as it is.  

 The bookshelf on the right is hiding the chimney. Removing the chimney would remove that cute book shelf, and create more space in the already spacious hallway.

So, what do you think? If this were YOUR flip, would you undertake this monster of a job? We need your opinion ASAP...before my mom and grandpa over-ride all reason and just start demolishing the chimney, which they may have already done!? But honestly, what do you think? Leave the chimney? Or take it out? The poll is on the top-left sidebar. I'm leaving it up to you...

Weekend Four - Epoxy and Subfloors

We started out this weekend's work with more dirty work. Every weekend I think to myself, "we're finally done with the dirty stuff!" And each week I return to the house to find more dirty work to be done. During the week the make-shift closets were removed from the two bedrooms where we found closets in the corners, so we had that mess to clean up.

There use to be a closet on that far wall next to the window. Now we have access to the closet in the corner... 

There used to be a closet in this little nook in the master bedroom...now there is access to the closet in the other corner of this room and this nook can be just that...a nook! (And don't mind Heather, she's just doing some important texting in between shoveling garbage bags full of plaster and lath.)

This week we also found out that mudding our paneling wasn't a good idea. Apparently a sheetrocker my mom talked to had actually done it before (see, not a bad idea!?), but it didn't turn out so well. Within 6 months he said it was falling off and you could see every mudded crack. Not a good idea after all!? He said it'd be less trouble and a much better idea in the long run to just sheetrock the entire place. So that is the new plan. So my mom set to work this week de-paneling the place (thanks mom!), and she left a few sheets for us to carry out.

On Thursday night we loaded up the truck with all the demolition debris, and on Friday morning we woke up to this. Wyoming is a cruel, cold place, where it snows 6 inches during the second week of October!?

On Friday morning Heather and I set to work on prucing up the downstairs bathroom. The tub and tile surround needed re-finished (via a couple of epoxy kits from the Home Depot). And we were going to paint the tiles on the wall. Don't worry, we got the "gripper primer" which apparently is the best for tile painting, googled "tile painting" to death, and were reassured by the associates at Lowe's and Home Depot that we could, indeed, paint the wall tile in a bathroom with successful results. So we went to work

Before...nice and pink...

In order to refinish the tub and tile surround with our fancy epoxy kit, we had to complete a five-step cleaning process of the entire surface not once, not twice, but THREE times. AND we had no running water, which means we had to haul every bit of water we used over from my mom's house. AND, the plumbers had already removed all the pipes from the house, so we had to catch the water that we used with buckets in the basement. AND we couldn't figure out how to get the furnace to create heat (see snowy picture above), and so we were trying to keep warm and heat the space up with space heaters so that it would be warm enough for us to actually paint. Thank goodness I had Heather to keep me company and make me laugh about the ridiculousness of the whole situation, otherwise this would have gone down as one of the dreariest home improvement tasks in history, with good reason!?

By lunchtime we had finally finished the cleaning process, and after lunch we sprayed on the epoxy finish and primed the rest of the bathroom. We actually ran out of epoxy finish, and could have used just one more can to even things out, but since we couldn't just run down the street to Lowe's or Home Depot, we were out of luck. We will put on another coat of epoxy next week, which according to the directions, shouldn't be a problem.

After...

I told you Heather made me laugh...we used face masks and everything, but she still managed to get epoxy paint all over her face!? Tell me that isn't funny!?

The remainder of Friday was a bit of a bust. After removing the paneling upstairs, we realized that the top quarter to top half of the walls in each bedroom had no insulation. The insulation had previously been blown in, and had settled substantially. So, at 3:30pm we decided call it a day to drive 70 miles down to Evanston to pick up a hopper and insulation so we could fill in those gaps first thing on Saturday morning. Well, it turns out that hoppers aren't exactly something you just throw in the back of your SUV. They are gigantic and are so heavy that they have to be forklifted into the back of a truck and it stays there the duration of your project. Our SUV and girl muscles were not going to suffice. We'd have to come back with a truck another day. So after a quick trip to Walmart and a drive-by of Evanston's sad excuse for a movie theater, we decided to just head back home for the night.

On Saturday our project was to finish painting the bathroom's wall tiles (see finished product above), and lay new subfloor in the areas that needed it...namely the three new closets upstairs, the living area downstairs, and the downstairs bedroom and closet. Laying subfloor isn't rocket scientry, but we did get to use a saw and a measuring tape, which was fun and made me feel like my brain wasn't rotting out of my head after all. We sure felt proud and releived when it was all finished! Things are looking better.  

Notice who is sporting the bandana this week!? My mom was very proud of her "getting down to business" look, but she was fairly easily convinced to cross over by tempting her with a cute, new hat.

At this point we are kind of at a stand still and can't do much of anything else until the electrical is done. Our electrician finally showed up this weekend, and he informed us that it is going to take longer than he thought to re-do the electrical. He told us he'd be done by the end of October, but he said it might be double that!? He was suppose to be here the past two weekends, but just started working on it for the first time yesterday. And he can only work three days a week...Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So, I'm not sure how this is going to work out...so far, I am not impressed.

The plumbing should be done by the end of October, as should the new windows and the new roof. Once the electrical is done, we can have the sheetrockers come and do their magic. Then we can paint and do all the finish work. But until then we're just sitting ducks. We were planning on doing the finish work in November (paint, floors, cabinets, fixtures, etc), so if this electrical guy thinks he can take until Thanksgiving to get this electrical done I might blow a gasket.  Anyone know of a good electrician in our area in need of a good project??

Weekend Three - Hidden Closets, Endless Nails

It's been another productive weekend. It never ceases to amaze me, the amount of things we're able to accomplish each weekend. This weekend's activities were a bit of a bore to me. And just when I thought the work couldn't get any more depressing, the weekend's monotonous activities were redeemed through a quick coat of primer!

This weekend we peeled wallpaper...it was slow and tedious and didn't do anything at all to improve the look of the place...

We also removed the strange assortment of wall boards and plaster from the kitchen walls, which was a very dusty and dirty undertaking. But I do like the finished look...what do you think? Now we can run new electrical and put up nice, new, clean sheetrock.

Then we pulled nails around every door frame, window, corner, and crevice. Throughout the entire house was a parade of a million nails where trim used to be. All the nails needed to be pulled before we could do anything with the walls. I pulled nails by myself for two hours on Friday morning and wanted to die from boredom. I quickly decided that nail pulling was a team sport and decided to do something I liked...paint!

On Friday afternoon we finished painting the exterior of the house. Remember when I said that if I was lucky my mom would finish the painting? Well, she practically did. All that was left to paint was half of the back. Easy peasey. Although it was a little depressing making the back of the house look all shiney and new, because no one is EVER going to notice the back. There is literally no back yard and there are trees covering up the entirety of the back of the house. But we did it, and it's done! And I must say, the entire house looks pretty great. Now if only we could get our roofer out here...he promised it'd be done by the end of October...I'm counting on it! 

We cleaned out the cellar and the back porch. This was another really gross and dirty job, but the cellar looks as good as a dark and dirty cellar could, and the back porch is decluttered and ready for us to make it look good when we get a spare weekend. We collected this pile of junk, as well as a full truckload of junk...

The cleaned-out backporch...

On Saturday morning we took three trips to the dump to get rid of the above garbage, then pulled nails and staples all morning. Do you see the picture below of the ceiling? Those boards have staples all along them, and we had to pull each and every one so that we can put up sheetrock. I'm sure you can imagine how fun that was. But we removed every nail and every staple and every piece of trim that we overlooked last week, and NOW we are finally ready to start improving this pile of rubble.

You know the saying, "it always looks worse before it gets better"? Well, this house is literal proof of that. After three weeks of demolition and dirtiness, I was beginnging to think it would never get better. The house looks absolutely terrible!? However, on Saturday afternoon we finally decided that we were at a point where we could at least put a quick coat of primer on the walls. Hallelujah! I love to paint, and it was amazing how just one quick coat of primer lightened the place up and gave me hope that this project wasn't a lost cause after all.

The pantry and dining nook...

 a sample of the upstairs bedrooms...

After doing some brainstorming with friends and co-workers this past week, we decided to take a different approach to our paneled wall situation. We have primed the top half of the paneling and will be filling the cracks in with mud and spraying on some texture (with a texture gun). This will be much more affordable and easier than wallpapering the top half, and as far as I'm concerned, is a much better solution anyway.

Walls have to do two things for me.

#1: I have to be able to paint them as many times as I want to; and

#2: I have to be able to patch a hole in the wall when I redecorate and change the location of my pictures, which I do often.

With plain, wood paneling you can do neither activity very successfully. With paintable wallpaper you can paint it, but you can't patch a hole successfully. So, I'm thinking this mudding and texturing solution is quite perfect. What do you think?  Then, of course, we will put up white beadboard along the bottom half of the paneling to cover up the electrical re-wiring runs.

My mom discovered a few exciting things about the house this week. Upstairs, all the bedrooms are painfully small, however, the smallest rooms definitely got a bit larger this week, as she found entire walk-in closets in each corner of the house that had previously been walled off completely!? Why these closets were walled off is a mystery to us. I thought we might at least find a dead body in one of the areas!? Or a stash of cash!? Or at the very least unleash a ghost!? But to no avail. All we've found is precious, empty space. Space that we will be accessing and using. Which is very exciting! This means we can get rid of the added-on closets in those rooms, creating a lot more space in each room. Awesome!

This is the closet in the master bedroom...it is a big closet, and it was easy to uncover the existing doorway leading into it. And isn't that wallpaper lovely? 

This is the closet at the top of the stairs. The original doorway went into the bathroom, but we'll be making a door right here at the top of the stairs, so this can be a linen closet, or a little storage room, or both!?

(There is one more hidden closet in a bedroom not pictured, but you get the idea...)

At this point we really are ready to start putting things back together by mudding and sheetrocking and painting, but first we have to wait for our electrician to start working on things. I have a feeling our progress may be stalled by him sometime in the next few weeks. We shall see. But one thing is for sure, at the top of my list of to-do's this week is to buy my mom a cute, new work hat so that she can retire her sweet bandana.

Have I mentioned that I love my mom yet?? Cause I really, really do!!!