Carpet Installed and Open House Plans

This week, my sister and I made our way over to Cokeville on Wednesday and Thursday to see what we could accomplish. We managed to touch-up paint and hang a couple of bathroom mirrors, which was nice and easy...

And we managed to clean the kitchen and refrigerator and install the under-cabinet lights, which we love, love, love....

I'll be honest, installing the under-cabinet lighting kind of freaked me out. It involved cutting permanent holes into gorgeous, brand new cabinets. After reading the instructions and thinking about how to get it done, what I really wanted to do was just forget the whole idea and letting the homeowners tackle this one, if they even wanted to!? But I new that whoever got this house would  probably never get around to it, and we had had our electrician run a special switch for our lighting outlet, so I knew deep down that we really should just do it and get it done. So after enquiring with my bff google and watching a few tutorials on the HGTV website, I gathered my courage, and went for it. And I am so glad I did. It turned out great and wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Whoever gets this house is going to love them...I sure would!

And while we slaved away in the kitchen on Thursday morning, carpet was being installed. Happy day! And it looks amazing. It is amazing how carpet can completely transform a place. It finally looks like a home someone could actually live in.


Our open house is scheduled for next weekend - Friday, January 6, & Saturday, January 7. It's scheduled to be advertised in all the local/surrounding area papers and everything, so it's official...come hell or highwater!? If you are in a 2-3 hour radius from Cokeville (and anyone in Northern Utah/Western Wyoming/Southern Idaho is) and have been at all curious, you are not going to want to miss this. The weather should be great for a drive next weekend, and the local restaurant, Blondies, serves the best mushroom-swiss burger I've ever had. So go ahead and plan on it...

Kitchen Cabinets and Odds and Ends

I am five days past my usual update post, but it's the Christmas season, and things have been busy, and I'd rather sip hot chocolate and eat treats from the neighbors than deal with pictures and blogging. But it's a slow night in the McComber household, so here am I am with photos to prove that we actually did some work last weekend, and that we really are getting close to being done...

I spent Friday and Saturday in Cokeville and we accomplished the following:

Installed the air registers, installed closet rods, rehung the doors (since we had to take them off for painting), installed doorknobs on all the doors, installed the stair banister, installed bathroom hardware (tp holders, towel rods, towel rings), washed windows, and tried to clean up a bit. And while we did that our electrician got to work installing all the light fixtures. And our plumber was suppose to come sometime last week or this week and install toilets and sinks. Electricity and running water...happy day!

And below is a sneak peak of the new kitchen cabinets. I really like them and I really like the layout. I thought the peninsula might be too much and take up too much room, but I think it's the perfect size. We are missing the cabinet that goes above the fridge, as it was too wide and we had to return it and pick up a smaller one in Logan. And the toe-kick area needs some finishing work. But we have our handy man, Bill, working on all those items, so they'll be done soon, if they aren't already.

Our carpet is scheduled to be installed next week, on December 28 and 29, and we can't wait. And we have a tentative date for our open house, January 6 and 7 (barring any major disasters or snowstorms). Mark your calendars! So between now and then, our finish list looks like this:

• Touch-up painting
• Pick-up and install the stove and dishwasher (ordered from Lowes)
• Pick-up and install the back door (special ordered from HD)
• Hang bathroom mirrors
• Install door stops
• Clean, Clean, Clean!

This list looks like heaven...short and sweet and completely doable. We really are SO close to being finished!

Paint!

This last week my mom worked her tail off priming everything and painting the ceilings, trim, and bedrooms white. She was planning on finishing up with the paint sprayer on Friday, and we would be painting the living areas (living room, dining rooms, kitchen, bathrooms, and upstairs hallway) our chosen wall color with rollers and brushes. I left for Cokeville early Saturday morning, and with a view like this greeting me at the top of Logan Canyon, I was sure that it was going to be a great day of finishing up ALL the painting!

Well, I arrived in Cokeville at 9am and was quickly informed that we were out of caulk, and we were out of white paint...and the five bedrooms definitely needed a second coat of paint sprayed on. And there were lots of places that still needed caulked, or a second application of caulk. Since I had JUST come from Logan, where I could easily have stopped to pick by BOTH materials before coming over that morning, I was a little infuriated that I hadn't been called to pick those things up. I hate wasting time, and coming all that way without those much needed materials drove me a little bit crazy!? Especially since without those materials, we couldn't finish the painting portion of this project, which was my goal for the day. Maddening!

Then, as we were taping off all the trim in order to apply our creme-colored paint, I finally realized that our electrician had installed all the outlets and light switches, even though we hadn't painted yet!? My mom had told me the week before that our electrician wanted to install the outlets and light switches before we were done painting. I was skeptical and asked one of the contractors in our neighborhood about it, who said that was a TERRIBLE idea, and "don't let him do that!" So, with his advice we agreed that the electrician shouldn't install those items until we were done painting. Especially since we were painting with a paint sprayer, and overspray would get ALL over the brand new fixtures, not matter how good we tried to cover them. Well, my mom never called the eletrician to tell him our wishes, so, of course he installed them all when he was here last Sunday. I was livid!

One, my mom should have communicated with the electrician; and two, that electrician was just being lazy and trying to take shortcuts and get his job done faster. Not that he's EVER been in a hurry!? When I talked to our contractor neighbor, he looked at me crazy when I even mentioned the electrician installing the outlets first  It's just not how it's done. And for good reason. Just as I predicted, we had overspray ALL over the new outlets and light fixtures, even though my mom did her best to cover them.  Now we have to either replace them, or we have to waste our time scrubbing paint off. SO maddening!

It's hard to see the white-on-white paint job, but you get the idea with the white on black. The light switch on the bottom right missed getting taped altogether. It's completely covered and will definitely need replaced...

The good news? Our handyman, Bill, installed our front door and put our stair railing together, and both look amazing! Oh, how I love him!

So, we resolved that my mom would just have to make a trip to Logan and finish the painting and caulking next week, without my help. We were able to finish the wall color, except for touch-ups, which we can do next week/weekend. I arrived at 9am, and was on the road by 6:15pm. I would have loved to stay a few hours longer and make my Saturday really worth it, but what can ya do!? I hate being 2 hours away from Lowes! No matter how prepared you think you are, and how much extra you think you're getting, it's never enough!?

So, here are some pictures of the finished painting product. We are really loving how it is coming together. And we really love that it's just coming together, period! We really are SO close to being done!

Here are some shots of the rooms without the lovely blue tape outline. The lighting is a little weird, but you get the idea...

And there you have it. This next week our handyman, Bill, will be installing our kitchen cabinets and countertops, and vanities, and maybe we'll have a backdoor in by then too, if we're lucky, which is a whole other story I almost forgot about...

When Bill installed the front door earlier this week, he was going to install the back door as well, but our special ordered back door was too tall to fit in the space!? I had special ordered it to be shorter than a normal door, but it arrived 1 inch higher than what I had specified, and was the height of a normal-sized door. And since the backdoor goes right up to ceiling of that back porch area, that extra inch was a huge problem, which was why we special ordered it in the first place. So, I had to spend an afternoon on the phone with Home Depot, figuring out what happened and ordering a new door. This new door should definitely be shorter, as the cost was considerably more...$330 for a shortened door vs. $230 for the stock door we were apparently given. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I am not at all impressed by Home Depot. The good news is that since the door we "special ordered" wasn't really special ordered, we can return it and get our money back.

Have I mentioned that I can't wait to be done with this house? Because I can't.

Trim, Floors, and Taping

This was an awesome weekend. The work was fun, the company was great, and we were SO productive. I feel like we might get done with this place eventually after all!?

We picked up some more trim during the week, so first things first, we finished trimming out the windows...

Then we finished trimming out the closet doors (on both sides, mind you), and installed closet shelving in all of the bedroom closets, as well as pantry shelves in the kitchen pantry downstairs.

We picked up more flooring during the week, so we finished laying flooring in the back porch laundry room and mud room/sun room. We also installed the floor-edging pieces (below/top picture)...which ended up being no small feat!? It's funny how the things you think will be easy end up being hard and time consuming, such as those stupid little floor-edging pieces (we had 7 edges to figure out and install!?)...

 And then the things you think will be hard, end up being easy, such as taping and plastic-ing all the windows and tubs, which was actually remarkably easy... 

It was a long, hard weekend of working, but it felt good when we were done. We worked on Saturday from 7:30am to 9:50pm, with only one short break that included a PB&J at about 4pm. We were both completely beat by the time we finally stopped, and I know I am still recovering!? But we got SO much done, so it was totally worth the very long day of manual labor.

This week my mom is planning on finishing up all the caulking. She practically caulked the entire house single-handedly this last week, so I'm sure she'll have no trouble finishing up the trim we added this weekend. Then, if we can get our handy-man, Bill, to come over to install the front and back exterior doors and the stair banister upstairs, our next task will be painting! All the floors and windows are taped, and we're ready to go with our fancy paint sprayer and buckets upon buckets of paint. Next weekend, hopefully we'll have a painted house for your viewing pleasure. We're getting there...