A Little Mishap

Our handyman/home repair consultant, Mark, accidentally shot a two-inch nail into his leg! We rushed him to the hospital and after a night there and surgery, he's walking around pretty well.

Big nasty surprise, that one!

Erasing the Walls with Paint, Etc...

After the floor guys were done, we were left with an icky splatter of glue remover up to about shin-level on all of our walls.



This made me sad because we didn't plan on painting the bedrooms because we liked it just fine the way they were. Sooo, I decided to "erase" the brown-ick by dipping a rag in paint and rubbing the spots away. It worked!!



I'm so glad it did, because it still took me two days to paint the closets and trim in all of the bedrooms.

Thursday I began on the hallway. What a fiasco. I bought some light brown paint that, according to the paint swatch, was a really light shade of the color of the couch we purchased. Once on the walls, it looked like a malted milkshake--you know how they are kind of muavish in hue. Did not work at all. So I had to go and buy more neutral, this time I went with a safe cozy cream. I like it.

Let's see, what else have we accomplished this week? Chris has redrywalled the entire kitchen and has started the mud and putty phase. Today he hopes to finish it off with some texture so that we can paint the cieling in there.






We also had Mark, the contractor guy who is helping us out, move the utility sink that was in the sunroom to the laundry room.





He has also built a pedastal for our water heater to be 1.5 feet off the ground and is constructing a closet for it, so that it'll be a sealed off combustion air zone (up to code).

We have floors and some furniture!

After sweating the who/what/how of the floors, they turned out very lovely. Now it's our turn to sand and finish...




After going to practically every consignment shop and furniture store in the Austin area, I finally found our couch and living room chair at MotifFurniture.com in Buda, Texas (about 15 miles south of Austin). I happened upon this wonderful, modern, furniture store after a failed trip to some outlets about 25 miles down the road. After grumpily stomping through stuffy, overpriced, over-marketed furniture outlets, you can imagine the glee when I walked into a showroom full of furniture that seemed to be made just for me. They had not 1, not 2, not 3, but several microfiber couch and chair options that both Chris and really liked. This is what we settled on:
Imagine expresso
Imagine peridot or little green jungle frogs

Sledgehammer Fun

Oh man, yesterday was exhausting yet awesome. In a day, you too can get rid of your kitchen. Here's how:

1. Remove all appliances and upper cabinets.

2. Hit counter with sledgehammer at the weak point.


3. Kiss counter to say goodbye.


4. Hit again with much force.


5. Keep going until the counter crumbles.


You will know when you are finished when you have blisters on your hands and an empty room with lots of damaged walls with beams showing.

Next step, major drywalling...

Demo Saturday

Yesterday we got a lot accomplished. The floors are clean and ready to go, our pine arrived, we posted our old used kitchen tile on craigslist and it soon disappeared, we met with Mark who is going to help us out with some of our projects, and made some headway in the kitchen demo. Our plan is to get it done today without injuring ourselves or the house too badly.

Breaking Tile

Today was my first day of tearing down my our house one tile at a time. Amazingly, in an hour, this is what I had accomplished (while poor Chris was slaving away on some feature he has due this evening):



In three hours I had both the kitchen and the sunroom stripped:



But, there's still some major work removing the cement glue left to do:



Researching how to remove the extra cement-stuff left behind after the tile removal, I came across some articles about laying wood on a concrete slab that really made me question Chuy, our contracted floor laying guy who said he was going to just glue it to the slab. Everyone else expclitly said that there should be a moisture-proof barrier between the slab and the wood that you are laying down. I called my friend Paul, who is doing a major renovation that puts ours to shame, to ask about the situation. He recommended we talk to a couple of other floor guys to get a quote and to ask what exactly they plan on doing. I really don't know why we didn't think of doing this ourselves, but it really makes a lot of sense. Now I think we might have to fire Chuy to get someone in who really knows what he is doing. Ugh...

Frenchie

We have a foster cat. His name is Frenchie. Frenchie kinda comes with the place, so he might turn into a new adopted brother to Laika and Azrael. You see, 12 years ago the neighbors next door moved away to a town at least 30 miles away. About 6 months later, Frenchie showed back up and has never left. The seller, Stephen, plans on picking Frenchie up in two weeks (when he closes on his place and gets out of his hotel) to take him to Crestview--a neighborhood a mere 2 miles away. Considering it took Frenchie only 6 months to travel over 30 miles of Texas backroads, we are thinking we might see Frenchie about 2 or 3 days after he is taken away. If he comes back, he stays.

Tomorrow is the Big Day

Heading out soon to cut a big fat check in preparation. This is our last official day as non-homeowners. Woop!!

The Kitchen

Our kitchen is interesting. It has the original pine cabinets and electric oven from the fifties paired with modern concrete countertops, electric cook-top (placed akimbo), and a lovely lime-green paint job. We actually considered stripping the layers of paint to preserve the original wood, but opted not to because the cost of the labor required to do so (too dangerous for us to do ourselves due to the led-based paint) was quoted to be about equal to what a new kitchen would cost us. Also, in the end we would be left with a kitchen that we really didn’t like very much anyway because the combo of modern and new is just plain weird.

Looking through a local paper, I came across an ad for an affordable green kitchen from Elegantly Green Home . Despite my concern that “affordable” really meant “your-first-born-not-required-for-purchase”, we decided to check it out. As it turns out, a custom built green kitchen from Anita Darash, the owner, really is only a little bit more expensive than an Ikea kitchen.

We decided on this kitchen (well, sort of--ours is much smaller and will not have the fancy island and appliances shown here):


Unfortunately, the turnaround is not quick for these cabinets, so we will be without a kitchen for a couple of weeks after we move in. A fridge, toaster oven, and outdoor grill will have to suffice while we wait (I’m not a big fan of waiting).

Stone Auction

Early Sunday afternoon, Chris and I took a drive up to Pflugerville for the Stone and Marble auction that I found on craigslist. I really didn't know what to expect and half thought we'd walk into that place only to turn around and walk right out of there. Yet as it turns out, not only did we stick around, we also let the thrill of the auction lure us into some of the bidding action.

We planned to purchase only the tile we needed for the kitchen and sunroom, but ended up getting some jade marble for our master bath as well. I mean, we would've been stupid to pass up the opportunity to own 2 tons of rock for only a fraction of what it would cost to purchase elsewhere.

We ended up with a pallet of travertine for the kitchen and sunroom:

and, a pallet of jade marble for the bath (that we didn't intend to redo until later down the road...):

Needless to say, I had stress dreams about hauling and laying stone--2 tasks I have no idea how to accomplish but will need to do in a matter of weeks. Anyone have any pointers?