It Gets Better

And just like that, life starts to get noticeably easier. Suddenly there is more than enough parking along the side streets near Maggie's school. Suddenly the sun is up and light streams through the bathroom window when I wake up before everyone else to get in the shower. Suddenly I realize that it's been about two weeks since I've worn my enormous arctic explorer cocoon/down coat. Suddenly Maggie notices that our daffodils are starting to come up in the back yard slush pile.

I know we're still going to have to do battle with a lion or two before we finally get to lie down with lambs, but today I'm suddenly feeling like life is a little less difficult than it was yesterday.

(Apologies for the terrible pictures. Come for the words, leave for the photography!)

On to the Next Home Improvement Project

The work on our fixer-upper home is never done. There's always some large or small project lying in wait, irritating us on a daily basis until we get fed up enough to fix it. Mike has a lot less patience (or maybe it's less laziness) with these need-to-do's than I have. He also enjoys them as hobby projects in a way I do not, even though they make him crazy. I swear the longer we live in Massachusetts the more he resembles Norm Abram from This Old House. No-ahm Abrahm and his meh-zhud drawrings.

In fact, Mike is already hard at work on his next big project. Our bedroom is the only room in the house that never got painted when we moved in. It's been primed, but then we finally just gave up a while back and removed the painter's tape from the trim after letting it rot there for a couple of years to no practical end. The former owners removed the doors and most of the original hardwood window and door trim and replaced it, inexplicably, with some horrible, orangey 1970's era garbage.

The closet doors/trim when we moved in - and Maggie, age 2

Part of what was stalling us was our indecision about what to do about that trim: go to all the effort of sanding and painting it white? Leave it as is, even though it's ugly and the rest of the trim in the house is white? Replace it with reproduction trim and doors to match the rest of the house and then paint?

After we did our bathroom remodel, which involved replacing the trim and door in that room, we decided that we really should put our efforts and cash toward replacing the all the 70's trim to match. The bathroom looks so much lovelier (see: old bathroom door vs. new bathroom door) with the new/old white woodwork that it seemed defeating have to work so hard to sand and paint this uggo-buggo stuff.

The uggo-buggo window and radiator cover

So Mike has been super industrious and is nearly done replacing all the woodwork in our bedroom. The only thing he has left (I think) is the radiator cover, and we need to find some new hardware for closet doors, which will be the only thing left to sand and paint.

New/old window trim

The biggest, worst, most-harrowing part of the project was replacing the door, which he did by himself. I don't even know how he ever managed to do it and get it to hang straight. I was downstairs the whole time hanging out with the girls because otherwise we'd probably be divorced right now.

Old door, no door, a view of the new closet trim

The only original door left in the house, complete with crystal knob, goes to the attic.

What a Difference a Door Makes

3% Less Ugly!

 

Our big plan is to prime and paint everything our good old Polar Bear White (Behr, if you're trolling for paint colors) except for the wall behind our bed which will be... dun, dun, dun... River Blue (Benjamin Moore). Remember my old friend River Blue from the repainting the shingles escapade? I decided it looked a little too circus tent for the outside of the house, but I'm feeling like it will be the perfect shade of peacock for our room.

 

I'll probably find out I hate it as soon as we get it painted on the wall.

 

Mike, who is crazy or a glutton for punishment - or actually, he is a little obsessed with the smell of sawdust - is going to make our headboard just like this one we found in a Lowe's project ideas magazine (except painted white):

 

 

 ...and I already bought these bedlinens that I found at Target:

 



We have black, kind of mod beside tables, which we'll keep. I will need to find some new lamps, and eventually our dressers will need to be replaced. They are old, super fuggly, and completely mismatched in style and color. And we really could use a rug or two and some kind of artwork on the walls. All in good time...

***

I have this one last thought to add: if you are not married and you are looking for a soul mate, partner-in-crime, and lifelong companion, I do highly recommend finding one with some mad handyman skills. Mike was an Eagle Scout, so he can make a flotation device out of his pants. He's an IT professional, so he knows what to do when our computer starts acting all flaky, and I've never set up my own cell phone before. But his passion for cutting things with saws and his dexterity with a pneumatic nail gun really top everything else. His romance on the side with his shop vac provides such an improvement on MY day-to-day quality of living, that I vow to never stand between them. I really should volunteer to do the painting. Ugh. Maybe I'll just butter him up with a homemade carrot cake instead. He deserves it.

Bathroomageddon 2012 - The Aftermath

So, here we are. I can say that we have a bathroom. I can't say that it's finished. It is functional, and I have taken two whole showers in it (whole in that the faucet didn't fall off mid-way through because the anchor bolt was missing, scratching the tub, scaring me half to death, and forcing me to finish washing the soap out of my eyes in the bath. That is why it isn't three whole showers). We are moving our stuff in and cleaning everything up, so it's pretty much finished.

Let's just say that our contractors had too many excuses and not enough work ethic. They dragged and dragged, were absent more days than they showed up to work, had to be forced to redo so many things that were obviously wrong, and had a million reasons why we were crazy and they weren't screwing up. They were supposed to be finished so many different days, and finally we just snapped. They didn't finish last Thursday, which was their drop dead last day to work on our project because the project manager was getting married Friday and the crew were all attending. So the tiler and the painter said they'd be back on Saturday to wrap up the last bits of finish work. Then the main contractor and owner of the company said he'd stop by on Saturday, too, to look at the (other, previous) scratches in the tub that the sub-contractors had made, so we were expecting them all between 8 and 9 am on a weekend day when we could have been doing something else.

They did not show up. They also did not call. Mike called them three times and left messages, one of which said that if they did not show up that day and finish the job, we would get someone else to finish it and subtract the cost from the money we owed them. He then also sent an email detailing what was left and repeating the threat. They did not come. They did not call.

The following day, Sunday, we cleaned everything up as there was still saw dust and paint sanding dust and grout dust and paint splatters EVERYWHERE and the garage was trashed. Mike hung the towel rods and put in the door knob and the exterior of the shower light and attached one of the electrical socket face plates. He also hung up a temporary shower curtain rod because we are supposed to have one of those fancy double curved curtain rods that screws into the tile, but not only did the tiler not install it on Thursday like he promised to do, but the box is actually missing several pieces of the mounting hardware. So that's just a major snafu all around. Now we have to order the pieces from the manufacturer, and Mike will have to drill into the tile to mount it. Fingers crossed!!

And there are still several things left to do. A new electrician of our choice will be coming this week to put up the light fixture over the medicine cabinet, which should have been easy enough to do ourselves except the box it attaches to in the wall is not really centered over the mirror and vanity. He'll also have to fix the main light switch because it is so deep in the wall that we can not put the face plate on. We will have to sand the drips and smears out of the paint on the door and repaint it ourselves (or hire someone to do it, but we'll probably do it), attach the cabinet hardware to the vanity, and tile the backsplash (it is only about two pieces of tile, but still)! There's also a weird hole behind the toilet we have to fix somehow. Oh, and the stairwell is pretty beat up, so it will have to be repainted, at least in spots. Sigh.

Well, that's the painful part. As for the look of it, I think it turned out as I had wanted it to. Once the pain and anguish blow over and the memory of the turmoil fades, I think we'll enjoy how clean and fresh it is. So without further ado, here is our new bathroom...

(Well, OK, with some further ado: I just feel the need to remind you that I am neither a professional designer/stager nor a decent photographer, so please don't compare these photos to anything you've seen on houzz.com! Yes that's our bath soap in the picture and our toothbrushes don't match the decor. I did remove the potty seat and the wet washcloths draped over the tub before snapping the pictures. Go me!)

Notice the missing drawer pulls and backsplash

There are also no tiled-in corner shelves in the shower. Thanks, tile guy!

Pretty new door, no switch plate

The radiator cover looks much better, and the pipe that used to stick out
 of the floor and burn your foot is under the tile now. Pretty!



Floor tile - duh. Do I have to explain everything to you? Geez.
I think I need to mop it again; there's still some white paint dust in the grout lines.

The medicine cabinet - maybe my favorite part of the new bathroom.
So much storage, so many mirrors!

No light.

That is one of the missing drawer pulls on the counter top as an example of what they will look like.

We need to get the little ring that goes here and probably figure out how
to make the hole a little smaller. Grout? Caulk? Who knows.

  

I'm still kind of mulling over the wall paint color. I had initially thought I would paint them a very light pearl grey, but then we ended up choosing grey tile for the floors and that seemed like gloomy overkill for a room that doesn't get much sunlight. But now it seems VERY white, so I may go back to the grey. I'm going to live with it white for a while and see if I change my mind. Overall, I think the black and white and grey and yellow look nice together and kind of classic-meets-contemporary. Hopefully it will hold up well over time. The girls give it four thumbs up!

Bathroomageddon 2012 Update

The bathroom is awful. Awful. I hate to talk about it. It makes me ill. I went up to NH last week with the girls just to escape from it (and take showers and not have to tell the girls to stop hollering up the stairs to the contractors about unicorns who like tea parties), but it didn't get finished so I'm back at home having to face the beast again.

There was just so much trouble trying to coordinate all the subcontractors during the last two weeks - the plumber, the electrician, and the carpenter - that very little actually got done each day and the delays piled up. Add to this a series of screw ups - yes, you do have to put insulation behind the wall board; we insist you start over - and the project is just crawling.

Here's where we are now. The tiler is upstairs right this second putting in the tile, so hopefully I'll actually have something to show you by tomorrow!
 

The new door (with no trim around it)

Walls!

The plywood is mock-ups Mike made of where the vanity and toilet will sit - slightly off kilter from centered on the wall, but whatever. At this point, whatever.

Mike found this behind the shower. It says, "Remodled 1975 by Joe Luongo 53 yrs. old."

Progress??

The plumber came today, banged around in the bathroom for half an hour, and then left. He'll be back tomorrow with more tools and supplies, but nothing got done today. The demolition crew didn't remove the vanity or tub yesterday because they got worried about the plumbing connection under the sink. The plumber confirmed today that it is so old and in bad shape that he is worried about ending up flooding our house while trying to pull the cabinet out! He's coming back tomorrow with the jaws of life (I assume), and he'll need to shut the water off all afternoon while he cuts the pipe and rebuilds the connection. Or something like that. It sounded like, "plumber, plumber, $$$$, something, something, pipes..." to me. Anyway, that pushes the electrician back to Friday and the walls to next week. Fun, fun, fun!

More of an Exorcism than a Renovation

After much debate about finances, we decided to go ahead and redo our bathroom this year. We had planned to do it, but because the painting of the shingles outside took so long and drifted into this year's budget, we worried that we wouldn't be able to squeeze the bathroom in, too. But it's our only full bathroom, and it is dreary and nearly non-functional - here's a photo of what it looks like now so you can feel our pain...

Would you like a chicken taco to go with that avocado?

...so we're pushing ahead even though it makes a couple of frugal squirrels like us kind of nervous. We have a contractor lined up for July to completely gut and rebuild it, and we've started shopping for tile, vanity, faucets, etc. It's fun and tiring and nerve-wracking all at the same time.

We've pretty much settled on an extra long white subway tile for the shower/tub surround.

Just like the ones above, but off-set or staggered like these yellow tiles:

We are thinking about doing a pinstripe or two of black glass tile about shoulder height, kind of like this picture, but with black tiles that are twice as long as these to go with the extra long white tiles:

Our house was built in the 1930's, and a black and white tile bathroom was a very common design at the time, so we're trying to do that theme with a contemporary twist to match our own style. The traditional black and white bathroom would've had checkered or octagonal small tiles on the floor, but we're thinking of doing these long, rectangular grey tiles instead to get that contemporary feel without the dangerous, slippery quality of the white ceramic.

Here is the front runner in the vanity search (only in the blackish sable stain instead of this brown and a little smaller than this one, with the white ceramic top/sink shown here):

And here is the current pick for the sink faucet:

We're hoping to do some lighting shopping this weekend, and I'm hunting for a medicine cabinet with a black frame around the mirror. I had considered doing a light grey paint on the walls, but with the grey floors now and the fact that the room doesn't get much sun, I think that might be too much. I'll probably just leave them white. Add some kind of black and white shower curtain and bright yellow towels, and I think it will be a nearly unfathomable improvement. I may even have to start soaking in the bath once the room no longer sends me into a death spiral of depression or makes me hungry for guacamole. 100% less ugly!

It's Still October, Right?!

Our carpenter was going to replace the old, beat up shingles on our house last July when the painter was here scraping the old paint off. Then he got backed up and was going to come in August. Then it was October. So the painter finished painting the part that he could do before the weather turned bad and left the rest turquoise. If you need to jog your memory, go ahead and take a look back. I'll wait.

Anyway, winter happened, and then the carpenter's wife had a baby, and they had to go overseas for a month. And now it's March. But holy crap, guess who showed up! It's taken the last two weeks to get the job done, instead of the 4 days it was supposed to take. And they needed three more boxes of shingles than the amount they originally quoted us a price for, so that cost extra. But the shingles are done now and the painter is coming back tomorrow to finish up! Hooray!


Mags was sad to say goodbye to the last of the turquoise. I'm sure our neighbor on that side was not.


We also put in a new window in the stairwell because the other was old and broken.


The new shingles are way more gorgeous than even the nicer ones of the old, unfortunately.


The stairwell window from the inside


Finished!








Look how lovely that is! We're getting dangerously close to not having the most embarrassing house on the block. I hardly recognize my own life any more.

Open For Business

We've spent the last few weeks working on our finished basement room and we're nearly done with it. Here's what it looked like when the former owners lived here:

You can't really tell from this photo, but that is some dirty carpet. You can tell from this photo that it is clad in some swanky brown panelling from the 1970's and has attractive steam heat pipes running across the already low ceiling. We decided to set it up as a guest bedroom since the girls already have a playroom off the living room. We ripped out the carpet and Mike (and me and Dale, but mostly Mike) spent WEEKS painting and painting and painting (the ceiling, the pipes, the walls). Then last Thursday, the new carpet was laid and....voila!

Notice the umpteen electrical outlets... and how all of them are black! What the heck were they doing down there that they needed an outlet every 1.5 feet? Combine that info with the fact that there are only two outlets in the kitchen and the unanswered questions just multiply.

The built in shelves are nice. I hope to paint the insides light green at some point in the future.

Kate kept pointing to the walls and saying, "White, white," over and over again. The color is actually Eggnog by Behr, which is a very light creamy yellow.

Somersaults on the great expanse of carpet. They were loving it! Here's a video of them going crazy after the carpet installers left:

Yesterday we started putting furniture back into the room. That old phone table was down there when we moved in and Mike likes it for some reason! That little blue thing is Kate's potty. We've been at it seriously this past week and it's been a mix of success and mopping. We persevere. So far she hasn't pee pee'd on the carpet, though, thank goodness!

This bed used to be ours, but the movers couldn't get the box spring up our stairs when we first moved in here! We had to buy a new queen bed with a divided box spring and put this one in the basement. The bedspread was a wedding gift! We haven't used it in a while, but I hoped it would make this subterranean room look a bit more cheerful and warm. It's actually green, and I thought it would contrast more with the walls, but the odd basement light through the small windows makes them look similar. I'll need to add more green accents to the room, maybe bedside table lamp shades and whatever ends up going on the walls.

The girls couldn't wait to test out the bed. They gave it two thumbs up. But don't take their word for it, come and visit us and see for yourself!