Remodel-Day 1

Here are a few highlights from the work on Day One.

Tanner and Jordan worked at removing the railing from the stairs so we could close it in.

Patrick and Chad moved the steps and built the platform that will be the new laundry room. They got it all framed and started to sheetrock by the end of the day. They moved the stairs to their new location.

Tanner removed the wall and fixtures in the bathroom to make room for the new kitchen cabinets.

Our nephew, Jon, and some of his friends drove up from Texas to go hunting. They stopped by for a visit and ended up moving all the tile debris to the dumpster once it arrived Monday afternoon. What a blessing!

An amazing amount of work was accomplished on the first day.

Removing Ceramic Tile

You know that blue ceramic tile I wanted to get rid of. We found out it is very, very stubborn. It  doesn’t want to go. We need to get it up before we can lay down the new floor. We thought we could just get a crow bar under and edge and start popping it off. Boy were we wrong. We chiseled and hammered and made very little progress with quite a bit of effort. Talk about discouraging, but there was no going back.

The solution-a jack hammer! Well not quite, but pretty close. We actually used a demolition hammer that we rented from Home Depot and even with that powerful machine it was a lot of work. We spent hours and weren’t even half way done. Tim did most of the work, be we all took turns on it for little bits of time.

We returned it after 24 hours-we had family plans over the weekend and couldn’t see keeping it around, paying rent on it while we were spending time with our family. Sunday afternoon we rented it again and continued for hours on the project. My brother, Patrick and his friend, Chad, arrived Sunday evening ready to begin the remodel on Monday so we called it quits for the night. Bright and early Monday morning we continued and this is what our house looked like when we were done.

 

We decided that these piles weren’t going to fit in our normal trash container so we rented a dumpster that was not delivered until Monday afternoon.

Picking Out Flooring

We knew when we moved in that we were going to change out the flooring. The previous owner was a smoker and we are not. I could smell it the second I walked in and knew that removing the carpet would be a big help in getting rid of those odors. Besides, I am not that fond of berber carpet.

The ceramic tile was blue and I would rather not have a strong color on such a large surface. I like blue, but not on the floor.

I began daydreaming about flooring before we even moved. My brother, Patrick,who owns a construction/remodeling company in Iowa, is planning to come down and help us do a few things to begin making our house, truly ours. He is an amazing carpenter/handyman/”anything you need done to your house” guy. Originally, his plan was to help us with the flooring, but after the last post, you can see our plans have changed into a rather large project. It would be hard to do flooring before we do the major renovations in the kitchen, since we are knocking out and moving walls.   

I will most likely paint the light oak woodwork and cabinets white, so I want something that will go nicely with that. The layout of the house is an open floor plan where the living room, kitchen and dining room flow into each other. My thought is to do a hard surface through out and then get an area rug for the living room.

It is overwhelming the number of choices out there. I love hard wood and it can be timeless, but I was very disappointed on how easily the wood floor in our previous house scratched.

Tile is very durable, but unless we pick a high end natural tile, it will most likely be “dated” a few years from now.  It is also much more labor intensive to lay than wood. 

There are a lot of laminate wood products available, but most seem to look fake to me.  I’m trying not to be picky but if we are going to the expense to replace the flooring I want to make sure I like it.

After Tim and I hashed through the pros and cons of each option, we decided to try to find a tile that hopefully would be reasonably priced but look like natural stone or even tile that looks like wood planks.

I called Patrick and told him our thoughts.  He asked if we had ever considered bamboo. Sounded pretty strange to me, but we agreed to go to Lumber Liquidators and look. 

When my daughter, Lauren, was in town, Tim and I dragged her with us to look at bamboo because I value her opinion. When we got to Lumber Liquidators, the salesman was very helpful and informative. We looked at bamboo, and it is a nice option, I just couldn't find a color I liked. We started talking to him about the hard wood floor in our old house and this opened up a whole wealth of information.

It seems that there are many types of walnut-which was the flooring in our old home. We probably got American Walnut which is much softer than oak. Wood is given a “Janka” rating, which compares each variety of wood to one another. Most all wood is compared to Red Oak. American walnut has a lower Janka rating than Red Oak, yet Brazilian Walnut is almost 4 times harder than Red Oak. This information relieved my concerns about using wood again.

So we looked at what was available and came up with these samples to take home.

We had pretty much decided on the front sample. It is solid oak, but it is hand scraped and has a lot of color variation within each piece. My thought is that even if we do scratch it, we could take a brown or black marker and touch it up and no one would know.

I had pretty much settled for that until I happened to be looking for extra cabinets to fill in where we are taking the pantry out. The sales person showed me an engineered Elm that I totally fell in love with and it was about 1/3 less expensive than the oak. I was a little hesitant to use engineered wood because only the top layer is the desired wood and the rest is multiple layers of plywood, but this product has a 30 year finish guarantee.

The pro’s of engineered wood are:

• It is generally a little less expensive than solid wood
• The layers of plywood fight against each other, keeping the wood more stable so there is usually less expansion and contraction of the joints.

Cons are:

• Can generally only be refinished once.

The pros of solid wood are:

• Can be refinished multiple times and the surface will remain the same wood clear through.

Cons are:

• Generally more expensive
• Seams between each piece of wood are more likely to expand and contract.

I failed to get a picture of the flooring but it is similar in color to the Oak from above. The hand scraped ridges are more irregular giving it a more authentic feel of wood that has been in place for a long time. There just seemed to be a lot more pattern and grain in the Elm sample. I am really excited to see it on the floor.

Reworking the Kitchen Layout

You all know from my last post how I am struggling with the function of my kitchen. I have  found that the kitchen is very, very chopped up. It is hard to work in there. I know part of it is just a matter of getting used to it, but I am still struggling with overall function. I want to find a way to add more counter space and cabinet space.

After living with it for several weeks and brainstorming about different ways to increase usability, we have finally come up with some ideas.

Our goals are:

• More storage
• More counter space
• More room for dining

Here is a rough layout of the kitchen & laundry room now-(I found this wonderful free program on the internet that lets you try out different furniture configurations in your room.)  It doesn’t do kitchen cabinets, but it does countertops. Anyway, you’ll get the idea when you see it.

Other issues we have been having are a tiny laundry room-a couple of laundry baskets on the floor and I can hardly move. I’d like to get a little more counter space and storage in there. The bathroom is a great idea but you have to maneuver around three doors. It is just plain awkward. My original thoughts were to eliminate the bathroom all together and add storage there.

Tim really likes the idea of a bathroom close to the garage. We discovered, once we unloaded the majority of our boxes, that our garage is very deep. We got to thinking that we could bump out the laundry room into the garage and still keep a bathroom. So this is what we are planning to do.

• Take out the corner pantry and put in cabinets with counter space below. (I’d rather have more counter space and I don’t think I will lose that much storage if any at all by doing this.)
• Move the refrigerator to the wall closest to the living room.
• Move the range to where the refrigerator is at right now.
• Wrap the kitchen into the area where the bathroom currently is located.
• Straighten out the island and add an extra cabinet.
• Remove the wall completely between the kitchen and living room to open it up.
• Make a niche for a buffet type piece of furniture in the dining area.
• Move the bathroom to where the washer and dryer are currently positioned.
• Bump out into the garage for washer/dryer and mudroom type area.

Quite a wish list!

Here are our proposed changes:

 

The new laundry area is still being planned out. Not sure if this will be the finally layout of that area, but we are certain of the kitchen layout. We will have continuous counter space from the refrigerator clear around the corner. I think the space will feel a lot bigger and much more open.

Kitchen Cabinets

Our kitchen cabinets are not bad at all. They are in really good shape. I am not particularly fond of the light oak so my plan all along has been to paint them.

After we started changing the kitchen layout, my goal was to find cabinets to fill in where the pantry was and additional cabinets to wrap around the wall. I found several in stock options at the big box stores that were similar, but they were just enough different that I was afraid when they were side by side we would be able to tell the difference. Then I remembered that our old cabinets were Merillat and the ones in this house are Merillat and Star Lumber sells Merillat.  So, I took my plans to them along with pictures of my cabinets and asked if they could add on the additional pieces using the same style. By the next day, I received an email with the cabinet plan and was shocked at the price. Was I really going to spend THAT much money on cabinets that I feel are just “so-so” -and I still have to paint them?

I was really beginning to feel discouraged. It seems that the only reasonable way to expand the kitchen was to start from scratch and do we really want to spend that much money on a kitchen that is OK. Maybe I could learn to work in it given time. Maybe I am too spoiled by all the counter and storage space in our old house.

My brother, John, has built 2 houses as used B&B Lumber for both of them. He suggested I go there. I thought, “What do I have to lose?”  I explained my dilemma to the salesman and he assured me that I would be pleasantly surprised. He proceeded to show me their cabinets and right away I was impressed with the dove-tail drawer construction. They do not even sell a stapled drawer. I looked at a few door styles-and of course I’m drawn to the expensive ones, but he showed me options to get a similar look with a less expensive door.

We sat down in his office and worked up a cabinet layout. When he totaled it up, it was only about 20% more than the Merillat cabinets and I wouldn’t have to paint them, plus all of them were new. They were full panel doors which means when you open the cabinet doors, there is no bar running down the middle. I was excited. I took my plans home to Tim and he was sold as well. The next day, we placed our order. They should be here in time for my brother to install them.

We decided to go for it and do a full kitchen update. We don’t know how long we will be in this house. Maybe we will retire here, but maybe we won’t. We felt that we wouldn’t hurt ourselves by remodeling the kitchen from scratch.  We will either thoroughly enjoy our new kitchen for years to come, or we will sell in a few years and the next people will enjoy it too.

Here is the link to the cabinet web site-Cardell Cabinets. The cabinets we picked out will be similar in color to the Canterbury II-soft white with a brown glaze,(very expensive) but the style is Classic II-(ironically shown in light oak.)

Kitchen Organization

A lot of changes have been going on around here. You’ve seen them in the back yard, but work had been going on inside as well-very time consuming work, but not blog worthy work. (I’ll reveal what else I have been up to in the near future.)

I finally got my kitchen organized-kind of. All the boxes are gone and I have a place for everything. (Yeah right!)

It used to look like this:

 

I purged some more. I had 7 cookie sheets-I don’t need 7 cookie sheets. Part of the problem is that I had 2 kitchens in our old house with many duplicate serving pieces. Cookie sheets were very functional for warming up food when we were entertaining. I got rid of 3. I also purged some of the excess serving pieces.

Some of the boxes of my nicer things went to a storage room downstairs. A good chunk of my other items went to a cabinet in the garage. I just don’t know what more to part with. I do use it all from time to time and plan to continue using it, especially since we don’t plan to give up entertaining.

I found a space for my spice jars-a roll out drawer in my cabinet. It works-it’s just a little farther from my eyes, so a bit more difficult to see. (Nothing my reading glasses won’t help me with.)  I still like to look at them from top down rather than putting them in a cabinet where you have to re-arrange the bottles to find what you are looking for and then end up buying duplicates.

I spent a little extra effort in the pantry. I liked the look of clear glass jars so I can see everything easily. I have fallen in love with the large mouth mason jars. They come in a variety of sizes, they are cheap and they are easy to find.

Quite the improvement from this:

   

We can actually eat in the dining area and enjoy the nice view out the back. (You can see the sample of the paint color we are considering on the wall.)

I put a few decorative things around the living room just to make it feel more homey. The plywood floors are still a bit of a distraction though.

 

My brother, who is a remodeling contractor from Iowa, is coming down after Thanksgiving to put in hardwood floors for me. I have a few other projects in mind for him as well. When I told him what I wanted done, he asked if he could bring a friend who frequently works with him.

Stay tuned-hopefully I will post a little more frequently in the near future as we reveal some of the plans for my brother.

Excavation is Finished

After a little more than a week of work with a few delays here and there, the excavation is finally finished. The results are amazing. Here are a couple of before pictures just as a reminder of how bad it really was.

Here is what it looks like now.

We have a lot of sand in a nice little cove. Jordan had the excavator dig a deep spot in the middle. This will be a lot more pleasant to look at and to swim in.

Excavating

The excavating project has really slowed down. After months of little to no rain, we have had almost 2” the last couple of days. The excavator brought in a pump on Monday.

After a few hours of fighting the rain, he finally gave up. The area he was trying to remove the water from, kept filling back up. Tuesday was only slightly better. Although he did manage to stay ahead of the water, it still looks like a soupy mess.  It is hard for me to imagine that this will be a nice swimming beach filled with (somewhat) clean lake water when he is done.

It will be interesting to see how much progress he makes over the next couple of days.

More Yard Work

Here are a few highlights from the work done on Friday.

Building a dam around the area he plans to clean out on Monday.

   Removing the trees that blocked the view of the lake.

NO MORE TREES! Tim plans to use them as fish cover.

From the end of the boat ramp looking back toward the house. The green to the right is actually in the water. Yuk!

The future beach.

Stay tuned for more. 

Backyard Work

The primary thing that sold us on this property was the lake. Unfortunately, we have had a very dry year and the lake is extremely low. It is marshy in places behind our house and totally unusable. In fact, as we were talking to the neighbors, they were surprised that we even bought the property because it looks so bad. But Tim could see the potential and was excited to own the land. It is very overgrown and has way too many stickers. (Charlie, our dog, keeps coming inside with them. They not only stick to his fur, but he manages to drop a few for us to step on as well. We ended up getting his hair cut extremely short for his own comfort- and ours.) The back yard is definitely rustic.

It is hard to see the lake with those cedar trees in the way, but below the trees is a grassy, stickery area that we were told at one time was a sand beach and higher water. Out in the water-you have to look between the trees-you can see some green growth. That usually isn’t there when the water is at normal levels.

Tim knew that we could use the low water to our advantage to improve the lake and land around the lake. Yesterday this showed up.

It is totally mesmerizing to watch it. I thought I would devote the next few posts to the progress he is making with this big machine. Here are a few highlights from yesterday.

 

The pictures of the backhoe in the lake are amazing. It really shows how shallow it is. He hopes to dig out about two feet of this over the course of the next week. It will make it really nice when we finally get some significant rain and the lake is back at normal levels.

We hope to keep a somewhat rustic feel when this is done, but we also want to make the property more usable.

The neighbors to the north of us ended up hiring him as well to do some work on their portion of the lake so he will be around for a while.