The Light at the End of the Bathroom

For many of you, Fall seems to be making its way into the air.  As it is the middle of September, it does make sense to be looking forward to the chilly sweater/scarf-wearing weather.  Not so much here, though.  This time of year has always been my favorite, and I'm very glad that this will be the last pseudo-fall  I will experience here in Georgia.

Of course, we have a few things to do first before we can leave!

First, though, I must apologize for forgetting to snap a few pictures of some of the progress in the bathroom.  Both Jared and I have been rather busy, and with my baby brain, it's easy to overlook some things.

So you may notice that there's been a lot of visible progress on the bathroom.  Having finished the electrical and plumbing, Jared was ready to move on to putting up drywall.  I did not capture any of that process, though, but here he is doing the mudding and taping of the recently hung sheetrock.

Although it was probably one of his least favorite things to do, Jared got the job done.  After the joints and screw holes were filled, he sanded everything, and then it was just a coat of primer standing in between us and freshly painted bathroom!

However, Jared decided that he wanted the baseboard in before painting, so, being the handy guy that he is, he got a few one by eights and made the baseboard himself with a router.

This was really more of an experiment to see whether it could be done and look fairly decent.  Most of the house doesn't have baseboard or crown molding, and Jared discovered that making baseboard is a heck of a lot cheaper than buying it.  So if he has the know-how and tools to do so, why not?

Even I was recruited to help in that endeavor.  After Jared routed and sanded the boards, I primed and painted them.

It was nice to be able to help, in at least a small way.

In almost no time at all, Jared put the baseboard in.  After that, I primed the walls with a layer of Killz, although I did not photograph that process, either.  I did discover that scooting around on the floor and bending over for long periods of time are not easy to do while seven and half months pregnant.  After a few touch ups, Jared did the actual painting.

Painting done, the next step for Jared was finding out how to get the tub in, which was no easy feat considering its weight.  I, however, spent my time practicing with the new car seat that we got.

Good grief these things are confusing!  At least we have a good car seat, and Jared even got the running stroller that he wanted, courtesy of my parents.  It might take us a half hour just to get the baby in the seat, but at least we can take the baby home from the hospital.

Moving right along, Jared had a few things left on his bathroom to-do list.  The hole in the wall was to become a recessed medicine cabinet, the tub needed to be moved in and installed, and the toilet and sink needed to be installed as well. The biggest obstacle with this list was the tub.  As heavy as it is, Jared couldn't move it by himself, and though it would only take a minute or two, he had a hard time finding anyone available to help.

So after a few days of doing odds and ends in the bathroom, like getting the medicine cabinet in, he managed to arrange a time for someone to help him.

And this morning, the tub finally got moved to its new home!  Soon, and very soon, this bathroom will be DONE.  It's such a relief to see the beginning of the end.

Here the color of the walls can be seen a little better.  This color definitely likes to change with the light, but it's a nice relaxing tone.  Next stop, toilet and sink!







I'm (figuratively, because I've got a baby pushing on my diaphragm) breathing a sigh of relief with this bathroom.  Though it's been a long time coming, the space is coming together nicely, and I'm looking forward to taking a relaxing bath after so many months of planning and waiting.  Now if only the weather would bless me with some cool relief...here's to wishful thinking!

A Countdown to a Kitchen

This week has certainly been eventful!  After coming home from Washington, I was ready to see some major progress on the house.  They have made progress, believe me, though I wouldn't complain if the Rabbits worked a little harder (there's a story about that, too).

The biggest improvement since I've been back has been the kitchen.  Shall I refresh your memory of what it looked like before?

Oh yes, in all it's salmon-colored many-layered floor and plain white and dilapidated cabinets, this was not my dream kitchen. From the beginning of this process, I knew that the space needed some love, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this space getting completely and utterly gutted.  Which is exactly what happened.

The floor was the biggest challenge to overcome.  After tearing off five different layers of improvised and real flooring, the bow in the floor became very obviously the result of a significant amount of water damage.  Had there been a drip edge on the roof and a decent seal around the window, it's very likely that this floor would have been mostly salvageable.  Alas, it wasn't to be.

So Jared and I were left with a giant pit for a kitchen.  When I said gut job, I MEANT gut job.  This was one of those moments when I ask myself, "WHAT have I gotten into???"

The good thing about the wood rot is that now this part of the house is probably the most sturdy of it all.  New joists work wonders!  However, once the support was put in, I wouldn't see an actual floor until coming home from Seattle.  Basically, this is what my kitchen looked like for three weeks.  Originally, our general contractor estimated the entire reno would take three weeks. Does that put it in perspective?

This is what I came home to, though, which brightened my spirits considerably.  That's not just any floor, that's a sub floor.  After waiting for the inspector to inspect the plumbing, the Rabbits were finally able to start closing up the kitchen.

The pass through also made me giggle and squeal like a teenager.  I'm ridiculously in love with this thing.  Irrational?  Maybe, but I think after all this time, I'm allowed to get excited about something in this house.

I don't think I've ever been so excited about tile in my life.  Maybe this renovation is starting to get to my psyche.  Once this started going down, I was in full on laughing-while-jumping-up-and-down-in-place mode.  At least I'm easy to please, right?

Isn't it beautiful?  The tile went in in about three days, and then the Rabbits started patching the walls in preparation for the CABINETS!!!  In case you're wondering, the little room to the left of the door is a pantry, and yes, I'm excited about that too.

Last week the cabinets started coming in.  The two guys installing them were Chinese and didn't speak a lick of English, so it was an experience to try and tell them where everything was supposed to go.  Based on the finished product, they did just fine.

The kitchen is finally starting to look like a kitchen!!!

Sadly, they weren't finished in one day.  I could live with that, though, as that's just kind of been the way things are these days.  There's Pete working on the patching job.

Grout went in as well.  There is really something amazing about watching this house slowly come together.








Yesterday the cabinet guys showed up to finish their job.  I had to work, though, so once they came, I had to leave, and I didn't get to see them put up the rest of the cabinets.  It was worth not seeing it happen, because when I came home from work, it was all laid out before me like a present!

Does it look like a kitchen?  I'm thinking, YES, much more so than before.  I keep looking back at the before and during pictures.  The cabinets are beautiful, and there's plenty of storage space.  The floor is all one level, and it doesn't shake when you walk on it.  AND the drawers are soft close, a bonus that I was not expecting.  When I first opened and closed one of them, I totally giggled and clapped and jumped up and down on the spot for a good five minutes.  I'm not even ashamed to admit it!

The glorious right side of the kitchen.  The space is for the dishwasher, which will be going in soon.

The left side of the kitchen.  The stove is going in the space.  The peninsula is going to have a slight overhang on the other side, so Jared wants to put a few bar stools there.

There they are, in all their glory!  The hardware came with the cabinets, but I'm not sure if I like them or not, so they might get changed in the future.  All I can think about is the fact that I have a space that could actually pass for a kitchen, not just a hole in the house.  The bad news is that there was a mix up when ordering the countertops, so they won't be in for two weeks.  Jared has decided that once the water is connected to the dishwasher, the stove is put in it's place and the fridge is moved, we can use the kitchen by putting plywood over the cabinets.  I'm definitely not opposed to the idea.  I just want to be able to cook!





In other news, Jared and I have observed that Pete has really not been working as much as he should be, so we could be getting a new carpenter.  There's also a third of a fence put up in the backyard, so there's another project that is in the works.  Right now we're waiting on the laundry room to be finished, the water heater, and the new bathroom to go in.  We're on the downhill slide, but there's still a bit to go.  With any luck, we'll have a finished house by Thanksgiving!

Sarah