A Late Summer Update

Well hello there!

Considering the amount of blogging I've done in the last few months, one would assume that not much has been happening with the house.  How wrong that assumption would be!  Also, I think everyone would agree with the comment that summer is such a busy time.  That is my explanation for my lack of updating.

That being said, there's a lot to catch up on.  The last post covered little more than a bit about how the bathroom renovation was going and the state of the antique tub.  Since then, Jared and I have been all over the place.  Firstly, we drove all the way back to Kansas for a bit of a vacation.  Ullr came along, and with him and my pregnancy, it was definitely an interesting road trip.  Being home was great, although it was not without work.  The majority of my time there was spent helping my family pack up and move a good amount of household items in preparation for the impending sale of my childhood home...I almost forgot to mention, we also had a bit of a hiccup when we got in a car accident.

Luckily, insurance took care of everything with the exception of my frayed nerves, and the car has since been repaired completely!  Anyway, Jared was a champ at helping and organizing a lot of the work that was done, and I was sad to leave him in Kansas as my mom, brother, and I made our way to Washington.

Three days in a Uhaul and halfway across the U.S. later, we made it without any major incident to Bothell just in time for my dear cousin Lynne's wedding.  It was a wonderful day full of celebration for the new couple and family get togethers.  My two weeks in Seattle were fabulous.  I celebrated my gorgeous cousin Lois's birthday, did lots of knitting, spent lots of time with family, and finally attended my first game at Safeco Field (and saw the Mariners play an awesome game).  By the end of my visit, I was feeling pretty prepared to go back to Georgia and kick some major booty on the house reno.

So feeling pretty motivated, I got around to this room.

We had tackled this room months ago.  With all the other major renovations that were quite a bit more pressing, the front room got put on the back burner.

During my stay in Washington, Jared managed to get this room completely ready for paint.  Sanding all the areas that needed to be smooth took awhile, but he was glad to have the job done.

So just a few days after returning home, I managed to get the room painted.  However, I do think I overestimated my ability, and Jared had to finish the second coat for me.  Being pregnant is work enough, but adding some jet lag and painting in there didn't really help get this done.

It is always amazing how much difference just a coat of paint can make.  How refreshing!

Meanwhile, Jared managed to work up the courage to work on the plumbing in the bathroom.  I don't have pictures of it, but he spent many an hour under the house puzzling over connecting pieces and bits of tubing.  He did it, though!  I am proud to say that, though he had reservations about his ability to do such a big plumbing job, Jared managed to get the thing done with maybe one or two issues along the way.  Next, the subfloor and sheetrock can go into place, and it's really just a hop, skip, and a jump before that bathroom is DONE.

I passed some of my recovery time by keeping my hands busy.  Baby's first lamb took up a whole evening and morning to complete, but I've been working pretty steadily on baby's knitted blanket.  It's very nice to be able to crochet and knit.  Such handy skills!

I also got Jared to take a picture or two of my ever-growing bump.  Here I am at about five months.  Phew, time flies!

And now for a throwback picture.  I honestly have to pinch myself when I think about what this house used to look like, inside and out.  Over the last year, not much except the foliage has changed on the outside.  Until now.

Jared and I had talked a lot over the last few months about the exterior.  The old asbestos siding was in poor shape, and we knew that a paint job wouldn't cut it.  Jared decided it was high time we looked into some siding options.  He found a decent contractor to take on the job, and as soon as I came back from Washington, we picked out the colors for the house.

Bright and early on the 20th, the crew arrived.  They made what seemed like good progress until the end of the first day.  Unfortunately, though it has rained almost every day for the last two months, Georgia would not spare the crew one clear weekend for work.  Having to stop for thunderstorms put a damper on progress, and the crew had to come back for an extra weekend.

The whole process went fairly well, weather considering.  As more siding went up, I was happier and happier with the way the house was looking.  The crew of four was very job oriented, and I was greatly impressed with their attitude throughout the job in spite of the rain.

This last weekend, the guys finished, and I have to say, it feels like we've got a new house...from the outside.  Jared and I are more than happy with the end result!

Jared finally trimmed the giant bush next to the side porch.

Who's happy?  ME!

All in all, a very good experience!  The house desperately needed the facelift, and I'm very happy with the contractor and crew who worked so hard to make that possible.











Well, that's all the updates for now.  Hope your summer has been going well!

The Ghost of Deadlines Past

Our deadline came and went.  As annoyed as I am to still have things going on in my house, I know that Glenn is doing the best he can.  This poor guy has been bending over backwards for us to try to stay on budget and still make a little profit out of this deal (I can't be too mad at him for that, he's got to make a living somehow), but when it comes down to it, he's probably just going to break even on this house.  Jared and I are grateful for everything he's done, even though keeping on Pete has not really been efficient.

A few weeks after I returned from Seattle, Jared and I made a deal with Glenn about having everything done and out of the house by the 26th.  Well that just flew past us laughing as it went.  I swear I could hear it saying, "Haha, your house isn't done yet!"  And after lots of planning and re planning, I think I can say we should be done by THIS week.

But let's back up a bit.  Though Pete is still technically on our job, Glenn brought in his fastest crew once again to tackle the obnoxiously warped ceiling in the family room.  Over the years, this ceiling has just sagged and sagged until it looked so wonky there is no way anyone would take off the popcorn texture.  Even with the camouflage the surface bore the resemblance of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.  Ok maybe I'm exaggerating, but the job still had to get done. So instead of going through the messy process of stripping the texture, the new crew just sheet rocked over it.  As a quick fix, if you can stand to lose a little tiny bit of ceiling height, this method works really well.

Also mostly completed was the door to window project.  I've adjusted fairly well to the absence of what used to be our main traffic door.  However, pretty much everyone else has not.  Even Ullr goes to the window sometimes.  As amusing as that can be, I'm glad that we got rid of the door.  With the new back door, this entryway was just not necessary, so arranging furniture in this room would have been nothing short of a nightmare.

Finally, we have made a good bit of progress on our master bath!  Though the Rabbits were not supposed to be on this project, the new crew was pushed out due to Pete's attitude and refusal to work at all if we were going to take this away from him.  Lovely!  However, with Jack and Pete working (mostly Jack), this bathroom is on its way to being usable.

The plumbing was finished last week, and the water resistant cement board was put up by the weekend.  Jared tried to sell me on the color, but I wasn't having the hunter green with patches of white as my bathroom color.  I've yet to even think of colors for this room.  That is one of the fun parts of this whole process.  Picking out colors is always fun!

By last night, this is what the bathroom looked like.  The tile was laid, and the vanity was put in.  Though petit, this bathroom will be a nice addition to the house.  Jared also got his first lesson in tiling, and went on to tile the laundry room in the same night.

The toilet still has to be put in, and they still need to grout, put up the shower walls, and install the doors to the shower.  The counter top and sink will be installed when the counter arrives, but we are so close to having a fully usable bathroom!

We've also got a paint-ready laundry closet.  I know the picture isn't that fascinating, but it gives you some reference.  As I said before, Jared laid the tile in there all by himself!  Even though this whole process of living through a reno is not exactly a cakewalk, Jared is loving the learning process that has come with it.  With his construction based background, I'm glad he's had a chance to see what really goes in to a major renovation like this.

Of course, the Rabbits will only be here for a little while longer, and then it's down to Jared and I to finish the house.  Never in our wildest dreams did we think we'd still be renovating this late in the year.  We've also got company coming for Thanksgiving.  Jared's mom and her boyfriend are driving down to stay with us for the week of Thanksgiving, and we are slightly worried that we won't have everything done by then.  We're trying to be realistic about what we can get done by then, but as our list to the left shows, there's a lot to do.  But wasting no time, we've already started on the first item on the list...

Even though our lot is just under an acre, we did NOT fence in the entire thing.  Leaving most of the jungle on the outside of the fence, we were only left with this tree and surrounding brush to maintain.  The tree itself is perfect and provides a great amount of shade, but the brush that surrounded and choked the tree was full of thorns and and was becoming a problem.

Jared has already done a fair bit of work around this tree, and every time we work on it, it looks better and better.  After pulling out several bushes, fallen tree limbs, and lots of thorny vines, there is one deeply rooted bush that will NOT budge.  Jared even used thick chains and a Dodge Ram with a hemi to try to uproot the beast to no avail.  Hopefully we can find some way to remove the brush, as it has been overtaking the tree and honestly is kind of ugly.

This vine had been growing climbing the tree for who knows how long, but it's nearly 80 ft span had to come down.  That poor tree has had so many bushes and vines climbing it, I'm surprised it's in as good of shape as it is.

It such a good looking tree, I would be very upset to lose it, but I have seen some spots on the leaves, so it could be sick.  I'm hoping that by removing the brush and vines surround it, we help it get better.  Also, I took this picture on Sunday.  This is what our Fall colors look like!

Underneath all the brush, we found this little terra cotta pot.  Clearly someone tried to beautify this yard once upon a time.  There's no telling how old the pot is, since the previous owners didn't live here.  The giant cement block on which the pot is sitting is also underneath the tree.  Jared has plans to move the block, but I'm certain he would need super human strength to do so.

Our little kitties have just about had it with their confinement in one room.  I'm taking comfort in the knowledge that it won't have to be for much longer, but Loki here just has to have his taste of freedom for a little while.  We let him roam the house for an evening.  Freya, however, was much too scared to even leave the room (big surprise).  Very soon, Loki and Freya will be able to roam the whole house!








As we approach the end of this reno, I'm itching to paint and hang trim and buy furniture.  Hopefully we'll have a successful Thanksgiving.  I've never hosted a Thanksgiving by myself before, so this should be an experience!  Also, even though the Rabbits are going to be done and out of our hare (haha), Jared and I still have plenty of work to do in this house.  As I've heard from everyone who owns a house, you're never done improving your house.  Ever.  I'm just hoping we get it to a presentable state before the mother-in-law arrives!