Archive for October, 2007
Light My Fire
Ok, so we’ve been passive aggressively looking for the perfect light fixture to hang over the dining room table in our big dining/living room to better delineate the dining area.
After repeatedly searching ebay, patrolling google, and leafing through a few dozen catalogs, I finally struck gold when I thought to hit up the CB2 website. Not only did they have a clean, classic light fixture, it was as easy on my wallet as it was on my eyes. After checking out options in the $200 to $400 range all morning, the $49 price tag almost knocked me off my chair. Needless to say, I wasted no time ordering it from the comfort of my little office in a bubble.
Operation Widen Doorways – Day 1
The crew from Parker Home Improvement showed up bright and early Wednesday morning to work on the doorways and kitchen demo. According to Sherry, it was a long day with only a couple snags requiring emergency phone calls. One to an electrician (couldn’t move a light switch through a stud), the other to the vet (dog swallowed a jagged piece of plastic). But in the end, the kitchen got knocked out, one doorway got widened, an electrician rescued us (for free!), and the dog threw up the piece of plastic. I’d call that a successful day.
Today, the Parker boys are back to widen more doors and spew more dust. The electrician is back too (this time for a couple hundred bucks) to finish up from yesterday. The hand-out we got yesterday was great, but we couldn’t turn off the kitchen light all night.
Girl in a Bubble
To prep for the wall guys coming this week, we had to cover a bunch of our stuff with plastic to protect it from all the drywall and brick dust that their wall-cutting was going to kick-up. Since it’s a 3 or 4 day process, we created a little “living bubble” for ourselves in the meantime, complete with a computer and a TV. We just used some painter’s tape and an inexpensive plastic tarp from Lowe’s to keep dust at bay (that stuff will get everywhere if you don’t take precautions). Trust us, the taped tarp was totally worth our while, and it kept us a bit more comfortable in the middle of the chaos that is renovation.
Here’s Sherry showing off our temporary safety zone.
Scoring a Free Dishwasher
If you recall, we ended our last post by describing the “eventual” purchase of a new washer and dryer for our more open laundry nook. Well, we’ve never been much for waiting so we decided to “just take a look.” Just looking quickly became buying when we realized there were so many deals to be had.
We immediately honed in on the Whirlpool Duet Sport washer and dryer for their small footprint and quiet power. They were originally priced at around $1,610 total but they happened to be on clearance for $1480 since they’re rolling out the ’08 models soon.
Then the sales associate (Robert, our new best friend) told us there was a promotion for 10% off all Energy Star appliances. Score. The washer was proudly sporting an Energy Star sticker. That shaved another $75 off our total (down to $1,405). Then Robert helped us open a credit card for an additional 10% off our purchase which chopped our total down another $140 to $1,255.
With a total savings of about $355, and the ability to get 10% off anything else we purchased with our new handy dandy Lowes credit card, we figured we’d snatch up the dishwasher that we’ve been eyeing for our new kitchen. We found this puppy for $350- it matches our current fridge and stove exactly- and since it’s an Energy Star appliance (and part of our credit card purchase) we got 10% off TWICE, making it only about $280 – more than free when you look at what we saved on the laundry appliances ($355).
And did I mention Lowe’s was also running a FREE appliance delivery offer, which means they’ll deliver, install and haul-away our old appliances at no charge?! Point Lowe’s.
Demolition Monday
There’s no better cure for a case of the Mondays than wielding a sledgehammer. It must’ve been a particularly boring Monday because yesterday we let loose on 4 different areas.
Demo Day 2007 kicked off with demo project #1: prying off the chair rail in the dining room that we’re converting into a 3rd bedroom (since chair rail is a bit weird in a bedroom). I was at work for this project, but from what I can tell Sherry had no trouble getting it down with a hammer, a crowbar and some womanpower. Hasta la vista, chair rail.
Check out the gross yellow paint and ’70s wallpaper we found underneath! It’s even uglier than what was there when we moved in.
Then when I got home it was time to complete demo project #2, which Sherry had also started earlier in the day: busting up the decorative slate “medallion” in the middle of the backyard… all part of our master plan to make room for more grass.
The “busting” part of this project proved to be much easier than expected. Sherry and I happily took turns swinging the 20 pound sledgehammer (while humming the 80′s Peter Gabriel tune “Sledgehammer”) and within minutes the medallion was no more. Digging up the sandbed beneath the slate proved to be the real labor, but a big grassy backyard will so be worth the effort.
Speaking of making room for grass – on to demo project #3: relocating the arch. Again, the demo part of this wasn’t too much of a problem. Some simple digging around the stakes and a few shimmies back-and-forth were all it took (well, maybe slightly more than a few shimmies). We made a pitiful attempt to stake it back in the ground at its new location towards the back of our property, but it was getting dark so we decided it was time for a dinner break.
After some Taco Bell and some errands (Lowe’s for topsoil) I thought we were done for the night. But I saw Sherry out of the corner of my eye… and she was holding a hammer. Now what? She was on to demo project #4: opening up our laundry “room.” Mind you, it was like 10:30 at this point.
We don’t have any good pictures of the “before” because the “before” wasn’t very pretty. Imagine some cheap, painted bi-fold doors creating a large claustrophobic closet that housed our washer, dryer and two junk-packed shelves. It was great at concealing the one messy area in our house, but it really closed in the hallway between the sunroom and the den, making it feel like you were being squeezed through a straw everytime you walked between the two rooms.
The demo started as simply removing the bi-fold doors but quickly progressed to taking out the entire wall above the doors, too. Luckily, crowbar + brute strength = no more wall. Afterwards, the room and our clothes were covered in drywall “snow”, but it sure looked a heck of a lot more open.
The plan is to widen the doorfame about 10-12 inches to open up the hallway even more, and to put some cabinet doors on the upper shelf (to once again conceal our junk) and eventually replace the washer and dryer with prettier front loading versions to create a sparkling new, white laundry nook that’s easier on the eyes than our previous bifold cave. Can’t we just keep demo-ing? It’s so much more fun than putting things back together…
