Back at the turn of twenty-ten, I set out our  renovation goals for the coming year.  Three months later, let’s take a look at how we’re progressing.  We have seven spaces on the to-do list this year: foyer, downstairs bathroom, dining room, office, garage, yard and library.  Some projects are smaller whilst others are more time (and budget) consuming. Let’s break it down one by one.

Goal 1: Foyer

• Finish drywall on headers – put up sheetrock, then mud, sand, dust, mud, sand, dust [ad infinitum]
• Prime and paint drywall
• Paint other walls 2^nd coat
• Install narrow shelving units in wall cavity

Progress: PARTIAL

We have started putting up sheetrock and mudding in some areas, like the header in the left-side living room.  We’ve still got to finish putting up the sheetrock on the right-side header, then mud+sand til our hearts’ discontent.

When we removed the the foyer walls and replaced them with headers to open up the space, we were left with two small partial walls either side of the entryway.  These are helpful in visually delineating the two living spaces without taking up too much room.  But we’re going to be adding more functionality to these puppies in the form of shelving.  In each cavity, we’re installing tall, narrow bookshelves for a built-in cabinetry look.  The shelves are built and have been placed in the space:

Now we have to sheetrock them in, then eventually trim around the outside for the custom built-in look. Once all the sheetrock has been mudded and sanded, we can prime and paint … well, everything. 

Goal 2: Downstairs bathroom

• Finish grouting, molding and decorating

Progress: COMPLETE!

Another one down (ok, the first one down), the first one bites the dust! Sing it, Freddie!  Tiling, grouting and molding have all been finished.  The decor has been … well … decorated.  This transformation is so jaw dropping that it needs a separate post.  Ok, maybe its more like I took way too many pictures to post here. So, watch this space, the big reveal is coming soon! But for now, here is a teaser photo…

Goal 3: Dining room

• Install trim boxes and chair rail
• Paint walls 2^nd coat, paint ceiling

Progress: PARTIAL

Twenty three boxes have been measured, cut and nailed to the wall. That’s 167 feet of trim, and approximately 980 brads nailed in and filled with putty.

Next up?  We’ll caulk around the boxes and paint the trim to make them seamlessly blend in with the wall.  We’ll paint another coat of the charcoal grey on the upper walls and then finally remove all the painter’s tape (as long as it has been up, it feels like a design feature).  The last step will be to put up the chair rail running around the room.  Add a few finishing touches (artwork, decorative knick-knacks … oh yeah, floors and replacement windows) and this room will be finished!

Goal 4: Office

• Finish painting walls
• Get  new office furniture to make office space more efficient (and less ugly)
• Move living room furniture to front living spaces

Progress: ALMOST COMPLETE!

This room has had a total makeover.  The walls have been painted (thanks Alyssa!), gone is the makeshift desk, the book cases have been replaced, and all the junk necessary office items seen in the picture above have been organized and housed in more efficient and appealing furniture.  The big reveal is coming soon, but for now here’s a teaser pic…

Goal 5: Garage

• Replace door, rails and opener on remaining two garage doors
• Tidy up and organize garage

Progress: NOT STARTED

This is one of two projects we haven’t made a start on yet.  With all the renovation projects going on in the house, the garage serves mainly as our storage space/work area and unfortunately will probably be one the last spaces to receive attention.

Goal 6: Yard

• Clear brush from back section
• Fence in rest of yard

Progress: PARTIAL

Rick has made some progress clearing out that dense brush area at the back of the yard.  He has cut down several small trees and piled the wood into neat piles:

We still need to work on clearing some of the bigger trees before we can clear out the smaller greenery and brush.  But we’re getting there!

Goal 7: Bedroom-turned-library

• Finish header – install last supports, remove studs
• Finish drywall – put up sheetrock, then mud, sand, dust, mud, sand, dust [ad infinitum]
• Prime and paint drywall
• Paint other walls 2^nd coat
• Remove existing railing – replace with new wrought iron railing

Progress: NOT STARTED

This is the second project that we are yet to start working on. We really need to finish the sheetrocking of the foyer walls below before we can install the new railing.  With our pack of dogs running around, we need to have some kind of partial boundary in place (whether it is the current stud wall or the new railing) to prevent them from going ker-splat over the edge.  So, for now, this project is on the back burner whilst we finish downstairs.

All in all, I think we are making good progress with our renovation goals for 2010.  Two projects are complete – the bathroom and office reveals will be posted soon.  Three projects are in the works – the foyer, dining room and yard will hopefully be finished shortly.  Only two out of the original seven projects are yet to be started, which I think is normal given that our priorities are elsewhere in the house for now.  How are you coming along with your resolutions?  Are you making good progress or have the goals bit the dust?

I’m not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions.  Don’t get me wrong – the ideas and motivations behind resolutions are good. After all, no-one plans to gain more weight, smoke more cigarettes or be a crappy friend in the upcoming year.  I dislike resolutions simply because if I don’t follow through with them, I feel like a failure the rest of the year.  Usually, that’s about 11 months. I guess I am not alone in this – research shows that anywhere between 78% to 97% of New Year’s resolutions are broken. 

According to this psychological study, you will be more successful at keeping your New Year’s resolutions if you do these three things:

1) tell someone about your goals
2) focus on the benefits of success
3) keep a diary of your progress. 

So, my blog friends, I want to share with you our goals for completing renovation projects around the house in 2010.  Sharing of goals - check.  Outlining our resolutions is a good way to help plan projects for the upcoming year.  And come the end of twenty-ten, we will be able to look back and evaluate how well we’ve done in tackling the projects.  Optimism – check. And of course my dear blog readers (all three of you), I will keep you updated of  every step of the way. Progress documented – check. 

So here’s how our DIY resolutions for 2010 stack up.

The majority of our projects will be done on the first floor; namely in the foyer, the bathroom, the dining room, the office, the garage and finally, the yard. We only have one main project in the works to be tackled upstairs, and that’s in the bedroom-turned-library.

Let’s break it down in more detail.

1. Foyer

When we moved into the house last year, one of the first projects we tackled is taking down the walls between the two front rooms and the foyer.  The walls came down, the headers went up …. but we never really finished putting the drywall back.

One of our goals this year is to finish off the drywall and get those studs covered up and painted. After all, the stud look is sooooo 2009.

2. Downstairs Bathroom

It’s taken a while but we’ve almost finished the downstairs bathroom renovation.  Almost.  The bathroom started off looking like this:

Since then, we’ve tiled, grouted, painted and made-over the vanity.  What’s left?  We have just a tiny amount of grouting to do and the crown moulding to finish.  Then we can make the big reveal!

3. Dining room

We swapped the inherited deep-red paint for a more sophisticated, modern color palette:

To finish things off in the dining room, we are planning on installing chair rail and trim boxes on the lower part of the wall. Flooring would be a nice touch, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to get to that this year – let’s keep our fingers crossed.

4. Office

The office / living room is where we have spent most of our time in 2009.  On the first day we moved in, we set up all the essentials in this room – you know, the TV, the computer and some comfy chairs. And that is pretty much where they have stayed as we renovate the rest of the house.  We’ve accumulated more and more junk necessary items over the year, piling them on top of each other, so that the office now looks something like this:

Don’t judge. Something drastic needs to be done in this space for 2010.  Notice the half painted wall?  Another “let’s try and see what this paint color looks like” moment, waiting to be finished.  So, the plans for this space is to finish painting the walls and ceiling, and make this space more functional as an office.  That will mean moving our living room furniture into one of the front rooms.

5. Garage

The immediate plan for this space is quite straightforward: get the garage doors working!

Rick has already spent sometime taking down one of the dilapidated garage doors and replacing the rails and opener.  One down, two more to go.

6. Yard

The very first project we tackled in the first week of moving in was to fence in a small portion of the back yard so that the dogs had a safe, contained space to play in and do …well, what it is dogs do in yards.  At some point this year, we’d like to get the rest of the yard fenced in:

We also plan on clearing out that dense brush between the trees before summertime kicks in.

7. Bedroom-turned-library

The last thing on our 2010 to-do list is to finish off the headers and railing in our bedroom-turned-library project upstairs.

 

Most of the studs have come down, the header is in place – we just need to remove the remaining studs.  Then we plan on installing a new rail along that wall to meet up with the handrail going to the bedroom.  Eventually, all the wooden spindles will be replaced with wrought iron ones, and the wood will be stained a darker brown. Oh, and finishing painting the walls might also be a good idea

So, that’s our renovation goals for 2010.  I’m not sure how many of these projects will get done, but here’s hoping it will be a productive year. At the very least, at the end of the year, we can look back at this post and laugh at how optimistically ambitious we were at the start of 2010.

Although it’s a week past Thanksgiving, I wanted to share with you our table setting for our very first holiday (and dining party) in our new house.  Plus, you get a sneak peak at the new paint in the dining room.

The table was dressed with cheap $1 mini-poinsettias from Wally World, interspersed with these cute little sparkly tree cones.  Red table placemats, silver chargers, red napkins with hammered silver napkins rings finished off the table.  Me likey. 

And what would Thanksgiving be without a dessert. Or two. How delicious does this “death-by-chocolate” trifle look? 

Our guests *coughAlyssacough* definitely seemed to like it!

Whilst I was out shopping for supplies yesterday, Rick busied himself painting the dining room (along with writing this embarrassing and surprising post). We’ve said sayonara to the cerise, goodbye to the garnet, ciao to the cherry.  This is how the dining room looked on the day we moved in:

During the painting process, it was interesting to watch the room evolve from dark and dingy to light and bright:

The walls, door and window trim have all been primed, making our dining room currently look like this:

It’s amazing how the white walls make the space feel so big. The plan is to keep the bottom half of the walls white and add a chair rail and boxes. The top half we are planning on painting a bold grey color, to contrast with the white trim and dark dining room furniture. Hopefully, the end result will look something like this inspiration pic:

I’m a little nervous about the grey color for the walls.  It’s more bold than I usually tend to go for in colors.  I’m hoping it will bring a sophisticated and modern vibe to the room.

When we installed our contemporary chandelier in the dining room …

we had to decide what to do with the original chandelier…

I didn’t particularly hate the shape of this light. What did offend me was the tacky gold/brass skeleton overlaid in plastic. And, although you can’t quite see it in the picture, there were millions of these miniature plastic flowers tied on with gold wire to keep the plastic covers on the chandelier arms. Nice.

We were originally planning on giving the chandelier away. But after my first successful attempt at spray painting some parts for our dining room light extension, I thought it might be worthwhile trying to fix this Dynasty throwback.

So I took that sucker apart and spray painted everything chrome. And I mean everything. Even the little connection wires between each of the squillions of crystals. After a few days letting the paint cure, we began putting the light back together (minus the plastic coverings and flowers). A few cute spherical bulbs gave the light a bit more of a contemporary feel, and voila! we had a madeover light (picture updated!).

It’s new location is going to be in our bedroom-turned-loft library. How luxe will it be to relax in a comfortable chair with a cuppa ho-cho, surrounded by a plethora of books, reading under the sophisticated, sparkly chandelier?

What do think? Do you think the chrome makes or breaks this chandelier?

One of the many concurrent projects we’ve been working on the last few weeks is trying to find a way to lower the dining room chandelier.  When we got the light a few months ago, it only came with 18″ down rods.  So when Rick installed it over our dining room table, our 9 feet ceilings made the light look completely disconnected from the table.

It is generally recommended that you hang a chandelier approximately 28-32 inches over a table with an 8 foot ceiling height. If your ceiling is higher than 8 feet, the chandelier can be mounted an additional 3 inches higher for each foot of ceiling. That meant for our 9 foot ceilings, we needed to hang our chandelier anywhere from 31-35 inches over the table.  In its original location, the chandelier was about 53 inches above the table, so we needed to lower it by about 18 inches.

We thought it would be a relatively easy task to find an 18″ extension rod to lower the light.  We were wrong.  During the numerous trips we made to various DIY stores in the past few months  (and I mean *numerous*), we weren’t able to locate anything in the lighting section that would enable us to extend our light.  If you were in a Home Depot or Lowes in the Raleigh, NC area recently, and saw a bewildered blond haired English woman muttering to herself saying “surely we’re not the only people in the world who have come across this problem” (peppered with a range of expletives), then that was me. I mean, come on people!  How hard is it to find an 18″ long, 5/16″ diameter chrome pipe in a big box store that sells millions of items?

The lighting section wasn’t offering any solutions, so it was time to think outside of the electrical box.  We came across a solution in the … plumbing section.  Rick found exactly what we needed – an 18″ chrome toilet connector pipe. In order to connect the pipe to the existing light rod, we got a couple of  3/8″ chrome compression nuts and a  3/8″ compression union (in brass unfortunately – nothing a bit of chrome spray paint couldn’t fix).

Using a hack saw, Rick cut the bulbous end off the toilet pipe, and then flared both ends (using his flarey tool thingy-me-jiggy – I’m so technical, don’t you agree?).  The flared ends made the compression union and nuts fit snugly.  So, one end of the pipe was connected to the down rods attached to the light plate (using the compression fitting that originally came with the light).  The other end of the extension pipe was connected to the rods attached to the light itself, using the new compression fittings.  Et voila! We now have a newly extended dining room light that hangs at the perfect height over the table.

Check out the before and after.  It’s amazing how 18 inches makes such a difference.  Size really does matter after all

One project down. 311, 563, 899 left to go.

Ever have one of those days where you seem to be working all the time and not getting anything accomplished?  That’s how it’s been here for the past few weeks. We seem to be working around the house every spare minute we get (when we’re not working for our regular jobs, both in the day time and in the evenings).  However, we still really haven’t finished many projects around the house just recently.  We’ve got several on the go.  For instance, Rick has been working in the garage, trying to organize some of the boxes of stuff we still have left over from moving.  He’s also been working hard replacing the garage door opener (and fixing the banged up garage doors), so that when Winter rolls in, we might actually be able to put the cars in the garage.  The previous owners only installed one garage opener, despite having three working doors, so eventually Rick will be installing two other openers so we can use the full extent of the three-car garage. 

Back in the house, we’ve also been working on getting a few rooms finished.  When Rick first installed the dining room chandelier, it was obvious that it needed lowering over the dining room table.  The light didn’t come with any extension rods, so we’ve been coming up with some creative ways to lower that sucker (more details coming soon).  I’ve also been playing around with paint ideas for changing the Gothic red to something more airy and contemporary.  The wall going into the kitchen (opposite our one replaced window) is currently decorated with about 7 different color patches as we try several different looks for the room.

We’re still working on hanging the header in our upstairs bedroom-turned-library.  The header is up, but we still need to make a few adjustments to some supports before we remove the middle studs.  And lastly, we’re thisclose to finishing (and revealing) our downstairs bathroom makeover.  All that’s left is a few finishing touches – some caulking, some crown moulding, hanging some pictures and so forth.

Maybe it would be easier to focus in one project, rather than tackle several at one time.  I keep telling myself that we are saving time by multi-tasking – every time we go to the DIY store, we can get items for several projects rather than make many trips for individual projects.  That’s the theory anyway.  Do you guys multitask and work on several projects at once, or do you prefer to work on one thing at a time?  Do tell.

I have a good feeling that we will get at least one these projects finished this week.  Stay tuned for details!

The house renovations have slowed down a bit lately.  Maybe all that new homeowner vim and vigor has finally run out. Or the money has run out. Or perhaps is just takes two to do the renovation tango.  Renovating can be fun, but it also can be a tough job for two people to do together, let alone on their own-some. My month long excursion to the UK didn’t help our progress. Plus, as soon as I got back to America, Rick had to go on a week-long work trip to Notre Dame university (I tried not take it personally). Yesterday, a good friend noted that I hadn’t posted on the blog for some time, to which I replied that we hadn’t recently finished many projects to blog about.  But it got me thinking about all we have done around the house.  Today marks six months being in our new house.  Six months! Where did the time go? Seeing as I tend to be a ‘glass half empty’ kind of girl, now seems like a good time to think about all the projects we have completed so far:

All carpet has been pulled up

Back yard fence was built

Front and back doors were replaced

Landscape lighting has been installed

Downstairs bathroom was gutted and new tile installed. Bathroom vanity made over with a granite top and vessel sink.

New exterior lights installed

Dining room window replaced

 French doors hung between kitchen and office

Foyer chandelier replaced

Two foyer walls removed and headers installed

Dining room floor painted

Master bedroom ceiling fan installed

Dining room chandelier replaced

Siding removed and rehung

Thermostats switched out

100,000,000 green bugs,  3,000 big-ass spiders, 2 bats, a mole, a lizard, a frog… and a partridge in a pear tree.

Pheww! We’ve been busy! But all this optimism is making me feel all Paula Abdul – I’m much more Simon Cowell-esque (must be a British thing).  If I wear my pessimist hat for a minute, I’d hate to compile a list of all the projects that we have left to do around the house. Wow, that list would be longer than a prize bull’s ba-donk-a-donk. We’ll get there in the end.  That’s what the bull said.

The dining room light has finally arrived! Almost three months after we ordered it. I won’t post the retailer we bought it from – although the price was great, the customer service has been terrible.  There was really no good reason for why it took 12 weeks to send a light we were told would arrive in only a few weeks. But let’s not focus on the negative.  The chandelier is here and has been put up in the dining room. 

I haven’t been able to use the light yet as I still need to get some special light bulbs (the smaller kind you push in and twist a half a turn). I’m also thinking that I may have to find a way to lower the light from the ceiling. The down rods were provided with the light and are suitable for standard height ceilings.  But our 10ft ceilings make the chandelier float way above the table.  When Amy gets back from visiting the UK, I’ll see what she thinks about  lowering the chandlier over the dining room table. She’ll also be able to take more detailed pictures with our better digital camera!

We currently have two chandeliers in our house – one in the dining room and one in the foyer.  We’ve been wanting to replace these nice-but-slightly-dated lights with more contemporary ones. We’ve been doing a bit of Interweb searching and have found two contenders:

We’re planning on replacing the existing dining room light …

with the following modern crystal one:

For the foyer, we’re going to replace the existing light…

with this contemporary crystal chandelier:

Back at the beginning of May, we ordered both chandeliers online. Factoring in time for the order to be processed and the packages shipped, we were told to expect the chandies no later than June 1st. A couple of weeks went by with no communication from the company (not the best sign), so Rick had to chase them up to get tracking information for the packages. Last Friday, we finally got word that the chandeliers were being delivered in 3 packages. So I  waited at home all day (luckily I can work from home) and finally, at about 6pm, the ups guy knocked on the door.  Now, by the time I got to the front door (after battling 5 barking dogs) the ups man had disappeared. I peered out the front door and ta-da! on the front porch there were two large boxes.  Two. Not three as expected. The ups man was long gone by this point, so I couldn’t ask him about the missing third package. So, back inside I went, checked online on the ups website, which said that one of the packages had been delivered.  Hmmmm, something not quite matching up here.

So, long story short here, a very protracted phone call ensued with an unhelpful ups employee who couldn’t quite seem to grasp the conundrum we were in (yes, I replied for the seventeenth time, there should be three packages, only received two but your website says one has been delivered – must be all those baffling single digit numbers). After she finally managed to understand what was going on, she said that ups couldn’t do anything about it and that we would have to call the company we ordered the lights from and they would have to follow up on the error.  Ok, fine I said. So, another lengthy phone call ensued with said light company (yes 3, but 2, no 1, yada yada yada), who said that we would have to lodge a complaint with ups.  So, let’s get this straight – ups says the light company are to blame,  light company says ups to blame. Useful as a chocolate teapot.

Before getting my ’Simon Cowell’ on and letting rip on the phone, I thought I’d double check just to make sure that we didnt, in fact, receive the third package. Lucky I did, because after a bit of searching outside I found the much smaller third package neatly stowed behind a bush (!!) at the side of the house. God knows why the ups guy saw fit to deliver the two large boxes to the front door, and then hide the smaller, lighter package at the side of the house AND then only mark one as being delivered. Me thinks he was one package short of a full delivery – literally and figuratively!

Our woeful tale of chandelier shenanigans does not end there. Rick got home about the same time as the case-of-the-missing-package was solved.  So we set to opening the boxes.  30 minutes and 300 feet of packing paper later, we found that only 1 chandelier has been delivered. The large foyer chandelier had been packed into the 3 boxes – the frame in two boxes and all the crystals in the third. Back on the phone we went, only to be greeted with a voicemail message saying that the lighting company was now closed for the weekend and would re-open on Tuesday.  Grrrr.

So, this week we have been chasing up the light company (yet again) to see what’s going on with the missing dining room chandelier. We’ve now been informed that, due to the popularity and increased demand, this light is on back order and it will be another 4 weeks before they get the next shipment in. We can either accept the delay or get our money refunded, although the refund will probably take just as long as receiving the light (funny how they can take your payment so quickly, yet the refund process is painfully slow…).

So we’re waiting … for now.  In the meantime, we’ve got to figure out how to install the chandelier in our two-story entry way (and get the existing one safely down). Anyone got a pair of stilts Rick can borrow?