Anyone who knows us know that we love our dogs (after all, we have five of them!).  Beegee is our bassett hound, Gizmo is our min-pin, Shrimp is a mini-wiener (or as we say in the UK, a sausage dog), T-Rex is the first of our chihuahuas, with Arriba being our second. So I thought I might take this opportunity to post some gratuitous pictures of how the doggies are coping with the renovations around here…

In the first picture, Beegee was checking out why Rick was making so much noise.  Although the door was closed, she looked through the open wall to see him demo-ing the first of the foyer walls. In the second picture, you can see first hand the dusty doggy paw prints that we have all over the house, including the furniture.  Thanks Shrimp and Giz!

The first picture on the left shows our two adorable chihuahuas, T-Rex and Arriba (a.k.a. rex and reebs) basking in the sun on our porch.  The railings are a little too big to keep these 6 pound doggies contained! Rex can quite easily slip through the bars, and Reebs is so small she can fit under them.  The picture on the right shows Shrimp and Giz (with T-Rex looking startled behind) using the rolled up carpet in our bonus room as a ready-made jungle gym. 

On the same sunny afternoon on the porch, Beegee was not able to fit through the porch railings like her smaller counterparts, making it look like she is imprisoned. Looks like she’s taking it all in her stride though! The second picture shows Beegee and Giz (with Shrimp close behind) checking out our next door neighbors.

 
Who can resist yet another cute picture of our smallest chihuahua, Arriba. Here she is posing for the camera amidst her first escape attempt.  And lastly, here are the chihuahuas relaxing after a long, hard day’s work at renovating the house.  Gotta love how they use Beegee as a pillow.

Aren’t our dogs the cutest???

On Saturday, we were exceedingly lucky to have a couple of friends (thanks Matt and Logan!) come by and help us to remove all the debris that has been building up in and around the house.  On Friday, we had a dumpster delivered and set up in our driveway, facing the garage. With pizza and beer being offered as an incentive, Matt and Logan helped Rick to get rid of all the sheetrock and carpet that has been laying around the house.

The boys all worked really hard, especially seeing as it was around 90 degrees outside! (I was charged with the most important, labor-intensive job of all – going to get the pizza!). The carpet had been stored mainly in the bonus room upstairs and some in the garage – it therefore didn’t really effect our quality of living that much (out of sight out of mind, and all that).  The sheetrock was another matter. With two huge piles in the front living rooms, we were constantly battling the dust – as soon as we cleaned the floors and the surfaces, the dust would seemingly return right away and be coating everything once again (of course, not helped much by our doggies who thought it was a great game to play in the rubble and then track dusty paw prints across the house).  Although we still need to clean up a little, it has made such a difference having all the sheetrock out of the house.  So thanks again, Matt and Logan!

In the spirit of paying it forward, we continue to post the items we are replacing around the house for free on Craigslist.  In addition to the environmental concern of keeping perfectly working furniture/fixtures etc out of the landfill, in these tough economic times we believe it is important to help others that are perhaps less fortunate than ourselves.  Rick has begun to replace the outside light fixtures with more up-to-date ones.  On Saturday, the older, working lights were posted on Craigslist, free to the first person to pick up.

Almost immediately, we received several emails from people interested in taking the lights. Sorting the emails on a first come, first serve basis, we arranged a time for the first person to come by that afternoon. An hour after the scheduled pick up time, there were no signs of them turning up.  We even tried calling the phone number they gave us, but it said the number had been disconnected.  Having dealt with many “no-shows” in the past, we’ve found that the best course of action is usually to move on to the next person in line, scheduling a new time for them to pick up the items.  So we emailed the first person explaining that since we hadn’t heard from them, and they hadn’t picked up the lights, that we were now offering them to someone else. 

The lights were claimed by the second emailer shortly thereafter.  But the story doesn’t end there. Several hours later, we received a rather irate email from the original emailer, cursing us out because we had given the lights away to someone else. We replied kindly suggesting that we would have gladly held the lights for them if they had simply communicated about any difficulties they had picking up the lights at a certain time. It is now 24 hours later and we are still receiving emails from this person, explaining why they are “more deserving” of the lights than anyone else, even signing one email “from the poor people you could have helped”.  Who knew that the simple act of trying to give something away for FREE would cause such drama?!?

Everyone loves to find a good deal, right? This weekend, we scored on the bargain front, getting a large vanity for the downstairs bathroom free (yes, free!), and getting an uh-mazing deal on a vessel sink, also for the downstairs bathroom.

I’m always looking on Craigslist in the free section to see if they have any deals (check out the previous post about getting a free ride-on lawn mower).  When Rick demo-ed the downstairs bathroom, we offered our own (albeit outdated) vanity, toilet and bathroom mirror for free on Craigslist and just an hour or so later, someone came by and took them off our hands.  I think this is a great win-win situation for everyone – we don’t have to worry about adding to the landfill and others get use out of a still fully functional piece of furniture (I also check my local freecycle).

Everytime we’ve been to the DIY store to get various smaller bits and pieces for the renovation projects, we’ve stopped by and looked at the vanities, comparing sizes, materials and of course, prices.  Our downstairs bathroom is perhaps a little larger than usual, and so the vanity needs to be proportionate in size (read: bigger vanity = more costly). I’ve been keeping an eye on Craigslist in case someone offered a vanity, but you have to keep checking the list often because the best offers are snapped up very quickly. Imagine my excitement when I saw a posting for a free vanity at the perfect size for our bathroom. A few emails later and a quick drive to Stem, NC, we picked up this nice vanity:

Decor-wise, the vanity doesn’t fit with our intended scheme, but structurally it is in great condition.  We will strip the white paint off the wood, and probably stain it a rich cherry or chocolate color. The handles and faucet will be updated, and hopefully we will replace the white cultured-marble top with granite.  Instead of a recessed sink, we will install a vessel sink.  Which leads us nicely to the next bargain we found this weekend…

Walking around Lowes on Sunday morning, once again perusing the vanities section, we stumbled across an amazing deal on a glass vessel sink.  These are the sinks that sit above the counter top, rather than recessed into the vanity. When watching various DIY tv shows, Rick and I have always admired the sophisticated elegance of the vessel sink, but know that they come at a price.  Vessel sinks range anywhere from a couple of hundred bucks into the several thousands. Imagine my excitement when we came across a vessel sink in the clearance section for $25! They had two left at this price, so we quickly bundled both in our cart. Even though we weren’t intending on buying anything for the bathroom that day, we couldn’t pass up on such an amazing deal.  So, we’ll put one of the sinks in the downstairs bathroom, and the other upstairs in the small half-bath we will be creating adjacent to the new loft area.  What a steal!  Hopefully, once the vanity is stained a cherry/chocolate color, the counter top replaced with granite and the fixtures/fittings updated, it might look something like the cabinet above.

Ok, if renovation isn’t already hard enough, it is made much more complicated when done at night under minimal lighting conditions (i.e. after your husband inadvertantly disables the electric).

On Saturday, Rick continued removing the right foyer wall to open up the two formal living spaces either side of the staircase.  As he was removing the studs, he was careful to disable the electrical outlets previously contained in the wall. This was done during daylight hours, so it was not until much later when we went to switch on the lights downstairs that we realized they weren’t working.  To fix it, Rick would need to go under the house and see which of the electrical cables needed to be reconnected to make the lights work.  However, going under the house, in the pitch black at night didn’t seem like the best of ideas.  However, it was imperative that we continue with the renovations  – with the wall gone there was only minimal support for the flooring above. So, by the light of the two spot-lights above the fireplace, Rick continued removing the studs from the wall in preparation for erecting the header.  Despite the lack of lighting, by late Saturday night we had managed to get the header to sit in the supports on either side of the wall (and I even went up the ladder to help!)

 

 

 

After stopping by the DIY store to get a sledge hammer on Sunday, Rick was able to bash the header into its final resting place. Ignoring the huge pile of rubble and general messiness, the new foyer (equipped with two brand new headers) is starting to look really good, don’t you think? )

According to the weather forecast, Thursday was the start of 4 days of uninterrupted sunshine – a perfect stretch of time to change out the dining room window.  Much like the back door, we knew that at least one of the windows in the dining room would need to be replaced as soon as possible after moving in. With the weather being so changeable, it has been difficult to find a few days of continuous good weather – this weekend was our chance.

 You can clearly see the state of the window framing. The wood just crumbled at our finger tips when we removed the trim from around the window.  It didn’t take too long to remove the window from its frame, with the decay being so bad.  We custom ordered a new double hung, vinyl window several weeks ago and it has been sitting in the dining room waiting for the right opportunity to be installed.  The rough frame was a little larger than the window we ordered, but a few shims and screws secured the new window in place.  We will need to caulk the outside to weather proof the window before applying new decorative trim – we’ll post the before&after pics shortly…

Whilst searching the Interweb for some design inspiration ideas, I came across the Sproost quiz, which promises to indentify your personal home design style based on your rankings of differently designed rooms. It takes about 30 seconds to rate design pictures using a simple “Love It” to “Hate It” scale and then calculates your top home design styles based on your picks. Here are my results:

I was a little skeptical that a 30-second quiz would be able to pinpoint my personal style.  But, the description of my top ranking Contemporary style is a pretty accurate depiction of the designs I tend to gravitate towards: ”You like your space new and sleek … your love of minimalism is expressed throughout each room … you’re not afraid of color … clean lines and geometric shapes are preferred”.  

I had Rick complete the quiz too, just to see if our styles are complimentary. His highest ranked style was French Eclectic, followed by a Hollywood Couture style (?!?!?).

At first, it seemed like quiz had Rick’s style all wrong.  Most people that know Rick will say that he is not a “french antiques and gold details” kind of guy! However, looking at the description, it appears that the style breakdown is fairly close: “you like formal but casual, classy but unassuming at the same time … you like spaces to be warm and inviting”. This is definitely closer to Rick’s personal style – a fusion of modern and classic, the contemporary with warm touches of the traditional.  Take the quiz yourself and find out what design style you prefer.

When Rick was not cutting tiles or rerouting electrical cables, he was demo-ing the other wall in the foyer.

When we first moved into the house, one of the very first projects we tackled was demo-ing one of the walls in the foyer to really open up the floorplan downstairs.  Move forward a few weeks, just when we finally got all the dust and mess out of the house (there’s only so much cleaning you can keep doing over and over again), Rick dutifully went and made some more mess! It will all be worth it though – the space downstairs already looks so much better by opening up the walls in the foyer. The staircase has room to breathe, and the small, dark and dingy corridors between the staircase and the two formal living rooms has gone. It takes a little imagination to see the potential of the space, what with all the sheetrock, dust and general mayhem going on.  But in my mind’s eye, I am envisioning how gorgeous the Brazilian Koa hardwood floors are going be in that whole space!  Stay tuned…

Rick and I spent our Easter weekend happily working on various projects around the house.  I spent most of the day finishing off the tiling in the downstairs bathroom.  All of the large wall tiles have now been laid, but I still need to lay the smaller decorative tiles on top (can’t do this until the walls have been painted).  Rick took a break from his project (more on that later) to help me move two electrical outlets. The two and a half rows of large 16″x16″ tiles, topped off by the decorative border came up just a little too high past the light switch and gfci outlet.  The gfci outlet wasnt too bad to relocate – it just required a little sheetrock to be removed, the electrical box to be moved up about 4 inches and the sheetrock re-mudded.  The light switch, however, was a little more time consuming…

I wanted to move the switch closer to the door, in addition to moving it upwards out of the way of the tile (the switch was about 18 inches from the door frame and it was too far away for my short little arms to reach as I entered the room).  In order to move the switch closer to the door frame, we needed to reroute the electrical cable from the original stud to another one (meaning a whole lot of sheetrock to be removed).  Rick had the idea of splicing the electrical cables instead, so only a much smaller portion of sheetrock removal was needed. Rick gave me my first lesson in splicing electrical cables, and I am proud to say that I now know how to wire (and rewire) an electrical outlet! Rick cut up some extra 2×4′s we had lying around and nailed them into the cavity, so that the new sheetrock would have something to adhere to.  After the sheetrock was screwed in place, the hole was taped and mudded.  While that was drying, I continued on with the tiling. When the mud is dry, I’ll sand it down (and reapply more mud if necessary and sand it again).  Next will be painting the walls, followed by the decorative tile being laid.  When all that is done, we can grout the whole bathroom and set the toilet!.  What an exciting day that will be.

A couple of weeks ago, we installed four exterior lights in our front yard in an effort to illuminate the outside of our house.  However, the four lights weren’t sufficient to give complete coverage across the whole fascia, leading my friend Nick to comment that it looked like the Amityville (or Amy-tiville) horror house. We ordered two more 50watt lights (the power pack can be loaded up to a max 300watts) a couple of weeks ago and they arrived in the mail yesterday.

I think the illumination is much more even now (compared to the 4-light set up). Still looks like house on the haunted hill though…