Kitchen is 100% complete!

Construction is almost over!!!

We have a fully functional and completed kitchen! Who knew 1 month ago when this room was bare studs that it would look this awesome! We couldnt be happier.

We are still undecided on the backsplash but that can be done later on.
The color we used on the walls is Behr: Bicycle Yellow

The oven & fridge are Kenmore Elite and from Sears Outlet- love them!
The microwave is LG and is from PC Richard.
The cabinets, countertop, sink & dishwasher (Whirlpool) are from Ikea.


Look at the pictures!!

MA! THE MEATLOAF! WE GOT A KITCHEN!

As of this past Saturday we were 100% kitchenless. No cabinets, no appliances, no floor.
By Wednesday we have a 90% completed one! We ordered our cabinets on Saturday afternoon from Ikea. What a horrendous experience that was, although worth it to save $3500.00 and have the exact style of cabinets we wanted.

We also received our oven and fridge delivery on Saturday afternoon. Sears outlet! Go there! No pushy sales people and the deals are excellent.

Our floors are 100% finished as of Tuesday and that goes throughout the entire house. Finally!!

Ikea made the cabinet delivery on Sunday and we began to put them together. We were missing a couple pieces (SURPRISE!) but were able to put about 4 cabinets together. The next day Ashwood called and told us not to put anymore together and that they had to do it due to insurance issues and bc of our mortgage. Great! Less for me to do! So on Tuesday, John from Ashwood brought his crew in to build our cabinets. Poor guy...he was probably cursing us the entire time. See Ikea doesnt do words....they do pictures so the instructions were a ton of fun to figure out. But these guys are true professionals and got the job done with no complaints. I had to go back to Ikea on Tuesday night to grab some of the missing pieces. Another nightmare. I swear I lose a year off my life every time I walk into that place.

Anyway...yesterday we get an email from Ashwood with PICTURES of the cabinets UP! Whaaaat? We hauled ass off the train and headed over to the house. Its amazing! I looooove it.
We are still missing the door for the corner cabinet, the panel isnt on the dishwasher yet adnd the fridge isnt installed yet but its almost done!

We bought a ceiling fan & our faucet. The plumber is coming Friday to finish off the plumbing & hook up the stove since its gas.

I knew they would do an amazing job but it looks so much cooler (and bigger!) than I ever imagined. We definitely need some color in there on the walls. Too much white! We're still undecided on backsplash.

Check out the double apron sink & butcher block counters! Yummy!

New Siding/Refinished floors!

The new siding went up on the house a couple of weeks ago but we havent had the time to take any pictures of it. The front of the house doesn't really look any different than it did previously....just cleaner! We did vinyl shake on the front and dutchlap around the rest of the house. The color is cape cod gray. We will probably be getting some shutters (blk) up there soon as well as a new front door (red). Check out our fancy schmancy porch light! Love it!

Now...about the floors. We had to have the pine wood floors refinished. Originally we thought there was only some linoleum and some sticky tile on the kitchen floor so to keep to our fairly tight budget we were going to put down a wood laminate floor to keep with the theme of the house. Well when we started peeling up the floor we found under 3 subfloors- REAL WOOD! yippee! We wanted to have the kitchen darker than the floors in the rest of the house so we asked to stain the kitchen only a very dark brown. The rest of the floors were to remain as they were. Well...we get to the house on Friday night. Boy were we excited to finally see our newly stained kitchen. We unlock to door, open and look down on the living room floor....oh my god its so dark....oh my god they stained the whole floor.....oh no....WHAT DID THEY DO!?
Yep folks....the entire floor was stained dark brown.

After perusing the rooms I thought to myself "I kinda like it..." but I didnt want to say anything to Hugo since he had steam shooting from his ears. He was pissed....I was more pissed about the lack of communication rather than the outcome of it. The contactor was called and was so upset with himself that it wasnt what we wanted. We set up a time the next morning to go back and discuss our options. So we slept on it and when we got back to the house in the morning we fell in love with it. The whole thing. It looks badass! At least now all of the floors will be consistent with each other- no weird color changes.

Oh did I forget to introduce you to our new house guests? That was rude... Meet the McFlies!
Apparently when we started up our plumbing again after years of non-use we pissed off an underground fly colony from cesspoolville. They came up through open drain pipes in the house. WTF! It looked like the Amityville Horror! Flies all over our windows, walls, ceiling....PUKE! The picture I posted doesnt even do this story justice- its from a day later and also a basement window- these suckers were in each window by the hundreds on Friday.

The contractor came by and put some sticky traps up and opened up some of the windows to let them escape...luckily most of them are gone. I'm just praying we wont have any laminated flies on our freshly finished wood floors....

til next time!

Garden/Landscape pics!

We finally got around to taking some pictures of the outside of the house/gardens. I've been promising my Aunt Lynn outdoor pictures since before we closed on this damn house so Aunt Lynn this post is for you!!

bathroom is done! mostly.....

It's been a while, I know. Been crazy busy with house/work/life and we kept forgetting to bring the camera to the house.
A lot has been completed since last update. We now have a finished bathroom!!!
The only thing not done is the vanity counter top- which was a special order item and the pulls for the vanity drawers. Also a piece of the wall that needed some spackling - note in photo- we'll have to go touch that up with some blue. But you get the idea.

Our siding & windows are also complete. It looks beautiful- pictures on that later. We need to get some shutters - black of course and we're going to buy a new front door (RED!)
We bought a garage door from home depot that will really fit the whole cape cod theme we have going. Once all of these things are done i will take pictures, i promise!

Anyway...sheetrock and spackle was done in the kitchen- its looking a lot more like a real room now. So many outlets too!

This past Saturday we had the genius idea of taking the white painted over wallpaper off the walls in both bedrooms. GENIUS! ugh! Peeling it was a breeze! Oh no! Oh wait.....theres another layer of wallpaper underneath. Ok no big deal...we'll just peel that off too. Scrape if we have to. OH NO...OH GOD THERES ANOTHER LAYER OF WALLPAPER! WTF PEOPLE? Who wallpapers over wallpaper- 2 TIMES?! This is impossible and going to be a huge project that we definitely werent prepared for. But now its far too late. See the disgusting pictures.

We are still not able to move in yet which is a huge bummer. The floors arent finished or even started yet. No bueno. We were told now it will be complete by next Friday, the 23rd. Its only next Friday but it feels so far away!

Anyway...let me know what you think of the bathroom. We love it!

It's amazing what a few days can do

So many new updates! not a lot of pictures though since it was dark out when we got to the house. Well...The siding is on the house! I think it looks great! The front is the vinyl shake style and its dutch-lap vinyl all around the rest of the house. It's the same color as the siding we had replaced which is "cape cod gray". The windows went in today. I'm told it looks great!

I DO have pictures of the progress of the bathroom though. Sheetrock went up and the subfloor is laid down. It's actually looking like a real room now! I am a little concerned though that the bathroom wont be done before the 7th like they said it would be. I dont know how long tile takes to do but i imagine its gotta be a couple days to dry grout and whatnot. Plus we're tiling the entire tub enclosure so that has to be time consuming.

They are also putting sheetrock up in the kitchen today! We put a hold on the kitchen cabinets...we feel like theres gotta be better prices out there than what we got. Ashwood said they would supply us with 2 more quotes so we're just waiting on those.

All of the electric was run through the kitchen and the bathroom too. Theres soooo many outlets in the kitchen! I love it!!

I want those damn floors done though so we can start moving stuff in! It's driving me crazy not being able to go "home".

I'll try to get some pics of the outside of the house this weekend. Hugo left his camera at work. DOH!

sorry about the crappy iphone photos. It's all i had!

comment away!

Sorry, anyone can comment now. I had it set for registered users only. Woops!

EY MA! THERES WOOD UNDA THERE!

Well its been a couple days since my last update. Things are still moving right along.
The tub is in the bathroom now with all new pipes run. Unfortunately the man who did the plumbing cut one of the pipes that ran from the radiator and didn't plug the end of it. Well...now theres a giant puddle in my basement that just got bigger as the weekend went on. We put a bucket under where the drip was coming from but the bucket fills up within a few hours. This made me a little uneasy since it was dripping ONTO the washing machine and washing machine = plugs and plugs = electricity. Good times. The plumber was due back today to finish his mess. We are told the bathroom will be finalized on July 7th the latest. I really hope so. This nomad lifestyle is reallllllllly getting to me. I'm totally exhausted.

They are also starting the siding today. I know it will end up looking beautiful when its finished but we arent getting what we had originally wanted. We ARE getting what we wanted on the FRONT of the house though. So at least theres that. Of course what we wanted was going to cost 4x what we had budgeted for though....soooo....it is what it is. Next house...hah!

We also went to finalize our kitchen cabinets on Saturday. Its pretty much exactly what we wanted. Just not Ikea and I think we're better off without the Ikea. I have a feeling it would have been a total disaster. I have actually had nightmares about the cabinets falling off of the wall in the middle of the night. Eeek. One exciting thing though is that we can buy our appliances now that we know what size we have to get! 30" oven, 36" fridge, etc. Cant wait!!!! I just want to bake and cook.

Anyway...on Sunday Hugo and KP (my brother in-law) went over to the house to rip up the kitchen floor. There were 3 floors to rip up. The boys were there for at least 6 hours. It's amazing neither of them had a heart attack in this heat wave. The windows were closed since theres no screens, no A/C either. Just some standard floor fans blowing around hot air.

First was the icky vinyl (what is wrong with you people???? a giant piece of ugly vinyl? are you crazy??), then sticky tiles made of asbestos from the 40's (sweeeet), and then a plywood subfloor on top of a REAL WOOD FLOOR. Seriously, the wood floor had to have only been used in there for a couple of years. Under all of the glue from the subfloor (yes it was glued down to the real wood) it looks amazing. Cant wait to sand and stain that bad boy....just like new! See pictures of all of that....


I don't plan on going back out to the house until late this week. Thursday possibly. I hope to have some real good progress pictures by then.

Until next time!

I love this house

We had to drop off the valve set and trims for the tub since the plumber is coming to install the tub tomorrow. We had to stop off at home depot since we were out there and needed to buy some more subway tile for the walls around the tub. We ended up spending a little more than we wanted to but figure with the money we are saving by not needing a new floor in the kitchen it was OK.

We noticed when we got to the house that the electrician had been there marking on the wall where he would be running more sockets. Some of them had "$" & "$$" next to them....hmmmm?

Here's something kinda awesome though...theres a soffit (spelling?) from the living/dining room into the kitchen separating it and we had discussed taking it down to make the transition more flush from one room to another but we kinda like it so we're going to keep it. But when the contractors were removing the mirrored built-ins, the tops of the them were actually part of the soffit so theres 2 big holes on either side of it...no big deal. BUT! When whoever installed this thing was building it, he stuffed newspaper in it (why, im not sure). The newspaper was from 1942! The front cover was about a war hero from WWII and the back cover was about (muh boys) THE NY RANGERS beating the Bruins with a full team picture on the back. We are definitely going to try to do something with it...frame it or whatever.

I gotta say though, I fall more in love with this house every time I see it. Even bare bones gutted in certain rooms I still get the chills because I know that the outcome of all of this is going to be AMAZING and so "us".

We also started looking at paint colors. Holy crap....this is the hardest part! I'm leaning towards a very light blue color in the bathroom...we need color. Right now its black & white and wainscoting installed going halfway up the wall. Also white.

For the kitchen.....I found my color. We're working with white cabinets
(beadboard and glass) and butcher block counters w/stainless appliances. Kinda blah and standard....but when you add a shade of PINK into the mix what do you get? The coolest freakin kitchen you've ever seen, thats what! I've got pink everything....stand mixer, hand mixer, chopper, baking pans, and god only knows what else. Did I mention I havent seen any of my bridal shower gifts since....well what do you know...a year ago this week...aka my bridal shower!? It's gonna be like Christmas in July when i actually get to see/use all of this stuff. I refused to take anything out of the boxes until I had a proper living situation. A year later....

No pictures this time though. Good night!

Moving right along!

A lot of stuff got done yesterday. The men at Ashwood are like machines!

The termite damaged section of the support beam in the basement was replaced (see pic) along with the sill plate.




















The Bathroom was gutted down to bare studs! Luckily there were no surprises behind the walls so we got lucky there (knock on wood).

The kitchen was gutted down to studs on the right side (where the sink will be) and the wall for the breakfast bar was cut down.

They also removed the glass/mirrored built in on the left side of the doorway.

In the far kitchen window we had a few friends who set up living quarters. Friends that could potentially kill me. No bueno. 4...count em 4(!!) hornet nests in the window! The lovely men at Ashwood removed them when they removed all of the screens and storms from all of the windows.

We also found out that the wood floors in the living/dining room continue into the kitchen! Jackpot! No need to buy new flooring which is helpful.

The Plumber and Electrician are coming today & tomorrow to scope out the situation. We desperately need more outlets in this house!

The plumber has a lot of work in front of him...we are moving the tub to the far wall instead of where it previously was on the right wall. Toilet and vanity are moving to the right wall from the left wall. I'm really hoping this layout makes the bathroom a bit more roomy than it used to be. It was TIGHT before.

Enjoy the pics!

Faucet Fail

minor set back...
blood pressure rising....

did someone say BACON! (Veg of course!)

Hugo snapped a photo of the demo progress....Remember those ugly mirrored built in's in the living/dining room? If you forgot let me refresh your memory...















Now! Take a gander at our handy dandy new breakfast bar! The built-in to the left is still there for now but that will soon be a China Cabinet OR where the place where the piano will live. :)

Some Demo Action!

So this kitchen that we are replacing....its quite OG. The person who installed the cabinets built them ON the wall. None of this new jack pre-assemble, then hang stuff. The wood is like 2" thick and the moldings had been painted over a good few times.

Hugo was determined to save this piece of household history and decided that before the professional demo crew came in on Monday/Tuesday that he would take the cabinets down and we would put them in the basement/laundry center. Not a bad idea. Piece by piece the cabinets came down- and eventually the entire right side of the kitchen was gone. See pictures!

There was a refrigerator in the kitchen that we moved down to the basement. You can always use a basement fridge!

Hugo is going out to the house today because Home Depot is delivering all of the materials (AND BBQ!). Hopefully he will remember to take photos of the bathroom being demo'd. Well at least I hope it is by now! I'll be glad to see that room go.

Until next time!

some more before pictures....

1) Kitchen Cabinets (before)

2) Icky Bathroom (before)

3) Upstairs - soon to be master bed

4) Another Upstairs

We Finally Closed!!!!

Well after 1 full year of being in contract on (2) different houses we finally closed on our house in Huntington Station on Long Island! I honestly never thought we'd be able to afford a house on Long Island but thanks to a crappy economy our wildest dreams came true! Not without some major headaches and possibly a few emotional meltdowns though. Good times!

Here's some before pictures of the house....these are actually all from the real estate listing.

We took out a 203k Rehab Loan which is a construction loan that is rolled into your mortgage but with much lower interest rates and spread out over 30 years. At this point in time i'm going to say its a good idea if you dont have a ton of money in the bank to do major renovations but found a house thats a "fixer upper" at an excellent price. I hope I won't be singing a different tune when this is all done. But we are working with Ashwood Construction and they definitely seem to have their act together which is a big relief. Not just any contractor can work with this type of loan and most would rather not go through the hastle because its a lot of paperwork on their end. They have been great through the mortgage obtaining process and quick with getting us all of the paperwork we needed.

So here's a breakdown of all of the work we're going to be getting done:

+New Kitchen (total gut reno)
+New Bathroom (total gut reno)
+Refinishing wood floors throughout house
+New Windows
+New Siding
+Asbestos removal in basement
+Replace part of main support beam


Theres definitely more but thats the major stuff. We will also be doing some renovations on our own including a craft room, making the entire uptairs of the house into a master bedroom (currently unfinished), and man cave in the basement!

Stay tuned for more pictures and updates!