Shipping a Mattress

Wow! We have learned many things with this endeavor of ours. We've had many things shipped to the new house. I'm sure our wonderful USPS, UPS and FEDEX drivers are just loving us (enter sarcasm.)

We ordered Cole's new queen size mattress from Wayfair. It is shipped all rolled up in a nice, neat package.

I had no idea this could be done to a queen size mattress. While we were waiting for it to arrive, Mac read the instructions online. We told a lot of people about how this was done. Those people wanted video of the set up...so here it is! Please ignore the snorts, laughs, and commentary!

Procrastination...

I am the world's worst procrastinator (we both are).  HEE HEE HEE! Deb has learned how to hijack Corey's posts!!!When I have a project to do, I really hate to do a little bit at a time.  So, I end up putting off til tomorrow what I could do today.  This week was no exception.  I could have put the drain and overflow in the shower any given evening this past week.  I could have hooked up the electric to the breaker box during the week.  BUT I didn't.  All of Cole's furniture finally arrived Thursday, and when I got home Thursday evening, Deb and Cole were hard at it putting the pieces together.  We spent Thursday and Friday evenings putting Cole's furniture together.  Cole is ready to start sleeping at the new house.  But we won't let him.  He asked why and we told him it is because we make the payments and we will sleep there first.

His room is ready to go.  He wanted carpet on his floor, but we denied him that one thing.  I think his room has turned out beautiful.  Those floors!  Am I right?

There was an estate sale this weekend in town.  I snagged an old Singer sewing machine for Deb's sewing room. This will be the third antique Singer!

We had to meet our good friend Odie in town Saturday afternoon, so I had a hard time getting going.  While we waited for his call, we gathered up trash and some things to take to Beehive.  After we met him and got back home, we decided some pool time was in order so we wasted the rest of the afternoon floating in the pool.  It was a good afternoon for it. We have been terrible pool "parents" this summer. Poor thing was nasty. I spent 3 hours getting it all cleaned up Saturday morning, so the afternoon was hard to resist.

Sunday morning, we got up and got to work on the master bathroom.  After hooking up some temporary lighting, we started insulating the walls.  We did the outside walls for energy reasons and the inside walls for sound control.

Before finishing the insulation, I laid down on the job... I'll keep my comment clean...the VIEW! I had to get the drain and overflow hooked up on the tub before finishing the insulation. 

After the insulation was in, it was time for sheetrock.  Cole was a huge help.  He's been coming around to help more.  I think he has noticed the light at the end of the tunnel growing too.

We started with the ceilings.  If you look closely, you can see where I almost cut the hole for the light box in the wrong place.  Thankfully, Deb spotted my error before I cut it out.  We remeasured (after some discussion) and cut the hole in the right spot.

After the rock was on the ceiling, we installed the LED light fixtures.

I am so looking forward to having a light directly over the shower.  Maybe I am weird, but oh well. OK let me explain. For the past 17 years, we have been showering in a corner shower that has NO LIGHT. The light fixture in our current bathroom is too far away. This is why I still have paint on the backs of my arms after trying to wash it off.

Here we are cutting out the window.  We learned a valuable lesson about sheetrock when we were rocking the closet, so I bought a sheetrock saw to do the bathroom.

So here it is.  We still have some more rock to hang, but our goal today was to get the rock ready to be able to install the vanity before we put the pocket door frame in.  We accomplished that today.

 One of our worries throughout this renovation has been not wanting the house to be too dark.  The wood throughout the house when we bought it gave it a dark feel.  Even the bathroom felt dark until today.  With the blue, mildew and mold resistant sheetrock, the bathroom really brightened up.  (I'm sure the 1,100 lumen LED fixtures didn't hurt anything either.)

We bought a pendant light fixture, identical to the one in the front hallway, to put in the entry way to the master suite.  We will get it put up after we rock the bedroom walls.

Somehow, I only managed to ruin one sheet of sheet rock doing the bathroom.  But we aren't going to talk about that. (insert giggles)

Deb picked up a couple of things at the estate sale.  Our favorite is the fleur de lis candle holder.

It should compliment this wall hanging Deb bought nicely. Yes, yes it will...

The company we bought our cabinet hinges from had some other items we found interesting.  We originally had bought hidden hinges but the were going to be a pain to install.  So we found some that will work out much better.  They worked with us to exchange the ones we bought a while back and we stumbled upon this neat door knocker on their website.

These are the hinges we ended up settling on.

Samantha has been coming around to help some too.  She says she is going to need a room to sleep in on Christmas Eve.  Here is how her room is turning out.  Deb had some valances she had been hanging onto for the last 15 or 20 years that she hung in Sam's room.

So this is where we are.  We have to finish the sheetrock in the master bath and bedroom.    Install, the vanity and medicine cabinet. Finish the plumbing in the master bath.  Tile the bathroom and kitchen.  Have the carpet put in the master bedroom.  Finish the kitchen cabinets.   Install the new counter tops and back splash in the kitchen.  A few other minor things.  And then it is get moved in!



The light is getting bigger

Deb and I noticed a couple of weeks ago that the light at the end of the tunnel is getting bigger.  What started out as a project we knew we could do, turned in to more than we were expecting.  I guess we were a bit naïve, but that hasn't stopped us and we have tried to take our time and do things right.  Deb is hard at it this week, getting her cabinet doors poly urethaned before she starts back to work tomorrow.  Cole and I spent the weekend finishing up the framing of the master bathroom and wiring it while Deb was out of town at a conference.  Now that the living room and front bedrooms are done, we are ready to begin moving stuff in as we work on finishing the back half of the house.  Like I said, the light at the end of the tunnel is growing with each swing of a hammer, each screw sunk, every stroke of a paint brush, every run of wire and every connection of a pipe.  I keep telling Deb we are getting really close to finishing this thing up.

 

Here are half of the cabinet doors, the pickling (white washing) is done and the first coat of poly drying before sanding and the second coat.  We ordered some different hinges that should be here by the weekend.

 

 

Except for the original bathroom, the front of the house is done.  We finished reinstalling the trim in the sewing room last week.  We will be moving her sewing stuff in ASAP.

 

I got the quarter round for Cole's room cut to fit, Deb painted it and I nailed it down last week.  His new black furniture has started arriving piece by piece.  His room is liable to be set up by the end of the weekend.  We ordered a mattress in a box.  If you haven't seen them, go look them up.  They come vacuum shrunk and expand when you cut open the bags.  There is a standing ultimatum from all three of us that we all want to be present for the opening of the mattress.

 

I took another long weekend last weekend. Thursday, Deb and I got the shower leveled up and installed.  Then we had to go spend more money.  We had picked out a vanity and medicine cabinet on Lowes.com, so off we went.  It ended up taking the rest of our day.  We changed our mind, color wise, and ended up getting wood grain instead of white since we will be painting the bathroom.  Then the medicine cabinet they had in stock didn't have the hardware in it.  So Donna called around trying to find us one and ended up just giving us credit for the one we had bought before looking in the box.

 

Friday and Saturday, Cole and I framed the ceiling and finished the wall framing in preparation for sheet rock.  Saturday afternoon, Cole and I pulled wires under the house and into the breaker box and started deciding on light, fan, outlet and switch placement.

 

 

 

 

Here is the scab work we did to fill in above the ceiling joists.  It may or may not be "right" but I am betting it is still there 50 years from now.

 

 

 

By Sunday, Deb and I were both pretty well pooped out but we managed to get the bathroom wired and ready for sheetrock.

 

We decided we will probably need a light in the entry to the master bedroom and put three way switches on it so we wouldn't have to walk in the dark an extra 5 feet.

 

 

Deb plans to put a small vanity table against this wall, so we put an outlet in it and put a switch for the light over the shower.

 

 

Switches for the main light, vanity light and fan will be above the vanity and outlets will be opposite them on the other side of the medicine cabinet.

 

Fan is ready to suck the steam and stink out of the bathroom.

 

 

 

Vacation Time

Deb can tell you, I rarely take anytime off work.  Other than the occasional Friday for a weekend get away, I just hate taking time off work.  The last 4 or 5 years there have only been two of us in the parts department, so I really have felt guilty about leaving Ronnie there to handle the place alone.  A month or so ago, the company I work for made the hard decision to close the doors on one of our stores. My boss offered the store manager at that store the opportunity to stay with the company and come work in my store.  So, Ronnie and I have an extra man in the parts department now and I don't feel guilty about taking a few extra days off.  Since I didn't have to work Saturday, I took Thursday and Friday off as well to get some serious work done on the house.  The light at the end of the tunnel is much larger than it was.

 

I just realized it's been 3 weeks since I updated the blog.  The last time I updated, Joe was working on the floors and since then we went on our annual camping trip on Degray Lake with Rob and Gina and their parents.  Normally, we stay two full weeks but we chose this year to stay over two weekends and the week between them  to get more done on the house before heading out to camp.

 

So here is the update.  Joe finished with the floors and HOLY COW they are awesome.  I can just sit and study them for hours.

 

Here's a nice before and after of Samantha's room.

 

Before

 

 

After

 

We got started Thursday filling in the siding where the chimney used to be on the back of the house.  Then with Cole's help we got the outside door installed in the bedroom.

 

 

Then, just when I thought we were done for the night, Deb was pretty sure we had time to replace the kitchen door as well.  Turns out she was right.  Since I had the steps fresh in my mind, Cole and I went for it.

 

Old door removed.

 

 

Cutting the brick molding down flush with the door frame.

 

Blowing the sawdust off the door.

 

Everything lined up nice except the dead bolt.   Here I am grinding out the bolt plate to fit.

 

Door installed and ready for trim.

 

Cole tries to steer clear of work, but when we can get him up to the house to help, he really is quite handy.  He is also really hard to get a good picture of, but this one is Facebook profile quality if you ask me.

 

Friday morning, Dad and I got started early building the roofline out where the chimney was removed.  It was bad hot and we didn't get much done after that.  We ended up making a trip to Hardman's for lumber, plumbing supplies and bathroom accessories.  I really need to walk through Hardman's warehouse about once a week.  For a local lumber yard, they have almost everything you could possibly need to build/renovate a house.  Every time I am in their warehouse I think to myself, "Crap, I didn't know they had that."

 

 

Deb had tried painting the vent hood over the stove but the paint bubbled up on her.  So she had to scrape and strip the old paint off and try something different.

 

Mark Burhnam hooked her up with some rust stop primer and paint.  It took three days of work but the vent hood is done and looks great.

 

 

Scraping paint off a hand made metal vent hood is dangerous work...

 

First coat going on.

 

 

And the final product.

 

I like the way it turned out.

 

Most of the day Saturday was spent repairing the floors in preparation for building the master bathroom.  We had to build up the floor where the hearth was removed and there was a spot that had rotted all the way through the subfloor from a washer drain leak.

 

After repairing the floor issues, we had time and energy to put the first wall up for our new bathroom.

 

Checking for plumb.

 

 

Approximate shower/tub placement.

 

Today, we built the other bathroom wall.  We drew out a plan, cut out the lumber and laid it out on the floor.

 

 

Then we nailed it all together.

 

Then lifted it into place, checked for plumb and square, and nailed it all together.

 

The bathroom is now roughed in and ready for the pocket door kit to be installed.  We originally planned to use a 30" door, but because of space constraints had to go with a 28" door.  So we will have to return the 30" door slab to Hardman's and get a  28" instead.

 

So that was our four day weekend.  I'm sure some people would have accomplished more but I like to know exactly what is to come before I start each phase.

 

OH YEAH!  The floors.  I guess everyone would like to see the finished product...

 

Here is an up close view of one of my favorite boards.  The way the poly urethane pulled the grains up still baffles me.

 

 

Looking down from the living room down the front hall.

 

Excuse the mess, but here's the living room.

 

Cole's room.

 

Sam's room.

 

Deb's sewing room.

 

And the side hall.

 

That's it for now.  Lots of little things to do now.  Like I said earlier in the post, the light at the end of the tunnel is getting bigger.  We can now see the end of this undertaking and are more than ready to get finished and moved in.