Painted bathroom and a kitchen with walls and a ceiling

A few anxiety attacks later and we are near completion of the main floor bathroom. The anxiety attacks had less to do with the bathroom and more to do with the kitchen. Friday, December 19 was supposed to be a day of bliss for me as I took off the day from work with the intention of lots of fun errands and "me" time. The electrician had a different plan for me and I soon found myself tending to his needs and removing insulation. Thankfully I made it through the day and then escaped to Sioux Falls, SD where I enjoyed a week without fiberglass and dust particles in my space.

Here is where we stand for both projects:

Main Floor Bathroom
- one more coat of paint on the ceiling
- toilet, sink and faucet installation
- vent cover installation
- bathtub refinishing
- towel and paper bar installation
- shower curtain rod installation and new shower curtain purchase

Kitchen
- too many things to list!

Yay! We have a ceiling and two walls! No more exposed insulation! I can see a glimmer of light at the end of the dark, dirty tunnel!

This wall is turning out to be a big problem - more specifically the heat duct is a big problem. Aaron and his friend Brad are suggesting that we move the refrigerator closer to the range and lose about 4" of cabinet/counter on each side of the range. However, in doing so, we could have a pantry where the heat duct is located (which is what the original kitchen featured).

Day 9 of Bathroom Construction and Day 1 of Kitchen Construction

Jed and Nate continued tiling today. The floor is now tiled and the rest of the wall and the base board tile is installed. It looks awesome! I think they just need to grout the wall tile and then that step in the project will be complete! It is looking like I'll have a new bathroom by the new year!






Good news on the kitchen front! Phil the Plumber was able to come over to install water lines for the sink and the ice maker. If all goes as planned, Harry the Electrician will start work on Friday. I am probably the only person in the world who would want to document this step.



Last night I walked to Artistic Floors and picked out the marmoleum. I surprised myself by choosing a much darker color than I thought I was going to go with. It is Armstrong charcoal gray. I also settled on the countertop- Wilsonart laminate in mystique dusk. I am still trying to figure out paint color. Most of our walls will be covered in cabinets so I am not going to stress out about this too much. I am leaning toward green and current contenders are: celadon green, pale sea mist, wales green, guilford green, georgian green, dill pickle and sweet daphne. I can't figure out a way to show you these colors. But I took a photo of them on top of the flooring sample:

Day 2 of Kitchen Demo

Today I removed the rest of the sheet rock from the walls and I removed the ceiling. I seemed to have forgotten from the bathroom demo that when one removes a ceiling, insulation comes falling down. I was going to say crashing down but what makes loose insulation so nasty is that it is quite fluffy and creates a gigantic mess. I am not going to lie- I had it up my nose at one point. Fortunately Scott went and bought a big blue tarp to attempt to limit the amount of dust in the dining and living rooms. Don't get me wrong, there is still a layer of dust on everything in our home.

After another 6 hours of work today, I had a mini meltdown. Scott was there to keep it from turning into a full-blown meltdown with hugs and a suggestion of going to my favorite Indian restaurant tonight.

The gigantic dumpster will hopefully be gone by the time I get home from work on Monday. I am so looking forward to a week in my parent's home. Scott asked me if the project would be done when we got back. I just laughed (and cried on the inside).

Here are the photos:








I hate this insulation. Imagine this stuff falling down on hour head. It will take several washes before my hair feels clean.

Day 8 of Bathroom Construction and Day 1 of Kitchen Demo

Friday, December 12, 2008

Today Aaron installed the crown moulding and Jed started tiling the shower surround. It is really starting to look "sharp" as my dad would say. Jed has asked me to decide between white and dark gray grout for the subway tile. Traditionally it is white but darker grout colors have benefits in making cleaning easier.

After Aaron finished the crown moulding, he and Jed were kind enough to move our electric range so that demo could begin. They also moved the portable dishwasher to the basement. Scott sterilizes his beer bottles in the dishwasher so we may keep the portable dw for that purpose. It could also be his work surface for transferring and bottling beer.

Aaron also helped me figure out how to remove the cabinets. Because they were built into the walls he basically had to remove them board by board. Each board had about 25 long nails sticking out of them. Tetanus waiting to happen! Aaron ended up removing all of the cabinets and the countertop (wait- I did remove two parts of the countertop and the microwave shelf!

After Aaron left, I got busy removing 98% of the sheet rock on the walls. Tomorrow Scott and I will finish the demo.

Here are photos of the bathroom:







Here are the photos from the kitchen demo:


Removing this fake brick paneling was nearly as fulfilling as removing the old shower surround!







The heat vent pictured here may cause problems for the layout. The refrigerator is to go there and we had no idea there was a vent there. This may ruin my desire for a more open feel between the kitchen and dining area :(. I'll keep you updated.

Okay, I am totally falling asleep at the computer. I think it is time to rest these aching bones.

File this under "What was I thinking?"

On Tuesday, December 9, I came home to find this:



It isn't that I didn't plan on this happening but I didn't know it would happen on this particular day so it was pretty shocking to walk into my door to see a gaping hole in the ceiling and a wall missing.

Here is the before:


I have ordered the dumpster for the demo this weekend. I have talked with the electrician and the cabinet maker has created the final plans. I have also ordered the window which we are replacing so that we can have counter top across the span of the north wall.

Here are the plans:








Note: I do not want the upper cabinet to the left of the window
so I have asked to have it removed from the plan.



Here is our temporary kitchen:

Days 4-7 of Construction

Monday, December 8 - Thursday, December 11, 2008

I have decided that mudding is my least favorite of the construction - it is so slow so taking photos of the progress is like watching grass grow. The most exciting part is that Aaron was able to fix the rotten wood under the glass block window. Also, Jed the tile guy ripped out the floor and decided to go all the way down to the sub-floor. So, the tile will be level with our wood floor!

Here's the most recent photos:



Jed was unable to install a recessed shelf on the wall on the right-hand side of the photo because of electrical wires. Bummer! Oh well, he's going to install corian shelves in the corner which will still be pretty cool.



I can't wait to see this floor with the tile on it!



I love that Aaron is using my checklist! Even better that he is using a hot pink mini sharpie!

Days 2 & 3 of Construction

Friday, December 5 and Saturday, December 6

Aaron installed the sheet rock on Friday and starting the mudding process on Saturday. I purchased the toilet (the cost covered by our change jar!) and only have the purchase of towel rack/ring and TP holder remaining.

Photos:

Day 1 of Construction

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Aaron called me at 7:30 AM to discuss my preference in light switches and gave me the plan for the day. I was at home when he arrived because I set up a meeting with the cabinet maker for the pending kitchen project. Aaron got to work right away on finishing the demo - toilet is now in the dumpster! He then attacked the bath fan installation. This aspect of the project is proof that construction is not always straight forward. Because of the roof line, stucco, floor joists and other terms of which I have minimal understanding, Aaron had to be extremely creative in finding a solution to venting the fan outside. I was prepared to return from work to learn that he was unable to install the fan. However, Aaron worked his magic and had great success! He also did the electrical work for the light fixture and light/bath fan switches.

Here are the photos from today:


New bath fan.




Left: Light fixtures without the shades. Right: The wood around the glass block window will need repair due to water damage.


Left to right: (1) The toilet is now gone! (2) Aaron's check list! (3) New light and fan switch/dimmer.

New Faucets

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Before I start my journey south, I'd like to give a small update on the bathroom remodel. While returning the crow bar I didn't use during the demo to Lowes, I picked up the sink and tub/shower faucets. I was going to go with Moen Banbury but instead went with Kohler Fairfax because I thought the script writing indicating the hot and cold levers was cute.

Here are the new faucets and also a couple more photos of the current state of our main floor bathroom:

If These Walls Could Talk

Sunday, November 23, 2009

After a bright and early trip to Lowes, I was ready to start Day 2 of Demolishing the main floor bathroom. Howard Johnson (only in Minnesota!) helped me find the right tool to remove the sink from the P-trap. He also explained that all I needed to do to remove the sconces was to untwist the wire nuts and untangle the house wire from the lighting wire. It took me like 2 minutes to do it once I knew what I was doing. The biggest job for me today was to remove the ceiling and the dura-rock walls around the bath/shower. The trim was really difficult to remove but I did it! I was tired after all that tugging so I gave up on the baseboards, toilet and some of the sheetrock. I figure I should leave some for Aaron!

I really wish my bathroom would have given me a clue that there was loose insulation above the ceiling. Most of it was in sheets but there is a random area where it was probably blown in. It all came down like dirty (toxic) snow. It was such a hassle to clean up and definitely diminished my interest in construction!

Here's my day in photos:

The loose insulation is above. I wish it all would have been that pretty pink stuff. At least then it wouldn't have been such a pain to clean.


This is where the sink was. I can't believe I was able to pull everything down today.


I can't wait to have nice smooth walls and ceiling. I am hoping the white subway tiles will look good with the glass block window. The real treat will be when the bathtub is resurfaced. I will take the most well-deserved bubble bath then!