Cousin Leo

Category: finishing touches

  • Day 10 – the second Sunday

    Day 10 – finally feeling like we are making progress. We are so grateful to have had Chris’ help again for the day – he and Marc banged out the sheetrock and insulation installation in the master bedroom. And even three days later the odor is definitely gone… without sealing the floor yet!

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    Marc made sure that we were able to leave our mark on the house before he sealed it up – how cute is that!? (see the header)

    While the boys focused on the master, mom and I concentrated our efforts on the office – touching up all trim, installing baseboards and clearing it out so that come Monday morning we could work from the new house.

    photo-c

    That means that 3 of the 6 rooms are ready for move-in – to be fair, it’s the 3 easiest rooms, but, I’ll take it – Hooray!

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  • Fireplace Ideas

    Before I finish the “Day 10” post, I thought I’d share a little ray of sunshine to help us all get through the tedium of the demo/rebuild phase.

    I had a brainstorm last night that I am really excited about!

    The fireplace is crumbling from the inside and is not and will never be functional without rebuilding it completely. So, rather than even consider spending money on that, we thought we’d leave it, clean it, fill it with pretty stacked wood and make it a design focal point.

    The Photoshop hackery below shows what I’m thinking for the room.

    BEFORE:

    1

    Clean fireplace, stack some pretty wood in it, and paint the tiny mantle (someday we’ll make that larger):

    2

    Mom had the great idea to make the hearth a bench. She is going to make a box pillow for us, probably in a neutral gray upholstery fabric:

    3

    So,  that’s about what I was thinking before, but, what about an extended bench!?

    4

    Am I right!?

    Yes, I agree that extending the bench on both sides would be better, but, I don’t think our Eames will fit if we have the bench on the other side, however, once we actually move in I’ll be able to tell.

    And here’s a rough idea of how it will look when we move in our existing media cabinet, red pouf,  weirdly hacked couch representation and Eames lounge with our new rug:

    5

    There is another option – paint the stone white and enlarge the mantle:

    6

    I’m finding that it’s important for me to keep focus on the design part of the house and not the rebuild, so as not to fall into a deep hole of sadness and despair.

     

    Someday we will actually live in our house.

    Someday we will actually live in our house.

    Someday we will actually live in our house…

  • Day 9 – The second Saturday

    We had hoped we’d be moving in on this day.
    HAAAAAAA HA HA HA HA HA!

    Choosing not to dwell on the nagging feeling that we will never actually live in the house that we are paying a mortgage on, we trudged onward.

    Marc decided to rip out all exterior-wall sheetrock to check for termite damage and since he was doing that we decided to add insulation. Sadly that meant removing the sheetrock that had been installed earlier in the week, but, in the long run it was a good call. The first task was to replace any boards that were severely eaten. Finally a bit of luck falls our way – the only boards that needed to be removed were about 40% of the bottom plates in that room. (See how well I’m not dwelling? Me = bright side)

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    While he was busy making sure that our walls didn’t fall down, mom and I cleaned and re-caulked the shower and tub. I may actually allow myself and my family to use it now.

    before-after-tub

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  • Day 8

    Another post-work evening session at the house saw me putting the finishing touches on Harrison’s room. I caulked the baseboards and installed his new light.

    I can’t express how happy this made me. There are 6 rooms in the house. And we had finished one! We were 16% complete!

    For real – we didn’t do that much, but, man does it look better!

    h-before-after

     

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  • Day 2

    Removing the baseboards from the master bedroom unleashed a shocking mess of odor, moisture damage, and remnants of termites. The smell was so potent that we actually believe that the bulk of the moisture damage to the bottom plate came from the animals. And the termites seem to have loved the soft wood caused by that and went to town. Those had to be replaced.

    And then… after seeing some friends that day who had been through this same problem before – we were advised to go further than just replacing the baseboards and bottom plate – we were told from experience that those efforts would not cure the problem. We needed to rip out at least 4 feet of the sheetrock as well as etch & seal the floor. Well, there goes all ideas of moving in any time soon.

    So, Kylie got a chance to bash the crap out of the master bedroom walls – which is only fair considering she did most of the dirty work in there.

    While Marc and Kylie continued to destroy the master bedroom…

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    I was busy painting walls and trim in Harrison’s room, trying to get at least ONE room completed (Harrison got to choose his paint color – “Zen Morning” and the trim for the whole house is white semi-gloss). And I was lucky enough to get a helper… on a Saturday night at 9pm! Even broken, Coty is amazing…

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    Coty’s husband, Tony also helped out lugging the impossibly heavy bags of demo out to the dumpster.

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    We seriously have the most amazing friends.

    And just for fun, Kylie and I decided that for a change of pace, we’d take a whack at ripping out some of the kitchen floor.

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