Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Construction zone, part 2...

Hi Everyone!  I'm back for a little update.  The bad news is I'm still living in the middle of a construction zone.  But the good news is I'm getting closer to being done.  I can actually see a light at the end of the tunnel.  Part of the reason I haven't shared more in progress posts is that I didn't want to post anything here that I hadn't shared with my mom first.  And I wasn't ready to show her anything until this last week.  She hasn't been to the house to see it in person yet, but she has seen a lot of pictures.
One of the reasons it has taken so long is that I ended up removing the wall panels from the kitchen walls that my grandpa had put up (but were very ugly) then removing the layers of wall paper, repairing a couple of bad spots of the plaster and then applying new mud to the walls to give the walls texture.
I hadn't planned on doing this to all the walls in the kitchen right now.  Originally I was just going to remove the panels from the west wall and come back this winter to do the other walls, but I ended up doing them all at once.  It's been a long month working on the walls, but they look great and I'm so happy with how they turned out.
 Once the walls in the kitchen were primed and painted, I focused on the floor.  The carpet had been removed but in the process, a couple of the tiles pulled up since the carpet had been glued to the tiles.  I repaired the floors....I probably should have put new sub flooring, but I decided not to.  And I really like the floor.  I put the same floor down in the bathroom and laundry room as I did in the kitchen.  I like it so well that I'm going to put it down in the small living room too.
The base cabinets, counter top, sink and faucet have all been set and I now have water in the kitchen!  It only took just over two and half months but it was so worth the wait.  And I even have a small dishwasher although I haven't used it yet.  I installed an apartment size dishwasher to fit the space by the sink.  This house has never had a dishwasher.  I still have work to do on the exposed brick and the wall behind the stove (the stove is still not hooked up yet) and the back splash by the sink.  I also have to put the second coat of paint on the base cabinets.  But it's coming along.
I also started work on the island using the buffet that my cousin rescued from the garbage last year as the base.  I'm reworking the drawers and converting the doors into pull out drawers with self closing glides.  I also need to finish the cabinet I started building to house pretty dishes and hide small appliances.  And then I need to build the cabinet that will become the food pantry.  And there's a list of other projects that need to be done and trim that needs to be either installed or painted.
Once I'm done with the kitchen, I'll go back and finish the laundry room cabinets and the very long list of things in the bathroom.  Still no sink in there but it's because I need to work on the built in cabinet that my grandfather built that I have to finish the bottom half of where the tub had been.  And since I don't want to install the sink, then uninstall it to work on the built it and then install it again, I'm just going without a sink for now.
And during all of this construction, I've been working on lots of orders.  I'm getting closer to the end and to being able to show you everything that I've been doing.  Next time I'll show you some of the before pictures....back when it was my grandparents home.  Thanks for stopping by.