A Day Late....

But hopefully not a dollar short.....Things this week are running a bit behind due to a busy weekend.  Sunday, which is normally the day that I write up all the posts for the week, was spent driving to Cincinnati to meet my brand new niece Coraline.  New babies trump new blog posts--sorry.

But I'm back now, and yesterday I had a chance to take some pictures of the progress in our Master Bathroom and Family Room, and I thought I'd share with you.  First, the Master Bathroom.

Here is where we started:

This was the odd vanity area that was technically part of the bedroom.

And the actual bathroom.  The shower is behind the door.

It was the world's grossest shower.  Awful!

 So here's where we are now:

The new shower.
Back where the old one was, but much bigger and nicer.

The tub where the old extra vanity was.  

Looking back into the bedroom from the shower

And a close up of the paint color.

So here's what we've done:  First we took down the wall the separated the "extra vanity area" from the actual bathroom to make it all one big room.  We also closed off the entrance to the closet and moved it to the bedroom.  That will allow us to put the vanity on the wall where the old closet door was.  In order to do this, we also had to move the door way to the bathroom over a bit.  We added a tub where the old extra vanity was, enlarged the shower, moved the toilet over a little bit, and are putting in a pocket door.

The floor tile is down, but you can't see it in the pictures.  My Dad came up one weekend and did the tile for us, which was a huge help.  Landon painted the walls for me a week or so ago.  It is a nice blue-grey that goes well with the shower tile and coordinates with the wall color in the bedroom.  In fact, I took a picture looking into the bathroom from the bedroom to try and capture that.

So you can't really see the wall color in the bathroom from this angle, but it at least gives you some idea of what is going on.  And, in case you were wondering, the rest of the bedroom looks like this:

The vanity is living in here for now, until we're ready to put it in (soon) as is a bunch of other stuff.  The pile of pint stuff is extra insulation that will get blown into the attic above the bedroom and bathroom once we are done cutting holes in the ceiling.  We've already had to replace the insulation over the entire main space (I'm showing you those pictures later this week).

So that's what's been going on the bathroom.  As soon as we get the bathroom done, we can actually move into our bedroom!  And since this post is already pretty long, I'm going to save the photos of the family room for tomorrow, so stay tuned.

A Whole Lotta Grouting Going On

So, this past weekend was a slow one at the house.  We got a few things done, but not as much as we had hoped.  Most of Saturday was spent shopping.  First we headed to Pease to finalize the kitchen plans.  That was fun.  I can't wait to get all my cabinets in and have my nice, new, big kitchen!

After Pease, we headed to Lowe's to get a sponge so we could grout and to see if they had anything good on clearance.  It turns out they had the perfect vanity for our master bath!  And it was marked down from $700(ish--I can't remember the actual before price) to $422.  But, as it turns out, although they showed 1 in stock, the Fashion Bath guy couldn't find any other than the floor model which was pretty scratched up.  He was nice enough to look it up online and start calling other stores that showed stock.  Unfortunately, none of the stores that showed stock had any.  On a whim, he tried calling one last store.  They didn't show any in stock, but it turns out they had one, still in the box, and at that store it was $375!  At that point, we drove back to Milford, picked up the pickup truck, and drove to the Lowe's in South Lebanon to get our vanity.  Yay!

We had to drive all over the Greater Cincinnati area to find it, but it was worth it!

While we were glad to have gotten a vanity and picked out our kitchen, all that driving took up most of our Saturday.  So, we ended up dropping off our vanity at the house in Loveland, picking up the three old vanity tops that we were hoping to craigslist for free, and coming back to Milford so Landon could work Saturday night.

Sunday we slept in a bit (Landon was up until 4 am working), and then headed to the house to get started.  First things first, Landon mowed the lawn while I painted the vanity cabinets for the guest bath.  Once that was done, we started grouting the tub surround.  Yup, we finally got around to doing that.  And, first, let me say, don't follow the directions on the package.  It told us to wait 10-20 min after applying the grout to wipe it off, so we did.  And then we spent the next 2 hours scrubbing grout.  It was miserable.  So for the next batch, we applied it and then wiped it back off.  It worked so much better.   But no matter the headache, it was worth it.  The white tile with the pretty white grout looks fantastic!

In the middle of all of that, Landon also managed to get the wall between the master bedroom and master bathroom framed in for the pocket door.  So it wasn't a totally unproductive weekend.  It just wasn't as productive as we had hoped.

And, No, the door isn't going to be 60" wide.
But you have to leave a space 2x the width when you frame it in.  It will be a 30" door.

Weekend Wrap Up

It was another busy weekend at the house.  Saturday started with taking out one panel of the three panel door in the family room so we could frame it in to a smaller size, order a door, and get the store to come out and measure.

The glass came out first. 

Next step the door.

Almost there.

TaDa!!

I think this is called "Open Concept"?

Unfortunately, after trips to Home Depot and Lowe's, we found that not all companies carry 96" sliding doors standard, some are bigger. So the door was set back in until we decide on a brand and know how far we need to frame it in.

But there was more to do.  I spent my entire weekend priming walls in the three extra bedrooms.  And, I'm excited to say, that all three are now sanded, patched, sanded, primed, and ready for a final coat of paint.

Yay for Primer!

Much better than before.

This was the before.

While I was doing all that, Landon and his Dad were working on the master bathroom.  The ceiling in part of it needed to be replaced as did the subfloor.  Saturday was the ceiling day.

Sky light?  

And we found a few more surprises.  When we took down the vanity lights, we found that they were not one light fixture, they were actually three small fixtures mounted together.  And, there was no light box in the wall.  They were all just mounted to the drywall.

Not the correct way to mount lights.  

Other than that, it wasn't too bad.  Although I wasn't there for the floor removal.

You said you wanted an open concept, right?

But now, there is a new ceiling and new subfloor in most of the bathroom.  And, thanks to Ann, we have a totally awesome layout that leaves us our closet!

New subfloor. 

Is that a Toilet in Your Closet? Or are You Just Happy to See Me?

There are currently two toilets sitting in the middle bedroom at the house.  One is tucked safely in the closet.  The other is sitting next to the wall.  How did they get there?  Well, let's see.....

Last week we noticed that the one remaining toilet in the house (the one in the guest bath) was running quite a bit.  Since we don't want to run up our water bill, we decided to go ahead and replace it.  That meant a lot of looking around on the internet and a couple of trips to the local Lowe's and Home Depot to check out the options.  Finally, we decided on this one from Home Depot:

It wasn't the cheapest option, but at $98 it was easy on the budget.  It has a dual flush option, which we liked, and had good reviews on the Home Depot site.  

With that decided, it was time to buy.  Landon and I loaded up in the van with his parents and headed to Home Depot.  They boys got the toilets (two since they decided to buy one for the master bathroom as well).  Everything went fine until they tried to load the newly purchased toilet into the van.  Turns out the bottom of the box wasn't taped properly so when Landon and Alan went to lift it, the bottom gave way and the toilet fell out.  Landon was able to mostly stop the fall with his leg, but it did hit the pavement, leaving a small chip in the front of the rim.  Since we were still in the parking lot, they went back inside to exchange it.

After another few minutes waiting in the parking lot, a new, properly boxed toilet was wheeled out and both were loaded into the van.  Once we got to the house, the exchanged toilet was easily packed into the house and tucked away in the bedroom closet.

The other toilet, it was found, had a poorly taped bottom as well, so it was carefully unloaded from the van and unboxed in the garage before being carried into the house in pieces.  

In the process of this, Landon managed to hit his arm on an exposed nail in the garage, leaving a gash.  

But in the end, both toilets ended up in the house, although neither one has been installed yet.  We found that we can't install the new toilet in the guest bathroom until we replace the subfloor since it is mostly rotted away.  One more thing to add to the list.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

So, I figured I'd post some new photos of the house, including some of places that haven't been posted yet.  Some are from just after we closed, before any work was done, and some show some progress.  I'll let you know which ones are which.

The Front Garden before I went on my weeding purge.

The pool before the deck came down.  Anyone want to go for a swim?

Really, the water is nice, I swear.  

The deck before it came down.

And, where the deck was after a full day of work.

Now we just have to remove the pool.

The Living Room on Closing Day.

And now, after the carpet and trim have been removed.  Still a long way to go.

The garage before the drywall came down.

And the ceiling issues.  

That odd bump out?  It's the master closet.  

And the garage after the wall came down.

When we found our very own bee hive between the fiberboard and the stone.

What is left of the wall after the termites had their way.  

The master bathroom vanity area.

And the master bedroom closet.  

Inside the actual master bathroom. 

And the master shower.  I'm still not allowed to see the nasty floor.

After the shower was taken out.

And where we are now.  Walls have come down and the space is empty.

See, no more drywall.

 So, what are we up to now?  Well, the project of the last couple of nights has been to remove the tile in the entryway.  We finally got it all up last night, but there are still some screws to remove.

Front door and the tile that is now gone.

They must have used a million screws on the concrete board.  It wasn't easy to pull it up, and it isn't easy to get the screws out.  I hope I never have to do it again!  I'll have more progress pictures coming up.