Pre-Thanksgiving Update

I’ll be honest, these are a lot easier to write when you’re aided by a glass of scotch, which I have to drink, so that we have an empty decanter once we move…. I think it’s called subtraction by addition?

Anyway, things are really starting to take shape at the house. The guest bathroom is just about completely ready to go. The toilet and vanity are installed, and the tile is grouted. All systems go.

Really can not overstate how important these toilets are going to be to the happiness of this home. 

With grout!

We usin’ those fancy hotel-quality fixtures! 

The pace is slightly more deliberate in the master bathroom,  as it’s a much smaller space with a lot more tile. We seem to run out of grout every other day, and the staff at The Tile Shop is becoming a little too familiar with me (only the 7-11 guy and the sushi waiter should know me by name). However, we’re almost totally grouted, and hopefully the vanity is going to arrive any day now.

This is pretty much the update, though, TBH, the grouting and tile look awesome in here.

Another area making some rapid progress is the kitchen/kitchen island. As I mentioned a few posts ago, my father-in-law has been coming up to help us at the house. This weekend marks his third consecutive week up in NOVA that he’s been with us. This past weekend, he spent his last afternoon working on building the island for our kitchen. Basically, we’re taking a 27″ wide pre-fabricated cabinet, and connecting it to a wine fridge the size of a college fridge.

All the white wines. Maybe some fancy 750ml beers too!

Simple in theory, but, the fridge and the cabinet are wildly different sizes and depths. It was really impressive to watch him fabricate the “case” for the fridge to sit in. Using a few different types of wood, a measure, a square rule, and a circular saw, he had everything measured, cut and ready for assembly in about 30 minutes. Once the fridge is in the case, there’ll be a piece of granite on top, and it will look like it was literally custom made (it was!)!

The island from the dining room. 

The wine fridge is going to sit to the left of the cabinet shelves. Power’s already installed into the cabinet base.

More recently than the above pictures were taken (yesterday), the contractors put rockboard into the kitchen, and started laying tile today! Once they do that, we can actually go in and put the fridge and oven back in place and have a functional kitchen to cook things and keep beverages cold. It’s the little things man. I don’t have pictures of the tile, but, i do have pictures of the….rockboard. They’re about as exciting as watching paint dry.

We’ll be expecting that WONDERBOARD LITE  Rockboard sponsorship money any day now.

New drywall features the new power switches, and more rockboard!

While all of this has been going on, Lauren and I have been doing detail painting. Detail painting (you ask)? What IS that? It sounds, coool! Well it’s not. It’s tedious. It makes your hands hurt. More or less, I’ve been painting paneled doors, while Lauren’s been having a Dickins of a time painting cabinet doors. I didn’t take pictures of us doing that, or the paint, but, I did take pictures of Pepper after she bumped into a wet door. Luckily, she already has a “I’m a black dog who got into a paint trey” look going on, so it wasn’t super noticeable.

It was mostly on her nose, and apparently it was DELICIOUS.

Such a mix of shame and guilt. 

Now we’re to the bad news, and there’s no easy way to say it. This is going to be my last post until next weekend.

We’ll be heading up to NJ to stay with family through Thanksgiving (I’ll take pictures of us hanging out with our adorable niece and nephew for the update).

Hopefully, all of the things will be happening at the house while we’re gone. The movers come on Saturday to get furniture, and we’re officially into the new place that night. If they’re not ready, we’re going to be kind of a weird limbo. Obviously, some things are higher priority than others, but, we’re keeping our fingers crossed that when we get there next Friday night with a U-Haul, the main floor won’t be littered with boxes and trash, while the upstairs won’t be a construction zone.

Happy Thanksgiving Y’all!

Monday’s Weekend Update!

On Saturday, I promised a mega-super-ultra blog post on Sunday night. That didn’t take into account that I would be going out Saturday night to hang out with the Renegades on H Street, or that we would be at the new house working on Sunday for somewhere between 11 and 94 hours. We got a lot done, but the last thing I wanted to do was write you jokers a blog post.

Instead…. you’ll get my half-assed post tonight! Encouragement!

So, Saturday was a flurry of activity at the house as we had our normal contractors, me, Lauren and her dad and Pepper, as well as a dry-wall guy and TWO framers! With a few tons of wood and vanities and boxes and trash taking up all of the free room in the to-be living room and dining room, space was tight on the first floor. As a result, it shook out that our normal guys and the drywall guy were upstairs, the framers and my father in law got the main floor, and Lauren and I were relegated to the basement and spare rooms (basically, anywhere painting needed to happen. I legitimately felt guilty for all of the noise that was coming out of our house, as thing started bright and early, we were definitely those neighbors. When I said we painted, let me clarify, I spent the first half of the day painting paneled doors, which sucks. It’s a perfect combination of not enough flat area to need a whole roller, and enough texture in the doors for the detail work with a brush to be annoying. I finished like 4 doors in a half day. We have 18 interior doors in the house. Shoot. Lauren spent most of the day cheating, and by cheating, I mean painting walls with an auto-assist roller. It’s the power-washer of rollers. A pump connects a hose that runs from the paint can directly into the roller, which provides continuous paint to the brush, meaning that she flew through the basement in like an hour.

This took Lauren like, less than a minute to do.

While this was going on, the framers began the process of taking down the wall. I’ll spare details, but, there was a lot of sawing, hammering, and I’m pretty sure cursing under the steady rhythm of the classic rock station coming out of the boombox.

Maybe it’s the delirium setting in, but, this picture makes it look like the Fridge is in an old timey prison. Naughty fridge…

and POOF. FROM WHENCE THERE WAS A WALL THERE IS NO LONGER!

Instead, we have Forrest.

After a while, we ran out for errands and lunch. And the errands were epic, much like the lunch. When I say errands, I’m talking about my new TV. I’d casually been searching for a new TV to put into the basement, but not very seriously. Lucky for me, a Best Buy sale caught my eye and I ended up pulling the trigger on a 55″ (1080P HDTV) for a staggeringly good price (I’ll dedicate an entire post to the new TV). After Best Buy, we went for some Mexican, but not just any Mexican food, we went to Tippy’s Tacos! Tippy’s Tacos is a magically simply wonderful place and I have a picture to prove it.

It’s a very not good thing for me that this place is only a mile from our house.

By the time we got back, it was mid-afternoon and the crew at the house was petering our. Our drywall guy was history. The framers were sweeping up the kitchen on their way out. We chatted with Jefe and made our way upstairs for more or less the first time. We had movement! So much got done over the weekend in the full-bathrooms it was crazy! I’m going to post a lot of these pictures more or less without comment (other than caption).

Jealous that the shop-vac got to use the guest bathroom tub first.

Floor tile’d with spacers, awaiting grout.

Now, the guest bathroom has always been further along, but, this weekend we saw the master bathroom play some major catch-up.

I talked a lot about the custom “shower pan”, this is the stone that sits on top.

The algae looking film on the rock-board in the shower is actually a water-proofer that keeps moisture from getting into the walls.

We have floor tiles!

We have shower tiles!!!!!

We got new floor tile put in on Half on Main!

After Jefe and the rest of the contractors cleared out, we finished some smaller odd-jobs we couldn’t do until they were gone. In no particular order that includes:

Grouting the subway tile in the kitchen.

and…

Painting the master bedroom (hard to tell because there’s no ceiling light yet, but that’s a light grey).

I feel like I probably could have been a lot funnier in this post but, it’s late, and I’m le tired. Drywall dust fills my eyes, and semi-gloss paint has gotten into my bones. I’ll post today’s updates, tomorrow. It’ll be funnier, or not, I promise!

Week 2 In Review

Ugh… I’m the worst. The fame and celebrity that comes with having a home renovation blog went to my head and I thought I was above posting regularly or frequently. A lot happened this week. I’ve even got a super mega-post coming tomorrow (or maybe between like 6 and 70 short posts)! Unfortunately, this one’s going to be brief because I have to join the Washington Renegades in celebrating their second consecutive undefeated season. Tomorrow might hurt, say a prayer for me while I paint (also send me Aleve…like, a lot of Aleve and maybe some McDonalds).

Biggest things that happened this week? Our bathrooms made some major leaps. I’ll take you through the pictures below.

If you were wondering what’s on the bottom of the picture, that’s the custom “shower pan”. Basically, our contractor put down concrete, laid that dark grey shower sheet on top, then put in the Ol’ Miss Flag looking spacer in, which runs on a very slight slope ensuring that the water flows into the drain and not over the lip. It looks kind of like this:

After this, the “shower pan” was ready to be tiled! Also, so is the rest of the shower….

Next up is the Guest Bathroom! Little backstory, when purchasing a house Lauren made it clear that if we didn’t get a his and her sink in the master bathroom, I’d be relegated to the Southern Hemisphere (see: guest bathroom) in the mornings when showering. I think she should have waited to call dibs till after seeing the bathrooms. Without further ado, I present “My Bathroom” (guest bathroom).

As you saw on previous posts, the guest bathroom was further along than the master bath. As a result, so are the renovations there.

Most of these will be presented without comment, since they’re just OOH and AHH shots.

And to complete the panoramic…

For those detail oriented readers, this is a closeup of the accent strip that runs through the shower. It was actually totally different from what we ordered, but, the Tile Shop’s mistake is our gain (apparently).

I’ve got a lot more content/pictures coming tomorrow night. For now, it’s time to party!

Super Special Bonus Weekend Update Mega Surprise Post!

We spent the weekend at a cabin in the woods, and we didn’t get killed by monsters or held captive by backwoods locals! I did literally everything I could to try to tempt the creepie crawlies in the woods, like take Pepper on a walk down an unlit path after midnight with nothing but my headlamp and couldn’t even get a rustle slightly out of sight.

However, things at the house happened on Friday, and then more things happened while we were gone. I’ll recap those things for you here and now.

On Friday, we got up pretty early to get rid of some tile and assorted trash at the Fairfax County Dump. I’m not sure if you guys have ever been there, but if you haven’t, you might not be prepared for the GPS directions you’d get about a mile out (please ignore the time stamp that was actually taken on the same trip Tuesday afternoon). I felt neither equipped or emotionally prepared to go to Mount Doom, but, that’s pretty much the perfect way to describe the I-95 Landfill in Lorton on Furnace Road (literally can not make that up).

One dump, to rule them all.

After dropping our 1/2 ton of tile off, we headed to the house to pack up my Father-in-Law’s tools to load into his trailer. There we met Lauren, who brought Pepper for her first walk-about in the house. TBH she wasn’t crazy about it with all of the construction equipment set up (spoiler- we brought her back today and she loved it all to herself!)

Pepper looking super thrilled…

If you guys remember literally the last post, you’ll know that we found out our Kitchen wall was weight-bearing. Our contractor Roger brought in a buddy, Mike (the carpenter), to concur. Mike brought along some high-tech tools, some jokes, and the ability to x-ray inside the walls doing nothing but rapping his knuckles on them.

There’s a camera attached to the end of that gun, feeding an image to the screen. LAPAROSCOPIC CARPENTRY!

Next weekend, he’s going to put in a support wall, then throw in a steel beam where the old wall was so we could have a totes open floor plan. They’re so hip and in right now!

Then we went to the cabin, no one died, great success!

Today we came back and checked in and lo and behold, TWO developments. First, a lot of work on the house had been held up because we were waiting on delivery of all of the tile, which finally got delivered. The tile won’t cover much of the house, but, basically everything that we’re renovating will get tiled. All the bathrooms, the kitchen, the basement floor and exit. Can not overstate how much had been waiting on this dang tile. But now it’s here, and it’s going to be beautiful.

ALL OF THE TILES!

Secondly, the guys that were in over the weekend made the guest bathroom look much nicer! They installed both the new tub, AND(!) rockboard to mount the tile on. It almost looks like it’s going to be a real room!

Covered up those gross water stains like they never existed!

The tub I’ll never going to be able to fit in anyway!

About to be soo muuuch tiiillleeeeeeee.

Lauren and I are both going to be working full weeks this week, so my goal is going to be to work a half day once, and try to stop by like 3x to see how everything’s going. Tomorrow our microwave gets delivered, and maybe some other stuff too. I dunno if there’ll be enough time!

Day 3 (DISASTER FINALLY STRIKES! pt. 3)

First, let me address this whole disaster rumor that seems to be going around.

You all just got trashy reality tv’d. In a survival show, they’ll show a Fer-de-Lance striking at a dummy camera with one of the contestants screaming the name of the other one in the background. Then when they come back from break it turns out they saw the snake like 30 yards away and it was all NBD. On the Real Housewives of Wilmington, Taegan would make kind of a prissy face as the camera muted what she said, while they cut to Maryissa obviously gasping at what we presume Taegan said, then they would come back from commercial and it would still be all NBD anyway. That’s kind of what this is. Except triple.

Well here it is. We’re blowing out the wall between the kitchen and dining room, and, like literally every time they knock out a wall in any HGTV show, it turned out to be load bearing. We’ve got a pretty easy solution, basically we’re going to put in an LVL beam spanning the wall that exists already, which is going to jut out of the ceiling by about 12″. The beam is going to be rated to carry about twice the load of the actual ceiling, so I’ll still be able to stockpile lead cannon shot in rooms above without caving in the second story. Totes NBD! Drama is overrated I guess, unless you all like drama. Because then I’ll be SO MUCH MORE DRAMATIC!

Back to the regularly scheduled update.

Today, was a shower beer kind of day. After all that we got accomplished, there was no better feeling than a cool, refreshing beer while scalding hot water rinsed shards of broken shower tile out of my hair (I’m so so sorry for the incredibly terrible visual image you probably just got #notsorry). Lauren and I both worked mornings today, getting to the house in the afternoon. While we were at work, a lot of the things happened!

Our contractor Roger stopped by to check on progress, pointed out some potential down-range issues that were about to come up, we came to some decisions, and we were like, super chill about having to make all those minor changes to the overall plan.

Also, the contractors installed my absolute favorite part of the house, our new front door (actually being serious about this). I can’t remember what Roger originally budgeted for the new door, but, we did some research and found one we really loved, then we laughed at his number and how much more the one we liked cost, tore up the existing estimate, came to terms that we just went way way over the door budget (I can’t believe I just used the phrase door budget), cried, then came to a steely resolve and cut other things to make room for our totally incredible door. I’m including a picture, but it’s intentionally bad because I want to save that surprise for later.

One of the contractors walking through our incredible new front door.

While that was going on, my father-in-law was working on the custom cuts of tile to finish up the backsplash. It’s a lot of math, skill and patience, none of which I was capable of at that time. But, it’s done! And it looks great! Now it’s just up to Lauren to grout.

Speaking of Lauren, she drew short straw and had the opportunity to get started priming doors. She finished 3.5/18. Priming doors is a long arduous process.

Speaking of not-Lauren, I drew a shorter straw. I think I mentioned somewhere below, we took on a lot of demolition responsibilities so that our contractor could focus on installing new things and we could save some money. Well, we got to that point where tile needed to start getting demolished. Tile doesn’t demolish itself ya’know, because it’s a jerk. THANKS FOR NOTHING TILE.

Armed with a box of respirator masks, safety glasses, ear muffs, a brand new pair of Mechanix leather gloves, some angry tunes and a Bosch Hammer Drill, it was go time. With the closed door keeping the dust floating in the air, and the temperature rising, it was pretty similar to when I would clean industrial boilers in college (way way roomier and not nearly as hot though!). About 30 minutes in, I had sweat through my shirt, by the time I finished, my clothes were perma-soaked. It was super cool, after I finished taking out all of the shower tile and lugging it down the stairs in trashcans that weighed somewhere between 100-5800lbs, when the Jefe asked why I had made so much work for myself and hadn’t just taken a saw-z-all and made four cuts and pulled out the tile in one piece. I’m not sure he’d ever seen a guy my size cry before. He handled it like a champ. It was a character building experience.

Lauren creepily took this picture while I was mid-tile demo.

#exhaustedselfie
#onlyaquarterwaythere!

I hate tile. Tile sucks.

Lauren kept creeping on me.

ALL FINISHED! THANK THE LORD! but wait… there’s more….

After all of that, it turns out I’d completely forgotten about tearing out the floor tile. My fun had only just begun. I made a new mortal enemy. Diamond lathe. For anyone who isn’t a materials and building expert, diamond lathe, in theory, is a really convenient wire mesh that you lay between the floor and your mortar which keeps your materials in place and gives the mortar something to adhere to. In reality, diamond lathe is something the devil created for funsies to ruin the day of anyone doing renovations. To be honest, the first few times I heard the name, I thought it was called diamond laugh, as in, the contractor installing the diamond mesh was laughing at the thought of me trying and failing to easily remove it ever again. The real problem was that the wire mesh lathe was nailed to the ground, which kept the wrecking bar I was using from getting any leverage when trying to pick tile up. One bonus was that as my frustration and body temperature continuously rose, I could just grab a hammer and vent all my rage on the floor tile that was going to get removed anyway. It wasn’t as quick, theoretically, as the wrecking bar, but it was so much sweeter, I highly advise you try it if you have the chance.

DIE TILE…DIE!!!

After getting the last piece of diamond lathe un-nailed, the rest was cake, and it was a few minutes with a shop broom before I had a guest-bathroom ready to be rebuilt.

so much nicer.

At this point in the night, I relate strongly to Derek Zoolander.

We’re at 1115 words, but still one major update to go! Like I said, the contractors began removing the wall between our dining room and kitchen today. We got some neat pictures of the before, during and after, if you’re into that kind of thing (pictures).

Prepping it for removal.

WOOAAAAAHHHH WE’RE HALF WAY THERRREEEEEEEE

High drama, as seen on Lauren’s face, as Dad and the Jefe discuss whether or not additional beams are needed in the wall, or if the four 2×4’s nailed together on the right will do.

We (the people who actually know what they’re talking about (i.e.-not Lauren and I)) never came to an exact consensus on whether additional support is needed or not, so Roger the Contractor is going to come in tomorrow to render a final verdict. The suspense would be killing me if I wasn’t too tired to feel it.

We’re heading down to Beark Creek Lake this weekend, which means almost no cell-service, and no update until at least Sunday (see: Actually Monday). To make up for it, I have a few bonus pictures below.

My third mask of the guest bathroom. #totesgross

Our “soon to be installed guest bathroom” tub that I’ll be too big to fit in. Neat.

Missile Aneous Post! (Disaster Strikes! pt. 2)

This is a sappy post. Buckle up, the emotions are coming! You have been properly warned.

We have been incredibly lucky throughout the home buying and renovation process. Both my Mother-In-Law and Father-In-Law are realtors with Long & Foster.

They provided some great insight during the ramp up and search for houses, and gave us a referral to an awesome local Long & Foster agent, Kristi Odend’hal. Kristi is super personable, and very knowledgeable about the NOVA market. Unfortunately, most of that expertise was wasted on us, because we put an offer on the second house we had her show us! Fortunately for us, all of that expertise meant that Kristi had a local contractor she uses herself that she put us in touch with (Roger Smith of Junior’s Painting in Sterling, VA). However, that’s neither here nor there.

Back to the sappy part.

We got super double lucky because my father-in-law, prior to joining The Travis Team, owned and operated his own custom home building and contracting company. He still has most of his equipment from that, and was nice enough to offer himself to help with the initial renovations.

Let’s face it, I’m pretty phenomenal at just about everything, but, we’d be way way way over our heads without him here. He came up the day we closed and had started demolition before we even finished work that day. He’s been an incredibly invaluable resource and help. He’s had his own projects that he’s worked on: installing a new front porch light, installing an all-weather outlet in the front exterior, reflooring the basement, and doing the custom cuts of tile for the backsplash. He’s followed behind Lauren and I to double check and fix (mostly straight up fixing) our work. He’s also badgered Jefe, to make sure all the work they’re doing gets done the right way.

Here he is working a tile saw to do the custom cuts for our backsplash!

Without having him here, we’d be lost in the weeds, with no idea how to get to where we were trying to go. Lets just hope this touching tribute gets him to volunteer for a few more days in the coming weeks because we’ll definitely still need him here! Also, I probably forgot to mention that he’s been staying on our pull-out couch for the week. I guess the added incentive to keep working for us is that the sooner we’re done, the sooner he can stay on a real bed when he visits?

#selfie #nofilter #actionshot #tacticalblur

Oh, and I also forgot, I had promised to fill you guys in on the potentially disastrous issue that we ran into during the demo phase of working on the house, but, I’m pushing 450 words, and that’s far too long for my unsustainable as-is business model. Next post. I promise!

Day Two Recap (plus-Disaster Strikes! pt. 1)

We’re less than a week into renovations and this blog, and already, I’m falling behind the grueling post I’ve set for myself. Well, it’s a bonus for you guys, because you’ll get Day 2 and Day 3 in one day! And if you order now, you’ll get a free Miscellaneous post tonight too (you ordered. trust me)!

On to the recap:

Well, there’s no easy way to say it… Nothing really important got done Day 2, since I wasn’t there. That’s on me. It’s a learning experience for everyone involved. I knew I was important to the work, but, frankly, I didn’t know I was THAT important.

Now that I’ve offended Lauren, I was actually pretty pumped when I dropped in at the end of the day to see what had happened. Lo and behold, we have a backsplash!

If you couldn’t tell, we went with white subway tile. They’re beveled, and we’ll be using white grout, so it’s going to look super clean. We’ll also be painting the cabinets white, which is going to contrast a ton with the black granite countertops and a darker grey tile.

^This picture shows the tricky ‘custom cut’ tiles to come, which Lauren’s dad is going to be working on.

In addition Lauren and her dad working on the backsplash, we had ordered an entirely new set of interior and exterior doors for the house. I don’t have pictures of them at this point, but, I’m told that I need to get some. I’ll work on it….. Our contractors spent the day milling and installing the doors (all 18 of them). Now it’s our job to prime and paint them. womp womp…. painting doors is just about as much as watching them dry.

Another thing that happened, we ran into a potentially catastrophic issue in the house, which you can read about in the next post. Stay tuned!

Day 1: In the Books

Man… desk work has made me soft. My hands are torn up, my knees hurt, and I’ve gotten rusty about complaining about aches (kidding…obviously). We got (what I think was) a lot done today. The morning started early with a trip to Home Depot to pick up materials. Then we kicked off and started ripping out the laminate in the kitchen floor, which was FULL OF SURPRISES! I’ll take you step-by-step.

Step 1: Start removing: 

The excitement in this picture is palpable… If you can’t tell, the blue stuff under the laminate is like a cellophane layer, or, in this case, a sheet of wrapping paper. I say that because, underneath, was such an incredible find I couldn’t believe it.

Step 2: Admire the original house kitchen vinyl flooring (it’s so ugly and dirty that I can’t even really do it justice here)!

Lauren said we couldn’t keep it as our finished kitchen floor, which is a bit of a killjoy. Anyhoo, after finishing peeling up the kitchen floor we got to work ripping out vanities and toilets from the full bathrooms and #HalfOnMain. We’re leaving the country half-bath alone so that the house has one functioning half bathroom. Anyway, by this time it was about 11am, the contractors had shown up to start prepping work areas, and I was in the master bath when I heard a shout of joy. HOME DEPOT HAD ARRIVED!!! I looked out the window and saw a flatbed tractor trailer with supplies on it, which would be the materials our contractor had ordered for us. Pictured below are the materials on the flatbed, as well as in care-package form (not pictured are 17 interior doors waiting to be milled and hung).

I’ll leave other area specific updates to smaller and snarkier blog posts, but, the day ended with much soreness but also a sense of accomplishment. I’m going back to work tomorrow, and it’s Lauren on tap for work with her Dad, so I’m excited to see what they can accomplish while I’m in the office!

Our bread and butter….yup, that’s right, it’s the kitchen, and a dad pun.

We got super lucky with this place, the kitchen was in pretty good shape! The appliances were all well within ‘new’ shape when we got here, so we’re saving a bundle by not totally gutting it. We’ll be ripping up the laminate flooring, painting the cabinets white, adding a white subway tile backsplash, and….drumroll…. knocking out the kitchen wall connecting to the dining room to go to a fully OPEN CONCEPT!!!!! While we’re salvaging most of the kitchen, we’ve got the most different things going on in here. I’m a little worried there are going to be….. …… 😐 ….. ….. too many cooks in the kitchen!

Basement Half Bath

How many bathrooms do you even need when you only have roughly 1800 square feet of townhouse? Answer: Never enough. You could probably count them by now, but, in total we have 2 full baths and 2 half baths. 4 glorious toilets. Well, as trendy as Half on Main will be, the basement half-bath will be southern country kitchen….bathroom…. As you’ll see, our vanity will be a little more “rustic”, fitting the theme of the basement overall.