Jenna

Our First Offical New House DIY Project!

Published on November 6, 2013November 6, 2013 by JennaLeave a comment

I promised a post about our flooring installation, so here it is. It’s been a little slow going because we can only go to the house in the evenings after work, but we’ve made pretty darn good progress in just 3 days. The first night we rented a drum sander from Home Depot and sanded all of the subfloor joints and any spots that had high spots from other portions of construction. Of course, prep work begets prep work and before we could start sanding we had to cut off the excess plastic sheathing installed on the exterior walls as part of the energy efficiency, which you saw in this post.

This stuff was applied with a super sticky and gooey tar-like substance that has been very annoying to clean and work around at the base of the walls. We could have laid the flooring over top of the portion on the floor, but with all the paint, mud and texture residue on the plastic it just wasn’t a good idea, especially since the flooring warranty could be voided if there is any under layment.

Next up was sweeping all of the dust and debris to be vacuumed with the shop vac. There was a LOT of dust and a good bit of debris…

Once the floor was vacuumed, the hubs started sanding. At first he did the whole area but we soon realized that wasn’t necessary so he focused on the seams of the subflooring and anything that had a high spot.

We started installing the next evening. Each piece has a tongue and groove edge so that it locks into the piece next it on either side without use of any adhesive. And without need for an underlayment, it can be installed right over the subfloor, as we did.

It took us a while to find a ‘system’ with the material, but once we did it went fairly smoothly. The hardest part was getting those first few rows down so there was something locking the other pieces into place. There’s been a slight learning curve and a few ‘dang it’ moments, over all we’ve not had any major hang ups. Here’s what things looked like near the end of the first night of installation.

We had the dogs with us while on site and were pleased that they stayed out of the way for the most part. Granted that’s likely because they’d been to Doggie Day Camp and the groomer that day, and were just plain tuckered out. Sangria decided she’d hide out in the pantry since it was the one area we weren’t walking through.

A nearby lot was recently purchased and they have begun clearing for construction. As we left that evening, I was stunned to see that they not only burned the trees cleared rather than grinding them back into the dirt like our builder did, but they left the smouldering pile glowing unattended! I have a sneaking suspicion I’m not going to be crazy about this neighboring project, but I’m trying to reserve judgment until I meet actual people…

The hubs had a light schedule at work today, so he left early to go work on the flooring without me and spent most of the day there. He made pretty good progress, including some difficult ‘tight spot’ pieces that took extra time to cut. Here’s what it looks like now (sorry for the phone pics, but it’s all he had with him, since the ‘photographer’ wasn’t around).

Dining room done into the laundry room and the edge of the kitchen.

Unfortunately we got a call from the flooring store saying there was some ‘mix up in Seattle’ and the other half of our flooring wasn’t shipped until TODAY! It was supposed to already be here, so this is quite a set back. It’s now supposed to arrive Monday or Tuesday and then has to sit on site for at least 1 day before it can be installed. We’re not sure yet how the will impact the overall completion schedule, but we’ll continue working with what we do have until we run out in an effort to keep things as on time as possible.

Inching Toward the Finish Line

Published on November 3, 2013 by JennaLeave a comment

As anticipated the November 1 closing date has come and gone without the house being ready. We’ve signed an amendment to extend the deadline, but it’s still going to be tight to get everything done. The hubs and I went to sand the sub floor in preparation for installing the flooring on Saturday, but found painting and cabinet installation in full swing when we arrived, so we weren’t able to get anything done. We did unload the half order of flooring the vendor had in stock so it could acclimate on site for the recommended two days. The remainder should arrive tomorrow or Tuesday, so we’ll have to let that acclimate on site as well before installing it.

We had a meeting with the foreman and the realtors today to go over the timeline for the new closing date of December 1. We will work on the flooring every evening this week, and the master bathroom tile should be installed in the next few days so we can finish flooring around that at the end. Then the following week all of the finish work will be done – trim, doors, electrical outlets, paint touch up, etc. The should put us at 95% complete for the appraisal the week before Thanksgiving.

The power line has finally been installed, so there is electric to the house now. They ended up having to take a few more trees out at the end of the driveway to run the line, but getting power to the house is worth it.

You can see the small green box to the side of the house. That’s our electrical pedestal. That side of the house is getting pretty crowded with pips and utility features, so I’ll have to figure out some landscaping beyond my rain garden (which will have a retaining wall made from those tires) to hide them next season.

Inside, things are finally starting to look like the finished vision we’ve had all along. The cabinets look great with the paint color and the tile coordinates perfectly as well. Hopefully I’ll have pictures of that later this week, once it’s installed.

The counter tops are on-site and ready to be installed once the final tweaks are done on the cabinets.

I tested out the flooring next to the cabinets just to get a feel for it, and I’m pretty happy – even with the dusty paw prints! I plan to attempt documenting the install over the course of the week and share that, so stay tuned!

Who Knew?!

Published on November 2, 2013 by Jenna1 Comment

So, the other day the hubs comes home with permanent marker on his NEW work shirt. I didn’t ask any questions and said I’d see what I could do. Of course my first resource was Pinterest, where I found over and over again that hand sanitizer would cure this particular problem. Really? I figured it was worth a shot so the next day I tested the advice – and it WORKED!

I didn’t expect this to be a post so I didn’t take a before picture, but I did take one after the first application of sanitizer and then again after the second. In the first you can just barely see where the spot was because it had lightened that much!

After the third application I couldn’t see it at all!

I washed and dried as normal and the shirt looks great – which makes me happy because I really liked that shirt on the hubs! J So next time you face this problem, grab that bottle of sanitizer, dab and rub until it’s gone.

Why I’m Skipping Halloween

Published on October 30, 2013October 30, 2013 by JennaLeave a comment

Anyone who knows me personally knows I ALWAYS decorate for EVERY holiday. I planned to break out my spooky gear and do it up like usual until I realized that I don’t have a yard to decorate this year. Our rental is a duplex style town house and our front yard is all driveway with stairs to a tiny landing by our front door. My alternative was to decorate the now winterized balcony, but when the neighbor told me not to expect more than a dozen trick-or-treaters I just couldn’t justify finding the time in my super busy schedule to haul out the tubs of décor for less than a week’s display.

The hubs is starting a new welding course this week that is almost every evening and Saturdays, so he won’t even be home for Halloween. No hubby, minimal trick-or-treaters and crappy weather have led me to bah-humbug the whole shebang. No candy, no décor, no costumes. Nada.

It makes sense in my head, but my heart still misses it. And to add injury to insult I’ve realized that we won’t get ANY trick-or-treaters at the new house because we’ll be so far in the boonies. Granted, I’m not willing to trade the privacy the rest of the year for that, but it’s still a little sad to think we’ve seen our last cute costume on our doorstep. 😦

Perhaps we’ll host a big Halloween party next year since it will be on a Friday and anyone who needs to ‘sleep off’ their monster brew will have the room to do so. And we could go all out, even set up a scary maze in the woods on our property. And I think I’m going to upgrade my decor a bit. A little more Pottery Barn gothic and less cutesy. I’ve certainly got enough ideas on Pinterest to make it happen DIY style!

For now, I’ll live vicariously through everyone else’ blog posts and pins. With the pending completion of the house and possible move near the end of November or early December, I have a sneaking suspicion that the same will happen for Thanksgiving. But I guess that means I get to go whole hog for the holidays next year!!! I can hear the hubs planning some trip far, far away just prior to that! LOL

The Home Stretch

Published on October 28, 2013October 28, 2013 by JennaLeave a comment

We made our weekly visit to the house yesterday to find it ready for paint, cabinets, flooring and finishing touches. It’s finally starting to look like the house we’ve been envisioning all this time!

The texture is done with a minimal flat finish.

And all of the corners are rounded for a smooth clean look.

Our builder wants to finish by November 5, but he hasn’t ordered the flooring yet – which takes 10 days to arrive from Seattle and then needs to sit on site for 2 days – so that’s not likely. We’ve struck a deal with the builder that we will install the flooring ourselves to reduce cost, so that should happen the weekend before Veterans Day.

While we wait to hear from our builder about the flooring we’re anticipating that we won’t close and move until the end of November or early December. Hopefully, some things can be scheduled simultaneously like the energy rating followed by the VA appraisal to speed things up, but we all know this isn’t a perfect world so we aren’t anticipating it will go that smoothly.

Here’s what’s still left to be done:

Paint
Cabinets
Flooring
Electrical outlets & switches
Light fixtures
Plumbing fixtures
Stone work on the front porch and fireplace
Interior doors, trim and window ledges
Appliances
HVAC vents
Locks

It’s so close and yet so far away, which makes me crazy. I’m a planner and not knowing when things will happen makes me crazy. It doesn’t help that we have to coordinate dates with our current landlord, our lender, my job and the hubby’s new schooling schedule around these unknown dates. It all has me wishing I could push fast forward and just zip right to moving day. If things work out, I plan to take a week off for the move so I can unpack and get settled, but we’ll see how things line up with my work schedule. At least it looks like we’ll be done and living in our new home before 2014 arrives!

My Upgraded Desk

Published on October 25, 2013October 30, 2013 by Jenna5 Comments

Because we know this is just a temporary space until the new house is complete we didn’t want to make anything too permanent. So, I’ve been using a small folding table as a computer desk since we moved in back in March. I was NOT a fan. It wobbled, wasn’t big enough and I’d hit my knees on the supports underneath about a 100 times. So when I saw a free interior door on Craigslist I decided it was time to upgrade. We’d already purchased two wood filing cabinets for $50 to replace the ones we sold in the move. We plan to paint and use them to make a wall-to-wall desk in the new studio, so we used them as the base for the new temporary desk. A few screws to secure the door to the cabinets and we were in business. Here’s the before (even prior to the filing cabinets, which lived next to the table for quite a while):

And the after!

It’s not my dream creative space, but that will happen in the coming months as we move into the new house. It is a nice upgrade until then though! Now I just need to get my business license framed and hung so the wall art feels more balanced. And notice how all the cords are wrangled into the little box in front of the chair? The hubby built that based on this! The bonus to having one made of wood? It’s a pretty nice foot rest! 🙂

The door isn’t long enough to be a desktop at the new house, so it might become a top for a workbench or perhaps a gardening surface in the greenhouse. I’m sure I’ll find some use for it – eventually! LOL

SURPRISE Baby Shower!

Published on October 23, 2013October 30, 2013 by JennaLeave a comment

As an event coordinator for a community bank, I plan a lot of different types of events, but I was recently asked to arrange a surprise baby shower for a co-worker. Yes, I have an awesome job! 🙂 Luckily, I already had a “Baby Shower” board on Pinterest full of ideas. Those who know me personally would now say “but of course you would!” LOL

My recon/planning partner learned that the nursery was being decorated in yellow and purple, so we based all of the decor off that, including a ribbon garland that can be hung in the nursery.

My co-hort picked out adorable mini cupcakes with purple and yellow frosting to match our theme so I made a simple cupcake stand with two square glass plates from Walmart and a glass candlestick from the thrift store. Easy peasy! And you’d never know it only cost about $8 to make! Oh yeah! Thrifty chic!

And what baby shower is complete without a diaper cake? I’d recently seen a new style done to look like fondant on Pinterest, so I gave it a try. Note to self – next time use thinner ‘flannel/receiving blankets’ rather than the cute, but thick fuzzy blankets! Granted the chevron one was from her registry so I just had to make it work. A little ribbon trim and thrifted faux flowers gave it the finishing touch. Our male colleagues were quite baffled at the idea of a cake you don’t eat, but they too thought it turned out pretty well. Although it did look good enough to eat on my pretty cake stand I bought last year at Home Goods for a measly $15!

My Pottery Barn knock-off drink dispenser – which I found at Safeway for just $17 – finally found a use other than decorating the tops of my kitchen cabinets. It held the very tasty pink lady punch that was a surefire hit! And the recipe was super simple:

1 quart pineapple juice
1 quart cranberry juice cocktail
2 quarts ginger ale
Cranberries to garnish (or substitute fruit or other berries)

It was actually so good that I brought the rest home to share with my hubby who liked it as well – which means it’s super good because he’s a secret chef! 🙂

I also framed a picture from the maternity session I had done with her and her husband the week prior so their baby girl will have a picture of mommy and daddy in her room from the moment she arrives!

We all chipped in to get the stroller she still needed and put together a hospital survival kit, so she’s got everything ready for the trip to the delivery room! I’m still surprised we were able to pull it off without her finding out. We had a few close calls and thought she might be on to our little scheme, but we were very happy that she was truly surprised!

That was my take on a simple, chic baby shower! Whatcha think?

Playtime at the Park!

Published on October 20, 2013October 30, 2013 by JennaLeave a comment

We stopped by a park we’ve been wanting to check out on the way home from seeing the house the other day, and while there the girls learned a new trick. Going down the playground slide!

Everyone who saw them do this were amazed. Granted this isn’t the first time they’ve been on playground equipment. We’ve often had them climb stairs and cross things as part of their agility training, but this was the first time they’d actually gone down the slide instead of turning around and coming back down the stairs. It took a little coaxing the first couple of times, but once they realized it wouldn’t hurt them and they wouldn’t get in trouble, it was game on!

Guess we’ll have to keep an eye out for an old playset with a slide for their yard at the new house now! Wonder if one might show up on Craigslist!? Although even if I have to pay a few bucks for one it would be worth it to look outside and see this every so often!

And just so you know it wasn’t staged, visit my Facebook page to see a video of them in action! 🙂

Light at the End of the Tunnel?!

Published on October 19, 2013October 30, 2013 by JennaLeave a comment

Today’s visit to the house today began with a completely finished roof!

And to top that, there was a crew inside muding and taping the drywall!

We didn’t want to interrupt their progress, so we didn’t stick around long, but we were amazed at how fast they were working thanks to some nifty tools!

That TapeTech gizmo was pretty darn impressive. It loads mud via a hand pump and then applies mud and tape together via a trigger! And those stilts had built in springs to make walking in them feel so natural the guy said it didn’t take him more than 5 minutes to get used to it.

We didn’t see this tool in action, but it supposedly makes doing the inverted corners lightning fast.

And of course what’s muding without mixing batches of mud? A simple drill with an adapter makes quick work of that task too.

The house was pretty darn warm inside too, even without a heater! It was actually so cozy that the guys working cracked the slider door open because they were getting hot. Hopefully that means that we won’t have major heating bills! Plus a higher energy efficiency rating will make us eligible for a bigger rebate after we close!

We also discovered an outlet right next to the garage door, which we hadn’t noticed before. That will be super handy for outdoor decorations and projects! Now if only someone can tell us what the heck this outlet near the ceiling in the garage is for! It’s not the garage door opener because there’s one for that on the ceiling in the middle of the door. Any ideas?

Gold Dipped Toes

Published on October 18, 2013October 17, 2013 by Jenna2 Comments

I’d been itching to update my wardrobe for fall when I spotted this post by one of my favorite bloggers and realized I had the exact same pair of shoes! I don’t wear them that often and figured this might make them more versatile. So, a quick trip to Michaels with a store return gift card in hand and I was ready to make it happen.

I’m not going to do a tutorial, since it was as simple as getting my supplies together, taping off the section I wanted painted, and well – painting. The hardest part was making sure I made the gold section the same on both shoes! Here’s a few shots of the before, during and after.

They turned out pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself! And unless you inspect them closely, you’d never know that they were painted. Now I’m thinking I should also paint the wedge part gold or do a similar pair of flats with polka dots! It might also be a way to fix the scratch on the top of my favorite pair of kitten heels…What do you think? Good idea gone bad or worth a try?