A New Basement Floor (Again)

A little over two years ago, Drew and I decided that it was time to do something with the hideous mess that was our basement, and give it a face lift.  I gave a little video tour of the before here.

I suck at follow up apparently, because I never did an after.  Honestly, we never completely finished it. It was done, and workable, but not completely.  My small studio is down there, and some workout equipment.

A couple of weeks ago, I was doing a video tour of our house to show some friends, and I included the basement.  As I was taping and walking across the basement floor, I noticed that it squished as I walked across it.  The boards also looked a little warped.  Not so good!

My first thought was that water had come in through the french doors and underneath the flooring.  We replaced the old door last summer when we were doing all of the exterior repairs, and put in a new door that opened on both sides.

I told Drew when we got home that evening about the squishy floors and he immediately went downstairs to investigate.  Much to our surprise, the water did not come from the door, but from our water heater.  I guess that the bottom decided to no longer hold the water that it was supposed to, and instead, leak it all over our floor.

Here you can see how warped the floor boards were.  If you walked closer to the door, which is behind me in the picture, you could actually squish water up between the boards.  My heart sort of broke when I realized how much damage had been done.

Drew got to work the next day calling the insurance company.  They immediately sent out a restoration company to start quoting us prices for clean up and repair.  The man that came determined that about the half of the large room and a small portion of the hallway had been damaged.  Thankfully, the water had not gotten into the drywall or underneath the bathroom floor.

Drew and his dad decided that they could do all of the clean up and repair themselves, and worked out all of the details with the insurance company.  We have replaced the water heater, and the floors are almost done now.

This is the current state of my basement.  But, the floors are down!  We've decided to run the floor boards in the other direction than what we originally laid them.  We thought that we could get away with not putting a break in the room.  We did notice, before we noticed the water damage, that some of the boards were separating.  We think that had to do with how large of an area we laid.  The company recommends that you not have an area greater than 16 feet, I think, without doing a break.  So, we decided to put a break in the floor this time.  Not ideal, but we think that it will keep the boards nicer for longer.

Drew also decided that he really wanted to create a tile entryway at the doors.

The transition pieces still need to be installed, but this is the tile.  It is the same tile that is on the bathroom floor.

Here is a close up of the new floor, which obviously still needs to be cleaned.  This new floor is the same one that we bought last time.  However, we noticed that the color is a little browner than the old stuff.  If you look at the damaged floor above, you can see that it's redder.  It wasn't that red in real life, some of it is crappy photo lighting, but it was definitely redder than this new stuff.  Strange.

It shouldn't be too much longer before we are finished.  We've already talked about buying some area rugs to warm the space up.  Drew's ultimate goal was to have a TV with surround sound and nice furniture.  I'm not sure if we're going to get that far, but I'll update as we go.

Fixin'

It's been awhile since I last posted and we have had a lot going on.  More home improvement projects are well under way.

The top picture is the microlam being put into our attic area.  Basically, the roof over our garage was being supported by 3 2x4s.  Major bad news.  It was only a matter of time, or a snowfall, before roof crashed in and created a decent sized disaster.  So, microlams were bought, along with some other lumber, and lots of additional support has been added to our roof.  The guy who inspected our house when we bought it?  Yeah, he needs to find a new job.  He overlooked something major, and had we known about it, we probably would not have bought the house.

The bottom picture is a shipment of goodies for the exterior.  Our front porch has been jacked up to where it should be, and new posts have been installed.  Drew has also removed all the awesome green turf that was on the porch and has stripped the glue off of the concrete.  I'll have to post a picture of the progress soon.

For now, here's a before shot of the front of the house.

Construction Zone

We have had a busy two weeks of destruction and repairs around our house.  Early last week, I went with my father-in-law, Mark, and his friend, Jim, to pick out some new doors for our house, and some stuff for the bathroom.  The shower in our full bathroom upstairs has leaked practically since the day we signed the mortgage on the house.  Drew has tried on multiple occasions to fix it, without ever fixing it.  The leaking had finally gotten so bad that mold was starting to show on the wall just outside the shower, and there was water on the floor in the basement.  I knew that we couldn't put off repairing it any longer.  I was dragging my feet on it because I knew that the tile in the shower would have to come off and the drywall would have to be repaired.  Ugh!

So, Jim and Mark cut holes in the wall, fixed the plumbing, installed a new shower fixture, fixed the wall, and re-tiled the shower.  Only to find that the tub drain was leaking!  Awesome!  So, Jim fixed that also, and now, we have no more leaks in our bathroom.  The wall needs to be repainted, and some caulk put around the tile and then I can clean up that mess and have my bathroom back.  Oh, and the new shower fixture?  Might as well be heaven!

The shower head is simply divine!  I love all the water that comes out.

Then, Jim and Mark replaced a bunch of doors.  The service door in the garage was a simple wood door.  Who puts a wood door on as a service door??  We replaced that with a simple white steel one.  They also replaced the window in the garage.

The screen door that was on the front door got moved to the deck door off of our dining room.  The front door got a new screen door.  I really wanted one where the glass went all the way to the ground.

Maya really likes to look out the window and she loves being able to see out of this one without jumping up.  Leo likes it too!

Our basement patio got some new doors too.

Both doors open up like French doors and the blinds are inside the panes of glass.

Then, all the boys decided that they need to tear up some stuff and the demolished our old, dilapidated shed in the backyard.

It definitely had . . . um . . . character.  I'm sure that it was quite cute at one point of its life.  Its life came to an end though, and Drew ran into it with a tractor.

Now all that's back there is a big blank spot.  It's so weird to look out of my kitchen window and not see that big pile of crap back there.  We don't have any plans to replace it at the moment.

Next on the list is repairing and siding our house.  I feel like I'm hemorrhaging money over home repairs right now.  It's all worth it in the end, right??

Have you done any home repairs or improvements this summer?

Once You Go Mac. . . .

Drew and I joined the dark side last night.

We have been looking at getting a Mac and doing research and hemming and hawing it for quite a few months.  Honestly, it's been over a year.

We made the plunge last night since they were on sale at Best Buy.  We originally went to Best Buy to buy a power cord for our wireless router since Luuuucifer (Leo) chewed through it.  They didn't have just a power cord, so we had to buy a whole new router.  While we were there, we looked at the Macs (for about the gabillionth time) and finally decided to just buy the darn thing already.  We already knew that we weren't going to be exchanging Christmas gifts, so we bought it as our gift to each other.

After we left Best Buy, we went to Office Depot to purchase the desk that we've been eyeing for a few weeks.  What was our old office is becoming the nursery, and we're changing what was a spare bedroom into the new office.  The new desk will be here tomorrow and then I plan on spending the rest of the weekend in organization mode.  Our house has been chaos since we've starting cleaning the nursery out and I am so ready to have some organization back into my life.

I'll post some pics in a few days!

Peace and Quiet

You'll never guess what happened?

Yesterday, our tenants moved out. Mike has been living in Germany, working, since before Thanksgiving. Becca and the kids finally received their orders and a moving company came on Friday to pack all of their stuff.

It's so weird that it's so quiet around here. They moved in about a month after we did, so they've been here for about a year. We've never really had a chance to be newlyweds in our first home.

There is absolutely nothing in our basement. Our minds are spinning over what to do down there. I'm sure that there will be lots of posts over changes that we make down there. I'll get some before pictures up soon.

We're Cool Homeowners!

We got our first snowfall recently, so, of course, we had to shovel the driveway for the first time as homeowners.
Aren't we so cool?

And you can even use this picture as a before picture. We're painting the kitchen and dining room! We're hosting the Christmas Eve party for my side of the family and we figured that we needed to at least paint the kitchen and dining room before everybody comes over. As of right now, the kitchen is finished and work has begun on the dining room. Here's a before of the dining room.

Project: Pine Tree

Last weekend, I tried talking Drew and his dad into dropping the pine tree in our front yard. They weren't going for it; especially after spending all day on the lilac bushes. When I got off of work last night, I found out that Drew, his dad (Mark), and Mike had cut the tree down. Here is the tree. And by the way, people who plant pine trees in the front yard are stupid!!
And just because I'm sure you're all wondering just how cool my husband is, this video is proof that he is cool. Definitely cool!

"Cuttin' down a tree"!!!!! Hahaha!!!! I love it!


Timber!!!!!!!

This is what happens to anything that is burnable around our house! The true pyro in my husband has come out with home ownership. In fact, all of the paper and cardboard that we recycle never make it out to the curb because he confiscates it and burns it.

Of course, we couldn't just chopped down a tree and not replace it. Drew found a River Birch at a local nursery and practically stole it from them. Apparently it was mismarked.

I think that our next project is going to be the sidewalk. It is in such bad shape and I'm afraid someone is going to break an ankle trying to walk up to our house.

Project: Lilac Bushes

I've been telling Drew all week that I wanted to do something fun today. Our friends, Josh and Amanda, got us some hostas from her parents house last night, so we knew that we had to at least get those in the ground today. We talked to Drew's parents last night and they decided that they would be over bright and early so we could get the yard work done so Drew and I could go do something fun.

Today dawned and it was kinda miserable. It was cold and windy and threatening rain. Obviously my plan of doing something fun was quickly squashed. So, we decided to tackle a pretty big yard project. We have a set of three lilac bushes on the side of our house and a set of four lilac bushes in the front of our house. This is the set of trees in the front of house. Also, the before picture.
Drew's dad was adamant about cleaning them out. I was kinda skeptical when I saw this project getting started. All I saw were my beloved lilac bushes getting hacked to shreds. I am very pleased with the outcome though. Don't they look so much better? (This is the set of trees on the side of our house.)

This is the after picture of the set of trees in the front of our house. I'm not as crazy about these guys as I am with the ones on the side of the house.

Now that they've been cleaned up, I want to move the ones in the front of the house to the side of the house. Then, we'll have a nice line of lilac bushes to separate our house from our neighbor's house.

Do you see that big pine tree in the front of our house? That's coming down very soon!!

Calling All Decorators

I guess that this post is going to have a couple purposes. One, to ask for some suggestions and two, to serve as before pics. We have a HUGE dining room. And I have absolutely no idea how to decorate it.

I've seen lots of dining rooms where they used a burnt orange color and I really, really love it. The problem is that I don't think it will flow well with what I want to do with the kitchen. We seem to have a blue thing going in the kitchen with our dishes and towels, so I'd like to stick with that color. I also would like to tie in sunflowers, so yellows and maybe a few greens. But, at least some yellows. What do you think? Do you think that a burnt orange would work well with blues and yellows?

So, without further ado, here are the pictures. And by the way, the existing window treatments ARE NOT ours. They were left by the sellers. Suggestions would be appreciated for window treatments also. I would like to put in wood blinds along with some draperies.

I would love any suggestions. Either leave some love in the comments section or email me. Thank you so much!

Housewarming Party

Drew and I mailed out our new address cards and housewarming party invites earlier this week. Our housewarming party is on Saturday, April 25 at 4 pm.


That day also just so happens to be our 6 month anniversary. I think it's pretty cool that I totally inadvertantly scheduled the party for that day. How awesome that we can celebrate being married for half a year with our friends and family!! Maybe, if I'm feeling froggy, I'll put my wedding dress on!


Ok, I'm totally kidding because that would be awkward.

Hold Your Gasps!

I'm finally posting some pictures from when we first moved. Of course, Drew had to carry me over the threshold.
Please ignore my folded up pants! This was when we closed, on Thursday the 26th and it was a nasty rainy day.

The greatest part of our house? The electric chair lift. It's the running joke that you can get drunk downstairs (that's where the poker/game/Drew's man cave will be) and still make it upstairs.

We, seriously, had to buy about 25 light bulbs when we moved in. All of them were either burnt out or missing. Some light switches didn't turn anything on because the bulb was missing. So for about a week, we had no idea what all the switches were to in the house. We have since figured it out. The next picture is so dark because, as you can see, there are only two bulbs in that light fixture.

Yeah, the carpet needed a GOOD cleaning before anything else. We also let off two, count'em two, foggers on Thursday before we moved in. I have an extreme dislike for bugs, especially in my house. I don't think they worked very well because I still find things crawling around.

I am so thankful to all the people that helped us move that Friday. We couldn't have done it without them. The guys took it upon themselves to arrange our living room. I was forbidden to enter until they had it set. Once they did, I was called and three of them had assumed position to show me where exactly we should hang our pictures and things.

That's Josh, displaying where we should hang the clock.

Well, there you finally have it, some pictures from the move. I will be posting some more pictures soon of before, during, and after painting in the living room and master bedroom.

Small Update

I know, I know, bad blogger! I have been such a slacker lately on the blogging. It's not even that I've been that busy, I've just been super lazy. I think the rush of moving really tuckered me out and I've needed some time to just relax. I thought that I would take a few minutes and update what's been going on lately.

Drew and I hung out with Adam and Nicole on Sunday. The boys stayed home with their kids, and Nicole and I went shopping. We bought paint for the living room and master bedroom. We also bought all the window treatments for the master bedroom.

Drew is painting the ceiling of the living room as I sit and type this. Painting has begun!!! I don't think the ceilings really make too much of a difference since they're just being painted white again. I will be taking pictures of all the other transformations though.

A few days ago, my right eye began to ache a little bit. At first I thought that my contacts were old, so I changed those. Nothing really changed. Then, I thought that my mascara was old, so I bought a new tube of that. Yesterday, my eye hurt enough for me to start complaining about it. This morning, I woke up and my eye hurt a lot worse than yesterday, plus my upper inner eyelid was swollen. I knew I had to go to the eye doctor. I called mine and they weren't open yet. Drew called his and they were able to get me in. The doc took one look and basically said that I had a bacteria infection in my eyelid. He said that he had a sample bottle of antibiotics that he would give me. I have to put the drops in every four hours. The bad news. I have to take my contacts out to put the drops in, then put my contacts back in after a few minutes. Pain in my ass while I'm at work. The good news. The whole visit and antibiotics only cost $20. Woo hoo!!!!

Drew and I both have the day off tomorrow. We'll be doing lots of work around the house. I'll try super hard to post some pictures!

Ok, I Lied

I know that I said that I was going to post a video tour of our house today, but I'm not. I told Drew what I wanted to do and he said no!! He wants us to get the house in a little better order before I take a video of it.

The living room is arranged, but nothing is up on the walls. We want to paint before hanging stuff. The kitchen is part of the way organized. We've gotten our new appliances in and Nick (Drew's buddy) installed our new faucet tonight. It seems like all the rooms are part of the way done. The master bedroom is done for the most part, except for paint.

Things are slowly coming together. I'm thinking about purchasing stock in Menards based on the amount of money that we've already spent there and I'm scared to think of how much more we will be spending. Hey, at least we're doing our part to stimulate the economy, right?!?!

We're Moved

Yes, I've been a little MIA for the past couple days. We did finally close on the house on Thursday. We spent all day running errands and packing.

Friday was a whirlwind of packing and moving. We had to make two trips with the moving truck, but we were able to get everything out of the apartment (except for our freezer food) by the end of the night Friday.

Saturday and today has just been filled with unpacking all of the boxes and putting our things in their new spots. Today, I focused on the kitchen. It is unbelievable the amount of cupboard space we have. I have things so spaced out it's ridiculous. Oh, and the pantry!!! I don't know how I've lived this long without the pantry. It's so cool. I love how organized everything is. There are little organizers to put canned goods so we can easily see how much we have of something. No more digging through the cupboards to find everything.

I'm too lazy right now to upload pictures of our moving adventures. I will do something that will make up for it though. Drew and I both have the day off on Wednesday. I thought that I would give you a little video tour of our new house. How does that sound?

Our Closing Date

Our closing date was finally set. Drew and I will be homeowners on Thursday at 1 PM.

I can hear the Hallelujah chorus now, can't you?

We're Just About Homeless!

Everybody keeps asking me what the deal is with the house. And the answer is that I really don't know.

We were originally scheduled to close on Monday, the 16th. That obviously didn't happen. Remember me talking about the paint on the house? Well, it got painted. But, from what I'm understanding, the appraiser took his time getting back out there, and the final inspection didn't get submitted until last Friday late afternoon.

Apparently, the paperwork is still sitting, waiting to clear. The underwriter who has been working on our file has been out sick this week. So.... the earliest that it can clear, at this point, is tomorrow. But then, the title company is booked until Wednesday. That means that the earliest our appointment can be is Thursday. That means that if we close on Thursday, we'll have a grand total of two days to move all of our stuff out of our apartment. Fan-freaking-tastic!!!!!

Um, would anybody like to tell me how we're gonna pull that off when we'll both have to work? Drew is out of vacation time and I would like to actually use mine for a vacation. Drew's boss is pretty cool, so I'm hoping that they can be flexible with his schedule and our moving. I don't know what I'm going to do about my schedule. Drew will probably be moving on his own!

Thank God we didn't order our appliances earlier and scheduled to have them delivered this week. That would have been a huge hassle to try and fix. I think we'll probably go this weekend and order them and schedule delivery next Saturday. (We better be in the house by then, or else we're moving in with the damn seller and appraiser who couldn't get their act together.)

It's Not Our House

Today, I worked at one of the branches that is closer to our apartment. Because of that, I could come home for lunch. Since Drew is working weekends (grumble, grumble, grrrrr!!!) he was home also. I began making my lunch when his phone rings. It's our realtor, Brad. I answer the phone and Brad proceeds to tell me that he have a problem with the closing. My heart sinks!

Apparently, the appraiser won't pass the house because there is a piece of the wood siding on the house that isn't covered with paint. The appraiser won't pass it until that part has been painted. The seller of the house is too old to go out there and paint it and he had it quoted at $100 to have it professionally painted. Apparently, he can't afford to do that. So, our realtor was suggesting that we go paint the house.

WTF!!! It's not our house yet! Why the heck should we go out there and fix something on a piece of property that we don't even own yet. If I had had longer than 20 minutes, you can bet that I would have argued with him. But, alas, lunch ended and I had to go back to work.

Drew went over to his parent's house and, from what I understand, his dad had quite the conversation with the selling realtor. Basically, he told the realtor that they would be getting quite the sum of money from the sale of this house and if they wanted to risk that on $100 to paint the house then they were being pretty dumb. Drew's dad said that if the house didn't get fixed and pass appraisal, that we would take our earnest money and walk away. I guess that lit a fire under the realtor's butt, because when I was told about the story tonight, she had painted the house.

All this headache is making me never want to buy a house again! And can you imagine, we're only buying; I shudder to think the headaches that would arise if we were selling also!

Sign It Away

We officially have a closing date....

Monday, February 16, 2009 at 11AM.

Drew and I will go to the title company, sign the next 30 years of our life away, and be handed the keys to our first home. Squeeeeeeaaaaalllll!!!!!!

When we signed the preliminary paperwork, we realized that we will be paying the loan until 2039. I will be 54, Drew will be 59! (That's, of course, assuming that we don't refinance or move or do anything else to screw up the timeline.) If that's not scary, I dunno what is.

Let's Decorate

I've been thinking a lot about how I'm going to decorate our new home. It's a little bit overwhelming considering I've never really done this before. I've never had free reign over what I'm going to do.

I received a catalog from Seventh Avenue in the mail the other day and I really like a lot of the stuff in there.

I really like these for the entry way.
This would be cute to place on the table in the dining room. Or, we have a space on top of some of the cupboards in the kitchen.

Of course, Drew will need some decor for his game room that will be down in the basement.

I thought that this would be a cute idea for around the door leading out to the garage.

I am absolutely in love with this piece!

If anybody was looking for some suggestions for a housewarming present, I hope I helped you out. Drew and I would love and appreciate any of the above!

Step 4 - Inspection

I should probably clarify that we have ended up purchasing this house. We actually looked at a lot more than two house, contrary to what may be shown in my blog. There were some that I was not impressed with at all, so I didn't waste my time blogging about it.

Today, we have the inspection on our soon-to-be home! I'm really not too worried about it. From what I understand, the house was sold over the summer and it passed inspection then.

Drew will be taking some measurements while he's there so that we can go appliance shopping this weekend. We'll also start looking for and pricing flooring. I have already purchased a paint palette book from Sherwin Williams. I have probably looked through it everyday to try to choose colors. They all start to look the same after awhile.