The Den and Attic

Maybe you remember the big, and heavy, and very old window AC unit in the Den?

Well it is GONE, baby, gone!
[picture to be added soon hopefully, can't figure out why i can't upload anymore, maybe it's a 24 hour limit]

Do you remember the metal cover over the hot water pipes in the den? They used to be a sort of ugly, dirty, beige color. Well not anymore. Now the metal covers and the walls are painted in Benjamin Moore's Polar White. It is a white paint with a faint hint of lavender. In the picture the lavender is more obvious than in real life, kinda odd...but I LOVE it! [picture to come soon]
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Pooper's attic (aka Stamp Room) is painted his favorite color: Blue! I think he prefers a darker blue in general, but for this space, the light blue works best, don't you think?
[would help to have a picture i know, but blogger won't let me add anymore today]




poodle

Just Need the Faucet and Pendant Lights

Well, ok, so maybe that's not ALL that's needed, but today the marble island top went in, last night the granite countertops went in - with some significant heavy lifting I should add - and it is looking like a house you could ALMOST live in now. Of course, it still needs some toilets and other important fixtures installed, but hey, the kitchen is coming together!

Finally, the granite countertops and marble island top are INSTALLED!!! (Please ignore the dusty hand print on the island cabinet. Everything is still very dusty. And just like this Blog, the house is a work in progress!)

But before it was installed, some very strong men had to haul one of the slabs through some deep snow and slippery ice. This piece weighed over 400 pounds!


So much for blogger let me upload 4 pix. I did, then I deleted two and tried to upload two more. No go. Looks like a third entry. When this house is done, and we have internet at home, I'll be able to figure out how to do this. But I don't have time on library hours and user time limits....

Here's a view of the k/d looking over the microwave in the island.

The sunroom gets a new tile floor, nice and light.


Another post to follow soon, I hope...
Poodle

Getting Closer

Our GC didn't make his goal of having the house 95% done by Christmas, but we are slowly getting closer and closer!

I will post two entries today so I can hopefully upload 8 pix. I don't know about you, but i am ready for the holiday rush to end!

In this picture the granite company makes a template of our counter tops to take back to the stone yard to cut our slab to fit. He used little thin pieces of wood sticks - sort of like paint stirrer sticks, but not exactly.


Here is a picture of a gorgeous antique brass and crystal chandelier I found on Craigslist for a steal. This picture doesn't do it justice, it has 8 arms and is really very pretty. I hope it will brighten the front foyer in shining light.

In this picture one of the reno crew (one of 5 Johns, believe it or not!) installs the ceiling spot lights in the kitchen.



And finally the green granite tiles I purchased for the master bath are being cut to fit the shower floor. What a job!



I will post some more EXCITING pictures of the granite and marble counter tops installed in the next entry.

Poodle

More pictures

Greetings from Panera Bread - gotta get online wherever, whenever I can. Being at Panera's brings back memories of writing my book a few years ago. Most of it was written here, in this same Paneras. Seems like a lifetime ago, when in fact it was only 4 years ago. But coming back to the present, the all time consuming project - The House.


The house is about 2/3 done now and beginning to look liveable. The house seems to have a water curse though. I've already told you about the leaking chimney, but now that the den is all newly framed, insulated, dry walled, hardwood floored, and primed with paint, would you believe the walls in there leaked after the last rain?!? No, it never leaked once during all those processes, and yes it rained several times while all of that was being done, nope it had to wait to leak until all those were done.


And the sewage line backed up - twice during this project. Thank goodness we had the forethought to have them add a one way valve to the sewage outlet at the beginning of this project. You wouldn't believe the huge clump of tree roots they pulled out the pipe! Eewww!

The guys who did the dry wall install were pretty talented. Here is a picture of one of the dry-wallers walking down the steps in STILTS!

Here's a picture of the refrigerator being delivered. Luckily everything, even the Super Lazy Susan fit through the front door without a problem.

And trying to pick out paint colors was very challenging - especially for the kitchen/dining room. As you can see in this picture - I basically went through the colors of the rainbow - small areas painted in different colors on the wall - before finally deciding on a color by Benjamin Moore called Ice Cube Silver. I know my painter doesn't think we're going to like this once it's all done, but of all the colors we tested I definitely liked this the best. And it's not green - everyone wants a green kitchen now it seems.

That's about all for now. Blogspot only lets me upload 4 pictures per entry anyway. Hopefully the next pictures will be of the kitchen cabinets, counters and appliances all installed, the hardwood floors sanded and sealed, the tile floors in the bathrooms and the paint done! Wouldn't that be the bees knees?

Dad is finishing up his trip Down Under and is sad to see it coming to an end. But for his birthday he wants a book about his next travel adventure - Argentina! Something to look forward to!

Until later,
Poodle

Falling exponentially

Hmm, my blog entries seem to be falling exponentially on a monthly basis. That must be because I am getting busier and busier.

First I will give you the promised updates on Dad's trip to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. Evidently he's quite the social butterfly and is getting invited to peoples homes and out to dinner, and even proposed to. Yes, proposed to! Dad fell in love with Fiji and a Fijian woman proclaims her love for Dad by asking him to marry her. So far, Fiji seems to be the highlight of his trip. Of course, he has yet to get to Australia. Today he is in Ridges NZ, that's the farthest south he'll be on his trip. So far, he's had a private wine tour, a weeklong cruise in Polynesia, and he heads to Sydney on Sunday. Hopefully we'll get to see some pictures soon. Must be some technological problems with internet connections on the other side of the world preventing us from getting any pictures, yet.

And since my last post we've celebrated our nephew, Topher's, birthday. I've gone to MI and back for some apple cider and the Twilight New Moon movie release.

My two beautiful nieces in Michigan at Uncle John's Cider Mill the day after the opening night of New Moon.

And still looking for that job...

Speaking of jobs: enter The House Project. Things are getting exciting now! The cabinets arrived, the cabinets arrived! The delivery occurred yesterday, a sunny, cold day. The delivery guys had the best weather for moving the HEAVY and BIG boxes of kitchen cabinets. I will try to post pictures before I leave the libary today.

The hardwood floors are installed (despite the radiators causing all sorts of technical difficulties - connections are too short to fit the wood underneath the radiatos, but our plumber eventually solved this headache with some "nipple" attachments), but not sanded or sealed yet. Hope this is ok. Our general contractor says this is ok.

The painting has started, well the priming at least! And I have been scouring Craigslist for dining room and living room furniture. I'm enjoying doing this (on my little phone-for-a-computer) more than you'd think. Luckily, craigslist's webpage is mobile-browser friendly and I can zip between posts pretty quickly. Now, if the posters would just reply to my inquiries!

Now to download some pictures. Wish me luck.

Poodle

Insulation and dry wall with pictures

No time to write, just pictures. Hopefully they speak for themselves. By the way, Dad is having a blast on the other side of this planet!
Take care,
Poodle
Den dry walled

Master bedroom insulated:

Kitchen/Dining room insulated and dry walled:

Living room partially insulated:

Attic insulated and dry walled!:

Poodle

And He's Off

To Australia, New Zealand and Fiji, that is!!!

Dad left yesterday for his long dreamt of and planned for trip Down Under. I'm so jealous! I'll keep you posted as I get his updates. I hope he sends lots of pictures of coral reefs, the outback's bush and stars. In fact, about the only thing I hope he doesn't send is any recipes for Wallaby Stew he comes across.

On another subject, we thought we lost Simba this week. Simba is the cat Poopers rescued about 4 years ago when he was morbidly obese, had a nasty skin disorder and was a day shy of being euthanized. After living with Poopers for a little while he got all fit and trim and treated with cyclosporin, put on a special diet for his skin and he was like new. But Tuesday night he wasn't eating, had vomited and started falling over, so I took him to the emergency veterinary hospital. That hospital is excellent and they saved his life. He was hypothermic and hyperkalemic and had/has bilateral kidney stones, ureteral stones and bladder stones. Poor Simbers. Now he's feeling good enough to eat, but he has a bunch of lines and catheters hooked up to him and he still has those stones in him and they could cause infection or other obstructions even lower in the urinary tract or again in the ureters. So we'll have to take it one day at a time. I think animals are like people in that their true personalities emerge when they are sick or down on their luck. Simbers was a sweetheart who only wanted to snuggle. Even when he was dying he wanted to give love. He's a Love. Hopefully he'll be home with us soon!

Wow - all the big decisions are practically done with the house now. Yesterday I bought the tiles for the sun porch and back entry/powder room and that only leaves the tiles for the backsplash that I need to pick out yet. But all the electrical is in - for ceiling fans, bath vents, outdoor lights, built-in ceiling stereo-speakers, floor heat for the bathrooms, and the cat-5 things (for cable I think??) are installed. Insulation goes up today, dry-wall / sheet-rock next week, then the floors, then the kitchen cabinets, then the kitchen appliances, then the paint. Just when I thought it would never end, it proves to be moving right along!

Hairy (aka Little Shit) just turned 1 year old in October. I was lucky one day and actually caught him napping - a rare event to ever find him asleep - he is always going at 100 mph. He's using his pink octopus as a pillow in the picture of him asleep. Less rare is to catch him in trouble - this time trouble was tearing up and gutting his pillow-bed. See why we call him Little Shit?







Hasta luego,
Poodle