Our house is starting to look normal

As I promised here are some pictures of the "new" and definitely improved living room with the long awaited carpet installed. It isn't fully decorated yet but you get the idea.

Before:

After:

I don't think I have posted the front door and entry way since it was completed. Below are pictures of the front door with the new trim and the finished slate tile entry.

Before:

After (In the picture at the bottomyou can see some more details of the carpet and tell that it has flecks of darker colors in it. I think this is going to be great with having a pet and potential munchkins down the road, you really can't see anything on this carpet as far as dirt goes):

This is the other room we had the carpet installed in the "3rd Bedroom/Office" it is currently holding some stuff that we moved out of the To-Be-Master Bedroom so that we can start working on that.

Another thing we got done this weekend was installing the first of two windows in the Master Bedroom. Of course the old ones were originally installed completely differently then any of the other we have worked on so this ended up being an all day affair to get the window to fit. At least we know now for the next one.

An exciting thing we were able to do this weekend was meet with a contractor to talk about the closet reconfiguration for the Master Bedroom. I had to run to a Baby Shower, but by the time I got back and talked to Adam they had figured out how to make my side a walk-in closet. These must be two men that know how to make a woman happy :) I was then instructed to figure out any custom shelving/design that I wanted, to make sure it would fit the dimensions they had discussed. I was right on that and I think we got that all figured out yesterday evening. Now we just need to reconnect with the contractor and see when he can start the job.

"So where are the carpet pictures" you say.....

I guess I'm being a bit of a girl about this one. Since this area of the house looks reasonably like a normal house I want it to be "pretty" before I post pictures. So I will take some this weekend after we get stuff arranged and it looks more of what I want to show everyone.

Oh by the way the carpet is absolutely wonderful, I think we came home and just laid on the floor and talked for 2 evening before we got the furniture moved back in to the room.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and enjoys the nice weather!

Preparation

Well the carpet is coming this Friday afternoon, so we are scurrying around trying to make sure everything that we would like to be done prior to carpet is done and then get thing moved and the floors cleaned up. Poor Adam has had the raw end of that deal since my abilities to do some of the projects or move heavy objects isn't all that great. I think one of our guy friends and maybe my brother might come over to help move furniture. Adam and I moving heavy furniture together might end in a spousal spat, so I think the guys coming over to help is a wonderful idea.

Friday should be a pretty crazy day, I am taking a 1/2 day off of work that day because I am in my good friend's Kim's wedding on Saturday, so Friday afternoon we are doing the pedicure thing, decorating and then the rehearsal dinner. So I will hurry home to let the carpet people in, then get the heck out dodge, Adam will be home a few hours later to check on them and perhaps be there when they leave. We both have roles in the wedding, I as a bridesmaid and Adam as an usher so we will go to the rehearsal and dinner that evening. A friend from out of town talked to Adam a few weeks ago and asked if he could sleep on our couch or something this weekend due to the wedding, I'm not sure if that means Friday night or just Saturday. So amongst all the madness we will also have a house guest. If he only knew what he is getting himself into, poor guy. Hey but at least there will be carpet, right!

The Carpet Man is Coming, The Carpet Man is Coming.....

We went this weekend, actually Monday, to look for some carpet. We found something we liked at a good price at McCools Flooring in Avon and I called to set an appointment yesterday for them to come out and measure on Thursday. This particular carpet is in stock so we are hoping we can get it in our house sometime next week, I guess we will find out for sure tomorrow. It is a lighter frisse (sp?) with some flecks in it and it is Mohawk brand. One thing if anyone is looking for carpet, always ask about their in stock items b/c you can usually get at least $1/sq ft off of the normal price. For instance, ours would be a $4 carpet normally but because it is in stock it is a $2.20 carpet, and it is a good quality carpet. Adam and I worked feverishly last night to get the two rooms that need measured to a state of somewhat cleanliness, actually I did the cleanliness thing while Adam continued putting up the trim.

Which leads me to Adam's newest "Man Toy," this weekend while out looking at carpet we also made a trip to Lowes where Adam purchased an air compressor and a nail gun. I only kid when I say a toy this has made the trim go up very quickly and we have a lot more stuff we will need to use the nail gun for such as all the cabinet moldings that still need to go up, the toe kick, the window casings and trim, etc, etc.

This weekend we will work to do all the touch ups that need to be done prior to the carpet coming in, I'm so excited that after 9 months of living in this house we will actually have a room with carpet and trim. Actually, the living room will basically be finished other than decorating.

And just in case you are wondering I don't know if the septic system is fixed yet. While at Lowes we got come of that stuff that is supposed to help get the bacteria back in balance and help if the system is being sluggish. I'm just not worrying about it right now and delighting in the fact that we are getting carpet, and the only thing we can't really use at the moment is the washing machine.

Why do I live in the city and I'm still on a septic system?

Actually I don't know how much this has to do with a recent plumbing problem, but I have always thought it was weird that we have a septic system and well water and live 43 blocks from the middle of a metropolitan city. I know we are scheduled to be converted in the next few years but why did it take 50 years for that to happen? Questions I will probably never know the answer to. Adam was excited that we were on well water because it reminded him of being in the country, I also grew up on well and septic, so I suppose it is fine.

On to the plumbing problem I briefly mentioned. For some reason the water in the drainage line for the south side of the house is not adequately draining or not draining fast enough and causing back-ups, especially when using the washing machine. Adam spent one evening underneath the house ripping out some of the old cast iron and replacing it with PVC and also making sure the drainage was at the proper angle leading out to the septic line, that has been to no avail. He also looked down the septic line with his flashlight and didn't see an clogs or anything and said he could see for a long way, plus there wasn't any extra water in the septic line coming back to the house, so that wasn't it either. He then spoke with a guy at Economy Plumbing (his plumbing store of choice) and they said it sounded like something was clogging one of your plumbing vents so that lack of air release wasn't letting the water flow fast enough and thus the back-up. So last night my husband climbed on top of our house with the shop vac and try to shop vac out anything potentially in the vent, that had to be interesting to our neighbors. He did get an acorn and thought that was the culprit, but we were still getting the back-up. I don't know what the next investigative step is, but I'm thinking perhaps a professional plumber might not be too far down the list.

Needless to say this has delayed our putting up trim, and thus getting the carpet. Hopefully we will get back on track with that soon. Sorry no pictures, but I don't really think you would want to see the garbage disposal food that was trapped in our line then came out and went all over the floor, and the picutre definetly would not have conveyed the smell!!!

A Lady in Waiting....

We have been working on stuff, I just haven't posted in a while because there isn't much in the way of pictures to update. We have the entryway and the fireplace tiled and grouted. We are now working on the mantle and trim around the fireplace and trim around the doors and floors. In my extensive Google research I discovered that getting your trim up before getting carpet makes for more finished look then the other way around. So we were cutting and painting trim this weekend. I think we pretty much have it all ready to go for the living room, hall, and office floors, which is where the carpet is going. Now Adam just has to get it up and we have to get more molding for the doors. We also need to go carpet shopping soon so we can get that lined up. Oh I never knew how happy I would be to have floors coming into my house, and so I am a lady in waiting to have a finished living room and thus something in my house will be done!

On a side note we also did some celebrating this weekend. I helped host a shower for my good friend Kim who is getting married next month and got to make party food. I like this kind of hosting/cooking stuff and made Bruschetta, Spinach Artichoke Dip, and Pasta Salad as well as the punch. We also didn't do the normal bridal shower game, instead we played Cranium but made it a shorter version and made questions that dealt with either weddings in general or with Kim and her fiance Eugene. I think everyone had a lot of fun. Most of our husbands/fiances went golfing while we were being girlie, the golfing lasted much longer than the shower so we capped off the evening by going to see Mama Mia. All I have to say is that Pierce Brosnan does not have a future on Broadway, his looks are much better than his voice!!!

Slate.....My New Best Friend

The last couple of weeks we have been working on getting the entryway and fireplace tiled so that we can get really close to having carpet.

Below is a picture of the fireplace in the living room as it was when we moved in.



Here is the fireplace after we stripped it of anything really resembling a fireplace. First we removed the brass and glass cover. Then we dismantled the mantle and the trim on the sides. Lastly Adam took a hammer and pry and took off all the tile and residual mortar as gently as he could.


Part of our plan was to build out under the actual fireplace to give it a little more presence and also to to help provide additional protection for the soon-to-be carpet that will be installed. I didn't like the idea of just a hearth pad on the floor (this is the few little tiles that sit on or near the floor in front of your fireplace), if we had a gas fireplace that would be one thing but the idea of ashes on new carpet wasn't a pleasant thought. Here (below) Adam just took some 2 x 4's and built what I refer to as "the bench"



We used a brick pattern gobi slate that we found at the Tile Shop. It wasn't the cheapest tile, but luckily this isn't a huge area and we ended up getting just the effect we wanted. Here is Adam putting it up. We just used a normal thinset mortar with a trowel specifically for wall tiling. We also replaced all of the area behind the previous tile with new cement board, as well as put cement board on the "bench".



And after Adam's wonderful work below is the fireplace with all the tile up. It got a little tedious at the end b/c he had to kind of piece the sides of the bench together due to the area not being exactly 12 inches and requiring a partial tile piece. I think it looks great! We still need to seal the tile, since it is slate (a natural stone) you must seal it before grouting or the grout would stick to all the groves and stuff. After that we can grout it and then seal the grout. My participation in this project, other than cleaning excess mortar between the tiles, was to spray paint the brass doors black. I didn't take a picture yet but it looks so much better. Finally we will add the mantle and the trim and have a new beautiful fireplace.



We are also retiling our front door entryway and decided to use slate there also. We used a design consisting of 6 and 12 inch tiles. These we just purchased at Lowes and they weren't anything too special. Here is the tile all laid out we just need to get the mortar adhesive on and then we will finish it the same way we will finish the fireplace with the seal and the grout.