We really slacked on the ol' posting this week. Oh well. There wasn't much time to work on the house- we both worked late, or came home and worked more. We did get our kitchen cabinets designed, though. Now we just need to decide whether or not we'll use natural wood finishing or if we'll paint them. I love the look of wood, but the kitchen is so small that I worry that it'll seem cramped and dark if we used the shades of wood I like. I don't like blonde or honey-colored woods. I just don't. But, they might look good painted, too. I'll have to see if I can get my spouse to post them later this week.
We also attended the Seattle Home Show last weekend. It was pretty good. We weren't in the market to buy anything right then and there, but we gathered tons of information. We saw tons of different kinds of windows, found out more about fireplaces, saw good lighting, saw fun doors, and got lots of information on tile, countertops, hardwood floors, millwork, etc. It was really great for idea-gathering. We wish, in retrospect, that we had taken more pictures, but oh well. That's what the showrooms are for, I suppose. Now we just have to find the time to do it.
I think our next part of the project will be to replace the cold water plumbing. That means we'll have to run it to more places, though, like the toilets, than we're currently running it to. Since it's been so cold, we've put off cutting even more holes in our walls. Hopefully we'll be able to get to cracking on that in the next couple of weeks, though.
I want to just skip right ahead to the kitchen. Shame on me.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Inspiring Pictures
As mentioned earlier, we visited a tile showroom. There were so many beautiful tiles and patterns. Here are just a few that I photographed. We definitely liked the small tiles and are leaning heavily towards small hexagons or rounds for the bathroom.
Small tiles satisfy the OCD in my spouse and I (both for eye candy but especailly for installaion obsessiveness).
We also stopped by Restoration Hardware and a couple of other showrooms. While I'm not sure we'd buy from RH, it was great to browse through their showroom.
This hardware set had the best feeling handles/pulls. We really like the flare in the middle. I've seen some pulls that are a little more exagerated in the middle and they feel even better.
My spouse didn't like the ellipitcal knobs (neither did I), but we did like the round knobs in this set.
While we don't like chrome in the kitchen, these pulls could be nice.
This bathroom set was nice, and the lights adjusted! How fun is that! The escutcheons are rectangular instead of round which is a nice change of pace.
My spouse really liked the porcelain switch plates. She's found a bunch of other switch plates (in art nouveau styles) that are great, too.
We loved this door hardware. Stone River Bronze makes some amazing stuff! Rocky Mountian Hardware makes some great stuff, too. But they're a little out of our price range.
Small tiles satisfy the OCD in my spouse and I (both for eye candy but especailly for installaion obsessiveness).
We also stopped by Restoration Hardware and a couple of other showrooms. While I'm not sure we'd buy from RH, it was great to browse through their showroom.
This hardware set had the best feeling handles/pulls. We really like the flare in the middle. I've seen some pulls that are a little more exagerated in the middle and they feel even better.
My spouse didn't like the ellipitcal knobs (neither did I), but we did like the round knobs in this set.
While we don't like chrome in the kitchen, these pulls could be nice.
This bathroom set was nice, and the lights adjusted! How fun is that! The escutcheons are rectangular instead of round which is a nice change of pace.
My spouse really liked the porcelain switch plates. She's found a bunch of other switch plates (in art nouveau styles) that are great, too.
We loved this door hardware. Stone River Bronze makes some amazing stuff! Rocky Mountian Hardware makes some great stuff, too. But they're a little out of our price range.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Big ideas
We spent the weekend gathering data. We're waiting for the weather to dry out and warm up a bit before we start doing the rewiring, and we're going to do more plumbing in March. We're also still doing research on which sawzall we want to buy, and until we purchase one we can't really remove any of the old pipes.
Once we get the rewire done and the walls in place, it'll be time to start making the inside of the house nice. We're going to put in some simple crown molding and decide on other architectural details. So, we went around to a bunch of places trying to figure out what exactly we like and what we want. We visited a Kohler showroom, IKEA, a kitchen showroom, and a tile store, not to mention ReStore over in Ballard. ReStore gathers stuff out of old houses and resells it, like sinks, windows, doors, doorknobs, grates, cabinets, you name it. There's all sorts of great antique and vintage stuff there, and it's reasonably priced. It's a great way to recycle a lot of building materials. We'll keep it in mind for later.
We also stopped by Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn. It was great to look at a lot of different types of cabinet and bathroom hardware. The feel of drawer pulls and knobs is really important, and we found some nice stuff. At Pottery Barn we bought a pair of really nice Tibetan-style stools, courtesy of a generous gift certificate from my aunt and a supplemental one from a good friend. The stools are our first furniture purchase for our new home, and they've already come in handy, since there's no couch to sit on, let alone chairs. ^_^
On the way home, we swung by Barnes & Noble and used yet another gift certificate to purchase tons of home improvement magazines. So far we've seen some pretty interesting stuff. The best purchase of all, though, was something called the "Old House Interiors Design Center Sourcebook." It's basically a list of websites and companies that manufacture period-style home stuff, like tiles, wallpaper, door hardware, etc. It's wonderful and amazing, and if we can afford anything we find in there, we're going to get it.
Next weekend it's off to the Home Show, where we'll spend all weekend getting our head filled with really great ideas. That's what we're hoping, at least.
Once we get the rewire done and the walls in place, it'll be time to start making the inside of the house nice. We're going to put in some simple crown molding and decide on other architectural details. So, we went around to a bunch of places trying to figure out what exactly we like and what we want. We visited a Kohler showroom, IKEA, a kitchen showroom, and a tile store, not to mention ReStore over in Ballard. ReStore gathers stuff out of old houses and resells it, like sinks, windows, doors, doorknobs, grates, cabinets, you name it. There's all sorts of great antique and vintage stuff there, and it's reasonably priced. It's a great way to recycle a lot of building materials. We'll keep it in mind for later.
We also stopped by Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn. It was great to look at a lot of different types of cabinet and bathroom hardware. The feel of drawer pulls and knobs is really important, and we found some nice stuff. At Pottery Barn we bought a pair of really nice Tibetan-style stools, courtesy of a generous gift certificate from my aunt and a supplemental one from a good friend. The stools are our first furniture purchase for our new home, and they've already come in handy, since there's no couch to sit on, let alone chairs. ^_^
On the way home, we swung by Barnes & Noble and used yet another gift certificate to purchase tons of home improvement magazines. So far we've seen some pretty interesting stuff. The best purchase of all, though, was something called the "Old House Interiors Design Center Sourcebook." It's basically a list of websites and companies that manufacture period-style home stuff, like tiles, wallpaper, door hardware, etc. It's wonderful and amazing, and if we can afford anything we find in there, we're going to get it.
Next weekend it's off to the Home Show, where we'll spend all weekend getting our head filled with really great ideas. That's what we're hoping, at least.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
New (Floor) Plan
Here is a new floor plan based on the fact that we can build in the SE corner. We've moved the fireplace, too. Have to consult a contractor on how feasible the fireplace is, though.
For those of you who remember the post about the corroded hot water pipes, here is a picture of one of the worst. Solid corrosion. Almost no room for water to pass through.
And here is a picture of our vintage exhaust fan in the full bathroom. It's on a timer and there is a little bit of startup time (about 5-10 seconds) as it winds up. It's actually not even attached (up in the attic space). It just sits there. No screws attaching in to a truss. I'll have to do something about that someday.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Room
Today we found out from city hall that we can build as close as five feet from the property line. The property line is basically the fence the put up right in front of what used to be the front door. The distance from the fence to the side of our house is five feet.
Big deal, you might say. What this means, though, is that we can actually add on a third bedroom. We were originally going to put a deck there (and I think it would have been a lovely place for a deck), but a third bedroom will add resale value to our house as well as allow us to live here longer. If we have a bedroom for each kid, there's really no limit to how long we can stay. So, that'd be a pretty nice thing to do. They're going to be pouring foundation on the front lot, anyway- it might not be hard for us to go in on it with the builder, or at least his crew. Who knows. They'll be here already, after all, and there's something to be said for under the table...
At the very least, it gives us something to chew on until it's warm and dry enough to rip off the walls and actually begin the rewiring.
Big deal, you might say. What this means, though, is that we can actually add on a third bedroom. We were originally going to put a deck there (and I think it would have been a lovely place for a deck), but a third bedroom will add resale value to our house as well as allow us to live here longer. If we have a bedroom for each kid, there's really no limit to how long we can stay. So, that'd be a pretty nice thing to do. They're going to be pouring foundation on the front lot, anyway- it might not be hard for us to go in on it with the builder, or at least his crew. Who knows. They'll be here already, after all, and there's something to be said for under the table...
At the very least, it gives us something to chew on until it's warm and dry enough to rip off the walls and actually begin the rewiring.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Dough-a-go-go
We were talking tonight, and we realized that we never really talked about whether or not we got our money back.
Well, we did. We almost didn't. Somebody (the loan people) didn't do the paperwork right and forgot to make sure the funds would be released to us and not back to the seller. Ugh. It took a bit, but we did get our money back. What's really scary is that it's already half gone. We haven't even started to rewire anything yet or do the new drywall, and the money's already half gone. Oy. House stuff is REALLY expensive. Of course, the electrician himself was $3K. That was a quarter of our money right there. Now I'm wondering how the heck we're ever going to manage to do some of the things we want to do. We'll probably be able to do the rewiring, and the new walls, and maybe put in bamboo floors, and then we'll be about out of cash. We won't have even started on the kitchen... Well, we'll figure it out. Here's to hoping for good raises.
Now we just have to go buy a sawzall and the rest of the pex for the cold water plumbing, as I think I mentioned before. Whee. That might happen this week. First order of business is to sweep all the stuff off of our roof. We had a big wind storm here over the weekend, and I think half the forest is on our roof. Okay, so the big, beautiful cedars on the front lot kept us out of the worst of the wind, but there's still a lot of stuff up there. They make special roof-sweeping brooms. We're going to buy one of those. It's supposed to be sunny the whole week (miracle of miracles!), so we have some time.
Well, we did. We almost didn't. Somebody (the loan people) didn't do the paperwork right and forgot to make sure the funds would be released to us and not back to the seller. Ugh. It took a bit, but we did get our money back. What's really scary is that it's already half gone. We haven't even started to rewire anything yet or do the new drywall, and the money's already half gone. Oy. House stuff is REALLY expensive. Of course, the electrician himself was $3K. That was a quarter of our money right there. Now I'm wondering how the heck we're ever going to manage to do some of the things we want to do. We'll probably be able to do the rewiring, and the new walls, and maybe put in bamboo floors, and then we'll be about out of cash. We won't have even started on the kitchen... Well, we'll figure it out. Here's to hoping for good raises.
Now we just have to go buy a sawzall and the rest of the pex for the cold water plumbing, as I think I mentioned before. Whee. That might happen this week. First order of business is to sweep all the stuff off of our roof. We had a big wind storm here over the weekend, and I think half the forest is on our roof. Okay, so the big, beautiful cedars on the front lot kept us out of the worst of the wind, but there's still a lot of stuff up there. They make special roof-sweeping brooms. We're going to buy one of those. It's supposed to be sunny the whole week (miracle of miracles!), so we have some time.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Safety First
Or, in our case, eventually. No, we actually put up our smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detector. We won't be dying of fire anytime soon, hopefully. Actually, it was an extremely unpleasant task, for being such a simple one. First, we discovered that every single ceiling we tried to fasten a detector to was different. One was wood, one was wallboard, and one was plain ol' drywall. We fastened one to a beam. The same beam, actually, as the ceiling fan o' death that nearly claimed the noggin of my brother (several times). We've also fastened our makeshift ceiling light to that beam as well. Thank goodness for old Ikea paper lanterns. The light it casts is beastly, in my opinion, but it does the trick until we can redo the ceiling and put in recessed lighting.
Anyway, what made the whole detector experience horrible was that it was a throwback to our run-ins with fire alarms at the old apartment (which we shall call, for now, "heaven," as it was clean, comfortable, had heat, and wasn't in danger of flooding). Some of you know this, but the system was hard-wired and made the most god-awful noise. It would have awoken us from a dead slumber. In fact, on our last night there, it did. Horrible. Long story short, we're now really, really sensitive to noises like that. The detectors, of course, needed batteries, but when you put the batteries in, it makes the alarm noise. Several times. As soon as you connect. I literally couldn't hold on to the detector the first time it happened- the noise upset me so much I nearly ran. So, the installation was basically an hour of us having our wits shattered by ear-splitting noises. It was lovely. We got over it. Sort of.
Thing is, we suspect that we would be fine here even if there was a fire or carbon monoxide leak (the only possible source of carbon monoxide in the Rat Hole would be the pellet stove, since there's no natural gas or forced air or anything here). The Rat Hole is so drafty the carbon monoxide or the smoke would probably just drift right out.
We also got our security deposit and half month's rent from the old apartment this week. It's nice to have- now we can buy pex to redo the cold water plumbing and maybe buy that sawzall we've had our eyes on.
Anyway, what made the whole detector experience horrible was that it was a throwback to our run-ins with fire alarms at the old apartment (which we shall call, for now, "heaven," as it was clean, comfortable, had heat, and wasn't in danger of flooding). Some of you know this, but the system was hard-wired and made the most god-awful noise. It would have awoken us from a dead slumber. In fact, on our last night there, it did. Horrible. Long story short, we're now really, really sensitive to noises like that. The detectors, of course, needed batteries, but when you put the batteries in, it makes the alarm noise. Several times. As soon as you connect. I literally couldn't hold on to the detector the first time it happened- the noise upset me so much I nearly ran. So, the installation was basically an hour of us having our wits shattered by ear-splitting noises. It was lovely. We got over it. Sort of.
Thing is, we suspect that we would be fine here even if there was a fire or carbon monoxide leak (the only possible source of carbon monoxide in the Rat Hole would be the pellet stove, since there's no natural gas or forced air or anything here). The Rat Hole is so drafty the carbon monoxide or the smoke would probably just drift right out.
We also got our security deposit and half month's rent from the old apartment this week. It's nice to have- now we can buy pex to redo the cold water plumbing and maybe buy that sawzall we've had our eyes on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)