Renovation Update.... Main Floor

Sorry it has been FOREVER... I know I have totally slacked on this whole blog, but trust me, I was VERY BUSY!

Let me give you a little insight as to what as happened.

We closed on the house officially on April 14th. We gutted the house that weekend. Four whole floors, GUTTED down to just beams. It was goodbye electric, goodbye plumbing, goodbye windows, insulation, goodbye well EVERYTHING.

I seriously thought we would never live here, I thought we would never get it done. Now remember when you look at the pictures, WE meaning Pat & I did 99.8% of the work. A few friends & family came to help here and there. My brother in law was a life saver with showing Pat how & helping him with the electric. We did hire someone to do all the taping & spackling ( we hung the Sheetrock)
 But basically we did it ALL... No contractors, no crew just US.

Sooo here are some before and afters.This is the front of the house....

We are still in the process of doing the siding, painting the new trim, and waiting for Hubby to install the new front door but you get the picture...

We put in more and much larger windows!!Which is what we seem to get the most complements on!

Living room /entryway before
We removed the closet, tile, rug, well everything
all the sheetrock, insulation, electrical,
Everything is new
(Except the front door, but we are getting to it
the one we have is functional so we are ok
with it for right now)

Livingroom/ entry way now

Kitchen Before and after, still have to do back splash & trim but getting there

Kitchen / Lower level and basement entrance
Don't mind the stairs, hubby just rebuilt those
yesterday. I will post pics of those too

Still have to add the island too...

Below is a pic of the livingroom before, not the best comparision pic but its what I have

We had already vaulted the ceilings at this point but
 you can see the process of the gut. The randomly placed
stained glass window is gone too.

From the kitchen, I have since made & hung curtains
I guess I will have to take more pictures.

Diningroom  before

How the 3 rooms meet

Diningroom after ( still not finished)
Actually it is now but again needing to take more pics

Well that's the first floor in a nutshell I will post the upstairs tomorrow!

COMING SOON....

So we are set to start renovations on MARCH 20th!!

Did you hear me... I said MARCH 20th!!

It has been a very LONG process getting to this point but trust me it will be all worth it once we get in there. So until the 20th... We will be resting because after that it will be non stop renovations for who knows how long!

Hooray For Ebay!

So our biggest purchase for the house is windows...

As you know there was fire & the firemen had to break most of them to get the house ventilated... So we needed to replace them ALL. We luckily didnt have to find exact fit replacement windows, especially since we plan on changing the amount of windows and the outside of the house this summer.

That led us to ebay... Pat loves Ebay. I really have never ever bothered with it. But he found us 20 windows range from 6'6 in height to regular size, all from one seller, all only 1 year old. Pretty windows with the lattice in them... They are silver line not andersen but that is ok for now.

See we were concerned with getting the energy efficent tax credit & we might still but with the money we saved on the windows its ok if we dont get it... We budgeted for $3,000 for windows but thanks to ebay we got all the windows, some even brand new in the package for $680.00...

Hooray for Ebay!

A Gorilla on my Chest

So we are right now in the planning phase...

This is supposed to fun right? I have to start by saying our new house is deceptively HUGE... So for me the planning of the decorating feels like a huge gorilla is sitting on my chest.

We start talking about what we want in each room & my head starts to spin... then throw on flooring, window placement, to vault the ceilings or not to vault, rip out this wall add tiles, counters, paint colors, contemporary, modern, country... I thought I would love this portion & dont get me wrong, I might, but right now I feel short of breath thinking of all the decision that lay ahead for us.. I think watching HGTV & DIY is making it worse, because` everyday we are like oooohhhh we want that too... LMAO.

We have decided that the first things to get done are the kids rooms... and the bathroom upstairs.. Oh and the kitchen... Oh and the .........

I will feel better in a week when we are tearing out walls...

Progress People!!

Finally the laywer call us back.. I am sure that call cost us 500 but still a call finally...

So Monday, we have to refax the contract & then hopefully this week we are well on our way. By next week  ( fingers crossed) we should be able to get in there. Then I can take all my first time homebuyer frustrations out on the walls.

Side note**

Addicted to HGTV... Never really had a need for it before this, but now I cant stop! Its like crack to me... And I have subscribed to every single magazine having to do with decorating you can imagine...

Hurry Up & Wait...

So Weds came & went.. Nothing was signed... Their lawyer called our laywer... Blah... Blah... Blah.. Legal garbage... Wording I dont understand hence the lawyers... It will be corrected, hopefully this week we will sign. We are not taking a mortgage out on this house. It is a private sale, paid in cash. So it is not your typical "closing" if you will. Its our lawyer vs theirs... and theirs is a LOT slower than ours...

We are understanding though that the current owner is very emotional when it comes to this house because of what happened. We have not dealt directly with her because she cant stand to go there or even talk about it, which again is 200% understandable... but she has people in the community that are helping her do this. People who are very slow to approach her regarding this because of her feelings. Again I understand, but I just want to get this done already.. And the sooner she is rid of the house the better it will be for her too I bet.

So basically Pat & I are on edge, very anixious, very nervous... but all we can do is hurry up & wait & wait & wait & wait........

Get out the the Pens...

We are signing everything Weds!!! We can be in tearing out walls in a matter of days...DAYS!

I cant tell you how freaking happy our moods were tonight! We have been so on edge lately, so anxious to get this thing going!

And our lives as we know it are about to change... Free time? Whats that?  We have a house to renovate people!!

 Picture Ty Pennington from Extreme Makeover with the mega phone... That will be me for the next few months..

Oh I wonder where I can really get one of those, I dont think Pat would enjoy it... That makes me want it even more now... Dare me?

Where the wild things are, um, will be...

So the girls have already claimed  the basement... It is a full basement, as big as all the other floors of the house.

I figure since we will have the garage & the attic which is more storage than I have ever had renting, they are free to have it. There is a room off the diningroom which I plan to make the computer room / Taylor's playroom so I can attempt to keep all the toys in one area & the need for Taylor to climb the stairs to her room to a minimum.

I was told this is where they want to "hang out" with their friends, play school, dance & whatever it is they do to act goofy behind closed doors.

When I picked their brains about their dream hangout room I was given these suggestions:

- beanbag chairs

- couch or futon
- table
- chalk board paint, chalk board paint, CHALK BOARD PAINT
( I got it you really want that)
-cool paint color , like a bright blue, or hot pink or lime green...  (we'll see)
- cool area rug
- a cabinet or bookshelf for their play stuff
- a tv so they can keep the Wii down there
- and a ipod dock so they can listen to their music

Anything else ladies???? Nooo but we will let you know.

So the chalkboard paint was a given, they love to play school. Also I remember what me & my friends did to my walls in the basement when I was their age, so I figure its safer with chalk. Plus you can buy the magnetic kind so that hopefully distracts them from poking 20 thousand holes in the walls for posters.

I figure since its a basement & the walls are cynderblock I cant really paint the rest well, so to bring in the bright colors they want, I will use thin wires which I can bolt to the walls & buy inexpensive bright curtains, that I can run the wire through, that way they can be taken down once they are over this neon phase they seem to be into. Plus I can wash them once they are dirty... It will give it a cool lounge affect... I prob could even get the material cheaper & make them myself.. We'll see on that one.

As far as furniture... I know I want them to have a couch. I love Ikea for this kind of stuff, they always have a selection of things that are resonably priced & they always have funky patterns & colors. So here is what I was thinking as far as their seating will go.  It is really Hot pink though it is not showing up that way... I figured I would pair that with some peices I found at a thrift store & garage sales to make up for the table & storage they want.

As far as bringing in more of this desired color they desperately seek I will pop the room with area rugs & bright paintings.I was thinking a rug like this. I know its hideious, but it will all look cohesive once I put it all together.

I am just glad its in the basement. Not even my laundry room is down there so I have no reason to make myself blind on a regular basis.

My Decision Maker....

I have been toying around with wood flooring or carpeting.

 After watching Taylor color on my rugs today, ok not so much watch.. I dont want you think I was sitting there like duuurrrr while she was going to town... as walked in after she was too quiet to find out why...

This was my first rational towards wood floors, then catching her turning her bottle upside down and smearing the lovely smell of milk into the rug while she carefully watched for me in the wrong direction...

I think I would rather a Dark wood floor that I can mop, than a stinky rug that I have to shampoo constantly, the wood floor is seeming to be the less labor intensive of the two.

In case you dont know me personally, how do I say this nicely, I am a anal rententive neat freak. I am not Mommy Dearest running around screaming " NO WIRE HANGERS EVER" or waking them up in the night to bleach the bathroom with comet, but you know, clean, smelling nice, organized & put away.. I have a cleaning schedule, certain things I like done by certain times of the day, I clean - clean in the morning & straighten up at night & then again all over tomorrow.. I probably need medication for it but I dont think its a bad sickness... yet.  I mean my 1 year old knows what things are garbage & throws them away without being told, while my 10 year old makes her bed without being asked and keeps her room usually very clean... Maybe I could use a low dose...

Anyways.. I think I know how to base what I should get on what is the safest cleaning option after "the beast" (as her older sisters call her) shows me the light..... Taylor my assisant decorator, who knew?!

This is my little one over the summer, this pic right here is the reason I ran out THAT DAY to get the child locks for all the cabinets... The ones she has since figured out to unlock...If you click on the picture you will see why we go through one box of cheerios a week. She is my rebel.

Going Green and Saving Some Green Too

OK, let me start by noting that we are going to try to be as green as possible. Not windmills & solar panels but we will do what we can. Going that kind of green cost green.... but we will do what we can!

Today we dropped the baby off at my mother in laws & loaded our 10 and 8 year old girls up & visited a place called Green Demolition in Bethel, NY. http://www.greendemolitions.org/
What this place is is basically donations from extremely wealthy people, contractors, organizations of "old", left over or surplus of kitchens, bathrooms, light fixtures, appliances, windows, doors, etc. People who do renovations would rather see someone get use out of something that still has so much life in it than throw it in a landfill & we are all for this!

They had 50 thousand dollar kitchens that you would never know weren't new complete with granite, appliances, sinks, faucets & more for around 4 grand. None of them were older than 3 years. Some of the appliances in some of the kitchens still had the warranties in effect.

Luxurious bathtubs that we, the adults, could actually fit in 100 bucks, (not exactly earth friendly on water, I know, but how often does a mother of 3 get to relax in the tub??Just knowing I could if I wanted to is enough for me) Kohler pedestal sinks 40bucks, chandeliers that would normally run you in the thousands 100-500 bucks. You cant beat it & if you don't tell anyone, they would never know.

This is important to us because we need to basically GUT the house & our budget isn't exactly that of the Rockefeller's, so we need to cut costs where we can. Plus we are saving the earth & our bank account. Win-Win! As the man in the store said, "this place is for a beer budget with champagne taste..." and I am OK with that.

We have been looking into a lot of things like that. Pat knows wood, that is his job, so he keeps finding places that sell all sorts of reclaimed wood, wood we can frame with, wood he can use some machine he has & make wainscoting out of, wood to build me the ten thousand built in's I want. This too cut costs & luckily he knows if its crap or is fine...

Speaking of wood, the house already comes with a wood stove... Something I, unfortunately, am all too familiar with from last winter. Yes they save lots of money seeing how we live in the woods & well wood is in abundance for us. Our best friends have a 300 acre farm with no shortage of fallen trees perfect to cut up for this. But last year I had migraines everyday from it & we always smelled like a campfire. Hopefully this one since its located in the basement wont present the same problem. But it does have a wood shoot from the garage so I wont have to walk outside everyday to get wood, which is a plus!

Contractors all the time have too many windows left over on job sites, brand new in the box that the client already paid for in the cost of the job... They obviously take these with them & then can sell them yet again for nearly nothing since its all profit to them. This is perfect seeing as how there was a fire in the house we purchased & the firemen broken all the windows to ventilate the house. It also will get us some money back on our taxes for purchasing & installing energy star rated windows and doors!

We even found a way to make counter tops that are gorgeous, they are Mosaic, out of broken glass in cement. Since we have a friend who owns a winery I am thinking massive amounts of glass that we can break may not be that difficult to come across...

Here is an example of what I am talking about...


We save thousands on labor because my hubby will be breaking his back to do this & calling in EVERY favor owed to him!

As far as my part in it goes.....

I love, love, love old furniture.. Wood furniture the most, nothing gives me more satisfaction that to take a sturdy piece of wood furniture & give it life again. Even reupholstering a chair makes me smile... You can find gorgeous pieces at yard sales, craigslist, http://www.freecycle.org/, consignment shops, thrift stores and flea markets for hardly a fraction of what we pay for that press board crap everything seems to be made out of.

Recently, my mom bought the most beautiful area rug, it is huge at least 12x12, thick & gorgeous for 30 bucks at a consignment shop we love in Middletown NY. I have never set my bare feet on a more plush area rug. I get it from her, we can go into places that most people would say, ah this is all crap & it might be but you have to look, sometimes dig through the crap for that one thing that once you see it you know you HAVE to have.

If you are thrifty which I have to be, you can do your whole house for pennies...
(They really need to update that saying to dollars)

Off track for a moment but I want to talk about it.....

Like my dining room, it has a "gallery" wall of all black & white photos. When I started out making this wall I was purchasing these photos already framed & matted for A LOT of $$.

Photos of places I have never been & of things I have never seen. Then it hit me one day when I was at Bed Bath & Beyond. I saw a pack of black frames in all different sizes with the mattes included on sale for $20.00.. TWENTY DOLLARS. One of the pictures I had at home that I had bought was 5x7 & cost me $45.00... My light bulb went off... I bought the frames, took them home, printed out some pics I had taken & before I knew it, I had my "gallery" complete. For less than $35.00 ( ink & photo paper, I guess-timated)

I love that we are trying to use as much recycled materials & items as we can, first of all to do our part & second of all to save us some money. I will update everyone with pics and prices as we starting buying & getting our renovation underway...

The Feeling of Creative Freedom

So we know the signing of the papers is coming... In a matter of days we can get in there & get to work, but it feels like the days are dragging, my mind is consumed with this house, I lose sleep over it, I stress about it, I become ridiculously happy about it.

We have been talking about it for what seems like forever now. What we want to do, what rooms we want to make bigger, flooring, paint, cabinets, OH MY! It seems that Pat & I have NOTHING else to talk about these days. It has even led to arguments already... But that is us, we love to challenge each other. Even the girls have paint colors, curtains & everything already picked out!

Let me give you a little insight about us....Our home history if you will....

We have always rented, before we met & since, paying rent equal to most peoples mortgages every month. We have had 3 moves since we have been together, the reasons ranging from our family growing to one crazy ass natzi landlord.....Let's just say that situation was nasty.. Literally, you can see what I mean here ..

http://liinthesticks.blogspot.com/2009/02/um-pat-theres-poop-in-tub.html

http://liinthesticks.blogspot.com/2009/02/poop-is-outta-here-and-so-am-i.html

http://liinthesticks.blogspot.com/2009/04/sour-grapes-as-my-mom-would-say.html


We have only been married not even 2 years & together a total of almost 3.We both came into the marriage with daughters from previous relationships & then had another since being married. So we weren't necessarily starting out ahead of the game, like normal couples our age do. Pat is 32 & I am 28, he is a country boy & I am a city girl "gone country".

He works in NYC & I am now a stay at home mom, because we decided that was best for our family currently. But in a not so traditional way, we purchased a house.. But nothing about mine & Pat's relationship ever was "traditional" or probably ever will be.

Pat, by nature is a carpenter, I, by nature am a decorator... Never has there been a pair more designed for conflict of interest or one more ready to create their masterpiece.

See having always rented leaves you yearning to be able to do what you want. Since it is not your house you cant paint, rip up the rugs or make the rooms bigger or Pat's favorite peeve, the walls straight. So to finally be able to let our talents free is a feeling of liberation we are both looking very forward too.

I am eagerly anticipating the outcome, I cant wait to see what we create together, that is of course, if we don't kill each other first!

How it all came about....

We obtained the house in a not so normal way, we didn't know it was for sale, it was NOT on the market. We got word through our "investor" that this was available & only WE knew about it. It was a 5 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 car garage house with attached green house on 3.57 acres... He had our attention...

Pat & I were currently looking at another house on Pinekill that was dirt cheap. It ended up selling for 30grand...

Anyways... The house, our house, had recently had something tragic take place in it. There was a fire, a fire in which 3 very beloved girls in the school district had passed away in.

This was where I first said NO WAY. It's not right, I can't. It's too sad to live there, I couldn't, never going to happen..... This is also where I was told, just go in it, if you feel uneasy we wont do it, the mother of the girls wants nothing to do with this house & the faster she is rid of it the fast she can begin to heal. This I understood. But I still didn't want to.

Of course after a lot of coaxing & pleading with me, Pat got me to go look at it with him. We had to see how much damage there was exactly, if we could afford to fix it, & if I felt at ease.

Upon our arrival, the person who was meeting us to show the house wasn't there yet, so we walked around the outside, I was uneasy at first, but the property was gorgeous & had sooo much potential. Once he arrived & took us into the house, they went right in, it took me a few minutes, a few deep breaths before I could go in. I didn't feel uneasy like I thought I would, I didn't feel scared, I felt at peace... sad about the situation when I got to looking around, but at peace with it.

Once we saw the house, the damage and Pat knew I would be able to sleep at night, we immediately said yes. It would be a new life for this house, a new family to love it & make memories, but best of all , my family, it would be our house. We knew it was going to take a lot of work, time, sweat, tears, and sanity, but we were ready for the challenge.

The pictures were taken by the Pike County Press & Times Herald Record at the time of the fire.....