@tendstowardschaos it looks great!!!
I long for that “it’s a wrap!” moment. We’re not there yet but getting close.
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Your kitchen looks gorgeous!!!
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I’ve wanted to post in here for a while, but I’ve been busy working overtime on what I shall call the basement saga, lol.
We had to start over with the basement, down to the insulation. My husband and I did all the demolition (we had 1 friend help 1 day, but did most of it ourselves).
After taking out 1.5 walls
After taking out insulation (only some walls shown)
Then we had a company come in to do the spray foam insulation. And then we hired a contractor to do the drywall, taping, and mudding…
The contractor we hired left a lot to be desired for way too many reasons that it’s not worth going into here… When he did show up for work and actually worked, his work was mostly good… except for the part where he put zero protection on our floors and got drywall mud all over every inch of it:
It finally got to the point where we had enough. We told him regardless of how far the job had moved along by Wednesday, June 12th, our “contract” would be over that day (that’s already 2 weeks past the time it was supposed to be over…) He left the floors in this state, after we asked him to clean it.
It took me a long time to get all the drywall mud off, but I managed to get the floors cleaned after a lot of elbow grease, carefully using a wall scraper to get the blobs of drywall mud off (pictures above are after this step), two passes with soapy water, and 2 passes with a steam mop…
The contractor removed the popcorn ceiling, built some new walls, put up most of the drywall and taped and mudded it. I took over from the sanding stage.
$150 for a rental sander and 3 hours later and everything was sanded and ready for primer. Versus the more than 1 week it would have taken him, plus over $700. Oh, and I spent the money on the good floor protector, instead of damaging our mostly new floors (I think it’s been less than 3 years since we installed that laminate…)
Anyway…
I sanded the whole basement, primed it, and painted it (2-3 coats on all ceilings and all walls, except the “cat’s closet” (more on this in a later post).
Office after final paint coat:
Bedroom after final paint coat:
Common area after final paint coat:
The ultimate goal with this reno is to create a 4th bedroom, so our kids can each have their own. Hubby and I will move to the basement bedroom for now. Also to re-do our laundry room in a manner that makes it easier to use. We’re also creating a small room for the cat’s “bathroom,” and doing some other fun things. We’ll also be installing a shower and fan in the basement bathroom. More photos to follow.
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Wow, nice work. And you have a wonderful
Space.
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I’m sorry to hear your drywall guy was so unprofessional - that was a huge mess to be left with.
But you did a great job finishing it. I love that saffron yellow paint!
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I am impressed at how much you and your husband have done on your own! Adding more room for family is always stressful but the end result is so satisfying!
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Started painting today! Got the cabinets all primed and a couple coats of paint (I just did one inside since it’s going to be full of shelves) and we started priming the shelves. We decided to go with a roller since it was easier (although my poor hands disagree since I decided to solo the painting lol). My husband got all the shelves taped off where they will be glued in. I might give the cabinets one more coat but will wait to see how they look when dry. We’re in the home stretch!
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Congratulations on making it so far! And for firing your contractor when necessary. It’s looking great and it sounds like you’re getting close on much of the project.
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It’s so hot here, and it’s going to be even hotter later this week, so I decided to go the hardware store and buy a ceiling fan. It had been on our wishlist for a while, but we hadn’t prioritized it because those things are quite expensive.
We got home, started installing it, due to it’s weight we needed to drill 4 large holes for screws in the ceiling, but when we were attaching the fan to the ceiling we noticed some damage that we hadn’t noticed before. Maybe damage isn’t the right word, but it appears there’s no paint in two places, each about 2" long. The rest of the fan is painted properly.
I returned it to the store, the nice teenager at the service desk was very friendly, and we got another one from the store and opened up the packaging to make sure this one wasn’t damaged. Except it was, in the same place. Third one, same. He clearly didn’t know what to do, and called for the store manager. She was mean!! She first tried to convince me that if they all looked like that, that’s what they’re supposed to look like, there’s no damage. The other employee pointed out that the show model did not have that damage, and that there was probably an issue in the factory when it was produced. The store manager grudgingly agreed with me. Then the store manager said I must be looking for a €5 discount and she wasn’t going to give that to me (I hadn’t asked for a discount, but to exchange it for an undamaged model, and €5 imho would not be enough for a ceiling fan that I’d have to re-paint myself). Then she noticed I hadn’t brought back all the screws and plugs and she refused to accept the return that way (the plugs are in my ceiling). Then she said it was closing time and kicked me out, and told me to come back tomorrow.
I will go back first thing tomorrow, and I’ll try to get out the damaged plugs as much as I can, but I’m really annoyed now. The store manager can’t help it that the whole batch of ceiling fans is damaged, but she could have been a million times nicer about it! Like, I just spent 1,5 hours on a ladder, taking off the old light fixture, drilling holes in the ceiling for the new one, with a flashlight in my mouth because for safety reasons I’d switched the electricity off. And with the large holes I’ve drilled for this ceiling fan, I really have no other option but to get exactly the same model of ceiling fan. Everbody knows that prying out the plugs is going to cause even more damage to the ceiling, and there’s no way those plugs are still useful to anyone.
I’m also really concerned about the damage in case they can’t get me a new fan. Those large holes aren’t covered by an ordinary light fixture or most fans, so if I can’t get a very similar fan I’d have to fill up the holes and paint the ceiling again. There’s no way I’m going to do that, especially since I spent such a long time putting up wallpaper in that entire room. It’s impossible to paint that ceiling again without damaging the wallpaper.
The part about DIY that I hate the most is that things never work out the first time. It always takes fives attempts over three weekends. Right now we don’t have light in the living room, because I had to take down the old light fixture first, hopefully tomorrow morning they’ll find a quick solution so I don’t have to waste time temporarily putting up the old light fixture again.
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That is horrible service! Is there someone higher than her level? Our hardware store has opened up a new package and just taken out the screw package on several things I have purchased. The boxes were opened anyway! Explain to her that the screws are already in so just swapping them means she still has a good, unopened package of plugs and hardware. It is logical and makes sense! See if that isn’t an option she can accommodate you with for your troubles!
I hope she’s in a better mood tomorrow! I don’t know who is the most senior manager in the building, but she’s definitely one of the more senior ones. In that store, they only have first names on their name tags, not titles.
I think one of the issues might be that this is a relatively expensive item for them, and if they’re going to write off several at the same time that’s going to be noticed somewhere. Especially ceiling fans during a possibly record breaking heat wave.
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I have ceiling fans in the bedrooms. They definitely help circulate air in summer and winter. I am having a new one installed in my husband’s den since it is a smaller and ugly one. They do last a long time…I think the original ones were installed in 1987!
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Ceiling fans weren’t widely available here until pretty recently, you could find them maybe in ethnic stores but they weren’t common. Our summers have been getting warmer so more and more people are installing a/c and fans now. We have a/c in the bedrooms, but not on the ground floor. We have underfloor heating on the main level and in future we’re getting a heatpump (which allows cold water to circulate through the underfloor heating in summer) but we’re not there yet. We open up all windows as soon as it’s cool outside, and we hope that a ceiling fan will help circulate the cool air from outside throughout the ground floor.
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The outside of my cabinets didn’t get as smooth as I envisioned (user error on my part I’m sure. I picked up a roller with a 1/4” nap which should help) so I sanded everything down a bit today. I’m very happy I got my husband a really nice sander and dust collector (Festool) for Christmas because it made it so easy. The sander doesn’t have much vibration in it so it didn’t cause me any hand pain at all even though I was sanding for like an hour (also did a quick pass over most of the shelves). Still lots of painting to go and some of the shelves need to be remade because the 1/2” plywood started to delaminate, but we’re making progress!
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Eep!! Just wheels and glue up on the larger unit! The smaller unit is ready for wheels and hopefully get the missing shelves remade this weekend.
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Looks nice! Custom made shelving, doesn’t get any better.
I hope my new fan comes in tomorrow, I had to order it online. I went back to the hardware store the next morning and the lady actually apologised as soon as she saw me. I guess it was a long day at work for her, and she was stressed. They only get one shipment of fans and a/c units every year, at the start of summer, and with the super hot weather they were going to be sold out before school was even out. So me not just returning one fan, but actually finding all the remaining ones of that model are faulty was not what she needed! She even said she’d be bummed too if she had drilled big holes in her ceiling for nothing.
Good thing is I managed to order it online and it was even a little bit cheaper! Hopefully that one doesn’t have damaged paint.
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@Immaculata fingers crossed for a perfect fan.
I drove to another Lowes in another town yesterday to pick up a kitchen sink. We had two delivered and both were damaged. Even the one “inspected” at the warehouse. One whole corner was bent over and those things are pretty strong steel.
They had to get several off a top shelf and I did a full inspection. Perfect. Counters are coming Tuesday and we may have a new sink in place before we leave on vaca on the 12th.
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Eep!! I still have a bunch of stuff to bring down to put in the larger unit, my husband has to remake 3 shelves for the smaller unit, and I think we need more heavy duty wheels on the larger unit but I’ve got shelves!!
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I just wrote and deleted a huge “I feel your pain on damaged kitchen goods,” post but no one needs to read that novel haha
Short(er believe it or not) version is this: after months of washing dishes by hand because our dishwasher broke I finally authorized myself to purchase a replacement. I have now had to buy the dishwasher like three times and have it refunded for various shenanigans including: online purchase company policy discrepancies, damaged goods delivered and refused, the replacement for the damaged one being taken by someone else at the store, and other such malarkey- all out of my hands.
This adventure started in May. I finally just decided to have them refund the money and I’ll keep washing by hand for now. This has taken too much mental energy (that I don’t have for it) and perhaps the Universe is saying, “Lady? Just wash yer dang dishes. You don’t need that machine.”
But the unsightly out-of-order one in my kitchen annoys me so maybe in the Fall I will revisit this upgrade.
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Do I feel your shriveled fingers.
Our dishwasher quit several years ago and that’s when we started planning the kitchen. We’ve had this new one since February and I love having one again. It wasn’t really that bad having to wash by hand, but I do appreciate the convenience now. It’s an 18 inch cute little thing, there are just two of us, but life is a bit easier now.
Good luck on finding the right machine when you are ready.
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