Customer Service? Do We Have That?

It has been a heck of a day. Peanut and I met the plumber this morning and went over the plan for the day, then we dashed off to IKEA to order our kitchen cabinets. Since this will be my second IKEA kitchen, I have a clue as to what I am doing, and have already completed and reviewed the plan a million times on the planning tool. SO we get there and I upload the plan, print it out and I think "great - we should be out of here in no time!". Ahhhh, no. We got the brand new kitchen associate who took TWO HOURS to review and verify that all the parts were there and the doors were the right finish and the toe kicks were all there.... And then, we bought everything and went to set up delivery, when we discovered that the wine rack in our plan has been discontinued and it is out of stock! Well, if the wine rack goes that screws up my wall cabinet plan, so now I have to replace it with another cabinet. The act of "returning" the wine rack and replacing it with a cabinet and adding it to the current delivery order rather than me going to self serve for part of it and having the cabinet door sent UPS (!?) takes no less than five people and another 2 hours.

Meanwhile, my tiny one has been cooped up in her ERGO all day and is just itching to move. We finally get out of there and head back to the house. In my perfect world, our day included time to go home and have lunch and maybe spin around the playground. Since it is now 2:30pm, and I have not eaten and Peanut only had a little fruit and granola bar at IKEA, we must stop and grab a bite on the way to meet the contractor at 3pm. OK, it is the most horrific idea, but we stop at Burger King of all places! So I'm driving down the road and handing fries and bits of chicken over the back seat to my little one who hasn't the foggiest idea about fast food, but is saying "MMMM" every time I ask if she wants another. Oh yes, she loved it to my dismay. Of course, we arrived at the house, talked with the plumber (and paid him!), met up with my Honey, and got the tiles figured out with the contractor before I could finally sit down and wolf that whopper down. It is 9:30 and I am still feeling that mistake.

We are looking forward to a long weekend of work and hoping to get much done. On tap for tomorrow: prime all of the bedrooms, prep the floors downstairs for the cork, and finish taking the soffitts and wall down in the kitchen. We've also got a few more lights to install, and our contractor will hopefully be done tiling the bathroom floor and will be putting the wall up between the office and the utility room. We hope to finish all of the painting this week, lay the flooring next weekend, and start having the wiring and plumbing in the kitchen done while we build our cabinets which should arrive by the end of next week. We've got three more weekends before we move in!

Cash is flying out of our hands

Even knowing how much work and how much money we had planned on putting into this house has not helped me feel any less stressed about actually writing the checks. Maybe it is a good sign, a sign that things are moving quickly and we will have a livable house very soon. Maybe it is a sign that our budget is not nearly enough for all of the help this house needs. I'm sure this doom and gloom economy is not helping the feeling that we are just watching our bank accounts disappear...

We do, however, have a great house and there really is a lot that has been accomplished so far. We are not even a week in to our renovation and we are ready to paint the bedrooms, the wall in the gym is down, the wall in the office is being rebuilt, the new bathtub is in, the bathroom subfloor and tile backer went in today, we have a new electrical panel with wiring to code, we have lights that work (and look good too) in most of the rooms, and the kitchen is completely gutted and ready to be new next week. Our appliances are being ordered tomorrow, our cork flooring arrives tomorrow, and I plan on ordering the kitchen cabinets tomorrow as well.

The systems of the house have been the most expensive and necessary part of this remodel so far. I've already mentioned a little about the electricity, we are now on to the water issues. The water main comes into the house at the front, goes through a closet, up a wall and through the utility room where it meets up with the water meeter. That is where the main shut off valve is right now. So, if there is a problem with the pipe from the main to the shut off, we have no way to stop the water aside from having the water company come and shut off the main at the street. So we have the plumber coming tomorrow morning to put a new main shut off valve on the water coming into the house, and help us figure out how to deal with the pipe running through the closet! He will also untie the well and city water - they were illegally attached when the prior owner did not pay his water bill and decided to just use the well for the whole house.

We continue to have luck with craigslist and freecycle. Our toilet went today and someone has claimed our vanity cabinets and laminate counter tops for pickup this weekend. Our metal scavenger was back today for the cast iron tub, the old electrical panel and meter, and all of the wire (I had no idea wire could be recycled!). We did order a dumpster to arrive on Saturday - we have quite a bit of old subflooring, drywall, carpet, and other non-recyclable things. Hopefully we will just need one, and we can continue to be careful with how much we toss.

The rest of our lives

I am so wrapped up in this renovation, that I forget about the rest of our lives. My tiny Peanut is getting to be such a big girl I can hardly stand it. She is such a joy - on all of our outings and errands and meeting with contractors, she is cheerful and social, and always gives a smile and wave. She makes my day, and sometimes I think she makes other people's too :) Our little family has been doing well throughout all of this stress, and we are all looking forward to our new home and neighborhood. I think the dog has no idea how she will love to bound around in that yard!

A tad bit sore

After such a productive weekend, I am felling a little like I am running in place today. We are getting ready for the energy star and watersense tax holiday next weekend, compiling a list of our appliances and fixtures and trying to find the best deal for it all. It should really pay off since we need every single appliance and new faucets and toilets throughout the house!

We had some more materials saved from the landfill - someone came from freecycle.org to pick up our discarded tiles from the kitchen. He planned on using them for a project with his church group. I'm still working on the range and all that leftover lumber. It seems there is a market for most anything.

We did choose our cork flooring for the lower level today and ordered online - that is one thing that has been amazing through this. Prices online are so much lower than the store! We got quotes of $10/square foot for cork and wound up paying just over $3 for the same thing on http://www.builddirect.com/. They will ship it to us and leave it on our driveway. Pretty nice. If you are willing to do the research, it is worth it.

Tomorrow the electrician arrives! He will ground the house (hmmm, seems pretty important...wonder why it was not grounded before?) and clean up all of the abandoned and hot wires in the utility room. I'm excited to give someone a tour without an electric shock warning! We also start to rebuild a wall, tear down another one and demo the hall bathroom upstairs. I'm just going to head over with Peanut in the morning, let everyone in and get out of their way. We'll head over to do some appliance shopping and price comparison at Bray and Scarf, Ferguson, and Sears.

I really understand now how hard general contractors work. Keeping track of each step of each project, ordering materials, prepping the site, and keeping things rolling is really time consuming. My hands are also sore from wielding a screwdriver, crowbar, and drill all weekend!

Much Less Stinky

Another busy day for us while sweet Peanut got to play. She stayed with her aunts and cousin this afternoon and refused to nap because she was so entranced with the cat. She has a had a busy weekend of fun while mom and dad have worked.

Eco-Jani came today and scrubbed our house all day long! They literally washed the ceilings and walls, windows and doors, and all of the floors. They cleaned the inside of the fireplace! By the time they were done, we could have moved in tonight. We can no longer smell any smoke in the house - it is all fresh and clean. I am telling you, I don't think I have ever had a house so clean. They used all green products too, so it was fine to be there while they cleaned and it smells wonderful! If you need a cleaner try them - http://www.ecojani.com/. They even gave us a bag full of Seventh Generation cleaners. I was absolutely astonished at the job these folks did. We may have to treat ourselves to a regular cleaning service.

Sadly, we had to spray the shrooms with some fungicide this morning. I almost want to post a warning, but I don't want to draw more attention to them... We put some makeshift downspouts on - we have had rivers of water shooting out of the gutters and straight into the foundation walls for weeks now, and not owning the house yet, we could do nothing but cringe. Travis got busy with the crowbar and got all of the tile off the kitchen walls, and most of the drywall gone from the wall between the kitchen and dining room. We can start to see the vision for the kitchen - it is already so much brighter.

Once again, craigslist has come into play today. Our dishwasher was hauled off as well as the kitchen floor. Yes, I said the floor. I started to pull it up and realized it was clic/lock tiles rather than vinyl. After popping a few pieces out pretty easily, the guy came for the dishwasher and I offered the floor as well. He said sure and I just sat back while they pulled it up! We've got quite a few intact tiles that we have put on CL as well. This demo ain't so rough!

Tearin' It Up

Our first workday was really productive! We were able to get the disgusting black carpet up and out of the rec room, hall, and bedroom downstairs. I don't even want to know what was on that carpet and pad. It looked like one day they just decided to put down carpet - no cleaning the floor, just "let's lay a carpet - how about black?!". There were leaves and money, matches,, papers, and lots of dirt under that carpet. Once we pulled that up, we pulled the black hearth tiles out and with them came some of the vinyl that was under the carpet. So out that came too - pretty easily. We dismantled the big stage (the rec room was decked out as a theatre room) and got part of the second one out. Those may be the most well built and solid things in the entire house. We took several interior doors and closet doors out, and replaced the rails in the back portion of our split rail fence.

Meanwhile, we had a craigslist fiesta! The cabinets, washer, dryer, and refrigerator were removed and hauled off, and we expect someone to pick up the dishwasher tomorrow. So the kitchen has essentially been gutted without us doing a thing. Even the tile is just falling off the walls. Pretty sweet deal! The kitchen plumbing is a little crazy, and there is so much dirt! We found pictures, bills, business cards, change, and some odds and ends under and behind the cabinets. I'm so glad we were able to give our kitchen away. Much of the lumber we took out from the stages is in great condition, so we will either use it or freecycle it. Same goes for the closet doors. We did have a lot of trash today, but I think overall our impact on the landfill is a lot less than it might be without freecycle and craigslist.

Peanut got to play with grandma and her man - they took her to the petting zoo and the playground. She had a wonderful day being doted on and snuggled! She came to visit at the new house, and got to play a little in the yard.

Our neighbors had an Octoberfest, and we stopped by for a few after we ended our workday. It was great to meet folks and hear some stories about our houses' sordid past. Apparently, we had a bunch of teenager hanging out in our backyard last night. As I suspected, we are still the party house. We'll have to nip that...

So tired and I can already feel the sore muscles. Tomorrow is another opportunity to make this house our own!

Oh THOSE Mushrooms

A few weeks ago when it rained, I noticed there were a lot of mushrooms in the yard. I started doing some Internet searches on how to get rid of them, and came across a lot of information about types of mushrooms. I was thinking about the artwork in one of the bedrooms - there is chalkboard paint on the entire room and really lovely shroom art and graffiti all over it - and wondered...were those mushrooms THOSE mushrooms? I decided I would take a picture and post it on an identification website to see what we had. The next day, I go to the house with my camera, and the mushrooms are all gone! Well, that happened twice, so I started to think we had folks doing a little harvesting the crop. Yesterday, we had a man "in the know" at the house. The ADT guy used to work for the sheriffs office and said he could ID the shrooms. We searched and searched, and finally, I spied one slim brown stalk. We have professional confirmation of my initial suspicions! Hopefully the ATF won't bust down our door before we get rid of them. Ah, the joys of buying the neighborhood party house!