As the U-Haul Slogan says "U Can Do It," We are MOVING!

We are moving! What a week this has been. We are putting the finishing touches on what we now call the "Beautiful House," and it's all coming together, but it's been a stressful week because now, the details of the house require more fine-tuning, and we are exhausted. It's hard to fine-tune when your muscles are shaking, your fingers are scraped, and your back is killing you. But, this is not a woe-to-us story. This has been a great month renovating this house and we are so happy we took on this project. Both Tim and I feel that we would DEFINITELY renovate another house. I just need about 6 months off for rest, and count me back in.

So onto the pictures!

 Here's an action photo of Mike, our electrician. Mike has been with us so much the past week, I almost feel like we need to offer him one of the bedrooms and let him move in with us.

The poor guy has crawled through every spooky/creepy part of both the current house we live in (to uninstall my favorite chandelier) as well as the new Beautiful House.





This light fixture is the new fixture that Mike the Electrician installed in our kitchen:

Tim Flaherty picked out this one: the new light fixture over the front door. One night, I'd had it. Tired, sore, crabby...I brought the kids home and got everyone ready for bed. We had to have the front door light fixture for Mike the Electrician to hang the next day.

Tim went to Home Depot and picked this one out all by himself, I think he did a good job.

This light fixture is the aforementioned "favorite" chandelier. I bought this chandelier before we left Syracuse with the proceeds from our moving/garage sale. So I feel that this light fixture is somehow tied to my time in Syracuse.

Anyway, it's been hanging in our current house for the past 4 1/2 years, and it's coming with us to the Beautiful House. It'll hang over our dining room table. They're not on in this picture, but we have little lamp shades that hide the light bulbs.



Here was this week's major bump in the road! The stove finally came in on Tuesday. Guess what? It's 3 inches shorter than the old cooktop/wall oven configuration we had. Not to worry though. Although I did in fact, worry considerably about this snafu..... This type of stove is called a "drop in," which means the top of it actually rests on the granite surrounding it. It is in the correct position at the top, but at the bottom, as you'll see in the 2nd picture, there is a gap of about 2-3" that we need to cover with a replacement drawer panel. Or something. Creative thoughts needed at this moment....

Right now, I can see black space. But I'm not going to think about that. The only thought I can focus on at this moment is to just get into this house!

There's the dead space underneath my "drop in" stove. We need to get a
panel / replacement drawer face to put there. I called the cabinet company
to see what they can do... fingers crossed.

Back to the move.... Here are our two professional movers, ready to get to work!

Timmy in the driver's seat, Norah the Navigator:

Showing Mary Reizun (our niece and kids' cousin) the newly Beautiful House:

The kids actually had a fight about who got to drive in the cab of the Uhaul with me. Norah got to ride there on the way TO the house, Timmy got the front seat on the way back. Why couldn't they both ride with me? Um.... this Uhaul had 3 seat belts..... but only 2 seat belt plugs....... Thanks Uhaul.

Last picture for this post. Tim and I went on a date night last night since our niece agreed to babysit the kids. Only in Orlando, we're driving around and we see Rocket Man in the car below. To the Moon, Alice!!!!!

Running on empty, but we are almost there!

As the title would suggest, we are pretty tired. Lots of sore muscles, bruises, scrapes, and general fatigue. This picture of Timmy sleeping it off in his Cheetah sheets pretty much speaks for us all at this point. But on the bright side, we are finally getting there, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Yesterday was an incredibly busy day at the Broken House as the following pictures will attest. At one point we had no less than 10 contractors working in the house, and we needed mirrors around corners basically to prevent traffic jams. Appliance delivery men, 5 guys finishing the tile and installing the carpet, 2 granite guys, and 2 electricians. For what it's worth, the granite guys showed up about 9:30AM and were there till after 10:00PM. I guess that's a lotta granite. They didn't get paid by the hour, and it was a flat rate for the job, so I give them credit for sticking with it and doing an outstanding job even though I know they were getting tired.

First picture, beginning of the day, granite arrives and we are so happy! 



In this picture, Rita is resolving the details of under-cabinet lighting and outlet placement with our electrician. What a nice guy... He was soaked in sweat and still has to come back on Monday. But he told me he had fun working on our job.

That's us, the party house!



So as I mentioned above, things got a little busy at times in the Broken House today.

Here's a snapshot of the kitchen area with just 4 people in there trying to work. This shows 1 granite guy (there were 2), the appliance delivery man (there were 2), Tim, and one of two electricians.

It was a fun atmosphere though. We had the radio on, lots of people talking and laughing, and a good group of workers. Everyone got their job done and I'm so happy with the sub-contractors we hired.

Here comes our new refrigerator. The blue stuff is a film to protect the stainless steel from scratches until after all the construction and moving is finished. We also got a new stainless dishwasher, stove/convection oven, and microwave.

The stove/oven comes next week, so as of now, we are still only about 3/4 complete on appliances.

An action photo of the two granite guys demo-ing the old laminate countertops. You can also see the new stainless microwave has been installed by this time, and we still have the old stove in as a place holder untl the new one gets delivered next week.

The electrician's ladder is visible in this picture. He is installing "above the bumpout" lighting (above the cabinet bumpout). That'll give the kitchen a nice glow in the evenings with the above cabinet lights and below cabinet lights as well.

From Rita's perspective, most of the day was spent painting over the creamsicle orange paint in the kids' bathroom. I had exactly two votes of confidence on the creamsicle orange from my blog readers, but the rest were silent. I guess if you don't have anything nice to say, people decided to say nothing at all. Tim was a little more vocal in his thoughts on the creamsicle orange. The decicing factor for me came when one of the flooring guys (who is also a painter) came by and said that with the proximity of the kids bedrooms to the kids bathroom, that "this end of the house looks like a box of crayons!" I think he meant it in a nice way, but I took the hint. So, the creamsicle paint was a little harder to paint over than one might have guessed!!!! I bought another paint in a pale yellowish/beige off of the $5.00 Lowe's bargain bin, so for those who are wondering, this bathroom has now cost me $10.00 in paint! It took a couple of coats of paint, especially on the cut-ins but I think the yellow is a little more subdued and normal. I also CLEANED the bathroom (much needed) and added a new light fixture over the sink. This is the 2nd light fixture I installed there. The first one was broken out of the box from Lowe's, and I didn't figure that out until it was mounted on the wall.

 

Next, here are Norah's and Tim's rooms with their carpeting installed. It's just a beigy-tan carpet in a berber style.

 Here is the clearer, better shot of the guest bedroom as promised. The carpet in here is the same as our Master Bedroom, and it's called "Stone" sort of a grayish/brownish/beige, a little darker than the kids' bedrooms.

 

Another shot of the granite guys in progress. Now you can see my faucet is installed, but still no dishwasher. We had to wait until after the sink, drains, garbage disposal, etc were all hooked up to install the dishwasher.

 Here's the refrigerator installed. Clearance of fractions of an inch on either side. Tim asked me as it was being delivered "Did you measure it? Is this thing going to fit?" My answer was "Yes, it'll fit" but mentally I was thinking "Oh crap, I should have measured."

Luckily it fit.

You can also see the granite on the little bar area next to the fridge, and the backsplash granite. I think it looks really pretty, and it'll look even better once the lighting stuff is all resolved.

So at this point in the day, the only ones left are Tim, the kids, me, and the 2 granite guys. Everyone else has been paid and left to start the weekend with their families. I think the granite guys wanted to hang out with us this weekend.... Just kidding. They were very hard working and they stayed until the job was done and they did an excellent job. One minor problem, the electrician had to leave and will fit the electric receptacles back into the granite on Monday. That means we didn't have any kitchen lighting and the granite guys had no way of seeing once it got dark!

Luckily, we grabbed one of the contractors before they left. They need to leave their trailer at our place over the weekend. We borrowed their portable spot light and used that in the kitchen so that the granite guys could see what they were doing.  That helped tremendously.

That's it for the Broken House on this edition. It's not so broken anymore. Today we are having new faucets installed in the kids' and guest bathrooms. We are cleaning the cabinets inside and out, and it's just the four Flaherty's in the house. We will begin moving in this week, having a garage sale at the old house next Saturday, and big stuff being moved next Monday. From soup to nuts, we have had the keys to this house for 23 days as of this morning. I can't believe it. On the one hand, it's been a blur, and on the other hand I can't believe how much has happened in 23 days. Tim keeps saying "This is like Ranger School all over again." For the rest of us who didn't go to Ranger School, it's just a put-your-head-down-and-do-it month!



Signs of Progress

Tim's Birthday Key Lime Pie!

It's been crazy busy last couple of days. We had to have the bedrooms painted so that the baseboards could be installed. It is much easier to paint without worrying about dripping paint on the baseboards. I took a vacation day today and Tim and I both worked at the house for pretty much the entire day. We are officially getting tired.

The painting necessitated multiple trips to Lowe's for roller trays, extra rollers, blue painter's tape, paint, you name it. But, well worth the effort and the blisters on my hands to get the work done without drips on the baseboards or on the nice tile. 

We also had our first "situation" between Tim and I this week regarding his painting skills. Or lack thereof, I should say. Up till this point, we've gotten along really great with no negativity or arguments about anything, and this was more of a "I can't believe you call this painting," kind of discussion.

So today is Tim's birthday and most of his birthday was spent painting closets (just plain white - it doesn't matter if there are streaks inside the closet). I couldn't sleep this morning and got up at 4AM and made 2 key lime pies for the birthday boy. So here's a shot of him having a little birthday pie. In addition, here are some of the painting and the crazy colors the kids picked out for their rooms in this post.

 A little blurry, but here's the "Silver Fox" in the guest bedroom. This was my $5.00 Paint Bargain!

On the left is "Gecko Green" in Timmy's bedroom, and below that is "Amber Wave" in the guest bathroom.

 Here's a couple shots of the orange / creamsicle in the kids' bathroom. This was a $5.00 bargain paint that I am still waiting to see how I feel about. The photos I think don't show how truly weird this paint is... it's probably going to be going away this weekend because I just can't get used to it.

I also bought a new light fixture today at Lowe's but I didn't have it in me to pull off the old one and replace it with a new one. Plus, the tile guy was working in this bathroom today, so we would have had to dance around each other all day. Maybe this weekend.



The Laundry Room in "Budoir Blue"





Here's Norah's Room in "Pretty Pink." This is the paint that caused Tim to be banished
to closet painting for the rest of our marriage. Two coats of paint later, It's pretty Pepto-Bismol.

  Also, we've got a lot of the tile floor in now, which is still the prettiest floor ever. The only room left to go  on the tile installation is the master bathroom with the master bedroom closets. On Thursday and Friday, carpeting will be installed in the bedrooms and the granite goes in on Friday.  We're having the windows professionally cleaned on Thursday. If you could see a close-up of the status of the windows at this moment, there is almost no price you wouldn't pay to not have to deal with them. Our appliances (minus the stove) will be installed on Friday too.The stove was unfortunately back-ordered until next Tuesday. Once we have it, we are in business and ready to move in! 

Kitchen Floor is In!!!!



Tim's Dad is here this week, which has been awesome. The floor is just about complete!



Floor Envy......And Attack of the Crazy Colors

It's been a weekend of great progress at our Broken House. But first I have a confession: 

The French pattern rolled edge Travertine floor is the prettiest floor I have ever seen.  I can't believe I'm going to get to see this pretty floor every day. Even though it's only about 1/3 done, I really really think it's beatiful. Better than beautiful but I'm just not word-smithy enough tonight to come up with a word that's better than beautiful. In the pictures of the floor, before you say "oh she's nuts," the floor still has to be sealed, and we are getting new 8" baseboards to set off the new paint (Named Macadamia Nut - love the crazy paint color names... now there's a job.... coming up with paint color names, more on that in a minute).

Some some action photos from this week. Here is one of the very hard working guys who "textured" our kitchen and bathroom walls with a Florida staple... it's called "orange peel." The walls down here, unlike most of the walls up North are textured with "mud" that gives the wall the texture of an orange. Since it's already in most of the house, it's in my current house, it's in the houses of everyone I've ever been to in the State of Florida, we went with the orange peel. It gets sprayed on and has to dry for at least 24 hours before painting.

 
 Here's a little more orange peel for you folks keeping score at home:



 Now. Onto the floor. Here's what the crates came in when the tile was delivered to my house. There is also a pallet of mud or mortar visible in the bottom right corner of the photo. I think you'll agree. That's a lotta tile.

Here is the first day's work, in progress. You can see the color variations in the stone and how pretty it is and the the pattern shows that off.

So at this point in my post, I probably ought to lay off the floor business because no one will ever want to read this blog again. We let the kids pick out their paint colors for the bedroom, and no surprises, she picked pink, he picked green.I think Norah's was "Pretty Pink" and Tim's is "Gecko Green," perfect for the tormenter/chaser of lizards that he is.

Above is a little silliness with laundry room paint. It looks more purple in the photo than it really is, and  the name of this paint is "Budoir Blue."  The laundry room doubles as a mud room when you first come in from the garage, and there's no natural light in there. I wanted this room to be a happy color since it's the first room we'll walk into and the last room we walk out of on every trip to the house, and this Budoir Blue, despite the name struck me as happy. It was either this or a pale orange color, but Tim nixed the orange for some reason. Oh, but if you're married to a girl from Syracuse, you can't nix the orange for long as you'll soon read.   After I took this picture, I painted the whole wall so my love message is lost forever, except for this blog that is. The Budoir Blue is happy and pretty.

Here's a shot of our Master bedroom. This paint is called "Versatile Gray." You'd think after four years of every day wearing gray at West Point, that gray is the last color I'd choose for my bedroom, but it's a very soothing and calm color. And as the name suggests, versatile.

Right outside our bedroom is the lanai and pool area, which are pretty and a nice thing to see first thing in the morning.

 This next room is where I'd really like some opinions. I became a devotee of the Lowe's Paint Department bargain bin this weekend. For those of you who don't know (My Sister Eileen, raise your hand at this point)... you can go to Lowe's or Home Depot or Ace Hardware and they usually have a "mistake" or "oops" or "leftover" rack. They've mixed the paint for someone who has now changed their minds, and the person for whom the paint was mixed leaves the store without purchasing the paint.  The abandoned paint then goes on the "mistake rack" for a greatly reduced price. At the left, you'll see $5.00 worth of creamsicle orange paint in the kids' bathroom that came from the Lowe's "oops" rack. Forget the ugly light fixture over the mirror, what do you think? Is the orange paint cute and fun or wierd and freaky? Tim didn't want it, but I insisted on it... and now I'm wondering if it should have been left on the rack. The jury is still out. 

I also purchased a gallon of "Silver Fox" for my guest bedroom for $5.00 at the Lowe's Oops Rack, and that is a really really beautiful bluish/gray color. Very calm and soothing, and I've already painted it, just need to go back and cut in the ceiling, photo coming soon.

Last photo for this post, big surprise!

Demo Ends but The Money Flow is Just Beginning

We are done with the demo of the broken house. As you can see from the following pictures, it's a mess, dirty, dusty, walls peeled, bare concrete floors. It's now ready to get put back together! Close-up of the existing stove cooktop, complete with a tile chip for a nose. Those things are EVERYWHERE. Even Stove Man is happy that the demo is just about over!

Because we're getting new tile and new countertops, there's really no point in cleaning these surfaces off, they'll just get messed up again until the new stuff gets installed. We are also getting new kitchen appliances since these are about 15 years old, and well-used. The house (and its occupants) deserve something new and beautiful. Painting begins tomorrow, September 23rd, and so does the tile install. Granite goes in on October 1st or maybe even earlier if the tile guys are done. These are *hopefully* the last pictures of the house all pulled apart that we'll ever be able to show:

And now some good news! Our granite kitchen countertops are on order, and here's a quick picture of what our granite is going to look like. The picture was taken outdoors, on our cement driveway so as to get the correct color in daylight (without a flash), and it's got browns and golds mostly in it. The floor tile is on the right, more on that in just a minute:

Onto the master bathroom. Tim finished the great wallpaper peel in there. We also removed the jacuzzi jetted tub. I don't have anything against jacuzzi's or jetted bathtubs personally, but I am not a huge bath person. I am definitely not a huge "looks like fake marble with a big crack in it" bath person. Even more so, I am not a "steps of cracked tile leading up to the romance capital of Florida in the fake marble bathtub" kind of person. So, the fake marble bathtub is history.

Tomorrow the area where the tub used to be will be dry-walled (just the walls of course), the tile will be laid, and we'll cap off the pipes for a future claw-foot, free-standing, soaking bathtub. I think it'll look nice!

We are also going to have granite countertops in the master bathroom with undermount sinks. I went to the warehouse today and I picked out a somewhat funky slab with "a lot of movement" as they say in the granite biz.

My gal Susan at the granite yard had been saving this piece for me, and I'm happy she did. The picture may not show it, but there are a lot of golds, grays, browns, and even pink in this granite. It's called Juparana Classic, and I guess it's from India. All that way to wind up in my very own bathroom!

Our tile installer also took us over to another client's house today to see the exact floor we are going to have installed! He has installed the same product in several houses with great results.

It is gorgeous. It's a French Pattern travertine tile with a rolled edge, and feels beautiful to the touch and it's beautiful to look at, and very nice to walk on.

Tim and I are nervous about the price tag but it's so elegant and nice, and I think will really make our house stand out. I'm excited to see it in our place!

Again, the kids have been so good throughout all this. And, as fate would have it, Norah is the "Student of the Week" or something, which mostly means that she has extra projects to write about all her adventures as a first grader. My thoughts: "Great timing, First Grade Teacher."

Thankfully we are finished with the extra work. Her big project? "My work on the broken house." Way to kill two birds with one stone. Here are a couple more pictures of the kids pitching in around the house, cleaning up Tim's wallpaper peelings:

The next time I submit a blog post, we should have paint up and floors being tiled. I am going to paint the bedrooms, kids and guest bath, and the laundry room, beginning this weekend. I want a funky color for the laundry room. Syracuse University orange or something to that effect. Pictures to follow!