Shadows of a thousand years rise again unseen,
Voices whisper in the trees, "Tonight is Halloween!"
~Dexter Kozen

And sure enough - after 9 years of never having a visitor at our house on Halloween -and this being the first year we decided NOT to buy candy - we had 5 kids show up at 6:30pm!! Ugh!

Anyway, today we had two projects happening at the same time. With the drywall up in the kitchen, today we had someone here to tape, mud and sand the walls in the kitchen. No amount of cleaning up by contractors can compensate for the mess the house is in right now though, between the dust and dirt and "mud" from the drywall, and our packing up of the TV room so they can paint and do the hardwoods over the next two weeks, the house looks like a disaster area and we are both tired of living in it. It will be nice to get away to the Olympia condo for a week while they do the hardwoods. In this picture you can see the framing where the new window on the east side of the kitchen will be.

We also noticed that they 'tried' to patch the patch on the ceiling in the laundry room. As I mentioned in a previous blog posting, while the electricians were here one of them put their hand or knee through the ceiling in the laundry room. We had patched here a few years ago after moving a light slightly during our remodel of the laundry room. Well the new patch didn't take as it is hanging by a thread just above the light.

Outside, Travis worked on laying the concrete for the Air Conditioning pad on the north side of the house. It looks like it is all done and ready for the air-conditioning unit. Speaking of concrete - Gary took a picture of the garage slab - so it seems to be coming together quickly.

Today was a fun day for Gary as Doggie Day Care was closed and we had people here to put up all the drywall in the kitchen. So we moved the kennels in the 2nd bedroom and had the dogs hang out in this room for the day. At this while the guys worked downstairs and Gary in his office. Needless to say, Abbey's nerves got the best of her and she tore up her kennel pad. Gary salvaged what he could and put it immediately into the wash.

By mid-afternoon - all the drywall in the kitchen was up as you can see with the picture to the left. The bathroom is still a mess, but that will be done later in the project.

Outside is a different story. Travis was waiting for the concrete guys to show up at 4:45pm when I got home from work. When I left for chorus rehearsal at 5:30pm, they had finally showed up and were in the midst of pouring the slab. After the cement truck left, it was pretty dark so Gary hooked up some of our work lights and even pulled the Hummer down the driveway and pointed ALL the lights at the garage to help them finish up their work. I wasn't here, but knowing how bright the lights are on the Hummer (light bar, fog lights and high beams), I am sure it was like daylight for them. Travis left around 7pm, so it was another late night for him -- poor guy but I guess he is being paid overtime so I am sure he isn't complaining. It was about 8pm when the concrete guy finished up and it was too dark to take a picture of the garage slab, so you'll have to wait on what that looks like for the next posting on our blog.

Tomorrow, the tapers will be here to work on the kitchen while Travis will work on the concrete pad for the AirConditioner that we are having installed.

The weekend is about over and Gary and I were so busy we missed our annual trip to the Car Show here in Seattle. We usually go to look at cars that we want to buy or in Gary's case to hang out in the Hummer display to talk H2 with other guys. In fact, it was at one of these past shows when I fell in love with the Chevrolet Avalanche. I still regret trading the avalanche in for the Equinox, but I keep telling myself it was for the best as the Equinox gets better mileage... but I digress.

On Saturday, Pete Last with Inside Cable and Connection stopped by to work on all the wiring for our telephone and cable needs with the new kitchen and our TV room. Since we are planning on upgrading the TV room with a flat panel 50" HDTV, and we want a tv in the kitchen - we had Pete come in and run new wires to the new areas. What we discovered while Pete was up in the attic above the garage and breezeway was that when the electricians were up there, they must have put a hand or knee against the ceiling and punched out an old patch in our laundry room. We didn't notice it until Saturday when we were working with Pete. So more repair work will need to be done.

Pete is great! Gary and I cannot remember how we found him, but we first worked with him when we remodeled Gary's office in the house. To accommodate all of Gary's phone and technology needs Pete ran a bunch of new wiring in the room. It has been GREAT. He is VERY fast and pays a lot of attention to detail - we will use him again, when we wire the HDTV, BOSE Lifestyle 48 and surround speakers in our TV room after the remodel is done.

After Pete left, Gary and I hoped on the motorcycles and rode up to Frank's Lumber and Door Store in Shoreline to pick out, what else, a new front door. The funny thing is that before we even walked into the front door - Gary saw the door we would eventually buy. This door is made from Oak and was in the front window. We forced ourselves to look around, but we kept coming back to this one door The picture here is similar but not exactly the door we are getting. We have a single window at the top and the glass has an etched mountain scene in it. It fits us and the house perfectly.

This morning I woke up around 7:30am (new time), changed the clocks before Gary woke up. We did some work around the house and then headed out to Half Price Books to get rid of 4 banker boxes of VHS and DVD movies. We are cleaning house as we hope to downsize considerably after the remodel. On the way home we stopped by Lowe's and looked at Shower doo-dads. After looking around, we decided that we will go with the fixtures that we originally picked out at Best Plumbing. But we did pick put some alternate paint options for the kitchen/tv room and two possible stains for the hardwoods. So we left there, picked up some boxes at U-haul and stopped off at QFC for our weekly shopping.

After packing up the DVD's and VHS tapes that we are keeping - we painted a portion of the hardwoods in the kitchen with the two stain choices to see what we liked better. The two colors are Mocha Brown and Dark Ebony. We compared those with our two tile choices, cabinet swatch and paint chips. Now we need to make a decision on which stain we like best.

Outside of Robert from Ideal Building being here for a few minutes this morning, today was really a day for the electricians to do their stuff. I had a 7am meeting today and so Gary took Abbey and Lucy down to 'Tails of the City' in time to be back here for when they arrived.

In the kitchen, the electricians worked on installing new outlets on the eating bar, so they are close and accessible to the new stove top area. They set new wiring for the trio of lights that will hang above the eating bar and even put in an outlet under the eating bar so I can easily plug in my laptop when I am working from home. Yeah, Gary gets a whole bedroom with a gigantic cubicle for his workspace and I get a 18" space on the eating bar -- but I'm not complaining. ;-)

Additionally, they moved the four canned lights in the kitchen to create a better lighting area. And finally, they rewired the light switches for the kitchen.

Up in the master bathroom, they ran a new outlet to the half wall, so that we have power on both sides of the vanity. Up until we started the remodel, we had to run a cord across the back of the vanity from the left side to the outlet on the right in order to plug in things like the electric toothbrush. Simple things like one new outlet makes life in the bathroom a LOT better.

I picked up the dogs around 4:30pm and came home to find that the electricians were still working. I thought they would be done as I had no idea it would take all day to run, what I thought was, a few wires. But man did they do a lot of work. Since they were working both up and downstairs, I left Abbey and Lucy in my car and did some work on my computer in the Faux Kitchen while Gary worked in his office.

What I didn't realize is they still had yet to move the outlet in the Dry Bar area of the dining room (it needs to be raised due to the new height of the cabinet that will be installed). So one of the guys worked on this, while the other started to clean up.

I went outside and admired the nice new wall that Ideal Building installed against the new garage using the landscaping stones from the old Aunt Bee plot. This was a great idea, as it levels out the yard to the east just a bit and will prevent a waterfall of water coming down the driveway and yard when it rains (not that it ever rains in Seattle).


With a magazine in hand, I went up to my Equinox, opened the back hatch and sat with the dogs to keep them company and read while we waited for the electricians to finish up.

Once they were done, had cleaned up and left I brought the dogs inside with me. However, when you get used to the way that Ideal Building cleans up before they leave everyday - it was a little jarring to see a little mess here and there. So Gary and I brought in the shop vac and broom and swept up in the kitchen and bathroom before calling it a day and heading out for dinner.

After dinner, we stopped by Costco and looked at Flat Panel HDTV's!!! We are seriously considering putting our entertainment center up for sale on Craig's List along with the 32" HD Flat Screen TV next week. We have to move everything out of the TV room and faux kitchen for two weeks as the contractors will be refinishing the hardwoods and ripping out and replacing all the baseboards. So instead of moving all this stuff back in, we are thinking of selling it and getting the flat panel that I have wanted for a while now.

Gary should really write this entry in our blog as he was home today the whole time that the guys from Ideal Building were here. But alas, his excuse is that he wrote most of the travel blogs and he wants a break. And yeah, this is the look he usually gives me.

Robert was here with the painters for about 30 minutes this morning so they could see the space and provide us with a bid on how much it would cost to repaint our kitchen and tv room with Ralph Lauren Suede paint. We should hear back either tomorrow or early next week with a price quote.

On our first posting, you could see what our garage looked like before the dig, but I thought I would post this picture which is a closer view of what it looked like just before the remodel started.

Bill and Travis were here all day as they worked on the garage and finished up the new drainage system. In order to fill the base of the drainage system to the north of the new garage with rocks, Bill rented a trailer for his truck and backed into the new garage space and then dumped it into the space from there.

Although Bill's 'big ass' truck fits into the new garage - Gary realized that the hummer barely fits between the space where the single garage door will go. The hummer is so wide that Gary would have to fold in the mirrors and even then there would only be a few inches on either side. So it looks like the new garage will be for me and my equinox. YES!!

Gary is a little disappointed since the big workshop will be in the new garage space, he wanted his hummer there too. It would be kinda like his own little garage.

Tomorrow, the electrician will be here...

Today we had two major projects happening on the remodel -- backfilling the new garage foundation and moving the pipes in the kitchen due to the shift of our fridge, sink and stovetop.

I left around 7:15am to drop the dogs off at Doggie Day Care before heading to work. And Gary, knowing that the plumber was going to be here around 8:45am today, headed for the gym. Gary left a note for Robert to let them know he would be back by 8:40am and not to start work as he needed to take a shower.

And sure enough, Robert (our terminally early contractor) and the plumber were waiting for Gary when he arrived home at 8:40am. So Gary quickly headed upstairs and took a shower so they could get to work.

While Gary worked in his office and the plumbers worked in the kitchen and the basement -- Bill, Travis and Rob got to work on backfilling the new garage. While they were working on the garage backfill - Bill accidentally cut through our cable. Gary got on the phone to call Comcast, but Ideal Building headed down to Radio Shack and were able to splice in a new cable. Crisis averted - as I don't know what I would do without TV!!! :-)

I arrived home around 5pm and found a drastic change in our garage. They had finished backfilling the foundation and packed the dirt down so we can now see what our new garage space is going to look like. They even put some of our landscaping blocks back down on the Southwest corner of the garage which will eventually form a flower bed. We hope to return Aunt Bee (one of our many chainsaw carved bears) to this area.

It was only a few minutes later when they plumbers finished up and as always Ideal Building (specifically Travis) was there to clean up the area. So all the pipes in the kitchen have been moved and we are ready for the electrician to add some new outlets for the kitchen and bathroom.

Tomorrow is an off day and Abbey and Lucy get to spend the day home with Gary. They are tuckered out after spending the day at Tails of the City, so I am sure they will enjoy being home and doing nothing other than driving Gary crazy.

Tomorrow, Robert will be meeting with the painters here at the house and Bill and Travis will be working to finish up the dirt floor in the garage and the drainage system. But now I must sleep.

With a torn up kitchen and yard - we decided 'oh, what the heck - let's tear up the master bathroom too!'. Man, what were we thinking?!? Our house is falling apart!!!

Seriously, we knew this was going to happen and so this past weekend we cleared out the master bathroom and moved what we needed to the 2nd bathroom upstairs and then threw out everything else.

When I left for work this morning our bathroom was cleaned out and looked like it did the day we moved into the house 9 and a half years ago. But it was time to finally finish the remodel in this room. Gary and I did most of the work about 6 years ago when we tore out the pocket door that separated the double basin sinks from the toilet and shower. At that time, we ripped out the carpet (yep, carpet in the bathroom all the way to the shower) and replaced that with the 'French Quarter' tile that we have ordered for the new shower. The logs that we added to the bathroom will stay and our new vanity cabinet will be made out of a knotty pine to match the logs.


We are putting a black honed counter top with two black granite 18" vessel sinks on top. It should look pretty nice when it is all done. But right now - here is what it looks like.

Nothing much is planned for Tuesday, but on Wednesday Ideal Building will start to back fill the garage foundation in preperation for the next stage of our exterior remodel.

Once again, the dogs got to spend the day at 'Tails of the City' while work continued inside and outside the house. When I called Gary at 4:30pm to see how everything was going, he told me that the concrete had YET to arrive. It was supposed to be here earlier but were delayed. I felt bad as some of the guys from Ideal Building had been on the job since 8am this morning and I am thinking it might be a late night.

I picked up the dogs and when I got home, the pump truck was in the driveway and they were just waiting for the concrete to arrive. So I brought the dogs down the driveway and into the house where they had finished working for the day. The first thing I noticed was that the dry bar was out and that they had hung plastic sheeting over the kitchen entrance.

What I didn't expect was that not only had they removed the microwave and the pantry wall - they tore everything down to the studs. The ceiling in the kitchen was removed and all the piping, insulation and duct work was exposed. I never thought it would be stripped to that point. I assumed all the sheet rock would stay up and the new cabinets would be installed from there.

But due to the need to move plumbing and readjust the positions of lighting etc, they went all the way to the studs. In fact, they have already framed the new window and will cut the rest out once we are ready to install the new window that faces East and up the driveway.








Back outside, the concrete arrived and Bill, Travis and Rob got to work pouring the concrete into the forms for the garage. After a few clogs in the line, they got done as night crept upon us.

Once the concrete and pump truck were gone, Ideal Building started the clean up. One of MANY pluses about Ideal Building is that they never leave for the day before cleaning up. They also take the time to spray off the driveway, clean up the debris and put stuff away before heading home for the day. I continue to be VERY impressed with their work ethic.

Everyone is now gone and I snapped one more picture of the kitchen from the living room with Lucy in the foreground. The plastic sheeting separates the kitchen from the TV room and Gary, the dogs and I are still trying to get used to it.

Gary is in Vancouver BC today for our Whistler Condo board meeting, which he is the Board President. Today was also the first day that Abbey and Lucy went to Doggie Day Care at 'Tails of the City'. I dropped them off at 7am this morning and then headed to work.

Gary was home long enough for Ideal Building to arrive and start work on gutting the kitchen. I guess Travis was the main guy and worked hard all day to get the kitchen cleared. I picked up the dogs around 4:30pm and then took my time getting home as I expected Travis to still be working. When I finally arrived, he was just finishing up. I was amazed how much work he had done. All the cabinets were removed and some were stored in the garage (as they will be used for our workbench in the new garage addition). The rest joined a lot of the other garbage in the Big Blue Dumpster.

The only thing left in the kitchen was the Microwave Oven and it looks odd to be suspended on the wall all by itself.

Tomorrow Travis and Rob will take out the pantry wall, remove the microwave and take out the dry bar cabinet. Then in the afternoon, the concrete will be poured into the new garage walls. We are expecting the cement truck around 2pm to get everything done.

The kitchen has been cleared. Gary and I spent most of Friday night and Saturday packing up the kitchen in preparation for Monday, when Ideal Building comes in to tear it ALL out.

We moved everything into one of three places -- the Faux (temporary) Kitchen/Dining Room, the Basement or the Big Blue Dumpster on the street.

The fridge and the new microwave (that I picked up on the way home from work on Friday) are in the Faux Kitchen, along with the dining room table and other essentials that we will need over the next few months while construction continues. We will be eating off the grill or the microwave as we will not have a stove or oven until the end of the remodel.

Anything from the kitchen and pantry that was NOT essential was moved downstairs into the basement. We organized it so that everything is easily accessible if we need to get something but out of the way so the plumbers and air conditioning installers can still get around.

Then all the stuff that we haven't touched in years or stuff just not worth keeping was thrown out in the Big Blue Dumpster. And boy did we throw a lot of stuff in there.

So now we are ready to move to the next stage of the remodel... The Demolition!

A few more days have gone by and now most of the foundation forms are in place. Ideal Building should have the rest of them done by tomorrow and then we are expecting the concrete to be poured into these forms on Tuesday.

Before that happens, a lot of stuff has to happen inside, like clearing the kitchen before they rip out all the cabinets on Monday. The dining room will act as a temporary kitchen while we wait for the cabinets to be ordered and then installed. We met with Ryan at Superior Cabinets on Tuesday and went over the initial kitchen design. We have made some changes and today we received and signed off on the final design. Some major changes are planned for the overall flow of the kitchen. A brand new pantry will be installed with full extending drawers that pull out for easier access to items that may be stored in the back. The oven will not be under the counter in the redesign and instead will sit up higher with the microwave above it, creating a microwave/oven wall next to the fridge. Additionally, all the cabinets will extend to the ceiling providing us with another 12 inches of storage above the current cabinets.

We also picked out all the appliances for the new kitchen and are going with all stainless steel appliances. Kitchen Aid fridge, microwave and oven and a Dacor 5 gas burner stove top for the new eating bar. I will pick up the new microwave tomorrow as this will 'live' in the temporary kitchen while we wait for the new cabinets to be built and installed.

More this weekend as we pack up the kitchen.

One of many good things that we can say about Ideal Building is that they are NEVER late. In fact they are usually early - who ever heard of contractors being EARLY? Knowing this, we got up early and had breakfast and Gary had hoped to shower before Robert arrived at 8am. But no, Robert was here at 7:45am. So Gary went out in his pajamas but luckily I had showered and was ready for the day. Robert was here to meet with the electrician and Gary wanted to be here too as we are hoping to coordinate laying new comcast cable lines at the same time and in the same trench that has to be dug across the driveway.

I had to leave at 8:30am to get my Harley down to the dealership for an oil change, so I left the guys to talk shop. When I got home everyone was gone and things had gone well. We were now waiting for Bill from Ideal Building to arrive to prep the site for the concrete. Everything was going according to schedule so we felt good about that. We talked a bit about how the garage was going to be framed etc before Gary had to take off for an appointment.

I decided to run some errands (including a stop at 'Tails of the City - Doggie Day Care' where Abbey and Lucy will hang out once the remodeling moves inside). When I came home, the concrete trucks were in the driveway and the work had started. By 4:00pm, the trucks had left and Bill was here to clean up the concrete along with Travis. Another guy from the concrete company was supposed to return later to power wash the driveway of all concrete residue but he never showed back up.

It's exciting to see this start to take form...

We are very happy with Ideal Building General Contractors. Both Robert and Bill have been very responsive to our needs and we really clicked with them. Funny thing is that so many of our friends said to get bids from several contractors but after having these guys referred to us from a colleage of Gary's - and meeting them - we felt they were the right ones for the job. We looked at some of their remodeling work and really like what they have done. Since signing a concract, Robert has been there to answer every question that we have. And now, the work has begun on the new garage.

The forms for the base of the foundation has been laid, however there is a delay for concrete due to the recent Concrete Strike. Yes - believe it or not Concrete can strike... Who knew?!?

Anyway, the strike is now over but all the projects that were delayed due to the strike are causing a 'little' project like ours to be delayed as well. Ideal Building had hoped to have the concrete poured tomorrow, but this will now happen on Monday, October 9th. So we'll see what happens.

Gary and I have thought about moving to a newer house that has a three car garage on and off for the last two years. Heck I have been trying to convince Gary that downtown condo living is the way to go. However, with our passions of motorcycle riding and the need to store two cars and two motorcycles - there was no way that we could move to a condo... yet!

Additionally, we love our house and cannot justify spending $600k plus for a condo at this point in our lives. So after many conversations we decided to take some of the equity that we have in the house and remodel it to what we want. I guess a sort of dream house.

We decided on three major projects with some smaller projects thrown in for good measure. We are starting with adding a third bay to our existing two car garage. This will allow us to store the motorcycles and both cars together in the garage and provide us with a lot more space for a usable workbench.

The second project is a brand new kitchen. Gary has always wanted a great chef's kitchen, so we are completely gutting the kitchen and putting in state-of-the-art cabinets which also includes a new pantry. We are also adding a new window in the kitchen that will look East and up the driveway. The new kitchen will have all stainless steel appliances and the stove top will move to the eating bar. The eating bar itself will moved about a foot west of where it is now and part of it will be raised to allow barstools versus counterstools. Finally, since we are installing new cabinets in the kitchen we are also going to replace the cabinet in our dry bar area of the dining room to match.

The third project is to remodel our master bathroom. We already did some remodeling work on the bathroom ourselves a few years ago, so this is to finish what we started. We are re-tiling the shower, installing a new dual basin vanity and new fixtures. The existing floor tile will remain along with the log house accents in the room.

Additionally, we are going to have all the floorboards and trim in the downstairs area redone to match what Gary and I did upstairs about two years ago and we are having air conditioning (Finally) put into the house.

Ideal Building General Contractors starting digging out the yard where the new garage will go a few days ago. This was done in a day while Gary and I were still in Washington DC for business. Here is a picture of the new HOLE the day after we got home.