The Mildly Amusing Adventures of Remodeling

2007-09-03T09:12:00.000-07:00

It is Labor Day and I noticed that it has been another 5 weeks since our last post. With the remodeling done, it is now just small projects here and there that Gary and I are working on. With any project it is nice to have someone else to help out and we have been lucky enough to have a very eager new neighbor to help us out from time to time.

A couple of months ago, we had new neighbors move in (Lauren and Christian) and with them came their 2 and a half year old son Diego.

They are great neighbors and Diego enjoys hanging out in the driveway with us. He is a very curious kid and reminds us of our nephew Reid when he was that age. He always wants to help and has helped Gary wash his hummer and our three Harley's.

In fact, he loves motorcycles and every time Diego hears one of us fire up the bike he runs to the door of his house and looks out at us and waves. It is very cute.

Well, our most recent project has been the continuation of the garage remodel. Two weeks ago after looking at several options, we contracted Home Depot to come in and lay down an epoxy coating on the garage floor. The floor can be seen in several of these pictures, and if you look at the first picture with Diego you can see it quite well. The installation involves filling in any cracks in the concrete and then sanding everything down. After that they lay the mixture of chips that we picked out over the entire floor (we chose to go with a black, brown and white color scheme). The chips look like confetti and those sit for a day. The next day, they returned and then poured a clear epoxy over the entire floor and let it dry. We could not walk on the floor for 36 hours and then could not drive on it for a week.

As we waited for the floor to 'cure' enough to move the cars and Harley's back in, Gary and I decided that we would like to add some color to the garage. We immediately thought Orange and Black. 'Orange and Black?' - you probably gasped! Yeah those are Harley-Davidson colors so we thought it would fit for our style. So, I spent a day and a half with a laser level and blue tape and marked out two Horizontal stripes around all three bays of the garage. Marking a 8 inch stripe for black paint and a 2 inch stripe for orange. While I did this Diego came out and said 'What are you doing?' to Gary. Gary told him and for the next two days Diego would spend some of his day as Gary's little helper, while his mom Lauren sat in the driveway watching and I was taping up the garage.

Diego was a great helper as he would put the liquid nails on the back of the tiles for our kick plates and windowsill, help carry lumber or help install the lumber as baseboards.

Diego always made sure to have the proper helmet on when working with Gary in the garage.

And when Gary needed an extra hand to hold the tape measure, Diego was always there to help out.

After the baseboards were down, Gary helped me with the painting of the racing stripes (and the subsequent touching up where the paint bleed beneath the blue tape). Once that was done, we started moving some things into the garage (it had been living in the breezeway for a couple of weeks).

We then went shopping for some garage organizers for all of our garden tools etc. We settled on a Gladiator brand from Sears and started this part of the install. We ended up with 4 sections in various areas of the garage to house our garden tools, our brooms and our ladders.

While at Sears we also bought some garage cabinets that we are going to use for our motorcycle gear. We had flirted with the idea of having our friend Pete (who built our entertainment center in the TV room) build us something, but this was quicker way of doing it. We bought two 'lockers' and one small cabinet and I built those this past Saturday. However, when I opened the second box up, I discovered the one of the walls was broken in half. And no Sears in the Seattle Metro area has another one. So we returned it and a replacement is on order.

Afterwards, we hung up all of the classic signs that Gary has collected over the years and put them up in the garage. They used to be in our kitchen and tv room, but they have found a nice home out here.

The last thing we did was move the motorcycles (which were stored in our neighbors garage for the past week - Thanks Kim and Mark!) and the two vehicles back into the garage. Everything fits! Whew!

Oh, and while we were finishing up on Saturday, Diego was there and when we started moving the bikes into the garage he asked "What are you doing?" and Gary said "We are moving our motorcycles into the garage". Diego then said "I am too!" and he jumped on his tricycle and came towards our garage as Gary was backing his Nightster in. Diego was laughing and Gary moved forward in time for Diego be facing Gary for the '37th Avenue Stare Down". Luckily I had my camera and caught this cute picture.

2007-07-21T10:20:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been about 5 weeks since we last posted something and that is because 99% of the remodel is done. However, we did want to post a few pictures of what has happened since our last post.

First is that Gary's parents came to town the last week of June to attend my last Seattle Men's Chorus show for the season and for Ron to help us with fixing up the new garage with our 'new' workbench. Quotes are around new because although it is a new workbench, we are using our old kitchen cabinets as our workbench in the garage.

Unfortunately, I had to work during the day (aww shucks), so Gary and Ron cleaned out the garage and built the kick plate frames for the cabinets. Additionally, they went to Home Depot and bought a counter for the workbench and had that all installed before I got home. With my help, we installed the upper cabinets and started to position all the tools and stuff. The picture above shows the finished product with the tool chest, table saw, TV and both our Scottish and Bear flags above the bench.

Additionally, we finished the new front deck with a brand new gate that was build by Clyde who built our deck for us. We found a nice patio set for the deck and this is where Gary's mom Carol spent a lot of her time while Ron and Gary worked in the garage. During their visit we also went to a couple of nurseries to look for what kind of plants will work for our yard. We look at a lot of grass and bamboo and found a really nice ceramic pot for the new deck.

Gary and I were trying to think of something that would fit nicely in a corner of the new deck and decided to bring out a swinging couch that we have had for years but has sat in the basement for the past couple of years. It is a nice addition and really completes the deck. As you can see, the new deck is a place that we will spend a lot of time.

Lastly, we installed our new address sign for the top of the driveway. We had out address sand blasted into the rock and then dug a hole and placed this rock into the yard. We also had 5 small boulders delivered and we will place these around the front landscape. That is still a work in progress, and we are looking forward to getting that all done this summer.

Our other project for this summer is to clear out the old garage so that we can lay down a floor coating throughout all three bays in the garage.

Until then, we are heading back into the yard to do some more work.

2007-06-12T07:03:00.000-07:00

In our last posting, I mentioned "WOW, two postings in one week!". And that was because the major part of remodeling had ended and Ideal Building had moved onto their next great project. Well, it has been over a month since our last post but we have made some progress in the deck addition to our front yard.

Gary called around to quite of few places to get bids on a deck, some never showed up, others gave a bid but then could not follow through. However, Gary found a small company called Remodelling Specialists in the West Seattle Herald. A one-man outfit run by a guy named Clyde Wear, who's been doing small projects for years.

We are really happy with what he did too. As you can see, Clyde ripped out the existing fencing around the front yard and then built up a deck over the same area leaving the garden exposed near the house. What was the fence has been rebuilt as deck railing and we think it adds a lot to the house.

From the front door, there are two steps that lead up to the deck and eventually we will have a small seating area here so that we can sit and enjoy the wonderful Seattle weather during Spring, Summer and Fall.

As you come down the driveway, the deck welcomes you to our home and will be finished off with a new gate under the arbor. The arbor is the only remaining piece from our original fence that Gary and I built a few years ago. The new gate is being built by Clyde off site and we hope to have it installed in the next week or two. Then we can have the dogs out here with us and not have to worry about them running off.

Also, this is a good time to mentioned that the house next door has sold. Michael put the house up for sale a couple of weeks ago and a couple from North Carolina have bought it and will be moving in on July 5th. Several times while showing the house next door, potential buyers and real estate agents were all thinking (or secretly hoping) it was OUR house that was for sale, not Michaels. (OVER OUR DEAD BODY!) Gary and I will be on our vacation to Upstate New York (for my cousin's wedding) and to places unknown on two rented Harley's - so we will come home to new neighbors. They also have a two year old adopted son named Diego. It should be interesting to have a little kid running around, and Gary is hoping that I can get the whole 'wanting to adopt' thing out of my systems if we have a little kid next door. We'll see...

2007-05-03T22:03:00.000-07:00

WOW! Two posts in one week!

With the remodel done, the blog is now for the extra projects that we are working on and to document the interior redecorating... Speaking of the latter, Gary and I started looking at some new furniture for our living room. After visiting several furniture galleries, we stopped by La-Z-Boy and we found the right sofa, chair and ottoman for the living room. We have hung some pictures up and have now arranged everything around the fireplace since it is the focal point of the room.

We also got a leather recliner for the room... FINALLY! I have been wanting a recliner for a long time, although Gary was resisting. But then I found a recliner that Gary likes and it really works in the living room. I look forward to laying back and reading a book with the fireplace warming the room.

The last thing we added to the room is a small desk for my laptop. We got the leaning desk along with the leather chair from Crate and Barrel. It is about time, as I have been sitting at the kitchen bar for a couple of years. And with the new kitchen, it just didn't fit to have my laptop and stuff on the granite. I really like where my laptop is now as it is right by the window and is really comfortable.

On the next post, I will post some pictures of the house with some of the artwork that we have put back up...

2007-04-29T20:16:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, there hasn't been a post in two weeks. With the house pretty much done now - the postings are few and far between. However, today the guys we hired to do some landscaping finished the work we hired them to do. That was a bit of an ordeal. After we got used to the integrity and attentiveness of Ideal Building, it was quite shocking to deal with these guys.

We were referred to these guys by our neighbor who used them to build some retaining walls. They are two young guys starting up their business and so we thought we would throw some business their way. And they were cheap!

But as the saying goes 'you get what you pay for'... or even less. I met with the guys and we went over everything that I was visioning for the front yard. They seemed to understand and when they were ready to start, I gave them a deposit for the work. The worked fast and within a couple of days they were 'done'. However on the day they finished up (originally) they asked if I could leave them a check, trusting that the work would be done.

I did, but when I got home, a lot of what we initially talked about had not been done. So I waited for Gary to get home that weekend and then we could talk about it. We were not really wasn't happy with the overall look as the walls looked unfinished, the dirt behind the walls were not leveled up, and our bid did not include cleaning up the ivy that we talked about or laying down bark. So I asked them to come back out we discussed the changes.

This time we put everything down on paper... and they still managed to screw up. After being efficient with the original project, they dragged their feet to finish up. Then yesterday they promised to be out at 11am to finish up with the changes. By 2:30p they still hadn't showed. After talking to them and they said they would be out by 3:30pm, I got another call around 2:45pm saying that they would rather come today and finish everything up. So we agreed (although Gary was ready to fire them)...

Today, they showed up early and we discussed what we wanted to be done today. Before we left on our 140 miles motorcycle ride, they were 'finishing up' for the day and wanted us to settle up with the bill. Because we were not going to be here when they were done, Gary was reluctant to give them a check considering the problems we had the last time around. Finally, we came to an agreed and when we returned home at 6pm - the yard was done... They forgot to do one thing and instead of having them come back - I went ahead and finished up what would have taken them 5 minutes to do.

The three pictures on this post is what the front yard looks like right now. We will be adding some plants and flowers and then planting a lot of ivy to cover what was pulled back during the remodel.

Man, do we miss Robert, Bill and the guys at Ideal Building.

2007-04-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

Well, since the last posting - we have finished up the remodel. The soap dish and mirror for the shower were installed and with that - the project that we started with a conversation with Robert and Bill in August of 2006 has now come to a close.

Gary and I spent some time placing our collection of Big Sky Bears in the new living room. For years, these bears have been a fixture in our TV Room, but now they really fit in this room. As you can kinda tell from this picture (if you click on it to enlarge it) - we have a bear climbing up the window to get a better view of the room, a bear trying to climb up to the mantle, a bear relaxing on the mantle, a couple of bears on the hearth and then in the foreground is another bear welcoming you into the living room.

Outside - we contracted a couple of guys who did some landscaping work for our neighbor to clean up the yard (as we have months of construction, rolled up ivy and left over rocks and asphalt scattered throughout. They are currently working on carving a new pathway from Kim and Mark's yard up to our driveway. This time around, I have had them lay landscaping bricks to act as steps up the hill. This will be safer for the neighbors as we often are traveling from one house to another down this pathway called "Barbary Lane".

Additionally, they have built two small landscaping walls to provide separation in the steep front yard. They have laid some topsoil down, and I think I am going to have them put a layer of bark mulch over it. Finally, they will prune up some of our oak trees and clean up the yard. This should all be done this week.

After this - we have two projects left that we will be working on. A new patio/deck just outside the front door and then painting and building up the workbench in the new garage. Once we find some new furniture for the living room, we will be having an Open House for all our friends to see the house.

See you soon!

2007-04-11T06:56:00.000-07:00

The painters have returned and finished repainting the living room. Over the last week, Gary and I worked with Robert with Ideal Building to find a color that would really work against the fireplace and the inspiration comes from a placemat that Robert provided. Yes, a placemat. Inspiration can come from all different places. When we originally moved into the house the kitchen and tv room were painted the colors of a Starbucks. Gary and I actually took a color wheel and compared colors at the Starbucks in West Seattle at Fauntleroy and California. So, we will always know that the green, tan and now chocolate was inspired from a dinner placemat.

As you can see from the picture, the new chocolate color has some plum colors in it and it really matches some of the rocks from the fireplace. The fireplace also now POPS off the wall, as before it just kinda blended in.

Outside of the paint, the rest of the trim work went up in the living room, including the trim caps on both the passthrough window between the TV room and living room and the half wall that separates the dining room and living room.

Upstairs, the last of the trim work was installed above the granite backsplash and we expect the soap holder and shaving mirror will be installed later today. With those things done - the project is coming to a close. I cannot believe that we have reached that point. But I am sure Robert and the guys at Ideal Building are tired of us and excited to move onto their next project... ;-)

2007-04-03T18:05:00.000-07:00

Another week and a few more pictures to share on the remodel. We are 'just' about done - so we are looking forward to the last little projects before we can fully move back into the house.

Of course, for every two steps forward there can be one step back. And this is the first time since we moved into this house in 1997 that we picked a color for the house that we didn't like after it went up. The first time was when Gary picked out the original color for his office. His office is a wonderful and rich Hunter Green today, but back when he first painted it with his good friend Steve - it ended up being pea soup (vomit) green.

This time around, it isn't nearly that bad. But we picked a color that we thought would really accent the fireplace and although it is nice - it doesn't have the affect we were going for. So, we will have the fireplace wall that runs on the North side of the Living and Dining Room painted in a new color.

Then we will leave the rest of the walls the Safari Tan color as you can see in this picture of the dry bar and part of the living room. Once it is repainted I will post a picture, but until then you will have to wait to see what color that we are going with. If you know us well enough, the new color shouldn't be too surprising coming from the two of us.

Additionally, the painters painted the inside trim around the sliders a galvanized Bronze that matches the color of the sliders. We both love the color and it was Robert's (from Ideal Building) idea - so big props to him for the suggestion.

While we were discussing the changes to the Living Room plans, we considered another of Robert's ideas and that was to pull up the carpet and lay down hardwoods in this room too. Then we would have hardwoods throughout the first floor and then carpet upstairs. After thinking about it for the weekend, Gary and I decided to stay with the carpet... for now. Who knows, we could change our mind and also replace the stairwell with hardwoods while we are at it too!

Outside, the new garage door was painted along with a repaint of the existing garage door too. It is really nice to finally have that done. Along with some touch ups around the garage and the windows on the house, most of the outside painting is now done.

We don't expect much to happen this week, although we do have a new brushed steel soap dish and mirror for the master bath. We hope to have these installed very soon, along with some trim work along the top of the vanity backsplash. More pictures once we have them!!

2007-03-27T23:22:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy day with work, rehearsal and then moving stuff around in the dining room, foyer and living room to prepare for the painting that will start tomorrow.

The great news is that the fireplace is done!!! The guys were here and finished installing all the river rock, installed the hearth and then grouted the whole thing. As Tony the Tiger would say "It's GREAT!!!"

I also took another picture of the mantle from a higher vantage point to give you a better sense of the size of this thing. It's huge and looks fantastic. I can't wait to have the room painted to see what it looks like with the new color. Robert from Ideal Building suggested ripping out the carpet and putting in a maple hardwood flooring in this room. The whole first floor (except the formal living room) so I am not sure. Nonetheless, he is going to price it for us and we will decide before we move stuff back in. The one thing I am realizing now, is that our art deco furniture that goes in this room may not fit in this room now (!!!). What to do?

Anyway, as I mentioned the painting will start tomorrow and between the first floor painting, master bathroom touch ups and the exterior painting of the house and garage door - we hope to have that all done by Friday. Yipee!!!

That is all for now. Look for my next post with pictures of the new wall color.

2007-03-26T22:51:00.000-07:00

Well they started putting up the river rock today on the fireplace. I came home from work to find the workers still here as they were just cleaning up for the day. They installed the log mantle, which looks incredible. The top of the mantle is about 5'8" off the ground and is exactly what we had in mind when we designed the fireplace.

As for the river rock, they got about two thirds of the rock done. So tomorrow, they will continue with the river rock installation, put in the stone hearth and some finishing touches and they will be done. Then on Wednesday, the painting for our living room and dining room will start.

It is going to look great!!

2007-03-25T21:39:00.000-07:00

A week has gone by since Gary and I finished the tile backsplash in the kitchen. Slate tiles are VERY sensitive and one false cut can shatter a tile as we learned time and again during this process. It is also very time consuming to measure and cut each 2" wide tile to fit in the backsplash. But what an accomplishment it was to set the final tile and know that we are FINALLY done.

After we cleaned up, Gary snapped this shot of the completed tiled backsplash and we think it looks great. I had some friends from the chorus over this past Wednesday to work on choreography stuff and they all commented on how good the kitchen and the backsplash looks. We hope the picture does it justice.

Additionally, the install of the fireplace insert and then final framing was completed last week and starting tomorrow, the log mantle and manufactured river rock will be installed. This should be done by Tuesday and then the painting of the living room and dining room should happen on Wednesday. This part of the remodel is happening a lot quicker, so it will be nice to have this room done. After that, there are just some punch list things and we will be done.

Unless we think of any new projects between now and then... ;-)

2007-03-14T20:17:00.000-07:00

Ideal Building was here to tear out the old fireplace on Monday and by the time I got home from work, this is what it looked like. The canvas tarp on the floor contains all the old marble and the fireplace insert. Seeing the room torn up like this took me back for a moment to when we first started the remodel of the kitchen. Even though it is just the fireplace, I was thinking back to when I came home to find the whole kitchen gutted.

Anyway, on Tuesday I woke up feeling very sick, so I called into work and stayed home. I managed to take the dogs to day care, but collapsed when I got home. Over the course of the day Rob worked to frame up the new fireplace and I slept through most of it - thankfully!!

Originally I planned to work from home on Wednesday as both our Comcast Digital and BOSE system were being installed. But being sick - I stayed home because I am still sick. Comcast arrived first and set up the cable box and less than five minutes after Studio AVE arrived to do the BOSE install. 3 and a half laters, everything was hooked up. It's hard to get a good picture of the system - so this is the best that I could do.

Tomorrow, Ideal Building will be back to install the new fireplace insert. And then next week the log mantle and rock go up.

2007-03-11T12:41:00.000-07:00

Nothing has happened in the remodel for the past week due to scheduling and the weather. So it looks like the Living Room remodel will start tomorrow with the tearing out of the firstplace and all existing trim.

However, I didn't want to go TWO WEEKS without a post, so instead here are three pictures around the house.

The first is an Artsy-Fartsy picture of our tile backsplash against the granite.

Next up is a picture from our living room with the Glass Blocks in view. Well actually only half of them are in view as Gary and I removed have of the glass blocks and remove the rest today as well. You can see the remnants of the glass block track on the pass-through. Additionally you can see Lucy and Abbey off to the left as they are curious to what I am doing.

Speaking of Abbey and Lucy, here is a cute picture of them that I took this morning as they waited patiently to come inside from the rainy weather outside.

That's all for now. Have a great week and look back often as I may have more frequent posts due to the remodel that is about to start.

2007-03-06T22:11:00.000-08:00

Happy March! Since last week not too much has happened. We were hoping for the exterior painting of the garage door and around the windows to be done this past week, but due to the weather that was all delayed.

What was able to happen was that Ideal Building was able to frame the mirror in the bathroom and finished up securing the fixtures in our shower. Outside of that, Gary and I got a lot of work done in the house this weekend. First we moved all the furniture and stuff that has been stored in the Living Room since October into the garage or the crawl space. We took pictures of our old TV Room sofa, chair, and coffee table. We plan to sell those on craigslist soon.

Now that the living room has been cleared out, Ideal Building will start the remodel of this room (including replacing the fireplace) early next week. The carpet will stay but we will replace all of the trim with the knotty pine and paint the walls in this room and the dining room.

Finally, we spent a lot of hours (up until 11pm on Sunday) tiling up the backsplash from the original 6 inch height all the way up the walls underneath the cabinets. You can see how far we went up behind the coffee maker. We cut slate tile into 2 X 12 inch strips and then stacked them up the wall.

We went as far as we could around the tv as we had to stop to allow Paramatrix to install the window sill granite. Speaking of that, Paramatrix was supposed to come out last Thursday to install the granite that broke the first time they were out a month ago. However they called Robert Thursday morning to say they broke the replacement granite at the factory and promised they would be out the next day. Friday came and went with no appearance of Paramatrix. I called Ideal Building, they called Paramatrix, Paramatrix said they called us (they didn't) blah, blah, blah... Anyway - the showed up on Monday and you will notice that the granite is in the picture above. With that done, Ideal Buidling can come back out and reframe the window and the kitchen will be done.

We plan to finish the backsplash this weekend - and look forward to the next phase of our remodel.

2007-02-26T06:40:00.000-08:00

Y'know how when anyone that has gone through a remodel tells you that a 3 month remodel will end up being a 5 or 6 month remodel? I finally understand why... For us it isn't that our contractors are slow or perpetually late (on the contrary, as I have mentioned before they are ALWAYS early -- who has ever heard of contractors that are early or on time?) It has to do with the "well, since they are here already..." phrase used between couples.

If Gary and I stayed with our original plan of remodeling the kitchen and master bath and building a 3rd bay to the garage - I am sure we would have been done a while ago. However, we keep adding things and those things have to be scheduled and so forth. Now, I am not complaining, because anything we did not have Ideal Building do, we would probably be doing ourselves -- so I am very happy to have them do it. I am just stating the obvious as we near completition of our remodel (and get ready for the biggest 'well, since they are here already" addition - the fireplace).

As you see from the picture above, this week we had the slider installed in our TV room. We have flipped the doors on the slider, so this allows us to leave the chair where it is and have the door open on the other side to our deck.

'Well, since they are here already' ALERT - We are now considering flipping the other slider in the TV room that opens up to our side deck where the barbecue is located...

I got a call from Distinctive Glass on Friday and they had a cancellation and wanted to know if it would be okay to have the new shower door and mirror for the bathroom delivered on Saturday morning between 8 and 9am. I agreed, but boy was Gary grumpy thinking that this would cut into his beauty sleep (y'know he needs a lot of it). :-)

So, 7:30am on Saturday morning rolls around and I wipe the sleep from my eyes and walk into the working bathroom only to notice out the window that the shower door guys are sitting in their van in our driveway. So I wake Gary up (from his beauty sleep) and we both head downstairs with the dogs just as the guys ring our door bell at 7:38am!! I told Robert, from Ideal Building, that I think these guys are related to him...

The mirror went up pretty quickly and now Ideal Building will come in and frame the mirror in pine like the rest of our trim in the house. It will finish off the vanity nicely. The guys from Distinctive Glass spent most of their 2 hours here installing the new frameless shower door. It looks great and I cannot wait to start using it. We just have a few things to finish with the shower fixtures and drain to make it fully functional.

On Sunday, Gary and I went down to Costco Home Store to look for a TV Room coffee table. We did not know this place existed until our good friend Steve told us about it over dinner. So we walked through the home store in Kirkland and found a coffee table that is exactly what we were looking for. It complements the furniture nicely and provides additional seating if necessary.

Finally, we bought a 4X6 rug for the kitchen. Instead of doing small rugs under the sink and fridge, we thought that we would look for a nice rug that would accent the room and think that this one fits the bill.

This week, we are not expecting much work until Thursday or Friday, when Ideal Building will be back to work on the bathroom and hopefully have the garage door and other exterior stuff painted...

2007-02-18T12:07:00.000-08:00

Another week has gone by and our new gutters from Leaf Guard were installed. Of course this wasn't done without some drama. Robert from Ideal Building received a call from the installer to let him know that there would be over a $1000 increase in cost due to the need to install additional backing for the gutter system. Robert went to bat for us and held Leaf Guard to their bid that they provided to us a couple of weeks ago. The issue was escalated and Robert still held his ground even after they came back with trying to meet half way in cost. So, we were very happy to hear that Leaf Guard finally retreated and honored our original bid price.

This week also saw the delivery of our new slider for our TV room. We had to leave it outside of the garage for two reasons: 1) We still have a lot of stuff in the existing garage and 2) The new garage was going to be painted -- so we left it outside knowing that it will be installed on Tuesday of next week.

Speaking of painting the new garage - we asked that that the garage be painted a simple white as Gary and I plan to paint our old garage later this year as well. Now that it is painted, we will start to move our old kitchen cabinets into this area as they will become the new workbench.

I completely forgot to mention last week that we got our 2nd replacement for our Vanity Light and Gary and I hung it up. It is looking great and we are excited to get the new mirror along with the shower door in a couple of weeks.

Finally, a big issue this week for us is the planning of our next remodel project. We hope to start the Living Remodel in a few weeks which will include a new fireplace, painting both the living room and dining room and replacing all the trim in this room. After going back and forth on stone options, we have decided to do something like this picture. Using River Rock, we are going to go all the way to the ceiling along with a hearth that will incorparate a slab on stone. The mantle will be made will be made from a log to really tie into our lodge theme for the house.

Now we have to decide on whether we want to prep the new fireplace with electrical and cable outlets, should we decide to one day put a flat panel television in that room... Fun!

2007-02-11T21:23:00.000-08:00

So we are now twenty weeks into our BIG remodel project on the house and although things have slowed down, we are not done yet.

This past week we had some 'remodel' stuff done, but mostly this was a week where NEW things were being added to the interior of the house.

On Monday, I picked up our new barstools that we special ordered to coordinate with the overall color scheme of the kitchen and tv room. Gary and I were not sure what they would look like as we picked out the metal finish, seat fabric and wood accent at the store, but never saw what it was going to look like together until Monday when I picked them up. They look great!

I had a friend of mine in the chorus, Pete Goddard, build us a cabinet for our new television to sit upon. We worked on the design together and he built the cabinet out of cherry and matched the stain perfectly to our kitchen. I picked up the 1st piece of the cabinet on Monday after rehearsal and then Pete came over on Wednesday afternoon and delivered the rest and put it all together.

This week we also had our new leather sofa and chair delivered for the tv room. So we spent Saturday morning setting up the room. After having the TV sitting in the box for the last 6 weeks, we finally unpacked it and hooked it up with the TiVo and DVD/VCR player. Before Gary had to leave for a business dinner, we also set up the Provo signs above the tv and the room is finally home again. The dogs were also very happy to have our tv room back, so they have a place to sit downstairs.

While Gary was away on Saturday, I went down to the BOSE store and bought the new Lifestyle 48 media center. I haven't set it up yet as we are probably going to have our good friend, Pete Last, come back and help us set this whole thing up. He has done all of the phone and internet connection works for us these past few years and we are excited to have him help us on this as we have NO IDEA what we are doing.

This coming week we are expecting to have our new Leaf Guard gutters installed along with having our new read sliders delivered. Ideal Building will be here one or two days to coordinate the installation of the gutters and sliders. I expect that they will also continue with the clean up as each week passes we get a little closer to the end...

2007-02-04T18:53:00.000-08:00

NOTE TO SELF: "Next time we decide to build a garage, remember to make sure to give the builder the dimensions of the vehicle to be parked in it."

As you can see Gary's H2 will not fit into the new garage without turning in the side mirrors, and even then there is only 1/4 inch to spare. We actually knew this soon after Ideal Building poured the foundation - and planned that the H2 would be parked in the existing garage while my car goes into the new garage.

With the new garage door being installed, we had them also install a new opener for the existing garage. Both openers are SOOOO quiet. The downside is that they are VERY slow in rising and lowering... That will be something we will need to get used to and watch so that small animals don't go wandering in as it closes.

The excitement level is at a high right now as we are near completion of the garage and the kitchen is pretty much done except for some cosmetic things. Speaking of the kitchen, here is a picture of the kitchen after we started moving back in. You can see my laptop on the bar in the picture, but it will probably not live there forever. Gary and I are thinking about putting a small desk in the formal living room so that I have a place to work. Having the laptop on the bar just doesn't seem like a good idea after seeing it there.

The painting of the outside trim has been completed and we are so happy that we thought to add trim to all the existing windows and front door on the East side of the house. It looks really great.

This upcoming week we hope to see the fixtures in our master shower installed and the replacement of the granite from our kitchen window. Oh yeah, while Paramatrix was here to chisel the granite on the new window in the kitchen, they accidently cracked it. So, they are going to cut a new piece of granite and come back this week to install it. To do this though, Rob from Ideal Building had to take the inside trim and pine trim out. Ho Hum!

And maybe, just maybe we will have the new rear sliders installed in our TV Room. We didn't move back into the TV room yet as we hoped. We just ran out of time, so Gary and I will move back in next weekend as we will have our new sofa and chair delivered on Thursday! Yes, we broke down and bought a leather/suede sofa and matching chair for the tv room, it was easier than cleaning the old green ones that look pretty dusty and ratty now compared to our nice new TV room . So our existing green sofa and chair will soon join the many items on Craigslist.com in hopes of finding a new home.

After the formal living room is cleared out, we hope to start the next project and that is replacing the fireplace and painting both that room and the dining room. Enough for now...

2007-01-28T09:55:00.000-08:00

Well another week has gone by and a lot of the finishing work has happened. Rob from Ideal Building is the one that is here on a regular basis now. He finished up the tiling in the bathroom and put up some yellow pine as a transition from the shower tile to the wall. We chose a charcoal grout to accent the black shower pan and then the black Anticado granite vanity counter and black granite vessel sinks. And now that we have done that, we are thinking of switching out our toilet to a black one to complete the look. We will do this ourselves.

How do you like our new Vanity lighting? It is a light bar made to look like branches tied together with strips of leather and then powered with 4 globes facing downward illuminating out vanity... Wha?!? There is no light bar in the picture???? Yep! that's right there is no light bar in the picture and that is because we had YET ANOTHER problem with what we bought at Seattle Lighting. This time around, one of the four light bases was bent and would not hang straight down. So after the eletrician was here to install it, Gary and I took it down and returned it to Seattle Lighting yesterday. The replacement will be expedited, but in Seattle Lighting terms, 'expedited' means 3 to 4 weeks! Ugh!

Outside, Rob finished triming all of the windows on the East side of the house so they match the trim from the new kitchen and garage windows. Rob had to cut out siding around the windows and then installed nice thick pieces of trim around them. These will be painted on Monday to match the existing trim around the house. We also put an order in for all new gutters at the house. We are going with the Leaf Guard system and found a color that we accent the house nicely. We are thinking 'PINK!'... kidding! We are going with an Ivory color for the gutters. These should be installed soon.

This past Thursday, Seattle City Light was out to (finally) switch over the power from our old circuit box to the new one. With that done, the electrician and his team of people were here to do a lot of the outstanding electrical around the house. I arrived home from work to find them still here. One guy was hooking up the new air-conditioning unit, while another worked on the new circuit for the hot-tub. Yet another guy was working on the lighting in our garage (which is very cool and VERY bright). Lastly, all the electrical in the kitchen was fixed. We had some switch issues, where some switches would only turn off lights, but not on and etc. So that was nice to finally have corrected.

All the wires from the old circuit box have been cut back and then tied to the new circuit box. Not many people (other than my sister's husband Dave) will find a picture of the circuit box exciting, so this is manly for him.

With the electrical completed in the kitchen, our trim kit for the microwave was installed. And now this wall is FINALLY complete! I am hoping that Ryan from Superior Cabinets will be out next week to work on the drawers as they are not moving out or in very smoothly at this time. Once that is done, we will start moving back into the kitchen.

Did you notice the backsplash in the above picture? Gary and I worked on the backsplah on Saturday and got the whole thing completed by 11:30 last night. We spent some time in the afternoon and then again after we got home from dinner. We took fifteen 12x12 slate tiles and cut them into 2" stips. We then stacked them 6" high in a brick pattern all the way around the kitchen. Cutting around outlets and making sure that we do not use the same tiles in large chunks was like putting together a puzzle. Near the end of the night, I was trying to thin out a piece of tile to fit under an outlet and had to cut 4 of them to get it right. I used the whole 'Measure Twice, Cut Once' philosophy but it still didn't work. Looking at it this morning, we are really happy with the overall look.

This coming week, the painters will be back to do some interior touch up painting and also finish up the painting of the garage exterior. They will return once more after the new garage door is installed (which is scheduled for Wednesday, January 31st). I am hoping for the fixtures to our shower will be installed, but not sure when we can expect a new shower door as we have yet to order anything. A new mirror for the vanity will need to be installed as well, but the whole place is slowly coming together.

2007-01-21T17:25:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been over a week since our last post and it isn't because are bored with the blog. Gary took the camera with him to Olympia to get a special photo for our niece Shayelyn. But some stuff happened and here is a summary.

The snow started melting earlier this week and as I right this there are only traces of snow on the ground around Seattle. And with the snow going away Ideal Building was able to get back to work on the house. Rob was here this week to complete the tiling in our bathroom. And today, Gary and I went out to buy the grout for the shower tile. We chose a charcoal color for the grout as we thought it would be a nice accent against the tile.

I met with our friend Pete from the chorus about the new TV cabinet for our TV room. He brought a design along with his bid and I signed off on the design. So he will be building our cabinet over the next couple of weeks out of cherry and then staining it to match our Kitchen. The cabinet will be 8 feet long and 24 inches tall. It should accommodate a lot (but not all) of our DVD's and then our video components. Our new 50" plasma will sit on top of the cabinet.

Ryan from Superior Cabinets returned to the house to level all the kitchen cabinet and bathroom vanity doors. He also adjusted one shelf in our pantry to allow us to put our dog food container in there and as you can see Abbey is very interested in getting into it.

Starting tomorrow Ideal Building will finish the door and window trim outside of the house, and then Rob will grout the shower and the granite for our new window in the kitchen will be installed. And hopefully, by the end of the week the power will be switched over to its permanent location. Fingers Crossed!

2007-01-13T17:47:00.000-08:00

*** While this is our blog for the remodel - the amount of snow that has fallen has prevented any work happening since Wednesday - so today's post is about the SNOW itself. ***

While many people like to sing "Let It Snow" around the holidays or this time of year... I am singing 'Enough is Enough'!! As I mentioned in my last post, we got over 5 inches of snow here in West Seattle. Thursday morning arrived to find that I wasn't able to leave the house as there was too much snow to me to get to work safely. So instead, I worked from home and tried to shovel our driveway.

I took a walk up the street to take a picture of 37th Avenue SW from the top of the hill looking down. This was before a bunch of people tried driving down it or sledding down and turning the entire street into a sheet of ICE (more later).

This is probably the most snow that I have seen here in Seattle in the 10 and a half years that I have lived here. But atleast our house still looks really cool in the snow!

The dogs are enjoying playing in the snow and we went downstairs into the backyard to take pictures. Lucy really enjoys running in the snow as her little butt wags like crazy when she is out there. Many times when I let her out to play she will come back covered in snow.

Abbey on the other hand really enjoys running in the snow, or more like HOPPING through the snow. But unlike Lucy, Abbey gets over being in the snow pretty quickly and I will find her waiting by the door to go back inside.

This morning was like any other Saturday. Gary headed to the gym while I tried to keep the house clean from all the construction. While I am vacuuming I heard to dogs barking and realized that someone was at the door. It was one of our neighbors and he was here to tell me that someone in a minivan slid down the street and into my car (which was parked on the street again).

I walked up the driveway to find the person still in her car and very apologetic. While she kept her foot on the brake and her parking brake on, I got into my car and moved it away and partially into the driveway. It was then I was able to examine the damage and found that she bounced off my car not once but twice before stopping against my front passenger side fender.

As I mentioned earlier, the street is just a sheet of ice and sure enough her minivan played pinball with my car. My passenger side mirror was ripped off and then there are three scrapes all against the side of my car. Ugh!!

Finally, although the snow makes for some beautiful scenary - I am really wishing for the sun to return and melt all this snow away.

2007-01-10T21:45:00.000-08:00

It is 10pm and there is about 5 inches of snow on the ground. Just a little while ago, I opened the back door and Lucy ran outside to explore the snow. I grabbed my camera and snapped this picture of Lucy sitting in the snow.

So yesterday the sheetrock was started in the garage. I got home late and I was surprised to see that they were still working at 6:00pm. I had to leave at 7pm and they were still working. I heard they finished up around 8pm. They worked late as we were worried about the coming snow storm. Additionally, Rob worked inside and got the shower patched up and prepped for tiling.

Today I left for work and there was only a trace of snow on the ground but the commute wasn't affected in any way. I got to work and the ground was clear of any snow. It was cold, but nothing out of the ordinary.

What a difference 10 hours makes. I left the office at 5:30pm and it was dark and snowing. I had to get to 'Tails of the City - Doggie Day Care' before 6pm and started to worry that the snow would be an issue. As I got closer to the Georgetown area the snow was getting heavier and heavier. I got the dogs at 5:50pm and started the trek home. But coming up the hill to West Seattle I noticed about 7 cars on the side of the road and 4 cars sliding back and forth up the hill. Luckily I have all-wheel drive and was able to find a way back up to our street. NOTE: it took 45 minutes to go 4 and a half miles.

Travis from Ideal Building was still at the house and was sweeping up in the garage. They finsihed sheetrocking the garage today and it is looking great. Next up is getting the new garage and garage door opener ordered and installed. Travis gave up trying to get his car down our steep hill, and since he only lives a few blocks from here he left it parked and walked home.

This picture here is the shower with a few tiles ducked taped to the backer board. Rob and Travis were working on a 'random' pattern to match the floor. It's a start and they hope to lay the rest of tile tomorrow (weather permitting). I turned around and noticed that they also installed the rock knobs for our vanity, so I took a picture of the vanity along with the now working sinks!! Don't mind all the dust, it is from all the work they did patching the ceiling where the new fan goes. I was too lazy to clean it up for a picture - so here it is... as is.

2007-01-10T21:44:00.001-08:00

Well some more finishing work was done at the house. The first thing that I noticed was that the trim around the doors to the laundry room and coat closet were now up. Additionally, a lot more of the trim in the dining room and around the kitchen and TV room were done as well. I am really loving the look of the room!

Then I noticed that, AT LAST, the plumbing was done in the kitchen, so we now have a working sink and dishwasher. I also tried out the stove and YES, the 5 gas burner now works too! So the kitchen is fully working now. We are just waiting for the electrician to return to finish up with the electrical behind the microwave. Once that is done, the trim kit will be installed around the microwave and the appliance wall will be done.

As for our master bathroom, the vessel sinks now have drains and the faucets were installed so they are working too.

The last thing that I wanted to mention is our dry bar. We haven't mentioned much about this part of the remodel as it is such a small piece of the remodel and is actually in the dining room so it is rarely featured in any pictures. It is looking real nice now that it is fully installed.

2007-01-07T18:14:00.001-08:00

It almost seems like one step forward and two steps back this week. Gary leaves for the Legislative session in Olympia on Monday, and will live in our condo down there during the week between now and May. We were hoping to have the project more or less done by then, but it isn't going to happen.

First off, this past week we lost an entire day of work because of Seattle City Light. On Thursday they were scheduled to do the cut over to the new electrical feed, and we were told we would have no power all day. Gary scheduled a day to move clothes and things to Olympia and was set to go. Robert, from Ideal Building showed up, the electrical sub-contractor showed up, even the plumber -- who was not supposed to show up showed up. Robert sent the plumber home since there was not going to be any power so no lights for him to see with, and Travis dug out the electrical vault in the yard. And then Seattle City Light called to say they weren't coming out -- no explanation. Ideal had sent their workers to other projects, and there was nothing for the electrician to do, so Thursday was a total waste.

However, Rob and Travis made some progress on getting the kitchen finished up. They got all the trim on, and put the corbels up that will hold the granite eating bar in place. They also got all the cabinet hardware installed, so the kitchen is looking better all the time. It looks so good we couldn't resist hanging up the Coke sign again! We are REALLY REALLY REALLY looking forward to having the kitchen back and working soon.
However, when putting the kitchen back together, it was discovered that our instant hot water dispenser wouldn't work with a two-inch granite counter top. An extension part is available -- on 120 day back order! Since it needs to go in before the disposal and drains go in, we can't wait that long for the part. However, Best Plumbing did have one that would fit -- at more than twice what we paid for the one we bought at Lowes. We took the old one back to Lowes and bought the new one from Best Plumbing. The plumber now has all the correct parts to install the drains and faucets and hot-water, so we are keeping our fingers crossed that when Gary gets back next weekend, the kitchen sink will work.

But then Friday brings more bad news. Apparently the plumber didn't correctly install the shower valves in the new shower before Rob put up the backer board and sealed it so they could start installing the tile. So on Friday they hacked off the backer board and re-installed the valves -- and now the backer needs to be patched and re-sealed before they can start tiling.

Meanwhile we hear rumors that Seattle City Light MIGHT come out on Thursday to do the switch over and then the electrician can finish all the electrical. However, that is just a rumor at this point.

This coming week we should also see the garage sheetrocked and taped -- which means they can finish the electrical there and get the garage door installed.

2006-12-31T15:08:00.000-08:00

We are back home in Seattle after spending the last week in Salt Lake City, Utah visiting Gary's family and getting in some good skiing too! We were not expecting much to go on with the remodel as Ideal Building were taking a much deserved break during the Christmas and New Years Holidays.

However, Robert from Ideal Building did surprise us with news on Friday that they were able to have the asphalt for our new driveway poured. So we were happy to come home to a smooth driveway after several weeks without. I know, why would someone be excited about a 'driveway'? But after the weather that we have had and the mighty canyons that emerged in the dirt driveway from the hurricane like rain and wind these past few weeks - it was a welcome sight.

Some interesting news is that the plumber also made a return visit this past week to install the fixtures in the kitchen and bathroom. However (yeah there is another 'However'), the drains that were ordered are not long enough to fit through the 2" counters and vessel sinks in our bathroom. Additionally the faucet and hot water dispenser in the kitchen also do not extend all the way through the counter - so we are now considering our options on how to get this fixed.

The rest of the post is devoted to my sister's husband David. A while ago we went a few days without a post and that was due to mostly electrical work being done which do not make for exciting posts. However after talking to my sister yesterday, I realized that this is just the kind of stuff that David likes to see.

So without further adieu...

With the new garage, we had to move our external meter and the break box to the new East wall of the garage. To do this, the electrician installed a new breaker box in the garage near the window on the Eastside.

Then they strung wires across the top of the new garage to the existing breaker box left our existing breaker box in the existing partial wall that separates the old garage and the new.

So our existing breaker box is like a conduit and it made things a lot easier (and cheaper) than having to move everything over to the new box. But right now, the breaker box looks pretty bad. We are waiting for everything to be switched over to the new breaker (possibly this week).

Work will start back up on the house on Wednesday, January 3rd - so you probably won't see another post until then.

Happy New Year!!!

2006-12-21T22:41:00.000-08:00

Well, this is likely the last post of the year. The guys from Ideal Building have been doing their best to get the kitchen put back into working shape, but we aren't going to make it before the first of the year -- or at least before we leave for Salt Lake City on Friday. They will be taking off the same week we are in SLC and not doing any work, so what they do on Friday after we leave will be the last before we get back to work and so do they on Jan 3. There is a slim chance the electrical cut-over and the driveway paving will happen over X-mas week -- and if so, the contractors will come over and get it done, but otherwise they are taking a vacation week along with us.

The stone people from Paramatrix came back to drill the holes for the new faucet in the kitchen, attach the bar top, and drill the drain and faucet holes for the bathroom sinks.

As you can see here, the bar has a nice curve to it, a chisled edge, and is a black somewhat "unfinished" granite. We used this same stone on the kitchen window box and on the upstairs bath vanity. The brace is to hold it while the adhesive dries, and then Rob will mount some corbells for additional support underneath. He also got the backing on the bar attached so it has a more finished look as well.

The upstairs bath vanity now has a backsplash, as well as the holes for the two sinks -- which we are taking to calling dinasour eggs. The faucets will mount at 10am position on the left sink and 2pm on the right -- and you can see how they fit in this picture.

Finally, Rob spent a good chunk of Wed. under the house doing the vent for the stove's downdraft venting system, routing the vent pipe and finding an exit which he hid underneath the patio stairs. Some very nice work. The downdraft is activated by a button on the stove so that when you need it, it levitates and turns on, and when you don't need it, it slides down and is hidden. Here it is in the "up" position. The stove is not yet hooked up to the gas line so we can't use it yet.

There is still quite a bit of work to be done in the garage to get it finished, including sheet rock, electrical, door, door opener, cement finishing, final painting, along with all the electrical work, tiling the shower, all the plumbing, painting touch ups, moulding, kick plates inside. The legislative session starts on January 8 so Gary moves to Olympia, and we expect that this project won't get finally done until sometime in February, or later if we include the new fireplace and painting the dining room and formal living room. Looks like we'll be writing this blog for some time to come. This is almost turning into the old TV serries "Murphy Brown" with the permanent live in painter Eldon. We have our own Eldon's in Robert, Rob, Bill, and Travis -- and like Murphy, we like them a lot and don't mind that they keep working.

Happy holidays!

2006-12-19T23:11:00.000-08:00

Quite a bit of stuff has happened on the outside of the house, however it doesn't really make for exciting pictures. We have had Comcast, Qwest and our inside connections guy, Pete Last here laying the lines for the house. We have all new lines leading into the house and boy do we love Pete Last. Pete cleaned up and neatened up the rats nest of cable and phone wires in the old garage attic, and installed miles of new cables, phone lines and jacks. Our garage attic is now as neat and tidy as a professional phone switching office. Pete is worth every cent, ask our friends Steve and Allan - they used him to install the wiring for their flatscreen television and sound system at their house and they were very happy with his service too.

Anyway, inside the house we have had some good things happen. First, we took down those darn pendelum lights that we giving us all those problems. Although we both loved the look of them - they were not worth the trouble, so we returned them and in their place are these new lights, which we actually like better. They are brushed nickel and they really work here as well -- they echo the outside garage and porch lights in style.

Additionally, Ideal Building worked to get the NEW new microwave installed into the cabinet and after all of it was done, it was realized that the outlet behind the microwave has no power!!! Gary and I tried to figure out what was what by flipping switches but to no avail. Apparently the outlet isn't hooked up to the circuit breaker box yet. So, we got an extension cord and were able to put the microwave in it's spot, and then simply plugged it in (for now) using a different outlet. However, you see what the cabinet wall looks like with everything in its place -- including the new 15 inch flat screen TV running off of one of Pete's new outlets!

Lastly, Rob from Ideal Building worked to get the new 5 burner gas stove top installed along with the pop up vent. The gas is not hooked up yet, but the stove top is in its place and it looks good too. The kitchen is coming together.

We are expeting that the Stone Guys will be out tomorrow and they will drill all the holes for the faucet and hot water dispenser in the kitchen and the faucets and drain holes for the Master Bathroom. I can't wait to see what it looks like once this is done.

2006-12-15T23:29:00.000-08:00

What a difference a few days make!

By 12noon on Thursday, December 14th a powerful rain storm had entered Puget Sound and slammed us hard. I was in Everett training a class that morning and started my trek back to Seattle at 1pm. It took me WAY too long as the traffic was awful for two reasons. 1) The rain and 2) the Seahawks had a 5pm Primetime Thursday Night Football game at Qwest Field.

It was dark before I got home and the rain had been coming down for quite a few hours by now. The unpaved driveway was affected -- two large 'canyons' had been formed from the amount of water coming down. From the top of the drive a canyon cut through the graveled driveway to the eastside of the new garage and then cut North to Kim and Mark's yard. Sound Familiar? Yeah the grand canyon returned to rear its ugly head. But this time around it was joined by another canyon that ran perpendicular across the driveway. Note the first picture on the next post as you scroll down to see how the driveway SHOULD look, and compare it to this one.

Gary and I were out in the rain rerouting the path of the oncoming water to prevent any further 'damage' and it seemed to work... with the water.

By 12:30am, 68 mile winds arrived in Seattle and blasted the city hard. We were awakened by the sound of the wind and Abbey and Lucy jumping up on the bed as they were scared. We noticed the power was out and we could see the trees in the backyard bending almost sideways. With a flashlight in hand, we went to investigate. From what we could see, the howling winds were really ripping into the trees.

We finally made it back to sleep around 1:30am, but neither of us slept very well. Robert from Ideal Building called at 7am to see if we had power. Although it was pretty light out, we noticed that the clocks were off so we knew the power was still out. Robert let us know he didn't have power and it looks like Rob and Travis would not be doing any work today. So I got up and got ready for work as my office in Kent HAD power. After dropping the dogs off at Doggie Day Care, I made my way through the fallen trees that lined the streets to my office.

While I was at work, Gary spent most of the day cleaning the yard of debris. The Stone guys showed up late morning to install the countertops. We didn't think they would show, but sure enough they were there and they immediately got to work (without the benefit of power). By 1pm our power was back on, and the guys were still hard at work installing the counters.

As you can see from the pics, the counters look GREAT!! The 'tan brown' counter for the kitchen really pops against the cherry cabinets and once it is fully polished - it is going to be spectacular.

You can also see the contrasting stone that we are using for the window box above the sink. This is the same stone that we are using in our bathroom upstairs as well.

They were not able to put the raised bar counter in yet as the wall isn't ready yet to hold the weight of the counter, so they will come back for that. The Stone guys have to come back anyway to drill the holes for the fixtures and drains in both the kitchen and bathroom. But in this picture, you can see where the stove top will go and the partial wall where the raised bar is located. The counter for the bar is the same material that is used in the window box and in the bathroom.

Speaking of which, here is a picture of the bathroom vanity. We got the vessel sinks and I placed it on top of the new counter so we could get a picture of it. It looks great and I think we the stone pulls on the vanity cabinets this will look fantasitc when it is done. We have dubbed our bathroom "WoodStone" due to the use of materials here.

It is now Saturday, December 16th and I am finishing up this blog before I take off to due some errands which include picking up the new microwave (did I mention that we had to take the old NEW microwave back to Albert Lee to get a faulty button fixed?). Anyway, I am getting a brand new one today. Then I will cross the street and pick up our new television for the TV room before doing some Christmas shopping. Tonight I have a performance with the BEARatones and then another concert with the chorus on Sunday.

2006-12-14T21:14:00.000-08:00

We got back from Whistler on Tuesday afternoon -- but we've been unable to post to the blog because the cable Internet has been down because of weather and rotten cable. Gary was able to check some e-mail via a (gasp!) dial-up connection (how antiquated!)but it was way too slow to post anything on here. Fortunately Comcast came out and put in the new drop from the street, and Pete Last got the inside connection made so we have TV and Internet again (two days without! so very painful...hard to talk about..)

LOTS of progress! Most obvious was apparent when we drove up. The painters had put the first coat on the garage and it now blends in with the rest of the house. It looks especially attractive we think from the path our neighbors to the north Kim and Mark use to get to their mailbox.

Once we opened the garage door we noticed that the wall between the old and new garage had been removed, and the electrician had gotten a lot of wiring done (with still a lot to go as evident by the spaghetti of wires from the old circuit breaker box that will be junctioned there and then over to the new circuit breaker box over in the new garage. You can see how roomy and big the combined garages will be once it's all done. They still need to do some additional framing to pass inspection and then they'll sheetrock and paint inside.

On the inside of the house the electrician finished up the oven and hanging the pendant lights. This is the LAST AND ONLY picture of these lights you'll see -- we don't like them. It's not the look mind you -- we love the look, but the new "energy efficient" design requires a compact flourescent bulb.
This isn't the problem -- the problem is that no one stocks the light bulb in town, so they have to be special ordered (we did not know this when we bought them), AND the ballast that powers the CF bulbs is faulty on all three lights and they take FOREVER to warm up, IF they warm up at all. Therefore when you flip the switch maybe one light will flicker and then turn off. We flip the switch again and then maybe two lights will flicker and then turn off. A third time we may get one light on but the other two stay off. I feel like I am in front of a slot machine and each flick of the switch is like a pull on the machine. Eventually (usually 12 to 15 tries), all three lights will come to life (Jackpot). So down they'll come and we'll go shopping this weekend for pendelum lights with NORMAL Lightbulbs.

Meanwhile Rob has been busy getting started on the bathroom -- the shower pan is in and the plumbing moved, and he's got a good start on the tile backer board. You can see the new pan is shorter than the old one -- which means we get a "bench" in the shower now. The shower pan is black cast iron -- so none of the "flex" leak problems from the old plastic one. We picked up the new granite vessel sinks too -- they weigh a ton, literally carved out of solid rock. And the best news is that the countertops get delivered on Friday! This should really start to pull the kitchen together.

Finally, the painters got the new front door stained and we think it looks super!

2006-12-07T21:24:00.000-08:00

A small army of workers descended on the house today -- at one point we had everyone from Ideal Building (Robert, Bill, Travis and Rob), along with the two painters and the two electricians. It made for a crowded morning. Gary tried to stay out of the way, but no doubt annoyed all of them by sticking his nose into everything -- the joy of working at home while the contractors are there. Bill, Robert, and Travis put down a layer of crushed rock and compacted it so that SOMEDAY soon it can be paved, while the electricians continued their complicated and massive job of rewiring the world. They also installed the oven in the kitchen which is starting to come together. The microwave, which has been, other than the coffee pot, our only source of cooking food, is now back at Albert Lee -- it's had a sticky latch and getting someone out to repair it was a nightmare so Gary took it back in today. It will eventually be installed in the cubby above the oven with a trim kit to match the oven and fill the space. With only a coffee pot, we had takeout Teriyaki for dinner. It's a good thing we are getting out of this mess Friday morning and heading up to Whistler for a few days of skiing.

Meanwhile Rob worked inside and installed our new front door and did some drywall work and patching. The painters primed the garage so they can paint it, and they'll stain the new front door on Friday. The door is really cool -- it's got an etched glass window with a mountain scene with pine trees. It will be stained to match the door trim and baseboards.

We leave for Whistler tomorrow morning around 10am, dropping the dogs off at the kennel and will be back late Tuesday -- anxious to see what progress has been made.

2006-12-06T22:18:00.000-08:00

What a difference a day makes. Remember how I mentioned yesterday that Bill from Ideal Building was being 'very careful [sic] so as not to hit the pretty new garage, dig up the phone or cable or water mains)' when he was digging the trench? Well, Oops!

Today while continuing with the big driveway dig - Bill accidently hit the old water main and out comes Old Faithful. Well okay, this picture is NOT what it actually looked like but it was how Gary described it to me over the phone while I was at work. After I got home, I talked to Bill and they were so careful all the way up the driveway... until the old water main decided to take a sharp left turn. This was unexpected and it was too late before the big claw ripped it apart and sploosh goes the water.

But not to worry, even though we were without water for a while, It was repaired and backfilled before the end of the day. We never have to worry about Ideal Building as they are very committed to service and providing top quality across the board.

Another milestone was reached today. The new window in our kitchen was cut out and installed and boy does it look great! Gary snapped this picture from outside after Rob finished the job. Like all the windows in the new garage, this window is trimmed and will be painted to match the rest of the trim on the house. After the house is done, the guys at Ideal Building will also trim the other east facing windows so we have a uniform look from the street.

From inside, Gary snapped this great picture of Bill working outside on the backhoe through the new window in our kitchen (before "old faithful erupted). This window opens out and provides a lot of sunlight into the new kitchen. This also provides us with a much needed view of our front yard from the 1st floor which we have never had.

Lastly, this may sound insignificant, but our new fridge was placed into it's permanent location and is now ready to be stocked with food! Since November 12th our old fridge has lived in the breezeway between the house and the garage and we are sure tired of having to go outside to get anything from there. While the old fridge is still there (until the wall between the old and new garage is taken down), we will at least have a fridge in the house! Now we need to get the oven and microwave in and our new wall of appliances will be done.
Tomorrow, Bill says that our new door will be installed. The electrician will be back one more time to finish up all the electrical inside and out. If we are lucky, we will get the gravel poured on the newly graded driveway before we leave for the weekend for Whistler. If that happens, we might just have a paved driveway by the time we return.

2006-12-05T21:12:00.000-08:00

What a mess!

Bill, Travis and Rob dug up our driveway today to prepare for the new water main, and moving the utilities as well as regrading for the approach to the new garage. Gary could have skipped the gym by staying and helping Travis lift blocks of broken asphalt and taking them to the dumpster.

Once the drive was clear, Bill (very carefully so as not to hit the pretty new garage, dig up the phone or cable or water mains) dug a two foot wide, three foot deep trench for the new electrical and phone/cable conduit. Because of City of Seattle inspection times we have an open trench now until they can come and decide the trence is OK. Then they will back-fill and grade and we'll all cross our fingers that the weather stays nice enough for them to pave. Otherwise we'll have a muddy dirty driveway for a while.

Meanwhile the electricans were working on this now somewhat major electrical project, which now includes redoing the entire hot-tub circuit since apparently according to the city our existing circuit doesn't meet code (it's what happens when you do it yourself). So now we are without a hot tub for a while until they can conduit and rewire all that too! They also got a good start on wiring up the new kitchen and moving some fixtures that were not properly aligned with the new cabinets. With any luck we'll switch over to the new circuit boxes later this week, but we are having our doubts... However we won't be here as we'll be leaving for Whistler for a few days of skiing on Friday!

2006-12-02T18:49:00.000-08:00

It's been a week since we've posted -- and very busy at work for both of us, and with the snow and ice storm, not a lot of time for the contractors to do their stuff. Because of the weather they were not able to dig up the driveway as planned so that will be done this week. However as you can see they did get a good start on the inside trim and baseboards -- which we are having done to match the raw/light stain pine we did upstairs. They've done a great job, but it looks like now we'll need to replace the back sliding glass door since it's got a seal leak! Yikes.

The appliances all got delivered and we love the new fridge. It's going to look great in the empty slot on the cabinets, along with the oven and microwave, and Gary spent the day taking off tape and stickers from inside the fridge from shipping. Right now it's plugged into an extension cord since the electrician still needs to wire the outlet for it, but it beats our "white trash" fridge on the front porch/breezeway that I just know the neighbors have been loving! And it's great fun going out side in 25 degree weather to get a drink or snack!

The stone people, well not 'STONE PEOPLE' or 'people made of stone', but people who work for the company that will be cutting out stone slab for our counter -- anyway THEY were at the house on Friday and created a template for the kitchen counters and the master bath vanity. It will take about 2 weeks to get the slab ready for installation, and until then we have to work around installed cabinets with no tops.

I wonder if we should move stuff back in yet to the bathroom? Probably not.

The most visible work was on the outside -- where Travis and Rob got all the siding up on the garage! Tony wants to leave it unpainted and have the rest of the house stripped to match! It does look (and smell) really nice, and they guys from Ideal gave us the back square window which even cranks open, so we are going to have one premium garage.

The large white box in front is the long-lost shower pan too, which arrived this week. Someday soon they'll start tiling and putting the bath back together too.
For those that do not live next door to us and only read the blog, this is probably the last picture of our driveway that you will see before it is torn up and re-graded.

2006-11-23T20:06:00.000-08:00

THE CABINETS ARE UP!!! and, THE ROOF IS ON!!!

Not a lot to say, so we'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Rob and Travis finished the cabinets on Wed., and the roofers finished on Tuesday. No new work until Tuesday of next week, when they'll finish tweaking the cabinets, working on the baseboards and getting ready for some major outdoor stuff next week. We lose our driveway almost all of next week as they dig up the old asphalt and replace the water line and relocate the electrical, telephone, and cable lines. Seattle City Light is extoring $1500 to "reconnect" the relocated meter -- and they don't do any of the work! Must be nice. The long-lost shower pan is supposed to be delivered next week along with all the new appliances. It's finally starting to get put back together, though we've got a long way to go still.

We think the cabinets look fantastic! Hope you do to.

And here's the new garage and roof -- we'll have to replace the rest of the shingles on the main house in a year or so to look like these.

2006-11-21T22:05:00.000-08:00

The Kitchen Cabinets are HERE!! The cabinets were delivered yesterday and the guys from Ideal Building started to install them today. As you can see from the picture above, the kitchen is starting to take shape with the new pantry, the space for the new fridge and the oven and microwave wall.

The space under the new east facing window will provide us a lot more storage than we have had in the past and the lower corner cabinet has a lazy susan feature which will be very nice to have in the kitchen. As you can see the upper cabinet has not been installed but you can see one of the changes we made to the cabinet door on this cabinet. We decided to have this door be glass to add some character to the room. I think it is going to look fantastic!

In addition to the kitchen cabinet work, Rob and Travis from Ideal Building have also spent time staining our new baseboards. Two coats later and they are just about ready to be installed. Three of the four rooms downstairs will be refinished with new baseboards, while the formal living room will have to wait until phase two next year. -- Yes, there is going to be a phase two!!! I know, I know - what the heck are we thinking?!? By the end of the whole remodel, we will practically have a new house. That works out great, because we really do love this house and the location. Lastly, our two dogs have grown up in this house - and we really can't imagine living in a downtown condo...yet! (EVER says Gary)

Outside, the cedar shingles have been installed on the garage. We don't have a picture yet- because it was dark and rainy before we could get out there and snap a picture of it.

Tomorrow, work on the kitchen continues before Ideal Building takes a much deserved holiday. We expect the kitchen cabinets to be done on Monday or Tuesday of next week, and then the new appliances will be delivered and installed.

Standing back from the TV room you can really see how the room is coming together. We still miss having the creature comforts of home and really wish the construction was all over - but we know it will be worth the wait.

2006-11-18T18:08:00.000-08:00

We got back from six days in the Olympia condo this afternoon. It was sure nice to get away to a clean, quiet, non-construction zone place for a few days -- we are lucky to have it as an escape pod. However, we missed Seattle, the dogs, and wondered what was going on and kept pestering Robert via e-mail. So it was good to get back and see the progress.

And boy did they make progress. As you can see, the garage is all framed and roofed in -- it passed the framing inspection by the city, so the next step is to put the siding and shingles up.

The garage is going to be nice and roomy -- and the windows and high vaulted ceiling will make for a very nice, light, and bright work space. We'll install the old kitchen cabinets and make them into a work bench, and have tons of room to boot.
The contractors have stored much of their tools in there, and we'll be able to put the new kitchen cabinets that get delivered on Monday in there as well.

They also were able to install the new A/C unit and a big new powerful, and very quiet furnace.

It's a good thing we have the new furnace, because the house is toxic with the fumes from the hardwood finish. The floors are gorgeous, but we've had to open all the windows and doors to air the place out (as it is we are both getting slightly high), and the furnance has been running to keep the place warm. It's so quiet that we didn't even know it was running!
Of course with a new furnace comes a new thermostat -- and this one, with the A/C, is a complicated bugger with lots of settings for coming and going and temperatures and the like -- so we'll have to learn how the thing works.

The hardwoods are gorgeous -- we didn't stain them at all, it's just got three coats of polyurathane finish. They look brand new and we are reluctant to walk on them. The pictures on here just don't do them justice.

It's going to be a busy but short week with the holiday. The cabinets are expected to arrive on Monday, so they'll start installing them on Tuesday. They'll also start the siding on the garage -- and they'll have to swap windows. The workers on Friday when the windows came thought the new fancy one with the awning opening was for the garage, rather than the standard, non-opening one that Robert gave us from a remodel job they didn't need it for. They mistakingly installed it in the garage and left the other one out. Fortunately the siding isn't up so it should be no problem to swap them out. They'll take Thursday and Friday off, and then finish the cabinets the next week and install the appliances.

Still no sign of the bathroom fixtures and shower pan -- so the kitchen might beat the bathroom to finish!

2006-11-13T13:21:00.000-08:00

This is how the house looked this morning, November 13th, as we left for a week in the Olympia condo. We put Lucy and Abbey in the boarding kennel and we packed some clothes and moved south for a few days. Travis and Rob are tarping the garage roof as they get ready to tear it off and connect it to the new garage, while another contractor is inside installing a new furnace and air-conditioner. Tomorrow the hardwood refinishers come in and get to work on the kitchen, tv room and dining room. So in short, the house is not habitable for a few days and we are lucky we have our little Olympia place to get away to.

When we get back we should see some remarkable progress and we'll upload pictures then.

2006-11-11T09:52:00.000-08:00

It has been a few days since we last posted but that is due to a two day break in work at the house. Abbey and Lucy stayed home from Doggie Day Care and I am sure enjoyed the break from having to be social with 30 other dogs.

Wednesday and Thursday were off days and then on Friday, Ideal Building returned to put up the trusses on the garage. Considering how big and bulky these things are Gary says they went up pretty fast. By early afternoon they were up and in place.

As you can see from both pictures, the garage is really taking shape and the two windows in the new garage have been cut out. Next week - they will continue on the garage with tearing out the affected shingles before connecting the trusses to the existing garage.

On Friday night, instead of our usual dinner and a movie we did dinner and SHOPPING. We went looking for lights to hang over our new eating bar and after looking at various styles of lights we settled on three hanging pendant lights. The glass lamp is acorn shaped and has a burnt orange hue which we think will work well with the new look of the kitchen. Gary snapped this shot as I was trying to get a better idea of what the light will look like over the bar.

I am sitting here at the computer waiting for some interested buyers for our stove top and oven to arrive. I hope they are interested as we would like to get these sold and out of the garage. And who knows, maybe they will take the microwave as a bonus! (the handle broke off during the demolition so it isn't really sellable unless someone wants to try and fix it.

Gary is spending the day at a conference for one of his clients and I will be taking our area rugs out to be dry cleaned. Tonight I have a concert with the BEARatones and then tomorrow Gary and I will move out everything in the faux kitchen in preperation for next week's work on the hardwoods and baseboards etc.

2006-11-07T18:33:00.000-08:00

I 'escaped' this morning with the dogs at 7:15am to get them out of the house and to Doggie Day Care. The painters were planning to arrive at 7:30am to finish up the job in the kitchen, tv room and master bathroom. They did a lot of the painting yesterday but it was too dark to take any pictures as the canned lights were still taped over since they painted the ceiling. The smell of paint lingered all evening so we opened some windows so that we could sleep and not get overwhelmed by the fumes.

So this afternoon after I got home from work with the dogs in tow - I found our kitchen & TV Room finished. Although it may not be very noticable, we actually changed the paint color of the kitchen and TV Room. The new color is 'Paprika' and it has a little more orange to it. Gary likes to call it 'Reddish Tan'. We held up the swatches for the new cabinets and granite counters and we think it is going to look great. The 'accent' wall where the Coca Cola sign hangs has been changed from a forrest green to a khaki green.

We kept the color the same in our master bathroom. We really liked our Canyon Grey River Rock paint and thought it works well with the tile that we will be using in the shower.

Outside, Travis and Rob with Ideal Building worked on the framing of the garage and by the of the day had finished putting plywood on the exterior of the garage. By the end of this week, the trusses should be up on the garage (or at least started).

There is no work scheduled for tomorrow (and possibly Thursday) so Lucy and Abbey get to stay home with Gary. Olivia at Tails of the City said that Abbey should be VERY tired tonight as she found a new playmate and played ALL day long.

Time for dinner and then off to some post election gatherings...

2006-11-05T18:15:00.000-08:00

Well the rain has sure returned to Seattle with a vengence. It has been raining pretty much non-stop since Friday. Due to poor drainage off the street and the ditch we dug was blocked by someone who was parked on the street who then dug themselves in as they drove out and covered it up, thus diverting the water down the driveway - we had some major water pouring our yard and washing down whats left of the driveway and into the regraded area around the new garage. This is how the Grand Canyon started, and despite the silt-barriers that Bill and Travis put up Friday after Thursday nights flood, a ton of dirt still washed out and down into the Kim and Marks yard. Saturday's rain was like Florida rain, it came down in buckets.

Gary spent some time digging out the ditch on the street to channel the water away from the drive. I wish I thought to take a picture to show how much water and dirt (mud) washed down our yard and gathered near Kim and Mark's yard.

Anyway, after we got home from dinner last night at Endolyne Joe's with our friends Jay and Steve and Wes - we started moving stuff around in the formal living room as we need to make room for most everything in our TV room.

Then this morning, I packed up all 400 CD's, moved them upstairs and then Gary and I slowly started to pack and move stuff out. We tackled moving the 32" television, TiVo and DVD player upstairs into our 2nd bedroom. This room will be our temporary tv room while the painters get to working on the kitchen/TV room area. Moving that TV upstairs was painful. It must be the WORLDS HEAVIEST TV!!! It was SOOO heavy that we had to take several breaks just to get it up there. We may end up leaving that TV upstairs as I can't imagine carrying that thing back down. Luckily a nice 50" flat screen will be moving into our TV room in the near future.

Some of the things in the TV room will be sold on craigslist.com, so we cleaned that stuff up, took photos and then moved them into the garage. The rest of the stuff moved into our formal living room which takes up all the space in there now. Next weekend, we will have to move the dining room table into this room and then put the fridge out in the garage so they can refinish the hardwoods. The only part of the house that we are living in essentially is upstairs now! So Gary and I will be moving to our Olympia condo in a week since we cannot be here for the 4 days while that the hardwood finishers are working. Abbey and Lucy will be at the boarding kennel, and we'll be enjoying a break from our dirty and cramped house. And when we get back, we expect a clean, shiny, newly painted, new finshed floor downstairs. Actually all this has been good since we are cleaning places that haven't been cleaned in years (least the contractors think we are pigs and slobs) as well as selling off lots of stuff on craigslist (or at least trying too -- so far only the treadmill and the barstools have sold).

The TV Room is completely empty now and when we do move back into this room, we are considering flopping the floor plan and put the new TV on the wall where I am standing in this picture. We are going to either buy a low level cabinet or look into having Superior Cabinets (who are building our kitchen cabinets) make something for us here too.

I can hear the rain coming down outside and it looks like it will be pretty bad tomorrow too - and we have a Seahawks Game in this awful weather... On Monday Robert says they'll be framing the garage (even though it's going to be awful weather - he said "you have to remember, if we work only when it is nice out, then we wouldn't be working to often and jobs would last foreverer". Painters are also scheduled to be painting all week downstairs.

2006-11-03T23:28:00.000-08:00

It is late on Friday night and Gary and I just got home from our usual 'date night' where we went to Jalisco's and then went to see 'Man of the Year' with Robin Williams. Not too bad. It got awful reviews but we enjoyed it. It is definitely a dramedy - if you are thinking that it is a laugh out loud riot for 2 hours, you will be disappointed. It is three parts; comedy, drama and thriller.

Anyway, the last couple of days have seen some interesting changes in the remodel. Robert, Bill and Travis were here on Thursday to start work on framing up the garage (in the rain), while some guys finished up the walls in the kitchen in preperation of texturing on Friday. And boy did it rain yesterday. I cannot believe that Ideal Building stuck it out as long as they did. But by the end of the day, two of the three walls were up on the new garage.

However, as I drove down the driveway I noticed that the new East facing window seemed to be a little higher that I thought it would be. I stepped into the new garage are and looked at the window from the inside and sure enough, the bottom of the window was at my chin. So I went in and talked to Gary about it.

Gary felt the same way and had already emailed Robert to find out why it was raised. Robert said that he and Bill talked and they felt it would look better esthetically from the outside if it was placed higher. And although that may be right, we really wanted it low enough that we could look out when working at the work bench. Therefore Gary asked if they could move it before they went much farther with framing.

So this morning, Bll was here by the time Gary got home from the gym and was working on the rest of the framing. They talked about the location and Bill moved the window to a place that Gary and I both feel is right. It's great to have a relationship with Robert and Bill that we can talk about things and if we have a concern that it will be addressed. But the day didn't end there. Due to the amount of rain over the last couple of days, the amount of soft dirt around the yard and that we no longer have a lot of ivy in the yard - a large amount of dirt spilled down from our yard and into Kim and Mark's. Kim talked to Gary about it and Bill had Travis work on cleaning this up and put up some new barriers to protect any more mud slides into their yard.

After all that, the rest of the framing was completed outside and all the texture has been applied to the kitchen, laundry room (where the patch was replaced) and in some of the master bathroom. It is looking good and next week we should see some of the roof start to take shape. Our project for this weekend is to move the TV room into the Formal Living Room and Garage in preperation for painting which starts on Monday.

2006-11-01T19:35:00.000-08:00

November has arrived and we are about 1/3 of our way into this remodel project. Over the next three weeks the framing for the garage will go up, painting the kitchen and TV Room and the hardwoods will be redone. Then just before Thanksgiving, our cabinets for the kitchen will be installed. And in the first week of December the counter will be measured and then cut for the granite we picked out.

But today, more taping was done in the kitchen along with mud and sanding to get it ready for texture later this week. And I guess this blog has a little more power than I originally thought (bwah ha ha ha!!!). Robert from Ideal Building must have read the blog posting from yesterday and saw my mention about the patch falling off in the laundry room. And sure enough, this morning Rob (not to be confused with Rob...ert) was here and fixed it all up (even though they were not responsible -- the electricians were). To the right, I tried to recreate the photo from yesterday.

Additional work continued outside and when I came home tonight, I noticed that Travis had worked today to rip off the roof overhang on the eastside of the existing garage to prepare for the framing and attaching of the new garage. It was a little dark when I got home, but I was able to snap off this shot.

We also heard today that when Travis was removing the portion of the roof on the garage, he discovered carpenter ants! Ugh! We don't know how bad it is or how we are going to deal with it. Yet another project it seems.

Anyway, I think the framing on the garage will start tomorrow - so I am excited to see that go up.

2006-10-31T18:45:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-10-30T23:16:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-10-29T20:09:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-10-27T22:26:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-10-26T21:03:00.000-07:00

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...

2006-10-25T22:58:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-10-23T23:19:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-10-17T20:44:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-10-16T18:06:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-10-15T15:16:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-10-12T16:33:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-10-09T16:00:00.000-07:00

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...

2006-10-04T19:39:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-10-01T08:33:00.000-07:00

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.