Drumroll Please...

We are occupying our bedroom and have a functioning bathroom and full closet!!  Yay!!!  It's been a busy busy few weeks!!  I thought I would have more time to stay current with the blog since on vacation but we were fully determined to get our share of the work complete!  As mentioned before, we needed to paint before having the plumbing fixtures installed, wall sconces, and carpet flooring in the bedroom and closet.  We worked more hours than a normal work day at the office, taping and painting the walls, trim, and doors, in addition to installing the shower tile (Nick).  It wasn't exactly the vacation we had in mind, but otherwise we would have been committing months of weekends towards our end of the project and unfortunately our social calendar doesn't leave much room for free time.

The electrical inspector came yesterday to sign off on the final inspection.  We can't quite say the project is finished yet as the contractor is coming tomorrow to complete the finishing the touches.  He will be refinishing the hardwood floors in the hallway and existing bedroom as well as wrapping up some of the little items (vanity backsplash, floor vent grill, light fixture).  Nick also has to finish the shower (grout) and we have some painting to do (hallway and old bedroom) but we aren't in a rush at all since we're happily settling into the new space.

Rome wasn't Built in a Day

Neither was our master bedroom.  Patience, patience, patience....a virtue we are becoming more and more familiar with these days.  Due to the demo and construction of the garage and the electrical service upgrade, we've had to accept that extra work means extra time.  We were originally expecting 4-6 weeks for the project completion.  This coming Monday is the start of week 8.  But we are SO close!  

The bathroom floor tile was completed yesterday.  Since the floor couldn't be walked on for 24 hours, the electrician is coming on Monday morning for the final electrical touches - installing the lights, switches, outlets, smoke detectors, etc.  We are also awaiting the delivery of the plumbing fixtures which should be installed this coming week.  We want to have all the painting complete before the carpet is installed.  Since the painting is all in our hands, we went into the weekend with high expectations of being super productive.  The walls and trim need to be painted and the shower tile needs to be installed.  

We managed to paint part of the office last night.  

Valspar Ice Sculpture

Paint Colors

Here we go again with the difficult decisions.  What colors do we paint the rooms?  Along with the new bedroom, bathroom, and closet, we also have to paint the office and existing bedroom since the door and window were removed.  The easy option would be to just paint the one wall in each room the same color as the existing rooms.  However, Nick feels the need to paint the office a bright color since we lost the natural lighting from the sliding door.  I don't think the bright blue he has in mind will last long but if it makes him happy now, why the heck not.  I think he wants to paint it blue to match his high school sports photos and trophy display case.  Haha that was a joke, but may be questionable. ;) 

Closet

We haven't given much thought to the color of the closet.  White seems fine to me, the walls will be covered by clothes.  Or maybe we will go with something funky like a neon green.  This color would surely wake us up in the morning and the closet seems like the only place to get away with a crazy color that isn't so easy on the eyes.  Hmmm...  

Labor on Labor Day

After an extremely busy weekend, our labor day was spent in paint tolerant clothes priming the ceilings and walls.  We plan to spend some time in the next day or two completing the second coat of primer so that we're all geared up for painting this coming weekend and are able to lounge and relax a bit over vacation next week (hopefully after moving furniture into our new room!).  I've realized that I'm not quite cut out for priming as I want the finished look to resemble a wall that has been painted white as opposed to a light coating of primer.  I assure you I will be better at actual painting because I let no spot go untouched!  

We're almost there folks! :) 

  

We have Walls!

Yay the walls are up!  The blueboard and plaster were finished today and the trim and doors should be complete by the end of the week.  Nick is already anxious to start priming and painting, especially the office so that we can get our furniture back in there and sit on the couch this weekend!  This makes us sound lazy but it's difficult to not have your usual lounging place available.  We have a wedding on Saturday night so I'm sure he's already planning his afternoon nap on Sunday. 

Here are a few pics of the progress this week:

Construction Progress

Although the framing went up super quickly and gives the immediate sense of progress, the utilities don't feel quite as exciting.  The electricians and plumbers have been working away installing new wiring, conduit, switch boxes and piping/valves.  We've been specifying the minute details of where we want outlets and switches with suggestions from the contractors.  The inspections should be done by the end of the week - electrical, plumbing, framing.  Heating and cooling are scheduled for early this week and then the insulation and plastering should also be done with insulation inspection by the end of the week.  I didn't realize how many inspections take place during the course of the project.  Hopefully all goes well.  We're very eager for the end of the week when the space will look and feel like almost complete rooms.  Here are some photos of the recent work.

Toilets, and Showers, and Valves...Oh My!

I've always thought how wonderful it would be to design your own house, from the ground up...selecting the perfect layout to fit your needs and hand selecting every last detail and feature of the house.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who has had these thoughts.  I'm beginning to reconsider that luxury.  One bedroom and bathroom is overwhelming enough!  Overwhelming might actually be an understatement.  Any time I'm given more than two choices, my head starts spinning.

Where do you start?!  My best advice would be to start looking in magazines, online, and any available marketing material to get an idea of different options out there.  I'm glad we decided to visit the local plumbing supply store and local hardware store to just browse and get some ideas before setting up an appointment.  I was focusing more on the pictures of the fixtures in a bathroom layout to get a sense of style and color options and tying the whole look together.  Our impromptu visits gave us the opportunity to look around freely and decline any offered help so that we didn't get caught in a pressuring sales pitch before we knew what we wanted.  It also helped to be able to stand in our future bathroom and measure off ideal locations and sizes of the shower, vanity/sink, etc. which gave us a more realistic feel for how much space we had available.

Under Construction

Here's an update of the construction this week.

Day 2 - The framing of the walls and floor went up quickly.  This was a nice surprise after Monday's demo.  Gahh I'm so excited! :)  

Day 2 - Framing

Day 1 - Murphy's Law

The contractor had come by last Friday and Saturday to start removing the plaster ceiling in the garage and the garage door, nothing too exciting.  The real construction was to start on Monday.  The normal anxiety of the weekend ending was subsided by some excitement of the project officially starting.  

Oh Monday.  My morning began with a few minor mishaps right before leaving the house...I poured cold water into my tea (I forgot to turn the tea kettle on after I filled it with water).  As a side note, I use Teavana's amazing loose leaf tea blends so couldn't exactly reuse the tea after this mistake.  Anyways, after patiently waiting for the water to boil, steeping my tea, and transferring to my travel mug, I knocked the mug over and spilt the tea everywhere.  We laughed as we quickly cleaned up the mess and darted out the door (sans Monday morning caffeine fix).  Nick dropped me off at the subway station and wished me a good day, I laughed as I joked that it could only get better from here.  (But really, I don't like to complain and always try to cease the day while appreciating how lucky I am so I try to always be consciously grateful, for many things but life in general.  I like to think of myself as one of those "smile, smell the roses" kind of people because really what's there not to be happy about?!!).  Anyways sorry for the side rant but spilling my tea was not the end of my day and I didn't huff and puff into work to announce to the office about my horrible, no good, very bad day.  Nonetheless, in my terms it seemed to be "one of those days".  

Master Bedroom Addition

Drumroll please....our current (and biggest!) project yet is a new master bedroom addition!  It is not a complete new addition outside of the footprint of the existing house, but will be above the existing garage.  The existing flat roof is designed as a deck with access via a sliding door from our office.  However, we don't use the deck (we prefer the patio and screen porch out back) and the New England winters bring the agony of shoveling off the roof.  We were lucky this past winter as the snow gods were good to us.  But the snow and water were affecting the condition of the roof.  We could see mildew sprouting out along the edges from beneath the rubber roof and feel the mushiness when walking on it.  Instead of simply repairing the roof, we decided to make use of the valuable space and enclose the space (yay no more snow shoveling!) to create a master bedroom.  After contacting a number of contractors and evaluating different design options, we made our selection and signed the dotted line.  The following is a list of wish list items that made the project: