Better than beer!

At the end of a long day at work - there really is nothing better than swinging a hammer at a wall :) 

Although work has been great - the added worry of the freezing pipes, and now (we think) the broken water meter  (which likely contributed to the freezing pipes - since we never really could turn the water off) was weighing on me a bit. 

An hour of swinging away and pulling apart this wall was just what I needed! 

Ultimately though, I was just making a mess. I was not going to be able to get a beam up by myself - even if I did know how! 

So I called in some help. 

Since it took less time than expected, he's also going to help me to get this flooring up, so that I can try to sand the wood floors. 

Yes - I know they are pine and the rest of the house is oak. But...We've done that before, and it still looked good. In our old house we added  a transition piece where we took out the wall used to be, so that worked as a threshold to separate the 2 woods. I hope it can work in this house too! 

Here is the layout for the one side of the kitchen. It is missing the backsplash, the microwave and the crown moulding - but it gives you an idea of where we are going. 

I sure do hope that we get there! 

Yippee - frozen pipes :)

We left the faucets dripping. 
We made sure that the heat was on.
We checked in everyday at least once while it was really cold. 
Somehow - between the morning visit, and the evening visit on one of those days.....this happened. 

When we first arrived, I didn't notice that the faucets weren't running anymore. It was the ice in the toilet that caught my attention first. 

When we realized that we could not get the furnace to turn on, John went under the house and found this...

Luckily he has lights and heaters at his warehouse, so we quickly jumped into action mode. Within an hour we had track lights all over the crawl space ( the light bulbs help keep the pipes warm) and large propane heaters w/ blowers heating the whole space.

The little house was supposed to have a service agreement with Woodfin that transferred to us at closing, but when I called them first they said " would you like someone to call you tomorrow? " 

I got a call a few hours later, but was told they could not come see the house for at least 4 days. 

Now - to be fair - Richmond has seen crazy cold temperatures, the likes of which we have not dealt with in a very long time. So...they were busy. 

As it turns out, it's probably for the best. By the next morning I had a plumber there to check things out. We had run the heaters all night, and the pipes had started to thaw out while he was there. He had just suggested that we turn off the water at the street when we noticed little puddles.....

in every room! Some were frozen over again, some ( probably those closer to the lights or the heaters) were starting to grow larger by the second. 

We quickly turned off the heat - and hoped they would refreeze before making a big mess of the floors. 

The rest of this day was spent pulling out the ice filled radiators ( pronounced RA - DE - A - tors,  RA, as in Radish - if , like me,  you grew up someplace up north that called them that. :) ) 
They were coming out anyway - that was part of the plan - just not quite the plan right now. 

This is me - learning to be flexible , and go with the flow! 
Still fun - right? I just have to keep laughing - it will all be great! 

Child labor

Putting the kids to work! 

It's their tuition I'm working for after all - so I have no trouble with asking them to put in a little effort! 

To be fair...they don't seem to mind - especially in the demo phase. 

Ahh! The corner window. It's still somewhat magical even with all of the window trim illusion stripped away. I'll be sorry to lose this dreamy forest scene. Well...not really, but there is something about it that I like. 

Taking off the first layer of floor - to find 2 more. This is not going to be a quick process. 

If I can get all of these layers off - the subfloor looks like it's in great condition. Although the pine will not match the oak of the rest of the house exactly, it is level with the other floor and that's what matters most to me. 

The change in wood will add a bit of interest. 

Pulling Down the Acoustic Ceiling tiles in the 3rd bedroom/den, I expected to find something terrible hidden above them. Happily I can report there was nothing more than a textured ceiling - and it's in good shape! :) 

Hopefully the future updates will be a bit more beautiful! 

This is going to be fun!

Say hello to the new little house project! 

 I have been searching for a while, and finally found a little house to renovate. 

This 2 bedroom, one bath house is just the right size for my first #renovaterestoreandresell project. The last one ended up becoming my home - so the resell part 

went out the window!

the living room 

the den/office or (as some in the neighborhood call it) the 3rd bedroom 

the very blue bathroom 

and 

the kitchen 

When I first saw the photos of this house online, I was drawn to this kitchen, and the really interesting window. I was imagining all of the interesting designs that could work around that corner window.  

Didn't I feel silly when I finally had a chance to get inside to measure the space - and found that the interesting window was just a couple of squares of wallpaper :) 

Oh Well! 

Now I will just take out this wall between the kitchen & the living room. 

In the long run it will make the cabinet configuration less complicated. 

This inset area is the perfect size for a counter depth refrigerator - so I think that will go here, but...

I thought it would be more interesting if we could find the old chimney, and expose the brick. I love having different textures in a room. I prefer the natural brick, but I'll probably paint it to satisfy the buyers coming in to look. 

What do you think? 

I ordered these great solid wood, white shaker, cabinets. Appliances are stainless, and if I can get all of the old adhesive off , the floors will be refinished pine. 

The red chimney might be too much. 

A realtor/renovator friend of mine ( with much more experience in this area) told me to rip it out all together, to gain the space. It's not so much space though, and it makes the perfect niche for the refrigerator. I really like a built in refrigerator look. 

So...Red Brick or white? 

Thanks for the input 

B