Living Room etc

They just finished the walls in the ceiling and header and living room (he was hand sanding at the end there, we were very impressed) and primered the walls. All that remains is the moulding for the brick and the lights that go in the baseboard moulding - that is my plan for uplighting the brick wall - hope it works.

He also has to vent the kitchen hood and finish the floor in the vestibule but the dusty work is pretty much done.

We left the dining and living room empty for now so we can get someone in to sand the floors and hopefully all this is done by our baby shower Jan 3. Yes, we have another shower for friends in a few weeks - our 3rd.

Upstairs' bathroom reno is going a little slower than ours I think, she thinks so too. We took 3 weeks and they are just beginning their 3rd week. They might be delayed a few days. Still, it's looking very nice up there as they have a sky light. I miss being on the top floor and the light you get there.

It is now a race against time to finish before the baby shower as it would be nice to show our friends the completed baby room and all but we will see. I will get a parquet flooring guy to come in this week to quote and if he can get it done in a few days we can sand next week. We still have to paint the dining and living room and we picked that up today.

Bathroom - check! Rest of the house next

We've got all the bathroom components in and I still marvel when I shower/bathe in there. It feels so amazing and spa-like, I love it so much. Can someone be obsessed with a bathroom? Wish I could live in there. I've always preferred bathrooms to kitchens. I'm only a survivalist chef so I don't really romanticise the kitchen much.

We struck a deal with the contractor. While he's also doing the upstairs bathroom (they now live in the basement) he's finishing the rest of the house. He's already done the ceiling and the header we were doing halfway and today he's completing the doorway (putting a header in and finishing the walls) As far as renovation goes, that's the only plan we have for now. Eventually (maybe 6 months from now) we will install a pocket door between the baby's room and our bedroom but I've had enough of construction in the house. There is still the question of doing the floors - he has yet to do the parquet in the vestibule (that's part of the bathroom costs) and once I see how well he does that, we might have him do the other 2 bits - by the kitchen and where the curio cabinet was taken out) My ideal plan - he does it all and after everything is done, I sand the floors and call it a day.

I took a half day cos I wasn't feeling great and it wasn't even nice to be home cos of all the banging away. I have some kind of privacy as we put the living room temporarily in the baby room (if there's one thing we are good at, it's moving rooms around - I have watched tv in 3 out of the 4 rooms we have in the house). Of course the baby room and our room is practically one big room (hence the future pocket door) so there's enough space for us to still live our life. I just want this renovation and this job to be over so I can just be alone for once. But enough whining, 2 more weeks and the job is over and this construction bit will probably be over around the same time (depending on the floor bit)

Conveniently the contractor's wife is a cleaner so when this is all over, I will gain a cleaner and probably keep her till I can handle it again after the baby arrives. I'm just fast running out of time!

Bathroom 99% done!

I love my new bathroom. We still aren't allowed to shower in it till Monday and he has to install the wall sconces and a pendant lamp but pretty much we are done in the bathroom. Still missing some pieces like a toilet seat! Plus all the other fancy accessories like toilet brush holder (wall mounted) and towel hanger and shower curtain etc. This is a link to the youtube video that Mike shot so you get an idea. It's too small to take a normal photo in.

We moved the living room into the baby room cos the contractor is now working on the living room next. He's going to finish the work we left incomplete after the kitchen. Our next project if I hadnt gotten pregnant would have been the living room and dining room (it's just finishing work, nothing heavy) but now that we sorta have a deadline, I pushed up the bathroom reno schedule and since we like the contractor's work so much, we might as well have him finish the rest of the house.

The funny thing is when he went around looking at the unfinished parts of the house, he broke down all the work into individual quotes so we could piecemeal the work. He even included work we had already done in the kitchen - i guess you can tell how he feels about the work we did! I don't care. I am very proud of the work we did in the kitchen and I'm glad we found a contractor who also takes a lot of pride in his work. I feel like he's just an extension of us and there's a trust there that I didn't have before the bathroom turned out so nice.

He thinks it will take 3 days to finish the living room which in Martin-speak means a week. We moved the living room paraphernalia to the baby room - tv, couch and 2 chairs. Thank goodness we had a 4 day weekend this week to do all this. Still some more cleaning to do tomorrow and organising but not enough to ruin the day and still enjoy some football. I cannot wait for the day when all the construction work is done and my cleaning is true cleaning not in between cleaning! I hope by the time this job ends, I will have everything done and I can merely put furniture in place and nest!

2 weeks in

And the bathroom is finally coming together. For a while, we felt like we just weren't getting the contractor the materials he needed. we had all the fixtures and yet he asked for the door. we got the door and he would ask for more plumbing. i suppose in theory we should have had everything before he got there but it's hard cos we don't really know what we need sometimes, like i had totally forgotten about lights and the new fan etc.

Anyway, i feel like we are all caught up although i am still ordering more wall tiles as we jointly decided to tile more areas of the bathroom. there is also a huge language barrier too which makes it difficult.

so far i've run over by a few hundred dollars. I wanted to spend $10,000 but we had a budget of $12,000.

he also surprised us by asking for the parquet flooring. i didnt think they were going to do that for us but they are which is a huge bonus. Mike is so pleased, he's thinking of asking them to finish everything in the house we sorta left dangling. it might work out since i am now working till new year's. it would be nice to have everything buttoned up except for painting before the baby gets here. i didnt think we would.

work in progress

the contractor started a little later than expected cos the job before ours extended. he came in 2 days ago and already has done so much - all the walls are down and the floor's been pulled up. we are getting the pocket door delivered tuesday and i'm picking up the tiles on wednesday. mike and i are going to ikea on sunday to get the sink/vanity and i think he will have all the materials he needs.

we also asked him to finish extending the door that we started which is  a nice bonus.

it's nice to have someone to do the dirty work for once although it's proving to be very expensive. so far he's costing us $7,500 (including constructions materials) which if I GC'ed this project myself, i probably could have saved about $3,000. But then our baby deadline is fast approaching and we really don't have the time to teach ourselves how to renovate a bathroom so i'm ok with it. i'm trying to keep our budget to $10k but i think the reality is it will probably cost more like $12k. i'm not keen to stint on fixtures just because we are hitting the budgeted amount either. my philosophy has always been we either have time or money - in this case, i don't have time since mike and i have been working so much.

anyway, 2 weeks of this disruption and hopefully we have ourselves a new bathroom and an entrance foyer (carved out from the bathroom - the bathroom becomes smaller but it will be infinitely better laid out). if all goes according to plan, i will have my 'nesting period' after this job is done to organise and rearrange. i'm really looking forward to that...

Next phase: Bathroom

We got back from Italy today to be greeted by all the numerous bathroom fixtures we bought before we left. The contractor begins on Monday (2 days from today) and we have the new tub, toilet and some sink fixtures although I doubt he will get to it for a few days. He will have his hands full with the demo work for a few days I think.

We found a decent 4 foot soaking tub which is tricky since 5 feet is the standard tub size. We have also picked out the tiles we wanted so all I need are measurements from the contractor on Monday and I can order the tiles. I am still debating the sink situation - for now I know we will have 2 but I don't really know much more how I am going to utilise the 48" of space I have left after installing the tub and toilet.

I got a dual flush Toto toilet, i love Toto toilets. They are so distinct and a great selling item when looking at a house. This one also looks easy to clean since it has no curves.

I am nervous about this renovation work to be truthful. The contractor speaks very little English and although he came highly recommended, Im not sure we will be able to communicate as much as we could with the other one. This one is half the price however which sorta made my mind up. Plus the other one, I felt was a little sloppy.

Anyway so fresh off the plane, Mike and I moved our bedframe and our mattress downstairs to the basement where we will sleep for 2 weeks while we don't have a bathroom. I figured it was easier instead of walking down the steps 3x a night to pee and in case I have late call times, I won't have workers barging in on us and this will ensure some modicum of normality while we are renovating. We also bought a new bedframe and that is getting delivered Wednesday which means we can leave our old one downstairs with our spare mattress for when my sister or other guests come. It's all part of my bigger plan.

We also moved the desk to the bedroom and leaving the baby's room pretty clear for staging all the toilets/fixtures/tubs etc. Once all that is removed for the reno work, it will be an empty room which we can paint and decorate for the baby. That's the plan, anyway. Right now, the master bedroom and baby room are in shambles. I have one full day tomorrow (Sunday) to get it in decent shape before I go back to work full time until Dec 18.

Finally a hallway closet!

Chip & Ann came this weekend to deliver a mattress we bought in Doylestown, PA as well as the crib mattress. Since we had their truck, I also used the opportunity to pick up the closet door from the lumber yard. While Chip & Mike framed in the door, Ann & I organised the basement - something I have been dying to do for a while.

With the advent of this hallway closet, I now have managed to clear the bedroom a lot and it's starting to not look like the sty it's been looking like the past month. I can even see floor! Amazing what a little closet can do for you.

We will probably finish up the kitchen tomorrow, install some doors for the new pantry and Mike needs to cut down some shelves for me and I can finish the interior organisation of the kitchen completely. I am quite pleased with the progress we made this weekend. We are even going for dim sum with some friends and visiting a friend's new born baby who is about 2 wks old.

The contractor came to quote us for the bathroom and it came in a lot less than we expected - $5,000 not including materials. His English is much worse than Alberto (the other contractor we usually use) but he came highly recommended. We are going to see if we can do it mid October. It means losing the bathroom for 2 weeks but we have the basement bathroom we can use still.

The idea we can renovate everything before the baby comes is very appealing - if I have to work 5 days a week until I birth to do that, that's what I want to do!