Finally the floor installation begins!
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Update: VERY glad to see our new flooring finally going in! It's Bruce "Butter Rum" prefinished 3/4 inch oak. Can't wait until it's done!
Showing posts with label Remodeling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Remodeling. Show all posts
Friday, June 05, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Cycling and sheetrocking
Started out today very early with a great 48-mile bike ride. I was pleased with the pace, 16.9 mph average, and to crack 100 miles for this week. That's a good start to the long haul to Beach to Battleship iron-distance triathlon in six months from now! Time to start cranking up that volume!
Things at the new house are coming along, very gradually. Here's one of the upstairs bedrooms that I just finished painting - except for touchups (the trim needs a second coat), baseboard, and doors. We just had the whole house measured for new carpeting - that's still the old nasty stuff on the floor. Hopefully we'll have the new stuff installed within a week to 10 days, but I have a lot of painting to finish first.
"Before" with dingy old flat white paint (one coat over the wallboard and trim will do ya):
"After" with fresh warm tan paint (Kilz Casual Colors Dusty Orange), new bright white flat paint on the ceiling, and white semigloss on the trim (and begone with the fake removeable plastic window mullions):
The big remodeling project is coming along! They're right in the middle of doing the sheetrocking and plastering now. When they complete that, we move on to painting, flooring, and installation of cabinets and appliances! Then it's moving day!
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Energy issues
No, I'm not talking about my workouts here - this is about remodeling.
As we've been browsing for new appliances I learned the details of the tax credits available for energy-efficient home improvements this year:
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=products.pr_tax_credits#s1
This is probably the year to get these things done! There are tax credits available of $1500 total (up to 30% of purchase price) on a slew of energy-efficient items. Free money!
We hope to take advantage of this for:
* Outside doors (need at least 1 replacement needed)
* Storm doors (need at least 1 replacement needed)
* HVAC
I'd like to add an on-demand tankless hot water heater (like my Canadian friend Dianne just did), but we don't have natural gas or propane in the house and I don't want to add it just for that, so we will skip it. I also looked into an electric heat pump water heater, but those are just coming on the market this year for residential use and are recommended for larger-volume usage and warmer climates, so I think we'll have to stay with the traditional models if we replace the hot water heater.
As we've been browsing for new appliances I learned the details of the tax credits available for energy-efficient home improvements this year:
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=products.pr_tax_credits#s1
This is probably the year to get these things done! There are tax credits available of $1500 total (up to 30% of purchase price) on a slew of energy-efficient items. Free money!
We hope to take advantage of this for:
* Outside doors (need at least 1 replacement needed)
* Storm doors (need at least 1 replacement needed)
* HVAC
I'd like to add an on-demand tankless hot water heater (like my Canadian friend Dianne just did), but we don't have natural gas or propane in the house and I don't want to add it just for that, so we will skip it. I also looked into an electric heat pump water heater, but those are just coming on the market this year for residential use and are recommended for larger-volume usage and warmer climates, so I think we'll have to stay with the traditional models if we replace the hot water heater.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The first remodeling meeting
Our new house is coming up fast! We close three weeks from tomorrow!
I was able to have a meeting inside the house this morning with the remodeling contractor and his "kitchen guy". They looked it over and took measurements and they seem to have a good understanding of what we want. We talked about several options for opening up the space and combining the existing kitchen, sunroom, and family room into one huge room.
They won't know exactly until they take the existing sheetrock off, but they think we may be able to open the space between the sunroom and kitchen with only small pieces of wall at the existing corners, which will tie in well and also hide the discrepancy in wall position and ceiling height (0.5"-1") between the kitchen and sunroom.
Since there are air vents on the floor of the (former) outside wall of the kitchen and the outside wall of the family room, and baseboard heaters in the sunroom, we probably won't need much new ductwork but he said it's possible to do because the sunroom does have a crawlspace. Didn't sound like it was a big deal.
I explained that we needed to reserve enough $$ to replace the HVAC but he seemed to be able to be conscious of our budget and work within that.
We talked about saving money on the countertops and they seemed to agree that using more inexpensive laminate at first would be a good way to save cash for now, with the intention of replacing it 5-10 years down the road.
They also looked over the location for the pantry closet (there's an existing closet stuck in an alcove and I want to enlarge it by walling off the entire alcove) and agreed that would work well as a big storage pantry closet, with an angled door.
All in all, very positive meeting! I think this should work well!
Oh, I also took the contractor guy upstairs to see the attic space and he agreed there was a lot of space there and could make a very nice loft room - just have to re-route the dryer vent. We may want to ask him to work up a rough quote on that space before he's done with our house so we have an idea how much it would cost us down the road to add that room in Phase II sometime in another year or two.
I have some big glossy brochures now to start picking out cabinets. Shopping!! I'm thinking a nice medium honey-oak and cherry-stained hardwood floors. We will probably keep the existing stove which is white and go with white other appliances for the replacements.
I took some more photos, and will start posting them when we get going on the house.
I was able to have a meeting inside the house this morning with the remodeling contractor and his "kitchen guy". They looked it over and took measurements and they seem to have a good understanding of what we want. We talked about several options for opening up the space and combining the existing kitchen, sunroom, and family room into one huge room.
They won't know exactly until they take the existing sheetrock off, but they think we may be able to open the space between the sunroom and kitchen with only small pieces of wall at the existing corners, which will tie in well and also hide the discrepancy in wall position and ceiling height (0.5"-1") between the kitchen and sunroom.
Since there are air vents on the floor of the (former) outside wall of the kitchen and the outside wall of the family room, and baseboard heaters in the sunroom, we probably won't need much new ductwork but he said it's possible to do because the sunroom does have a crawlspace. Didn't sound like it was a big deal.
I explained that we needed to reserve enough $$ to replace the HVAC but he seemed to be able to be conscious of our budget and work within that.
We talked about saving money on the countertops and they seemed to agree that using more inexpensive laminate at first would be a good way to save cash for now, with the intention of replacing it 5-10 years down the road.
They also looked over the location for the pantry closet (there's an existing closet stuck in an alcove and I want to enlarge it by walling off the entire alcove) and agreed that would work well as a big storage pantry closet, with an angled door.
All in all, very positive meeting! I think this should work well!
Oh, I also took the contractor guy upstairs to see the attic space and he agreed there was a lot of space there and could make a very nice loft room - just have to re-route the dryer vent. We may want to ask him to work up a rough quote on that space before he's done with our house so we have an idea how much it would cost us down the road to add that room in Phase II sometime in another year or two.
I have some big glossy brochures now to start picking out cabinets. Shopping!! I'm thinking a nice medium honey-oak and cherry-stained hardwood floors. We will probably keep the existing stove which is white and go with white other appliances for the replacements.
I took some more photos, and will start posting them when we get going on the house.
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