Hood Possibilities

On Sunday afternoon we went looking at some hood possibilities. Here are two choices, although there may be more. The boys were with us and insisted on running all over the showroom touching and pressing every little button. I think their shopping days are over; especially when we are making important decisions! I bought a new digital camera this weekend - somewhat under pressure to "hurry it along - your sons are being difficult." Not exactly how I want to make decisions with the kitchen!

Dear Rabbits,

Dear Rabbits,

I'd like to express my concern about your new interest in my flowers. I have maintained a pretty amazing backyard for the last five years. You have never taken an interest before in all the delicious items that I have available. For that I thank you. I know where you hang out; you like to stay in our neighbor's yard because he has a "garden" that we are convinced is an excuse so he doesn't have to mow his lawn. All those hundreds of vegetables that he plants every year must be tasty. So, why the change in diet?

I'd like to request that you go back to your old hang out because the tulips and other bulbs you have eaten down to the ground are really the only flowers I'm going to get to enjoy this year. And, for that, I hate you. You have kindly left the hyacinth bulbs; which incidentally are my favorite, alone. Please continue to leave them alone. Also, leave the Spider Wort, Columbine and Goblin Blanket Flower. These perennials are starting to come up and I'd like to try and transplant them before a big hole is in our backyard. Feel free to eat as much phlox as you'd like, we have too much anyway. Or, dig in on the Chinese Lantern - I'm secretly hoping that there are no traces of that after the big hole is filled in with a kitchen.

I hope you find this proposal to your liking. Please pass on to the squirrels that they are also in trouble for all the littles holes they dug.

Sincerely,
Andi

Three dudes go to a house

On Wednesday the 'subs' or subcontractors came over with Kevin from The OAR group. They were there to evaluate the job and determine a firm price for their services. The posse was compromised of the electrician, plumber and heating/AC. The excavator came out two weeks ago, because he doesn't need to get into the house. He only digs a hole.

Electrical. Seems to him that it's a pretty straight forward job. After all, much of the work will be for the new addition and that's easy when you only have studs and everything is open. The biggest costs will come from two areas, the moving of the lines to the house and the junction box. Currently the electrical lines come right to the middle of the house, right about where our new seating area will go. Also, our junction box is tapped out and they'll have to make another 'sub' to connect to the overall house electrical. He asked if we wanted the lines buried. I asked asked if there was any advantage to that. He said "only if you like giving money to WE Energies."

We said forget it.

Plumbing. Unfortunately a lot of our plumbing work seemed to have been fitted together by Ray Charles and Jose Feliciano. He told me all of the stuff he touches, which is pretty much everything, would have to be brought up to code. Right now our sink and laundry are tied into the same sewer line which is a no no. Also, he told me the plumbing inspector for our city is a real son of !@#$. He'll order all sorts of water analysis and make you do things just because he can. We may have to get our sump pump directed to the storm sewer which would cost us more, but probably be best. Luckily too we don't have to get another sump pump as he'll be able to tie into the existing drain tile.

This was good, because Andi and I are thinking in the future of making this into a master bedroom and I sure don't want a sump pump right next to the bed stand. I asked about making hookups for a future bathroom downstairs and he said that there wasn't any cost advantage now to doing that. Everything else will be easy too during the new construction so, that part shouldn't be an issue.

HVAC. After discussing the layout and how they would tie into the system and run new lines they came up with an idea. They'll be running the new duct from the unfinished part into the new part and putting three vents into the new kitchen. They'll take the existing vent and move that into a vent for the mudroom. The good news here is that our Heating and AC are adequate enough to support the new addition so we won't have to buy a new one.

It was during this meeting that I hear a muffled SNAP! "Uh oh" I thought. I excused myself from the dudes and went to inspect the mouse trap. "That's what you get you little shit. Poop all over my ceiling tiles...you get yo neck broke." Grabbing a plastic bag and plastic gloves, I immediately disposed of the unwanted guest. The dudes had no idea what I was doing, they were busy with measurements and manly talks about heavy duty toilet seats for another job they had.

After all was said and done OAR said by mid next week we should have finalized numbers. This is getting more exiting every day!

Financing Completed

Today we closed on our line of credit. This is getting more and more real everyday!

It would seem our neighbors have the remodeling bug as well. Our project is by far the largest in scope but in the last two weeks we have seen the house next door have the basement dug out and waterproofed, carpet ripped out to expose beautiful hardwood flooring, and every wall painted; the house behind us just got new siding and huge old deck torn out; and our other next door neighbors just got all new flooring. I love people who take pride in their homes!

You Get the Idea...

Here is one of the drawings...the bird's eye view of the plan. In this drawing the mudroom is missing (which is going to be pretty much where this writing is) and we aren't going to go with the patio door. Just to give you an idea of how much space this is, our current house ends at the where the range and refrigerator are located.

Geniuses Live Here

Last November we purchased a new computer that came with a new printer/scanner/copier. At the time I had just put a new ink cartridge in the old printer and reasoned that I'd just wait a while until hooking up the new printer; or until I needed the scanner. Since I had never read the instructions on the new printer/scanner let alone even plugged it in, I did not realize that I needed to purchase a cord to connect the printer to the computer separately. Tonight I attempted to hook everything up so I could scan the first set of drawings to post and realized I couldn't. I'm feeling a little silly right now.

We have an ongoing joke in my family that home improvement projects can be measured in trips to Home Depot/Lowe's/Menards. I think we'll count the trip to Best Buy to purchase the cord needed as part of the project! (crazy as it may sound, we didn't have any cords that I need just laying around in Brian's boxes of tricks)

To summarize our meeting today...AWESOME! I can't believe what we potentially could have. We also made an important decision - live with the ugly bathroom for a little longer. Kevin, the guy we are working with, said they can drywall up the hole in the bathroom (that will be there when the window is removed) and leave us with a smooth wall. Seeing as the ugly tile goes partly around the window I see this as being a big challenge but I can deal with it; I'm going to have a kick ass kitchen and entry way! Really, how much time does one spend in the bathroom? I do not.

We get an island, Brian gets his fancy, decorative hood and I get a coat closet. Plus, we are going to have more cabinet space than we could possibly fill. Don't worry, I'd sure we will though. The style of cabinets are "shaker" and mostly pull-out. Where we are planning on cutting costs is in counter tops and flooring. We both agree that we'd like to spend the big bucks on things that aren't easily updated. Therefore a laminate counter top (which we learned will allow for an above mounted sink, or something, and could potentially save hundreds of dollars for the sink alone) will be chosen and a vinyl floor. If you understood how hard my family is on flooring you'd completely understand this decision. The scratches that have been put in the wood floors from their toys are enough to make your stomach get knots when you think about how much it costs to have floors redone and the inconvenience it causes. We are also going to wait a year or so on one wall of cabinets. These cabinets are just a message center and extra pantry. But really, we'll have enough cabinet space in the meantime. Some things that we are considering are Solar Tubes in the area that is the current kitchen (this now become the middle of the house and potentially very dark), an egress window in the basement and windows with the blinds between the glass (I HATE cleaning blinds). Next week the subcontractors are all coming on Wednesday to start looking at the project so a firm price can be established.

Anticipation Grows...

Here are our goals and wishes for our plans:

1. I want to embrace the 1960s ranch (might as well! Not too many other options are doable). The Ranch is a piece of American history and in the present trend of McMansions our house gets a bad wrap (especially among my peer group). Whatever the design is, I want it to work with the rest of the house. One of Frank Lloyd Wright's works of art is just down the street, and that should be used as inspiration (plus, if I had my dream house, it would be an Arts and Crafts style home).

2. We need a strong connection to the back yard. During late spring through fall our back yard is truly another living space. Our house never feels small during the summer.

3. We need a large area to eat. The four of us can't comfortably sit around the table and eat.

4. I want a defined rear entrance. Frankly, there isn't enough room to walk in and out of our house with two clumsy toddlers. We have very well trained to sit on the stairs and take their shoes off when they come in. This creates quit a bottle neck at the door.

We meet tomorrow with the designer and builder. I'm both nervous and excited!

New Door

Tuesday morning Brian made sure to take pictures of the old door so we can always remember how much I hated it. Ugh...so dated; surely original to the house.

Like the towel at the bottom? This was to keep out the winter drafts and hide the glacier that formed regularly during the winter (I can't believe we put up with this for six winters!).

Outside view of the old door...while you can't see it, the handle on the storm door is broken. It really is only hanging on for decoration.

Here it is! The door I picked out while the boys were having tantrums! We love it and can't believe how much different the room feels with it. The amount of light that is let in now changes everything. The whole area just feels bigger! We got a new storm door as well but didn't think to take a picture from the outside.

Where we are and what is happening

We are in a nice house, in a great neighborhood, with great neighbors and a kitchen with enough space to entertain nobody, but The Littles. That is why we decided to plunge into the depths of home remodeling and not move into bigger house. We figured a new house entails so much more than just the price. Everything that we would want in a new house would cost us more in terms of mortgages, commute, convenience, taxes and time.

For a small period of time, we'll be inconvenienced (about 4 months)but in the end we'll have something that we've always wanted; bigger kitchen with a large enough eating space where we could fit our family and then some. Oh...and Andi gets her mudroom.

After spending time on countless remodeling tours and home shows, and dragging along our wonderful family members (see past posts with Eric and Ruth,) we settled on a contractor to do the job.

The OAR Group will be the one running the project and doing all the work. They have been great and seem to believe that we can get pretty much all we want for our price. I say pretty much because like everything in life, there's alway some compromise. Nothing major, we just won't get the imported Italian marble counter tops and instead will get a laminate.

Tomorrow, we have a remodeling appetizer. We're getting a new front door. Pictures to be posted once everything is installed. This new door will let in more light and give our front the appeal it so lacks.

Thursday we have our first design meeting with OAR and most likely we'll have drawing and designs to share with everyone so stay tuned.

A Very Small Kitchen...

That's what we have; a very small kitchen.

And we are going to rectify that this year!