Day 71

Oh my God...are we ever going to finish this? Our timeline was three months. In nineteen days we will be at day 90; that's three months in my book.

While not having a kitchen hasn't been nearly as bad as I thought (we've only eaten out twice as a result of not having a kitchen!) I'm getting really tired of not parking the cars in the garage, crappy backyard, walking through plastic every time we go outside or downstairs, cleaning food out of the bathtub after washing dishes, using plastic silverware and paper plates, not knowing if people are going to be working or not, oh the list could go on and on...

I just want my house back.

On the flip side of all of this, there are a few things that I have enjoyed about this process. Whatever they did during the sump pump/water drama last week caused our sump pump to become almost totally silent (which it's supposed to be). We actually were getting a little concerned because we hadn't heard it go off and it's rained for almost four days straight. Upon inspection, it was working exactly like it should! The other little perk has been in our basement washtub. There was something weird with the pipes and faucet. Whenever we ran the water everything would shake and it would spit the water out in spurts. We tried bleeding the lines and never worked. Since the water was rarely run it was a problem that had not been addressed. I was rinsing something a week or so ago and realized there was no shaking. It was working like you'd expect it to. The plumber had been here but I have no idea what he did or what he was working on. Whatever it was impacted our possessed pipes going to the washtub.

Gotta keep looking for the positives!

Day 67 - Less drama

Not too much to update here, other than they broke through the basement and it's finally dry. They broke through the floor and connected the new basement to another drain tile in the old basement. This time they were able to drain everything and as soon as they did it, the sump pump started filling up and working overtime. Even with all of the rain we've had this weekend, the basement has managed to stay dry.

Now all they need to do is plug the hole.


















On Thursday, the siding people came over and....yup, you guessed it, they sided. Looks nice doesn't it? Everything blended so well together.

Day 65 - More drama

Today they came over and put up the gutters. Those are no fun and I don't know if you really want to see pictures of gutters. I also noticed (only this morning) they put up part of the ventilation duct for the stove. However, the whole thing isn't complete, it's only partially installed. They also cleaned up the pile of rubble and pumped out some more water from the new basement.

That leads us to the drama. For a long time Andi and I have been asking about the basement water. On no more than four separate occasions from four separate people, they all basically said "it's because you don't have gutters." Even the people who put up the gutters said that to Andi. I guess I didn't realize the importance of gutters. Still, we were both skeptical.

Then we get home last night and there's a message on the machine from Rick (from the OAR group.) "It's Rick, just wanted to let you know that we were there today, and we were testing your sump pump, pouring water into it. So if you see water around don't worry. There's something not right about your drain tile. It doesn't seem to be working correctly. We'll be there tomorrow to look some more."

(In George Costanza voice) AH-HA! We knew it. We knew something was wrong, but nobody wanted to believe us. Well, the contract we signed indicated a sump pump to be installed in the new basement anyway. We'll see what happens. Look for an update.

It is Day 64...

Before...should have thought to take the picture before we started painting.
New color! North Hampton Putty
Still playing around with odds and ends to decorate with but I think a new toilet is in order...don't you Brian?

7-10 days our new counter top will be in and can be installed with our new sink.

New back door

Bathroom window is ready to be covered up.

Hanging out in the new closet

A lot has been going on and today we had the electrical inspection. Tomorrow is the rough plumbing inspection and once we get the go ahead installation drywalling can start!

Exhausted...

The Weekend Warriors are exhausted. This weekend was spent painting the ceiling and walls in the bathroom and lots of shopping around for all the things we need to get this house in the same color scheme as the kitchen. I'm trying to get as much done as humanly possible before I go back to work (two weeks). There shouldn't be a problem getting the hallway and living room painted, it's just we won't be doing much else between now and then!

Pictures coming soon

Andi and I have been busy with bathroom remodel and painting and haven't got to post much in the way of pictures. There has been many new things to see today and yesterday. We'll get pictures soon, but here's a quick update.

Mudroom closet framed.
Back door installed.
Soffit framed.
Bathroom window removed, walled framed.
Basement window installed.
Basement opening created!

Pictures hopefully tonight if we're not too tired after painting.

Bathroom Project - No Turning Back Now!

On Monday replacing the counter top and sink in the bathroom was just an idea...

It must be done now...we painted the bathroom a color Stephanie picked out for us. No turning back now, the bathroom is getting a new look.