Happy New Year!!

New Year's eve, the start of 2008 is fast approaching!

Worked today, and actually am going to be at the house tomorrow. When you work at home, days off don't quite mean the same. I actually want to get some rehab stuff done.

Today, I hooked up the dishwasher, and it works! Also got the extra frame pieces done for the counters (where there used to be a blind cabinet). And more grout removal. Geez that is tedious.
Tomorrow I plan on mortaring the replacement tiles down, and finishing the grout removal. There is only about 1/4 of the kitchen left to do.

Basically starting to put things back together now, not sure when my granite will arrive - but I will just finish up everything else.

Rehab week in review

Got a lot done for a short week.
- Finished painting the wall color in both bedrooms
- painted the bathroom and repaired the toilet
- installed gfcis in the bathroom and kitchen
- finished painting the kitchen
- reinstalled the stove hood
- removed more grout

Here is a picture of the kitchen beam area that was repaired. The paint color is not that much different, but amazing how updated it looks (Brandied Pear by Olympic)



Here is the kitchen in it's current state. The dishwasher is fitted in, but not hooked up. Wanted to make sure cupboard doors and such could open before putting on the counter top plywood.


Plans for next week:
- continue with grout removal. This takes forever, even with the dremel
- repair broken tiles
- install plywood for counter tops
- add box to install bathroom light

Water Heater and painting

Had the water heater checked out today. There wasn't really anything wrong with it. He just cleaned it and got it to light and stay lit. Only cost $80 - so I am not bothered by that.
Interesting note, the water heater person had been at this same house a couple years ago. Apparently the previous owner had a shady contractor in doing crappy work. She hired this company to come out and give her a list of what needed to be done to get the work up to code. Basically, he said all the plumbing had to be redone. Poor woman. She lost her house a year later, after putting in all that money.

Today I got the rest of the kitchen painted except for touch ups. I also reinstalled the stove hood (which I painted white), and painted the rest of the bedrooms upstairs. Then I started the edging around the bathroom. Tomorrow I plan to finish painting the bathroom, then remove the doors to the bedrooms upstairs so that they can get painted. Fingers crossed that I will finish all painting this week.
Then it's pretty much just counter tops.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays everyone!
Back to work tomorrow. Short week - will have to work hard LOL!

Rehab week in review

Got a lot of stuff done this week:

Removed counter tops
Finished painting the living room
Installed new light fixtures
Painted the master bedroom
Got the plumbing fixed
Painted the stairwell
Repaired the ceiling beam area
Painted the range hood white
Started grout removal

I should be done with the painting next week. That is really the thing that takes the longest!

Plumbing

There was good news and bad news with the plumbing. The handyman opened up what we thought was the pass through for the pipes and found this:

Not a pass through - but a solid beam (covered with plywood). So, we weren't quite sure how to proceed at this point. The question was whether to open up the ceiling and find the pipes or go through the wall in one of the bedrooms. Since we didn't know the status of the pipes, other than that there was a big leak - we decided to go behind the tub.

After opening up this wall - the problem was evident. The cold water pipe had separated just above the shut off. It wasn't broken - it had just popped out. Got that soldered back into place and no more leaking!! So - we didn't have to repipe anything. Saved me money and time that way.

The bad news is that the water heater doesn't work. Tried that today. It's only 3 years old, but won't light up. So - have to have someone come look at that. At least I know a fixed price ceiling on this, in case it would have to be replaced in a worst case scenario.

Now I can start putting the kitchen back together. It looks bad now LOL

Painting

Progressing quickly with the painting. Got the first color coat on both bedrooms. Chose a buttery yellow color, it's quite nice. I started trim painting upstairs as well.
I can't wait to get the pipes fixed in the house. Then I can do more work on the kitchen.
I was able to scoot some of the cabinets over on one side to make more pass through room to the basement door. I took out more cabinet width than dishwasher width, so I could do that. I will also move one of those removed cabinets to the area near the fridge. I bought a little extra granite in case I was able to do this.

I have to say that grout sawing is very tedious. Since I am keeping the tile, I need new grout. Much of this grout is filthy and the color just makes the tiles look a little weird. I have a grout saw, and it works well, but just takes time. I think I will work on doing a little each day, rather than doing it all at once.

I did turn the water on to the house, just to check the downstairs pipes. I slowly opened the main shut off valve, and then I heard water trickling behind me from somewhere. Silly me forgot to close the drain on the water heater! None of the pipes downstairs are busted - so that is very good news!

Oh, and more snow expected tonight....... sigh.......