The contractors have requested a cheque for $12,300 as a mid-project payment, which means I reckon I should give you all a mid-reno update. And yes, that payment is due pretty much on the same day as my Christmas visa bill. In other news, I will be bringing sawdust sandwiches for lunch for the next three years. They will, ultimately, taste better than the campus Sodexo food; they just won't be as convenient or salty. Mmmm salty.
I came home Monday to discover this sitting on my plywood sub-floor.
That's right, it's a 5' x 5' bay window to be installed in the tiny family room off the kitchen. It will replace this relic that is all charm and no insulation--unless you count plastic and tack tape.
Yesterday I got an email to tell me that when the "instruction workers" (in Miss M's vernacular) cut the hole for the new window, they discovered significant amounts of rot in the clapboard and walls. The blame for this can likely be laid at the base of the poppy heads in that old window. Damn home-made, derivative Eastern Orthodox architecture. I was informed that the instruction workers had gone out to get materials to fix the problem and that they would add the amount of materials and labour for the repair to my final bill.
It's the second such email I've gotten in a week. You see, there was also a significant amount of mold in the walls behind my fridge and in my downstairs bathroom. Add another 1,000 sawdust sandwiches to the lunch pail plus the price of testing the mold to rule out years of toxic breathing. Old houses can be so charming.
As I write, the entire wall of my family room is missing and the temperature is supposed to plunge to -30 tonight. Tomorrow's post? The cost of replacing frozen plumbing pipes and how to keep nipples warm in sub-arctic temperatures.
On the positive side of things, have I mentioned THAT I AM GETTING THE KITCHEN OF MY DREAMS (according to space and budget allowed)? In addition to the bay window, I am getting the following:
It's a supersize version of B in the last reno post. The big sink is 19 3/4" x 18" x 9" and the small sink is 17" x 12" x 8". Suds up to the MadDad's elbows.
We did end up getting a new faucet b/c the old sink had more faucet holes than the new one. Here it is missing its face plate. It's a pull-down which I am told is to-die-for.
The counter top is called terra roca
and the floors will be a cork checkerboard with Moca Sani and Coffee Bean (not sure if it's Fair Trade).
Bea has picked out colours for me; right now I'm not saying anything more than red, green and cream. The real highlight will be the backsplash and cupboards, but I don't have image samples for those, so you'll just have to wait until the big reveal which may happen in the next month or two depending on how much more rot I have in my core.
_________________________
Before the big hole was cut, waaay back on the weekend, we would move the TV back to the house's only cable connection (in the sawdust) so that we could watch the NFL playoffs and scrimmage in the dirt.
Those were warm and carefree days.
Now, I am cut off from TV and must spend my evenings with yoga dvds. During shavasana, I am clearing my mind of all thoughts other than, how in heck am I supposed to host a Magical Land-themed birthday party for a 4-yr-old in two weeks time?
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The heart of all decadence is rot
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
29 hats in the ring:
I feel your old house pain. When we renovated the sheer volume of mouse crap that fell from the ceiling was horrifying.
I love your choice of flooring. Warm and delicious.
I have a pull-down faucet: it rocks. I do not like the fact that the flow can be switched to regular or spray, however. For some reason, the spray setting irritates me to no end. My husband loves it. He likes to leave it on spray just to bug me. We're so in love.
Wow. That is quite a chunk of change (and then some evidently!) but it looks like it will be SO worth it. I'm anxious to see the end result!!
I LOVE your floor choice. LOVE IT. It makes me want to visit your kitchen when it's done.
VERY nice. I love cork floors.
My in-laws gave us a bay window for a back room that needs one as an anniversary gift. It fell over the next day and shattered. Can we afford to replace it? Nyet.
That old window is GORGEOUS - if hideously inpractical. Are you going to use the frame for anything?
I love the floor, too. I hope I remember this in a few years' time when I renovate my kitchen, because the floor right now is cream ceramic tile, and every speck of everything stands out like a beacon from five feet away. Yours looks so warm and homey.
And yes, I can sympathize with the mold thing. And the unexpected costs during renovation thing. When we renoed our last house, the contractors' original budget was $35,000 - we ended up spending more like $60,000, and we did a good chunk of the work ourselves. You just never know what you'll find when you start ripping out walls.
Magic Dust and Fairy Mold land, of course.
I want checkerboard floors so badly. I think I may have to do it without telling my hubby, he keeps saying the house would be hard to resell with them. phooey, I say, I WANT THEM!
I can feel it coming together...I can't wait to see it all complete.
Football playoffs...Hubby was offered tickets to this Sunday's game and politely declined given my delicate (mostly from complaining) condition. I hope you have cable by the weekend.
We are starting a kitchen reno soon. I'll be over in the corner sucking my thumb.
Love your colors and I'm sure it will be beautiful when it's done.
My God, that is a huge football!
This post really is helping me overcome my "if only we had bought that character-filled old house that was the same price as the new house, and then RENOVATED it!" angst. I'm very much enjoying getting credit for choosing your colours, though really, predicting YOUR choices was ultimately an even greater coup.
I can't wait to see the pictures of the new kitchen... especially the floor and the colorsthat Bea picked out for it.
I hope your weather isn't as cold as ours or your reno time will stretch and stretch.
I would kill for a cork floor. Um, maybe a bit of an exaggeration there. And I think you will love that sink a lot. Very sleek and handsome faucet choice.
I also am eagerly anticipating the photos of the new kitchen.
Aaaah. If only you would move into a ticky-tacky snout house in the 'burbs. HAR-DEE-HAR-HAR!
Miss M. catches just like me!
I can't wait to see the final result.
In the meantime? perhaps you can use some of that sawdust to fashion some warm clothing.
I'm so glad you are blogging the reno. I love kitchen updates - I wish I had the coin to do more with ours right now! We did do countertops and a drop-in sink two years ago, which I really, really like.
The football pictures? Fantastic. I need that camera!
I like my kitchen just fine, but I'm loving the eavesdropping on your project - it's making me long to go pick out backsplashes or something.
That first picture of M. is really funny - her posture is divinely weird.
oh, your FLOOR!!
My daughter's bday happened in the midst of our kitchen reno as well. To save my sanity I rented a room at the local rec centre for the party. It was great b/c it was within walking distance of my house. We filled up some plastic tubs with toys and brought in all our own food.
so jealous of your new kitchen. ours is so in need of a reno it's ridiculous - totally non-functional and falling apart. problem is, we bought the house witht the intent to do the work, but i was pregnant before we even closed, so it went on hold. then i had another.
now that the baby-makin days are over, i want that cork floor - love it.
i gotta go to your house next time. don't mind me if i just lay down with my cheek on your cork floor, will ya?
and so sure am i that rot and mold lurk in our bathroom floor that i refuse to let Dave pull up the linoleum. i am chicken. or ostrich. with my head stuck in a rotting floor. ick.
Like Kgirl, our kitchen is falling apart, and our new kitchen dreams sank into the dust with my last day of work yesterday, so you don't mind if I just sulk jealously from afar?
Will a local church let you use their basement to host the party??
Lucky you to have Bea to assist with the color choices.
My kitchen is pretty much monochromatic (white with cream accents or perhaps vice versa), because I have many, many issues surrounding colors in my own house. But I *love* seeing and admiring color schemes in other people's bouses.
She is all that is adorable!
The project sounds like it is chugging along nicely as construction projects will with all sorts of hidden fees (see my constant Twitter whining) and it's going to be grand!
The pull-down faucet, btw, is to die-for and I wish I had one.
As for birthdays? Do what I did during construction/holiday season and FARM IT OUT ELSEWHERE.
Little Gym did us up wonderfully. All I did was show up for the best birthday party EVER. The prepped, decorated, cleaned and even schlepped gifts.
Plus? It cost less than the home party I had the year before!!
I like that floor cork.
And good luck with the Magical-Land.
I don't know how you're having holes cut in your house during the freeze that has taken hold of your part of the world! Brrrr. Warm mugs of hot chocolatey thoughts for you, Mad.
And I have precisely the answer for your birthday conundrum: Have it somewhere else. :)
Good luck.
Dude, extension cords for the cable - cheap and useful when you get sick of yoga.
What the hey? Mid payment? My husband is a cabinet maker and should totally be doing this for himself. (OMG, he makes three kitchens a week and makes a freaken pittance.) Yours will be gorgeous when it's done. Now, about that party...
OMG you are totally living my last year with the discovery of not-good surprises in the walls... I'm so sorry. but! You'll be so happy when it's done! A new kitchen would be so awesome, but ours will be waiting at least five years now that we have the bun and Misterpie bought land for a cottage instead of opting to reno the kitchen sooner (I gave him that choice, as he desperately wants both things and they are "his" dreams as he does all the cooking).
I'm jealous. If only because, given the fantabulous state of our house when we moved in, there's no excuse for renos. Oh, and then there's the whole money thing. But I want your cork floors...
And I'll help you plan your Magic Land-themed party if you tell me how on earth I am to hold the requested "beach party" in February. (I do have some ideas but seriously. Couldn't she have asked for a trip to the moon instead?)
Post a Comment