Baby Shower Bonanza

In a couple of posts I mentioned my hubby was flying solo working on our house on the weekends because I was busy putting together some decorations for my sister-in-law's upcoming baby shower.

Well, this past weekend was the big day!  It was a great shower filled with family, friends and good food.

Here is a little peak at what went down...

Fabric and ribbon baby shower banner.

My diaper cake.

And again.

And again.

Baby clothes line, favors and note station.

Clothes line again.

And again.

Handmade favors...filled with Hershey kisses with Lee Ann's Baby Shower stickers.

Close-up of the Hershey kisses.

Another fabric and ribbon banner.

Old mason jars with tea lights and ribbon.



Mason jars before they were all cleaned up.

Sorry for the bad lighting in this picture.

Me and the beautiful Mommy-to-be!

Me, Lee Ann and Grandma-to-be.

Me and my handsome hubby.

Hanging out after the shower with the best {and biggest} present of the day.

Anddd We Have Windows!

As of Friday afternoon, most of our new windows were in!  Thanks to the crew of two and my hubby's hard work, the only ones left to be replaced are the three in the basement and the one above the kitchen sink.

They look great, but they also just make it super obvious that our trim, both inside and outside, needs some serious TLC.  The outside trim is begging to be sanded and painted in a major way.  The inside trim needs to be caulked and painted a bright white to go with our shiny new windows.

Our new windows make the trim look pitiful.

Please ignore the green garage doors.  They will be replaced in the {hopefully} near future.

It's so fabulous to have windows that you can open with just one hand, as opposed to our old ones, that I couldn't open using both hands and all my might!

And I really liked to see this sticker on the windows.  Anything that helps cut down on factors that can contribute to mold growth in our home gets a big thumbs up from me!

Lemme Lemme Upgrade Ya!

I got a text from the hubby this morning that our replacement windows had finally arrived…hallelujah!  No more single-pane, cracked windows!

I headed over to the house during my lunch hour.  I had to give our contractor a check and I also needed him to sign off on two forms that we need to submit to the bank to get our second draw.  One of my bffs, Katie, came with me to check out the progress on the house.  She was one of the few people who got to see the house from the very beginning, before we ever started on any renovations.  She was surprised to see how much the house had changed already.

My hubby was at the house helping out the contractor and his main worker with the windows.  I asked him to keep me updated with some iPhone pictures throughout the day.  Here is the "during" stage of our window upgrade.  I can’t wait to put up some "after" shots!

Above the garage, windows are removed.

Master bedroom windows removed.

All of the old windows.

New picture window ready to go!

One new window in place in bedroom #1...boy does the trim need to be repaired and painted!

New windows in the front of the house!

Oh, and we passed our plumbing inspection yesterday!  Yet another step closer to our house having a functioning bathroom again!  And, of course, we couldn’t have all this good news without some bad news to accompany it. 

When the contractor arrived at our house today he was checking out the insulation that exists between the garage ceiling and our main floor (our master suite is going to be above the garage).  He said the insulation is extremely thin and definitely not adequate.  He recommends that we pull the garage ceiling down and insulate the area properly.

Of course that means additional costs that we were not planning for, but it is something that must be done.  Everything that we're doing to make the house look nice would not even matter if we don't take the proper care to do things right.  (Yes, I was channeling Mike Holmes right there.)  So now the hubs and I are considering tearing down the PLASTER ceiling and insulating it ourselves.  Our contractor said he’d show us how to do everything.  DIY'ing it means our only cost would be the insulation...and goggles and masks for our safety...and maybe some pizza and beer for any friends who want to assist us. ;-)

Pleasantly Surprised, Again??

The hubs and I were determined to make today a productive day at our house, contractor or no contractor!  I had arranged an inspection with our HUD consultant so he could look over the plumbing work that had been done, as well as the exterior doors that had been put in.  In addition to that, I provided him with all of our receipts for the materials purchased for the bathrooms.  My fingers are crossed that we can get a partial draw for all of the fixtures sitting in our garage, just waiting to be installed.  (Slight side note, we received draw #1 on Tuesday...woohooo!)

Also, the town’s plumbing inspector was scheduled to come to our house by 12 o’clock to *hopefully* give us the green light for our contractor to start putting down the sub-floors and closing up some closet walls.

When the hubs arrived at the house he said the HUD consultant was already there, taking pictures and giving things the once over.  He said the owner of the plumbing company we are using was at the house too.  The owner explained to hubs that he wanted to be there in case the town’s inspector started throwing around terminology and asking questions.  {I don’t know this guy, but he gets a major gold star from me for taking the initiative to be at our house for the inspection!  It is much appreciated by us!!} 

Hubs took advantage of meeting him and asked several questions about some things we might want to take care of around the house (adding frost-free water spigots on the outside of the house, running a gas line to the fireplace, replacing the corroded pipe under the kitchen sink, replacing the corroded water shut off valve in the basement, etc.).  In addition to all that, the owner brought up that he took a look at our hot water heater.  We knew it was old, but our inspectors and contractor told us that it might last a little while longer, and to put replacing it on the back-burner.  The owner disagreed and said it seemed to have passed it’s life expectancy.  He also mentioned that if we were looking to add to our family in the future, the size of our current water heater would be too small to suffice.  So the owner is going to write up a quote for all of the things hubby discussed with him, and once we go over everything, we can see if we want to move forward.  (We are very anxious to get a quote because they are good at what they do and they are the most reasonably priced in the area.  Our contractor said he was pleasantly surprised when they gave him their rates.)

And the plumbing company’s owner was not the only surprise we received this morning.  The hubs was shocked to see our contractor pull into our driveway.  He said he was just stopping by to pour the new footing in the basement and put the new support post up. 

From the hub's iPhone

After he was done, he was on his merry way.  He promised to be back tomorrow for a full day of work.

Hopefully I'll have more iPhone pictures to pass along tomorrow throughout the day!

Bad News Bears

Ohhhh the same story, different day with our contractor.  You think we’d be used to it by now, but we aren’t.  We were supposed to meet our electrician and contractor at the house tonight after work so we could go over what needs to get done.  Well, that’s not happening.  And my poor hubby has been hanging out at the house since 10AM (because he had to be there to sign for and inspect our master bath vanity delivery), unable to do anything productive with the yard work because it’s been pouring non-stop.  He’s been trying to keep himself busy inside by shop-vac’ing and straightening up around our disaster of a house.  He reached out to the contractor about an hour and a half before we were to meet them just to confirm everything, and he was informed that they couldn’t make it tonight, and better yet, our contractor is no longer coming to the house to work tomorrow.  Awesomeee! {Obvious sarcasm.}

Would he have even called to inform us of any of this if we didn't call him?  Probably not. 

Our contractor said he’s hoping that the windows will be in on Friday “so he can make a big push.”  Boy, am I sick of hearing that phrase!  I wouldn’t be, if it was actually backed up with results.  But the past two weeks have left me and the hubby disappointed and questioning the Thanksgiving move-in date that we were given.

At least one thing went right today.  As I mentioned earlier, the hubby had to be at our house between 10 and 12 to accept the delivery of our master bath vanity.  He said our vanity, marble top and mirror arrived in good condition and he absolutely loved it.  He gave my vanity decision a big thumbs up!  (I'm just glad it looked as good as it did online.  We originally had selected a similar, less expensive vanity, but could not find it in stock when it was time to order.  We were told the earliest it'd be in was late November or early December.  That left me scrambling online to find something.  My Mom did some Internet searching of her own and spotted this vanity, that I had seen earlier, but dismissed because of it's slightly higher price tag.  Well now that we were desperate, I decided the extra $300 was worth it to get the look we were going for.  Everything happens for a reason right?!)

Here is the vanity I chose for our master bath.  It comes with the marble top, sinks, faucets and mirror.  I will be Craigslist’ing the faucets since I found others that I love.



Design Element USA vanity picture from here



Maybe by the time Monday rolls around I'll have some sort of progress post for you.  At least that's what I'm hoping for! 

Roller Coaster Ride

Oh, the ups and downs of renovation.  Anyone sensing a theme?

Thank goodness the hubs was off from work yesterday.  The day started off well.  Things were going smoothly at the house, as shown by these two iPhone pictures the hubs sent me during the morning.

New back door from the screened-in porch to the kitchen.

The 15-lite door lets in so much more light than the previous door!  I love it!



But a day of renovation wouldn’t be complete without something going awry.  I received a phone call from the hubby at lunch time telling me that the door hardware we ordered for the front door was only a deadbolt.  There was no doorknob.  Whooops!  So much for me and the hubs checking over our order carefully. (Yes, we ordered the door hardware at the same time as the incorrect doors…it must have been because we were on the computer late that night.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it because we seriously checked and re-checked our order three times.  I guess fourth time would have been the charm in our case!)

So needless to say, the hubs said he was going to run to the nearest Lowe’s and he wanted me to find the coordinating door knob item and model number online.  This way I could send it to him and he’d be armed and ready to go when walked into the store.

Next thing I knew, my phone was ringing.  The hubs asked if I wanted the bad news or the worse news.  Turns out the Union Lowe's doesn’t carry the Baldwin brand that we had selected (see pictures below) in-stock and our contractor opened the dead bolt we already purchased (also below) and the package didn’t even have all the parts in it. 

The hubs said all the door hardware he could see in the store didn't even appeal to him.  I quickly hopped online and found a different style of door hardware than we originally picked out.  It wasn’t our first choice, but it was still nice and received a great review (see below). 

The item also had an option to pick it up in the store so I knew it was in-stock.  I gave the hubs the item number, he found it and left the store.

I thought that dilemma would be our only problem for the day.  I was wrong.  I received a phone call from the hubby not too long after that letting me know that the windows, that should have come in over a week ago, are still delayed and not supposed to be in until Friday.  Also, we can’t get a plumbing inspector out to our house until Thursday afternoon.  So for the second week in a row, we are going to be at a standstill for a good portion of the week.

This is getting BEYOND frustrating, especially when we were just told that this week would be a huge push to get lots of things done.  I understand that most of this is beyond the control of the contractor, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating.  I just want us to be in our house ASAP!!!!

So let's take a long, hard look at the pictures I snapped at the house last night, because I won't be posting anymore progress pictures until work resumes...which I'm told will be Thursday.  Fingers crossed that happens and I'll have a progress post for you on Friday!

New, NORMAL HEIGHT, entry door into the garage!

Not yet insulated and trimmed out.

New front door.  Still needs to have trim replaced and it needs to be painted.

New front door from the inside.

Still has stickers on it and needs to be insulated and trimmed out.

New 15-lite door to the screened-in porch.  Love this new door!

Still needs trim and insulation.

View from the screened-in porch.

Main bath plumbing.

Those are huge holes in the floor that go into the garage.

Master closet and bath area...such a disaster right now.

Master bath plumbing.

And some more master bath plumbing for the shower area.

Master bath shower area plumbing.

Master bath plumbing.