tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215096642007-07-30T15:18:30.780-07:00CrankyPantsBlogger71125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-89054133003201298762007-07-30T15:09:00.000-07:002007-07-30T15:18:30.811-07:00

So we moved into the house over the weekend. THANK YOU to everyone who helped us move on Saturday. It sucked and I’m sure you’re all thrilled Jon and I won’t move again for a long time. We’re incredibly lucky to have such great family and friends (who may now secretly hate us because we have too much stuff). I swear I’m going to repay you all somehow…possibly by making you some delicious baked

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-10566692757552913502007-07-22T13:03:00.000-07:002007-07-22T13:29:05.615-07:00

Aside from the builder having to fix some handrails for the stairs, we passed inspection. Apparently the stair fixes are minor enough that we can move in. Yay! We can't really move in until next weekend though because the builder has a few things to wrap up. The biggest problem being that when they installed the wood flooring, they covered up several heat vents and now have to try to find/

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-38322245151936023602007-07-13T10:41:00.000-07:002007-07-13T10:48:35.061-07:00

It's the 13th. A friday. I've just returned from a week in Denver and I'm a bit sleepy. The carpet guy is due soon. Hopefully he'll get in here in time for me to make my noon meeting in Redmond. We are putting carpeting in the basement to try and cosy-up the bare concrete floors. We never did get around to applying any kind of basement sealing, so we are definately taking a risk by

CrankyPantstag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-51404647533374827742007-07-02T17:54:00.000-07:002007-07-02T18:01:09.667-07:00

I’ve learned something about myself in the last few weeks: I am a big baby and do not enjoy manual labor at all. Jon and I have been working on the house a lot for the past couple of weeks. Painting rooms, staining doors, creating and installing countertops…ok, the amazing countertops had nothing to do with me, but I did do all the painting myself! Anyhoo, people have been asking for pictures

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-66091927907342057962007-06-24T09:02:00.001-07:002007-06-24T09:13:07.159-07:00

The house has been painted and looks beautiful. We keep meaning to take some photos and post them, but clearly have not done so because we are scatter-brains. The wood flooring is installed and looks great. Overall, the tile in the bathrooms looks great, too. Except there is a huge lump under some of the tile in the master bathroom that is driving me nuts. I thought I could get over it, but it

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-87004491088226239922007-06-04T13:49:00.000-07:002007-06-04T13:51:57.095-07:00

We had a productive (and expensive) weekend. Kitchen appliances and kitchen backsplash tile are ordered. We also picked up the closet doors from Frank Lumber. They were way more expensive than I expected! The good news is we’re almost done hemorrhaging money. I think this is all we have left:Carpet and subfloor for basement. Doesn’t have to be too expensive; just comfy.Landscaping. We’ll have to

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-42150109958686875082007-05-28T13:04:00.000-07:002007-05-29T13:45:35.467-07:00

Jon has been working on putting the IKEA kitchen cabinets together so he can get the measurements for the countertops. He discovered yesterday that the cabinet they sold us that goes under the sink IS THE WRONG ONE. Which means another trip to IKEA is in our future. Update: Jon drove all the way to IKEA to find out that the cabinet they sold us is correct, but mislabeled. We might have been able

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-44130583217156617892007-05-23T14:16:00.000-07:002007-05-23T14:17:04.624-07:00

You all narrowly avoided us asking you that question. Our lease is up on June 30th and, at this point, the house isn’t expected to be done until mid-July. That’s a tad problematic! Especially because when I asked our landlord if we could stay an extra month, she made us sweat it out for 4 days while she “thought about it”. Anyhoo, crisis averted. I badgered the landlord until she agreed another

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-67015135109783048872007-05-21T15:29:00.000-07:002007-05-25T07:01:13.433-07:00

Ikea, I have beaten you! We now have everything to complete our Ikea cabinets. When we first filled up the 5 shopping carts of the various parts for our cabinets, we left there knowing that we still had at least 10 items on backorder. While in most any other store in the Universe this would be easily solved through shipping, Ikea doesn't work that way. Instead, they take your phone number and

CrankyPantstag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-5520422938612388542007-05-18T12:02:00.000-07:002007-05-18T12:11:46.953-07:00

I am so excited you guys. All we have to do this weekend is find a few sets of closet doors and go back to IKEA one more time to get the one piece of the kitchen cabinets we’re missing. This leaves me plenty of time to do the other things I wanted to do over the weekend: Sleep, drink lots of wine, and watch the 2nd seasons of Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place. Is that laughter I hear? Mock

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-57566347397277405632007-05-14T16:01:00.000-07:002007-05-14T16:07:53.341-07:00

The interior colors were so much easier to pick than the exterior. The coolest one is the color we’re going to have in the living room/dining room/master bedroom: Hubbard Squash. I love yellow…and squash! Anyhoo, the kids still have to pick which shades of neon green, blue, and pink they want in their rooms, but since we’re painting those rooms ourselves we don’t have to decide for a while. In

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-64204384808045300422007-05-06T15:49:00.000-07:002007-05-06T16:00:43.396-07:00

We went to Sherwin Williams, picked out about 8 different sample colors, and threw them up on the side of the house. As we looked at the mess we made, we still weren’t able to figure out what color we wanted the house. So we called Tim and Mary, of course! They were super-helpful and we finally arrived at a decision. From the beginning, I’ve always poo-poo’ed the idea of a brown house, but when

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-42472820923864315402007-04-29T15:56:00.000-07:002007-04-29T16:05:32.749-07:00

Not really, but I feel like I complain too much about all of the remodel work so I thought I’d go for a more positive headline. IKEA had a kitchen sale so we figured it was time to bite the bullet and order the cabinets. It took about 4 hours and we had to find about 200 separate pieces in the warehouse. Envision buying 200 chairs at IKEA and that’s pretty much our experience (minus the part

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-38659692682408324782007-04-26T17:25:00.000-07:002007-04-26T17:30:56.436-07:00

Okay, we give up--picking colors for the house exterior is driving us crazy. I'm opening this up as a coloring contest. Rules: Download the photo in this posting. Color it something nice Show us your idea The main color can't be green (there are 4 green houses on the block already) The trim needs to be some sort of white. Prize: A beverage of your choice!

CrankyPantstag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-68693616764087082552007-04-26T17:20:00.000-07:002007-04-26T17:25:10.739-07:00

We've passed all of our inspections on the first pass: Framing, Electrical, Plumbing, Gasline and HVAC. Tomorrow we are starting the Drywall. We are frantically picking out colors and tile and doors and.....etc. We gave up on the idea of tiling the downstairs bathroom ourselves--we have too many other things to still do. Lucky for us, there is enough extra funds still to cover the bid we got

CrankyPantstag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-88642525257996684962007-04-25T15:31:00.000-07:002007-04-25T15:43:06.289-07:00

We are really close to finishing this house up. Very exciting. Very stressful. My current nemesis? Paint. - We thought we had the exterior color scheme all worked out and then we realized we essentially had a red, white, and blue house and that was just not going to work. - I haven’t even begun to think about the interior colors, but we’re supposed to finalize those too. - Apparently when

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-33242909665757912522007-04-11T09:11:00.000-07:002007-04-11T09:28:03.844-07:00

Believe it or not, I was actually excited about shopping for lighting fixtures; looking at pretty glass rather than toilets sounded great. As it turned out, the process was so overwhelming it drove CrankyPants and me to drink way too much wine and wonder if we could just put bare bulbs throughout the house and call it good. There are just SO many options. You can get lost and never make your way

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-34205987710349629082007-04-06T10:52:00.000-07:002007-04-06T10:56:21.187-07:00

Check it out, we have a porch...or the beginnings of one anyway. I'm so excited to see the house coming together. In other news: The mold remediation sub is coming tomorrow to mold-proof the house since it has been wet since October. CrankyPants and I are shopping for lighting fixtures this weekend.

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-75932639692105621302007-03-29T07:26:00.000-07:002007-03-30T10:04:18.142-07:00

Third time is a charm I guess. We've passed the structural inspection! The first time in December, we tried to get a partial inspection so we could wrap the main floor before the rain--apparently inspectors don't like coming out in the winter to do half the job. Tuesday, the inspector came out and wanted more nails. Yesterday, he passed us, so it looks like the house is going to stay standing

CrankyPantstag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-50897517882474605272007-03-27T15:54:00.000-07:002007-03-27T16:04:48.376-07:00

We looked at frameless showers over the weekend. They can be quite fancy…though I don’t think we can afford one quite so swanky. Anyhoo, it was nice to see what they looked like installed and such. I think it helped us decide that frameless is the way to go. I started working on repairing the crack/chip in the clawfoot tub. It is really easy: I just paint this porcilan concoction on it and let it

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-15753438469920060962007-03-15T15:34:00.000-07:002007-03-15T15:39:27.298-07:00

CrankyPants has been really good about getting through a bunch of nit-picky details the house project has thrown at us. I really can’t believe the number of things you have to figure out when remodeling:Plumbing fixtures. Apparently it is a big deal to have two-handled faucets in the shower. Having said faucet means you have to purchase other parts and labor or something. Seriously. It is just a

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-23108637861628107932007-03-07T08:20:00.000-08:002007-03-07T08:29:51.354-08:00

We have a roof! Well, we have most of a roof that is... In the never ending battle against the elements, the crew papered the roof, but we don't have any shigles yet. We aren't sure if the roofers will want to "re-paper" the roof when they do their work, but it will help keep the rain out in the meantime. Other news: The sheeting work is done-no more big holes in the walls. The structural

CrankyPantstag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-70126129748807245952007-03-03T11:58:00.000-08:002007-03-03T12:17:08.279-08:00

We spend most of last weekend shopping for toilets, faucets, sinks, etc. and are pretty much done. All we have left is committing to a dishwasher (harder than you might think!). Most of it is pretty normal stuff, but the kitchen faucet is awesome. I couldn’t find a picture on the Lowe’s website (which makes sense b/c we it was a special order), but I’m 90% sure this is it. The toilets are

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-61160580290102686432007-02-22T16:23:00.000-08:002007-02-22T16:24:27.654-08:00

Before I start complaining, I should say I am soooo happy the project is back on track and we’ll have a second floor and roof VERY soon. That said, we just found out our entire weekend is going to be taken up buying toilets, sinks, and faucets so we can hand the info off to the plumber. Bleh. I want to pick paint colors and rugs, not garbage disposals. I feel sorry for CrankyPants because I

GoGotag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21509664.post-1170891026761254432007-02-07T15:20:00.000-08:002007-02-07T15:30:26.776-08:00

The kids’ bedrooms have walls now…we’re very excited. Apparently the view looks nice too, but I’m not totally comfy going up that high just yet. Yes, I am a big baby about heights. CrankyPants took some pictures of the emerging second floor and will post them soon.

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