A Sneak Peak at an Almost Complete House....

I've come to realize that there is no such thing as being "finished" with home renovations.  However, I'd like to share with you our most drastic changes that we're going to accomplish in this house.  Of course... I must first say these spaces are NOT complete and don't even fully represent what they look like right now.  We've recently unpacked all sorts of pictures and decorations and strewn them about the house in a semi organized fashion all since these photos were taken.  More complete photos to come but in the mean time take a look at these "before and after" shots I have.

Living/Dining Rm:

*Painted all walls*

*Replaced popcorn paint ceiling*

*Painted stair risers*

*New wood stair treads*

*New wood floors*

Still on the wish list:

- New furniture

- Rug

- Window shades

Kitchen:

*Painted walls*

*Painted cabinets*

*New cork floors*

Still on the wish list:

- New appliances

- New countertops

More soon.........

demo and construction

At the end of July I mentioned to my contractor in passing that I wasn't a big fan of the popcorn paint ceiling in the living room.

Contractor - I didn't want to say anything, but its pretty atrocious.

Me- Can you cover over it?

Contractor- well....probably, but its best to just tear it all down.

Me- woah...that's intense, how much to cover over it.

Contractor- Let's just tear it all down.

Me - that's scary, what if we find out that the house is about to fall down.

Contractor- that would be a beneficial thing.

Me- but I don't want to know.

..........

Me - okay, can you start tomorrow?

 So it took 2 people about 4 hours and the ceiling was down, bagged up and piled outside our house.  A slight layer of dust covered every possible nook and cranny throughout the entire house. 

And then their drywall guys came... I think they must be part robot/machine.  They put on their stilts and through the drywall up to the ceiling quickly following it with several screws and DONE... just like that.

#4 in the previous post of "things to get done in order to reach goal #1" was getting rid of the popcorn paint ceiling.  Well... we quickly learned that it was unfortunate that #4 was not done before #3 because #4 caused a #6 "REpaint living room."

But thanks to the help of friends we got the entire room repainted, all of the new baseboards painted, and painted the new ceiling in 4 evenings so that they'd be ready for the floors to go in!

So in the beginning of August over the course of one single day the flooring guys laid all the floors on the entire first floor -

which was very excited..........

however our place is now (obviously) a disaster.  AND....... there was one hiccup.  The wrong stair nosings were delivered.  So, they weren't able to finish the flooring on the steps and didn't finish the baseboards.  Maybe in a month or two they'll be done (9/21/10 to be exact.......)

A little paint to spruce things up!

So, we've been quite busy... two moves later (first myself and then Lil 'O) our stuff is finally in.  Now, we're trying to play catch up and get some of the planned changes done. 

Goal #1 NEW FLOORS.  The living room on the first floor, as many of you know, is just a subfloor.  Well, the wood floors have been selected for a while now.  However, we keep discovering different steps called "oh right, this should be done BEFORE the new floors are in." 

The steps:

1. Decide where to get new floors (DONE) - new living room flooring has turned into new floors on the entire first floor and the steps!  Wood floors everyone except cork in the kitchen, yay.

2. Stabilize the joists in the backroom from the basement crawlspace (DONE) - this prevented any potential shifting once the new floors are laid

3. Paint! (HALF DONE?) Sounds simple but there is A LOT of it - paint the risers, the railing, the walls, the kitchen cabinets, the wainscot.... there just seems to be more and more to paint!

4. New Living Room Ceiling (To be done this week!).  This came up because i greatly dislike the popcorn paint on the living room ceiling.... there's popcorn paint elsewhere in the house but this area is the most noticeable, first seen by guests, and most ideal to change since we're getting new floors soon anyways.  Well... we considered scraping it, we considered covering it, but our dependable contractors suggest tearing it down and starting new.  The price seemed right so, what the heck... here goes nothing...

5. Buy and paint baseboards and paint new ceiling... paint paint paint! (To be done next week and the following week???)

So with this all said... Goal #! NEW FLOORS has not yet been completed but in the mean time we have started the painting tasks and here is our current progress (pretty exciting!)

Thanks to Mom's help over the 4th weekend (while Lil' O was gallivanting around a lake in Upstate NY) we painted the railing, the risers, two purple accent walls, and all of the kitchen cabinet doors!!!  This was a huge accomplishment for a 3 day weekend in 105 degree heat.

This past weekend Lil 'O and I took some extra time out of our busy schedules and painted the sunroom.  The main push here was to get this room done so we could pile all the living room furniture in it, which we did last night.  Check out our awesome green walls!

I'm going away for work this week but Lil' O promises to finish priming the kitchen cabinet shell so that I can paint it when I get back.  She will also be supervising the demo of our living room ceiling... can't wait to see what the discover (actually I really don't want to know...).  But by mid next week we will have a popcorn free ceiling equip with a new ceiling fan and relocation of our chandelier!!

I'll try to post again soon... High up on my list of THINGS TO DO SOON - set up the internet!!  Once that is done, posts should be more frequent and should contain pics at a high quality than what I can take on my blackberry....

Its official: I'm a homeowner!

For the most part everything went as planned over the last month.  There was a little hiccup with the appraisal and some work that needed to be done in order to get it all finalized (total bs...) All in all, there wasn't much to be said about the house in the past month except that I was anxiously awaiting May 4th and actually getting to see it again! 

I think we did what most would do when they have such a long waiting period before spending the most $$ of their life... we went on vacation!  lil O' and I met my Mum&Dad in Cozumel, Mexico!  It was so beautiful, so relaxing, and a lot of fun.  We did everything from horseback riding on the beach to parasailing, to shots of tequila at lunch time!  I think it was the first time in years I went an entire week without getting a headache and that is saying something!  Needless to say we didn't want to leave.  The snorkeling their is amazing, the ocean is so blue, and (lil O's fav) there were often free elements to the cheap food you were ordering!  ....like free soup with dinner or buy one get one pina coladas.  It was a great time and someday we will need to return.

So back to the house.  Settlement day was May 4th and everything went smoothly for the most part.  There was a little tension with getting the final HUD form in...but it came just in time.  Also, lil O' was stressed after standing out in the sun waiting for the police for 3 hours once she found her car that afternoon (long story short - it was relocated off broad st. while we were on vaca and the police didn't know where they put it... she had to report it stolen, for the 2nd time, and just finally found it 2 weeks later!).  Anyway, once we were all at the settlement table everything went smooth.  The previous owners of the house were very friendly and gave us a lot of advice and the gossip on the neighbors.  They also left us many helpful things at the house (some furniture, tools, gardening supplies, paint and more!). We wrapped up there around 6:00pm and excitedly left for the house.

We celebrated the new home ownership in style .....a gathering of friends at the empty house with beer and pizza!  Life couldn't be better. 

Now we're concentrating on moving my stuff over to the house.  The big final move date is May 15th for me and then we're going to start moving lil O's things over.  Life is a little chaotic right now, but its all worth it!

Home Inspection: Round II *ding*

The home inspection was last Thursday and I am happy to report that the home is still standing and is predicted to continue standing for quite some time now!  With that said, of course not everything was perfect.  But overall I just get a better feel for this place.  And this time I have Inspector Julie (aka Inspector Gadget's) full support!  Julie was very gracious to join me on the inspection as my personal engineering consultant... not many could be so lucky.  I just got to lounge in the sunny backyard while she and the inspector ran throughout the house discovering little problems here and there.  Or at least that's what I wanted to do!  I did follow and learn and such too.  And, most importantly, I took some photos.  So, for those of you who haven't been following this on facebook here is a peak at my house to be!

I LOVE the original cornice... and the newly added star bolts (even if they are for structural stability) give it charm as well!  Maybe add a pop of color on the window lintels and a new transom above the door and of course some window boxes and this house will be the cutest on the street.

 

 Welcome! Come right this way into our living room.

You can see their use of particle board gives the space an "urban loft appeal".... well, at least someone out there may think so.  I'm very excited to lay a new flooring over this perfect subfloor! (some sort of wood probably, maybe bamboo?)

By the way, the living room is HUGE for a Philly rowhouse space.  Here we have an 18' width.... typically a rowhouse is between 14'-16', and it is long too!  We're going to split this up into living and dining space and it will be quite fabulous I think.

following the living room we walk right through this perfect little kitchen and up two steps to what I believe will be our office/studio/whatever else inspires us space.  You can't see it, but double sliding glass doors lead into the backyard from here (eeeeeee!).  Maybe my favorite part of the house....

Did I mention the backyard?  Its adorable!  I will sunbathe here.  Bring me my iced tea please!

The bathroom is huge... maybe my second favorite part of the house?  Julie demonstrates its awesome-ness here posing for the photo (ok, I may have caught her off guard).

I don't really have great pics of the bedrooms, but just believe me, they're a good size. This is the smaller of the two.  Painted wood floors throughout the upstairs.  I'm not sure as of yet if I'll be able to restore them, or maybe just paint a cool pattern on them.  We shall see what lil O' will let me tackle!

So back to the discussion of the inspection.  The seller has agreed to give me some $$ to compensate the few "major concerns" and "safety hazards" found on the report.  I think we came to a good, quick compromise and I'm really excited to see things moving on this house purchase.  As of right now the closing date is set for May 4th and I don't anticipate it changing!

My homebuying experience (so far)....

I decided I was going to take the idea of home buying seriously this past December and then I put an offer on a house in early February.  WOW, that happened fast.  Well.... not as fast as you may think.  I found a house, a house that seemed practical (sloppy), cozy (small), and the right price (too cheap?).  The clincher, it was on the most beautiful little park and right where we wanted to be located.

I put in an offer maybe a little sooner than I would have otherwise, but there was another offer on the house so it was do or die....and the offer was accepted!  We went forward with the inspection... some structural problems with the joists in the basement, some termites, some wrongly constructed basement steps, and a few other major/minor problems.  Okay, I thought...this happens, not too horrible.  Well, turns out the owner thought his property was perfect and was "shocked" to see all the issues on the inspection report.  I found this suspicious since it was pretty obvious to me that you couldn't walk up the basement steps without tripping due to the different height risers.  Needless to say, the owner did not want to give me money for repairs and I was NOT about to have him fix a single thing.  This sort of debate went back and forth slowly over three weeks and three contract extensions.  But, how could I give up on this awesome wagon wheel? (ha!)

The time came for me to make a quick final decision and I was starting to get a weird feeling about these people.  The flipped house with some bad cosmetics seemed like more of a risk everyday.  So, I put detective lil' O on the case.... She did some legal research and quickly we found out some not so good things about these people (several lawsuites including issues with contractors and L&I).  Done. No thank you.  Kapoot. Terminated. 

So moving on to bigger (literally) and better (without a doubt) things (a house).  I quickly acted (with the full support of lil' O) on a house I had fallen in love with while under contract with Palmer Park (above). Now I was up against two others for this house and it was not only bigger and better... but of course, more expensive.  But see... I don't like to lose... and I don't really like not getting what I want (I think O would definitely agree with that).  So, I went for it full force (after some positive reinforcement from Lil' O) and put in all that I had.  Apparently that is all they needed to see.  I am doing the inspection this week but already this house feels like the real deal.  I can really see us living here and loving it.  I will take some pics during the inspection on Thursday and I'll be sure to post them.  But all in all, its just so exciting.  Can't wait to start our life in Fishtown.