What's Cooking in Our Kitchen?

Cabinets and countertops, that's what.

Our cabinets were installed on June 21st and we were told that the countertops would take about 3 weeks. Well they were just installed on Monday. So according to my math (which could be wrong) they were only 6 weeks late. Better late than never, right?

Yes, that's a dishwasher!! It's kind of like one of the Price is Right models right now though. It looks pretty but it doesn't really do anything. We just put it in so the cabinet guys could see if they needed a filler strip, it's not hooked up yet.

Again, I apologize for the crappy iPhone pics. I promise when we move in I'll take some prettier pictures.

Rub A Dub Dub

We tiled a tub. Well the tub surround, not the actual tub. That would be weird. 

We still need to finish the bottom left corner because the plumber broke off a small corner of the tub when he was installing it so we need to repair that before we can finish tiling but that won't take very long so I am considering this job done! Minus the grout but we're going to wait until were done tiling the shower in our bathroom and then we'll do all the grout at once. 

Sh*tty Shelves

I know, I know, I haven't posted in a while. We've been busy with some big changes. I have a couple of little things to post about and then I have a couple of big, exciting posts coming up!! Yay, I can't wait to share them with you!

Anyways on to these sh*tty shelves. When the finishers were up we had them build some custom shelves in the pantry and the master walk in closet. Our original plan was to get the painter to paint them. As it turns out he didn't include the price of painting these in his original quote. So, guess who gets to paint them? Yup, that'd be me. As it turns out I hate HATE painting shelves. Especially these ones. We have built in shelves in the bedrooms that were a piece of cake to paint but these shelves are going to be the end of me. We had contemplated putting the same built-in shelves in all of the closets, I am so glad we decided against that.

Over the weekend I did all the prep work to paint the master closet shelves. I patched and sanded all the nail holes and taped the edges where the shelves meet the walls. I contemplated not taping at all but there are a lot of awkward corners and edges to paint around so I decided to play it safe.

These don't look like they would be that hard to paint and they aren't too bad until you get the shelves in the middle. The shelves look really thick but it's just a false front that helps hide the cleats that are supporting the shelves. It's a great idea until you have to paint under them. I really wish these would have been built differently but it's a bit late now. I foresee a few frustrating weekends ahead of me. I am sure once they are all painted and pretty I'll like them again but it's not going to be fun process.

I started priming and only got about halfway through The Husband's side before I gave up. Hopefully my next attempt goes a bit better.

His Side.

Her Side.

Anyone want to come help me paint?

Clifford, the Big Red Truck

Last Wednesday we had a special delivery:

A Big Red Truck, which I promptly named Clifford. What is this big red truck for, you ask? Well let me tell you. It's to drill for our geothermal heating system. How fun does that sound ?! Yeah, not really. 

For anyone who doesn't know what geothermal is I'll give you a brief summary of what I know about it (which isn't much to be totally honest with you). Basically you are using the temperature of the earth to heat and cool your house. In the summer if you go out and dig in the garden the soil that is a few inches deep is cool to the touch, which means that it is colder than the air around you. In the winter if you were to dig deeper than the frost line the earth is warmer than the air around you. When using geothermal you are using this to your advantage. To access the earth's natural heating and cooling system you drill deep into the ground (usually a couple hundred feet). Into the drilled holes you run a pipe that connects to heat pumps inside your house. You then continuously run water through those pipes. The heat pumps then, through energy transfer, convert the temperature of the water in the pipes into energy that is used to heat and cool your house. Pretty cool, hey? 

There are a few reasons why we wanted to go this route:

1) It's energy efficient and good for the environment.

2) No gas bill. Ever. Out here in the boonies we didn't have the utilities run to our lot so using geothermal eliminated the need to have a gas line run at all. 

3) To prove that it works. I am not sure if there is general skepticism around geothermal or if it's more the small town mentality where we live or the fact that we live quite a ways north but the majority of people we talk to seem to think that geothermal isn't going to work. I think we've even been laughed at a few times. 

We've been trying to get the drilling and trenching done for this since last fall but the weather (and the installer's schedule) has been working against us. We finally finished the drilling on Monday though:

Yes, it looks like a swamp pit right now. There are 12 holes, 5 inches in diameter, and 150 feet deep. It's so wet because you have to keep flushing out the drilled holes with water so that dirt doesn't get in the way when you are putting the pipe down. 

Toward the end of next week the installer is coming back to tie all the lines together and finish the install in the house. That means that I'll be able to have hot water. I can shower and do laundry in my own house!!  Oh, and it also means we won't freeze this winter. That's probably important too. 

Basement Flooring

Our initial plan for the flooring in the basement was to stain and seal the concrete. That didn't work out as planned (see here) so we had to come up with Plan B. We are only finishing part of the basement for now, a bathroom, the gym, and a small hallway. In the gym I am going to do a foam floor so we just needed to figure out what to do in the bathroom and the hallway. Our first thought was to paint it until we finished the rest of the basement but we couldn't decide on a color. The walls down there are grey so we didn't want to paint the floor grey too (prison cell, anyone?) and any other color seemed weird to us. Our next idea was to use linoleum. We went to the local flooring shop and picked out a few samples. We found one that we both liked (shocking, I know) and the price was right, so we went for it.

I don't have any progress pictures because a) I was always busy holding up one end of the flooring and b) installing linoleum is frustrating. Really. It's up there with the wallpaper.

It turned out really good though. The flooring we picked tied in the white from the trim, the grey from the walls, and the brown from the laminate. It's such a good match (color wise) to the laminate that they blend right in to each other. It's like home decor camouflage.

Anyways enough chit chat. Let's get to the pictures already.

It's a small space, so it wasn't a huge job but it's one more thing crossed off our list! 

What?! Wainscoting?! No.

That was my reaction when The Husband first wanted to do some wainscoting trim in our Family Room. He wanted to do this way before we even started working on the house. I was flat out against it. No way. No How. I just couldn't see it working in our house. It didn't seem like 'us' at all.

We ended up putting the wainscoting trim in the Family Room because it covered up our oops with the floor in there. There was a bit of a height difference between the old floor that we cut out and the new floor so we wanted the extra thickness that the trim would provide to cover it up.

I think the Family Room ended up turning out pretty good:

It still bothers me that the bottom isn't painted. I am tempted to go out and tell the painters to paint it just so I don't have to look at it all ugly like that anymore. I am trying to be patient though. Once it's painted all white and pretty on the bottom I think it's going to look amazing.

Then when the drywallers came we hit a second dilemma (just in case you're new around here we've had more than 2 dilemmas, only two have involved wainscoting though). In the stairway there is a tall wall, I don't know many stairways that don't have tall walls, but our drywallers seemed to think that ours would cause a issue down the road. They think that because there is nothing breaking up the wall (like a landing) that the drywall will eventually crack. They suggested putting something over the horizontal drywall seam on that wall. I have never noticed cracking in other stairways and I don't know what makes our stairway different from any others but whatever we went with it and listened to them.

We decided to mimic the wainscoting that we used in the Family Room, in the stairway. We felt that this worked because the wall of the stairway and the east wall of the family room are the same wall, they are just broken up by the stairs. So if you stand at the top of the stairs going down to the Family Room/bottom of the stairs going up you can see the wainscoting in both areas. I have no idea if that makes any sense but I don't think I can get a good picture of it.

I am a bad blogger and I didn't take a proper 'before' shot. Here you can see that half of the wall is white and half is grey. The halfway mark is the part that the drywallers were worried about.

We (by we, I mean The Husband) used a piece of baseboard to cover up the drywall seam. We then used some leftovers from the window trim to make the verticals. We spaced the verticals about 2' apart because that's what we felt looked the best. We're really technical around here. 

This wasn't a huge job, I think it only took The Husband about an hour and a half or so to do the whole job but it has a huge impact. It really changed the look of our stairway. After The Husband was all done I think we stood and stared at the stairs for a good 15 minutes saying 'this doesn't look like our house'. And it doesn't, but in a good way. 

Random Frustrations

I haven't posted in awhile because there really hasn't been much to write about. The Husband has been busy finishing up all the little things that the finishers left for us to do and fixing the things they screwed up.  We did get a couple of bigger things checked of our list. I'll be back later to update you on those!

In the meantime, I am going through another cycle of being overwhelmed and frustrated. I think the closer you get to being done the more frustrating it gets. The house looks like it's almost done. If I wasn't so involved and just walked in I'd think we'd be only a couple of weeks away from moving in. In actuality we are probably still at the 4-6 week mark. Ugh. For my own sanity I am going to list what we still need to do in order for us to move in. Keep in mind, we are moving in once the inside of the house is complete. The exterior finishing will most likely be completed while we are living in the house.

1. The painters need to finish the finish coat. They are working away at this right now. Painting is really slow. They have been here for about 8 days and they haven't even starting painting the second coat yet. They are busy sanding, patching holes, and caulking around the baseboard and trim. There are so many little dents and dings patched that our house looks like its got a bad case of the chicken pox.

Hopefully they only have one more week of work. Once they are done I need to paint the custom shelves that the finishers built for us. Hiring a painter to paint them would have been really expensive so I am just going to tackle that one myself. Plus I have a few other painting projects that I need to do so I might as well add more to my list!

2. The electrician is starting on the electrical final next friday. He's going to install all of the plugs and switches as well as all of our recessed lights. We are still waiting for the rest of our lights to come in. We are contemplating going to pick up the ones that are in so that we'll at least have some light in the house. It's a 5 hour drive though and I am just not sure if that'll fit in the schedule or not.

3. We need to install the stair railing. We have it and it's all stained and ready to be put in. We just have to actually do it.

4. The tile in the tub surround and the shower. Hopefully we can get started on this on the weekend. I just want to be done with the tile. It's like a dark cloud that never leaves.

5. Countertops. This one is my main stressor. Our cabinets were installed on June 21. At that point we were told that the countertops would take 3 weeks. We still don't have them. We hounded our cabinet guy for an answer. We were told that the countertop supplier doesn't have slabs for the countertops we chose so they are waiting for some more to be shipped to them so that they can cut them and ship them to us. We haven't been given a timeline on this at all. It's just when we get them we get them. How awesome is that? It's not. At all.

6. After the countertops are in we need to do the backsplash in the kitchen, laundry room, and all three bathrooms.

7. Once the countertops are installed the plumber can finish his work. He needs to install the taps, faucets, toilets, sink, etc.

8. Because we live in the sticks we need our own septic system. This has been in the works since last fall and it's still not done. We've been told that the inspection for this is scheduled on Tuesday so hopefully it'll be done this weekend. This trade has outright lied to us before though, so I am not holding my breath.

9. The heating system still needs to be installed. We are using a geothermal system instead of a traditional furnace so the install is weather dependant. We have had a really wet summer and it just hasn't happened yet. We have him scheduled to come next weekend and again at the end of the month. We've basically told him that it has to happen then or else we could be looking at not being able to live in the house this winter. How much would that suck?

10. All the little things that you don't think of. Like register plates, covers for the cold air returns, cabinet hardware, door hardware, install the shower door, and who knows what else I am forgetting. These are all small jobs but in our experience the small jobs are what get you. They sneak up on you and throw your schedule out the window. They might only take an hour here or an hour there but those hours add up.

So that's our to do list. I am a huge list person. I love making lists. They make me feel so organized and like there is a purpose to the way I am doing things or why I am doing things.  Usually lists calm me down. It helps so much to see that I have this, this, and this to do.

Not this list. This list sucks. I hate this list. Give me a minute while I stomp my feet in true tantrum fashion.

This list is full of stress, frustration, anger, and probably a few tears. I really just want all of the things to be done but it is all out of my control. There is nothing I can do except sit back and wait. I just want the keys to my house already.