progress report: week 18
The good news is…we are done with electrical. DONE. Finally! The not so celebratory news is…well, we still have a lot of other work to do. Drywall is tentatively starting in the next week or so, which gives us limited time to get our electrical and framing inspections, insulate, install the drywall reglets and bead board at the vault and move a bunch of stuff out of the house.
1. On Monday, we celebrated Kyle’s 32nd birthday. Exhausted from the weekend before, we kept things pretty low-key.
I picked up cupcakes earlier that day and brought them to dinner with friends that night.
My caption for this one is, “Happy Birthday. Now get back to work!”.
Since both of our birthdays and our anniversary are in August/September (and since we’re directing most of our extra pennies towards the remodel) we decided to get each other things for the house. I saw this print on Jenn Ski’s site a while back and thought it was perfect for chezerbey. I love the colors, the graphics and maybe…someday soon, we’ll have the real Eames deal. I think the print would also look mighty fine on a steel ledge.
2. Sometime during the last month or two, we decided that we needed a new shower curtain rod. Our old one was the IKEA adjustable model, paired with simple stainless steel o-rings, which often had a tendency to catch on the rod. So after an extensive online search we found a Moen commercial rod that was a single length and had hidden fasteners and satin finish end caps. I also found ball-bearing rings in a satin finish (do you know how hard it is to find shower rings that aren’t chrome??). When the rod was finally delivered, we opened the box to find two satin finish end caps/brackets and one chrome finish rod. What? Annoyed that they made a mistake and I would have to return an odd-shaped item that came in a box about 10x too wide, I got back online and tracked down the specifications so I could figure out the right part number. And then I saw, “satin finish end caps with chrome rod”. Umm. Hmm. Whatever. It’s not that big of a deal.
3. Before the walls get insulated and covered up, we decided to install a couple runs of conduit from the basement up to the attic, just in case we need to run more wire in the future. You never know.
4. On Saturday, I went to IKEA and picked up 4 kitchen wall cabinets to use as part of our stair guard rail/storage cabinet (we chose the wall cabinets since they’re shallower). The boxes will sit on top of a 2×4 plinth (similar to what we did at the island) and will have shelves and doors with open shelving above and a wood wrap along the sides and top. The plan is to install 3/4″ plywood and then drywall the backside of this unit (since it will be an extension of the stair wall) so finishing the basic build out for this is on our pre-drywall to-do list.
We’re keeping the original jamb trim at the front door, but needed to come up with a simple detail to transition from the drywall to the jamb.
We also redid (for the 3rd time) the layout for the media components. The orange flexible non-metallic tubing will house the speaker wire and runs to the two speaker locations.
5. One of the things on our electrical odds and ends list was to install an outdoor light at the basement door. It’s the same light that we have at the front door and mud room. Simple and inexpensive.
Kyle also installed an outdoor outlet (which we had zero of) at the back of the house.
Since we’ll eventually have some type of deck out here with outdoor speakers, he also installed a speaker volume control. Our backyard doesn’t exactly exude ambience right now, but it will. Oh it will.
6. Since we don’t have a kitchen, I didn’t plant much in our veggie garden this summer. We do have 3 tomato plants that are just starting to turn. Ripen, little guys, ripen!
Dude, I know how you feel. (This is Bailey’s “baby”. He’s had a hard week too.)
And that’s what’s up at our house. We cannot wait for drywall to start! Not only will it give us a bit of a break (or at least allow us to scale back from our current frenzied state), but it’s going to radically change the feel of the space and put us that much closer to being done with this thing. Actually, what I’m really looking forward to is being able to mull over a different set of details – like artwork, area rugs, and which side of the couch the throw blanket looks better on.
the other houses
It’s been four years now since we first laid eyes on our little fixer. We’ve mentioned it here a few times, but chezerbey was the 6th house we were serious about (after 6 months of house hunting). So we thought we’d take a little stroll down memory lane and reminisce about the houses that could have been.
[Sorry for the crappy photos, they’re mostly low-res scans from the listings we kept. I know, we kept the listings. I have a thing for nostalgia.]
1. This was our first. A cute little flat roof from the ’20s. It must have been so avant-garde! Actually, this photo is from the listing after someone flipped it. When we first looked at the house, it was brown (mud brown) and in need of a lot of TLC. But we had big dreams of popping a second story on top, which would have given us views of the Olympic mountain range. Oh well. It would have been a lot of work. And thanks to our savvy sleuthing skills, we also knew that there were plans to build a large mixed-use building behind.
2. When we looked at our first house, it was unlisted. For our second house, it was our first real taste of the Seattle housing market. This modest little guy had multiple, multiple offers and went for way above it’s asking price. (We tracked list vs. sale price for every potential house we looked at. Yeah, I know.) Looking back, it certainly had potential and was in a funky neighborhood, but there wasn’t really a wow factor. And everything moved so quickly that we never had a chance to become attached to it.
3. Oh man. The little turquoise house. We really, really wanted this house. It was so tiny! It had to be under 600 SF (there was also an itsy bitsy basement). But what got us really excited was that the house was set way back on the lot, which had us scheming about living in the tiny house while building a new modern house in the front. But it wasn’t meant to be. This was the first time I cried over losing a house. Looking back, even though it was in an up-and-coming neighborhood, it wasn’t anywhere near where we worked or where our friends lived. And realistically, we probably would have had to live in the tiny house for a long time before building something new.
4. This house had a lot of great things going for it. It didn’t need a lot of work and it overlooked a neighborhood playfield. This probably would have been the one had there not been some real estate craziness in the 11th hour. Oh well, about a month or so after the offer the playfield grass was converted to astroturf. We took solace in that.
5. This was probably the cutest house we looked at. It was in a great neighborhood and close to lots of things but it just didn’t work out for us. (There was also no garage which, looking back, would have been challenging for us.) But at this point, we were pretty numb to rejection. We even considered taking a break. But we knew we couldn’t do that either.
6A. I call this one 6A because it came on the market the same day as chezerbey. Actually, it had a lot of similarities to our actual house but ultimately we decided to pursue ours because we liked the street a bit better. As you can see though, we had our own plans for this guy. I think this is why house hunting was so taxing for us. Not only did we look at a ton of houses, but with each one we were even marginally interested in, we felt compelled to research the zoning, investigate the neighborhood and in some cases, do a little conceptual redesigning.
6B. Aww, and this is the one that was meant to be. I love that it looks like it’s leaning (it’s just the photo, trust us!). Truthfully, it wasn’t love at first sight, but we thought it had lots of potential, the price was right and it was in our favorite neighborhood. Sadly, our main competition on this house were people who wanted to tear it down(!) But karma prevailed and here we are, 4 years later, still working away on the “sweet 1910 craftsman ready for a face-lift”.
progress report: week 17
This week got off to a slow construction start, but we made some good progress over the weekend. The electrical is oh so close to being done. We also put together a list of “to do before inspections” and “to do before drywall”. The list is still a bit daunting but at least we know what needs to happen.
1. After the craziness of the last few weeks, we took a couple of nights to get reorganized.
Sadly, the garage did not get the same attention.
2. Kyle finished the wiring for all six(!) smoke/CO detectors.
To avoid a deep electrical box, we used 1/2″ pancake boxes for areas where we had existing ceilings. For the bedroom, it worked like a charm and the drywall was very cooperative.
For the old plaster in the 2nd bedroom, it was a different story. Fortunately, we’ll be covering this ceiling with 1/2″ drywall (this is the only plaster we couldn’t demo since there’s a large pile of attic insulation on top).
3. We also finished the wiring in the loft! Since we think this will make a great sleeping nook for overnight guests, we gave a lot of thought to the sequence of lighting to ensure that the no one would have to go up or down the ladder in the dark. So we installed two switches at the top of the ladder – one that is wired to a switchable outlet on the opposite side of the room and one for a light above the ladder. We also ran cat 5 and co-ax cable to the middle of the gable wall, with the idea that the space might make a sweet little office too.
4. For the living room lighting, we’re doing two runs of low voltage cable lighting. The install for this was not exactly fun and involved running non-metallic conduit from the basement up through the living room walls and out between the exposed joists. Kyle then fabricated a custom blocking assembly to accept the special 2″ j-boxes.
The two remote transformers (one for each run) were then installed in the basement laundry room and a couple runs of armored cable wired them to a nearby junction box. Ugh. These lights better be awesome. Just sayin.
5. We’re still plugging away (pun intended there) on the structured media panel. Kyle finished the cat 5 and co-ax cable portion today, but we still need to install the gigabit switch and wireless router. Yeah. Yeah!
6. We continue to neglect our yard. However, this time we have pretty yellow flower weeds!
7. Depressed from the realization that he would not be going camping again, Bailey slept most of the weekend. Thanks a lot Bails…you’re a real help.
So that’s what’s going on over here. We’re also continuing our investigation of different furniture potentials, designing an affordable but semi custom stairway storage unit and redesigning the layout of the basement.
There’s really no “off” switch, y’know?
progress report: week 16
And on the 16th week…we took a break.
Ok, it makes a lot of sense to tackle exterior projects during the long summer days, but staying inside and pushing wire through your walls? Nonsensical. Especially, when there are ferries to ride and whales to see and general lounging in the sun to be had.
So on Saturday we hopped on a ferry up to the San Juan islands north of Seattle. We camped on tiny Shaw Island, where we enjoyed beach lounging, spear fabricating, and fine tuning our s’more techniques.
This is what golden retrievers need after months of living in a construction zone.
The ferry ride itself was stunning.
Ahh…a chance to put our feet up! Our campground at Shaw Island had a sweet little sandy beach with only a handful of people to share it with.
Bailey enjoyed ample running, swimming and the consumption of crab shells and kelp (which he later threw up in the tent).
After a hearty breakfast on Sunday, we headed over to San Juan Island, where we saw a whole pod of Orca whales, picnicked at Lime Kiln Point park, and strolled around Friday Harbor before snagging the last spots in the ferry line and heading home.
We needed that – a chance to forget about inspections, electrical boxes and the day-to-day weight on our shoulders that a remodel can inflict. But, the wheels never really stop turning and in a way, getting away from it all allows you to reassess and see the big picture more clearly.
I guess that’s the whole point of a vacation. But we’re ready to jump back in, take each day as it comes, and hopefully have a real progress report next week.
progress report: week 15
Week 15…Week 15?!?
Well, it certainly feels like it.
We’ve had a few set-backs in the last week and are still (almost) knee-deep in electrical work. The power part has been pretty straight forward, but the low-voltage, cat 5, cable, etc. is a different story. And even though we put together an electrical plan, we’ve found that this is very much a design-build process for us. The advantage to having free reign over our open walls is that we can do whatever we want. The disadvantage is that we can do whatever we want. For instance, in order to determine the location for the speaker outlets in the living room, we had to revisit and finalize the layout for that space. This meant that we had to commit to a furniture layout which meant we had to decide on a couch. So what could have been a 2 minute decision turned into an evening (or two) of messing with the SketchUp model, looking at various couch options and dimensions and analyzing the audio and visual impact of different speaker sizes and locations.
We’re tired. It’s week 16 now.
I also haven’t taken any photos because there just isn’t a lot of physical evidence of our progress.
But we’re determined to stay strong and see this thing through! And we’ve also come to terms that “finished” will be a very loose term when it comes to our September 18th deadline.
A few other items to note from the last week:
1. We were in the South Lake Union ‘hood on Sunday so we stopped by Velocity Art and Design. They had an Eames rocker on display (something I’ve been coveting for a long time) and it was one of the newer, muted colors. So I sat down, gave it a rock, and decided…I didn’t really like it. I’m sure the shell is the same size and shape as the old fiberglass models but it just didn’t feel the same. And the plastic just looked…different. So I’m still holding on to the fantasy that I’ll find an old one on the side of the road one day, with a free sign on it. The good news about this unfortunate discovery is that we’re now thinking more seriously about doing Eames side chairs for our dining room table (we were a little hesitant before, not wanting to go over our Eames quota y’know).
Even though we had found a nice sectional from BoConcept, we both were eyeing the Modernica Case Study daybed that was on display. In our old layout, a daybed in the living room would have been the perfect thing, but now that we’ll have lots of sleeping area options it isn’t real likely that someone would need to sleep in the living room. But it still looks cool and is actually pretty comfortable. Decisions.
2. We’re starting to get numbers for drywall…which is making us realize just how much we have to do before that can happen. Not only do we need to finish the electrical and insulation and vaulted bead board ceiling, but we also have to do all of the door and window trim and install the reglets where the bead board meets the drywall.
3. We figured out the audio system! We found a simple solution that will meet our needs – a pair of tower speakers for the living area and a 2-channel all-in-one player that gets the job done. We’ll also run speaker wire for a pair of future outdoor speakers. Phew.
4. We extended our electrical permit. It was inevitable.
And so we continue. Eye on the prize, eye on the prize. And by the way, thanks for all of the encouraging comments. It truly keeps us motivated.
