A Big Arrival

UPS, UPS, my favorite!!!  (sorry FedEx)  Today we got our NEW clawfoot tub.  Since we ended up not being able to use the old one that I had been saving for YEARS AND YEARS...I had to order a new one.  Why didn't we just completely build a new house?? This working with the old is for the birds!  NOTHING ever works out the way we want or hope for it to!

They delivered it to our current house, pretty sure they wouldn't even be able to make it back to the new house!

Look at me...I was really thinking!  Had them back right up to my truck and we just pushed it out of the semi and right in to my truck bed!  Yeah baby!

Now...how are we going to get it OUT of the truck and in to the new house??

Before I forget...here are a couple pictures of the sky from last night...it was VERY ominous!

It did pour like crazy for awhile!  That's enough of that!

We sure don't need more flooding.

Backsplash City!

It's like non-stop backsplash around here lately!  Kitchen, clutter room and laundry!  But we're just about done with all three!  YEAH!  Today I figured out which tile/pattern that we're going to use behind the laundry sink.  Of course....it ended up being something that would just take more time :)

Home Depot had this tile for I think $10 for 1 sq. ft...you can run it horizontally or diagonally.  Of course, diagonally looked the best to us (duh, it's going to be more difficult!)  White marble with little 3/4" black marble tiles.  Well...there was something just a little off about it (as much as we loved it)

Ah....that looks better.  I found some 3/4" tumbled brown marble at Lowes for about the same price...so does that mean now I have to cut out all of those black 3/4" tiles??

That's enough of that for today!

Lets get the kitchen backsplash done!

Going up!  Didn't take too terribly long - a pretty easy install I would say.

I love it!  Can't wait to grout.

It looks so much more "finished" with a backsplash!

We still need to do behind the stove area.  I'll try and do that tomorrow. 

I can't wait to get all the tools and stuff put away.  Then it will actually start looking like a house and not a construction zone!

Another Backsplash

Today I figured out the backslash pattern for the clutter room and got to work!  Who knew that I'd like marble so much??  Still not exactly sure what I'm doing behind the laundry sink....I'm going to have to think about that one a little more :)

Pattern all laid out and ready to go!

And away I go!  We used a white mastic to put this up...natural stone isn't quite as easy to work with as porcelain or ceramic tile!

What do you think?  I almost feel like I need some corbels or something at each end of the upper cabinets, lol.  That will have to wait though!  I LOVE IT!

I can't believe how well this room has pulled together!

Perfect!

On a side note...the Poppy's were blooming at my parents house today.

Isn't that gorgeous??  I'm so glad I have an iPhone and that it has such a great camera!

The peonies are blooming at our new house.  They look so great!

This weather has just been amazing lately!

Exciting!

Tonight we finally got to go pick up our washer and dryer and new fridge that I bought in NOVEMBER & DECEMBER of 2012!!!  Not kidding!  Can't believe Sears let us keep them at the store for so long (Thanks, Sears!)  So Mark & Jeff came and picked Kade and I up after they got done at work and we headed to town.

I wonder if we could have used a longer trailer, lol.

Doesn't matter though...it got everything home safely!

The big move in....

notice Mark back there sizing up the situation.

Uh...guys...is that going to fit in there?

Wish you could have seen the look on his face when they went to set it up and it just BARELY squeezed in to place :)

A 36" opening for a 35.75" fridge!

Who plans these things (oh yeah...that would be MWAH!)

See...fits like a glove!

I know exactly what I'm doing (insert grin here)

Then they had to put the doors on....

maybe I should have measured this a little more when I was planning the island location :)

It'll be fine though.  You can bet all three of the guys were giving me a hard time about how much room that there ISN'T around that fridge.  I'll just ignore them until it becomes a problem for ME!  Then we can look at a counter depth fridge if we absolutely must!

(personally I think we'll be fine!)

Kitchen Backsplash Time

FINALLY it's time to install the kitchen backsplash.  We decided to go with a small subway tile.  A simple style that is classic & classy.  These little tiles are 2x4ish in side.  They came on a sheet that worked out to be about a square foot for an easier & quicker install, the tiles are connected with little glue dots to hold their spacing.  We purchased these at Home Depot for a really good price, however, I wasn't happy with the spacing on each sheet of tiles (imagine that, lol)  The spacing just wasn't cohesive and that only creates a problem for my OCD :)  Soooo..what's a girl to do??  CUT THEM ALL APART!!!  First I wanted to check how the spacing would be and how many tiles I could get in a single row, what I'd need to cut to make it even on both ends, etc.  Well...

Can you believe that they worked out pretty much PERFECTLY with my 3/16" spacers?

We're talking NO CUTS in the first row....so we'll just need half tiles to start and finish every other row.  HOW CAN THAT WORK OUT SO WELL???

See...wasn't kidding...I really did cut apart 30 sheets of tiles, lol.

We paid less than $3 a sheet (including tax) so I guess the extra manual labor makes them work out to be about $5 a sheet, lol.  Which honestly is still not bad!

I also laid out my options for the laundry/clutter room backsplash.

I'm thinking the marble is going to win out on this one....

but that travertine & brown granite is going to have to go somewhere in the basement...because I ABSOLUTELY LOVE it!

We did a little adjusting on the pocket doors and started trimming them out today too.

I'm starting to see why we don't get anything done...what's that, 3 projects so far for today?

It is kinda nice to have doors that slide into the walls though :)

Wonder how well these bad boys will block out the sound of the washer & dryer?

and I wonder how long it will be before we actually HAVE a washer & dryer installed, lol.

A little more...but finally another decision made!

The window casing saga continues  :)  This really shouldn't be so difficult!  We tried some samples in the master bedroom today.  Thought maybe a different view might make a difference, lol.

Here it is with the square window apron.

Here it is with a different piece of baseboard, flipped upside down with returns on each end.

And again in the dining room with the square....

I think I'm not loving the square as much as I thought I would!

That's it....decision made....

We're going with the one that takes EXTRA WORK!!

The baseboard flipped and mitered with returns on each end.

Oh good grief!  Why do I make so much extra work for us?

Window Casing & More!

Why is it so difficult to come up with window & door casing??  I have searched and searched and searched some more looking for ideas for what we should do.  Today we put together a couple different options with window aprons...and I'm still not sold on any of them, ugh!  I have on more idea...hopefully we can try it out tomorrow.

This was our first option...just a basic baseboard flipped upside down with a piece of cove moulding pushed up against the bottom of the window sill.

Option number two...just another piece of the same thing we're using on the sides of the windows. (an MDF 1x3)

Option number three...the same as the first...only trimmed down about a quarter of an inch. (yes, I realize that isn't very much, lol, but sometimes just a little is all you need to take off!)

Option number four is no apron at all.  Just a piece of cove moulding under the sill.

At the moment I think this one is our favorite! (Didn't see that coming!!)

Then we went out in the sunroom to test some window apron options out there.

This is the plain mdf 1x4.  These windows don't actually have window sills...so it's going to look a little different out here.  We decided to go with something similar to the headers for the sill/apron area.  We're actually using the scraps from the boards we used on the window sills (they were about 1" x .25" x 8', so each board/window sill we made will do one window)

This is that upside down baseboard again.  We're going to give it a try tomorrow with a return and see how it looks that way.  I think it's everything being so "square" that's bothering me on each one of these trial window aprons that we made!

Oh...did I say that the weather is FINALLY nice here today?  So nice actually.  So we finally got to get the table saw and miter box out and get some stuff done!

First thing Kade did was cut the last board for the back of the mudroom.

Now it's my turn to figure out what we're hanging our coat hooks on and then I need to get it done!

See that blue piece of tape in there?  That's marking our only stud that actually runs where I'll be able to hit it...there's one at the very edge on the left too...but I probably won't be able to get a screw into that unless I use one that's really long!  Anyway....this room is SO close to being done now!

Kade got the fillers & side trim done in the dining room.  I'm so glad he's doing that because I sure don't have the patience to cut all those filler strips!!  Darn old walls!!

It's also done in the kitchen!  Now we can do the backsplash this week!  YEAH!  Then I think all we need are the window headers and appliances and the kitchen will also be done!

(oh wait...gotta install the faucet still too!)

Looks pretty darn good (besides the mess on the counter & island, lol)

More headers are up.  LOVE THEM!!!

And the filler strips are cut and installed in the front bedroom.  That means the sides can be cut tomorrow and then hopefully we can get some more headers built this week too!  YEAH!

It REALLY is coming together...slowly but surely!

Hopefully tomorrow will be another beautiful day and we can get lots of cutting done!

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It's All In The Details

Jeremy was back today and worked on finishing the crown moulding (since we were short) and he installed one of the pocket doors.  First of all let me say...solid core pocket doors = HEAVY, lol.  Oh my gosh, I didn't even think about how heavy they would be!  Good thing they'll be open most of the time!

It almost looks funny now to close off the clutter room from the mudroom!  He worked on cutting the trim but didn't get it done before he had to go...so Kade and I will probably finish that this weekend.

When Kade got home he installed some of the door headers that I finished painting this morning.

I think they look great!  I can't believe how long it takes to do all of the detail work!

However, I think we'll be SOOO glad we did it when we're done! (and we're getting closer)

The weather is finally starting to look a little nicer, so we might get some really good days to work outside and finish cutting baseboard, start (and finish) trimming windows and building all the rest of the headers.  We've still got to build them for all of the windows too!

Here's a glimpse of what it's looking like with trim!

I can't wait to get the backsplash done and the windows & pocket door trimmed out...will this room be DONE then??  I think it will be with the exception of touching up the trim (oh, and installing all of the appliances!!!  I can't wait!

Look at all of those door headers that were installed tonight!

I LOVE IT!

Here's the little coat closet inside the front door.  It's so small and cute!

Jeremy got the crown moulding installed on the wood wall today too.

Now I just need to figure out how to trim out the edges of that wall - I think I've got an idea...just need to implement it!

Meanwhile back at the ranch....ok, not the ranch, but at our current house, lol...I realized that we had some baby groundhogs arrive this spring...and today I snapped some pretty cute pics of them.

Why does it seem like there's always an outcast in EVERY family?

 

I swear they were posing for these pics.  They're letting me get pretty close...however when I get TOO close they run back in their den and the Mom comes out!  YIKES!  I don't want to mess with her!  It's too bad that groudhogs are SOOO destructive!

I'm sooooo ready for the weekend!  The Harmans are playing so we'll get a little bit of a break!  Then it should be a weekend of beautiful weather!  Hopefully we'll stay motivated and really get some more stuff done!  I probably need to start thinking about the stair railing and finishing the actual stair treads before it gets super hot outside!  (and it will be 100 degrees before we know it!)  I'm so glad the basement isn't going to be as much detail work as the main floor!! (and the detail that we do have we shouldn't have to make a decision on since we've already done it all upstairs!!)