Starting the Hardwood and Friendsgiving

This weekend was quite a busy weekend for us. We were hosting the first Friendsgiving's at our house and started laying the hardwood. Dan laid down the underlayment the night before, and Steve and Karen came over Saturday morning to help us get started. While the turkey was finishing in the brine (sledge hammer was used to make sure it stayed submerged...that's why we bought it right?), Steve and Dan worked on rebuilding the step to make sure the stair nose would be flush with the floor so we would have a good place to start. 

 Once the stair nose was installed, the guys got to work on laying the hardwood. Here was the first nail that was laid in the floor. 

 In the first row, Steve helped us cut the boards lengthwise so we were able to square everything with the plywood sub floor, which was factory cut and made a straight line through the room that we were able to use as a guide for our measurements. 

Working with the step and cutting that first row took most of the afternoon, so we called it a day. Steve did a great job teaching Dan the tricks of the trade. We would pick things up Sunday morning. Now onto Friendsgiving! 

The theme of Friendsgiving was classy reno. We had fabulous food off of fancy paper plates with plastic utensils and drank fall sangria out of solo cups. 

After having our fill of food, we cleared out some space in the family room and rocked out with some Just Dance. Hopefully this is the start of many many more! 

Sunday morning, Steve and Karen came over to get back to work on the hardwood. Laying the next couple of rows was slower than we anticipated due to the sub floor not being perfectly level. The wood is so dense that we have a tough time gauging the pressure needed to set the staples flush with the tongue of the boards without splitting them. We try to err on the side of caution and finish the staples by hand before laying the next row. 

We were able to lay seven rows by dinner time on Sunday and two more this evening. Needless to say this is going to take some time. We cannot thank Steve and Karen enough for taking the time to help us out with this. We would not have known where to start, let alone have the confidence that we could even tackle a project like this. It is going to be hard to repay them for all their help, but hopefully the new stove for the cabin is a start :)

At then end of the day Sunday, here is our floor! It already changes the look and feel of the house when you first walk in. We cannot wait to see how its going to look when its all done...but we have some work cut our for us until then! 

 Happy Thanksgiving! D&L 

Demo is Done!!

After last weekend, we still had a small portion of the wall up, and at the time we hadn't decided whether we were going to remove it, or do a cut out of the wall. We decided that if we were going to do a cut out, we might as well take the whole thing down. Doing that and removing the rest of the back splash was on deck for this weekend. 

Dan tackled the wall, while I got to work on removing the back splash. It turns out that tile is a lot more challenging to remove when there is drywall behind it versus a plywood sub-floor! Once that wall was down, it was amazing how much of a difference it made. The space seemed much more open and flowed so much better than before.

We then were able to set up the kitchen in the configuration we envisioned when we started this whole project to see how it would look. The stove and cabinets fit snugly between the windows, and there will just be some minor adjustments we will have to make. We also positioned the kitchen table where we want it to go, as well as use the beer pong table to act as the cabinets/shelf we are thinking about for that back wall. We taped off an area on the floor where we were thinking an island would go just to give us an idea of spacing. 

We went shopping today to look at some gas stoves and a new microwave, as well as some options for our island. We didn't pull the trigger on anything yet, but got some great ideas. Since the demo work is all done, we probably won't do a whole lot for the next couple weekends. After Thanksgiving, we are going to start to lay the hardwood, so that is when the real fun will start! 

For now, I will leave you with a photo of the last of our dahlias from our flower bed. These quickly became our new favorite flower and we were shocked with how well they did out front. We can't wait to plant more next year! 

D&L

Once there was a wall

Sorry this is a little late, but last weekend we got to work on the cabinets and the wall that we are going to remove. My parents came down to help us out, and we put them to work! First, we removed the granite counter-tops edge pieces, which ended up coming off all in one piece with very little effort. Then we took out the microwave and  removed the cabinets from the wall. As you can see in the picture, my mom was collecting all the screws and hardware while Dan and my dad removed the cabinets.

One fortunate thing we found when we removed the cabinets was that they were finished on both sides, so we won't have to worry about getting extra pieces of facing when we flip them. That was a pleasant surprise. 

Then, the guys got to work taking the remaining drywall off, as well as tearing up the tile and second sub-floor that was under the stove and cabinets. They also moved the refrigerator and dish washer to remove the tile and second sub-floor from under there as well. 

We then removed some of the 2x4 from where the wall was that didn't have any electrical wiring running through them. The electrician was coming out this week to deal with the wiring in the wall, so we had to wait to remove the rest of the beams. 

While we were doing some of the demo, we found some old lists from the previous owners under the stove and one of the cabinets. Its hard to read what they say, but I think the one says that there are chips in the cabinet and the other one looks to say something about January and pants. 

At the end of the day, this is what we were left with. It was quite the productive weekend and we were very thankful that we had some help with all of it. We rewarded my parents with a fabulous mexican dinner and ended the night with some Just Dance :)

Next on the plate is to remove the back-splash from under the other cabinets and go shopping for a gas stove! We'll be moving some things around this weekend to get a better idea for what we want to do with an island, and installing the hardwood is right around the corner!

D&L