Finally, a Family Room

Just in time for summer to hit early – did you hear Seattle was one of the hottest places in the country on Monday? – we (mostly) finished our family room. I’ll get into why I said “mostly” shortly.

It was a long weekend with a long punch list that entailed no fewer than 42 different types of caulking (okay, about 6), lots of random odds and ends, and many, many trips up and down a 10 foot ladder. I have been wearing a FitBit lately, and I logged almost 15,000 steps on Sunday without really leaving the house, except to move some furniture home.

It’s funny, I have somewhat forgotten everything we went through to do this particular transformation, and at first blush, the original doesn’t look that bad. Let me assure you that the place photographed well, but it was disgusting.

One of the first things we did last summer was rip out the old baseboard heaters throughout the house and put in a furnace/heat pump system. Those things were hideous!

In any case, we turned this:

Into this.

Don’t worry, the view is sill there – I took these photos on a day with a “marine layer.” And, the original photo had some realtor Photoshop magic going on, no question.

I absolutely love the white windows, though it took quite a bit of effort to get them that way from the original stained grey color. The black windows are new casements – the originals were in poor shape so we replaced them with some nice double-paned units. Thankfully, the larger windows were all double paned already, they just needed some TLC to bring them back to life as they were pretty beat up. Nothing a little caulking, spackle, and patience couldn’t fix. Oh, and liquid sandpaper – lots of liquid sandpaper.

The vertical trim above the windows was a last-minute decision to pay homage to the original design of the room. We originally had just framed over, insulated, and drywalled over the existing fiberboard (it used to be very, very drafty), but on Saturday, we decided to add those little trim boards at the last minute – scope creep at its finest. I like them – they are a nice touch.

And, we turned this:

Into this.

You’ll note we are missing a counter surface on the window bench, and the TV needs to be mounted to the wall, which is why I said it was “mostly” finished. We poured concrete for this bench but didn’t like how it came out on the first go-round, so we re-poured it on Saturday. The second attempt is coming along much better – it just needs to cure awhile before I can seal it, and then installation will be a snap.

The room at the top of the steps will eventually be the kitchen. Eventually.

Here are a few other angles. In the end, I love the black faux beams. Prepping and painting them, eh, not so much.

The fireplace gave us fits like no other project ever has. While it is solid granite, it is totally random and required an amazing amount of patience and dedication to trim, tile, and paint up against. When Dan cut the trim boards for the sides of it, it looked like he’d cut a mountain topo map, not a trim board – and it took him about a half day for each board. Then, I came along and filled in the gaps with caulking, which was an exercise in futility, but it all came together in the end.

Not exciting, but look at this nonsense!

And finally, a cohesive ceiling. While this looks super cool, we spent a good chunk of our lives nailing bamboo flooring to the ceiling – not really per the  manufacturer’s instructions, ha! As you can see, the painter has work to do in the back of the house where the kitchen is. If you can believe it, we initially thought we were going to paint all the windows black. That would have been a huge mistake!

In the end, this place is finally starting to feel like home. Having our couch back has been the best thing to happen in a long, long time. We are all cozy.

Now, we just need to rest and recuperate for a while. We have spent the last two days doing absolutely nothing, and, today, did this:

After we have our strength and motivation back, we have some work to do to finish the foyer (door and windows to replace), and then, it’s kitchen time.

Signed,

Sleepy in Seattle

It Won’t Be Long Now

For the past six weeks or so, we’ve been doing a full court press to get our family room, foyer, powder room, and coat closet done. These make up about 25% of the house, so once we get them done, we will feel much more comfortable!

You never know exactly, but I am guessing three more weeks until we bring our couch home. Here’s were we are today:

Tile is down, grouted and sealed. Bamboo is on the ceiling, but, we still need to make and paint the faux beams, or as I call them “cover up pieces,” that will go between each column of bamboo.

Need to finish trimming the media center and half walls, as well as trim and paint the windows.

Built ins are built, but need to be trimmed and face frames painted. We have been using pre-finished maple to build the cabinets, which is twice the cost of unfinished plywood, but so worth it for the time savings. The counter for these cases is poured concrete, which is curing in the garage. It needs to be polished and sealed before we install.

I have started priming the windows, but really just as a test to determine if we wanted white or black windows. We decided white, but we are replacing all the small square casement windows because they are single-paned, so, we need to do that before I really paint.

Fireplace is closed in, but need to trim the base and paint, as well as paint on the black beam. Also, we have a little bit of mortar work to repair some areas that are not totally finished. It seems the mason ran out of mortar and never finished filling in areas between some stones.

We have a few lights to install here and there, as well as the toilet and vanity in the powder room. However, it is nice to walk in the front door and see this, instead of open stud walls!

The plywood leaning on the brick wall here is the bathroom vanity waiting to be assembled. I still need to paint the doors and door trim, as well as install door levers.

It’s hard to believe, but the entry used to look like this (taken the day we moved in. The coat closet was some weird armoire, and the powder room was behind it.

Putting in this “before” picture was a major flashback – we have both forgotten how things used to be! I’ll share some more before pictures when we actually have “afters” as well.

Blister-ific!

Whoever said, “hard work never hurt anyone” clearly never experienced the blisters that come with setting floor tile. While my hands are currently a mess, our family room is coming along!

Saturday’s objective was to put down tile backer board, and after six months of having a plywood floor, this was a huge upgrade. We also put in insulation in all the little knee walls that we built out under the windows. This house is slowly getting more and more insulated, and our power bill is reflecting it, which is a good thing.

Today, we had a little more backer board to put down, and after lunch we started tiling. This is great progress for two people that started at 1:00, took a snack break at 3:30 and finished at around 5:30. This about 250 square feet done in half a day!

We have a pretty decent system for laying tile. I spread the thinset and Dan sets the tiles. We put in all the full sized pieces first, and then come back later and mark and cut the others, and place them in last. This lets you really fly because you’re not constantly stopping to cut. We’ll get all the remaining whole tiles in during the work week, with a goal of doing the cut ones on Saturday and grouting next Sunday.

As for the tiles, like our bicycles and cars, we like ours Euro. Ha, not really. We liked the tile regardless, but it was made in Italy. Ciao bella!

The ceiling is almost totally in, but it’s lacking the “cover up” faux beams on the family room side.

In other news, we had some excitement around the house today as two bunnies showed up to taunt Pipa. She spent most of the day doing this:

Those wascally wabbits! The seem to like our construction wash-out area.

While the dog was hunting wabbits, the cat was…guarding a chew bone.

Okay, now that we’re thoroughly exhausted, it’s time to recover a few days before we do it all over again…

Weekend Wrap Up–Lake Sammamish Half Marathon

This weekend was the first running “race” of the season for me, the Lake Sammamish Half Marathon. I use race in quotes because I didn’t really treat it as a race – it was planned to be a long training run, no pushing it, no racing.

I did this event last year with the same objective, and it really is perfect for a supported training run – it’s totally flat, and mostly on a gravel path along the lake. However, this year was so much nicer!

Last year, it was cold and rainy – very dreary. Last year, we went south to north. Last year, the “medals” were cardboard.

This year, it was cold and sunny – just beautiful! This year, we went north to south. This year, the medals were really medals, and hefty to boot!

I won’t get into a race report, because honestly, there is nothing to report. I was deliberately slow, had a predictable race, and enjoyed a morning outside. The longest I’d run before this year before yesterday was…6 miles, and it took 90 minutes to do that because we live on a ginormous hill and those 6 miles had 2000 feet of elevation descent and gain. So, the day was a success as it served its purpose exactly!

Here are a few photos of the day. It was a bit foggy and cold to start, but burned off quickly.

After the race, we resumed weekend as usual and finished putting bamboo on the family room ceiling. A good thing about having an easy-going race is that I wasn’t out of commission the rest of the weekend. We’re taking this workweek off of home improving, but will get back to it next weekend.

Meantime, we took a little working getaway to rest. Pipa approves!

A Few Home Updates

While I’ve been quiet lately, it hasn’t been from lack of progress or updates around the house.

We’ve been busy!

Our new bike kits came a couple weeks ago, and we took them out for a spin on a whim on a rare day that turned out sunny. Yay for custom clothing that fits well! We both have a bevy of bibs, and jerseys, plus a vest, and I have some tri-outfits. You’ll be seeing more of these in the future!

As far as house progress, we have the future kitchen set up as our family room, with the floor and ceiling done. We’ll be back to  make it into a kitchen, but for now we’re starting work on our family room so we can bring our couch home. Of all the things we don’t have (and there are a lot of things), we miss the couch the most!

Here is a preview of what the ceiling looks like. The dangling light is not permanent. clearly. We are refinishing the light that will go there.

And here is a nice side-by-side of what the ceiling started as. The white material is called “rock board,” and it’s heavier than you can imagine. It has some insulation value, so we left it in place and added closed cell foam insulation on top of it prior to applying the bamboo.

This weekend was about kicking off the family room, and we started with framing in the area above the windows to install drywall. It previously had these very thin panels with zero insulation value. Not so anymore. This was a weekend of filling gaps with “Great Stuff” and putting in some decent insulation. Should help tremendously with the power bill, as we had so many areas in this room where you could plainly see daylight above the black beam on either wall.

By the end of today, we were here. I managed to get three coats of drywall mud on today, so this wall is ready for sanding and paint, which will enable Operation Bamboo Ceiling Part 2 to continue.

This will be the TV space, complete with Bugsy’s requisite window bench. She’s the only cat I know with a skyline view and a bench made specifically so she can take advantage of it.

You’ll have to stay tuned to see the reason for this framing, but it’s going to be cool!

Pups had a hard weekend, full of plenty of carrots to chew.

…and naps to take.

More soon!

Rain, Rain Go Away…Or We Will

It’s that time of year in Seattle: Relentless rainy season. Blah.

Since we are finally finished with one room in our remodel, it seemed like a good time to get away and recharge on sunshine, so, we did! The Bay Area is a do-able (long) drive for us and is really one of our favorite places to go. We decided to have a bike/run/ski getaway while still getting our work done. Translation: It’s not a vacation but we’re packing it to the gills with fun stuff while not working.

Saturday, we did a great hike outside of Alamo with 2Chili’s cousins and their dogs. The big hill looming in the distance here is Mt. Diablo, and it was the site of Sunday’s bike ride. Northern California is gorgeous this time of year because the grass is still green!

On Sunday, we set out for an epic adventure named riding our bikes up Mt. Diablo.

Climbing Mt. Diablo should not be taken lightly. It is about a 10 mile uphill slog that climbs 3800 feet with an average grade of around 6%, but sections that are steeper.

We broke it into chunks which were really meeting points every 3 miles so that we could each go our own pace. This really was so I didn’t hold up The Climber. I am fast on the flats, have a descent sprint, and am a good descender, but a climber I am not. It is important to know your limits when undertaking such a big climb or the day can go very, very wrong! See, all smiles (and all alone, 2Chili is very far up the road by this point).

I was content to go my pace, he was content to go his, and, he usually got a nice rest at each of the stopping points before I tardily arrived. It was a gorgeous day and this is a very popular bike route, so it was fun to be in the mix with folks getting their exercise before watching the Super Bowl. The ride down was a welcome respite, and we are easily able to stay together when the road turns downward.

Speaking of the Super Bowl, the absolute best time to go into San Francisco is on Super Bowl Sunday when the 49ers are playing. It was oddly vacant and we enjoyed!

After a little sightseeing, we headed over to Half Moon Bay for dinner and caught a brilliant sunset. If you are ever near Half Moon Bay, CA, high tail it to Barbara’s Fish Trap and order the clam chowder. It is perhaps the best clam chowder I have ever eaten. Delish.

And with that, I’ll pick up with some more photos later. You never know what we might encounter on this little getaway…

Laundry Room, Check.

You may be wondering what has been taking so long with this laundry room remodel.

As usual, we’ve been making it our test case and working out the kinks to what will follow in the rest of the house. And finally, after a long day today, we are done.

This room was not even a room when we bought the house, and it was disgusting. It was so gross that I don’t even want to bore you with how gross these laundry machines and the general area truly were.

Here is a before. This was a hallway with a laundry niche in it.  In his infinite wisdom 2Chili found a way for us to have a true room, not just a niche.

And, now. I absolutely love these concrete counters. Not bad for a couple of hacks, that’s for sure.

 

If we could only close the door and live inside this room…

This room is also serving as our temporary kitchen now, and interestingly, it is about the size as the original kitchen in the house, but much more functional! Ha!

That’s a wrap for now. We are going to try and have some fun for a little while before starting on the next room.