The Wooden Part

I had a friend who was begging her Little Turd of a daughter to rub her feet. And then the Little Turd said, "OK. But only the top part. Not the wooden part."



This led to a years-long joke about the wooden part of a person's feet - you know the calloused part that the lady at the pedicure place has to SCRAPE and SCRAPE and you get really embarrassed?

Fast forward to my new life of living in my one room home with my lovely husband his two teenage boys. It's not ideal. If anybody farts the whole house hears it. And smells it too. The place is an open floor plan loft-style home. See what I mean?

(I designed it while I was planning to die alone.)

ANYWAY, Zach has been growing quite a nasty wooden part of his own on his heel all summer from working. He's OBSESSED with it and makes me touch it all the time. 

Well: the other night at bedtime Zach and I were getting ready to fall asleep, whispering and snuggling and otherwise falling in love, the usual. He grabbed my hand and made me touch his nasty wooden heel. I laughed and said, too loud, (in baby talk I might add): 

"ARE YOU MAKING ME TOUCH THE WOODEN PART AGAIN?"

His face dropped.

I gasped.

We died, while hoping beyond hope the kids were already sleeping.

Little Red Hen

My parents came down for one of my mom's follow up cancer visits and I secretly took this picture of them sleeping on my air mattress (which by the way led to some seriously funny bickering/planning about how they were going to get out of it the next morning --) 

It's funny because they helped me SOOOOOOOO much with my remodel

Canning Shelves

There's not a lot of storage in my new place -- so ya gotta get creative -- I asked Zach to build me some shelves for excess kitchen stuff under the steps and they turned out really cool. 

This photo's credit to our wedding photographer: Nicole Feest at Nylon Saddle Photography

The House

I'm going to catch up and post lots of "remodel updates" (we're currently at the sheetrock stage of the saga) but here are a couple shots of my finished house:

Sheetrock

I think we left off with insulation when I last posted about the progress of the house remodel. Keep in mind these pics are all several months old now -- but I still think it's fun to see the progress.

I hired my chiropractor's brother to do the sheet rock -- his crew did such a nice job with the hanging, mudding and taping. I was so impressed -- out of all the subcontractors I hired up until that point, they were the only ones who showed up on time, finished on time, stayed on budget, and cleaned up after themselves.

And of all the work that was done, in my opinion it's the sheet rock that is most satisfying, because that's the point at which your construction zone starts looking like a real house.

Joys of Living in Construction Debris

When you have to use your rear-facing camera for a mirror because your house isn't done yet:

Conduit Lighting

Future home for naked pendant Edison bulbs -- exposed wiring hidden in plumbing conduit:

Insulation!

Future kitchen

Future loft

Future bedroom

Future loft

And new poured concrete footings in the basement! To hold the house up!

Good Little Helper

I wanted so badly to be involved in my project. And I was sometimes! My brother-in-law and my old friend from way back when were my framing contractors and they were both very good about showing me how to do things and patiently watching while I screwed it up, and then fixing them.

Things I'm proud of:

• I made the cuts for every single stud wall on the upper section of my house!
• I helped shingle the entire front of the house (the short part)!
• I used a sawzall and cut stuff!
• I ripped boards!
• I routered the holes for some of the stair treads!
• I used a nail gun!
• This photo:

• I painted a lot of the exterior of the house.

• I painted almost all of the fascia boards - which included one coat of primer and two coats of black paint, all outside during the month of March:

But mostly, they just sent me to Menards to pick up stuff that I didn't know what it was. And so I have tons of photos on my camera like this which I would then text to the guys to see if what I was getting was right:

Which, by the way is a VERY IMPORTANT JOB AND NOT EVERYBODY CAN DO IT. 

I helped!!!

Boss Lady

During construction I would have to run to the house to check on things after leaving my office-y job. Which meant that I could be seen climbing around a construction mess in a skirt quite often.

 

Here's a picture of me climbing out the front window hole on the second story to get out to the roof of the front section of my home and feeling something "funny" on the bottom of my high-heeled shoes: 



Job Hazards

Moving Day!

As much as I loved that little 1+ bedroom upstairs triplex apartment, of course when I bought my little house that meant I had to eventually leave it. It was sad, especially when I saw all my worldly belongings laid out on the grass out front.

 

Life goes on, right?

 

...All of said worldly belongings went on to sit on a trailer in my new house garage for two months while I waited for construction to complete.

 

 

Stairway to the Loft

See these rectangular holes below? I made them! With a router. That I broke. Twice. The stair treads go in there.

 

It's Shake and Bake! And I helped!

 

 

 

 

 

Tile Choice

I can't put tile in my upstairs bathroom, because the joists for the loft are "three-foot-on-center" and therefore ceramic tile is too heavy, but I can put it in my little 4' x 8' bathroom on the main floor since the main floor joists are only 18" apart.

 

You learn so much when you remodel a house!

 

Here's what I picked - basically because it's what I had at my last apartment and it's vintage-y cute and basic and white.

 

 

Upstairs Flooring

Flooring in the upstairs -- the 99 cents a square foot stuff -- it's called Industrial Oak (scraps) 

You may have noticed too that there is no longer a chimney in the upstairs -- I decided to cut it off at the ceiling below -- it was right in the way of where my bed would be, and I would have had to build it up to the ceiling with more bricks.

So, bye bye, chimney! I tried! Don't worry, your bottom part is still in my kitchen!

GONE-ZO

Flooring and The Toilet Tarp

The bathroom used to be located on the north side of the house, but was relocated to the south side. Since the beginning it (one single toilet) has been tarped off -- in the beginning it was winter and so we had to keep the heat in -- remember there was no roof for some time and so only the basement was heated...and later for privacy.

We took to affectionately calling it the Toilet Tarp. It's the only place in the history of the universe and in my life where I gave myself permission to not wash my hands after using the toilet and then immediately eat a slice of pizza. Remodeling!

Here it is in its new location:

And here's the new flooring -- the old stuff didn't quite stretch all the way across the house, but I did want to salvage it if possible -- to save money and to channel my inner Nicole Curtis.

New front and side windows in the front office: