Flooring Update

Lowes finally delivered the flooring a couple of Saturdays ago...all 60 plus boxes of it!!  Joel was at work, so I met Cathy and Steve at the house to wait for the scheduled 11:30 am truck.  Luckily we like each other and had a lot to talk about because the delivery men got lost and did not arrive until just about 1 pm!  Joel had shown up by then, so all the guys unloaded and delivered the appropriate amount of boxes to each room.  The wood has been acclimating to the house these past few weeks, and guess what?  Steve says he will have some of the kitchen flooring in by late this afternoon!!  Here is a picture of Striker anxiously awaiting the big reveal!

In preparation for the infamous floor install, Steve had to rip out the dining room planks as they had begun to split apart, the whole floor was uneven, and the transition from that room into the others would have been difficult.  In addition to resetting the PEX tubing, Steve also had to use metal mesh and floor levelling compound to even up the slope of the room.  Here are some photos of his efforts.

Hopefully I will be posting some finished flooring photos early tomorrow so stay tuned:)

The Stove is on its way HOME!!!

I have so enjoyed becoming friends with Lyn and Teri, the Wardwell sisters who grew up in the house and whose family owned the property for generations.  They both live in California, and we stay in touch via emails and texts.  Several months ago, Lyn made me the spectacular offer of the cast iron stove that sat in her upstairs bedroom on Stokes Westernville Road.  It was forged in the village of Delta and has always been in her possession.  She is getting ready to downsize, and the stove is just too big.  As long as I could figure out how to get it back east, I could return it to its perch...Well yesterday was moving day!!  A company called ShipSmart removed the stove from Lyn's home.  They will package it up at their warehouse and safely (fingers crossed!) haul it across the country over the next 2 weeks.  Here are some photos of phase 1.  Once it arrives, I will post pictures of its homecoming.

Some Privacy Please....

Isn't the sliding barn door that Steve made for our downstairs bathroom absolutely fantastic?  Just love it!  He is also working on window jams and sills.  We are kind of in a lull as we wait for the flooring to be delivered.  3 dates have been scheduled and cancelled by Lowes because the cold temperatures have wrecked havoc on their vehicles.  Hopefully we will be in possession of the planks by early next week.

Before he left for a job related month away, Mark was able to get most of the switches (both regular and dimmer) installed as well as more than half of the outlet and switch plate covers in place.  He also started hanging some of my light fixtures.  The 2 in the kitchen are my favorites so far!

Joel and I are up at the house almost everyday doing snow removal.  This winter has been exceptionally brutal with freezing temps and lots of white stuff.  The truck and plow are hanging in there by a thread...flat tire and dead battery stalled us last week.  Shoveling is good exercise though, right?!

Welcome 2018!

Hope everyone had a healthy and happy holiday season.  Well, here we are launching into another exciting and productive year.  We took a short break from working on the house last week, but that did not stop us from heading up there everyday (sometimes twice a day!) to check on things as the temps have plunged into the minus arena.  Late in the week our water pipes froze, most likely down near the source, in the pump house.  Steve came up and applied some heat tape, but still no water as of today as it is continues to be very cold.  Hopefully it will begin to flow again this week or next if it warms up a bit.  In the meantime, Matt will have to wash his brushes and rollers out off site.

Yesterday we brought the dogs up to romp around in the snow which they enjoyed, but I think they liked basking in the late day sunshine by the sliding glass door in the Rustic Room better!

Here's what Joel and I enjoyed...some wine and cheese at our new pub table and swivel chairs, also in the Rustic Room.  I have a feeling that this is where we all will be spending lots of time once we settle into the house:)  It felt kind of funny, though, trading in our summer chairs for our winter ones....

Lake Delta is certainly as beautiful in the winter as it is in the warmer weather.  We cross country skied down our hill and onto the lake over the weekend.  We were a tad nervous about the running water rimming the shore, but if you get up enough speed you just shoot right over it!  No really.  We waited a few days until it seemed safe enough to cross over.  Had a blast!

Merry Christmas 2017!!

I remember posting a picture of our renovation house Christmas tree last year...it was taken from the outside.  This year I decided to capture it from the inside.  Cozy:)

Things really got done on all aspects of the house this week which is good because, for the most part, next week will be a time of rest.  Steve concentrated on getting the downstairs bathroom completely installed.  Success!  The shower is tiled, the floor is in, the sink and toilet are set and functioning, and the molding around the window and all along the floor is gorgeous.  Mark installed my crazy light fixture which came all the way from China, and I added my little touches this evening and voila, we have a beautiful room.  Just waiting on the sliding barn door which Steve will make and hang once the hardware I ordered comes in.

Matt sent me to Utica almost every day this week to pick up more ceiling white, primer, and several more gallons of my colors for touch-ups.  It felt like old home week at Urbaniks whenever I walked through the doors!  All the rooms now have 2 coats of color and the 3 rooms that will be wallpapered each have a coat of tinted primer so that if at any time in the future the paper separates, the color will show through the cracks...not white.  Here is a sneak peek of some of my bolder color choices.

coral in the formal parlor

pink in one of the guest rooms

blue on 2 walls of the master bedroom

red on 2 walls of the guest bathroom "Mondrian" style

Last night Joel and I ordered 1770 square feet of interlocking Bamboo flooring for the entire 

downstairs.  It will be delivered in 2 weeks and needs to cure for 2 weeks which definitely fits into our time frame.  We will be able to salvage the original hardwood floors in the 3 upstairs front rooms and hallway with the help of Brian, the wonderful man who refurbished the floors in our Arsenal House project years ago.  The rest of the upstairs will be carpeted and tiled.

Joel and I wish all our family and friends a very blessed Holiday!!

Bring on the Color!

The moment I have been waiting for has finally arrived!!  After 6 trips to the paint store in Utica, accompanied by my parents, Joel, and sometimes the dogs, I have gotten all the primer, ceiling white, AND color paints up to the house and Matt has finished the downstairs bathroom (cotton tail white) and the first coat of gray on the kitchen walls!  I am beyond excited to see how the rest of the rooms turn out as each will be a distinctly different and bold hue.  Check out the cute little temporary sink that Matt is using to clean his painting supplies.

Steve has just finished tiling the downstairs bathroom's shower a subway white and is in the process of laying the rustic wood-grain tile on the floor.  We should have a working bathroom by early next week:)

Dennis did an amazing job of rebuilding the Den mantle piece which had been charred by that long ago fire.  In addition to shoring up the original wood, he had to create a new box-like structure to transition the mantle to the walls.

Last but not least, the other exciting thing that happened this week was that Steve installed the transom windows in the garage.  I think they look great!

My apologies for the delay between posts...

There is no excuse other than life has been extremely busy lately.  But, moving forward, there is a lot to report on regarding house and garage progress!

Steve has brought in 2 brothers to get the garage ready for winter while he continues to work inside to get us one working bathroom and all the sub floors ready for hardwood and tiles.  The garage roof is on and some doors and windows are already in place.  Joel is ordering the garage doors next week and Steve has the transom windows for above the doors on order as well.  I have always wished for a house with transom windows.  At some point we thought we could put one over the front door, but being such an old house the ceilings and beams were too low.  So, Joel came up with the cool idea of transoms in the garage.  I am very excited!  Matt is almost done with the third go-round of mudding and sanding, and I just went to get him a 5 gallon tub of primer so we should be on our way with wall colors soon.  Meanwhile, Joel worked on 2 big jobs last weekend.  He stained the back stair risers and treads and finished staining the ship lap boards for the Rustic Room ceiling which he then installed, much to the chagrin of his neck muscles:(  Here are some photos of all of the above.