Phase 1 Complete!!!

We have some awesome news.

 

To highlight the awesome part…

 

Our mortgage is finally paid down below 80%! Technically, it’s 79.997%

We’ve requested that the mortgage company cancel the monthly PMI ($81 I wouldn’t mind keeping). I’m really hoping we accomplish this before the June payment. They have the option to decline our request, but we have the option of refinancing :}

That completes our ‘phase 1′ of the remodel. Now we can start real stuff!

First up is the exterior; siding, doors, windows, shingles, and a deck roof. And an egress window. And sealing the driveway. While we’re saving up for those pricy projects… we’re planning a minimum-budget touch up for the shed and the garage; aiming for more organization and less brown paneling

Gallery Wall Complete!

I put the built-in to good use already. At  12.5 feet long it’s a pretty awesome workspace.

I got the order in from Nations Photo Labs today, and trimmed and matted the 14 pictures. Some photos got traditional mats, some got scrapbook paper, and one got purple spray paint.

The gallery wall is finally done!

I started this project months ago, and I’ve worked on it off and on since then.

This one is probably my favorite:

If you want to know what all these things actually are…

Here’s the items on the left…

The outside (starting at the top and working clockwise)

•  View from a propeller plane, NZ
• the wake from our snorkeling trip in the Bahamas
• three random keys
• photos of our wedding reception dances with our parents
• scrapbook paper
• paint chip art
• a historic map of our hometown
• us kayaking down a mangrove lined river
• a map of New Zealand
• toilet paper art
• a butterfly acrylic painting from Etsy

The inside (top working clockwise)

• F monogram made with washers
• Sheep farm in NZ
• Instruction manual from our tv
• Wedding collage
• Us in doubtful sound NZ

And the right side…

On the outside (starting top, working clockwise)

• Emma helping with boat repairs
• Abel Tasman national park, NZ
• Sugar Packets
• scrap napkin & lace from our wedding
• Lighthouses in NZ
• Warrior Dash 2011 metals
• puppy Emma
• 3-d butterfly art
• Us at Disney

On the inside (starting top, working clockwise)

• Yard stick art
• Picture of a “Protect Yo Tings! Use a rubber every time!” sign from a Nassau government building
• (tiny) Michael remodeling something

The Second Floor: Completed!

The 2nd floor is finally done!

To remember the good-ole days, here is the 2nd floor when we moved in;

A shot of the awkward half wall during demo;

Here’s a link to what we were aiming for.

We removed a wall, ripped up carpet, dry walled over the paneling, built a $90 built-in, removed the popcorn ceiling texture, switched the ceiling lights, painted, built a railing, covered the concrete in paper-bag flooring, re-installed the crown molding, changed the electrical boxes, and painted some more.

And here it is:

The view from the basement (prior owners’);

And Current;

Here is the cost breakdown for our 280 sq. foot room:

Drywall: $145

Primer: $40

Paint: $60

Paper Bag Flooring: $80

Built-in: $90

Railing: $25

New Ceiling Lights: $75

New electrical: $30

Total: $545 (ouch, how did it add up to that!?)

Covering this room in $2 a sq foot hardwood would cost more than that, so we’re satisfied enough.

Then there was the great furniture shuffle.

For the first time, my books are no longer double-stacked on garage shelves. It’s awesome! It went from two of these…

To legitimate shelves!

Now I have room for more books

One of my favorite things is how well the Pink Floyd Canvas turned out in the room.

I also love the new view into the basement (better than a wall of paneling!)

There is still work to do, but it will happen later. The windows, interior doors, and 4 of the exterior doors will be replaced after the PMI is dead. That will include the fogged slider door, the garage door, and the window in this room.

Your days are numbered, 70s brown door with no trim :}

DIY Stretched Canvas

We have had this fabric poster since Michael’s dorm days. It never hung very flatteringly.

And so we built a frame out of scrap 2 by 4 lumber,

stapled some thin black cotton as a wrapping,

and then used hem tape and an iron to mount the fabric flag to the (fabric-wrapped) frame.

 

 

It took Michael about an hour to do all the hard stuff (build the frame, staple the black fabric on), and it took me about 30 minutes to mount the actual poster.

Total cost was $0

Photo Print Shopping

I have several blank frames on my gallery wall waiting for photo prints.

Fourteen empty frames, ranging from business card to 16×20. Now I have to decide which company to print them with. I made a huge ordeal out of it

Here is my comparison of online photo print services. In the running are…

• Picaboo – 1/2 off Groupon available!
• Nations Photo Lab – Free Shipping!
• Snapfish
• Walgreens – You can’t view prices without signing up :/
• Shutterfly – 30% off prints promotion!
• MPIX
• Winkflash – 40% off large prints!

They will be ranked on…

#1 Size options
I have 6 sizes I need, some unusual… how many of these sizes do they have available? This is 55% of the total score.
#2 Cost
How much will my 13 prints cost? This is 45% of the total score.

The Results:

After estimating my order from each of these places, here are the results…It ended up as a near tie, Nations Photo Lab and Winkflash.

Place	Sizes	Size Score	Price	Price Score	Total Score
Nations Photo Lab	6	100	$24.65	90	96
Winkflash	5	83	$21.51	100	91
MPIX	6	100	$37.47	50	77
Snapfish	5	83	$42.87	33	60
Shutterfly	4	67	$37.23	50	59
Walgreens	4	67	$52.87	1	37
Picaboo	3	50	$53.19	0	28

I will be using Nations Photo Lab, because they had exactly the sizes I need for all of my prints, and they have excellent prices. Next time, I’ll know to just check NPL, Winkflash, and MPIX.

Second Floor… is getting there

I accomplished absolutely nothing last weekend. I did get to hang out with my little brother on his birthday, so that’s a plus.

Michael, on the other hand, had this done by the time I got home Friday evening.

It’s a subtle difference, but we have baseboards again!

They’ve already had the two coats of primer, one coat of paint treatment. Now all the trim needs to be caulked (75% done, thanks to Michael) and painted one more time.

After that, this room will be done.

The Basement Bathroom Plan

In order to avoid crashing and burning (and also blowing 10k on bath remodel & using too much of our whole-house budget) I want to plan all of our projects before starting.

This plan is for the Basement Bathroom. I call it the Tetris Bathroom. It’s shaped like this;

Current State

Here is the current basement bathroom. This first picture shows all 53 inches of space between the wall and the shower (tiny!)

The bathroom is wrapped around a linen closet (visible in the right side of the pic below). You can see how cramped it makes the entrance. (P.s. I’m standing in the shower for this picture)

The shower stall is a just-okay fiberglass shower. However, the sliding door cannot open very far, and you walk directly into a built-in seat :/

Tucked away behind the linen closet is a storage area. You can’t see it from the entrance of the bathroom.

The current layout:

The problems we want to fix are…

1. awkward cramped entrance
2. tight fit into shower
3. quality of finishes; floor, shower, etc.

The bathroom would be a comfortable 7 by 7.5 foot room if it wasn’t for that linen closet. That’s where the plan comes in.

Future State

I’ve been using Pinterest (surprise!) for inspiration.

In this next picture,  I like how the shower surround blends into the wall to make if feel as large as possible.  I like the floor tile, and that it matches in the shower pan.

In the next photo, the layout is how I want ours. Mirror, pedestal sink, toilet, shelves, and glass shower surround.

The goal layout:

By removing the linen closet and moving the door, we can have a full-depth sink. That sure will be handy, since we already have the sink I’ll replace the mirror and the light fixture, and use towel hooks instead of rails (less space!).

The toilet (all plumbing locations, for that matter) will stay the same. Glass shelves are going above the toilet for storage and interest. The wood thing isn’t cutting it for me

I’m also hanging a mirror across the room from the toilet/sink wall. ($10 from IKEA). It’s inexpensive wall art, and it makes the room feel larger. Michael has some plans to replace the current shelving in the storage area with a more built-in look. I would like to have drawer storage in that area, also.

Like this IKEA example, maybe

The linoleum floor will be replaced with tile, and I cannot wait to paint. Cannot. wait. to. paint.

The largest change (and expense) will be the shower. The current fiberglass shower is a good size; 4 by 3 feet, but it feels tiny. We will remove the current enclosure, and build a tile shower with a hinged door. If we hired someone to do the shower, a low price would be $2500. Looks like we’ll be learning to tile

Here’s a mood board showing what I’m picturing.

The wall color is Salisbury Green by Benjamin Moore. I found it using this awesome blog, that posts examples of paint colors & brands.

Our budget was $2k… but I kept on butting heads with that number while searching for tile. I want to have a 15% buffer… and I couldn’t for $2000. I’ve grudgingly bumped the budget up to $2250.

Item	budget
shower surround tile	500
shower door	475
floor tile	320
tile materials	155
sink	100
plumbing	100
vent fan	55
glass shelves	50
wall hooks, etc.	50
Mirrors	45
vanity light	30
outlets, light switches, etc.	25
buffer	345
Total	2250

It’s still very tight. After factoring in the things I’ve already purchased we have:

Item	budget	spent
sink (Craigslist)	100	100
Vent fan (Homeclick.com)	55	54
mirrors (IKEA)	45	20
Vanity light (BASISK, IKEA)	30	30
glass shelves (IKEA)	50	30
Total	280	234
shower surround tile	500
shower door	475
floor tile	320
tile materials	155
plumbing	100
wall hooks, etc.	50
outlets, light switches, etc.	25
buffer	345
Total	2250	2204

Doing good so far! Now I just have to figure out when we’ll actually do this room.

We should finish Phase 1 of the remodel (the super lame, pay the mortgage down to 80% and kill the PMI phase) in June. We’ll replace the exterior windows & doors first… So it may be a while before we start the bathroom. We will take our time finding tile, faucets, etc. and wait for a ridiculously good deal before springing. I’ll aim for Halloween for this project. (So depressingly far off! I’m not patient, lol).

Now we have a budget and a date, let’s see how it goes.