Curating

Two things that I find very stressful are coordinating an entire house of light fixtures and selecting artwork for an entire house.

Both require curating. Not just picking, but carefully making sure that the finishes/colors and styles reflect what you want while not competing with each other. This post is about the first (the light fixtures). This curating process was brutal for me. Making sure visually each fixture made sense with any other visible fixtures. Making sure that once I'd picked my dream fixtures, that I could find an alternative to fit in the budget.

I've spent probably a solid 10 hours on the selection of light fixtures alone. Which doesn't seem like a lot, but if you've ever spent 10 hours looking at light fixtures online or in stores, it'll make you question everything you would consider to be sane. And again, I do this for a living.

However, I'm done and they're all purchased and on their way.

We will live in a very old house which in this state equals traditional. I like a little bit of traditional flare. I'm more eclectic/traditional/modern. That's a thing right? I had to find the very fine line between modern and traditional. I don't want things to look terribly out of place but I'm over the oil rubbed bronze phase. The fixtures I would love cost thousands of dollars (of course) so I spent the majority of my time finding those alternates I talked about above.

The kitchen is receiving all can lights and the basement isn't really worth mentioning yet. There were only a few light fixture selections needed for the first floor. A semi-flush mount for the entry, a three light chandelier for the foyer, two glass pendants for the dining room, a five light chandelier for the bonus room and a ceiling fan for the living room.

Oh the ceiling fan. I found this one a few months ago and I actually liked it. You see, I hate ceiling fans. I've never once in my life said to myself, "Oh wow, what a nice ceiling fan." However, I have lived in the southern climate my entire life and I understand the need for a ceiling fan. So, if I'm going to have one, it might as well look "relatively" good. And then I found that beauty above. And $269 for a really nice fan isn't a bad deal. But, we decided to have a ceiling fan in every bedroom AND the living room and $269 for five ceiling fans hurt a little bit. 

 
So I spent 3 of my 10 hours looking for a cheaper alternative for one stinking ceiling fan. To no avail. I hated all of them. I finally found one that was available, cheaper and looked somewhat similar to the original I had selected but was still more modern than I wanted. But the finish matched, the light kit matched and the blades were the same finishes.

I finally decided to buy two of my favorites, one for our room and one for the living room and buy three of the cheaper options for the other bedrooms. Problem solved or so I hope. Once they're installed, the real verdict will be in.

The upstairs needed a more extensive selection including multiple semi-flush mounts, wall sconces, pendants and of course the fans.

I feel like everything goes together well and other than the chandeliers on the first floor, it doesn't scream matchy-matchy. And if in 5 or 10 years, their all dated and look awful, we'll have the money to replace them then.

We Have a Kitchen!

The only catch? It's not adult sized or actually usable in any form or fashion for preparing edible food.

(And Addison, if you are reading this before a certain age not to be determined yet, Santa's elves used our house to build your kitchen because the North Pole was too busy and full in 2012. But don't worry, they have an expansion plan and will begin the groundwork on December 26th. He also let us take all of these progress pictures so you could see how cool it was to have a custom elf-built kitchen!)

OK.

Addison loves make believe. She puts her babies down for a nap everyday, places blankets on their backs and pats them to sleep. She prepares food for them and reads them books. She talks to herself as she builds houses out of "bocks" for the bunnies and elephants and lions (oh my!). So Mommy (and Daddy) thought, "Wouldn't it be great if Santa brought Addison a kitchen for her second Christmas?"

But because we're crazy, we didn't want Addison to have just any toddler sized kitchen. I mean, we've spent countless hours (and many counted dollars) on our new soon-to-be kitchen, why couldn't her kitchen reside in ours and match? She could cook while we cooked with matching cabinets and hardware. It might as well be the real deal. Genius, we know. So that is what we asked Santa for: an Addison sized kitchen to match the parent's.

And boy, oh boy did he deliver!

Luap (think about it...) the elf started by using two pre-assembled wall cabinets.

He built a base using 2 x 4's he found laying around our house so that the cabinets would sit up off of the floor slightly and create the look of a toe-kick. That clever elf.

After the first coat of Valspar's Bare Wood Primer, he used shims, wood glue and his handy dandy air-compressed nail gun to attach the two cabinets and base together. He also cut out the interior recessed panel on one of the doors for plexi-glass to mimic the oven door.

Because of the way the pre-assembled wall cabinets are built, 1/4" sanded plywood was needed to cover the exposed particle board ends and top.

1/2" plywood was used for the counter. The sink (an 8-quart stainless steel bowl) was traced, cut and diligently placed to simulate a real usable sink. Be still my heart.

Once the end pieces were installed, the entire kitchen-ette received another coat of primer.

Because Luap the elf had to work at the North Pole too, it took more than just one day to build A's kitchen. So it was a delicate game of making sure the work he did wouldn't be damaged or disturbed by the individuals working at the house during the day.

Next came this mommy's favorite part. The paint. 

Two coats later, he assembled the entire cabinet, minus the oven door. For that, he custom cut a 1/4" piece of plexi-glass down to size and attached it to the back of the door using silicone and then trimmed the entire thing out with wood trim, painted to match the cabinet. Then the oven door was installed, hardware as well.

The counter. Oh the counter. Originally, I thought it was going to be a white paint as close to the base color of our new quartz counter, in semi-gloss. But before the green paint went on the cabinets, I had a freak out moment that it was going to look very "50's" laminate. So he/we/I started scheming up ways to make this 1/2" plywood surface look more like our quartz. We talked about using some stencils to spray paint gray and tan flecks onto the white painted board but that seemed like a lot of work for something that might not turn out. I seriously, for a moment, considered the use of the real quartz, hah! That was a fleeting thought. Then he/we/I had the idea of sending a large resolution image of the slab to a print shop and having them print the file onto a vinyl decal. Ta-dah!

And then the auxiliary items like the faucet, towel bar, burners and knobs got installed.

Seriously, do you hear the choir of angels singing? I mean, this is practically a small mock-up of our future kitchen.

Santa and his elves for the win.

What's in a Name?

The house numbers at Six Twelve needed to be replaced. They were old, cheap, bent and faded. I pryed them off the face of the brick.

 

Filled the holes with concrete adhesive.

And then Paul attached the new numbers to the house.

The existing light sconces are getting a paint job (black) and I plan to buy some large planters (also black) for the front porch. The trim needs a good coat of paint and the front of this house is going to start looking pretty slick.

Sub-floors

Sub-floors have been the name of the game at Six Twelve as of late.

 

We laid the new sub-floor in the entry vestibule, a new framing system and sub-floor in the bonus room and over the last two weeks, we prepped and laid sub-floors in both of the restrooms and the kitchen.

Decisions (RAPIDLY) Approaching

We need to make a selection (A-A-S-A-Please*) for the ventilation hood we're going to have in our new kitchen.

We did not have a vent hood in our first kitchen, and it showed. Cooking residue fell on everything in a 5'-0" diameter of the stove each time we pulled out our Rick Bayless cookbook or boiled pasta.

Our apartment has a microwave over the oven/range with the attached vent. There's nothing wrong with it, it seems to work fine but it wouldn't work at the new house because the range is in the middle of our island with a whole lot of nothing above it. 

Anyone been on a search for island hoods lately? Turns out they're expensive and the ones that aren't are terribly unattractive.

We are nearing the end of our budget and so we are at a difficult place of deciding whether or not to spend some extra cash (ouch) or to get what is out there for what we have (wah). Chances are, we will channel our inner Dave Ramsey and make the smart decision to stay within budget. Blah, blah, blah.

But, the time has come where we have to stop just looking and actually make a decision. The electrician is moving along and we need to know what we are installing in order to properly handle power and venting before the ceiling is installed.

From the cheapest to the most expensive:

 

 

I'm not a huge fan of the first hood. It would be fine, and it is the least expensive option but it just doesn't feel like us or our kitchen. It is by Frigidaire, and the well known brand gives it a slight edge, but I'm inclined to nix it all together.

While I am still not a fan of the glass on the second (who wants to clean that?!), it is flat instead of curved which I prefer and is still reasonably priced. My biggest concern? I haven't found a single review.

I like the shape of the third hood, but can only speculate on the real price right now. We would purchase it from the same dealership we purchased our cabinets from, and I can only look at the list (retail) price online, I know they would be able to sell it to us cheaper.

The last two look good but are both over our budget. Need I say more?  

Hopefully, we can make up our minds today or tomorrow so we don't hold any of our trades up. We've got to keep moving along and at a pretty good pace.


*Uncle Si is quite possibly one of the funniest people alive.



In light of Friday morning's event, I've debated posting or saying anything on any social media platform about the shootings in Connecticut. I don't feel that this blog is the best place to say much regarding anything but the house but at the same time, I understand how first world and insignificant a ventilation hood selection is. Please hug your families and say a prayer of thanksgiving to God for giving them to you for whatever length of time you have. I pray that the families in Connecticut find peace and comfort in Him and sincerely hope that if anything as horrific and tragic happened to my family that I would remember that my hope is in God alone.   

Picking Paint

We're no where ready to paint at the house but were busy making selections in the meantime.

I was using the dining room table to lay out our finishes, but thanks to grabby toddler hands and a Christmas tree, I have been moved to the backside of the front door with some magnets.

Paul and I determined that we wanted a pretty neutral base for the house (in most cases) so any color we added with furniture, drapes, etc., would be more intense.

The trim and ceilings will all be white (Sherwin Williams Snowbound) and we are down to our final three selections for the main wall paint. It's going to be in the gray family but our last three choices are pretty wide in terms of lightness vs. darkness.

Addison's room and the kid/guest bath are going to receive an off white blue-ish paint for the walls. But that's the only paint (besides the white ceilings and trim) that I've actually selected.

Surely just staring at the back of the door will inspire me to pick one right?!

The Story of a Bathtub...

...and how it almost killed my husband and three of our friends.

Weekend number one of demolition, we had three of our friends come over to help us work on dismantling the restrooms. I arrived quite a while after they had been working (due to babysitter constraints) and found myself mildly disappointed at the progress.

In case we haven't made it clear, the individual that built this house had no intention of it ever being taken apart and did everything to the most extreme. This weekend was the first disappointing blow of how long this project really was going to take us to complete.

Six Twelve came equipped with two full bathrooms on the second floor. The extent of this remodel started off as an overall gut job. The toilets needed to be replaced, the pedestal sinks were busted and needed updating, while we we're at it, we'd go ahead and update the tubs as well. The toilets were removed, the pedestal sinks were removed and as far as we could tell, we could just start busting everything else out.

So Phil picked up the sledge hammer, pulled back and let the tub have it.

And it did not move. It did not crack, it did not budge. In fact, it probably caused more damage to Phil's shoulder than he caused to the bathtub. Because it was cast iron.

"Oh, you can just bust out cast iron," you say.
"Well, suck it, no you can't," we say.

There was no way that the tub was coming out of that bathroom in pieces. It would have to come out as one piece. OK, now that we knew how to attack it, no big deal, right?

Wrong. That tub was recessed into the tile floor by two inches and into the tile walls by another couple of inches. Are you freaking kidding me?

This was becoming a disaster of increasing proportions.

After HOURS of busting out tile, and lifting and pulling and straining, the tub was out of the bathroom and sitting at the top of the stairs.

Please tell me you see where this is going.

Four guys, two and a half hours later, and a 1,000 lb cast iron bathtub we're standing at the top of my staircase engineering a way to get it downstairs.

This bathtub sat in our living room for a week. A week. It was insanely heavy and while we (they) sat on the porch, drinking Gatorade and recovering, we discussed the option of refinishing the second bathtub. Turns out its a perfectly fine bathtub. Thankfully, they started with the master (the one I really wanted replaced).

The bathroom is currently empty, except for a sub-floor and the new wiring, just waiting for my new bathtub. I've decided to go with a free standing tub, in the same place the last one was, under the triumphal archway I suppose.

Hello gorgeous.

I know there are a lot of people out there that aren't bath people. I'm not one of those people, bring on the tub.

So many posts, so little time!

So many things are occuring at Six Twelve right now and I can't wait to share them with you.

However, so many things are happening everywhere else that it is making it impossible to get my updates in.

I promise, there are so many things to tell you, so hold on!

Also, it looks like without a doubt we'll be painting a runner onto our stairs. Let the paint selection and planning commence!

Basement Stairs

Until this past weekend, the basement stairs were covered in a 1970s green-yellow shag carpet. Certainly not something that we wanted to keep. When the carpet was removed, we found that the wood beneath was actually in relatively great condition, good enough that we want to just paint them and move on.

That's where you, our loyal readers, come in. We've found two ideas that we're thinking about trying. Take a look and vote on which style is your favorite. The poll is on the right side of the page (if you're in Google Reader, you'll have to click over to the actual site).

 Stair Style 1 - Painted Runner

 Stair Style 2 - Ombre Risers & Treads (but not black)

The poll closes at midnight on the 10th. Let us know what you think!

The To-Do List Grows

I guess it's not really growing. Every time we scratch something off, we find another task to complete that wasn't on the list in the first place. It just doesn't really appear to be decreasing right now. For example, we finished the bonus room sub-floor and determined that it was going to be necessary to remove the wood floor in the kitchen.

Now, before you go getting upset that we ripped out "original" wood floors, let's discuss some things.

1) The floor in the kitchen was a mixture of plaster and wood.
2) Large pieces of the wood floor were missing due to wall locations, leaving sub-floor exposed.
3) Two layers of linoleum had been directly glued on top of the original wood floor, leaving a mess of paper on top.
4) That paper backing had asbestos in it (which was all properly removed, but that wood was still tainted in our opinion).
5) Leaving the original floor would require a pretty hefty transition between the dining room and kitchen, the kitchen and bonus room, and the bonus room and living room.

Removing the kitchen floor, while time consuming would allow for a more seamless application of tile, only one transition and the install would feel "right" or "new" instead of feeling like a renovation project.

So Paul got to work removing the wood which turned out to be quite a bit harder than expected, as usual.

 

We still have to remove the plaster portion (seen by the back door) and the rows of nails that run up and down the room but once it's completely finished, it'll be a breeze for us to install our tile.

We've decided to have a very small transition between the living room and bonus room (capped with a wood transition strip) and also between the dining room and kitchen.

We've opted to use a marble threshold between the bonus room and kitchen. While I'm not a fan of breaking up the tile (I would much prefer a seamless application), this doorway is much smaller, read: less noticeable, and for a 1/2" transition, it's no higher than a typical transition accepted by code.

On to more tasks - marking off and adding to.

Bonus Room Sub-Floor, A Theme Song & Thanksgiving

Saturday afternoon my brother took a nap on my couch while Addison took her nap so that I could work at the house with Paul for a couple of hours.

Over the past few weeks, we've been in a pretty good place with the house. We're behind schedule and the money belt is starting to tighten but we've been in that state of 'just keep moving'. Saturday, we were busy laying a new sub-floor in the bonus room and we were both exhausted, physically and emotionally. Just getting the plywood to screw into the joists was unraveling us from both ends. By the time we'd laid the sixth piece of plywood, we both stood, starring at each other, saying, "Well, aren't you going to get started?" with our eyes. We both knew better than to say it out loud.

When we left off last, this is where we were:

We started by laying a 4' x 8' sheet of 3/4" plywood down, cutting out a hole for the floor vent, then another, cutting where necessary, leaving at least 1/8" gap between sheets until we ended with a full layer of 3/4" plywood down. We used the Liquid Nails Sub-Floor adhesive again, running it along each support and around the edges, then screwing the first layer of sub floor in, every 8" around the perimeter of the room and every 12" along the supports.

This is the floor transition between the original hardwood in the living room which is staying and the one layer of 3/4" plywood in the bonus room. The kitchen to bonus room transition is quite a bit more stout. In order to make these transitions less noticeable we had to complete a couple of tasks. We decided to do a second layer of 3/4" plywood in the bonus room.

 

We started laying the second layer of plywood at a 90 degree turn and continued laying sheets until the entire room had a full second layer.

The second layer of sub-floor we skipped the adhesive (we want the floor to contract without cracking the tile or grout on top) and used framing nails instead of screws, also making sure to leave at the minimum, a 1/8" gap between sheets.

I'd only been at the house for a few hours but I needed to get back to Addison. I went to the front of the living room and stared at the work we'd just accomplished. Trying to figure out if it was worth the work, I suppose. Paul stood under the arched cased opening, observing the plywood as well. And while I was standing there, doubt started to creep back in. That voice in my brain that said, "You two are nuts". I put my hands on my hips, took a deep breath and in that split second of a breath, Phillip Phillips came on Pandora.

Hold on, to me as we go;
as we roll down this unfamiliar road.
And although this wave is stringing us along,
just know you’re not alone,
'cause I’m going to make this place your home.

We looked at each other, laughing, tears welling up in my eyes. This guy. This guy that I met seven years ago, is making me a home. A big, expensive, tiring and all together wonderful, special home. The song continued and Paul might as well have written the song himself.

Settle down, it'll all be clear.
Don't pay no mind to the demons,
they fill you with fear.
The trouble, it might drag you down.
If you get lost, you can always be found.

Just know you’re not alone,
'cause I’m going to make this place your home.

We stood in our big, empty living room, my head resting on his shoulder while the song finished and I all I could think about was how thankful I was. Thankful for him. Thankful for this house.

While I am thankful for many things, this year, I think most of all, I am thankful for Six Twelve and for the man that is building it for me.

Open Invitation?

Apparently, when a house sits unoccupied for a certain amount of time, someone, somewhere hires a crew to "winterize the house".

The crew comes out, slaps stickers on every window telling you they believe the property to be abandoned or vacant. That you have a certain number of days to contact them and tell them otherwise or they are going to flush out the house.

To no ones surprise, no one at the property contacted the said company, and so our house got flushed.

Which we really aren't complaining about.

What I am complaining about (because you knew it was coming) are the stickers that were on the windows, and the residue of stickers, telling all sorts of people that the home was vacant.

This might have had something to do with UPS refusing to drop my packages off at the house.

We should have removed them immediately. But did we? Of course not.

So basically, for the last few months we've just been inviting the bad guys to come on in. Thankfully, they didn't take us up on the offer. But this past weekend the stickers got a good spray of Goof-Off and a razor blade taken to them and they are long gone.

So at least the invitation has been removed.

3 Day Weekend Recap

Three day weekends are supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. That's a legitimate word by the way. Mary Poppins and my web dictionary said so.

Saturday we had more help (so thankful).

We plugged away a good 7 hours of hard work. Remember that sub-floor I told you was done? Well it wasn't really. I took up the loose laid sub-floor and removed the previous "sub-floor" in order to install foam for even better insulation in the front entry.

 

Then we layered on some sub-floor Liquid Nails on each floor joist, laid the sub-floor back into place and screwed that sucker down.

So it's truly (deeply, madly) done now.

While I was at it, the boys were busy in the kitchen framing for our new ceiling. Originally, the kitchen was two rooms. All of the ceilings on the first floor are at 9'-6" except for a strip in the kitchen that led from the basement door to the back door of the house. It was lower in order to hide a structural beam.

When we ripped out the wall to make the room one large space, I hated the drop and decided we'd lose 1'-0' in the rest of the room to have a consistent ceiling height. It really wouldn't be too low and I'd have one ceiling plane instead of two. Knowing how many strange things will exist in this house (odd bump outs, etc.) I wanted a clean ceiling in this room.

So the boys started by adding a beam in place of where the original wall was. Then they added cross members between the existing beam and the new and then the new beam and the opposite wall.

Next up, they installed nailer boards around the perimeter of the room to attach the new framing too.

Then the joist hangers...

 

And before we knew it, the entire framing job was done.

It's amazing how just the framing of a ceiling makes the entire room appear to be one consistent room now.

We decided to make the ceiling level, instead of true, after much discussion and review of the process. While the windows are crooked (due to the previously sinking foundation in this room) we decided it would be best to have a level ceiling instead of one that would be crooked but would make everything else look semi-correct. It's an 82 year old house, for goodness sake, so some crooked windows can be expected right?

Our helpers even pulled all of the screws and nails from the existing floor joists in the dining room, living room and under the covered porch before we called it quits. And there were plenty of them. Now that that task is complete and once the plumbing is re-routed, we'll be ready for the new ceilings.

Sunday afternoon while Addison was having her nap and I was at home baking brownies (for real) Paul went to the house and cut holes in all of the tops of the exterior walls on the 1st floor.

We're doing this for our insulation company to be able to blow in insulation from the top of the walls between studs. Other than the brand new house that was built on our corner in 2009, our house is going to be the most energy efficient one in the neighborhood. Woot woot for low(er) electric bills! I mean, really, how low can an electric bill be for a 4,000 square foot building get? We still need to cut small holes beneath each of the windows and all of the holes on the 2nd floor but we're getting there. 

And then Monday, thanks to the Veteran's of the USA and our company, we had the day off. We dropped Addison off at daycare and we went to work at Six Twelve.

I pulled carpet tack up from the 2nd floor bedrooms. I had already tried pawning this task off on many individuals and some how it had never been accomplished (because these people weren't idiots). So it was finally time, I got down on my hands and knees and started chipping away.

Other than just a couple of feet in one last room, it's done. The whole time I was up and down and hammering and pulling and cursing under my breath, I concocted an entire scene of how the carpet came to be. I could see little ole Dorothy Cathey, convincing her husband that wood flooring was old and outdated. That carpet was the wave of the future and that they better hop on board fast. She would throw herself across a chaise lounge in the sun room, in her long skirt and button up shirt, hair coiffed perfectly, and oh so dramatically she would tell him that all of her friends had carpet floors and that they should too or they'd look behind the times. By the time the carpet crew was there for the install she'd convinced him that everyone would love the carpet. I mean who wouldn't?

This girl, Dorothy. This girl.

After I finished the 7/8ths of the carpet tack before giving up (still cursing little ole Dorothy), I finished spray painting that dang railing outside. The minute it got over 50 degrees I was out there finishing the 1-1/2 railings I had left to complete. I can finally check that task off of my list. Can I get a "Hallelujah"?!

All the while Paul was working downstairs, cleaning and prepping and installing the new joists for the floor in what we've deemed the "bonus room". It is currently 5" sunken from the living room and 5-1/2" sunken from the kitchen floor. We're raising it to be a flush floor across. Or kind of.

Once Addison was down for the evening, Paul was back at the house, sweeping, organizing and prepping for the coming week.

That's the cleanest our living room has been in a month!