Back shoveling dirt today

After much discussion, several "professional" opinions and a few outrageous proposals, we made the decision: we are installing artificial turf.

And to save some money, the prep work is on us. And it starts like this...

I passed my first official inspection today!

This is a really unsexy topic. It's not pretty and no one will ever see it. And it is an upgrade and cost we had to endure because we had to put in sprinklers. But we will undeniably be grateful for today because we officially have water!!!!!

And we officially have water because I managed this little side project while our contractor stayed focused on getting Phase 2 done. And by doing that, we saved ourselves $930. And I get the satisfaction that something that I managed passed an official inspection.

Just in case you are wondering what that all means...

1. Drove to local water district, completed application and paid $170 for them to come and update the water meter at the street to a new 3/4 meter

2. Got an encroachment permit from Public Works which allowed us to dig in the public right of way in order to get from the meter to our property

3. Called 811 - "Call before you Dig" in order to get all the local utility companies to come and mark the location of gas, electrical and water lines in the vicinity of where we wanted to dig

4. Scheduled our gardener to come and dig a 20" deep trench and dig out the old pipe

5. Scheduled our plumber to come install the new 1" pipe and back flow apparatus

6. Called city to schedule inspection of completed new pipe

7. Bought 8 bags of sand which needed to be put under pipe before the inspection

8. Worried that we wouldn't pass the inspection because upon closer view, I realized the trench was not 20" deep but only 13" deep

9. Called the city this morning at 8:40am to get our 1 hr inspection window

10. Found out the window was from 8:45am-10am

11. Drove back to the house before taking H to pre-school and in 10 minutes, while he sat in his carseat in the car, dumped 6 bags of sand under the pipe in the public right of way trench

12. Made it back for the tail end of the inspection that happened at 9:40am. And was thrilled when the inspector said you PASSED!

13. Spent the next 2 hours shoveling pea gravel, dirt and rock in order to fill the trenches

14. Checked water service update OFF MY LIST!

Can you say demolition derby?

Monday, June 15, 9:30am

Monday, June 15, 11:30am

John found the old front door. The built-in in 1894 old front door. And the craziest thing is that we are putting our new 2015 door in approximately the same place. It all comes around.

Monday, June 15, 4:00pm

Tuesday, June 16

Tuesday, June 16, 3pm

Tuesday, June 16, 3pm

Master Bath Before & After

Step One - Shower Doors!

Step 2: Drawer Hardware

Step 3: Mirrors

I'll come back with more images when all the little details are in!

She's back.

It's been really quiet around here. Annoyingly and frustratingly quiet. Because quiet on a construction site means that nothing is happening, no one is working. And that is exactly what it was like for the last 3 weeks.

But today, well, the debris dumpster reappeared and that means it's time to get back to work.

From cathedral to cool!

During demolito of Phase 1 we learned that our cathedral window was nothing close to original, so all of my termination to keep it to pay homage to the past was in vain - unless you consider an homage to weird design in the 80's an homage.

But our scope had crept enough and reframing this wall to get a new window in there was not worth it. So we kept our cathedral window knowing that what it did desperately need was a face list.

Step 1 Painting it Benjamin Moore White Dove

Step 2
Replacing the amber, textured and cracked glass with a modern modern opaque glass

Yup, cool.

Washer and dryer installed!

The laundry room drawers still aren't finished and there is no light and our water still needs to be hooked up, but our new washer and dryer arrived today. So glad I went with the Steel Gray color!

And I'd just like to say that I had the most wonderful experience with the 2 delivery guys from Home Depot!

I love our new carpet!

At some point I will post a picture of the fantastic mauve beauty that used to be up here but for now I am reveling in the most favorite of things: our new wall to wall carpet.

Before I had kids, I really didn't like wall to wall carpet. It gets ugly really fast and I feel like it houses all the dust and dirt that you can't see. But once I had kids and found myself sitting on the floor a lot, I realized how nice a good carpet is. And in a bedroom, well it's really nice underfoot.

So for the rooms under the roof which will inevitably be the master and maybe the kids rooms, I chose a wool sisal look alike rug. It took me a while to find a reasonably priced wood rug bit when I did, I went for it. And while ordering, the sales associate next to the woman helping me remarked - "This is a Neiman Marcus Rug at Gap pricing. You can get a better bang for your buck" My kind of rug.

And well, I knew it would make a difference...but really, the difference is dreamier than I thought!

More mess...

And then voila!!!!

We've got light!

If you are planning a renovation, hire a lighting expert or designer or someone. Just do it.

Do not try to navigate the world of recessed and LED and 2700 and 3000 and ambient and spot lighting and dimmers and home automation alone. Seriously, just don't do it.

Or call me, maybe the knowledge from our bumpy path could be helpful to someone else.

I still don't know if we made the right choices. But we made them and we are seeing them through.

And we have heat...

Or we'll have heat. As soon as it's all hooked up and we're moved in and it's not summertime anymore.

But this is a big deal!

It's unbelievably sad that such a useful and huge closet has been completely designated to this monster of a furnace but I suppose that is how it has to be. We spent so many hours and brain cells trying to figure out how to layout the upper floor of our house and this was the least painful solution we could come up with.

As for how it works, well, we'll just have to wait and see.

First set of railings done!

I am so very glad that we went with the cable railing for the banister over the kitchen! It is modern but the feeling is so light and open.

Countertops, Round 1.

I dragged my feet on ordering our Master Bath cabinet, so it's still production. Meaning, that there will be a Round 2 in about 2 weeks.

But the results of Round 1, well, I couldn't be happier!

Laundry: 

Bath #3:

I'll do a whole product round up and why we did certain things when it's all done!