Our new neighbors were all astounded by how quickly we got rocking and rolling on this house. They were amazed that we were putting in our yard AND finishing the basement AND moving in at the same time. We laughed and just said, "Yeah, we're crazy." And it really was a little crazy. We really wanted these things done right away, but it was a little crazy and stressful doing it all at the same time. There were so many days where I was so overwhelmed by all the little decisions that I just shut down and let Brian handle them. He was gung-ho and I was still trying to figure out where to put our stuff from the old house!
In the beginning of September, our LVP went in downstairs!!! The flooring next to the drywall started making everything seem real, and a renewed excitement about all these projects. We could almost see the end in sight!
Our flagstone section in our yard got finished (and a few modifications were made to handle water flow and drainage.)
We realized that the dirt situation couldn't wait until spring, as we had planned, so we got creative to figure out how to pay to have concrete done now instead of in February like we originally planned. We found a guy who could do the concrete at a very reasonable price, and he got to work leveling and prepping the areas.
Part of the preparations included removing our side garage step.
Meanwhile, Brian started work on our theater platform.
Our landscaper, Gabriel, finished up our planters and steps up to the RV pad.
And the platform construction began downstairs.
After Mike (our contractor for the basement and our friend from Fox Hollow) finished the flooring, there were a ton of boxes leftover. We decided to use them up in our office since it was difficult to slid our chairs around on the carpet. We'd already asked Mike to install double glass doors in the office, so this would just finish up our planned renovation up there. We decided to save ourselves some money and do the flooring ourselves. Here's the before photo:
On Labor Day, we got up early and got to work! First step, remove the carpet.
Next, remove the tack strip, carpet pad.
and all the staples. Gabe actually got pretty good at removing staples.
Goodbye, carpet!
Not shown: Remove baseboards.
After a good sweep of the whole area, we were ready to lay the flooring.
Brian handled all the tricky cuts at the doorway. We made decent progress with it too.
After the flooring was all in, Brian put the baseboards back up. We filled holes, caulked, and touched up all the paint.
We set a project record for ourselves--all this happened in only 1 day!! We had to get it done in time for them to come and install doors. Also, we needed our office back.
We also had them install a different door in Rachel's closet. It used to swing INTO her room, which would have been fine if it swung against a door, but instead, it just used up valuable wall space. We decided to change the door to one that swung inward to her closet. Here's her new door.
And the same day that door went in, we also got our doors in the office.
We filled holes, caulked, and painted these new door frames. The painters painted the actual doors when they did the ones in the basement.
It started to be a little fun at this point because the guy that came to do the trim work and closet shelves was our old neighbor, Dave. He came over and we agreed on layouts for the closets downstairs.
And then all the trim and shelves went in...and they were so fast!
Our concrete also came, and they also made quick work of the whole thing.
And in the middle of that, Brian finished the platform. He had to finish it in time for the trim to go around it, and he made it just in time.
Yay for concrete and no more mud!
Towards the end, we got to put our handprints in the driveway.
We went to Sherwin Williams and picked up three samples of dark blue that we thought would work pretty well for the theater room. Gabe and I put squares of each color on four of the walls so we could look at them in the different lighting. Needlepoint Navy was the clear winner.
With the drywall in, we could better visualize what the space would look like, and I didn't like how our Harry Potter Room playhouse was looking. I mean, we built a castle in our last house, and this just seemed so pathetic in comparison. We'd been watching "Good Bones" on HGTV at nights to keep us inspired for all these projects, and I got this idea to put judges paneling up in the playhouse. Kirt came over to help Brian get it installed so that the painters could fill the holes and paint for us.
Oh, and I decided that I couldn't handle just throwing all the nice rocks that used to be on the RV pad away somewhere, so Brian and Michael moved them down at the end of our yard, just below the little hill to create a path or dry creek. The concrete guy scooped all the rocks and put them in a pile in the road by our big gate, and the boys wheel-barreled them into the yard.
We didn't step foot on the concrete for a week to let it cure, and we're so excited with how it turned out. Something we didn't consider at the time was that this would make snow removal so much easier! We were really grateful for this concrete this winter!
Ta dah!
The had to remove part of the concrete at the bottom of the stairs to better square up the new patio, and I picked up sod and Brian put it into the resulting bare spot.
Finally, we were ready for SAND! Brian and I had a bit of a disagreement about the best place to drop the sand for hauling it into the right spot. I thought it would be easier from our side yard gate, and he thought it would be easier from the driveway. He figured he could make some kind of shoot or something to let it slide into the sand box. Neither of us could be convinced by the other person, so we dropped a load in each place. The neighborhood kids LOVED having the sand in our driveway until we were able to move it.
Oh. And we needed faucet for downstairs. Our kitchen sink's faucet seemed a little too small for our sink, so we decided to look for a new one to replace it and then move the old one downstairs to the wet bar down there. In our search we found this one with our name on it.
Too bad we didn't like the style for our house. We ended up finding a different one.
Cal came down to help us move sand one dreary Saturday in September. Brian had got the weed paper laid out and tacked down the night before, but then the wind picked up in the middle of the night. We struggled to sleep, thinking that all the sand we had just bought was just blowing away. The next morning, we found this:
At least it hadn't blown away. Cal got to work on it while we went to Michael and Gabe's soccer games (his choice. We weren't just being punks). We came back and all got busy helping him.
I think the consensus was that it was easier to haul it from the side yard. It was so much sand! Again, we must be a little crazy!
With the sand box in, this meant we could finally set up our trampoline and put together our newly acquired swing set! This was the moment the kids had been waiting all summer for!
After the sand went in, the painters came and made quickish work of the basement. It was quicker than if we'd done it ourselves, but their crew was much slower than Mike had anticipated. Apparently most of the other crews he's worked with were faster. We loved our choice of Needlepoint Navy for the theater room. Everything else was white to match the rest of our house.
Our yard became the cool yard. The kids loved all that sand!
Oh yeah, and our carpet came!!!!! Our friend Toni came to help us pick out the carpet, and we upgraded from the stuff included in our basement bid. It is SO soft and absolutely worth the upgrade. We can't wait to replace the carpet upstairs to this softer stuff!
We were able to find fixtures to match the ones throughout the rest of the house.
We looked at bathroom rods and toilet paper holders. We ended up finding some on Amazon that we liked, and ended up buying some to replace all of the ones upstairs too, since they all had a cheap looking chrome finish.
We got a fancy light fixture for the playhouse. It's still not as cool as the castle, but I still love it!
It took Brian a while to get all the outlets and lights wired up. He was a champ for all his hard work.
I did help by installing a lot of the outlet and light switch covers.
And Brian installed our new faucet in the kitchen sink and cleaned this guy up to go downstairs.
We love the sconces that we picked for the theater room!
By the end of September, we were so close to being all the way done! We may have even scheduled our inspection by that point. The countdown for moving in began, and we couldn't wait! It was just in time too because Halloween was coming, and I needed my sewing stuff!
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