We heart West Seattle

We went down to Alki beach to take a walk on Saturday and I snapped these pic's on my iphone. I just love how beautiful this neighborhood is... especially on those rare sunny days!

The Roof

Well now that our basement is 90% done (we are still working on Doors, molding, and a few other finishes), why not have the roof of our house re-done right? Haha. Well this wasn't on my list of things to do, but Matt thought we should do it in the next 3-5 years anyways.... So when a new little company came into our neighorhood (their office is literally a block down the street on the main road) that does green home renovations, and offered to do our whole roof as well as replace our gutters and fix up part of our porch roof.... (at a killer deal since they are trying to get new business) we couldn't pass it up.

Luckily this project requires no work on my part, other than signing some paperwork, woo hoo!  And now by the end of summer we will have a brand new roof before the next winter.

Here are a few "before" pictures of the roof. You can see they have already delivered some of the materials and put it up on our roof where it has now been sitting for a week. Hopefully I will have finished "after" pictures in a few weeks.

Best day ever... Drywall

We officially have drywall in our basement! It all went in yesterday (all in 1 day) as planned. It will still be another 5-7 days (planning on next Friday) for it to officially be done, since they need to tape and plaster it, and apparently there is drying time needed between each time they plaster and sand it.

In case anyone is wondering, it cost us a total of $3,000 for the whole basement to be drywalled including all the mud and taping. We also saved about $500 by doing all the cleanup of the drywall scraps and taking them to the dump ourselves. Seriously the best money we have EVER spent. SO happy.

Here are a few pictures:

Matt contemplating how amazing a drywalled basement is

 The view from our living room

View from the other side of our living room

Looking into our future office.. this room is going to be pretty big (seems larger now that there are real walls for some reason). Can't wait to move our desk and bookshelves down here and make it feel like a real grown up office/library. 

The far back guest room... had a difficult time getting a picture of this room, it's not actually that small, but there isn't a light in there yet and was hard getting a good picture from any angle. Still lots of drywall scraps in this picture too. 

Last pictures of the basement before drywall

I cannot believe it was 1 year ago this weekend, that we were demolishing our basement and tearing out drywall, wood, cabinets, flooring, insulation.... pretty much everything down to the necessary wood structure and concrete. It has been a crazy year with lots of surprises and frustrations. But we are almost done! We can't believe it.

This weekend we did some very last things to get the basement ready to be drywalled (the drywall crew was scheduled to come and there was no more delaying things!). We finished any last electrical projects we wanted done before drywall, including wiring lights for above the future bar as well as wiring cable/internet/electrical behind our walls so that when we finally mount our TV on the wall there will be NO cords hanging on the wall... anywhere...yessss.

Matt worked quite a bit on final framing to make sure there weren't any spots that would be a problem for the drywalls to install, and there was also a lot of just general clean up this weekend.

Today (Monday) we insulated the ceiling of the entire basement. With the help of my wonderful parents (who volunteered to spend their entire memorial day helping us do this today)... we got the entire basement insulated in just about 5 hours, faster than I expected, but also dirtier and itchier (even wearing goggles and a mask that stuff gets everywhere and it is itchy!)  And then we celebrated with some BBQ'ing.

Finally, I took about 200 pictures (literally) so that if we ever need to know where things are behind the walls we can refer to the photos first before ever having to cut into the drywall later. Matt had me take a picture from each direction going between every beam (I think that was about 80 pictures...), and then we took lots of extra pictures of all the the plumbing and electrical in the walls.

Anyhow... here are just a few pictures of the rooms to enjoy, before it is all white and drywalled tomorrow! We will keep everyone updated on the progress over the next few weeks.

Part of the future living room and bar/kitchenette 

The other half of the living room on the other side of the stairs. 

Looking into our future office (the extra large door opening will be for french doors)

Another look at where the bar will be. 

Stairs coming down into the basement. 

Another new fan

Last weekend we installed another new fan in our house. Not super exciting I know, but it looks a lot better than the light brown one from the 80's or 90's that was there. The old one also didn't have a light on it (it was just a fan)... so this makes a big difference in our little living room. Who knew having light in a room would be so nice? =)  It was super easy to put together ourselves, and then Matt installed it in about 20 minutes to our ceiling... he is really getting quite handy with the electrical projects.

Something about having brand new fans in our bedroom and living room makes me feel like summer is coming... can't wait until the weather turns around and is actually nice enough that we will need to use these!

Oh, and P.S. we grabbed this fan at the good old Home Depot for only about $85 (on sale), steal!



What we've been up to

I have been bad at blogging this last couple months. We've been busy, with life, work, and house projects... but for some reason I have failed to really take any pictures (and in my mind there is no point in posting a blog post without pictures). Well I figured I should just get over it and post an update anyways... and make an effort for more pictures from now on.

Updates on the House... lots and lots of little projects... including finishing wood framing in random places to get it finally ready for drywall. This included framing in places like the ceilings of the closets in the basement, and around the main beam (so that its all the same size and will be smooth once we drywall). I give all credit for this to Matt. I am useless when it comes to framing walls or anything else in that realm.

We also have an official start date for when drywall goes in! The day after Memorial Day weekend, May 31st, we will have contractors in our house and drywall is going in! Overall they think it will take them 1 day to drywall our whole basement, but then 8-10 days total for all the mud and taping and sanding and texturing (with dry time in between some days). Super excited this is going to be done by professionals and we know for sure when it's happening now. 

This also means the next 2 weeks we are going to be full force working on the house to be 100% ready for drywall. Our last projects will include: insulation in the basement ceiling (this weekend), getting internet & cable hooked up and wired to the basement (so that the wires will be behind the walls), and lots of clean up of supplies and tools...

I promise I will take pictures as the next few weeks unfold and things quickly progress with the house!

Electrical

That's right, we are doing the electrical in our basement ourselves. Luckily all the electrical that was already in the basement wasn't too old, so it's mainly just adding new lights and outlets, and moving much of the wiring around so that it works better for our needs.

The first thing we had to do was map the electrical in our whole house. Since this house had been remodeled so many times over the years and new outlets and things added, the notes on the panel were outdated and there was no good way to know which outlets or lights were hooked up to which switches on our electrical panel.

We are reading a book on DIY electrical, and the way they suggested you do this is turning off every breaker on your electrical panel and then turning on one at a time to test which outlets and lights are "on" connecting to it.  After you find out which switch goes to an outlet, you right that number down next to it on the map of the house and then on to the next.

 This handy tool, you stick the metal end into an outlet (or up against a loose wire) and if its "on" the little tool buzzes really loud (kind of like a smoke detector sound).

For some outlets we were having a hard time figuring out... here is another strategy we used. This tool we borrowed from a friend, and you plug the black piece into an outlet which is "on", and then you go to the electrical panel and put this yellow piece next to each switch until it buzzes loudly. This was a much easier way to figure out which outlets went to which switches on the panel. Unfortunately it didn't really help with ceiling lights... so for those we were back to the first strategy.

The whole process only took maybe 4-5 hours, although I'm sure someone skilled could do it more quickly.


On a side note... you know how you tell kids not to stick their fingers in outlets? I also learned you should never touch the sides of them if they are exposed. =)  Those little round metal pieces on the sides of this outlet (hanging from out ceiling) gave me quite the shock when I went to grab it so I could stick the outlet tester in it. One tingling arm later and now I know...

First Snow

We had our first snow of the year this week! Seattle doesn't get snow very often, maybe a dusting of snow each year and then it melts the next day. But this reminded me of the "big snow" of 2008 when we got 2 feet. On Monday we got a couple inches.... but I dont think anyone was even expecting that, so everyone still drove in to work that day and it was a mess getting home. Seriously, worst traffic mess I have ever seen in Seattle.... literally took Matt & I in the car 5 hours to get home from downtown to West Seattle (which would normally take 15 minutes).

I have to say though, even after that horrific 5 hour drive home.... I'm crossing my fingers for lots more snow this year. I just can't help it! Love the snow and how pretty it makes everything look... I'll take that over rain any day.

Here is a picture from our front porch.

Its that time of year...

Time to get the Chimney swept. I can't believe we have lived in our house for 3 years and have never had a fire. Matt was concerned since the chimney was so old, how long it had been since it was cleaned (if too long and there was a lot of build up it could cause a chimney fire which we do not want!)... and we just kept putting off getting it cleaned. Now I wish we had sooner!

I called up a company I found recommended on the West Seattle blog - The Mad Hatter, and scheduled them to do the Chimney cleaning. They were booked out for about a month back in October when I called, so we just had them in this week. They had a $99 special, and did an awesome job. They kept everything really clean and did a total inspection of things letting us know about a few other things we should keep an eye on or fix on the roof in the future. I am always weary about letting contractors or workers in our house, worried it will get super dirty or that if Matt isn't here and they say technical things that are over my head and I'll have no idea what they are talking about and I won't know the right questions to ask. But these 2 guys were both so nice and friendly and helped answer any questions I had.

Can't wait to have our first fire in the fireplace this year!

 

More walls up, more floor down

We tried to be extra productive this last weekend, since we only have 1 more weekend until Thanksgiving and then Holidays are in full swing and we'll be busy every weekend in December.

So, we got more walls put up, and are getting sooo close to having all the subfloor done. The Subfloor is really my project (I guess Matt figured I couldn't screw that up, haha), and while it was kind of fun at first... that quickly grew old. We just have so many odd shaped areas and nooks where you have to cut the panels to fit, such a pain. Oh well, one upside is that I have been forced to become comfortable using the power saw... and after about panel 100... I have to say I feel like a pro. =) Ok, not a pro, but at least I'm not scared to death of sawing off a finger anymore.

The first wall is up

We are finally putting up walls. Matt has a system down, building the walls on the floor and then we hoist them up and attach them to the ceiling beams and the floors. Here is a picture of the first wall we put up. Hoping to get all of them done in the next few weeks before Thanksgiving. It actually seems to be going quite smoothly so far, and I think after this last weekend we have about 1/3 of the exterior walls done. We will see...

Basement Subfloor

Now that all our insulation is in, the crawl space is finished, and the last bits of the furnace are done... its on to the next project, putting in our new subfloor. This layer of floor will go down on top of the concrete, and provide a layer between that and the future carpet we will be putting down.

We are also using a cool product (I actually heard of it while watching various DIY shows on HGTV...and then we checked it out and bought it at Home Depot) called DRIcore. It comes in square panels which we can snap together, and has plastic with ridges on the bottom of it (this is in case any moisture gets in, it wont get up to our floor/carpet, and can drain under our subfloor). We thought this would be a great extra precaution for our basement just in case there are ever moisture problems in the future.

We got started on it this last weekend, and its going pretty quickly. I think it will just take another weekend to get it done. (fingers crossed)

And we have heat

After having our furnace replaced a few months ago, we now finally have heat! We technically could have turned it on long ago, but there were a couple projects we wanted to finish first and it hadn't really been cold so there was no need. The basement crawlspace door (leading under our front porch) needed to have a new door built around it and insulated... no point in turning our heat on if it would all just flow right outside through that).

We also had to have the final duct work finished (which wasn't done before since we had to rebuild the stairs first, as that ductwork comes upstairs from up under the staircase). The stairs were finished about a month ago, and so we scheduled the guy that did our furnace and duct work originally and he came in this week and it all got done!  P.S. we used James Heating & More (he is a local guy in West Seattle) and he was great... very nice and easy to work with, and we felt very fairly priced.

The last week it turned a bit chilly, nothing we couldn't handle... but it is so nice to have heat again and know we will be warm and cozy (and energy efficient) this winter!



Matt after a long day working on the basement

New crawlspace door and insulation

It even has a lock... nothing is getting in here. =)

Here is the new railing/half wall around the staircase upstairs, with final duct work put in. Our house/furnace will now circulate air throughout the upstairs & downstairs (before there was only an air in-take vent in our basement, so the furnace was just pulling air in from there and then circulating that throughout the house), which will keep it even warmer & more efficient

Seasonal decor makes me happy

Like flowers, I have a soft spot for pumpkins. In fact I have to restrain myself or I would buy one everytime I see them at the store. When they first show up at our neighborhood vegetable stand (Tony's) it makes me just giddy. And when I found some of the really cool "Harvest Pumpkins" (the only way I can describe them is they look like heirloom tomatoes kind of) at Trader Joe's I went about crazy. I'm limiting myself this year to 2 large pumpkins on the porch this year, and a small one with a green gord as centerpieces on our table.

"Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul."  ––Luther Burbank

(ok, so I found this quote on the Trader Joe's website and stole it. I think its great though and expresses my love for flowers and other seasonal arrangements!)

Seeing Pink

I had Columbus day off as a holiday from work last week, and spent the day finishing most of the insulation downstairs.... And now the basement is all insulated! Matt went through and used cans of simple spray foam to fill in any larger cracks, and now all that is really left is to tape the seams.

This was a surprisingly easy project! I mean, it still took time (maybe 2 full weekend days and a few week nights finishing up and doing the spray foam), but it was a pretty simple and low stress step that I'm glad we did ourselves.

Here were the basics. We are by no means experts, but these are the steps we took from the research we did reading up on the product and from asking folks at Home Depot.

1. Cleaned the cement walls of dust and debris (used our broom and swept them really well to get rid of cobwebs, dirt, concrete dust, etc).
2. Measured each section of wall from floor to the top of the wall (it varied by a few inches around the house since our house is so old and its settled and some additions had been made to the house)
3. Marked these measurements on the the large pieces of hard insulation, cut them with a simple razor blade, snapped them apart.
4. Applied ample adhesive to the backs on the insulation pieces (I think we went through about 20-25 tubes of it... there should be a picture of the type we used in a previous post)
5. Put the pieces up and pushed them tight to the wall to make sure they were secure.
6. Used spray foam to fill larger cracks around the crawl space and on the top of the walls (where there are spaces by our wood beams).
7. Tape the remaining seams between each piece of hard insulation to prevent moisture coming through from the cement walls.

Woo hoo. On to the subfloor next....

More on the stairs...

We finally had our new stairs built this last week, we actually hired someone to do this, rather than spending 3 or 4 weekends of our own trying to do it ourselves.... and probably ending up with crooked stairs. =)

Pretty excited to have these in... even though they dont have all the finishings yet (they'll be carpeted once we get to that point in the basement and carpet the downstairs also).... they are great. We made them wider and deeper than the old stairs, so they aren't so steep going down the stairs. And like I've mentioned before, they are now facing the opposite direction going downstairs and now the bottom of the stairs will be into the living room in the basement rather than the hallway by the bathroom.

Matt removing the railing around the old stairs, and taking out the electrical.

Brand new stairs

I just can't wait...

...to pick out carpet and paint and decorations for the basement.

I'm constantly looking in magazines. Home remodel magazines, fashion magazines, fancy style and design magazines, oh and of course every single DIY blog that my friends pass along to me. And they all give me so many ideas its almost overwhelming! I just keep clipping things out though and putting them in a folder, and it will be so exciting the day when the drywall is in, we have electrical, and the design decisions really get to begin.

I keep telling myself to chill out and worry about finishing our insulation, walls, and electrical work before I should focus on colors and design. Which truly will be a couple months away. But all I can do is dream about light fixtures and the finishing details.... Ahhhhh soon enough. =)

Time to insulate

Next up on our basement to-do list is insulating. We are installing a hard insulation that comes in panels which go up against the concrete walls, and once it is glued to the walls (with some sort of special stuff we use with the caulking gun) we will tape all the seams.  Once that is done we can build the new walls with 2x4's in front of the insulation..... and then whenever that all gets done.... on to electrical.

As you can see we picked up all our supplies last weekend (at Home Depot) and are getting started on this. I actually think this step will go pretty quickly, fingers crossed.

You can see in this picture the hole to our crawl space, yuck. Matt promises me it is sealed for now with this plactic sheeting and duct tape (to keep dirt, water, air out from the outside world...but more importantly in my mind spiders!). Eventually this will all be covered with a small door that seals it closed when the walls are built. 

Reds, Oranges, and Yellows

I sure love fall. Can't get enough of the flowers, these are a few more I got at the west seattle market again last weekend. $4 for 4 stems which seems like such a steal, and they are huge and beautiful.

Also had to grab a picture of some of our tomatoes that came in this year... we got about 4x this amount in the picture and have been making lots of caprese salads with them. You really can't beat fresh veggies right from the yard.