Making it ours.

Over the course of the next several months we got to unpack so many lovely things that had been in storage until we had a real living space. 4 years living in the bedrooms.  It was like a second wedding, Christmas, and birthday rolled into one.  Lovely glassware, cookware, accouterments of all kinds. It was time to upgrade some stuff too.  Some of our furnishings simply wouln't do in this wonderfull space we created.
So we got a dining room table, a new couch, many rugs, a new fridge, and many other new things.

The kids showing off the new living room rug and couch.

our wonderful kitchen, such as it is.

I guess that's all I'll say for now.  suffice to say, it's really quite nice down here.

What a Drain.

well,  a lot has happened since the last post, and yet again I'm forced to catch you all up on the great progress we've made.  It seems to be easier to make time for the house than to write a post but here we go:

When we left off, the last of the finished plumbing fixtures had been added and we were stoked to move into the other 60% of our house that had been unlivable until now.  Well, the kitchen basin didn't drain and that gave me the sinking sensation that the old pipe we had connected to was going nowhere.
with my dad now living in town, I talked him into some Father-Son time digging up the old pipe and cutting into our main sewer feeder.  Ahhh good times.  The pipe resisted at first: sledge, hacksaw, sawz-all all failed.  There is not much an angle grinder can't cut through though--eventually.

Waa? there are no pics?  maybe it's better that way.

Then it was simply a matter of cutting a hole in the new foundation sill and connecting to our recently installed drain, then running exposed pipe under the house till it came out at a foundation vent.  Then you add a corner, connect to the the sewer, make sure it drains, cover it and hope to hell the inspector doesn't have problem with the grade not quite being code.  hey, it drains doesn't it?

With the plumbing done we moved down in January with lots of little things to do.

The big plumb

Last Big Thing that had kept us from living downstairs was the final plumbing. The big push.

We had the new dish washer ordered and delivered. We had the new kitchen faucet, sleek and wonderful. We had a newish hot water heater that we picked up a the builders sale several years ago and new place to put it. We had the original toilet (fixed up), the clawfoot tub Deder refinished this summer, and a pedestal sink for the bath ( found on the side of the road). We even had the very fancy hardware for the clawfoot tub (it cost more than the tub).

We called the plumber that had redone the house back when the walls were down to add the stub-outs and install our accumulated waterworks. First the sink:

Then the tub.

You'll notice it's still missing a drain. Well, that turned out to be another learning experience. This is how it looks now:

And of course the sink, the free sink was too damaged to use, but we lucked out and found a basin to work with the old square pedestal.

Most importantly, the head:

Barkeeper's Friend is now my friend, now that porcelain takes up so much of the bath.

Lets not forget the dishwasher, we've been without one for a long time now. It fits so nice!

Well, that should do it, right?. .. Umm not so fast, why is the sink not draining? We just assumed the old kitchen drain worked when we tore down.....uh oh. Lets save that for the net post. Enjoy the pics.

The Doors

One of the important interior details of the house are the doors. When we first tore down the guts of the house, one of the first things we did was save the gorgeous original portals and put them in a safe place so that we could--one day--restore them to their past (maybe better) glory.

First in line was the kitchen door; to keep out the cold most of all. We started with paint stripper, then again, and again, and then a power disc sander. I counted six layers, two different pink layers.

some of the original hardware too.

Once the door is sanded and clean, it's time to stain (same as the cabinets), add some black detail, and coat with a couple of layers of urethane. Check out the results below.

isn't it Grout?!

With all the painstaking tiling Andrea has done I figured its high time to highlight the fabulous results! I personally couldn't comprehend why she was so particular about the tile placement and type, but the results speak for themselves.

The future home of our claw foot tub!

The fabulous (heated) kitchen floor! Grouting is a cinch, I don't know why I was so worried. Also, Andrea did it all- only a few short months after Liam was born.

The Heat is on!

Now that the walls and floors and kitchen is in, it's time to heat this sucker up! We wired for baseboard heat when the walls were down and purchased the units this last fall. With the thermostats strategically set we will have six different heaters and thermostats downstairs alone. This means that we can independently vary the heating needs of each room, though it does make for a lot of programming at first.

Rigging up a 220V heater.

The new heaters are awesome (after a stinky burn off). I love having a warm downstairs.

Love Handles.

before handles

Now we only have had the kitchen cabinets for about 9 months, so it was about time to add the handles. We had ordered the handles with the cabinets originally, but they showed up with a small number of knobs we didn't want. After wrangling the rest of the handles and sending back the knobs, we are ready to start. Using a jig provided by the cabinet makers, Elsa and Deder got to drilling!

Cupboard doors were easy, but the drawers had to be back-drilled for the short screws.

Sometimes I forget how small she is.

Of couse, these large handles looked pretty silly on the tiny top row. What were we going to do? After a week of debate and test handles, we agreed on--knobs. OK at least we are done with that now.