It's not over

The problem with a renovation is once you start writing about a short-term project, it eventually has to end. The renovation is over, although there is a long list of things that we need to complete. The kitchen and bathrooms look amazing, the first floor traffic pattern is much improved and the entertaining to date has been divine. Still, the undone tasks remain undone and I won't fully enjoy our "new old home" until everything is put in its proper place.

Some things to think about if you are doing a renovation:

1) Low flush toilets are a great sustainable choice, but sometimes things require more than one flush (wink) and that means using more water.

2) Electolux ice makers like to make ice - at least our model does which leads to turning it on and off resulting in ice shortages if we are not paying attention.

3) Leave the house when you are breaking in your new range - instructions say to run for three hours at a high temperature. Those high temperatures cause some toxic off gassing which seem to be enough to kill a few brain cells - something I can't lose more of!

4) Pay the tiler to seal the backsplash before ending the job - we still haven't gotten to this and we are sure we'll regret it if we don't soon.

5) Plan on 25%+ budget overage, don't ask questions, just plan for it!

6) Only invite guests over after you have broken in the new oven and know how it performs. My first dish of some typical roast potatoes were mushy (problem has been taken care of though).

7) Once your home is improved you will love it! You will love it so much, you might not ever go out again, but you should to support the local and national economy!

The question comes up often, what to write about next. Food? House projects (they never do end)? Sports (just kidding!)? I think I need to give this more thought and hopefully get inspired sometime soon. Until then, enjoy these last few weeks of summer.

Lovin' It!

There is a chance that the one or two people who read this blog have been wondering what happened with our project. They may think that the job went south and I lost all hope for it to ever be completed. Or, they might think that we ran out of money and got so upset that we couldn't dream of writing anymore. Or, that I'm plain lazy and have been looking for inspiration these past few weeks. We'll go with the latter of the three. Life is busy and inspiration was lacking. Tonight, however, I got an injection of enthusiasm - not that I haven't been enthused all along!

Enthusiam is easy when a job goes as well as our did. When we talk to friends, neighbors, strangers (yes, Rob has a penchant for chatting up random strangers in restaurants and Lowe's!), they all express awe at the fast pace with which we completed the renovation. In fact, as I was walking past an impending renovation at a neighbor's house today, I wondered if they had begun packing everything up to get ready for demolition. Then, my mind wondered to the fact that their project has been in the works for months and they still haven't started.

It took us five years to decide to stay put, but once we made our decision to renovate, it was a race to the finish. No marathoning for us - we made our decision in early January and one month later were living in a rental down the street. Within eight weeks we were back home and during the past four weeks, we have been settling back in. Only one small detail in the kitchen is still incomplete, but if that is all we have to worry about, then so be it.

We are LOVING our new old home. Wow, what a transformation! A friend told us last night that even though so much is so new, it still feels like our house. I took that as a compliment!

Things we love:

• The countertops
• The kitchen floor
• The cabinet drawers and their "soft" closing mechanism, no more slamming for us!
• The views
• The connection to the dining room
• The master shower
• The radiant floor heating
• Dimmers!
• The powder room - especially the sink
• Copper pipes (Rob found an old galvanized pipe and it is no wonder our water pressure was so poor)
• The new siding
• The windows
• EVERYTHING

We still have a few boxes to unpack and furniture to move and sell. We also have a a bunch of small projects to complete ourselves. We've accomplished a number of things and even though we seem to work our weekends away, the work is a lot more enjoyable due to our new surroundings. 603 Mitchell has never been better!

Button Up!

Today was exciting. After two days of quiet, the plumber, electricians and carpenters were back to begin "buttoning up" our renovation. Scott referred to the last two days of activity this way. I like it. I'm glad he didn't say "that's a wrap" yet, as even after tomorrow a few loose ends will have to be tied up. Some by us, some by our kitchen designer. The guys say that clients love to see them at the beginning of the project, but can't wait to get rid of them at the end! We'll miss our crew, but we know that their absence means our new space is finally ours and ours alone .... to pay for!

I thought one contractor was arriving at 10 a.m. today, so took my time getting ready for work. Lo and behold, Toby the plumber showed up at 8:15 a.m. We chatted while I ate breakfast and he installed my kitchen faucet. I learned that he lives in Pennsylvania, not far south of here; that his wife works for the Vet College; and that they found a human foot in Seneca Lake over the weekend. Needless to say, that last bit of information made me lose my appetite.

After my meager breakfast of oatmeal (I only ate half the bowl), Andy the electrician dropped off a dimmer switch. On my way out the door, I bumped into the guys from a seamless gutter company. When I returned home again to drop Wilson off from an appointment, two electrician's and two carpenters had arrived.

Upon our return home from work many additions to the renovation were complete. The dining room chandelier was rehung, the new kitchen pendant lights were installed, under cabinet lighting was added to the "pass through" cabinet, and the outdoor lights were up and no longer blew a fuse when we flipped the switch. We now have running water in our kitchen sink and master bath sink and the kitchen back splash is exquisite. Wow! These are what I would call details. And they make all the difference, including the fixed circuit upstairs. Now I can plug in the vacuum cleaner without setting the new smoke alarm system off. Phew!

Tomorrow our master bath cabinet gets hung, the grout in the back splash gets applied, our oven is properly installed and the yard debris and equipment is moved out. The items on our punch list (that's contractor talk for the "to do" list) are quickly being checked off, although I need to add one new thing - a toe kick for the dishwasher. I just noticed it was missing when I posted the pictures here!

Once we move ourselves back into each room, clean up and settled in, we'll be inviting our missed crew over to help us celebrate our new digs, This Old House style. We can't wait!

Details, details

One of the most impressive building materials we used for our house project was our Maibec's pre-painted Nantucket shingle siding, better known as cedar shakes. Wow! This stuff is beautiful and easy to maintain. They come prestained and have a 50 year guarantee. For those of you living in Ithaca, this same material was used on the Ithaca Foreign Auto building across from Gimme on State Street (Scott Smith also built that beautiful facility). I always wondered why those shakes hadn't faded. Now I know!

We had to reshingle the back side of our house and contemplated clapboard, stone and shingles. The decision to use shakes is in character with the rest of the houses in our neighborhood. Most are a blend of shakes and other types of siding. I love the look of this siding and the details Scott and Tyler added such as the framing around our outdoor switches. I wish the whole house could look like this. Maybe someday it will!

Shout outs!

Just a few more days until we can fully move back into our house. We once again occupy our abode, but as I mentioned in previous posts, things are a bit chaotic. The countdown continues and with the waning days of construction, we feel it is appropriate and necessary to give some shout outs to our good friends, family and neighbors. Without their support, we might have been heading to divorce court by now! Just kidding!

To Bob Mendola: for handing us the key to his house very early on and encouraging us to use his home when we needed space away from close quarters in the apartment (read: from each other!) or the construction! Wilson stayed there Monday night so he could sleep in on his first official day of spring break (8 a.m. wake up calls are not part of his plan). Thanks, Bob!

To Julie Delay: who delivered a very cool vacumm cleaner, the Hoover Floor Mate that does dry vacuuming or wet. The latter is a must for cleaning up all of the construction dust. I tried it once already and it worked wonderfully! You rock, Julie!

To Sam Schuepbach: who supplied us with an abundant amount of food from his wonderful eatery Alladin's, in Collegetown. We ate every morsel of soup, hummus, grilled chicken and eggplant, plus many other things. Mmmmm, mmmm good! Thanks, Sam!

To Brad and Julie Newhouse: while Rob was away in Florida, we had to make a quick decision (as you have heard, one of thousands) about the color of the window and floor trim. As if we had ESP, Julie and Brad appeared at my door at just the right moment helping me choose Benjamin Moore Mascarpone. Of course, the color is the name of a favorite cheese! Italian to boot!

To Jodi Denman: who on Easter Weekend delivered a beautiful bouquet of Star Gazer Lillies. Oh how beautiful and fragrant. Just what we needed to perk ourselves up while we did our taxes! Nothing like waiting to until the last minute. Thanks for this oh so thoughtful gift, Jodi!

To Megan Roberts and Ray Ghirardo: that last minute invitation to Easter dinner was greatly appreciated. Eating off paper plates was not an option. Your fabulous cooking and company - the best option ever! Dinner was delicious, as always!

To John Lamson and Vicki Simarano: Sunday supper in March was wonderful. Thanks for cooking that amazing leg of lamb (we know how it could have turned out :-).

To Diane and Keith Kubarek: who invited us to dinner knowing we were roughing it. We couldn't make the date, but were oh so thankful for your invitation.

And to Jamie Gearhart for his incredible generosity year in and year out. Can't wait to show you the new digs!

We are blessed to have incredible friends and family and look forward to hosting you very soon!

The slow move back

Our eight weeks of rental time ended this past weekend. It was great while it lasted. I just e-mailed our landlady and told her we wouldn't have survived a renovation if we had to live in the house during the entire project. Now we have two weeks remaining (we think) and inhabit our home once more.

We missed being here. We love my house and our routine doggie walks (even though the rental was a block away, our routes changed); views of South Hill, the activity around the school. All of it! Of course when this is all over, we won't miss the dust, the chaos of living in three rooms upstairs, the lack of a kitchen sink and dishwasher, getting up extra early so that we are not under foot, etc. Not that there is anything wrong with two weeks of pain. We've been very lucky so far.

The first day back, we left the house only a few minutes after Scott arrived. Upon our return we noticed that the driveway was cleaned up, the crown molding above the cabinets was installed, the knobs were in place, more trim was added to parts of the kitchen and the best of it all - we were greeted at the door by Emma. She survived her first day home with the crew!

After taking Emma for a long walk, we ate dinner at our makeshift kitchen island - hamburgers on the grill, salad and french fries warmed up in our toaster oven. Memories of camping came to mind, although I don't camp. Rob took me once and never offered again! You can take the girl out of Brooklyn - just don't make her camp. I pulled all of the ingredients for dinner out of our beautiful new refrigerator now loaded with food thanks in part to our good friend, Sam who owns a great restaurant and a weekend shop at Wegmans. I love the bells and whisltes on the fridge - LED lights, all kinds of sound alerts (door ajar beeping, etc), ice maker (for the first time!) and a freezer on the bottom. Yeeeha! I can't stop opening it! I think I'm in love with my first appliance!

Each day something more is accomplished and soon, we will be at full operation again - our kitchen counters arrive next Tuesday, one day early, and that means the unpacking can begin!

What do basketball and home renovation have in common?

The Cornell vs Kentucky basketball game is the inspiration for this entry. While sitting here watching the Big Red play a tough game, I started to think about basketball terms and how I might relate them to our renovation. But first... Go Big Red!!!! Basketball fever is alive and well in Ithaca, NY and we are very proud that our team is part of the Sweet 16!

I'll give this my best shot:

Traveling: I took some time off from the blog to travel again, this time to Chicago to see my sister. We had a blast and we spent some time in stores like West Elm, Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn and Room and Board searching for decent looking kitchen stools. Of all the things we have had to purchase for our renovation, this was probably the hardest decision to make. The second hardest has been the microwave. Well, most of our decisions have been difficult, but today and this week, these two items have required too much time and energy. By the way, my sister bought two cool kitchen stools for her space in Crate & Barrel. Doubling teaming in Crate & Barrel - score!

Blocking: There are too many choices of kitchen stools and most of them are ugly! Rob and I kept blocking each other from scoring some great stools. This was not because we couldn't agree, we were just overwhelmed by the options. We settled on these after seeing them online and sitting in similar ones at Crate & Barrel: SANDRA COUNTER STOOL SWIVEL/METAL BRUSHED ALUMINUM. They arrived today in four huge boxes. I've only unpacked one so far. We'll have to store them in the attic for another two weeks or so, when we hope the project will be complete. For now, the hall bath is 95% done just in time for our move back home this weekend. We'll be using our new fridge, our gas grill, a microwave and lots of paper plates and cups to get through the home stretch (with baseball season only days away, I couldn't resist).

Dribbling: We knew we only had our rental for 8 weeks, the fastest 8 weeks of our lives! Tomorrow, we start moving things back in to the house and by Sunday we will be back home full time. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, our kitchen will not be complete for another two weeks or more. The cabinets are up, the floor is down, the appliances have arrived, but you can't install the range, dishwasher or sink until the counters arrive. Sigh. Right now, it feels like a slow dribble, even though this has probably been the fastest home renovation on record (if you don't count those HGTV shows).

Dodging: Living in the house during this renovation was never an option early on. We only had the one full bath and the house is small. The contractors have been in every room, even the rooms that were not being torn apart. Dodging contractors was not in the cards.... until now!

Rebounding: This is what we hope to do once we move in and start enjoying our beautifully (albeit, partially) restored home. The rebound will be about the gobs of money we just spent on the house. We hope to rebound financially and emotionally!

Foul: this is how we feel sometimes when things don't go as planned. For the most part, our project has gone smoothly. Let's hope these last two weeks pass quickly and quietly!

Nothing but net: I don't have anything to compare here, just love to say this! I especially love to say it when Cornell scores three pointers. GO BIG RED!!!

The Colors of Italy

Italy seems to have had more of an influence on us than we realized. We had the opportunity to visit the Tuscany region of Italy two Septembers ago. Before traveling there we always heard how much our friends and family loved it. Of course we now know what they were talking about. The warmth of the people, the food, the wine, the countryside, the history, the food, the wine, the colors, the climate, the churches, museums, the food, the wine.....

I was describing the renovation to my sister Edie recently, and summed up our style by saying our colors are warm and inviting - like Italy! She knew exactly what I meant. The walls in the kitchen are a light terra cotta, there are greens and yellows in the master bedroom/bath and our dining room is a cool green. Those colors evoke memories of the Italian landscape, it's ancient hill towns, piazzas, frescoes, vineyards and culinary bounty. We look forward to welcoming our friends and family around our table - we'll even serve some good Chianti!

Seeing the future.....

Now that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel or... our future living in our newly remodeled abode, we imagine divine entertaining with family and friends. For those of you who have been to our parties: annual fireworks party, Christmas party, smores parties in the backyard, casual get togethers, etc., you too can imagine what fun we will have hanging around the new kitchen island, talking through the deck windows, celebrating the holiday season together. Envisioning our wonderful new space is all I can think about these days. Of course, we now have to charge you an entrance fee - that creep has become more of a jog and unless we start taking donations, it's PB&J on ritz crackers for all of us!

So many doors!

A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. Ogden Nash

Yes, it is true. Our lab, Emma is always on the wrong side of the door. The renovation upheaval has been especially hard on her. She was confused daily by our trips to the house early on, but now she is on to us. She knows if we leave the apartment and head south toward 603 she is only getting a short walk. She's not having that though. She just stops dead in her tracks and refuses to walk. I figured out quickly that it would be better to change the routine (walk first and end at the house to either collect the newspaper in the morning or the mail in the evening) than to be reported to PETA for yelling and pulling my dog while standing on the corner. This seems to work and yes, she is the alpha dog! (at least with me...Rob doesn't let her get away with this behavior, so he says)

When we go to the house, Emma refuses to stay outside for too long without us. We go in to inspect and not two minutes go by without her barking to come in. The good news is our new back door has "full light" or one large pane of glass, so she can see right in (or out depending on her mood). The windows are also low enough for her to see out of. Once we move back in, I think she will be a very happy dog.

Back to doors. We have a very small hallway on the second floor and believe it or not, we have 7 doors in that hallway. One bathroom, three bedroom, two closet and one attic. Those doors won't change, but we are now adding three new doors to our bedroom, a pocket door for the bathroom and two doors for our new closet. The pocket door is recycled from our dining room door, but the closet doors are a problem. We have two doors to re-purpose, but one is wood and one is painted. The latter can't be used, so Scott our contractor headed to Significant Elements to see if he could find a match. Significant Elements is a great place. Some of our windows wound up there providing us with a nice tax credit for our donation. Unfortunately, Scott couldn't find a door for us to use, so we are now thinking of swapping one of the hall doors for our closet and installing a louver door for the linen closet. Decision yet to be made.

The other thing about doors is hardware. Do we want knobs, levers or a thumb latch? Depends on what you want to spend. A regular door knob might be $80, but a thumb latch door knob is about $180. Remember the creep? This is how that happens. A little bit here and a little bit there and before you know it - over budget!

Of course, if you are a dog, the creep doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what is on the other side of the door.

The Views!!!

What a difference a week makes! Our contractors took up residence on February 3, and one month later we are beginning to see the fruits of their labor. We have been seeing the progress all along, but they are almost done working on the guts of the house and have moved to the facelift.

One of the most striking revelations for me was after the kitchen windows were installed. We have a wonderful southwestern view and the old floor plan did not take advantage of the landscape at all (this is the revelation folks!). I stood in the warm morning sun light and nearly fainting from what I saw! Our panoramic view seen from our deck can now be seen from inside the house! The best part for Emma, our chocolate lab, is that she can see outside just by walking up to either window or the door (which is all glass). When we looked at our house ten years ago, the thing that sold me was the view. Now, we get to enjoy it from inside the house or out!

Upstairs, progress continues as well. The hall bath is nearly done, tile is up, floor is installed and they moved the vanity in yesterday. Our biggest issue around this room is placement of the sconces. I will be measuring for the right size mirror today, so wish me luck. Math is not my strong suit and Rob is away in Florida.

The master bath is also taking shape with its new tile floor and shower mud pan. By early next week, the shower will be tiled and the window will be in! I can't wait to see the view from this room too. We've never had a view from this new vantage point and we'll love looking out the window every morning while we brush our teeth (its right next to the sink)!

The Creep

When we first started planning this renovation and talked about budget, we were warned that we would inevitably experience "the creep" - you know, your expenses somehow get bigger and bigger - they creep up. Well, guess what? If you are doing a renovation, make sure you have a "creep cushion" (my made up word!). I can't imagine anyone coming in on or under budget.

You start to look at the fun stuff including tile, lighting, appliances, fixtures. You say you are going to keep it simple and inexpensive, but then you just have to have that glass mosaic tile accent in the bathroom, or those retro lights in the office. How about a water filter for the kitchen sink, a built in sound system. Heck, while those walls are all open it would be plain silly not to call Stellar Stereo for a consult. Big bucks later and.... well, we are going to be rockin' out in no time!

After you break all promises to yourself not to go crazy, you also find out that those concrete shingles that will replace our old asbestos shingles cost $7 per! Adds up fast.

Not that we are complaining. We are so psyched to move back in and enjoy the modern amenities we have been missing for the last decade. Goodbye to that vinyl brick kitchen floor, goodbye to drafty windows. The progress has been amazing! Enjoy the pictures!