Starting All Over Again, Part 6 (The Cute Stuff)

Up until the apartment was drywalled and painted, you had to use your imagination as to how the space would feel. When you are used to walking through the two-by-fours for months you forget how it will be to only walk through doorways. Fortunately, Kathy and I have a pretty good imagination and pretty much "walked through the apartment in our minds" for the months leading up to drywall. We gave a lot of thought as to furniture placement, outlet availability, and lifestyle living. As we did that we would adjust and adapt the space closer to our final product. It was during this time that Kathy asked for a number of things to be added, and when I would ask her "why" she always responded with "because we can." After months of watching the entire initial house go up without any possibility of change, it was a freeing concept to know we could do whatever we pleased in our space. The outlet situation is a perfect example. While building code stipulates where they must go and how far apart they must be, that standard is just the minimum. Kathy had me put outlets everywhere. There are three at the back of the family room and four at the front, plus more at the sides. Is that overkill? Not to Kathy. Her thought is that she might need an outlet anywhere so she wanted one close. When the electrical inspector came in for the rough inspection, he looked around and asked, "why so many outlets?" To which I replied, "because we can." He went on to opine as to how few you can legally have (the answer was one if you're curious, and that's how many were in the basement when we bought the house), but added that we were free to put in as many as we had. Even after that conversation he had me add one more to make sure I conformed to code.

The laminate flooring stretched across the entire apartment

We were now at the point where Kathy could see all the "cute stuff" happening. The first thing on Kathy's list was putting in the cabinets. Getting those in made the kitchen real. I worked on ceiling lights, outlets, and switches so that I could actually see down there now. The tile floor in the bathroom was next which meant we could finally put in the vanity and toilet. Then it was time for the rest of the flooring, those 75 heavy boxes we had moved half a dozen times over the past months. This was a realistic wood-look laminate that we planned to run through the entire apartment. We started in the peak of the family room bay wall and worked our way up towards the hallway. Then we did the bedroom and the kitchen from that same back wall. When we got to where they all joined up together we had to adjust the floors so that it was a straight line across. One of the pluses of laminate for this project was that the flooring "floated" on the vapor barrier placed on the concrete. Movement was expected and planned for. Had we needed to glue down another type of flooring it would have been more difficult to line all the rooms up. After the six foot section across all three rooms it split back up. Finishing the kitchen meant going into the appliance pockets and around the island. From the bedroom we went into the closet and office. From the family room we went down the hallway, into a closet through our front door, and finished in the foyer at the bottom of the stairs. Over a thousand square feet of laminate was installed in one big connected piece, just like they do on HGTV. What a difference it made! You will also notice that the six foot doorways between these three room are staying just like that, keeping it all sort-of open concept. It has actually worked out well for us but it would be possible to add glass French doors or perhaps simple curtains to close off the bedroom. 

I left myself cryptic notes about each wire, but forgot what the letters meant.

We went back to the bathroom and tiled the walls around the tub. Kathy asked for a niche in the wall to hold her products. Vent fan and lights were installed as were the closet shelves. Oh, and there's an outlet in the closet for her electric toothbrush and my electric shaver and one by the toilet so she can add a lamp. We finally had our doors and put them up in the bathroom so that it could be used. Mirrors and towel bars made it useful and a shower curtain kept the water in the tub. Kathy hunted down the proper decorations from the storage containers and we had a proper bathroom.

 

   
The bathroom is now large enough

Let me insert a side-note right here about the doors. We agonized over those because Kathy wanted something more in keeping with the character of the house. When she said she'd like it to be a Craftsman door I went woozy and saw dollars signs floating above my head. I had wanted a standard door because I could get it in 2x4 and 2x6 depth, and also in hollow-core and solid-core options. The Craftsman doors started off way more expensive and they didn't offer the 2x6 option at all. If you could find them they were prohibitively more expensive. But I said I would check it out. As you might imagine by now, a sale popped up with another brand that offered a 2x4 Craftsman solid-core door for the price of the standard hollow-core door. Half my doors needed the 2x6 depth but I decided it was possible to build out the extra two inches with lumber and turn it into a deeper depth door frame. I ordered those doors and installed them in just that way and it looked terrific. The solid-core helps to muffle noise between rooms and it does give the rooms character.

Our solid-core Jeld-Wen Craftsman doors

On to the kitchen. After the cabinets and the flooring we needed to add the leg supports for the kitchen island. The wood-grain paneling was added around the island cabinets. Electrical switches, outlets, and lights made a big difference. With the granite and backsplash in we could put up a few shelves near the sink. The microwave needed the duct to the outside, the refrigerator needed a water line for the in-door faucets, the dishwasher was connected, and the sink needed the disposal and faucet. We moved in the table and chairs, assembled the coffee bar area (I guess that's a thing now), and added the island stools. Kathy decorated her little heart out and the kitchen was fully useable.

The kitchen turned out just like the designer's sketch

The ubiquitous coffee bar

We replaced the clear back door glass with leaded glass

The family room needed all the can lights in the ceiling hooked up and then there was light. We moved in the assembled TV console but the shelving units had to be assembled. Down went the rug, and the couch and chairs were moved in. Kathy spent some time moving stuff around before she figured the right configuration and did the same with all the decorations. She put in a late request for built-in shelves for putting up her cups and saucers, but it didn't take long at all to add a few pieces of wood. It's a great room.

Such a sad little 46" tv in such a large room (later replaced with a 65")

Shelves for pitchers

  

The bedroom had a big double window so it is a bright room during the day. The big decision for Kathy in this room was whether or not she wanted a ceiling fan. She hates them with a passion but knows they would probably be helpful here in the South. She decided to have one put up but it had to be cute. And come with a chandelier. It turned out to be a very quiet fan as well so it doesn't make unnecessary noise. We outfitted the closet with an end shelf unit and packed in as many closet rods as possible. Surprisingly, all our clothes fit in that one closet. This was also the first room that got the accent wall treatment. She loved it so much she used the color elsewhere. The mirrors from the last house made it to this room.

Classy bedroom with a darker color feature wall

Our bedroom window looks out on the forest at the back yard

Built-in shelves for the bedroom closet

Then there's the Office, aka the Man Room. It's right next to the bedroom and gives me a place to watch what interests me on TV, which is not old black and white movies with Kathy. My desk and computer is in there as well. It's a small room but a handy one at that. I've always said I would be more sparse in my decorating if I were actually in charge, but this room is packed full of interesting stuff (to me anyway) stacked floor to ceiling. It's tough to stop when you have so many items you want to see, but now I understand the trouble Kathy has with keeping it simple!

Did you notice the clock that counts backwards?

The "just as sad" 50 inch Panasonic plasma

The hallway is another area that Kathy has turned into its own room. This way there is no wasted hallway space. At the one end she put in a little reading nook with a bookshelf for her favorite books. On the other side is some of my handmade furniture from years back, and in between is a closet for our coats, mops, vacuum cleaner, and an extra shelf for her sewing machine. There's also another door to our little storage room and mechanical area. Here she has easy access to decorations and whatnot. She says she goes in there every day and I have no reason not to believe her.

   

  
Even the hallway is decorated

A great little book nook . . . . . . . . . . . and extra storage space

     
HVAC System
   

Outside the apartment area is the stairway landing that Kathy couldn't help but make cute. We also fixed up the stairs with paint on the treads and some more of that wood-grain paneling from the kitchen cut into pieces for the risers. The girls have figured out that grandma and grandpa are down those stairs and we love when they come to visit!

We call this the "foyer" at the bottom of the stairs

We decided to finish off the stairs

The final area is a shared area and that is the workshop/storeroom. Now that my project is done, Myric has started on some of her projects. This room houses the tool chest and other tools along with a long work bench. In the corner is the utility sink from Jon's old house that had just been sitting there unused. Perfect for cleaning out paint brushes instead of in the kitchen sink. There's room in there to set up the table saw or use the miter saw without having to take it outside. Jon and Myric have room to store away their storage bins as necessary.

Well, that got a little longer than I expected but it was more pictures than writing so I hope you enjoyed the tour of what we've been working on since closing on the house. It has turned out even nicer than planned and is a comfortable place for us to spend our time. There are a couple projects outside that we'd like to get to, but for the moment we are done with our basement space.

COVID-19 sent many into their homes on March 13, 2020, but we continued working right on through and got our Certificate of Occupancy at the beginning of May 2020. I started back up driving for Lyft and have been doing so right up to the present time. I don't know what the future holds but I know it's in the hands of Almighty God!

Thanks for coming along for the ride!


Arktander
(aka David Andreasen)

Starting All Over Again, Part 5 (Yes Virginia, It's Another Kitchen)

While all of the behind-the-walls work was going on during the day, I used the evenings to plan out the new kitchen. Though the cabinets would not go in for several months, they needed to be ordered so that we would have them delivered at the right time. Parts procurement is an under-appreciated part of the remodeling process. We all watch those shows on TV where lots of time is spent designing and putting up the fancy 3D drawing of the project, while parts just magically appear later when they are needed. If you have all the money in the world (or all the money for an HGTV remodel) then you just order it all right away and you're good to go. But if you're an Andreasen that option just won't do. For starters, an Andreasen never buys anything at full price. Sales are appreciated. A clearance item is a bonus. Adding interest-free financing to nearly every purchase is an especially satisfying two-fer or three-fer. The drawback to this approach? You have to plan much farther ahead than they do on HGTV. Months before starting the project we began collecting some of the items we would need. We took the flooring from our for-sale house and didn't finish that project there, using it for the basement apartment instead. We took with us every item in that house that we could use in the new apartment, removing it all before listing so that prospective buyers knew exactly what they were (and weren't) buying. We had already upgraded the Whirlpool dishwasher in the new house, not because Jon and Myric liked that one better but because we liked the standard one for our apartment and they wanted a different one. After we moved in I removed the dishwasher and brought it down to the basement, then installed their chosen model in its place. For a couple hundred bucks extra we made use of an item already there. The list of items we collected in that way was long and amounted to about $3,000 so we were off to a good start.

You can (sorta) see the bathroom vanity behind the right side of tub

There were many other items that would be needed down the road. Electrical lights, bath vanity, tile, doors, trim, furniture, tv console, shelves, appliances, sink and faucet, cabinet handles, island lighting, ceiling fans, window blinds, rugs, and the list goes on. Nearly every one of these decisions was a hard fought battle with each of us not wanting to get something we hated. Sometimes it was quick and easy, other times it was protracted and difficult. But that's how couples figure things out. There's give and take needed to get the job done. (Our nation's political leaders need to figure that out, but that's another topic entirely.) Let's take the bathroom vanity as an example. Because the bathroom was now large enough, she wanted a six foot long vanity with double sinks. Try to find those in stock anywhere at a reasonable price! We took a drive to a "discount" warehouse and the least expensive was around $2500. And it was ugly! Putting in side-by-side three foot wide sinks would have been my solution (much lighter) but she'd had her heart set on the larger one because it would have more counter space. One night I opened up the Home Depot app (we were on a first name basis by now) and started searching for six foot vanities. They were running $1300-$1500 but at least they weren't ugly. I showed one to her that was about $1200 and she said it was alright. Any husband knows that means it's not alright so I asked her which ones she did like, and she showed me. Of course, hers were far more expensive.

A couple weeks later I looked them up again and one showed up for $600 (I always sorted from low to high price and it was the first on the list). It was white with doors and drawers and an extra shelf behind the doors. It had a marble top with oval white sinks that drained properly. (The nice square sink in the last home bath never drained completely.) She said buy it and I did on the spot. When we agree I don't mess around. It's in my cart and on the way! That thing came packaged with an inner box and and outer box strapped to a wooden crate and weighing 450 pounds. The delivery guy got it down the hill and near the door and I begged him to help me at least get it inside. Thankfully he acquiesced. I don't remember how many times I had to push that thing around the basement to be out of my way but it was a bunch. Super heavy to move as it was delivered in one piece. But it was so worth it when it was finally placed in the bathroom. A fantastic quality product at a clearance price. You have to grab those when you find them and we were always ready. And it seemed like the Lord showed us just what we needed at the time we needed, and at a bargain price. Most all the items we bought were placed down in the basement and sat for months until we needed it. But we got exactly what we wanted and we never were held up by something being missing. We called that collection of items our "store" and I was always going to the "store" to find something.

The kitchen walls are insulated, ready for drywall

The kitchen from our previous house did not come with us as that was one thing that sold the house to the buyer. So we would need to come up with a new kitchen plan to work in the basement, and we would need to get moving so it could be ordered to arrive in the new year. This meant finalizing what we wanted some time in October as they told us to expect delivery in three months after ordering. We used the same company we had used for the last kitchen since there was a knife drawer, cutlery divider, and trim pieces that would use to help lower our cost several hundred dollars. That meant we needed to use the same color but, thankfully, Kathy liked the white. She did shake things up a little by choosing a slightly different style which had flat drawer fronts instead of the Shaker framed look. But there was another benefit, and that was that this style and this color were the absolute lowest priced cabinets offered by this online company. Many are not aware of how style and color add significantly to the cabinet budget, more than doubling it if you choose a more desirable offering. I've joked to Kathy that companies must get volunteers, put them in a room with a variety of items, and ask them to guess the price. If people expect an item to cost more then they aren't surprised when it costs more. That may not be how pricing is done but it is a certainty that kitchen cabinets are not priced according to their actual cost. You will pay more for a "designer" color even though that paint or stain is not any more costly to produce than another. You can pay double, or even more, for a "designer" cabinet style even though their cost is not double. Since the basic box of the cabinet was the same across all face styles we chose the least expensive. It would work exactly the same and we would save thousands. We learned this after doing the Rockford kitchen where we had two different colors for the cabinets, glass doors, large handles, and Corian countertops and paid the bigger price.

Two-color cabinets + big hardware + glass doors + Corian = big price

In designing a kitchen for a remodel, the sink is normally put under the cabinet-height window and appliances are kept in the same space so as not to mess with water lines, gas lines, and electrical outlets. However, we did not have a sink window and we could put electrical and water where we wanted. But there still are limitations. The sink had to be on the wall with the drain line running through the bathroom walls. The range had to be on the outside wall so the microwave fan could be vented straight to the outside. The refrigerator would then need to go on the wall with the sink and I had an idea for that. Kathy wanted a counter-depth refrigerator this time, which meant it was about six inches shorter in depth. While not looking completely like a built-in refrigerator, it did have a much cleaner look than the protruding full size model. Since they no longer use stainless steel for the side panels, but rather a muddy gray painted steel, I wanted to cover up the sides. But those custom panels cost a fortune from the kitchen company so that was a no. I suggested we use a couple smaller pantry units on each side of the refrigerator and Kathy liked that idea. We would not have the full pantry room like the last house but would end up with three pantry cabinets in the kitchen! The third would go at the other end to give it a finished look. With those decisions made, it was just a matter of adding a few cabinets in the empty spaces.

Our kitchen utility table (not quite an island)

Kitchen islands, as we know them now, came into mainstream use in the 1980's. Before that there would have been a large table placed in the kitchen when there was room. Since this relative time frame coincided with us getting married, such an island with cabinets below and stone on top might have been on Kathy's mind in every one of the kitchens we had up till now. The closest she got to that ideal was the small utility table in the middle of the Mayfair kitchen. It served the purpose of an island as a place to gather around where food might be. But it wasn't quite an island, because who really wanted an island that small? Also in that kitchen was a peninsula, which is also kind of like an island but attached to the other cabinets in the kitchen. By getting rid of both the peninsula and the utility table there would have been room for a large island, but these things were in their infancy. So it was with great fanfare that Kathy now proclaimed that this new kitchen would host as large an island as we could possibly get in that space. After decades of her watching HGTV there was little use in arguing. That space was meant for an island. It would be about four feet by six feet and there would be no sink or stove to diminish the useable surface area. After much back and forth with the kitchen designer, we had a drawing of what it would look like. (The side of the pantry and the back and sides of the island look unfinished because Kathy would buy some wood-grain paneling to spice it up a bit.) We ordered the cabinets in the middle of October and they were delivered in the middle of November. So much for the beginning of the next year. We ended up storing them in Jon and Myric's dining room until needed.

The kitchen designer's plan

Getting back to the purchasing process, the kitchen backsplash was one of the first items we bought in the entire project and we hadn't even started the cabinet design process. We were at Lowe's and Kathy saw this decorative mosaic small-pattern tile and had to have it. She had someone track down every box in the store and we bought them all. Then we went to two more Lowe's stores and bought them out. She had in mind to do a large feature wall with tile in front of the sink, all the way up to the tops of the cabinets. I was sure it would look good but I was also sure I was going to hate putting it up. As I reasoned out loud that these foot-square sheets would go up fairly easy for each of the rows, my dear wife added, "Oh, did I mention I want this installed on the diagonal?" I nearly passed out. I was so leery of this install that I got a price quote from a tile installer referred by the countertop salesperson. His price was $1,250 just to put it up! For about only 12 hours of work! That was not an Andreasen-friendly price. In the end I would bite the bullet and do the install as long as Kathy helped. And you know what? For the first time ever I uttered the words "that wasn't as bad as I thought" when doing tile. It took us only one day to put up the tiles and a couple hours the next to grout. It actually turned out very well, thanks to the tile guy who gave us the quote. He had given me a full description of how he would start and what he would do and that ended up working well for me. And Kathy was pleased.

Decorative mosaic kitchen tiles, on the diagonal

The countertop choice would be the final piece of the puzzle. I had wanted granite and Kathy wanted this new thing out called quartzite. It's actually solid quartz stone that looks somewhat like marble, but it wasn't anything like the quartz composite that looks too man-made. It also happened to be the most expensive countertop material on the market, so that was a no. However, on the day we ended up checking out the slabs she couldn't really find any bargain granite that looked right to her but she did find a quartzite slab that was on clearance because there were only a few left. She fell in love with it so now we have the latest countertop material at a third of the price. And David was pleased.

The quartzite island countertop is installed

We also chose a different route this time with the appliances. In the past either Kathy wanted a set of white Maytag appliances, or I pushed for a set of Smudge-Proof Frigidaire stainless steel models. I had expected Kathy would agree to the stainless steel models like we had before, but then she threw me a curve. She's really good at that in case you hadn't noticed. We were in one of the big box stores looking at the Frigidaire appliances when a GE electric range caught her eye. Of course, I thought, it's one of those new slide-in models that costs a fortune. Turns out it was a hybrid of sorts, halfway between the new slide-in models that sit on the countertop and the standard freestanding models we're all familiar with. This one was different. It looked like the freestanding model as it would sit in the 30 inch spot like the others but the controls were on the front like the slide-ins. These were called front-control models and Kathy thought it made sense not to have to lean over hot pots to change the controls. Turns out she liked this one more than she had to have smudge-proof stainless so that went on the list. And when we found it at Sears for about the price of the standard Frigidaire that made it even better. Then she turned her eyes to microwaves and chose a Samsung model that had the button controls on the front window with a full width door. And a super strong fan. Sold! Then I found a GE counter-depth refrigerator just like the Frigidaire but better made. It also turned out to be nearly silent, unlike the Frigidaire that was very noisy. All of those joined the aforementioned Whirlpool dishwasher, which was smudge-proof. I'm not absolutely sure which ones of those four appliances are actually smudge-proof and which are not, but I haven't heard screams of horror coming from the kitchen yet, so all must be okay. We ended up with the best of each kind of appliance and I haven't given a thought to them not matching because they basically look exactly the same. And they look great together! And we got them all on sale! Very Andreasen.

GE front-control range and Samsung microwave

I put all of the kitchen decisions in this post because these were a lot more of them, but let me finish with a few of the next steps before we did the final room designs. I had been working on the electrical in between all of the other priorities but I finally got the rough-in finished and called for the inspection. He walked in, took one look, and said it was all wrong. What he meant to say was that he saw one thing that was wrong to him and so there was no use in looking any further. Being an Andreasen I pull just enough wire into the box that would be long enough to attach to the switch or outlet and there is no need to trim the wires later. Being an inspector, he said he wanted the wires much longer so it all had to be redone. Some wires had to be replaced but on most of them I drilled holes in the studs that made a beeline for each box which made the wires sticking out of the box longer. I also did all the things I asked him about so I'd pass the next time and called him back. This time he walked in, took one look, and said it was perfect. Go figure.

With drywall up the taping begins

But this meant I could now move on to insulation and drywall. Kathy and I took about five days to put in all the insulation batts, wearing gloves and a mask. I called the drywall guy that did the rest of the house upstairs and he gave me a price that was actually reasonable. I didn't expect that. The supplies were delivered, the drywall installed in one day, the taping in three days, and the sanding in one more. I might have been there three months or more if I had to do it myself. Kathy was adamant that I let someone else do it and for this job she was right. I wasn't a spring chicken anymore. Then we bought paint and primed all the walls, following up with a couple of the color coats. It was truly looking like a living space and we were really getting excited. It wouldn't be long before it was ready to move in!

Arktander

(aka David Andreasen)