Floors and Walls

SO, SO much has happened to the house since our last update!  I keep thinking of the few faithful readers I have on here and feeling guilty that I haven't updated you, but honestly I just haven't had the time or energy.  Anywhooo - now you're going to get a rush of posts as I try to catch up while I'm on break from school.

This last week flooring was the goal of our lives.  We bought almost an entire pallet of slate shipped straight from India to our local flooring store and made available to us on sale for $0.99/ sq foot.  A steal of a deal. Hence the reason we bought so much.  It was hellish to carry all of that from the truck, up one flight of stairs, and into the house.  My arms and legs were shaking after only half of it was in the house and we were both sore the next couple days.  I will be happy if I never ever have to carry that much slate in my life again.

We found some great tile guys on Craigslist and they laid it last week.  We now have slate in the back hallway, our pantry, our master bathroom, the other back bathroom, and our laundry room.  About 360 sq ft of slate.

Our slate.  

Half-empty pallet in the back of the truck:

First few pieces laid in the back hallway.  It was such a dusty ordeal!

All the slate laid and looking dirty from the thin set.  

(I spent about two hours squatting/hands and knees cleaning off the tiles so I could seal the slate before grouting it)

My husband, the stone mason.  Chipping away some high edges so we can open and close our back door

Two coats of semi-gloss sealer for all the slate:

Finished product:

We picked a different porcelain tile for the front bathroom.  I love it.  The shower surround is matching porcelain with a travertine tile design border.  We found the tile at a great price and it ended up being only slightly more expensive than using a fiberglass shower surround.  We're pretty happy because we love this look so much more than the fiberglass we're used to and were expecting to use.

Shower and floor laid: filling in with grout.

I forgot to go back and get another picture that evening with it all done.  I'll show you next week once we get some paint on the walls and a toilet in (we're so close to having a working bathroom over there!)

The big decision this week is what tile to use in our master shower.  We're trying to figure out how to use a different type of tile (we think slate would get gross in a shower - it's so rough and porous - even after sealing it) to use that will tie in well with the slate on the floor.  Hoping we can come to a decision by Tuesday so that tile work can get finished and we can start hooking all the plumbing up!

Feast or Famine

After weeks & months of problems with our phones missing calls and text messages, and several hours of time spent deliberating on the phone, Verizon agreed to send us new phones for free.  Last week.

When the FedEx lady drove right past my house on Monday, and we still had no phones, I was irritated.  Then my sister in Minneapolis called to ask why she just received a phone for Scott.  Huh?!

After another angry call, Verizon said they would overnight a new batch to us and profusely apologized, requesting that Erica refuse any more packages that may come from them this week.

Tuesday morning this is what arrived here:

Do you think they would notice if we kept them all?! .

Coping Mechanisms

Yesterday was rough - it was a Monday that just did not go well, full of frustrations and a few tears.

Today will be better.  In order to start it off right, I marched through the smoke (our bayous & marshes are burning) to the corner store and bought my cure for distress.  I then proceeded to have a healthy dose of it for breakfast.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream for breakfast.

Today has to go better now, right?

Sheetrock + Granite = Progress!

We were gone last weekend in the Boundary Waters (I know, I need to blog about it - maybe tomorrow...or the next day) and came back to our sheet rock going up!  They finished hanging it all this weekend, on Saturday, and today they start the mudding and taping.  We're way past this video, but I thought I should share it anyways to give you an idea of the progression of things. 

Today the granite men showed up with their big slabs of rock for our kitchen!  I just want to sit over there in  a corner and watch them work all day.  It's SO interesting.  They are quick and I feel like I'm missing lots.  However - I have so much school and this other house to keep up.  Also, who wants some girl hovering around watching your every move as you work?  They'd probably be irritated.

Here's the work station they have going outside to make all their final cuts and holes:

Working inside - making all their final measurements

(Like our front-and-center pile of trash? We're getting our THIRD dumpster today)

Wooden counter top before the granite:

Alright, my curiosity is killing me!  I'm going over to check on them again :)  

Everything's Coming Together

Here's a quick video update of the house for you all - enjoy looking at those studs!  It's the last time you'll see them on video.  Sheet rock starts going up on Monday!

(Sorry it's rather shakey and discombobulated - I was in a hurry and a little distracted when I took it)

Big things that have happened with the house in the last week:

• We ordered our shower for the master bathroom and bathtub/shower for the front bathroom
• Almost all the cabinets are installed - only two left to go!
• We picked out the granite for our kitchen (Verde Butterfly) (sounds green, but the slabs we are getting are more black with silver specs to bring out the stainless steel appliances) and put our deposit down.
• We decided on tile for the back splash in the kitchen.  This was a big step for me, for those of you who don't know, I mini-panic when it comes to decorating and picking colors.
• The exterior of the house started getting painted - the first coat is on and they're working on coat #2.  It's been raining rather randomly though so they're trying to work in between all of that.

We've Gone Green

We got a new lawnmower yesterday to be shared among the neighbors.  Found an amazing deal on Craigslist and we are pretty excited about it.  It's a cordless, chargeable electric one!  Perfect for our little yards.  As you can tell, we TOTALLY needed it.

It's quieter than the old gas one and cut that grass with NO problem.  We're pretty excited about it.

I'm home!

For a few days at least - but I couldn't leave without lots of cute pictures of my little nephew!  I know most of you probably don't care, but here's a few I snapped for everyone else interested.

So serious with his daddy's eyes

I could just gush and gush about how precious this sweet boy is, but I'll spare you all.  Besides, it's back to the books for me, as I am waaaaaay behind on school.  I'll try and get a house update on here soon.  Lots has happened since the last time!

And his name is...

Roman Titus

Aka: Little Bean, Mr. Juicy Lips, Lil' Tie Tie, and many more pet names to come

Everyone is home safe and sound and finally getting a little sleep!

Proudly welcoming our new nephew: Name-still-to-be-decided!!!

He is perfection!  All cheeks and juicy lips with just the perfect amount of hair and the silkiest softest skin in town.  Here are the details:

July 30, 2011 at 8:33pm

8lb. 12oz and 21" long

Tyler and Erica are doing fabulous!  Happy, healthy, and completely pooped, but totally smitten.

Everything worked out amazing and I was able to make it there for the labor and delivery and am still in awe of how beautiful and smoothly everything went.

UGH! I could kiss those chunky little cheeks and lips all day long!

July. What gives?

I'm in bed with a head cold.  Drinking hot tea.  Writing a beast of a paper and studying for a Pharmacology test.  I've definitely seen better days.

Plugging Along

Our kitchen is coming right along.  A huge amount of time in the last two weeks has gone towards sanding the multiple layers of lead paint off the bead board that is going into our kitchen.  Much time has been spent at the drawing board (which is any piece of plywood or extra 2x4 nearby - most commonly this plywood hung in the kitchen is used:)

We stand and discuss all of our options and Vinnie draws us lots of pictures of all the ideas he has in his head so we can try and figure the best options out.  We got the layout for the kitchen finalized and a peninsula designed after much discussion.  Vinnie threw this together for us two days ago so we could see what he was thinking:

This is a rough idea of what the peninsula/bar/whatever-you-wanna-call-it will look like:

View from the front as you walk in from front door ↑ and the view as you walk 

around it into the kitchen ↓

View from standing in the kitchen looking towards front door ↓

Now, of course you have to use your imagination a little. It will be closed in from the front (so you don't see those studs in the first two pictures) and the cabinets will of course be out of their boxes in the end. As you may notice, there are three different levels - bar height in front where we will be putting a few bar stools, the counter height coming around from the rest of the kitchen, and then the appendage that sticks out in the back is table height so we can eat/hang out/work on stuff comfortably there. We love it and are so excited with what Vinnie came up with.  

Also, you may notice that there is plywood hung on the walls in the kitchen - at this time we are ready to hang/install the cabinets directly to that. Vinnie likes to put them onto plywood as it is stronger, due to the fact that you are sure to hit wood, no matter where you screw a cabinet into the wall. We're going to wait to hang them though until after the dry wall is up, so they don't get damaged during any of that and aren't in the way as we finish other things.

All of our siding has now been replaced on three sides of the house - we will deal with the front eventually, but for now it's not necessary.  Here's the left side of the house all re-sided:

Since March, the back of the house/yard has gone from looking like this:

   To this: 

I guess the house looks better - the yard certainly does not though.  Looks like we'll be needing another dumpster soon... We're still needing to paint the exterior and that back porch will have to be replaced as well - it's all about priorities though, and for now those are cosmetic things, which rank last on the list.

We've gotten bids on the sheet rock this week and hope to be able to get that started by the beginning of August.  We still have lots of little details to get finished up before then so we're trying to get the tedious stuff out of the way as quickly as possible to move on.

Recovering from the Ickies

Scott's on the mend.  Slowly, but surely.
We came to the conclusion that his problems were directly caused by him swinging from extreme hypothyroidism to being quite hyperthyroid within a little over two weeks.  After some reading and talking with his doctors we realized there were three reasons for this:
1) He was very hypothyroid so his Endocrinologist raised his dose of Synthroid, by a fairly significant amount.
2) He started being much more strict about food intake around the time of taking his medicine and stopped even drinking coffee with it.  The synthroid loves to be a greedy medicine and absorbs best when it is taken on a completely empty stomach.
3) He's been taking the medicine at bedtime.  Scott always takes his synthroid in the morning.  He's been working nights for the last few weeks and therefore takes the medicine immediately before going to sleep.  We discovered that synthroid has a much higher rate of absorption if you're sleeping when it starts being metabolized.
So, after over 9 hours straight of continuous palpitations on Thursday morning, and then several hours of them again that evening, along with just feeling terrible, they rearranged things at work again that night and Scott was able to stay home.  We had a phone conference with his Endocrinologist (thankfully she's awesome and didn't make us come in) first thing Friday morning, she lowered him meds again and discussed what we're going to do from here.  He slept the day away again on Friday and got up that evening (basically his first time out of bed in over 30 hours) and went to work that night.
You would think with him being hyperthyroid he would have been running around like a crazed, productive maniac, but apparently when you get really hyperthyroid you also get really tired.  And can't focus.  He decided the nurses must have hated him Friday night, because he could not think of aaanything and was a bumbling mess.  (Sorry ER nurses at University - thank you for putting up with him!)
Fortunately, he had last night off and has finally started feeling like he's among the living again.  He's lost over 13lbs in less than three weeks (I'm slightly jealous) and has had a headache for the last two days.  He's still having palpitations, but they subside within about 15 minutes now and are not as continuous anymore.  Because of the long acting time of Synthroid, it's going to take a couple days still for him to feel good again.  Thanks for the prayers if you sent them up for us.  Hopefully we can get somewhat regulated soon, because this is no fun.

The Ickies

Scott is feeling awful and we're a little worried.  They sent him home from work early last night (which NEVER happens as a resident) after doing an EKG and a load of labs on him.  He's been having intermittent palpitations over the last few weeks but usually it will just be one or two here and there.  

He started having them last night around 1am though and they wouldn't stop.  His pulse is completely irregular and he is feeling really just out of it and awful.  If you've ever had a palpitation you know they are uncomfortable - it almost takes your breath away and feels like your heart is flipping in your chest.  

After the palpitations continued for over two hours they did the EKG and ran labs.  The EKG showed that he's throwing PAC's (usually harmless but he shouldn't be having this many of them for such a long period of time).  His labs were normal except he has gone from super hypothyroid to very HYPERthyroid within about three weeks.  Now, this is not a steady level (it takes about 6 weeks to reach that), but his thyroid levels are definitely way off, which could be the primary contributing factor as to why he feels like crap.  He's finally asleep now after a very restless morning with a very irregular pulse still and I'm hoping he can sleep the rest of the day and feel better.  It's a little unnerving.

We'll be consulting our Endocrinologist about what to do, but are hoping we can get this fixed ASAP.  Please say a few prayers for him.  He's scheduled to work again tonight and I'm hoping he's feeling better - at least well enough to focus and get through eight hours.

The Siding, Part II

It's only Tuesday and already lots has been done to the house this week.

About two months ago, when we re-did the siding on the right side of the house, we had the company install two new windows as well, to replace two that were not doing well in the back of the house.  One on either side.  However, after all that we decided we wanted a second window in the room that will be the laundry room to look out at the back yard.  We also thought maybe something more artistic and different would look better in the master bathroom.  SO, we moved the window that was there to the laundry room instead.  We also got a back door installed.  

And it locks.  

Ammmaaazing!  Now we don't have to screw a piece of plywood over the opening every night.  It's the little things that are really exciting when doing a project like this.

Vinnie went hunting last weekend and found us a window for our bathroom.  At first when we saw it I thought it would be waaaay too big for the bathroom.  However, Vinnie totally has an eye for this and could picture it in his mind the whole time.  Here it is: our eight-paned window with Florentine glass. 

Yesterday Carl (our firefighter that works for us on his "off" days during the week) and Vinnie framed it in.  While they were working on that we had two other guys we hired for the day rip ALL the siding off the left side of the house.  Originally we thought we could just patch that side and use most of the old cypress that was already there.  However, after looking at it for the last few weeks we decided to completely re-do it.  It would be pointless to go to all the work of tearing parts off and repairing them and hoping that next year once the house is all nice and finished it didn't spring another leak and ruin our new sheet rock or something.  Also, the area towards the back on that side was so poorly done originally, that there was a lot of rot from water leaking in and attracting termites.  This way we can say the whole house has new siding (as we are also re-doing the back) that was done at the same time.  

While they were tearing the siding off, Scott worked on fixing all the areas of rot.  Sistering in new boards and completely rebuilding the frames around a few windows.  Vinnie and Carl helped him with areas in between framing the bathroom window in and re-building that wall (as it was the area with the worste rot/termite damage).

View from inside the master bathroom to outside.  

(I'll have to post a picture tomorrow of what that wall/new window now look like.)

There were a few more areas of concern than we expected throughout the wall.  It was frustrating in the moment - but also reassures us that we made the right decision for the long-term.  

Here's the house with the siding off.

Today our siding guys came and got all the plywood up to cover that side of the house.  Tomorrow they will weatherproof it and start on the actual hardy board siding.  

That's how far they were at lunch time.  Just two guys.  

They had all the plywood up by 6pm before they went home for the night.  It's impressive how fast they are.

Decisions...

Well, the time I've been a little anxious about has come.  We're starting to make decisions regarding design - not just, "Should this go here? Or right there?" but more specifically regarding colors and stains which will lead to decorations.  This stresses me out.  I know that most girls would say this is their favorite part, but I feel lost.  Quite lost indeed, and it overwhelms me.

The first decision came today.  What to do with the bead board in the kitchen?

      

Vinnie quietly went the extra mile (which is why we love him) and took a few pieces of it home to make examples for me to get better ideas so I could see things he's done with bead board in other houses before.  Today he surprised me with them.  We have several options as seen below. (The wood behind these three boards is a panel from our cabinets - to get a better idea of what it will look like up against the natural stain that they have.)

\

(Going from left to right)

1) He sanded all the old layers of lead paint off the top and put a coat of polyurethane on it to bring out the texture and the slightest bit of green left in the grain of the wood.  The bottom of that piece is what it would look like if we just polyurethane over the bead board as it is now.

2) He very lightly sanded the top layer or two of paint off to reveal the original green they painted it, and added a coat of polyurethane.

3) He added a gold/yellow paint over the board as it is, gently wiped it down with a wet rag and then added polyurethane.  (This is something we could do with any color we like)

I tried to take a picture without the flash and that was NOT going to work so I'm bummed it kind of changes the appearance.  However, after much discussion and a nice spike in my blood pressure at my perceived stress over this silly decision, we decided to go with the top part of option 1.  We immediately decided option 3 was out as it was just waaaay too yellow next to those cabinets.  Option 2 was somewhat overwhelmingly green to me and although I love green and really liked how vibrant it was, I've never been in a green kitchen (that wasn't straight out of the '70's) and just couldn't picture it.  Truthfully, I think I just wasn't ready to pick ANY color for the kitchen and the classic wood-look seemed the easiest for now.  That way I can accent with any other colors I please, and it really brings out the beauty of that old wood I think. 

We'll just have to see how it turns out!  Anyone want to come and be my interior designer from this point forward????

Letting the light in

The windows above our kitchen are in!  Vinnie had these beautiful matching stained glass windows laying around and dreamt this whole project up when we asked him to do our kitchen.  (This whole project being opening up the ceiling, cutting the 24 foot long beams going across the house here and sistering them together to expose them so we have the vaulted ceiling with extra light)  He framed them in and got them up yesterday and started on the bead board.  Today he finished all the bead board - it looks cool now and is going to look even more awesome once we get it all painted and some cabinets & sheet rock in our kitchen.  Oh, and a sink and appliances might help as well.

View as it will look from standing in the center of the soon-to-be kitchen

I know it's hard to get the idea of, but this is the view from standing in the living room looking towards the kitchen/back of the house

In other, also exciting news, our floor guys came today and ripped a bunch of boards out and installed our new/old flooring over where the stairs were.  I was shocked they got it all done in one day and will have to post an after-picture tomorrow.

Progress

Scott's parents and my dad (my mom wasn't able to make it this time) flew in last week and TONS of progress was made on our house.  I am on my summer break from school and Scott had 5 days off in a row so we were thankful it worked for the parents to come at that time.  We also have an amazingly creative and talented man in our neighborhood who has agreed to work for us (something he never does as he usually only does his own projects - I think he just felt sorry for us though honestly).  He helped us come up with the floor plan for the house in March/April, and is awesome at recycling what we already have and making do with supplies, but still doing it "right" so that it will last and finally be up to code.

So, without further ado, here is a video of where we're at two days ago...already there are changes from this as I think we are FINALLY done destructing and tearing apart and onto the best part: construction.

What Scott's dad (our electrical engineer) looked like after cutting all the holes for the can lights in the living room.  His mouth is slightly cleaner only from the mask he was wearing.

My dad (our master plumber) working on some plumbing.  He got the whole drain system for the house completed - a task that would have cost us thousands of dollars and was super overwhelming to Scott.  The underneath of our house looks 10x's better now due to his nice lay out of the pipes and the fact that we can finally walk around without running into one.

We managed to clean up in the evenings for dinner and were able to go out with some of our good friends, the Morgans, on Friday evening.

Also, we finally decided to take out the stairs that used to be in the middle of the living room.  That was Scott's big project last week while all the family was here.  It was tricky because he had to cut out and replace a big beam they had moved from where a door used to be, so that there would be adequate support for the exterior wall.  I think it looks very nice now though and will make the whole room flow better.  Our flooring guy is coming as soon as he gets a free day in the next week to lay new (very old) flooring we found on Craig's list that was taken out of a different house.  It was difficult to find and a very happy discovery when we found a good deal on just the amount we needed, as that flooring is old heart pine and an inch thick and three inches wide. That area will then match the rest of the room and he will plug holes we no longer need where pipes and wires came into rooms that are no longer rooms, but open floor space.

  

View from the top

View from under the house

Follow-UP

We went in for Scott's 6 month cancer follow-up appointment this morning.  He had his labs drawn last week so results would be back from Mayo and they are GOOD!

His calcitonin (the most accurate marker for this type of cancer at this time) is 757. Which means it is holding steady!!!! As well as his CEA level which is right about where it was last time too!

This is a very good sign!  His levels have held steady for a year now and we can finally say that he is in remission.  That's the first time I've dared to type that word and it makes me a little giddy and nervous all at the same time.  From here on out we are cleared to wait another 6 months before we check CEA and Calcitonin levels again or do any more repeat scans unless anything should change. Yay. Yay! YAY!

He's pretty hypothyroid (went from < 2 to 10) which completely explains the tired, icky feeling he's been having that was scaring me for the last few weeks.  We upped his Synthroid dose and will follow-up on that in 8 weeks.  We'll take hypothyroid-tired over cancer-tired any day though and are thanking our Father for this wonderful blessing.

When it rains....

It's been a seemingly unending string of breakages for us this last week.

My air conditioner on the car stopped working a few months ago and we've been troubleshooting various things to get it working since then.  Several trips to the shop and various forum reading has ensued.  Not the biggest deal - we'll make sure to drive Scott's car if we don't want to sweat to death.

Last week Scott's front tire went from slow-leak to flat-on-the-rim right around rush hour on a Friday evening on his way to a party.  So convenient.  No biggie - put the spare on, take it back to Wal Mart where we have the road hazard warranty on those tires.  Oh wait, they don't carry that tire anymore so it must be special ordered.

So, we've been dripping sweat and getting the wind-blown hair look everywhere we drive my hot car while we wait.

Today the brand new corded sawzall we bought last week broke.

As I was backing out of the driveway to return it I realized MY front passenger tire was flat.  On the rim.  Perfect.  Found out it was a nice big nail.

Got that taken care of, returned the sawzall, come home to our road which is now completely torn up as they are repairing the sewer lines (meaning we park a block away and hike in carrying all things - including loads of lumber).

Within an hour we discovered that now the motor on the huge drill we also bought last week is broken.  And must be exchanged.  Except they are out and no exchange is possible, making the plumbing job a little trickier.

The saving glory of all this is that Scott finally figured out what is wrong with my AC!  He ripped the whole dash apart and took the glove box out to dig into the depths of the car.  He  got his special ordered part in and had a free hour to work on it.  My AC now blasts cold FINALLY, making only having one car to drive a little more tolerable.

Kissy, kissy

Ah, HA!  Victory.  I finally caught this on video!  The girls will lay around and do this at least once a day.    

They love sharing leftovers.

The ears usually get included as well, but they must have be clean enough for today.