Building for yard

Hi everyone.

This one has nothing to do with the inside of the house....well, not technically anyway. We had a building built in our back yard, but we got mostly the basics except for we asked for the walls to be taller. I wanted a barn style roof on the building, but that would have added another $1,000 to the price, and lets just be honest here....I am what my daddy used to call a tightwad. If it were really something important to the building, like making it stronger or making it last longer, I would have been all in, but just because I liked it better was not worth it. We also decided to pay $100 extra for the double door, that way we could get large items in and out of there easier. But if you notice,  there are no windows on the building and the inside of it was just 4 walls when they were done with building it.

The reason we decided to not put windows in were that they were $200 for each one they had to put in, and we had 2 brand new windows that we had purchased on Craigslist (Craigslist will become your best friend when doing big projects on a budget) for $45 a piece some time back. We were going to use them in our old garage, but ended up moving before we could do that renovation. We can put those in at a later date sometime. We did want to utilize the space inside the building though, so Brian and I spent two days out there in the freezing cold building a loft and shelves on one end. It only cost us $380 to do that. If the company had built the loft alone, with no extra shelves it would have been $500 more. See the savings of a little hard work and freezing your butt off???

Now most everything is to one side and up off the floor so you can walk in and see everything without having to step over it all. We are sooooo happy with this investment.  We had purchased a newer suburban a few months back, and had our old one for sale, so when it sold the week before the building was built, that paid for it all but $200.

The company that we hired, had it built in 2 days from the ground up and they are a local family run company. The man and his two sons came out and did all the work. I like buying local and helping the small business out, sometimes it is not always cheaper, but in this case they were WAY cheaper than the larger companies and especially like the buildings you see outside of a Home Depot that you can have built. I am talking $2,000-$5,000 cheaper. We are super pleased with this building and the quality.

My husband and I talked about it for a few months on whether or not to build it ourselves, but with the time it would have taken us to do this, and the urgency of the need, we decided with all the money we had saved so far on our remodel we would spend the $3,400 for the building. We couldn't begin the process of building the new additions after the first of the year without this building to hold all of our "crap" as Brian likes to call it.

Here are a few pictures of it going up and all the way finished with our additions of the loft and shelves that we built.

From the start of it going up....

The finished product....

The shelves that we added and the loft. You will be amazed how much this holds....

It holds so much stuff...We emptied out half of a really large 2 car garage into this space and some in the other areas that you will see, like furniture that cant go on the shelves.

This is the middle and other end of the building....still loads of room for storage in there.

LOVING IT!!!

Pretty cool I think :-)

I just wanted to add something here that I couldn't add in another place for some of you to see. It is really cool to me to see all the places that my blog is being viewed. I cant wait to see this continue to grow.  Thanks to everyone out there who is following our progress here on this journey. I really hope all of you that have been stopping by to see our progress will continue to do so.  This blog is making it even more fun for me as we tread through all the projects we have going on here in our house.

This is from early this morning, it doesn't show all the views, but it does show the recent ones.

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Our Family's Dream Home  ·  Stats  ›  Audience

Nov 29, 2014 8:00 AM – Dec 6, 2014 7:00 AM

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chalk board and bead board

Guess what??? Two more things to post tonight...I didn't think we would get anymore done this week. Our 7 year old has been in doctor offices and the hospital the last 2 days. But I did get the chalk board paint on the 2 panels of my pantry door. I am going to love having my pantry to write on. I know, I sound like a kid, but oh well it is really country and cute to me.

Note, the blue you see is the painters tape and the chalkboard paint was wet in this picture so it will not have that shine to it once it dried. The only things missing now are the cabinet doors to be ready and the trim around that door. Then the kitchen will be complete!!!! You have no idea what a wonderful feeling to be able to say that. We have been living with it all in a mess for many months now, so to have it this close to complete is such a sweet feeling.

Brian surprised me yesterday while I was at the hospital with Brylee, and when we got home he had started on the walls in the hall way. We had purchased bead board to go below the chair rail months ago. When we got it home, we quickly found out that the existing chair rail and baseboard was not going to work with all the bead board that we had purchased. This is one of those times when I said before there will be things that you budget for and the budget just doesn't work. There are always going to be unexpected expenses no matter how hard to you try to stick to a budget. So, we had to decide if we were going to send it all back and just paint below the chair rail, or if we were going to spend the extra $300 or so to replace the chair rail and baseboards. Well, as you can see, we went with it. We had to cut some other things that we wanted, but got the walls the way we had planned.

We purchased the chair rail that has been notched out for the bead board and it was really narrow, so we purchased another decorative trim piece to place underneath it and it looks great to me. We wanted real wood, not the pressed wood stuff, so it is unfinished, but that is okay, we had to paint the other trim and the bead board anyway, because it just comes primed.

This is a picture of the wall with the old chair rail and base board removed.

Here you can see the bead board is up and the new chair rail has a notch on the back to fit over the bead board.

In these two pictures you can see the two separate pieces that we chose for the chair rail.

These are two pictures from the master bath where the bead board and chair rail are complete. This shows what the finished product looks like. I think the small rope trim adds a nice touch to it. I look forward to having the rest of the areas finished off with this. In the end it will be in the two upstairs bathrooms, hallway and the dining room. Stay tuned to my page to see more finished projects.

Below are links to the YouTube page for a video on how to install this product. 

http://youtu.be/qk_COOetMHk

http://youtu.be/QF5C1z6M2o0

Hardwood floors

Well, the hardwood floors were something we knew would be done the day we looked at buying this house. The only problem was the cost and time. Even when you get things on sale, it can still have a steep cost. This house was a foreclosure without really any updates since the late 70's when it was built. Therefore, the carpet in the downstairs den, and hall was from 1978. It was NASTY! The carpet on the upper stair treads and upstairs flooring was from 1993. It was over 20 years old. So, we did the worst areas first. We got new carpet for all 3 bedrooms, and the downstairs den and hall/landing area. There was no way we were going to be sleeping in rooms with that nasty carpet, and the downstairs was on concrete so we knew we needed carpet there too. This was done a week before we moved our things into the house. Everything else we just had to live with until we could save up some money and find something that one we could afford without going into debt, and two, something we both liked a lot. We had been looking and had found something that we were saving toward since March of this year, that flooring was going to cost us $4,700 without installation.  But when we were in Home Depot one evening, we came across a large pallet of flooring, one really light and the other medium in color. It was hand-scrapped like we wanted, and it was actual hardwood flooring, not a laminate, (we are not fans of laminate). We both really liked this flooring, so we came home that Friday night and remeasured the areas that we would need the flooring and went back that next morning to get it.  I had been saving since March and this was August. I had saved $3,500 so far for the floors that we both wanted.
Now get ready for this.....the floors that were on clearance we were told because they were not going to sale this one any longer or it was a special order that didn't get purchased. Either way, we got all the flooring we needed for less than $2,500. Yep....I hit the jackpot that day!!! I was now in the black, not the red. We had over a $1,000 saved and so we put that toward other things that we wanted for the house. We were on a roll. Now to just get a few other things done before the new hardwood floors went in. We saved a little more and paid someone to come install flooring for the kitchen, and 2 upstairs bathrooms. We got the same flooring for all three (as this makes it cheaper). I got a really good quality flooring and it was about $1,395 for all three rooms. We could not do the carpet or the vinyl as we didn't have all the tools to do this with, plus if we make a mistake on the material we have to go back and replace it all. That wasn't a chance we were willing to take.

Anyway, I wanted those vinyl floors done before my hardwood was put in so they wouldn't be dragging things across them.

Here are the tools you will need for this job....

Hammer
measuring tape
pry bar
brad gun
small air compressor
jamb saw (to cut out door casings)
miter saw (to cut boards the length you need)
table saw (to cut links)

After all the carpet was pulled up in sections that we could easily carry out, and all the padding gone, we had to take up all the nail strips around the edge of the rooms, pull up all the staples, hammer down all the small nails and remove the rest. The sub floors had to be clean before the process could begin.

When we put this flooring down, we decided to buy a few rolls of vapor barrier to put on the sub floor before the new hardwood was put in place. The floors can be glued together, or nailed into place. We chose to glue the planks together as well as nail the perimeter and random pieces throughout for extra security. There are a few quick YouTube video clips showing steps in the installation of the floors, and their are photos below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AntWy65Xrc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0-ZCIm39wM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyA1tE1Quh4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kIAKkOBT1Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wao1LEjsvDg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3DH5-6akA4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ebpxgeHexk


Getting so much accomplished on this house is so exciting to us. We were sitting here at the table tonight talking about how much we love this house and how much we are enjoying this process. Granted, it is nerve racking at times, and there are days when you just want to say "screw it" (usually when you have been working too much on something, you are tired, and messing things up). That's when it is time to walk away for a few days and then come back to it with a fresh start. One rule to always remember in this and every job. Measure twice and cut once. It will save you money and a big headache.

I will tell you that it is not the hardest thing to do by any means, but the job of hardwood floors is rough on the knees and back. Be ready to take some Aleve when you are doing this job.

Bye -Bye nasty carpets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Cleaning the sub floors up good before starting on the new.

 The new floors go in....you don't want your seams to be together. The floors should have the "no rhyme or reason" to them. They should all be offset.

Here is the hallway finished (minus the door thresh holds and trim)

                                                                         

                                                                      This is the dining room floor all complete!!!

This is a picture from this past week of my upstairs living room floors. They are beautiful...especially with the Christmas tree lights reflecting on them.

Pantry lights...on and off

Hi guys! Just as I promised, here is an update....YAY!

I know that a lot of you have asked to see the pantry finished, but it is not 100% complete yet. It still needs some trim around the door, and the door as still got to be painted with my chalkboard paint.  BUT, the lights are functioning when we open and close the door now.

Here is the link for a short video on YouTube for the lights.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxyHSWuCD_g&feature=youtu.be


My husband is a genius in my book. Sometimes I wonder if there is anything that he can't do or think up. This literally cost us the lights of $19.99 and about $5-10 in parts. These are the things that I leave solely up to him, because I would have electrocuted myself a dozen times doing this one. But I am going to give you some instruction on how he did this (per his words). Remember you can always contact me for more detailed information if you are trying something at your own house. I really don't mind. That is what this blog is for....to help people see that things can be done as inexpensive as possible and still be really nicely done.

On this actual project Brian purchased a micro-switch, a length of electrical wire with a plug, and wire connectors all of which is less that $10. He cut the existing plug off the LED rope lights between the plug and large fat section of the wire it is the large white section you see in the picture. The white wire in the original wire connect it to the new wire in the new plug that was purchased. Use a wire connector. At this point you want to heat shrink it (heat shrink is a protective cover for wiring. Slide it over the connection that you made. Heat it and it shrinks down over the bare wire) Take the other wire from your new plug, connect it to the micro-switch, take the black wire from your existing wires and connect it to the other terminal on the new switch. Locate where you want the switch on the door casing, mark it on the door stop, cut that piece of door stop out and hold the switch into the section that you have cut out and close the door. Adjust the switch so that it is a proper distance for the door. You don't want it too close or two far away. Mount it then and plug the lights back in. At this point you should have a set of controlled lights that when you open and close your doors they come on and off.

There is a diagram below of this as well to help you better understand these directions.

 This above is the plug that was cut off of the original cord. The picture below is the fat large piece that is mentioned above that is the circuit board.

                                The picture below is the diagram to show how to wire this together again with the new parts.

Updates coming! I promise!!!

Hi everyone! I know it is slow getting the updates on here, and I am sorry about that, but they are coming. It is a lot of work for us to do and it just being "us" my husband and I mostly. Working full time, having 4 kids to work in the schedules, school, and holidays it is a slow process, but I promise some big updates are coming this week. We will be posting about the hardwood floors, hopefully an update on the lighting in the pantry and some other goodies. Please make sure to check back Friday and the weekend for all the updates as they are posted.

Thanks for all your patients, and just remember, good things are worth the wait. :-)

Counter tops are in!!!

Well, here comes another portion of the kitchen....we worked on kitchen counter tops last week, and as I have posted before, there is always that unexpected thing that can come about. Some can cost you a great deal of money while others are just a HUGE pain in you butt :-) This one didn't cost a lot more, but it was definitely a pain in our butt (and my side as my hip got caught on a screw in the door while helping tote the counters up to the kitchen door and in).  There will be a little bit more cost to the project soon, not sure the amount though as you will see as I post these pictures and where the expense will be...

These first two pictures are what the original counter tops looked like. They were not the most hideous I have seen, but not our taste either. They were put in back in the 70's and were the old style formica tops. As you can see, when they were originally done the seam was not done correctly.
In the second picture my husband has removed the sink and is unbolting the counter tops from the cabinets.

 In this picture the old counter tops have been removed and you can see where the brick back splash is there. We needed the new counter tops to end at the same spot as the old did, as we didn't intend on changing the rustic brick on the walls.

 Here you see my husband working with some extra wood trim, this was on top of the cabinets and the old counter tops placed on top of that. With the new slimline counters today, when we brought them in, put the first piece in place and stepped back, you could see this trim stuff that they had on top of the dark cabinetry and you could see this under the edge of the new counter tops when you stood back and looked. We had to take the counters back off, remove all this extra wood that was nailed in with some crazy long nails. Then we put the new piece of counter top back on.

This is the first piece to go in place, the hole underneath is where the stove had to be pushed back into place, you will see further down how he cut out the hole for that.

 This is piece two, where the dishwasher and sink are at. This was a little bit long even though we measured for it, so my husband had to cut off about an inch on that end. It was not a big problem though as he had ordered the extra side pieces so it is never seen.

This next picture is of the piece of counter top he cut out for the sink. The way you should do this is to take some masking tape, we used the blue painters tape because we had plenty of that around here. You have to make a few layers of the tape, then you measure out on the tape and mark where you plan to cut for the sink or the stove. The tape is easy because you can write on it as well as it keeps the counter from chipping in that spot you are cutting.




















Before you place the sink in, you need to place the silicone on the counter (and do not get this on anything other than it is supposed to be, as it will not come off) This is the protective barrier for the sink and to keep water from running back under the edges of the sink ruining the counters. You can see the line of silicone here, but we also rubbed some in on the inside edges of the counter tops just as an extra measure of safety here. That way if water ever did get under it would not cause the wood in the counter tops to swell. The layer of tape here is to keep the silicone from going too far out on the counter tops as it don't come off really once it is on something. Much easier clean up.

you can see the silicone that we used in the picture above.

 This plumbers putty is for sealing the drains on all of your sinks.

 you just take out a blob of putty and roll it in your hands making a long roll with it. Then wrap and mash it around the underside of the drain for the sink. Once you have done this, mash the drain into place in the sink. Excess will ooze out, that is okay...leave it there. It needs to set for about 36-48 hrs. before running water in the sink. Then you can tighten the drain more at that time from underneath and clean off the excess then.

 You can see the excess here as it pushed out from being tightened the first initial time.

This is the sink and faucet in place. ( I was so excited to have a fully functional kitchen sink. You can see our issue with the back splash here though as it is not fully touching the counter tops now. We have to find something, some sort of trim that we can add to this because the back splash can not be added to as far as the brick. We are currently looking into some options and will post updates as soon as we have it all figured out.

Here you see a finished product of the counter tops and sink. I am LOVING it in my kitchen so far!!!

Remember......if anyone ever has a question about something you have seen in my blog posts, please feel free to send them my way, and I will do my very best to answer them. Thanks for joining our journey.

Kitchen lights!!!!

Hey guys!

I am back with another small post for the kitchen this morning. I didn't get the chance to post this the other day, and I know it is small, but I am super excited about it. You see, we wanted some light in our new pantry, but my husband didn't want to go in the attic and run new wires for yet another light in there. The one in the middle of the kitchen had enough wiring that all he had to do is move it. This would be all new, not to mention, it would shine bright on the top couple of shelves but not near the middle or bottom. I wanted something that would light up everything.

Remember in the last post when I said we left one of the outlets in the pantry and didn't move it????? Well we are using that for the lights that we put up.  Our genius little minds decided to us these..............

They are Christmas rope lights!!!!! They are plugged in and they have little attachment pieces which we have used to keep them in place on the inside of the door casing. It lights up all the way to the floor now. They were $19.99 at Target and we have lights in the panty. Now my smarty pants husband says he can fix them to come on when the door opens and go off when it closes. We will see how that works out. If it does I will be posting a video to the page for you to see how to do this at home.  I know this is something small, but these little things (little cheap things) really get me super excited!!!!

The door that we are going to be hanging here is a door from an old 1928 house that was going to be torn down, but we use Craigslist almost everyday looking for something. My husband saw this and we drove 30 minutes to Greensboro to pick it up on afternoon. Note a new 24" door is about $100 at Lowe's or Home Depot. Our door which we had to sand and now paint before going up was only $3. Yep you read that right....just $3.  So, the lights and the door were some super savings where some things may run you over in pricing, others will be a steal like these. This is how you try and keep to your budgeting.

I really hope everyone is enjoying our journey through the sweat and sometimes tears here. Will post again this week coming.  Until then, get busy on your projects, and share a few if you feel like it.

Kitchen under way....

Well, life on this project is proving to be a lot of work and like everything else. The budget is something you have to work really hard to stick to. It is important to understand that things will happen that will cost you more, things that you think you have planned out completely, well you almost always forget to factor in something. With this house we had a budget and to be able to come in close to that you have to be very savvy with your shopping.

We have been working hard on the kitchen, master bath, and putting in all the floors upstairs. We have done all the work ourselves except for the flooring that has been put in the kitchen, 2 bathrooms, and the carpet. We do not have the equipment that is needed for doing carpet, and with the laminate flooring, we decided that it would be a mess if we made all the cuts and they were not correct, then we would have to pay to buy more. If the professionals cut wrong, they would have to pay to fix it. So that is what we budgeted for first. Then the money that was left we budgeted everything else that we wanted to do.

In the kitchen, you will see all the things we have done so far and it is so many of the things are really non expensive things to do if you do them yourself.

In the first picture, it was the kitchen before we began anything in changes. The few cabinets you see in this picture is all there is in the whole kitchen. This kitchen was considered to have had a small eat in area, but it was a very small area, and with the dining room right beside the kitchen, our family would just rather use the dining room and have more storage in the actual kitchen.

 In the next 2 pictures you will notice that we chose some paint colors, I wanted my house to be a different color in every room. I love color. This can be a big expense unless you know how to shop.  My husband works for a paint store, but what we did was purchase the paints that are considered "ready to go" paints or discontinued paints. These paints were originally about $45- $65 per gallon, but we paid $10 per gallon because they were discontinued paints and we had them tented to the colors that I wanted. A lot of people do not know about this, but it is a great way to save in the process. I had to scrape wallpaper off all the walls in this house, every single room except 1. Once all the walls were cleaned, then they were patched where needed, and then sanded and the paint process began. We cut in around the trim, ceiling, and doors before rolling the rest.

 In the 3rd and 4th pictures you can see that we were having to use a table and little cabinet to try and hold some of the kitchen necessities until we could start to build the cabinets and the pantry that we wanted. The orange paint was looking so much better than the 1970's wallpaper did though.

In the next steps we took blue painters tape and placed it on the floor where we wanted our new pantry and cabinets to go. From there we took yet another trip to the Home Depot to get wood and drywall for the pantry. You can see all the cross bars that were put in place on the sides of the pantry, that was so that the shelves had something to be attached to for extra support. We didn't want them just attached to the studs in the wall because over time they would begin to droop forward. This way they can hold a lot more, and they will not go anywhere.

The drywall is up in the following picture, and it was time to tape and putty the joints, then you have to wait 24 hrs.
before sanding and putty again. Don't worry, the ugly light is going away eventually.

Looky, looky...it is a pantry and there are some base cabinets sitting beside it now. This was the way we envisioned our kitchen looking, it was all starting to come together. Notice in these pictures the flooring is different as well, and the ceiling has been scrapped (popcorn ceiling is all gone) To us it just looks so much better, and that is a free thing you can do, except for the paint and a little joint compound. You need a spray bottle full of warm water, you spray the popcorn ceiling in a section, wait a couple of minutes, spray again and take a large scrapper and start scrapping. It will all just start falling off. For easier cleanup, it is wise to spread the plastic though so you can just fold up and throw it out when you are done. It took a little over an hour to scrape the whole kitchen.

 In this picture, take note, the shelves are in place and food in the pantry. YAY!!!  and there are top cabinets on the walls as well. It is coming together slowly, but still finally happening.

 The outlets were put in place right above the base cabinets, they were just moved up from the ones that were down on the lower level before the cabinets were put it. It was an easy fix as he just had to run the wire up from where it was and put the new plate on it. We left the one that was near the floor in the pantry area. You will see later why we did this.

These next pictures you will see a new hole being cut into the ceiling for the new light and we could get rid of the old 1970's light, and patch the hole, then paint over it.

The new light was on clearance for $78, that is a great deal if you have checked on lights lately. There is another option if you have a light that is brass or the silver color and want the bronze then you can buy the special spray paint and spray them that color, or a brushed nickle color and keep the old light, just giving it a new facelift for under $20. We have done this before many times.