new plumbing, new floor

so today we have spent the majority of the day (since 7am till now) working on the plumbing and then putting in the new floor in the laundry room. james has put in more than 10 new lines of pex plumbing. crawling around under the house, disconnecting the old pipes then putting the pex in. not. fun. ugh. but, now its done and we wont have to worry so much about pipes freezing this winter. even if they do, they wont break. pex is pretty cool stuff. i cant believe i just said that about plumbing materials. ive learned a LOT about plumbing the last few days, believe me. now i actually know what happens when you turn the tap on. kinda cool.


so then the floor in the laundry room


we went from this:

to this:

were heading over to jeff and lisas for dinner and s.h.o.w.e.r.s. im soooo looking forward to that. oh, and our daily stop at home depot. bought to much pex so have about $100 to return and then need to get some more valve thingys. (i said i understand how plumbing works, not what the names of the pieces are!)

james has really been doing so much work these last few days! he is soooo dirty. here is is testing out the new floor at the end of a long work day:

plumbing stuff

so today we realized....wait the me part of we realized.... that the plumbing stuff is going to take a lot longer than we...i mean i...thought. turns out it was not a simple thing to redo ALL THE PLUMBING in our tiny house. oh. so james and i have made several trips to home depot and puchased a million miles of pex (the new tubing stuff) and various clamps and valves and other boring things.

all i can say is that thank elvis james knows how to do all this plumbing stuff 'cause he is saving us a lot of dough by doing it all himself!

in other news, we do also have this awesome tub filler! we go it off craigslist last year for $200! the cheapest i can find it now is on amazon for $631. score one for the wilsons!

the higlight of the day was our morning break when ava and lisa came over and ava fed the chickens some lettuce, green beans and blueberries. turns out the ladies love blueberries! good times!

i heart this tile

ok, so you cant really see how awesome this tile is in the above photo. we found it at tile for less over on 122nd/halsey. they are really nice people, have fair prices, and tons of helpful tips for first time tilers like me and james.

this is the tile we are using for the chair rail. it goes really well with the vanity mirror, which has little dots around the edge. love.

breakfast of champions...errr home remodelers!

ok, up and at 'em! we were up working at about 700am this morning, so needed to make a hearty breakfast. (side note, if you do not own one of these $19.99 griddles you should get one. i make fajitas, breakfast, garden burgers, everything on this baby!)

james is building a new wall in the laundry room and im heading out to put another coat of paint on the clawfoot tub.

we're back and on a roll!

hey, friends! whew, after a year of not doing the remodel, here we go! were starting with the laundry room (which is connected to the bathroom). james put up the tin tiles like we have in the bathroom yesterday and today we started on the fabric tiles. ive been working on these (with help from lisa, for quite awhile, so its so cool to finally have them going up! i love how it is turning out!



here is what the laundry room looked like after we started ripping off the yucky wallpaper. ugh. outside the window there is the building we are remodeling into the library. thats a whole other post!








and here is what the fabric tiles on the wall are looking like. im really liking it!

first coat of paint is on the walls...and me

i put the first coat of paint on the walls today. very exciting because it's starting to look more like the bathroom that's in my head, not the one that's in my house. The color is from devine, it's called sea star. up at the top where it's not painted (as to avoid painted the tin tiles) is where the crown molding trim will go.
so in the photo of me those walls are hardibacker and will soon (very soon!) be covered with subway tiles. (white).

i need a place for my lip gloss

so here is a photo of the sink we are putting in. the cabinet is NOT gonna cut it for storage space so james is building me a cabinet like this one for around the toilet. i don't want one that attaches to tthe wall one and i like how this one will lend itself to the period we are going for in the bathroom. plus it will be custom. gotta love it!

we are primed and ready for paint!

i've got good news, friends!!! james got his sutures out and is back to work on the beadboard in the bathroom. i didn't photograph it, cause you've seen it before. BUT, he finished so today i painted the coat of primer. whoa. i've never 'primed' beadboard before. that's a fuck load of work, i'll tell you. i had to paint with a brush the entire 'seam' of the beadboard. hells bells! i'm very in touch with these walls...
it has to dry for at least a day, so i probably won't get to the paint until next weekend. wait till you see it though! it's a pretty divine color called sea star. and yes, half of why i picked the color is because of the name. im me, what do you expect?!
see the wall with the two holes in the bead board? that is where the wall sconces will go, with the mirror in the middle. bleow that (where you see the pipes) is where the sink will go.
here is me displaying my handiwork and then comes the clean up!

rub a dub dub

james is still recovering from the great hand sawing of 2009, so we took the weekend off and did some shopping instead. we were looking for the tub and the shower. we know we want a really big clawfoot tub (james is 6'4) and a shower (cause who takes a bath daily). in keeping with the house's original 1908 design we wanted one that looks vintage. we're leaning towards this....

when the sun is out....so are we

Well, with James hand injury the bathroom has been stalled. (that was a clever play on words!). this weekend is actually decent so we are going to step outside and see how scary it is. Our tractor is 'broke down'. i'm not sure exactly what that means, but when you start it up there is a LOT of smoke happening. james has to order some parts for it then he and his friend jeff have to fix it. i keep saying lets just go buy a new one. (cause i like shiny new things). did you know that a new tractor is like $15,000??? hells bells i guess we are fixing the old kabota!

in the meantime i used my brush mower to try to tackle some of the blackberries. it actually works, but pushing this thing over 2.5 acres is not gonna cut it. (ha! again with the play on words!). Hunter, Penny and I went out exploring the property and made future plans.

OUCH! and now a lesson is shop safety.....

Soooooo i'm in the house and i hear james shout 'i'm hurt!" from out in the shop. uh. not what you want to hear. i run outside and james is coming up the driveway cradeling his left hand and there is a trail of blood. i run in the house, grab a towel and some keys, throw james in the car and head to mt hood medical center as fast as the countour could make it. we got right it, which i guess a big bleeding hand wound does for you. they finally got james some iv pain medication but he was still in a great deal of pain. here's what happened: he had the miter saw blade IN HIS HAND as he was adjusting it. he accidently TURNED THE SAW ON while the blade was still IN HIS HAND. so. ya. he sawed himself up. We were at the ER for about 5 hours, but 30 stiches and much pain medication later we found out he wouldn't have permanent damage. in fact, the hand specialist said that james was really lucky, and that when he operates he makes incisions exactly where james cut himself up. (well, probably a bit straighter). so, it was a wild sunday and thank elvis he will not lose any functionality in his hand. and now we have this 'fun' story about shop safety!

painting some flair

so the laundry room (which is connected to the bathroom) will have red coral as the decor, the flair, if you will. i found these coat rack/towel hanger things at urban outfitters, of all places. they just needed a bit of paint.....

now for some bead board

Once the hardibacker was up, James started hanging the beadboard. Beadboard comes in this big huge sheets that are attached to a thin piece of plywood. James was against that, and wanted to make it himself. Here is the start of it. I'll be doing primer and then paint. A really nice blue. The tile will be subway tile in white. More on that later....

The start of walls

The bathroom walls will be tile from the floor up to five feet, and then bead board. The first thing to do was hang the hardibacker to prepare for the tile. This stuff is not fun to work with at all. See what the walls looked like? That's the siding of the house!

Penny wants to help

Penelope likes to be as close to James as possible, so she decided to help hang the hardibacker. Never mind that she ran out of the room whenever the sound of the drill started. She is mostly about moral support anyway. You know, lack of thumbs and all......

let's take it from the top

The first thing we did was put in a new light fixture and tin tiles on the ceiling. James picked up the tiles at a store close out sale for about a dollar each. Quite a deal! The silver ceiling really brings light to the room.

And here we go!

So today is the start of our home remodel blog. Hurray for home remodel! James and I have been living here for about three years (he many more than that) and we've been busy with things like planning and paying for a wedding. But we're hitched now and ready to begin the next phase!

Our house is teeny tiny (850 square feet) but sits on just under 3 beautiful acres. I often describe it like this: the house is the postage stamp and the property is the envelope. It was built in 1906. Well, we think it was. We found a 1906 newspaper shimming a window frame in the bathroom. As far as style, it doesn't really stick to one. We think the house built by people using the property to farm. It was a three room house. In back of the house there was a concrete room used as fridge. At some point a small building was built around the cement room. Later, a remodel was done to add a bathroom and a kitchen. Now here we are in 2009 getting ready to remodel again.

The plan is this. We are going to remodel every. single. room. We are flipping the orientation of the house, so the current side door will be the front door. The current kitchen and living room are switching places. We are leaving the bathroom and laundry (alcove) as is but remodeling everything from ceiling to floor. We are pushing the two bedrooms out a bit so we can add a hallway. We will add a small bathroom to the master bedroom. The little building that has the cement room is being remodeled into the library. (The Wilson's have a lot of books).

James will be doing most of the work himself. He taught himself how to do electrical work and plumbing, and of course he already is a carpenter. (I prefer the term 'craftsman'). I'll be doing all the painting because he refuses to. Rude!

We HOPE to get this done in the next year.
As everyone who knows me knows, I don't have guests out to the house. It's very much a 'before' picture now, and I don't want to have company here. So, this blog is the way to share this journey with you.

I won't post a before photo now. I'll do that, I promise, but not till the end. There will be a lot of photos of the during and after though, believe me.

I hope to entertain and inspire you as we change this house into a home. Then when we are done we are having a HUGE housewarming party and you, your kids, and your dogs are all invited!

xoxo
Jenn

P.S. That rainbow was hanging out over our yard today. I think that's a good omen to start with!