Anti-DIY: Recessed lighting, Toilets and Painting!

Anti-DIY:

There are some things best left to the professionals, whether its due to time or complexity, sometimes its really important to recognize when its worth it to pay the pros.

Our GC and other contractors are working fast to get us in before the end of the month (with our move in date of this Sunday!!).  I'll say I am so grateful to have hired our GC, having someone manage the bulk of this project is well worth the fee we are paying for it.   

Recessed Lighting

Our huge family room (15' x 30') had no lighting at all!  Hubs really wanted to install recessed lighting himself, but with our time crunch and learning curve required (drywalling, etc.) it was just not the time to DIY.  Our GC's electrician came in and finished this all in one night.  Then his drywaller came in to wrap up the next day.  

They installed 12 recessed lights on two dimmers (front and back of the room).  

Before the lights

Installation

Final Product

TOILETS!!

Ok, maybe it's just me, but the thought of sitting on something that has been catching other people's nastiness for decades just didn't sit well with me.  Let's not forget our toilets all came in beautiful hot pink, beige or some uncomfortable off white.  

This is also something I think we could have handled on our own, but the thought of a strangers toilet literally makes me puke in my mouth a little, so I don't think it owuld have gone all too well.  

When searching for a toilet, we were sold by this commercial:

So American Standard, Champion 4 it is!  If it can flush a bucket of golf balls, it should (hopefully) manage our family.  

Before. Ignore the crazy tub... that is a whole other issue.

  

After

Painting

As much money as it would have saved to do our own painting, we just didn't have the time to do it.  We're definitely planning on painting in the future, but with X and another one on the way, painting this entire house (trust me, EVERY wall needed painting) in just a couple weeks would be impossible for me and hubs alone.  

So we'll leave it to the pros!  I reached out to my network and one of my Jr High/HS friends (thanks Chris!) referred a great contact - Steve Higgins (contact me for his info).    So far he's done a great job for a good price!

Check out the colors we're doing.  The upstairs will be done in Manhattan Mist (middle color) & Igloo (top color) with downstairs in Gray Timber Wolf (bottom color) and Igloo.  We wish we had the time and funds to paint the trim white, but we are saving that for a future project.  I'll be sure to another post with the final product.  

Steve's basically done with the upstairs and just starting downstairs, hopefully finishing by this weekend! I'll be sure to do a separate before and after post of painting.



That's all for now folks.  Stay tuned for the next posts on carpet selection and appliance purchases!! 

DIY - Removing carpet

DIY - Getting rid of nasty carpet

So this house had carpet EVERYWHERE.  They also had 2 big dogs that lived there, who blessed the carpets regularly.  Great.  When we got our quotes from our flooring guys and GC, it was about $1,000 to remove carpet (anywhere from .30-.50/sq ft).  Me and the hubs are admittedly lazy people, but we are also cheap. As we were speaking to contractors, they made it pretty clear that its not that hard to remove carpet... so we figured, why the heck not, lets do it.  

Here's some photos of the beautiful hot pink carpet (you know you had this when you were younger) and off white berber that went throughout the entire house.  

  

Here we go...

Step #1: Buy your supplies

Supplies Needed:

• Gloves - $5
• Pliers - had these!
• Knife - $10
• Mask - $5
• Duct Tape - $20
• Hammer - had this woot!
• Floor Scraper - $20
• Shop Vac - $99
• Blood, Sweat & Tears - Free.99

Total Cost = $160 (with a brand new shop vac, which you'll use for a lot of other things later like washing your car and dealing with garage messes) vs. $1000+, that's worth it in our book.

 

Step #2: Tell your Husband (or whoever is doing the dirty work) he is awesome

Yup, butter that guy/girl up, because some hard work is about to be done.  It's not complicated, but it does take a lot of lifting, squatting, pulling, cutting, sweating, swearing, etc.  

Step #3: Rip that ish out!

All you need to do is pull up a corner (use your pliers), tug at the carpet, pull it up, fold it over, cut a manageable piece, roll it up, tape it, then toss it over the banister, and repeat... dozens and dozens of times.  

Make sure you are wearing long sleeves, good shoes, gloves and your mask!!  The mask can be a pain in the butt, but think about decades of someone else's body flakes and who knows what embedded into that carpet, kicking up into your face.  You'll be thankful later you wore the mask :).  

  

Step #4: Repeat for the padding

Do the same thing for the padding.  This is even easier since it is not as heavy and easy to rip by hand.  This part doesn't need to be perfect.  Some of the padding will get stuck in the staples in the floor, which is ok, it doesn't need to be perfect!

 

Step #5: Scrape and Suck it Up!

What you'll see left is rows of staples that held the padding down and tack strips along the edges of the wall.  

If you are putting carpet into that room, leave the tack strips there for the installers to reuse. If you are doing wood or another flooring, you can pull this out with a hammer, flathead or pliers. 

For the staples in the ground, instead of pulling those suckers out one by one with pliers, grab your floor scraper and ram into them.  Those babies will pop out super easily.  For the stubborn ones, use your pliers to pull them out.  

Once you've finished, grab your handy dandy shop vac and vacuum it all up!!  Voila!

Don't do what I did and wear no sleeves and crappy shoes!!

Step #6: Get rid of that old carpet

To be honest, I'm stuck on this step.  There are a few options of disposing of your old carpet and padding:

Landfill it: 

• Contact your garbage company for a special pick up or dumpster rental
• Throw it out little by little, most curbside pick up will pick up rolls that are 4ft/5ft in length, rolled up and not more than 25 lbs. each.  
• Throw your garbage man a few bucks and say pretty please can I throw this all away today?

Recycle it: (this is what I've been trying to do with no luck!)  There are several resources you can find online, now getting them to call back or finding a place to pick up is a whole other story.

• http://swanaillinois.com/carpet/drop-off-locations
• http://www.landfillclear.com/
• https://carpetrecovery.org/

Step #7: Celebrate!!

You (and/or someone you convinced) have done it! Congratulations, you are a capable homeowner.  Now go bask in your do-it-yourself goodness and enjoy your carpet free home.  

Some Other Tips:

• Now is a great time to paint the walls and trim!! With no floors, less thought needs to go into protecting the ground!
• Before your flooring is put in, look for loose boards and squeaks and get those fixed!
• I didn't talk about the stairs, because they were the bane of my existence.  Carpet removal on stairs is the hell on earth.  If you can't pay someone to do this, get your crowbar, good pliers, and many hours of swearing ready.

New Living Room Floors!!

It felt like it took forever to get our renovations going, but after interviewing 4 General Contractors, 3 different painters and 2 different flooring contractors, we settled on 1 GC to manage the bulk of the project, 1 painter and a local carpeting shop to round out our renovations.  

First up, our living room and dining room floors.  They both started out as a white berber carpet that was blessed several times by the family dog.  As the entryway to the house, it definitely needed some love.  We went back on forth on whether or not we'd do carpet vs. laminate vs. wood.  Matt and I are pretty cheap, so laminate was our first choice.... until we spoke to, well, everyone!!  The downfalls of laminate in such an essential room are just so many, sagging, bowing, fixing any damage, etc.  Wood, although expensive at first, is definitely the best choice for us in the long run. 

After Carpet Removal and
red oak planks acclimating.

Step #1 - Carpet Removal

We decided to save on costs and pull out all the carpet in the house ourselves (check out another blog post on that process).  Honestly, it's not that difficult and a little bit fun (for a room or two).  Matt pulled the carpet out on Saturday morning and that afternoon, the wood guys dropped planks off to acclimate to the house.  

Red Oak Laid by GC's guys

Step #2 - Laying the Wood

We went back and forth with the installers about the direction of the wood.  I preferred for the wood to run parallel to the stairs and away from the door.  Unfortunately, structurally, the best placement is for the wood to be perpendicular to the joists.  Looks just fine afterwards!  Of course when we came to check it out, Xavier found the 1 red crayon that exists in the house and drew all over the floor.  Thankfully they were going to sand the next day.  

Choices for Stain
(American Classic, Jacobean,
Classic Grey, Dark Walnut)

Step #3 - Picking out Stain

Originally I was 100% set on a grayish stain.  I didn't realize that if you use red oak wood (what most floorers choose/use) it comes out with a pinkish tint.  My GC even had a customer that had an entire floor done in this and changed his mind to have it completely redone.  So off to Home Depot we went.  The guys laid out our choices and after standing there for an hour or so we went with the Dark Walnut, not too dark, but not too light.  

Final Product

After sanding and staining, we absolutely love how this turned out!!  Even though its not the original stain I wanted or the direction I preferred, it is a first step to making our house our home.  

Living Room Floors Before

Living Room Floors After

A Home for our babies!!

Xavier is so happy about his new home!

We are so excited!!  After 4 months of anxiously waiting, we finally closed on this amazing house in Orland Park, IL.  We had put an offer on this short sale at the end of January and after a lot of back and forth, heartache, and even thoughts of losing the home to foreclosure, we closed on Wednesday, May 28th.  I was actually in Philly for a work trip, so Matt did all of the heavy lifting.  Even at the closing there were more obstacles - the office lost all power during the closing so they had to move from an Oak Lawn location to a Chicago office. Regardless, we made it through and finally closed!!

The family that lived here before was a family who lost their father to a sudden heart attack, which left them in a tough spot and having to short sale on the house. They lived here with their three children, who grew up and moved out, and even brought home grandkids for them.  You can see the remnants of a little girl in the house even now.  I am so happy that even if the owner no longer has this house, we can continue a happy family home here.  

Matt at our closing with
Marc Cervantes (lawyer) and Shari Leming (Realtor)

Work, work, work!!!

Now comes the real work, there are a ton of renovations to do to the house so we are spending the next month doing a few things before moving in, along with a lot of future repairs!  We have spent countless hours at Home Depot, interviewing contractors, picking out paint colors, looking at furniture, checking out appliances.  We are anxious to move out of our current townhouse and into our own space!  Check out our list of updates to happen before we move in!!

• Replace all carpet in the house
• Install Wood Floors in Living Room & Dining Room
• Paint the Interior & Exterior
• Recessed Lighting
• Buy New Refrigerator
• Buy New Washer/Dryer
• Replace all the toilets
• Fix Skylight
• Reroute attic vent

Stay tuned to watch the transformation of this house to our home sweet home!!

Front View of our new home!