Ch,ch,ch,ch,changes

I know I've been lax at keeping this blog going but no one ever told me just how stressful a situation like ours could be. We hired a flooring contractor who turned out to be somewhat uh, out of touch with reality? He couldn't seem to tell the difference between what really happened and what was just happening in his head. It became maddening and frustrating so I fired him to save us all the possible bad outcomes. If I had it to do over, I would still have fired him but it's turned out to be an overwhelming amount of work. Since it was late in the game, there was no way to get a good contractor to do the job on our tight timeline and I didn't want to add another stress element. I ended up accepting that I would be doing all the flooring as a one woman team.
I've done many DIY projects over the years and know that nothing ever goes as planned and it's never done when you plan for it to be. Thus the reason I set a generous time frame for both the kitchen tile and the laminate in the rest of the house. I truly thought I would have finished well ahead of schedule but I didn't count on the North Las Vegas Utilities office throwing a monkey wrench into it all. They seem hell bent on giving people bogus information and pretending it didn't happen. To make a long story short, I ended up with no water for three days. No water means no grouting. I had no laminate so I couldn't get started on that while I worked out the water issue. All I could do is get the prep work done for the laminate. I pulled all the carpet and padding, yanked up the tack strips and scraped the glued mess off the cement floor. Finally, yesterday, after 5 hours waiting for them to figure out why I still had no water, I was able to start grouting. Our appliances are due to be delivered on Saturday so there was no more time for messing around. I got about a third of the kitchen grouted and gave in to exhaustion. Today is Friday. I am supposed to be on my second day of laminate but I haven't even really started my first day. We are moving in on Monday.
There are all kinds of frustrations associated with these projects and everything changes constantly. The one thing I need to change can't be changed and that's the move in date. We are seven days from the end of our lease and I will need time to get back to the rental to do the carpets and clean the house. It may be a week or so before I'm able to do another blog but I wanted to express the reality of what's going on during this whole fiasco.
I must tell you that the kitchen tile job is gorgeous. I had envisioned a decent outcome but didn't expect to be so impressed with the incredibly unique look and feel of the finished pattern. So far, the grout color only serves to enhance the beauty of it. I will be able to post the before and after photos in my next blog and I'm so excited to share it with everyone.
Until next time...

We own it!

Finally, after a year and a half of hoping, dreaming and holding our breath, we signed for ownership of our new home this morning. Hubby and I were both a bundle of vibrating nerves and excitement, so coffee'd up that we didn't know which was reeking more havoc on our stomachs. When it was done, I just wanted to have a good cry. I'm over it now and ready to move forward.
I drove up to get the keys and remotes this afternoon, take measurements and make sure the heat was on high enough. It's been incredibly cold the last two weeks for this region. With daytime temps struggling to stay in the low 40's and overnight lows in the 20's, I was starting to feel like I never left Maine. It was, in fact, warmer in Maine all week than it was here. It finally surpassed 50 today and it felt positively balmy. We are destined for the 60's this weekend. It should be good project and moving weather for the rest of the month. We are hoping to have enough done to move in before the end of the month.
I have a meeting with our flooring installer tomorrow to talk about the kitchen tile pattern and get his measurements so I can order flooring for the living room, hallway and master bedroom while he gets busy on the kitchen. I've designed my own tile pattern and wanted to do the install myself but realized that it was a huge job to do alone and relented to Hubby's insistence that it would be quicker to hire someone. Since I'm a bit of a control freak, I'm fretting over whether it will be done the way I want it. Deep breath...
I also lost the battle over laying the flooring in the rest of the house but I didn't fight that hard. The last time I tiled or laid flooring of any kind, I couldn't feel my right arm for two weeks. I have a little issue with nerve damage that I try really hard to ignore but big projects get the better of me. So it's goodbye linoleum and carpet, hello tile and wood!
We will be having a few unexciting things done as well but I don't think there's much interest in before and after shots of the water heater, water filter systems and roof work. We've got a page full of little jobs to get out of the way before and after we move in.
I have been trying to weasel more work on the kitchen out of the money we have to spend but, once again, being a responsible adult wins out. We need to put the money where it needs to go first.
I spent some time looking closely at a few details in the house to get some idea of what lays ahead in terms of work. I checked out under the counter which seems to be a hack job. I found that all the cabinets were installed as a 5th grade field trip project apparently because there is nothing professional or polished about it. I had discovered they skipped the underlayment beneath the laminate counter when we first looked at the house because I couldn't fit my fingers above the drawers to open them. They didn't line anything up so I will be unscrewing and resetting most of them next week so they don't mock my OCD. I need to remove a couple end cabinets and replace them with narrower ones before the floor is started and appliances arrive. We have exactly 34.5 inches in which to squeeze a refrigerator and that doesn't work for me. I plan to take them apart and rebuild them to the right dimensions.
I wanted to see the quality of the cabinets as well because I plan to refinish and re-door them. I am perplexed that the drawer fronts feel plastic while the cabinet facing is obviously wood. It definitely bears further investigation, as the home inspector would say. I wanted to make sure the bathroom vanities were also solid and well made so I can refinish those as well. That turned out to be less of a disappointment. They are surprisingly well built. New stain and counter tops will do the trick.
The showers in both bathrooms are another story. I'm still collecting ideas from Pinterest on that one. And speaking of Pinterest...I am trying to figure out how to add the "Pin It" button to my blog. I scanned a couple web pages that were helpful. Now I just need to try it out. When I have a finished project, I will give it a whirl but for now, it's off the dream about all the fun we are going to have.

In the beginning...

Here are some of the initial pics we took before any work began, even before we actually owned the house.

The house isn't huge at about 1550 sf but it's just big enough for 2. We were hoping for a larger back yard to put in a good sized pool but we've scaled that project back considerably. There is, however, an enormous amount of cabinet and counter space, which is the one thing I wasn't about to sacrifice. I love the little courtyard entry and have so many ideas for that. The rugs are toast before we move in and the linoleum flooring in the kitchen is headed the same way. And yes, that is the much desired rarely discussed 3 car garage!

Welcome Pinterest Fanatics!

I was introduced to Pinterest last year by a co-worker who incited an addiction that has lead me to my newest endeavor. We moved to Nevada for the love of Vegas, the weather and to buy our dream home. While our dream home may not be everyone's definition of the ultimate house, it's our definition. After having figured out how Pinterest works, it became clear that this would be a great, fun way to share our journey from a couple of native Mainiacs living in a double wide to renovating our new home in North Las Vegas using tons of ideas found on Pinterest along with our own desire and ingenuity.
We moved to St. George, UT in September 2011 because my company couldn't get me in to the Vegas market due to store closures and it seemed like a pretty close and comfortable place to wait out a position that would land us here. Let's just suffice to say I was wrong about that and, after 10 months of anxiety, we finally made our move. We rented a house in Henderson, NV while we waited for our two houses in Maine to finally sell. It was a long, drawn out wait but they both finally sold and closed on the same day within half hour of each other on nearly the last day of 2012.
We were aware that we would face some big challenges finding the right home in the right location and beating the investors to the punch. I could go into the strange and crazy coincidences we ended up with but I will make it short and sweet for those who don't believe in fate, guardian angels and just plain spooky things. We looked at 7 houses, most of which already had accepted offers by the end of the first day they went on the market, we put a bid on the 7th house and it was accepted on the 7th day from the day we closed our other two house sales. We opened escrow on January 7th. All those 7's might not mean a lot to other people but my husband is one of those people with extraordinary luck that kind of ticks you off once in a while. His birthday is 7-27 and he plays those numbers and wins. And we are repeatedly reminded of how lucky we were to find and buy a house so quickly in a market with little to choose from and investors watching what comes up like vultures.
There is a lot to be done and I will document our progress along the way. It should be a lot of fun in spite of the frustrations and set backs, which I'm sure won't be over when we move in. Some projects will be done quickly while others will start when the money is available. Of course, I'm pushing for priority on my personal wants but hubby is pushing for his own set of priorities. Now, let's have some fun!