Fireplace Re-Tile... Part 2

Back in September '08 I posted part 1 to this home improvement project. It has finally been finished. Kyle's friend/coworker did the work and I love it. We are now just waiting for the threshold pieces to come in to finally complete it entirely. Phew, one project just about done, many more in the pipeline.

New Washer and Dryer YAY

About a month ago the dryer just didn't sound right, less than 2 loads later it refused to work any longer. Seeing as how it's at least 13yrs old (and likely older) we figured there was no reason to try to repair it. So out it came and into the front yard it's took up residence as we redid the closet: new vinyl flooring, repainted and updated the baseboards. Today after much waiting and nervousness about whether they would really fit in the given space our worry was replaced by relief and joy. I love our new washer and dryer.

Fireplace Re-Tile... Part 1

When we had the floors redone this is how they "finished" off things around the fireplace. This needless to say did not sit very well with me. They intended for us to add another layer of trim where the gap was, the problem with this is then there would be 2 trim pieces showing: the new and the original beat up trim on the floor. So to resolve this newly created situation we decided we'd take on re-tiling the fireplace.

Current/Original Fireplace

Samples for new fireplace

So given our tiny fireplace, and non existence of the current tile size anywhere. We went to multiple stores, sketched out multiple options with various tile sizes until we'd settled in on a plan. We found a trim piece that will go along the top of the fireplace and use 12x12 tiles elsewhere. A friend at work pointed us to All Natural Stone in the area. They were really nice and helpful. So we've finally settled on the small tile on top in the picture on the right. Kyle will be off this week to order. I'll be very happy when we finish up home improvement for the time being.

We Have Floors

It was a long day... and a long time coming. When the flooring guy came he insisted the flooring still looked defective. Kyle insisted it was going in and it was going to happen today. So they sent out a home depot manager and he took a look and felt it was fine and gave the thumbs up to go ahead with the installation. So now we are working on the baseboards and have some touch up work from where things were destroyed during demolition that we need to sort out. We also now have a new issue around the fireplace. There was an existing trim piece that the flooring guy insisted shouldn't be removed (at this point I think this was a mistake). He insisted that there be a gap left between the flooring and and old trim with a new trim piece put on top in the gap. The problem with this is that it doesn't completely cover the existing trim, in fact it just barely covers the edge of the existing trim so you have 2 layers of trim. ..... But at least for now we have floors and have cut about half the base.

Floors this Week...... no really

My mom helped me out by painting our baseboards (smoothly) with a coat of paint, and I gave them another coat over the holiday weekend. They are scheduled to come out and install the flooring Wednesday (finally!!). We picked up the new flooring a while ago and snapped together a few pieces and to our "unexperienced" eye it looks much better. After that it will be our turn to give it a go as DIY-ers a shot. Baseboards here we come, then we can move back in and be done with this whole ordeal. At least this is the current plan.

There's a hole in the bucket

What would a weekend be without a home improvement post? When it rains it pours... isn't that how the saying goes? Just when we thought maybe we were finally on track for our floors (on the installation schedule for July 9th, yes!! Finally!! Take 2) Kyle noticed a little water coming from under the sink. After a closer look, there's a hole in our garbage disposal. Anyone care to guess what hubby is doing on his day off Monday? Let's hope THIS goes well. There is really only so much "rain" we can take.

3mo..... still no floors

No picture today.... I am totally breaking my posting tradition. Perhaps that will alter the universe and put us back on course. Well worth a try. Where did I leave off this bed time story? I believe with bumpy base boards. The contractor agreed to take back the old ones, bring us new ones and thought it "was best for all parties involved to sever ties". Since apparently we have ridiculous high standards and the base were done properly. Ummm yeah ok, it's us, fine just leave. It may take up to 30days to refund the money for the work they will no longer be doing (we'll see how that goes). Kyle and I have decided to tackle the installation and painting of the baseboards. After making the decision we were both incredibly relieved. Today the new replacement floors should hopefully arrive at home depot for us to pick up and get acclimating to our home. We can then go about scheduling the installation (again) and hopefully be on our way to putting our lives back together.

While doing a bit of research on the web I discovered our homeowners association has a web site (who knew... or I don't read the news letters nearly close enough.) Here's any entry in the meeting meetings regarding our favorite subject of late.

"ITEM VIII - New Business
A. Insurance Claim for water damage to 5 units on Huxley Court
The Board reviewed the repair proposal from Carter-Gough Construction for 5 units damaged by an overflowing toilet. The repair cost will be $43,292.43. The association has filed a claim with Allied Insurance and will also consider subrogating the expense with the owner of the unit in which the toilet was located."

Textured Baseboards - WTF

Another day another problem. Yesterday when I came home and took a look at the baseboards they were super eager to paint (even though our floors are still probably a couple weeks out) I noticed something right off. They were textured. I thought maybe I just hadn't been terribly observant and all my baseboards were, so I quickly checked... no I hadn't been imagining things all the rest of the base in the house completely smooth. These textured. I sent Kyle to check with our neighbor to see if they did theirs this way... no theirs were smooth, although I found out through the course of our conversation they didn't paint the bottom third because they assumed the rug would cover it (nice!!). We've had it. I've been doing pretty well up until this point. This was my final straw. Overpriced installation for the fooring- fine we'll find someone else, bad job pulling out old floor - fine we can fix it, subfloor needs to be leveled - fine pay to fix it, first batch of floors defective - return it order more, TEXTURED BASE BOARDS... What could they have been thinking? That's it... ENOUGH!!

"Pergo"-tory continues

Our Downstairs... In our garage.... Still.

yup it's true pergotory continues. We are quickly approaching the 3month mark since the disaster that damaged our floors. I think Kyle and I switch off loosing it. The latest: pergo agreed the floors were damaged and agreed to replace them (after several phone calls from home depot), we have returned our old floors to the store, and are now waiting for the new floors to arrive. We have a pile of baseboard in our living room waiting to be painted and installed, pending the arrival of the flooring. *fingers crossed* by 4th of July?!

BTW: Thank you Peter's daughter for the awesome pun!! You rock and brought a small chuckle to an otherwise glum day!!

Seeing Red

Anyone else getting tired / frustrated /bored reading about our floors? Well too bad :P until they are fixed it is consuming our lives!!! And as if it hasn't gone on long enough, things have been delayed now indefinitely. Well perhaps that's a bit overly dramatic, but let me back up. Today the installers showed up to install the floors. YAY!! at last floors. The day we've been waiting for, for quickly approaching 3 months. The floor has been leveled. We have the materials. They prepped the floor, they started work and then..... the head guy calls me down to take a look at something he had "concerns" about. What was this concern? The joints didn't close properly. Did I want to continue? Everything in me was screaming just put the flooring in the way they are, wrong and all they look so beautiful!!! But the rational perfectionist devil sitting on my other shoulder calmly asked if this was just the way this brand/ particular floor went together. His response no, it's wrong, with all the floors he's laid he can assuredly tell me it shouldn't be like this. CRAP, CRAP, CRAP. OK... So Monday the tech comes out to take a look and assess the situation... we should know more then.... wait haven't I said that before.

One step forward, Two back

So it turns out your floors need to be relatively level before laying new flooring. ;) And well.... ours weren't even close... D'oh. So this means all that $$ we saved (nearly $1500 by changing contractors to be exact, just in case anyone was wondering about such things) has now been spent to fix the drastic imperfections in our concrete sub floor. (I can only imagine what a predicament we'd be in if we'd stayed with the original contractor). So here we are with a couple concrete flows across our downstairs leveling it out. Actual honest to goodness floors are supposed to be laid soon.... real soon.

New Floors...... So Close Yet So Far

The flooring saga continues... We "fired" our original flooring contractor (who was a sub through the general contractor) And have opted to have home depot come out and do the installation. This means we have to wait even longer for our floors. They didn't order the pad that goes under the flooring AND the threshold pieces "allegedly" didn't get processed and have been reordered. We also aren't sure if we are going to have to do something about the ridiculous amount of remaining glue remaining on the concrete from the previous floors. Oh and as if dealing with the floors downstairs isn't enough, the thin piece of real hardwood laminated on the flooring upstairs is spontaneously popping off in a couple of places. Nice. We were thinking of doing the upstairs at some point, in the future, later, down the road. *sigh* I'm tired of my furniture living in the garage. Hopefully we will have a better idea of the new time line tomorrow.

Ummm .... Portable Potty??

A quick snapshot over the fence.

Only this one is supposed to be a fairly permanent fixture..... INSIDE. If you've been reading about our fun filled flooring adventure this is the offending piece of plumbing. And now it's sitting right smack dab in the middle of our neighbors patio... our neighborhood porcelain patio decoration.... sort of like a garden gnome. Sitting there mocking us.

More than 4wks and Counting

Our floors have been removed due to the "flood". It now smells like glue. And not the kind of glue that makes you feel all funny and good inside. More like the kinda of glue that just smells and is more than likely toxic and killing brain cells I most certainly need. We have cement slab floors underneath it all but you could barely tell under all that GLUE. All of the base boards my parents helped tirelessly put in have been ripped out and it all makes me feel a bit sad. I'm really hoping this is just a case of it needs to get worse before it can get better. We've picked out Victorian Mapple Pergo flooring to replace the damaged floors. And I'm really at that point where I just want it all back together and fixed!!!

Love Thy Neighbor

Umm NOT so much right now. I woke up to a plumber at the door asking if there was water flooding our bathroom/laundry area. I double checked and nothing.... yet.

It turned out our neighbor (who we heard loudly leaving very early this morning for, presumably a business trip, updated: trip to Hawaii..... as she does quite frequently) had an overflowing toilet that was flooding our other neighbors. They stopped the water for the entire building until the could figure out how to ascertain entry into her place.

Kyle stopped by during his break at work and noticed it looked like it might be starting to seep through the wall. By the time he got home it was more clearly seeping through and he called the community home owners association and got on the list of units for the restoration management company to visit.

So the baseboards are off, there are holes in the walls and dehumidifiers running. It looks like the flooring downstairs will have to be replaced. It's been one crazy day.