Side Note... "The Shed"

Kari and I decided that we were out of space in the house and needed some storage so we spent the weekend building a shed. Here's a picture, we'll be adding siding in the furture but at least for the short term we've got a dry place to store things.

Siding Finally Goes On...

Here are the pictures of the siding being installed. More to follow when it's finished.

Stone Installed

Here are some pictures of the stone that we had installed on the front of the house and on the planter box we had built. We used a stone manufactured by Eldorado Stone called "Alderwood"

Siding Starts

We started the siding this week. We are installing 12" x 6' sections of hardie lap siding (without the lap) using a "rainscreen" technique. This technique using furring strips to provide an airspace behind the siding that will allow air to flow behind the siding. This technique is used primarily on wood siding to keep the siding dry on the back and keep it from rotting. We are using 15# felt paper under the furring strips to provide an extra layer of watershed protection between the house and the siding. More picture to follow once we start putting up siding.

Planter Box and Stucco for Rock

Here are some pictures of our planter box. As you can see in original photo at the top of the page there was a brick ledge with a wood fence on top, we changed the design a little and when back with a concrete block planter box which will have some plants to help provide some privacy. My concrete guys also did the scratch coat of stucco on the front of the left side of the house getting ready for the rock that is going on it. More pics of that once I get done. :)

Concrete Countertops

Here are some photos of us in action pouring the concrete countertops in the kitchen. We used Buddy Rhodes brand concrete which is made for this type application. We used standard bone concrete without a color additive.

The Sidewalk

Here are some pictures of the sidewalk and patio in the front of the house. The patio has a rock salt finish and I'm planning to stain it once we finialize the paint colors for the house.

The Kitchen...

Well, we were back at work this weekend! After a few cabinet and cabinet feet fiascos, we finally got all the right parts in this last week. So, we finally got the kitchen started this weekend. After two months of having no kitchen, we are so excited!!!

Sherri and Morris came up to help us again this weekend. Did we mention that we owe them an all expense paid vacation somewhere! Anyhow, we got all the cabinets in place, along with the refigerator, microwave, and stove. While we are still lacking a sink and dishwasher, we are well on our way to a fully functioning kitchen.

While Justin and Morris worked on mounting the new microwave and hooking up the water and gas, Sherri and I worked on cleaning up the house. We even found a use for a defective cabinet. We have a great make shift entrance table!

Janeen, I finally got out the centerpieces that you and Jason gave us for Christmas, they look great! We placed them on our new dining room table, which we received at the end of May. We bought it from our good friends Kelly and Offir. They have a fabulous store, Loft, located in Austin. Check out their website for more fabulous furniture. www.lofthomedecor.com

Hopefully, you will all agree that our house is finally becoming a home! Within the next few weeks we will be decking the countertops and pouring the concrete countertops. That should be the finishing touches on our dream kitchen!

Starting on the Outside...

As part of the outside refacing, and to help cover up some of the new ceiling joists we installed after demoing the pergola we opted to inclose the eves the same as a typical home. I'm really happy with the way they turned out. I also installed some wiring in the eves for future down lighting.

2/3's of the way done.....On the floors....

Ok, so the floors are 2/3's of the way done. We have all of the tile laid and grouted in the living and dining areas. Kari's loving it because we have the DVR hooked back up. :)

In the pictures, you'll notice some pink stuff on the concrete, my tile layer patched the cracks in the foundation with fiberglass. This helps prevent the cracks from shifting and causing the stone tiles to break. He also used a concrete grinder to grind all of the high spots and added self leveling cement to fill in the low spots. I learned more about tile than I ever wanted to know.

New Floors?

After last nights all night feasco of birthday partying and trying to find a Jack-in-the-box for a late night snack we didn't get to bed till around 3:30. Obviously I didn't want to get up and do any work today but since I'm leaving for North Carolina at 5:45 in the morning I figured I needed to get something done.

I ordered the new tile on Friday, we are going with a Pendio Beige Travertine. We bought through Direct Buy's local wholesaler, Metro Floors, I've used these guys before and they have some great prices. I searched to the end of the Internet trying to find the best price for these tiles. The best I could find was $3.47 psf. I bought them from Metro for $2.49. On 860 sqft, that's a $850 saving...

So... Since I ordered the tile and it's going to be in on Tuesday, Kari and I figured that we needed to get the old tile torn up. For those of you haven't torn up Saltilo tile before the rumors are it's about as bad as cutting your arm off with a butter knife. Since we had already taken some up around the front door area and didn't have any problems at all we decided that we'd tackle it for a Sunday afternoon project. Well, as expected the majority of it came up without any problems. Expect for the 50 sqft that someone thought it would be funny to use a different type of grout (must be the type everyone else has) I beat on this stuff with a grubbing hoe for 2 hours before I could get this little bit of tile up and most of the grout is still stuck to the concrete. I'm not for sure what I'm going to do about this. I'll let my tile layer figure that out.

Here are some pics.....

We have Walls.......

Finally, the Sheetrock is up. After much debate about whether or not we should do this work ourselves. We found the right price, and paid someone else to do it. :) I think we made the right move.