All of the Furniture
I need to remodel my house. I moved into my place in 2003 and have rented it out for a portion of that time as well. When I moved back in 5 years ago it was time to do touchups and make some changes. I kept thinking about things but could never make a decision. Mostly I was thinking of doing paint right away as my tenants had kids, they did a good job of keeping the place nice but you could see that they lived in the house so it has some extra touches. Hahaha! I had picked out paint samples but couldn’t really decide on what would look good. The house was built when I bought it and that was the height of golden oak. I have oak trim everywhere! I feel that color limits what colors would go well with paint and knowing that at some point I would swap out the trim I couldn’t decide on colors.
I really want to do the whole house over, remodel the kitchen, replace the floors, remodel the bathrooms, paint, etc. So many decisions, its overwhelming, that I just ended up not making any. Well back in August I decided to go check out some new couches. I needed new ones as my ones were loved and you could definitely tell my spot I would sit in as you would sink into it. I had decided I wanted a sectional as I really enjoy when I visit my friends Nick and Emily their couches. We joke the corner spot is narcolepsy corner as it didn’t matter if you were wide awake when you sit in that spot soon you will doze off it is so comfy. I love a good nap so I wanted a narcolepsy corner. My living room is not a large space so I figured a sectional would take up less space than the current sofa and loveseat and give you slightly more seating.
I ended up finding one I like the seat/cushion feel and then selected some nice touchy feely fabrics, since this was a couch you needed to order they said it would take 8-10 weeks so it was a sit and wait moment. With the new couch my existing coffee table wasn’t going to go with it so I found one that I liked and ordered that as well.
From there it escalated quickly, I bought most of my furniture when I bought my house 14 years ago so it was time to start thinking of a new mattress. Looking at that I always said when I got a new mattress I would go to a king as its nice to have the extra room. I was always hesitant on going mattress shopping as my current mattress is so comfy and what if the new one wouldn’t be as comfortable. One night of sleeping is not the same, day in and out. I ended up finding one that I liked that would give me 120 days to try out so less risk. Getting a new mattress lead to getting a whole new bedroom set. Phew!!
Plan of Attack
So this is August, projecting that end of September or early October I would be getting my new stuff. My sister was taking my old stuff off my hands so it was going to be a coordinated effort to shift the old stuff out before the new stuff could be moved in. The delivery of the furniture they only due Tuesday’s – Saturdays, and because we all have jobs I expected my sister would be picking up my old stuff on a Saturday and then I would most likely need to have my new stuff delivered on a Tuesday. I didn’t want to go too long without furniture in my place so I wanted it to be the shortest amount of time possible.
Then I started thinking, dangerous pastime I know. If I don’t have furniture for a few days and I do need to get new floors badly this might be the best time to do this. So I hemmed and hawed over this for awhile, especially since I didn’t know if I wanted to go hardwood (knowing Jimi and Cooper tear around the place as they do and spill their water dish and all) or just replace the carpet with new carpet. I was Pintresting away but not knowing where to go to a store to check things out and we all know that I won’t be doing this as a DIYer I would need a company to install this I figured I would just go to a place that would do it all for me.
Great news is they were able to do an in home consultation, provide me with a recommendation on the best flooring with my guidelines, etc. So I chose a luxury vinyl plank, at first the word vinyl made me turn up my nose but after seeing how good it looks and feels (just like real hardwood) but can withstand pets claws and spill it seemed the best option. I decided on a color (a medium brown finish, I was really drawn to the gray but I thought it might be too much considering I was planning on doing the bulk of the home. Also I had a few paint samples with me as I started to think what I would want the walls to be with the new furniture, etc and I found the gray would limit options. With the current oak trim I already feel I was limited on what I could do so I don’t want to be in a place in the future where I would have limitations. I know technically complimentary etc there may always be some things that don’t go well with each other but I wanted to keep the spectrum as wide as possible so I don’t have to redo things again.
They said they would actually move the furniture and it may be easier to get this done before the new furniture was to arrive. So all of a sudden Phase 1 of the home remodel was underway. I have been debating on if you do everything at the house all at once (and just move out for a short period of time) or do it project by project. It is now being broken into phases. I have put this into 3 phases I think so far. Phase 1 being new floors and the updated furniture, Phase 2 being updating the trim, banisters and painting, and Phase 3 being the kitchen and bathrooms (maybe this will be split into Phase 3a and Phase 3b, hahaha).
Somewhere in there Phase 1a or Phase 2 would be a window replacement as they are getting quite drafty in the winter. I was originally thinking earlier this year to replace them but with that massive storm that came through in June that destroyed a lot of things I wasn’t sure if the west windows would be replaced or not so I decided to put this off until we knew what was being covered by the association vs me.
Phase 1
So Phase 1 started on Wednesday this week. Since I was out of town last weekend I didn’t have time to move some of the items I was in charge of (non-furniture pieces, etc). It didn’t help that I didn’t get home until late on Tuesday night getting my hair cut so Tuesday night was a long night. In my head I was more in the mindset that they would start on the downstairs first so I got the dining and living room more situated than upstairs. This meant kitchen was put on lockdown as most of the items were pushed into there.
Upstairs I had shoved most of the smaller items and stuff from the closets into the 2 bathrooms upstairs. The guys came first thing Wednesday morning and we worked out what needed to be done and they said they wanted to start upstairs first. So it started as a mad dash to get the remaining items that hadn’t been moved there out of the way. That and they said it may be a 4 vs a 3 day effort, I told them I hope not, new furniture is scheduled for Saturday AM.
This is a noisier endeavor than I thought. Between the scraping to get the subfloors clear of any remaining residue from the carpet pads, the sawing of the pieces to get them sized and the banging of snapping the new pieces in place I was overwhelmed by the noise. The guys who were installing this were maybe Russian, they were speaking some form of a Slavic language and they started to play their music which had me rocking out to some Russian beats. I did chuckle as the song from Miss Congeniality the Miss United States pageant song came on.
I was working at home during all of this so whenever I needed to be on a conference call I had to step outside as the noise inside was too much, although outside was quieter it wasn’t by that much. Being fall here, the geese are migrating south and like to take a pitstop in my pond/lake. Having a whole flock of geese squawking about doesn’t make for the easiest calls either.
Day 1 ended with 2 of the 5 rooms mostly done, the loft and guest bedroom were floored but still needed the baseboards put in. Day 2 started and I had high hopes that we would get all of the upstairs finished and maybe a good start at the living room. More banging and louder noises than the day before, they finished the day with the upstairs done with the exception of the master closets baseboards. They said they would do that tomorrow. This meant the master bath was still on lockdown for one more day.
The guys doing the floors were not the same guys who were going to do the stair where we were putting carpet. The installer guy said he recommends putting carpet on the stairs as most people find that putting hardwood or the like on stairs makes them slippier. Okay I can fall and slip down the stairs all on my own that I don’t need to give me the expert level for hardness to keep myself upright on the stairs. No additional obstacles thank you. So the carpet installer group came at the end of the day, one guy was trying to not damage the carpet on the main floor when taking up the carpet on the stairs so I told him to not worry about it as that would be removed tomorrow. All I got was No English, their main guy was outside so they pointed to him. Okay I know Spanish I started to speak to them to find that after 2 days non-stop hearing what I will say is Russian and that is not a similar sounding language to Spanish that I was struggling to find the words and to string together a sentence. This wasn’t a basic sentence like I don’t speak Spanish, where is the bathroom and 2 beers please so my brain was struggling with the words but we got there. I was putting in a white plush carpet on the stairs and they look and feel great. It was so amusing looking down after the stairs were done as the white stairs made the carpet in the living room which is a beige color look insanely dirty.
Day 3 started, and oh joy not only are the floors getting done so noise on the bottom floor but the roof was getting replaced starting today as well so noise from the top and from the bottom. Let’s just say after all of this noise for the past few days the kittens were not having it. When Cooper would emerge from his hiding space he would lock onto me and wanted all of the cuddles. The main level was locked off to me all day as they were working and more stuff was crammed in the kitchen. If you tried to walk outside you were taking a chance as the roof materials were being flung like no ones business and I wasn’t able to take my car out of the garage due to falling debris and nails on the ground everywhere. I was so hungry all day and the noise coming from top and bottom was too much!
I was questioning my decision to live/work at home during this change. There is dust everywhere and the noise, but its 3 days, it can happen. Day 3 ended and it looks great! I can’t believe I waited so long to make this decision. The floors are begging for some area rugs though. Jimi is loving cruising and tearing around the house as he loves to slide everywhere and them slam into walls (he may be a little touched), but Cooper isn’t a complete fan. He likes that his toys bounce but he is more tentative on running around. That and for myself the floor can be a little hard if you need to sit or stand for a long time and it might provide some fun nice pops of décor having some rugs in. Also it was so nice having my kitchen back, I moved a few things out and made a massive meal as I was starving! Nice steak, mushrooms and potatoes. Yum!
Delivery
You would think I would be able to settle in, relax and maybe sleep in a little for Day 4, nope! First of all roofing just started and that is a 3-4 day process and they start at 7 AM and my furniture is being delivered sometime between 8-11. Unfortunately my sister wasn’t able to come on Friday night, so we discussed her being there right around 8 or so. This meant I needed to work to get some of the furniture out of the space that it was in just in case they movers came early or before we were able to move more of it out.
I thankfully called my friend Megan and her husband Alec in as reinforcements. I got as much done as I could being one person by 8 AM but needed extra hands to get the bigger, heavier items out. With the roofing going on we couldn’t just move it outside on the lawn so we needed to shove things into other rooms.
Good thing they were able to help because my sister was running behind and the furniture delivery was right at 9 AM. Phew! Lots going on. The delivery guys were able to yell up at the roofing guys to ask them to hold while they were bringing things in. The new couch looks great! I was a little nervous about that, I was torn between 2 couches and this was the second choice but became the ultimate choice when I was concerned the 1st choice was going to be tight in the space. The couch that was on display wasn’t a sectional so I just had to imaging what it would look like as a sectional with my fabric choice. The one on display almost had a shag carpet fabric on it which was a little bit of a turn off, so not knowing what the official couch I ordered would look made me a little nervous as there was no returning of the couch.
The bedroom furniture is a nice walnut finish that has some barn door features and looks great as well. The room looks a little cramped now as the cabinet I selected for book storage and TV stand might be a little much for the room. I figured I would leave it there for now and if it doesn’t work after a while I can move it out and use it in the loft easy enough.
My sister got there around 10ish I think, so I had to yell up to the roofing guys to hold off a little bit. Of course all of us again were at a loss on the Spanish words and all we could think of is from Dora, Swiper no swiping! That caused a few giggles. My sister seems to think I am a little weakling still (okay so as a kid I may have struggled to lift the gallon of milk, but I lift weights now). So when I told her the dresser she was taking was heavy she scoffed and then tried to lift one side of it. Her face was priceless, ugh okay we are going to need some help. See! Hahaha! While she doubts my newfound strength (okay not newfound but more my adult strength), she is awesome at Tetris and amazingly got all of the furniture she was taking loaded up in the trailer and in the bed of the truck.
Saturday became a day of restoring my house in order as it looks like a tornado came through. It does look great with all of the new floors and furniture, it almost feels like a new house! Sunday I worked a little bit to restore order but I decided to take more of a chill day as I feel like I have been go, go, go since last week before we went to Sonoma. I did have a little time out to rush outside to snag a nice pic of the fall colors on the water as the light was just fantastic this weekend.
Phase 1 is very much a success and I’m very happy at how things came together. The oak trim that remains is screaming at me to get swapped out now so I may need to break up Phase 2 a little bit and do some slight changes earlier than planned. We will see. Right now I need to take a little break, find some rugs and maybe fill the now empty space where an oversized chair was in the living room and setup my loft into more of a work space for editing and website updates. Oh the fun of home renovations!
