Dog Gone And One Bathroom Painted

This weekend we got an even later start on our trip up north than we did before the holidays.  Our MR KLUD group decided to go to a Diamondbacks game and Friday was the only day that worked for everyone.  We had a great time taking the light rail into town and watching them beat the San Diego Padres.  While we were gone, we had to leave our dog Zena outside because the housekeeper was coming to our house and this was the first time we have ever done that.  She loves the pool and knows how to get out, so we thought the worst problem we would have would be a wet dog.  While we were at the game, a storm blew in and Zena hates thunder and lightning.  Now we figured we would have a wet, freaked out dog, but instead we were greeted by no dog at all.  She was not in the backyard.  We have a six foot high wall around the yard which we could not imagine her jumping.  After making one trip around the block, I thought maybe someone might have found her and called us from her tag.  Sure enough, we had two messages from a person about 1/2 mile away and we went and picked her up.  This made for a late night and we needed to get on the road fairly early in the morning as we had lots to do.

We arrived in the morning to find Steve still working.  He had finished the master bathroom and was now applying caulk to all the corners around the house.  We were very impressed by the look of the texturing and the work had taken care of all the imperfections in our drywall work. Speaking of which, we received many compliments from Steve and Craig on our drywalling work.  I guess the slow and steady pace (and being a perfectionist) has its benefits.

Our first task was to drop off a load of items we had set aside for Restore (Habitat for Humanity used building supply store) the prior weekend.  To make space, we had packed them into the Jeep so we could take them this weekend.  After that we stopped by the local paint store, Neumann, to get some drywall primer/sealer and paint for our master bathroom.  It is the only room we needed to paint right away so we could put in the new toilet.  This allows us to tear apart the hall bathroom and still have a toilet to use.  Just after we got our paint and grabbed lunch, we got a call from Craig asking us to stop and get more caulk for Steve.  He had run out with only about four feet left to go.  So we ran by Home Depot and picked up a few tubes for him.  When we got home, he finished up and left for the weekend.  Now it was our turn to work.

Before we could start moving stuff around, we had to clean up after all the work.  Something we had not considered.  We swept and vacuumed (twice) all the rooms.  We had to remove all the window screens and rinse off the dust and caked on drywall.  It was quite the task.  Next we did a primer coat on our bathroom to give it time to dry so we could put on the topcoat.  We chose a Swiss Coffee color in a satin finish instead of semi-gloss based on Neumann's recommendation.  We will have to see how that works with the white vanity for that bathroom.

After the primer was on, we started moving all the stuff in the great room to their proper locations, starting with our bedroom.  We set up our table desks in the guest bedroom temporarily since the den is the best place for all the equipment/fixtures which still need to be installed.  We also had to put our garage sale TV and DVD player back there until the rest of the house is done.  We brought in one more of the tall pantry cabinets we had removed from the kitchen last year and stored in one of our sheds, and placed it in the pantry with the other one.  Now we have double the storage space until we build the shelving for the pantry.

Master bedroom after everything was put back in

Another shot of our bedroom

The hall to the guest bedrrom

The temporary setup of the guest bedroom

Showing the desk setup which will not stay in here

One side of the main hallway. . .

. . .and the other side

The pantry, with stuff from the kitchen clean-out

The laundry room

Later in the evening, we made a run to Home Depot to pick up the vanity top and medicine cabinet that was part of our bid order and also get plumbing parts for installing the toilet and new vanity.  While talking with the plumbing guy on another issue, I found that there are two kinds of bathroom sink faucets.  One has a 4" spread and the other an 8" and this has to match the holes drilled in your vanity top.  We had bought some faucets on the bid awhile ago and they were 4", but the top we had on the bid is 8" so we had to get new faucets for the bathrooms and they were much, much more expensive than the 4" ones.  It was good to find this out now and not while doing the install.

I woke up before Laurie on Sunday and started removing all the light fixtures in the rooms left to be done: the great room, hall bathroom, kitchen and dining room.  The kitchen took some time because I had to remove nine recessed lighting covers.  When Laurie woke up, it was time to apply the topcoat to the bathroom.  We were unsure of the color at first, but after it dried it looked much better and coordinates ok with the white vanity (but Laurie is still reserving the option to change the color at a later date).  We got a multi-colored sink top and it helps to bring the colors together.

While waiting for the paint to dry, we worked on removing everything from the hall bath, except the vanity and toilet for now, and emptying the shelves and cabinets in the kitchen. Once the paint was dry, I replaced the three water shutoff valves in the master bath and installed the toilet.  I wanted to install the vanity, but one of the drain tubes was not long enough.  So we will be without a sink until I can finish that connection.  Now that we had a working toilet, we could do the last step of removing the hall bath vanity and commode.  They came out fairly easy, but I found we have a very rusty toilet base and will need to replace that when we change the tile.  One last item before we left was to remove the screens in the part of the house to be done to avoid having to clean them after the fact.

The new commode and paint job

The new vanity and countertop without plumbing

In the afternoon we had to make another run to Home Depot.  The night before when we picked up the vanity top and cabinet, I did not realize there were two side splash board boxes in the cart for the counter tops and left them there.  We called Home Depot about this, but no one had turned anything in as far as they could tell.  So we stopped by to work with them on this and they took care of the problem and gave us new parts, even though I told them it was my fault.  They have been very good to us, but we have also spent quite a bit of money there in the past year (they know us when we come in now).

Just as we were finishing up, Steve stopped by to start working.  We asked him to give us about a half hour to get out of the house.  We packed up the car and made sure everything was completed just as Steve came back.  We left the house in his hands as we drove back to the Valley.

Stats: 3 Home Depot trips; 1 Walmart trip
Remodeling expense 9/6-9/11: $325
Remodeling expense to date: $32,224