Our Monona Mess

A Neighborhood Party I went back to work this week and have done very little around the house other than the basic cook, clean, and order groceries. Tonight Dave worked on connecting the island pieces together. Next step is running the electricity up from the basement.  Friday night we took a break and went to a fabulous neighborhood party.  The big house (we call it a compound) had a catered party in their amazing backyard. Jeanette was excited to introduce us to many of the our neighbors for the first time. Near the end of the night, we discovered that we are neighbors with some parents that we used enjoy hanging out with at Tenney nursery 15-20 years ago. It was fun to reconnect with them and now that we live just down the road, maybe we can get together again.  On Saturday, Dave headed to his parents to help for the day...time to pay them back for all the help they have given us. While he was gone, I deep cleaned the bedroom after using it for a bedroom and living roo...

  Keeping Tyler Busy During this visit, Tyler spent his time working on covering the wall in the front entry with  cedar.  I can't wait until the new door is in and the wood trim is done so I can lay the new floor and see what it looks like.   

  A Dishwasher, Just in Time I did dishes this morning in the laundry room while Dave was downstairs. He came running up stairs muttering something about water dripping from the ceiling. It turns out that the our plumber installed the drain in the laundry room sink incorrectly (you had one job, dude)! Dave spend time ripping out the drain while I ran to HD to get a new one and $200 worth of other things that Dave needed.  Dave installed the new drain and caulked the sink, so it is all watertight again.  Then he took my threat to never do dishes again seriously...and installed the dishwasher.  The wiring turned out to be a problem that took him longer than expected, but eventually I was running the first load of dirty dishes. 

  ...A Couple of Things The last couple of days we have been working to finish up started projects and clean up messes. Dave sprayed the paint in the breezeway and today, he and I worked together to grout the floor.  The white grout really adds the finishing touch to the floor.  How about this before and after? We also finished painting the color block in the hall and putting on the second coat of grey in the hall.  We also bought a door from ReStore for the laundry room. Dave sanded it down and we changed our mind, so we re-donated  it to ReStore today.  We also decided that we needed a temporary table upstairs to play cards with friends or eat a bowl of cereal at in the morning, so we picked up a cheap one on Marketplace and tried it out tonight. 

  And White Walls Tyler and Dave continued to finish all the woodwork for the breezeway over the last 2 days and get it all on.  They needed to make matching woodwork for the walls because we were not able to save enough and we put in an extra door.  Tyler also sanded down the picket fence shelves that were from Lauryn's room when she was young so that we can put them in the breezeway too.  Tonight, Dave spray primed the whole breezeway--walls, ceiling and trim at once.  We also painted the accent walls in the kitchen tonight.  There are 3 small accent walls that will help to tone down all of the white in the kitchen--and part around the new door will really make it pop.

  Forever Finishing Yesterday, Dave and I finished up laying the tile in the breezeway. I love how it looks and cannot wait to grout it.  Tonight Tyler and I worked to clean the thinset out of the grout lines while Dave worked on putting up wood trim.  He built an accent wall and then started working on window and door trim.  We also worked on a couple of other little projects yesterday.  Dave almost has the dishwasher installed after a little snafu with forgetting to cut the hole for the power in the sink base cabinet--he found the outlet and cut it out. Now we actually need a power cord. We also brought the island back in to get ready to install it--we have plenty of room have 45 inches of space around the island. 

  More Breezeway Tile As we get ready to paint the breezeway, it seemed like a great time to put in the new backdoor.  We kept the old door during construction so that all the dings, scrapes, and scratches would be on that door and not our new door. Now that major construction is complete, it is time to finish up the door. The new door adds light to the kitchen from the breezeway and keeps with the midcentury modern feel of the house. At this point, we plan to paint it white, but that could change.  We continued to tile the breezeway today too. We finished the step and much of the main floor before running out of thinset (after HD was closed for the night.) Laying that pattern can make your eyes a little wonky.  I may have made a mistake, but when the room is done, I bet you will never find it. 

  And More Tiling Dave is working on adding wood trim to the breezeway in hopes of being able to spray prime and paint it all in one shot soon. He is adding trim to the doors and windows and closing in the soffits made by raising the ceiling.  Today I began laying the porcelain tile floor in there. It is a fun tile that you will see again in the screen porch and a black and white version in the master bathroom. We also used a large scale white tile for the rise on the steps in the breezeway.  This un-official main entrance to our house is starting to look fabulous. 

  Well, Sort Of... On Tuesday night, our friend Chad stopped in and helped Dave move the refrigerator into it's permanent home. They needed to lift it with moving straps to keep the new floors safe. Then Dave hooked up the water so that we have water and ice on front of the fridge now.  It is still covered in plastic to protect it for awhile yet.  Then today, the last 2 appliances were delivered.  The stove and washer.  The delivery people set up the washing machine and I ran my first load...then it leaked all over my new floor in 2 places.  We are now waiting for the appliance store to bring new hoses for it.  The stove cannot be hooked up yet for 2 reasons...we do not have gas line and we ran the wrong wire for power because it what what we were told to run. In the meantime, Dave hooked up the electricity in the kitchen, put some pieces of plywood on the cabinets and brought the other appliances upstairs. By this week, I hope to never have to cook in...

  And Some Shopping While we were gone, Tyler and Amanda came and cleaned out the breezeway, primed the walls, and scrubbed the black mastic floor with some special cleaner to get it ready to be painted and to have the tiled layed on the floor. Today I scrubbed the floor some more and then tonight Dave painted a special primer on the floor that makes the mastic take the thinset for the tile better.  The room does not look beautiful at all. Yellow from the finish on the old wood bled through the primer and the grey primer over the mastic is not a pretty surface, but now it is a blank slate, ready to be painted and the floor to be put in.  It is especially important to me to get this space cleaned up so that the mastic and dirt on are tracked in on the freshly refinished floors.  Tonight we also shopped for countertop and furniture. It will take 6 weeks to even get someone out to measure for the countertops and we might not get the countertops for 12 more weeks.  ...

  Refrigerator Cabinet Now that the floors are done, we can continue to install the cabinets. Today Dave and I (mostly Dave, I just lent some muscle to the job) put the refrigerator cabinet together and now we just need to get someone over to help move the fridge into the hole.  Since we had to order cabinets before the space was completely ready, we were hoping we measured well and  it would all fit. It does--just a little tighter than we were hoping, but it will work. 

  We had a great time despite the van breaking down, twice.  We are back and we have a 2006 Toyota Sienna XLE for sale.