(in)sanity…so far

We are right at our Fairfield project’s 6 month anniversary.  There have been many ups and downs in our DIY world (not to mention we have been trying to sell our other home in the process—this mainly causing most of the chaos).  It hasn’t been easy.  Balancing electricians, HVAC technicians, work, plumbers, family/friends, and misc laborers is no easy task. 

Here are a few tips we have learned along the way:

1.        Time management—Fortunately, we haven’t been in any sort of rush to ‘finish’ the renovation, but each week we have a rough schedule of what we want/need to happen.  We talk daily to our contractors and each other about where we are and where we need to be at XYZ time.  It is important to constantly be evaluating where you are in your renovation process, so you don’t forget a small detail and to keep yourself on track.

2.       Don’t settle for low quality— When you are in a budget crunch it is easy to say, “Well, we don’t neeeeed a $250 sink…” only later to realize that sink was a focal point for your space, will last way longer than a $100 sink, intangibly means more visually, and is a ‘drop in the bucket’ (as Brian says) to the entire budget/plan. You can always hold off on some of the details NOW (you can’t always have instant gratification) and get better results in the LONG RUN.

3.       Take a walk—Walk, run, clean, cook—whatever you like to do that helps to stay relaxed is very important in a big project.  If you let the project run your life, it will.  We both have to find time away from the renovation to not think about the renovation! J 

4.       Sleep on it—Focus.  Keep the long-term plan in mind.  So many times we have gone to Lowe’s, or any of the miscellaneous hardware/fixture stores, and fall in love with a fixture or we get really excited about one project that we think HAS to be done NOW.  This is not always the case, and it has been nice to have two of us (and our friends and family as well) to have checks-and-balances.  It can be easy to get caught up in the moment when making purchases and design decisions, but make sure it is right for the big picture.

5.       Ask for help— We are getting better about this, but in projects like this, it is critical that you engage your friends/family.  The truth is—most of the actually want to help and get a little of the renovation glory.  It’s a great time to put your loved ones skills to use/to the test and also to teach them new skills they might be able to use in their home improvement projects. 

*Disclaimer:  This doesn’t mean we’ve mastered any of the above. J

Here are some updated pictures!

We demo-ed the pantry (there is already plenty of cabinet space) and opened the kitchen up.

Here is another pic without the ladder.  You can also see the opening to the left is where a bookcase used to be.  We demo-ed that as well to make an opening into the other side of the house.  You used to have to walk all the way around the house to get to the other side--now it's just a few steps away. 

The master bedroom with floors, paint, and a new ceiling fan.  Ready to move in!

Here is a before view of the wall where our range/oven will go.

Here is the after with sheetrock (done by Brian and myself).

Here is a more full view of the kitchen with some sheetrock.  We removed the countertop and sink  to do this (that is why it is in the center of the room).  We will be installing a new countertop and sink shortly.

Happy renovating,

B&K

Energy Efficiency

One thing that was really important to us (Brian being in architecture and all J) was to increase the energy efficiency of this  house.  It is certainly not the easiest or the cheapest route to go when choosing to renovate a home, but to us it is more important to us to spend the extra time, energy (no pun intended), and money to ‘do it right!’

We started the process by researching the EmPower Louisiana HERO Program- read more about the HERO Program here .  It is a rebate program for residents and businesses in Louisiana that improve energy efficiency within their space.  The HERO Program requires an energy audit be done before home improvements begin. We had Bruce at The Green Home Advantage come out and do our audit.  The audit gives a ‘score’ based on how efficient your home or business is.  After we are done with all of our improvements, we will be re-audited and given a new score.  If our score improves by a certain amount, we are eligible for rebates up to $3000 on our renovations!  The audit is also a great tool to help you understand what needs to be done to get your home to an efficient level—whether it be big or small improvements.  It also tells you what you annual energy savings will be based on what improvements are done. 

There are a few things that we have done and will be doing to increase efficiency:

1.       Install a tank-less hot water heater—done!  We have a Rinnai tank-less hot water heater that Bobby Greene Plumbing installed for us.  If you don’t know the advantages of going tank-less, you can read about that here.

2.     Insulating the house—in the works!  We will have closed-cell insulation under the house along the perimeter foundation wall to keep our duct work safe and sound J and the crawl space sealed.  This will be done by Roppolo Insulation.  Eventually, we want to do more insulation throughout the rest of the house, but time and budget doesn’t allow it riiiight now.  Here is a fun technical drawing Brian has done:

3.       Energy efficient HVAC system—in the works!  Our good friend, Dustin Morris, from Air-Ref will be beginning the installation of our HVAC system (central heating and air system for those who are not building-savvy) within the next 2-3 weeks.  When we bought 3311, it did not have central heat and air; we only had window air-conditioning units and a radiator heating system.  For those technical savvy people, we will have a 3 ton split system upstairs and a 3 ton package unit downstairs.  The upstairs unit will be a 17 SEER 2-stage condenser variable speed 80% furnace with digital programmable thermostat (Nest).  Downstairs will have a 14 SEER package unit.  How people live like that in the heat of the summer and cold winters baffles me, but I know a lot of the population still does it—more power to them!

4.       Installing a programmable thermostat—in the works!  When our HVAC system is installed, we will be putting in Nest thermostats.  If you haven’t heard or seen these, they are so cool!  Some of the designers/engineers that worked for Apple broke away and formed their own company and created the Nest—what they call a ‘learning thermostat.’  It is a great example of form and function—being both neat-o to look at, as well as blow-your-mind intuitive.  Find out more about the Nest thermostat here.

5.       Use CFL, LED, or low voltage halogen lighting throughout the house—working on it.  This is something that anyone can do in their home or business to help out with energy efficiency.  Even though it might seem small, every little bit helps!

6.      Energy Star appliances—in the works.   More to come on our appliances/kitchen later!  You can read about Energy Star appliances here.

Odds and ends

Sorry we’ve been so long without a post.  We promise we have been hard at work though J—still demo-ing, cleaning, and getting bids from different contractors. 

Bobby Greene Plumbing started their work, which is our first phase (re-plumbing the WHOLE house), last Friday.  It’s amazing how fast they have worked, just in a week!   We already have a new hot water heater in the garage, a tankless hot water heater in the house, water hook-up for our refrigerator, and brand new washer/dryer hook-ups ready to go.  We already recommend them highly; they gave us a great, competitive price, have very nice employees, and are working incredibly fast. 

New electric hot water heater for garage

New washer/dryer hook-ups

Thanks Bobby Greene Plumbing! (as I am singing to myself--"Bobby L. Greene and Ricky Greene, the plumbing team you like best!")

We also bought our first fixture for the house--a pot filler. It's a little bit of a luxury item, but we can't wait to get it installed. For those of you that are not familiar with the concept, a pot filler is installed in the back splash or on the wall behind the stove. It runs water directly to that area, so you do not have to carry water back and forth from the sink.

We will be going with chrome fixtures in the kitchen. Here is the one we bought:

On another note, our yard is becoming beautiful!  Although we have TONS of things to accomplish inside the house, last weekend we could not resist doing a little yard work—the weather is awesome this time of year!  We first saw the house in October and bought it in January, so we have yet to see what it looks like in full bloom.  Right now we have a two beautiful camellia bushes, snow bells popping up everywhere, azaleas beginning to bloom-out, and two amazing dogwoods that will be gorgeous by the end of this week! 

Back yard

Front yard dogwood

Front yard--jasmine around the lamp-post and pink azalea

Jasmine again :)

Double pink camellia

White camellia

We cleaned out the garage too!

Garage before

Garage after (of course, we did add some of our stuff to clutter it back up!)

It’s a little overwhelming to think that this house is actually coming together.  At this rate, we miiight be ready to move in within the next month—cross your fingers.

The Krewe of Fairfield

In the spirit of Mardi Gras, this past week we have had a little parade of our own!  We had a steady 'krewe' of helpers--family and friends--some helping us with physical support and some giving their support otherwise!

All of the 'thank yous' in the world wouldn't do justice to let Phyllis Cooper (mom), Wanda Wyatt (mom), and Mary Baxter (Meme) how much they helped us this past weekend!  Collectively, we pulled approximately 800-1000 staples, nails, and tacks (and tack strips) from the floors and walls of the house, removed more wallpaper and carpet, and continued cleaning and sanitizing!  Thanks as well to Kyle Wyatt (ice cream man), Jason Eddy, Adam and Mandy Rogers, Amy Martin, Candace Payne, Ali Feaster, and various neighbors for stopping by to say "hello"--your support also means a lot to us! 

We discovered some new friends at Centenary Hardware (our new favorite place to go)--very convenient and very helpful workers.  Also, a special thank you to our friend Dustin Morris at AirRef, who is going to get us all set up with a HVAC system!

It was a super-productive week and we finally feel like we have conquered the 'demo mountain' and *hopefully* it will be smooth sailing (or skiing with this analogy I guess!) with some of the finishing touches.

We might be biased, but it is hard to believe why anyone would cover up these beautiful floors with carpet!  Now, what everyone likes to see...more pictures!

Dining room (we probably won't have to sand the floors!)

Living room, again, great floors under all of that carpet

Panoramic pic (living room and front foyer)

Dining room again

The 'Krewe' (this room was a pain to get wallpaper down!)

Before and after:  left is the hardwood underneath--right was the old linoleum tile

Our pile of demo junk (sorry Shreveport waste department!)

Upstairs landing after carpet removal

--B&K

Slowly, but surely

Here are some things that have been accomplished at the (new) Wyatt household thus far:

1.  The carpet has been removed from 3 of the 4 upstairs bedrooms and half of the living area downstairs.  Lesson learned here:  cut carpet  into 3-4 foot strips--this makes for easy roll up and 'chunking' out of the window into a truck (our preferred method!) OR carrying to the garbage can.

2.  The 3 indoor bathrooms have been cleaned/sanitized and are ready for use! 

3.  We began raking and bagging leaves (there is a HUGE pin oak in the front yard that left us lots of fun).  Just doing this helped the outside look A LOT better.  Any other landscaping project will be put on hold until we can make some progress on the inside of the house. *Thanks Mom for the help on this!*

4.  We are in the process of taking down wallpaper in all of the rooms.  So far, the kitchen *thanks Meme, Mom, Uncle Rob and Aunt Robin!*, 2 upstairs bedrooms, and the upstairs bathrooms have made this an easy task--praise the Lord!  But...we are going to have to get our steamer (and vinegar and water spray bottle *thanks Aunt Robin*) to take down some of the rooms.

5.  We have begun the task of cleaning out the garage and 2 sheds in the backyard as well.  It looks like we are going to have to break down and rent a dumpster/borrow a trailer for all of the stuff we are cleaning out!

So our next step in the process will be to have a few electricians come out and give us estimates on re-wiring our old knob-and-tube house.  Also, we will be needing a HVAC system (the house currently uses radiators and window units).  So bring on the fun of one of us having to spend our precious lunch hour meeting with different electrical and mechanical companies! 

On another note--We have struggled so far with deciding whether or not to hire some outside help (i.e. a handyman (or two), contractor, kitchen consultant, etc.).  There are so many projects and so little time!  The time factor--us having to be out of our current house probably within the next 2-3 months-- is a little daunting. The more we do, the more we feel confident that WE can do this ourselves.  :)  More to come...



Before upstairs bedroom (after we had removed the carpet)




After with the curtains and matching wallpaper down



The O-fficial Before Pictures

Here are a select few before pictures, enjoy!  In no particular order....

Dining room

Dining room (this shows the felted wallpaper)

Looking out of a 2nd floor window to the back yard (it's over a 1/2 acre...huge yard!)

Back of the house

Kitchen (right when you walk in the back door)

Living room/parlor

Upstairs bedroom (matching wallpaper AND curtains...wow)

Living room/parlor looking into the library (and Brian!)

2 car working garage

Additional bedroom upstairs

One of the upstairs bathroom (love the center spout on tub)

Stairwell on 2nd floor and window storage/seat

Vintage sconce (there are about 15-20 of these throughout the  house)

Another cool sconce

Original ceiling fan

Ram (we think) molding and other molding

Beautiful chandelier in the dining room

Neat-o faceplate

There are 3 of these gorgeous mini-chandeliers in the house

Another view of the kitchen (will be gutted)

Front view of the house :)