Wall Demo: Day Three

Here is a shot RC took of the kitchen end of day 3/beginning of day 4. Not a whole lot different than the prior day but again came home to a clean house.

Today when we got home we found out that they have in fact evened out the drywall in the ceiling. Apparently the previous project had drywall installed over the original plaster which left uneven surfaces all throughout the kitchen. Very happy that they have now evened out the ceiling.

We also determined that the ceiling will look seamless once finished. The beam is not hanging down below the ceiling line. They added the drywall tape and finished mudding (a true art form) and now we wait for it to dry before the painting begins. RC and I headed to HD to pick up the paint and some light fixtures we have picked out for the space.

We chose Behr's Harvest Brown for the wall color and will have the trim bright white. The rest of the trim in the house is beige – this only motivates me more to paint the rest of the trim. I HATE beige trim.

This is actually the first time we have ever let someone else paint. We usually do it ourselves but it is included in the cost of the wall construction so I am fine with having someone else do it. Just this once though – I really hate paying people to do something I know I can do myself.

We also grabbed a couple of light fixtures to replace the fluorescent light and the cigar bar light that we currently have in the kitchen. I think these light fixtures will be just the right amount of botox needed for our kitchen. The crew said they would even install them since they have to take the old ones off to paint the ceiling – so again I’m letting them do it.

          

We did make a last minute decision to take out the remaining cabinets today and repair the drywall – minor meltdown from scrambling to find a place for the things that were in the cabinets but it only lasted about 3 hours so I would say today wasn’t too terrible.

Living through a construction site is not for the faint of heart – or people who cook meals at home every night of the week…

Here’s to Day 3.

FAN-tastic

I have always had a ceiling fan in my room and like falling asleep to the sound of circulating air so when our home did not come with a ceiling fan in any of the bedrooms I panicked a little. I compromised with an oscillating fan in our bedroom – the sound wasn’t the same and the air circulation was not up to my expectations either. Not to mention, people were tripping all over the place because of the fan’s location. Not ideal.

I had always thought it was strange that there was a ceiling fan in our kitchen, I mean, who wants dust falling from the fan into dinner? Then one day we had the brilliant idea to move the fan from the kitchen to the bedroom upstairs while replacing the fan with a chandelier over the kitchen table. It was a huge “light bulb” moment. Considering that there was neither a light fixture nor a hole to install the fan in the ceiling of the bedroom my “light bulb moment” quickly dimmed…until it got really hot and everyone was so over late-night tripping.

We knew that messing with electricity was not something that we were really into. The idea of being juiced by electricity is just not pleasant. Again, we consulted our friend “Craig” for an electrician. We had some other electricity issues around the house such as light switches not connected to any outlets, outlets that were too big for plugs and outlets that were not even; hiring someone to help us out was the perfect solution. To help save time and money (since we were paying this guy by the hour) we disassembled the ceiling fan and made it ready for re-location. We also asked the electrician what kind of supplies we would need – again save time and money. He came over and helped us out with the electrical outlets first and we showed him our fan situation. He suggested that we go out and buy a new fan – I tried explaining that the whole point was to use what we had and he countered that if I truly desired the air circulation that I dreamed of we would need a bigger fan. Electrician: 1 ME: 0.

Off to the hardware store we went in search of a fan – HB wanted to buy the cheapest option but I went with the whole “would you rather lay in bed looking at this ugly builder grade fan or this fancy dark wood with a pretty light fixture schpeel”. Of course we got the fancy one – it was only $20 more than the builder grade one since it was on sale. So now here you have it… We have a ceiling fan in our bedroom (finally) and a nice chandelier in our kitchen. ME:1 Electrician: still 1.

Lessons Learned:
There are lots of great contractors out there who are looking for extra projects, our friend “Craig” knows a lot of them
Installing a ceiling fan really is worth every penny and I am thankful for it especially on really hot days

Kitchen Before and After

Bedroom Ceiling Fan Before and After