2nd Floor Reno - Week 12

Now things are really starting to come together.  This week the marble countertop was installed, the vanity hutches were built above the counter, the marble backsplash was put up and the walls were painted.

Here's a closeup of the countertop and backsplash. The sinks were also installed :) For the backsplash, we repeated the brick marble that's on the shower walls and we topped it off with a marble chair rail.  

And here's the marble for the shower seat!

Everything looks so good! Just need all of the plumbing fixtures installed and we'll be in business! Adrian and I started cleaning so that we can move back in soon.  There's a LOT of dust everywhere.  Before the demo even started, Adrian and I thought we were so prepared. We closed every door and taped each of the doors off with plastic.  We rolled paper out on the floor and draped plastic over furniture.  That dust is crazy sneaky though because it still managed to get EVERYWHERE. Mental note for next time, tape off all vents so dust can't travel.

A few things need to still be completed in the laundry room as well.  Those photos will be posted soon. Keep checking back for updates!!!

2nd Floor Reno - Week 11

Shower is all tiled and grouted! Just need the marble for the bench.

The base of the vanity has been installed and we're selecting paint colors.  The four colors above the vanity are the same as the four colors on the lefthand wall.  They were on different walls so that we could see the options in both natural light and under artificial light.  The two green samples on the left are for the laundry room, and the two grey options are for the bathroom.  We selected #1 for the laundry room and #3 for the bathroom.

Trim was installed and painted white.

2nd Floor Reno - Week 10

This was a short work week since we lost a couple days to the holiday. All tile is laid, and grouting has started!

Here's a closeup of the niche 

We carried out the accent band to the other wall as well

Photo on the left was our inspiration shower. 

We saw this at a tile showroom and really liked it.  

Photo on the right is our shower.  

Like I mentioned previously, our niche had to be on the opposite wall as the inspiration shower in order to minimize noise outside of the bathroom (because of less installation).

 

Here you can see the shower bench and the other side of the bathroom

Half of the tile is grouted.  We went with a light grey grout which matches 

the marble really nicely.

2nd Floor Reno - Week 9

We're getting closer! This week, the contractors waterproofed the shower and started installing the tile.  Here's a pic of the lovely herringbone shower floor! You can also see the linear drain that was installed.

And here's the shower again, a couple of days later. We went with a 2X3 subway marble tile for the walls.  You can also see the niche built out here. Originally, we wanted the niche to go along the longer wall (to the right), but after discussing it with the architect and contractor we realized that if we put it on the longer wall you'd probably hear the shower from the hallway a lot more since we'd lose some installation/soundproofing. The shorter wall  that we went with is up against our closet, so there's still a sound barrier.

Here's a picture of the bathroom floor.  LOVE the large hexagon.

PICK US for America's Most Desperate Landscape!

Every now and then Adrian and I visit the DIY and HGTV casting call pages to see if they're looking for folks from the Chicagoland area to be on any of their home makeover shows.  I mean, we all know WE could use all the help we could get, plus, who wouldn't love a home makeover? So each time we visit the sites we see the same thing, casting calls for everywhere BUT Chicago! Well, not this time! Last Monday, I happened to search the DIY website like I normally do and saw that they were looking for people with ugly front yards to be on their America's Most Desperate Landscape show.

This was perfect!  Our front yard sucks!  Just one issue, the casting call had been going on for 2 months and was coming to a close on Friday. We had about 4 days to pull together some of the best (worst) photos of our yard.  Ones that showed how awful our porch, stairs and lawn were. We soon realized our pictures weren't that great, so we decided we would take some new ones since we had to go to the house anyways to check the bathroom progress. 

Luckily, the porch looks even worse than it has previously this year because Adrian had  plans to redo it this past summer/fall, but didn't get around to it.  He did most of the prep work by scrapping all of the spindles, and had even started to take down one section of the railing (shown above). This is probably the ONLY time I was grateful that Adrian didn't finish a project he started.
 
So we submitted our application just in time on the final day of the casting call. We're keeping our fingers crossed!  How cool would it be to have the front yard fixed?!?!

2nd Floor Reno - Week 8

Here we are, Week 8.  This was my "Worst Case Scenario" timeframe...double what the contractor had projected. Yes, we had delays because of the structural concerns, but this is taking forever. I'm trying to stay optimistic, but it's difficult.  There is progress being made...it's just slow progress.

Here's a photo of the drywall in the 2nd floor hallway, all taped and sanded.

Here's the bathroom

This is where the shower will be. The shower bench is framed, and IT'S HUGE!  It's over 4 ft long...I could almost lay across it :). You can't see very well, but we have a linear drain installed under that piece of white foam.

Laundry room is all taped, sanded and primed. Undercabinet lighting is ready to go.

2nd Floor Reno - Week 7

This week drywall went up.  Here are some photos showing the drywall on the first floor where they had replaced the headers.

New drywall for where the door to the bathroom used to be.

Patched drywall for the new hallway electrical

Drywall in the master closet

Durock cement board for the master bath. Now it's starting to look like a room.

2nd Floor Reno - Week 6

This week, the electrical was done.  Here's a photo of the junction box where all of the bathroom switches will go.  Here we'll be able to control the in-floor heating, vanity sconces, exhaust fan, chandelier, recessed lights and the hallway light.

Recessed Lighting AND copper for the shower head.

Shower main

Exhaust fan and wiring for speakers.  On a side note, we are running wire room by room so that, eventually, the whole house will have speakers. 

Closet light switch and pocket door frame

Vanity electrical - three outlets and three sconces

This photo was taken from inside the master bedroom.  The whole in the wall is for the cables and power that we'll run into the master closet for the TV that will go on this wall.    The plan is to have the cable box and dvd player run on RF (radio frequency) so we'll hide them both in the closet on a shelf. No need to have ugly TV equipment in the bedroom!

This is a photo of the 2nd floor hallway. Previously, there were two entrances into the bathroom.  One was by way of the master bedroom, and the second was through this door in the hallway, which made no sense.  It was probably fine with the previous owners because they had their laundry in there, but it made no sense to us, so we had it taken out.  Now the en suite is only accessible from the master bedroom, the way it should be.  We also removed the sconce (since it's now off-center with the door taken out), and moved the thermostat into master bedroom to completely clear the wall.

We needed another switch for the hallway light since there was only one at the top of the stairs, so we put this one in over by the bedrooms. This will be SUPER helpful trying to navigate the hallway/stairs at night :) Electricians were nice enough to add an outlet at the bottom as well.

We also needed another hallway switch for the BACK hallway (second staircase).  This is temporary though because this wall will turn into a closet in the future.

Gas lines for the dryer

2nd Floor Reno - Week 5

We are officially in week 5 now.  Good thing I didn't believe the contractor when he said the reno would only take 4 weeks :)

Here are some shots of work from this week. 

This shot is taken standing in the bathroom. The header on left is for the doorway. The header on the right is where the shower would be.  We need a header in the shower because we are having a niche built in below the showerhead.  The space on the other side of this framed wall is the new walk-in closet.

Vanity wall plumbing

New toilet flange

Laundry room plumbing

More laundry room plumbing

Here's a shot from the kitchen showing the laundry room plumbing. Unfortunately, that wall will actually be removed next year when we renovate the kitchen so this is actually a temporary fix :/

Holy Vanity! These are all of the cabinets and drawers that will make up our nine foot vanity.

Here is what they will look like assembled. Lots of storage!

2nd Floor Reno - Week 4

Now that everything has been supported and framed, we can move on to plumbing!  Here are some shots of the plumbing going in this week.

Here's the new bathroom stack.  It was moved to the other side of the room, roughly 8 feet over. This is the view form the 1st floor (in the future powder room). Even though we're currently only renovating the second floor, a little 1st floor demo is also necessary.

Framing new partial wall for laundry room, so the plumbing is away from the exterior wall.

Punching Random holes in laundry room to figure out how best to run plumbing.

Punching more holes, this time in the kitchen which is directly under the laundry room.