A Weekend of Surprises

Last week I wrapped up my Monday-Thursday life in Minneapolis and came home to a weekend full of house surprises. The weekend ramped up around 3am Thursday morning when Andrew heard the third floor toilet dripping. We have had trouble with the toilet since we moved in but it was finally time to call a plumber. 

Yes, that is a terrible towel..

We joined Angie's list a few months ago and I am so happy we did, as it helped us find both the electrician and plumber quickly and with good results. I called Roto Rooter early Friday morning and we had a plumber at the house within two hours. 

Fixing things up

It turns out we had a broken shut off valve, a quick but expensive fix. Luckily, I got a coupon from Angie's list and I made friends with the guys, so it ended up costing a little less than expected.

Roto Rooter buddies hoping to become famous from my blog :)

Since I will be home for the next week, I wanted to get started on the most depressing room in the house, my "dressing room." We went to Target last week and I found nice Threshold shoe and coat racks, which I was really happy about, and finally feeling inspired to start decorating.

Coat rack for my purses!

It has potential but it's just such a mess!

Closet full of work clothes

It was a rainy Friday afternoon so I cleaned up the room and started to prep for painting, when I discovered the window sill dripping water. I started to poke around a bit and ended up putting a hole in the wall just below the window sill, where water damage had rotted out the dry wall. 

Bummer.

I called a window company I found on Craigslist so they will be coming Wednesday to give us an estimate for replacing the four windows at the back of the house. After talking with my parents, we may be able to hold off a bit but we will see what our estimate looks like on Wednesday!

Just after the window disaster was found, we had an appointment with Home Depot to take a look at our kitchen. The current kitchen is functional but in need of an update and Home Depot was having a special on refacing kitchen cabinets. 

A sales rep came over to measure the kitchen and we picked out cabinets and counter tops based on the samples he brought.

Andrew choosing a counter top material.

I have had my eye on Martha Stewart's cabinet collection at Home Depot, so it was fun to pick the color and style and see how it looked in our own kitchen. I selected the Annandale cabinet style in "Sharkey Gray," for our estimate.

After selecting only cabinets (not including the back splash, appliances, or floors) we received the estimate: $52,00 for a full remodel, $26,000 for just refacing. I know we are young but we have done our research and this is an absolutely outrageous estimate. Sorry Home Depot, you won't be getting our business. 

I was pretty bummed about the window and the awful kitchen estimate when we received some very good news - our wood is in! We were told we could pick it up whenever, so we decided that we would spend Saturday morning painting a second coat on the living room walls so we could pick up the wood early Sunday morning.

Can't wait to get the new floors!

The cats are always helping us

Final coat of paint!

Since we were picking up 33 cartons of wood, we also needed to rip out the tiles in the living room so we had a place to put them when we got home. We spent all of Saturday afternoon and evening ripping out the tiles with a crow bar. 

Wine-fueled tile tearing

Making room for the new wood

Second floor landing

Bottom of stairs to the third floor

My biggest helper :)

The first problem with these tiles is that they are super heavy so we really had to be careful about how much we put in each bag. The second, and bigger, problem is where to dispose of them. Andrew got hustled at the South Philly dump near our house so we don't want to go back there and the other dump we know of is only open until 4:00pm and I can't lift the tiles by myself. Since we have so many houses being built around us, we have been dumping (illegally) in the dumpsters around the construction sites late at night.

Longer walk than we thought

We laughed the whole way to the dumpster

We made a lot of progress Saturday night with the tiles so we were up early Sunday morning to pick up the Penske truck and make the 80 mile drive to the Lowe's in Hamburg.

I'm not allowed to drive rental trucks anymore

While we had the truck, we decided to pick out the trim for the floors as well. 

We have no idea what we are doing so my wonderful mother, Mirky Birda, came to help us pick out the 5 1/4" trim.

Mary working it

I have definitely not given enough credit to my mom throughout this whole process. She has been amazing and such a great help as we have embarked on this little house adventure. Love you, Mirky! My dad will be making his big appearance on Saturday with the floors and I know he is going to be awesome as well!

That's a lot of wood!

Trying to  make sure everything is secure

The trim was 12' and we had a 12' truck, so it was a bit tricky

We spent yet another ridiculous amount of money at Lowe's, loaded up the truck, and made the trip back to Philly. I recruited some burly men to help unload the truck since each carton weighs 62 lbs. 

Mr. Cody being a huge help, as always

Andrew's new friend from down the street was such a help!

 The guys were great and it only took about 15 minutes to unload all the wood into the house!

That's a lot of wood!

Timmy can't wait to install the new floors!

This week I am home (yay!!) so we will rip up the rest of the tiles and get everything prepped for putting the floors in Saturday! We seriously cannot wait, it will really help make us feel more settled into the house! I am also hoping to paint my bedroom and office so we can get things cleaned up after the floors are installed.

I am also very excited to be home this week to meet our newest friend, Aris James Morton. This sweet little boy was born early last week to one of my favorite couples, Lauren and Spenser Morton. I am beyond happy for Lauren and Spenser and I just know this baby will have all the love in the world!

Love him already!