A Thousand Words

We didn’t stay in the hotel for very long. In fact we only spent one night there. After that we “moved” to my brother-in-law’s and sister-in-law’s house, again. We had stayed with them for 2 weeks  (March 2nd - March 16th) right after we sold the house but were still not done with the closing process of the apartment. They always knew we were gonna have to move out of the apartment again eventually and they kept the invitation open for us to come back anytime we needed to. So we did :-) 

We really enjoy spending time with them and with our nieces! Those two girls are super cute, smart, funny and full of joy!!  And we are soooo thankful for their hospitality!! 
Thank you Tim and Polly for letting us crash at your house and take over your guest bedroom. You’ll have free baby-sitting for downtown date nights for life!

So on days 2 and 3 more floors were removed and on days 4 and 5 they got all the framing done! Due to fire code, they have to be metal. Here are some pics

These are the original terrazzo floors from 1929:

And since they say a picture is worth a thousand words, I suppose I've given you more than enough to read in this post!  

Demo time

So we spent the weekend boxing all of our things again and taking them to our storage unit in the building’s basement. And we each packed a bag of clothes to grab and go, that way we would be able to stay until the dust got too deep and we were forced to leave. But on that first demolition day -Monday May the 6th - when we got back to the  apartment at the end of the day, it was clear to us that there wasn’t a chance we would be spending the night there. 

Let me tell you, the workers hadn’t played around! They had knocked down walls and ripped a big part of the floors up. Jerry was there for part of the day and captured some of the work in progress: 

And this is what the placed looked liked by the end of day 1 :

                                      

The dust was just too much for my lungs and throat to handle. It only took about 10 minutes in there for my throat to start scratching and for me to start coughing. So, after looking around for a few minutes marveling at how quickly a space can be transformed by the power of sledge hammers, we grabbed our bags and off to a hotel we went. 

First Decisions

Like I mentioned on the previous post , after two long weeks of waiting ,only  two contractors got back to us with quotes. They were two very reputable and well established companies in the area. Since their quotes were not that much different from each other, it wasn’t really a super easy decision. But  after some consideration and research we decided to go with McCamy Construction. They have done some work downtown and ultimately the fact that they said they could deliver what we wanted a bit faster than the other company tipped the scale in their favor.

We have been so pleased with them so far! They handled all the permitting issues with the city. And believe me, there were some silly bureaucratic issues that delayed the start of our renovations for another 3 weeks! 

Due to the scale of the project - basically gutting the entire thing! - we are doing our reno in phases so that our savings don’t get totally depleted. In this initial phase all the floors in the apartment, with the exception of bathrooms and kitchen, will be removed, walls are coming down, new walls are being built, electrical is being rewired, the popcorn ceiling is being covered with new sheet rock and we are getting all new doors, trims, baseboards and crown. 

So while we waited on the permitting process, we already started making some decisions, starting with the floors. I’ve always been a fan of very dark hardwood floors, but since we’re talking about a small space, we agreed that light would be the way to go. After visiting a couple of flooring showrooms we decided on this Natural Maple:

You'll be glad to know the floors are ordered and on their way!

We've also picked our crown molding:

And we are hoping we can get 3 panel doors like these:

Working on these first design decisions definitely helped me cope a little better with the delayed beginning of construction and kept me sane during the "limbo" phase. And by the way, thank God for Pinterest and Houzz!

So, just when I had adapted to living in the midst of boxes and suitcases and sleeping on a mattress on the floor and eating dinner lying on the living-room rug seemed perfectly normal   and acceptable behaviors, we got good news! On May 3rd, a Friday, we heard from McCamy that we had gotten everything straightened out with the city and demolition would start on Monday, May 6th.

Well, time to pack....again.

Limbo

One of the first things we learned about renovating in a building downtown is that we were going to need permits from the city. After a little investigation Jerry found out that he needed to do some drawings of the existing floor plan and then of the changes intended to be done. Here are his first drawings:

Current floor plan (except for double vanity in master bath. Ooops!)

Desired floor plan (this is where double vanities should be!)

We also used these drawings to show contractors what we wanted to do with the place.  About 5 different contractors came over to the apartment to look at the space and give us a quote. We could tell that some of them were a bit overwhelmed with the project. I guess the main intimidating factor was our location. Being right in the middle of downtown and on the 6th floor brings some logistical difficulties, such as parking, transporting large construction materials (framing, sheet rock...) and disposing of demolition debris. 

So I actually wasn’t too surprised when 3 of the 5 contractors we interviewed never even called us back with a quote. And it took nothing less than 2 WEEKS to hear the quotes from the other two contractors. Remember how we wanted renovations to start ASAP? Well , so much for that!

This is how we were living while we waited for that first strike of the sledge hammer into our walls - I call it our “limbo” phase:

It didn’t take long for us to start getting a little impatient with our “limbo” situation, so to feel a small sense of accomplishment we started doing a few things on our own. We knew we wanted the windows to match all the trim in the house, and since we are going to change them to white, we got ourselves some white paint, a couple of brushes and started painting the windows on the weekends. Let me tell you, those are some massive, intricate windows! We are still not done with all of them!

We also went ahead and painted the walls that were not going to be demolished. It’s kind of silly because we know they're probably going to get dirty and damaged with the construction chaos, but hey! We were just trying to trick our brains into thinking we were making some progress here!

The blinds that were on the windows were super old and kind of pink, so we replaced those too. Check the new ones out:

And one more thing we did a lot during this , let's say  "transitional phase", was just enjoy downtown living! 

Our first (cleaning) party

Before we turned our old house over to its new owners, Jerry and I spent literally hours and hours cleaning every inch of it. Jerry said “that’s the way Sumners do it!” And as a former boy scout his philosophy was to leave the house in better shape than when we first got it. I myself  probably spent an hour and a half cleaning the refrigerator.

This is what it looked liked when I was finished with it:

And the rest of the house wasn't any different. 

Kitchen:

Living Room:

 My closet:

Our bedroom:

The story was a little bit different when it came to the way we found our newly bought apartment. There were dust bunnies EVERYWHERE! The bathrooms were pretty much disgusting. In fact, even though Jerry has already bleached the master bathroom shower about 3 times now, I have yet to shower in it due to the image of grossness imprinted in my memory. 

So there was not a chance we were going to move in before doing some serious cleaning! And that’s how a couple of awesome friends blessed us the day after we closed on the apartment. On a beautiful Saturday morning, our friends Art and Christy Jensen came over to our empty home ready to help us spruce up the place. We swept, mopped and dusted away! It was actually kind of fun! We also prayed together for blessings in our new home. We tried to "document"  the experience a little bit:

I just want to take this opportunity to thank Art and Christy one more time! It was fun having you guys there for a little "cleaning party"  and it will definitely be even more fun to have you over once renovations are done!

Ok, so now the place was clean and we were ready for renovations to start ASAP. All we needed was a contractor willing to tackle a downtown remodel project. Shouldn't be hard, right? Well...