italian walnut flooring

and so began the week of flooring. if you remember from my previous post, the bedroom project had 3 steps:

• step 1: clear out the room and remove doors, trim and outlet covers
• step 2: paint the walls
• step 3: install new flooring

with budget in mind, but also wanting to keep my sense of eclectic style, i decided on an italian walnut laminate that was available online and available for pickup at menards. so long cement floor!

and then dad, my superhero handyman, once again came to the rescue. he spent the week working and oh. emm. gee. am i giddy with the results (don't mind my wrinkled bedding). my only regret is not doing this sooner!

the time i lived in my dining room

probably one of the biggest projects left on the final "to do" list was my bedroom.

• step 1: clear out the room and remove doors, trim and outlet covers
• step 2: paint the walls
• step 3: install new flooring

this meant i would be living on my futon in the dining room until the project was complete. luckily, my futon is practically more comfy than my bed! it also meant the move out process could begin. we brought a truck load of my stuff over to tim's house. load #1 of many, many truck loads.

 

the results of a hard days work! and with steps 1 and 2 done, we can move onto step 3!

• step 1: clear out the room and remove doors, trim and outlet covers
• step 2: paint the walls
• step 3: install new flooring

white on white

well, we are officially on the home stretch to get my condo up on the market and sold. so all the things i've been putting off or that were (indefinitely) on the back burner are now on my weekend "to do" list.

first up: refreshing the bathroom with a fresh coat of paint. who knew that an old "white" wall could -- in fact -- be so...unwhite?!!

(for some reason only being able to see Tim's hand and the paintbrush was absolutely adorably hilarious to me)

so tim and i got to work on painting the bathroom while dad worked on the final pieces of trim.

 

oh, and who could forget my little inset "DVD" closet nook in the living room? aka: the wall we tore down long ago in hopes to reveal more exposed brick! obviously that wasn't the case, but we made the best of it and turned the demolished wall into another space for storage or decor.

that needed a few coats of paint over the raw wood and sheetrock.

a look at the completed DVD nook...

 and a before and after view of the bathroom walls and new closet (before the shelving and doors).

ice cubes and counter tops

today was a big day for my condo! new kitchen counters, water access to my fridge ice machine, and lots of insulation around my outside door, windows and air conditioner. as you can see in the first picture, it looks as if dad almost moved in! my entire dining room was filled with tools and such.

do you remember my original counter tops? they were light wood and kind of ugly (top photo). a while back -- think spring/summer -- dad found these dark "granite" counters at menards for a really good deal. they've been sitting in his garage ever since.

the other week dad stopped over to prepare the counter top. he measured my original wooden one and drew out a template onto a giant roll of paper of the exact dimensions and the sink cutout area.

meanwhile, on the other side of the kitchen...i now have ice cubes (crushed and cubed) and water! i have waited so long for this day :)

this proved to be quite the task however. the water tube had to snake from the back of the fridge, up through the ceiling and into the pantry closet, from the top-right of my closet to the bottom-left (see photo), out the pantry closet next to the oven, and behind my counter tops into the water access under the sink. luckily the tube is clear so it's nearly invisible.

next, dad covered up my air conditioner window unit, plastic'd up all my windows, and added insulation around my exterior door to try to keep the draft out...although my snowflakes would prefer the wind so they can twirl.

all through the house

today was a beautifully gorgeous november day here in minneapolis. i biked home from work (in a tank top!) with my headphones on, just enjoying the unusually warm sunshine and colorful leaves still covering the ground. when i got home, i saw dad was taking advantage of the nice weather too...with his electric saw and building materials scattered about my steps and entry way.

today's projects took place all throughout the house. dad was over around 11am and worked until dinner time in the living room, bathroom and kitchen.

living room: dvd cabinet. the first project dad worked on today was adding the trim around my living room inset cabinet that i plan on using for dvd's. now we just need to add shelving and putty up the screws around the trim and i can finally get rid of my cd towers!

plus, now you all know my guilty pleasures of owning (and repetitively watching) all seasons of The OC and The Office :)

the bathroom: closet. see that board that my cabinet is sitting on? well that's my new raised floor of the cabinet. that way, if my bathroom ever floods, my closet supplies will be safe.

our plan is to create storage in the bottom half of the closet, with a single cabinet door. and then the top half of the closet will be open shelving.

the kitchen: fridge water dispenser. this project has been a long time coming, and we got about halfway today. see, the problem is that there's no water access along the wall my fridge is sitting against. so dad used the can light fixture (see photo above) as his access point. he drilled a hole through the beam nearest the fridge and another into my pantry closet, and then fished the tube through them both.

the tube connects to the fridge (you can see the clear tube sticking out near the red arrow), goes through the ceiling, into the pantry closet (more tube near the left arrow), and eventually will emerge along the floor near my stove, and snake through the back of the kitchen cabinets to connect up to the water valve under the sink. and voila, i will have water and ice fresh from my fridge!

fridgy cabinets

finally the day arrived when dad and matthew came over to install my new cabinets. well, kinda new. if you remember back to when i moved in and found a wall of well-constructed, solid cabinets. we disassembled them and dad ended up using them to create new cabinets from parts of the originals.

this summer i painted them in my parent's garage, and there they've been until now.

now this side of my kitchen is almost complete, the nub is installed, and next up is the hanging pot rack and then hooking up the water in my fridge dispenser.

the white door

among many other projects that dad is working on, he somehow found the time to come over and put up the door to my hallway closet. as you probably know, i am trying to keep a few themes running throughout my condo: white trim along along all the floors, and white interior doors.

now all i need is door handles.

a breath of fresh air

it's been pretty miserable trying to get a good night's sleep in such a hot muggy bedroom, so i finally gave in and decided an air conditioner had turned from luxury to necessity. we picked up a soleus air 12,000 btu unit, complete with a remote so I can control it from my bed. how lazy am i?

anyways, turns out my window doesn't open...so dad had to go at it from the exterior of the building. he took the window off completely, cut a board to fit the empty space, cut out a square from that board to fit the air conditioner through, put it all back together, bolted it in place, plugged it in, and that was that. easier said than done of course (thanks for all your work on such an incredibly hot humid day dad! i know it was a lot more work than that).

 it's been a week now and i can honestly say i am loving the latest addition to my condo. not only can i sleep straight through the night, but i have a new-found appreciation for hearing little birdies chirping in the morning (there's still a sliver of open air around the unit that dad has to caulk up) and rain drops pitter-pattering on the air conditioner. it's oddly comforting.

two new places to hide things away

tonight dad finished up the shelving in my two main closets! now i just need some doors to hide all my junk ;)

and as you can see, dad's already moved in!

inside the plastic fort

whenever my dad sets off to do work -- whether around the house, at crappy house (our other extreme makeover house), or my place -- he simply says with a smile "well, i'm off to play!" and heads out. i'm so glad he loves it.

anyways, tonight he was over working on my two main closets. first we hung plastic from the ceiling to protect the rest of my place from suffocating beneath a layer of dust. then he started sanding and puttying away behind the plastic sheets...

hey, at least he got to play in a fort ;)

sink + vanity = happy girl

most of you probably know that there was a crazy cat lady living here before me...which meant that the place had a somewhat distinct odor, if you know what i mean. luckily we've already replaced nearly everything reminiscent of her (floors, walls, ceilings, closets...) but there is just one thing left. my bathroom vanity.

so tonight me and dad drove over to building materials outlet and picked out a 48" vanity and a 43" sink top. wait. 48" and 43"? that doesn't sound right. well, that's because i have only 42" to work with between the wall and the shower. and apparently 42" is not standard (unless you want a really short vanity...) it's either 36" or 48". im sure i just lost everyone there.

anyways, after exhausting all ideas of what we could possibly do (like buying a 36" and a 12" tall cabinet and putting them side-by-side) we finally decided on buying the bigger one. now dad will have to cut it down, make two new -- slightly larger -- doors, and reassemble the whole piece.

have faith, it will all come together somehow. my dad is nothing less than amazing. and plus, then i can actually use my vanity for storage. what a novel idea!

if only i had "clap on" lights

today dad came over and worked on my lights by my main door. we put on two switches: one controls the top outlet (that i have my lamp plugged into) and the other turns on and off the outdoor motion-sensor light 

i'm so happy to have actual light switches to flip on when i get home in the dark :)

bye bye open closets

say goodbye to all the open inlets in the unfinished walls...because we are starting to sheetrock all three closets! so of course I had to take one final picture through the wall.

first dad put up the exterior walls...

then we measured inside the closets, fastened the sheetrock, and called it a night!

like christmas morning

 i woke up way too early and was too excited to go back to sleep. it felt like christmas morning. i guess i'm just really excited to finally be moving in! i thought the day would never come.

anyways, mom had found some cute chairs in the jc penney catalog, with some special discounts that expire today. i was trying to buy them online, but the shipping would be insane (since i want six chairs), so me and dad just decided to drive on over to southdale and see what they had in stock.


sidenote: we were there by 9am, walked up to the doors, and were completely disappointed that the store didn't open until 10am. bummer. so we turn around and get back in the truck, and then i notice that other people are going in and out? me and dad look at each other, and then simultaneously get back out of the truck and head back in. long story short, it turns out since they have saturday 'door busters' they open early, but don't make any note of this on their signage.

i ended up buying six chairs, which are super cool because they have 360 degree swivel, and are adjustable height! now i can have matching chairs on both sides of my bar (the high top side, and the standard counter height side). perfect.
 

here they are [almost] all set up. thanks to matthew for assembling them so quickly!

the beginnings of the island bar

today dad and matthew started my island bar that will straddle the living room and dining room step. the reason i wanted this was so that the island would be two-leveled depending on which side you sit on. the dining room side will be standing bar height, while the living room side of the island will sit at standard counter height. i ended up going to ikea and buying a table top and extendable legs.

so tonight they got started. first they had to draw out a template because the table will actually need a corner piece cut out of it so it will hug the beam.

on another note: don't ever buy contact paper from the dollar store. it was the worst $1 i have ever spent.

garden state in my garden level

i had bought a giant roll of vinyl laminate flooring from menards a while ago. it looks like a cobblestone path, and it's dark shades of gray. i can't imagine many people would use it in their dining room or kitchen area, but i have never wanted to do what everyone else does.

we went over to the condo for what was supposed to be "just an hour" according to dad. four hours later, we made our way home, feeling accomplished. we finished fitting the last strip of flooring in my dining room/kitchen area and used the seamer and double-sided tape on the four seams.

along the way matthew thought it would be funny if i made a shirt out of my flooring, and then take a picture of me standing there awkwardly, as seen in "garden state." this was my make-shift dress:

and this was matthew's version of the photo...looks more like a happy chalk line to me.

a fourth of july surprise

while i was out relaxing in the sunshine— jet skiing, tubing, three-wheeling, playing lawn games, cheating at cards, and just enjoying a nice break from everything — at chad's cabin in darwin minnesota, home of the world's largest twine ball, guess where the rest of the fam was? 

at my condo. working. 

 

i had no idea they were planning on working until mom texted me with a picture of dad and matthew (i apologize for the low-quality photo) starting on my roll-out vinyl flooring (covering the entire kitchen and dining room). what a big project, and on a holiday?! thanks family, you're the best!