Moving Right Along

Yep it’s been awhile since I last posted. Bad Dana. What can I say, I’ve had stuff goin’ on. Including taking off to Mexico for a week to watch sunsets and eat fish tacos. 😉

But much has been happening over the last month in our little house. First, kitchen cabinets arrived…

And they went up fast…

Then, a small army of plumbers, electricians and carpenters showed up to make sure all the various pipes and wires would work correctly…

So that it looked like this right before the countertops arrived:

And then, another small army of big strong guys showed up with a ton of granite…

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The install took six guys and all day, but the countertops look amazing. After they were installed, we took a break for Christmas. Big shout-out to Flair for making sure I had a functional kitchen by Christmas! Here’s a pic of Flair’s Christmas presents (bottle of gin for Fred and a case of Bud Light for Blair) under the tree, awwwwww…

Right after Christmas, Flair came by to start on the herringbone backsplash.

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Which ended up looking like this… purrrrrr….

And just last week, the shelves arrived and got installed, so we’ve now got those lovelies in place, too.

Now Flair just need to replace one of the cabinets, finish the moulding, finish the toe kicks, cap off two electrical outlets, redo the outside siding where the door used to be, install new gutters along the back of the garage, replace the glass in two garage windows, and fix a hole in the wall in the master bedroom. And probably about twenty other things that I’ll discover that I want them to do. Not too long of a list, no. But in the meantime, things are looking good… really good… and we’re loving it here. More to come…

Look How Things Have Changed

So much has happened since last I wrote. I took off to Austin for about ten days for Thanksgiving, and we moved almost as soon as I came back. While I was gone, Flair made this happen:

Lovely, lovely, lovely dark wood floors with grain that makes me think of tiger stripes. Purrrrrrrrr.

Then, Flair added base moulding, a door to the garage, some speakers in the walls and ceiling, light fixtures and light switches, and installed our fridge, stove, and a temporary laundry sink.

So that we could do this…

We moved in!!

Moving day was total chaos, but organized chaos. Six big strong energetic guys descended upon our rental, packed up all our stuff, drove it three blocks, and loaded it in. So far, it seems they did a good job packing– I haven’t found anything broken. They even packed the cat…

Thank goodness we found her in one of the first boxes we unpacked.

So I heard from my cabinet guys that the kitchen cabinets are arriving later this week. Until they’re installed, this is our kitchen:

Nice, right? And check out our dining area…

Aren’t you jealous? I’ll bet you wish you had all your dishes wrapped up in cardboard boxes, too, so that you had to unwrap about 20 things before you could find a lousy cereal bowl and spoon. I know, I know, we’re really lucky. But it hasn’t been so bad, and it’s only for a few weeks. Because soon, very soon, more big strong energetic guys are coming to install this in my kitchen…

That there is some pretty granite. That will look extra pretty next to our glossy white flat front cabinets and marble subway tile herringbone backsplash. Oh the anticipation.

Also, while I was in Austin for Thanksgiving, I finished the design project, The Everything Room for the Hillcountry Texas Ranch. Don’t mean to brag but it turned out fabulous.

Check out more photos on StyleByDana.com

More Things Happening…

The energizer bunnies that are my contractors, Fred and Blair (collectively called “Flair” by The Husband), are working away. Now my house looks like this…

Hello lovely oak floors! So nice to meetcha at last. Good stuff. Plus the fridge is now gone (sold to Tony & family, enjoy!) and the new appliances should be delivered in about a week. New cabinets have been ordered and should arrive the week of December 10th. We’ll move in on Friday November 30th and live with a makeshift kitchen for about two weeks until the new kitchen will be installed.

And, Flair put this in…

Be still my heart.

We were short about six tiles but fortunately they were still in stock and are being UPS’d to arrive on Tuesday. Purrrrr…

More soon…

And I Thought A Lot Happened Last Week…

I thought that last week was nuts, but apparently it was only a warm up to this week. This week, the near apocalypse, Hurricane Sandy. The storm for which I casually bought a few extra batteries and cans of tuna, not thinking it would end up being any big deal. But a big deal it was. Check out what Sandy left us…

Yes, that there is one big tree lying across our driveway.

And then there’s also this one that fell on the back of the garage roof:

Boom.

I’m sure glad we weren’t in the house when that happened.

Hello AllState Homeowner’s Insurance policy. Wasn’t planning on getting to know you this well just yet, if ever. Aaaarrrrgh. But we really can’t complain… things were so much worse for so many other people in this area. This storm was huge, destructive and very scary. All things considered, we were really lucky. The power was out for two days at our rental house and just came back on last night. The rental is on the same electrical grid as the Nyack hospital so we are always the first to get power back (oh, hospital electrical grid, how I will miss you). The new house is not on that grid so it is still without power. I figured Fred and Blair wouldn’t be able to work, but they didn’t let a silly little thing like a hurricane get in their way, oh no. My boys brought a generator over, fired it up, and kept right on working. They are like energizer bunnies, those two, god love ’em. I went by today and they had an electrician in the house doing all of the electrical wiring. We decided on placement of wall and ceiling speakers and fixtures, and I asked them to go ahead and move the door in the kitchen. They needed a real kitchen layout in order to decide exactly where to place the door, so I’ve got an appointment with a kitchen cabinet guy on Monday to get something put together in CAD. I can’t wait. Very exciting. AND, I found out from Brad, another neighbor, the story of the demise of the deer. Apparently Mike came over to get the deer about half an hour after we’d told him it was fine for him to come get it anytime, but the deer was cemented into the ground with rebar and it just came apart when he tried to lift it. Kind of sad, but Brad did catch it on camera…

You get an A for Effort, Mike. Better luck next time.

What A Week…

A lot has happened since last I wrote. First of all, we closed on the house. It’s ours! All went fine at the closing, no problems at all. And then, the day after we closed, my contractors Fred and Blair, who are quickly becoming some of my favorite people, did this…

Bye bye, smelly awful old carpets! They’re gone, baby, gone.

The living room had wood parquet tiles underneath the carpets that were not salvageable in the least. They were loose and warped and in awful condition. The master bedroom had carpet tiles (wha?) underneath it, one of the other bedrooms had some kind of asbestos tile (apparently not the kind we need to worry about– and in any case, they’re gone now), and the other bedroom had some other kind of vinyl tile (again, in terrible condition) underneath the carpet. Bizarre. In one 1300 sq ft house, we had a whole plethora of completely unusable flooring.

So they ripped it all out down to the subfloor, and then, they did this:

Yeah baby!! Now that’s what I’m talking about!! Bye bye, wall that blocked all the light from the front window. Hello, open concept kitchen/living room/dining room. Nice to meetcha.

SO  MUCH  BETTER.

Fred and Blair seem to get a kick out of me whenever I walk in after they’ve completely demolished something and I say, “Wow, that looks fantastic!!” Somehow, demo just doesn’t scare me.

Budget, however, does.

(Please dear lord baby jesus, let this rental property in Austin sell so that we have a bit more funds to afford all the stuff we want to do!)

And last, but not nearly least, unfortunately, this also happened…

So sad! But I can’t say I didn’t see this coming.

I still don’t know the story, but I suspect the story may involve our neighbors, a large quantity of liquor, and inadequate tools. We had heard from the seller’s agent that our next door neighbors, Mike and Andrea, had said they’d like to have the deer if we didn’t want it. We met them on Saturday, and while Andrea was not very enthused at the idea of taking the deer, Mike was keen. Wanted it for his backyard. We said sure, come get it whenever he wanted. Then the next day, we went back by the house and it was in pieces by the front curb. There are some deer pieces in our trash can and a big piece of rebar that’s still sticking out of the ground where the deer had stood. It looks like someone tried to move it and it completely came apart. It was rooted into the ground with blocks of cement so it was not an easy transport. Oh well. Can’t wait to hear what went down, and I kinda wish we had been there to witness it.

But here’s what the front of the house looks like with no deer…



SO MUCH BETTER. Bye bye, life-sized concrete deer! You’ll live on in infamy! Onwards and upwards. More soon…

We’re Closing!

AT LAST, the bank gave us a closing date last Friday of this Tuesday, as in tomorrow! So tomorrow we go sign on the dotted line(s) and exchange money for keys. I did the walk-through of the house today and it looks awful… it’s so in need of some TLC. Just getting that carpet out will be such an improvement. Oh, and the seller’s agent said that if we don’t want the deer, our next door neighbors will take it. This might be the best option for the little guy… rather than having a housewarming party and taking a sledgehammer to him while liquored up. Or painting him hot pink and displaying him out and proud in the backyard. At least he’ll go to a good home if we give him away. The neighbors seem like decent folk. I will ponder this option.

The husband and I walked over to the house yesterday and wandered around the front and back yards. All the trees need trimming and both yards are overgrown with weeds. Nothing that More Money can’t fix. The husband started having a small freak-out about how much work this place is going to be but he was able to talk himself off the ledge. Also we took pics…

Awwww, isn’t he cute.

And the husband’s not bad, either.

We also met our neighbor across the street… an older woman who seems to have serious hoarding tendencies. And talks a lot. But she seems very sweet and was quite entertaining. Her grown sons were helping her host a yard sale, and it looked like they’d be doing more of them (they’re trying to help her downsize so they can move her to a condo), so at least I’ll have some yard sale goodness going on close by. Bonus.

Fingers crossed all goes well tomorrow at the closing!

Inspiration

We’re still waiting on a close date from the bank but it looks like it’ll be sometime next week. In the meantime, the seller is moving out tomorrow… supposedly. Don’t think I won’t be doing a drive-by tomorrow evening to see if they’ve gone, and if they’ve taken the BOAT out of the front yard, arrrrrghh. And will they leave the deer? Fingers crossed.

Dreaming of making this place look something like this…

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(All images via Pinterest)

Many, many more ideas to come…

Sigh.

Get Ready to Reno!

It’s about to begin. The house purchase. The renovation. About one month and counting. After more than six years of moving around the world and renting wherever we go because we don’t know what the future will bring so we wanted to stay uncommitted, the husband and I are now about to purchase a house in Nyack and fully bind ourselves to NY and a mortgage. And look at the lovely lady we’re buying (I say “lovely” ironically, for those that need explanation)…

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Note the dated kitchen with the wallpaper border, the shag carpeting that probably hasn’t been replaced since the house was built in 1957, the baby blue toilet in the bathroom, and last but not least, the solid concrete deer in the front yard. Are we nuts?

Turning a three bedroom, one bath, mid-century ranch house with 1300 square feet in Nyack, NY into a four bedroom, two bath, chic and modern oasis overlooking the Hudson River? Can we do it? Let’s find out.