Cha-cha-changes.

Yup, kickin' it old school with David Bowie on the title. However, while I was looking for you tube video to accompany the David Bowie reference, I found this: My favorite childhood show ever - The Muppets - as they sing one of my favorites bands most popular songs. Did anyone see the Muppet movie? If you answered no, shame on you. It's fantastic. Especially when you geek out over the freakin' muppets. Funny story: I was having a conversation with Philip one day (he's from Bermuda for all of you who don't know) and I was telling him about my love of The Muppet Show. He looked at me puzzled and asked 'who are you calling a Muppet?!' Apparently in Bermuda, calling someone a Muppet is equivalent to us here in the states calling someone a powerful insult. Muppets are not Jim Henson created puppets to Bermudians; in Bermuda, they are jackwagons. Good to know! 

Ok, ok, enough Muppet talk. Let's visit these so-called cha-cha-changes I speak of. We have begun semi-demo/reno of the rec room downstairs.  First off, this downstairs has in it a half bathroom, a laundry room, two giant closets, and a great room with a wood burning fireplace. Let me tell you something about the downstairs - It. Is. Gross. And cold. Case and point...

Can you now see why we need to spruce this puppy up a little? Ok, you know I mean a lot. The mold guys had to remove the insulation and half of the holy sheet!rock and paneling that was in the laundry room and bathroom. The floors are disgusting and covered in rust as you can see. So, where to begin? 

Soft Scrub with bleach. And a scrubber. And several Brillo pads. And a lot of elbow grease. Lots. Oh! Funny story #2: As Ed was insulating the utility room he found that the old dryer vent was still open to the elements outside. So, as he goes to close up the hole in the wall what did Ed find stuffed in the vent? A giant car washing sponge.  Oh yea. Were we surprised? Not really. It's par for the course round this hizzy. Anywhoosle, after about three hours of scrubbing I was achy, but the floor began to look like this: 

See that green sponge? That's what came out of the dryer vent.

And then to this: 

Quite the difference, eh? While I was doing the gross cleaning in the laundry room, Ed was holy sheet!rocking the half bath, insulating and uninstalling the yellow toilet and falling-off-the-wall sink. 

Notice those awfully half-assed installed pipes behind the toilet? Yea, ugh.  So, in order to enclose those pipes and make it look as inconspicuous as possible Ed enclosed them with holy sheet!rock. We hit up Home Depot and picked up a vanity with a sink, a faucet, a new high efficient toilet, and some plumbing supplies (the present fittings were wasted because of the freeze damage). When Ed took the toilet out, it was dated January 1967 under the lid. Grandpa toilet. Our budget for these rooms isn't a huge one (I know surprise, surprise), but I know for a fact you'll never guess it once we are done fixing up these fixer uppers - and yes, I'll supply a budget breakdown but only if you're nice.  

In other non-house related news we finally got cable and interwebs! Yes we went two months without either. And no we didn't miss it really all that much. However, once American Idol started back up I felt signing up was justified. However, in true form, I was able to negotiate the price of the services for a year down to lower than their 'introductory' rates. Yes, I'm cheap, but you'll be jealous when my check to Optimum/Verizon is $80 less than yours a month! 

Aaaaaand, my brother adopted a sweet, sweet puppy named Lucky (Big Head). He is a 14 month old pit/staffie terrier mix. He and mama are becoming fast friends and I know Lucky Big Head loves to visit our backyard and run his little puppy booty off. We just adore him and his giant goofy/clumsy/wrecking ball of a head and personality. And holy hell, he loves to lick!

So there you have it. We will be back with more updates as we go and continue our quest to a fully finished basement. For now the added insulation and sheet rock has made a world of difference downstairs. We plan on adding carpet to the basement living area and having the fireplace cleaned/inspected so we can eventually take full advantage of the space. Ed's been talking about building a bar setup in one of the ginormous closets and adding a TV and dart board. So, we will see what happens in coming months. 

Breakin Down Da Benjamins.

Again, with the trying my hand at being Jay Z - it's obvious it's just not workn' out, yo. We ain't tight. I ain't no thug. Hey, you gotta give it up for tryin', no?

Anyway, I figured before Ed and I dive into beginning our next big project, aka the rec room, bathroom, and laundry room downstairs, I would share with you a yo, yo, yo, break-it-down homey, budget breakdown of what went into our awesome sauce kitchen and bathroom renovations and how we did it all on a very tight budget.

First off, we were slightly overwhelmed by the amount of work these two rooms were going to be right off the bat. We had just invested almost every last dollar we had into closing costs and a down payment. How on earth were we going to renovate the two most important (and expensive) rooms in the house? Well, at first we decided we were going to do just the bathroom because of the physical and medical dangers that it held. This, my friends, is what we call a travesty (but holy hell was it fun to destroy!):

Then, as the plumbers were searching for broken pipes to fix, they found some behind the dishwasher and couldn't get the dishwasher out; that's when the kitchen went to looking like this:

Obviously we couldn't live with a kitchen or bathroom looking the way it did - hell, they weren't even operational. So, we had to bite the bullet and start from scratch. Was it that bad? Um, yes. Would we do it again? Um, maybe. So, what did we do to get where we are now? Lets break these projects down, yo. Let's see how we did these renovations on a supa-tight-budget-like-fly-and-sheeeeet style. We didn't really have a set dollar amount budget, but knew we wanted to keep it under $3k Benjamins. First up let's visit the bathroom, shall we?

• Demo: F-to-the-R-double-E
• Subway tiles: $125 (23 pennies a pop from home depot)
• Marble Floor Tiles: $400 ($6.99 a sq ft negotiated down from $10 sq ft)
• Grout, spacers, Ditra, sealer, caulk: $175
• Holy Sheet!Rock, Cement Board, Plywood: $150
• Trim - window and base board: $80
• Tile Saw: $69 (Ed found the saw and the stand on clearance for $69)
• My brothers work van: F-to-the-R-double-E 
• Thinset, tile nippers, and tiling trowels: $130
• Miter Saw, Circular Saw, Drills, etc: All owned or borrowed = F-to-the-R-double-E
•  Holy Sheet!Rock mud, tape, spackle knives: $25
• Primer and Paint (Behr ultimate all in one in Urban Mist): $60
• Vanity Ed built (wood, screws, glue, stain, and poly): $165
• Sconces, Sink, Faucet, Mirror: $183 (Sconces: $68; Sink: $45; Faucet: $40; Mirror; $30)
• Toilet: $98
• Tub: $120
• Insulation: $15
• Moen Shower Faucet and special valve (or as I lovingly refer to them, water handles): $170
• Accessories (towel bar, tp holder, shower curtain rod, shower curtain, bath mats, window blind, etc): $120
• Electrical switches, outlets, recessed light, and FAN!: $80
• Wall Art:  F-to-the-R-double-E (Thanks, Cman!)
• Other miscellaneous stuff-er-ooni: $60
• Labor: F-to-the-R-double-E (well, paid in pizza, pepsi, and beer)

Making the grand total for the bathroom:  $1935.00! That's actually under the guesstimate I made a while back at $2100. Go us! $1935. benji's isn't too costly considering the transformation we ended up with:

Now, let us move on to the kitchen. Like the bathroom, we didn't have a set budget per se, but more of a keep it as close/under to $10,000 as possible. While we went a little over the $10k ceiling, we didn't blow it out of the water - which easily could have happened.

• Demolition:  F-to-the-R-double-E
• Powertools: Mostly owned or borrowed except for the sawzall ($39 on sale at Home Depot) and automatic brad nail gun ($45 on clearance at Home Depot)- both of which ended up being some of our best investments
• Blades, sandpaper, etc: $150
• Holy Sheet!Rock, plywood, spray foam, buckets, 2x4's: $300
• Sheet rock tape, mud, and caulk: $50
• Halo recessed lighting - 5ct, 6in pots and trim: $90
• Electrial wire, switches, outlets, dimmers, and boxes: $200
• Floor tile: $210 (overstock item on Home Depot.com for $1.99 sq ft)
• Insulation: $80
• Thinset, grout, and sealer: $150
• Thresholds, wood flooring inserts: Free (Thanks Mr. & Mrs. Toth!) and $100 for 3 thresholds
• Trim: $35
• Undermount double bowl sink extra deep, sink kit, strainers: $150 (sink was $350 down to $129 -clearance from Home Depot)
• American Standard Fairbury Faucet: $138
• Appliances - new electric range and microwave: $1015.
• Dishwasher Part: $50
• Broken pipes: $1000
• Paint: $60
• Custom Cabinets: $4000
• Granite Counter tops: $3000
• Wine Fridge: $120
• Pendant light: $140
• Labor, know-how, and brute force: F-to-the-R-double-E

Kitchen grand total being $11,122. Yeeee-ooouucch! Ok, so going $1,122 over where we wanted and/or proposed to stay isn't really that bad; in all honesty I'm actually really proud of our numbers considering our new kitchen (and bath) look like a million bucks. See:

If we weren't able/capable of doing the work ourselves and didn't bother to wait for sales, coupons, and clearance items, these two projects would have cost us in the $75,000 region easily for material, labor, and tradesmen/women. Ed and I learned a lot from doing these projects ourselves. We we do it again? Honestly, yes because paying someone to do something we are quite obviously capable of doing ourselves would be silly and would really vex me. 

So lets do one final number crunch - this is my favorite part! I'm geekin' out here! Ok, ok...so, the reasn Ed and I are pretty much house poor is because so far we have put:

 $11,122 into the kitchen

+$1,935 into the bathroom

+$2,300 into the rest of the house (building permits,paint, recessed lighting, molding, Holy Sheet!Rock, oil, beer, pizza, soda, etc)

+$15,000 into refinishing the hardwood floors, fixing broken pipes, and a brand new furnace.

----------------------------------------------

$30,357.00 US Benjamin's and CENTS. 

Hold please, my jaw is on the floor and I passed out momentarily. We know we had around the $30k mark into this joint, but to see it in bold numbers on a screen kinda makes one go *thud* and people tend to run to you with water and smelling salts. However, as much money as that is to have stimulated the economy (seriously, a side note for a minute - you would think with Ed and I dropping $30k in benji's we would have singlehandedly jump started this bullshit economy. Home Depot stock was on the rise, that's for sure. Ok back to what I was saying...) by ourselves each and every time a run to Home Depot had to happen we knew we were gaining a ton of equity and building our own home and nest egg one screw, nail, powertool, and piece of Holy Sheet!Rock at a time. This joint has come a REALLY long way and we love it. I have to give much gracias to my dad, my brother, Ed, Jan, Will, and Cman for all their hard work in remolding and discovering what this place had in store. Now we begin the rec, bath, and laundry rooms downstairs. Stay tuned!

Welcome 2012. We Are Happy You're Here! No Really, We Are.

As I was sitting at my desk today at work, I realized I needed to make up a January broker of the day calendar. Holy Sheet!rock people, JANUARY! That exact wordage escaped my mouth, and as it did my co-worker looked at me as if I had murdered a kitten...which of course I would never ever do because I think kittens are adorkable! So, what's so significant about January anyway? Well, it's a new year, for one. It's a chance at a fresh start, for another. And it means we can all leave a really shitty 2011 behind. Ok, was all 2011 shitty? Not really, fantastic parts occured as well. With that said, let's take a stroll down memory lane and re-visit 2011 and what it brought to us during our first full year as a married couple.

• We decided New York can keep its outrageous rent prices and decided to buy a hizzy.
• We met the ever wonderful Jan Kaplan though her husband Richie who owns Max's on Main when we were having dinner one night.
• We looked at seven hundred houses. Ok, not quite that many, but a lot.
• We decided to embark on a journey of home renovation.
• We survived said journey and are still happily married. 
• We celebrated our first wedding anniversary and Ed's first Broadway show.
• We mourned the loss of a brother and a best friend.
•  We still mourn the loss of a brother and best friend.
• Mama still never caught the elusive chipmunk that taunted her all summer.
• Cman ranked 4 belts in a few months at tae-kwon-do.
• We gut and rebuilt an entire full bathroom and kitchen. On our own. In less than seven months. Weekends only. (well, with help from family too of course!)
• We got iPhones. 
• Ed got a promotion-of-sorts at work.
• We moved in only two weeks after proposed deadline. 
• Katie and I raised $5000 for Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.
• Pa survived a bad fall, six broken ribs, a car accident, and a stent procedure on his heart.
• We successfully held Christmas dinner for 13 people and everyone had a blast.
• We have successfully made this house into a home. Our home.
• We are still happily married. 
• I chopped 15 inches off my hair and donated it to Lock of Love.
• We are officially happily house poor home owners and damn proud of it!

 2012 will definitely be bringing happier times our way. So, what do we have in store for the new year? Well, we have chatted about traveling. We want to hit up a couple of islands and Alaska. Maybe Montauk if we can squeeze er' in. Although if it were up to Cman, he'd live on Paul's fishing boat all summer. My brother and I are definitely doing the Warrior Dash in August and the Spartan Race in June. I would like to fit a 10k race in there somewhere and get back to my pre-wedding weight. Also in June we will be hosting a Plattsburgh State University reunion for Ed's buddies here at RHN. As we continue into 2012, we will be attempting and completing more house projects (Um, hello? Frumpka's room anybody? The basement? Bathrooms?) and keeping you all up to date as each project evolves. We will hopefully be upgrading furniture as well as adding things like art work and decor.

So, there you have it. Our 2012 will be more living and a smidge less working. What? After the 2011 we had, I think we've earned it! 

Happy New Year to each and every one of you! May your 2012 be fabulous!