Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry September 15th!

Today between 8-9am, a holiday usually celebrated in December, is being celebrated at RHN. A team of Jersey shore guys Santa's are rolling their big ol' box truck sled and delivering a whole mess of back breaking work toys to RHN, and we couldn't be more excited! Yes, you read that right. We are excited about back breaking work. Seriously, I felt like my inner six year old grabbed ahold of me and wouldn't let me fall asleep last night because of what the next morning was going to bring. (You know you've hit adult status when cabinets and recessed lighting make you excitedly giddy.)

Maybe I'll post a picture of a cabinet. Maybe just so you can see them in their boxed up glory. Or, maybe not. 

Calling Sore Arms. Party of Three.

Grouting tile walls sure is a workout. Cutting recessed lighting holes in the ceiling sure is a workout. Painting non stop, also, is a workout. You would think we should look like Arnold after all this muscle building business, but no. Sad monkey. However, even though we aren't gaining giant biceps, we are gaining things like a fully tiled, grouted, and (quit playing with your) caulked shower, four recessed lights in the living room, mudded holes where the ugly ceiling fan used to be, another recessed light in the bathroom, and most importantly a fan in the bathroom - in the words of Katie and Philip: FAN! My dad, Ed, Cman, did a lot of the work because it involved electrical and if I were to even give that a shot, the house would end up either on fire or not functional; both neither of which we are willing to experiment with. 

The bathroom is really starting to take shape.  Let me share with you a sneak peek into the world of RHN's only full bathroom and Ed's home for the past few weekends. Lookin' good, eh? 

And here is a real sneak peek into what Ed has REALLY been up to. That's all you're going to see. His handy work is pretty spiffy and I lurve it. However, in the words of Eddy: "This is why Will was the builder and I'm not." I think Ed is definitely envious of Will's abilities and know-how. 

While up in the attic wiring the bathroom up all pretty, we found a shiv and an address label. Apparently, William V. Giles 4th was a bad ass and possibly was the original owner of RHN. My dad, Ed, and I discussed possible scenarios in which William V. Giles 4th would need such a prison tool and we came up with some pretty hilarious stuff.  So, RHN reader(s), got any story lines? Here's the evidence you get to base your story line off of:

Cabinets come this Thursday and we are stoked to get those puppies in. Oh, and here's to hoping my sister and brother-in-law are a-ok down there in the Virgin Islands. They had/have hurricane headed straight for them... 

Master ...

This long Labor Day weekend proved to be multiple Labor days indeed over at the hizzy. Although the tasks at hand weren’t overly vast in terms of size, they were vast in terms of numbers. Well, I guess with that statement I’m speaking for myself and my father because Ed was tackling a vastly epic project in the bathroom. Ha! I just went back and read that last line and whoa, Nelly!! That sounded slightly like TMI, but here’s the thing I wasn’t being gross – although I’ve been know for my inner 13 year old humor – I am speaking of conquering the giant that is the one and only full bathroom shower. Remember the pink and avocado one? The one with the rotted out tile in the shower and the faux (pas) plastic wanna-be rebath stuck to it with liquid nails? No? Here’s a reminder…

So, obviously, we gutted the hot mess of a bathroom (that was the fun part) and have since put it back together about 80% of the way including the gorgeous tile work Ed just completed in the shower. Ed is the Master Nipper - such a title my father and I labeled him due to his nipping abilities with the tile nippers. If he ever gives up playing in a hard rock band and considers rapping, he could dub himself Master Nipper and join the ranks of Master P and Grand Master Flash. He could lower the vdub and pimp it out with hydraulics and rims. He could get a gold gree-ill (teeth) and end every sentence with “yo, know what a dogs sayin’?” What’s wrong? Is that you hyperventilating due to laughter? I’ll give you a minute to recoup.

Ok, now that we have composed ourselves … while Master Nipper was workin’ away in the bathroom, my father and I installed two of the four recessed lights in the living room. We, well my dad, fixed a step on the attic staircase before someone broke an ankle; I painted the other attic access white in the upstairs hallway; dad began workings in Frumpka’s room; the dog –yo! It’s Lil’ Nipper- hung out on her blanket on the stoop; and Jen came over (brought a delicious lunch because she’s amazing like that!) and helped me tackle the huge ass job of painting the giant room and its trim. Oh, and by the way, the color of the giant room is awe-some. At first we were ehhh so-so on it because it looked taupe-y when wet (ha! name the band that released a similarly titled album). Now, don’t get me wrong I love me a healthy helping of neutrals, but taupe isn’t the neutral we were really aiming for. However, I was wrong and the color was right leaving the world of RHN hunky-dory.

 

Another happening at RHN this past weekend was whiskey slush’s. That’s right, kiddos; Jen brought us some homemade whiskey slush’s and holy meatballs (!!) they were delicious. We didn’t drink them while working – all functioning and collectively intact extremities are quite the popular commodity at RHN. So back to the epic slush’s… they are a combo of lemonade, limeade, a little sugar, earl gray tea (made strong), and Jack Daniels. All ingredients are frozen and then topped ginger ale when served. Whoa, baby.

So, while we wait for the cabinets to be made and delivered, we will be piecing the bathroom back together and installing the rest of the recessed lighting. Next up is the floor in the bath – oh the glorious floor tile – and constructing the vanity top. I bet you’re wondering why I didn’t share pictures of the shower, well I’m saving it all for the big reveal. Just hold onto your knickers my dears it should only be another couple of weeks.

The Story Of Frumpka And The Bad Kid Room.

 I can't believe it's Labor Day already. Seriously. Time really needs to slow down just a tad because even though I'm in my early 30's, I can't keep up! So, Ed and I have officially owned RHN for 4 months already and we have completed a decent amount so far. However, I want to chat about the 'bad kid room' aka Frumpka's room. Before you label me as off my rocker insane, there is a method to my madness and the spare bedroom/Ed's home office may be the ticket.


So, where do I start explaining? Ok, well, today I was studying and/or observing the mess that is the spare bed/Ed's home office and ugh. My father started to tackle the walls in the bad kids room and dropped his blade and putty knife most likely in disbelief or in hope that when he returns it won't be so bad.


Do you want to know why we call it the bad kids room? Why I mentioned the name Frumpka? Let me explain. This room is craaay-zee. The paint is plastic and green and fuchsia (and on the ceiling as much as on the walls). The closet has some craaay-zee ass letter stickers plastered about that could spell Frumpka. The joint on the wall is bowed out and the ceiling fan is missing a blade. The moulding around the door is half missing and split, and the light switch is literally punched through the wall. The outlets are painted their respective coordinating colors and did I mention the paint is PLASTIC?! Oh and we're missing floor moulding and a portion of the heating pipe is exposed with no cover. My insanity is 100% a tactic to ensure I just don't break down in tears every time I walk past/into that room.

That is the plastic paint specimen that we sampled from the bad kid wall.

Hey random pipe, sup kiiiid

Wonky-ness never looked so good. 

Bowed jacked-up tape joint craaay-zee.

So, what do we plan for the 'bad kid' room? Well, we were thinking of finding said plastic paint and rekindling our relationship with it. Bad idea? What's that? Ed doesn't look at that great in magenta? It's because he's so pale, right? Actually, we will fix the bad kid room and make it more of a bad ass room. Well, maybe not bad ass as in hells angles, but bad ass as in not pink and plastic. We will add a sleeping space for guests that come to crash at RHN and a desk for Ed to work from home from. He is so excited for that. We aren't sure colors yet or any of that fancy jazz and we will share when we decide, but for now I just wanted to share the bad kid room before its transformed into a bad ass big kid room. Off to go paint. 

Maybe We Are Fancy After All.

In approximately 3-4 weeks we will have our kitchen cabinets. Yes, you read me correctly, we have purchased our cabinets. The story of the cabinets is a sweet love story between a two new homeowners and Home Depot kitchen design center.

It all began on Saturday August 27, 2011 in a far, far away land….eh, I’m so not entering sappy territory here – I’m a straight up kinda gal.

Anyway, it did all start last Saturday when Ed and I went into Home Depot to check out their in-stock line of cabinets and priced the whole kit(chen) and kaboodle out. The reason we were going the in-stock-buy-it-off-the-shelf route was because Home Depot was offering 20% off said kit(chen) and kaboodle and they were readily available and in our budget range (which wasn’t very big mind you!). So, with 20% off, we were already saving around $500. Score! Until … we went and saw said cabinets in person and winced at their cheap quality, ill fitting doors, and lack of cabinet sizes and accessories. This was definitely a case of quantity over quality. So, what to do now?! We kind of felt defeated, actually. So, with our heads hanging low, we were on our way out the door when we saw our cabinet maven miracle worker, Pierre. Pierre and I go way back and when we stopped to say hello we figured we would ask him his opinions on the in-stock cabinets we were ho-hum about. He said they were ‘ok’ and usually used for apartment type set-ups and laundry/basement/garage applications the most. He asked our budget and suggested we sit down and write up an in-stock vs. custom kitchen cabinet plan. Um, a custom kitchen? Doesn’t custom mean mas dinero? I know he heard our budget range and I know custom can’t possibly fit in the no mas dinero budget that Ed and I gave him.

Enter left stage: cabinet superhero, Pierre. We sat down and after 3 hours and multiple phone calls to my dad (who was our stationed soldier at RHN, armed with a measuring tape) we were set on measurements and we plugged away at designing our custom kitchen (I feel so fancy every time I say it - even though we're not). As Pierre plugged away at adding cabinets in a really cool 3D cad program, I kept getting more and more nervous. I was getting nervous because he was spitting out terms like crown moulding and cushion-close drawers and for the sake of beating an already dead horse, we were on a budget for pete's sake! Then the magic began to flow, the skies opened, a rainbow formed, and unicorns began galloping happily about while leprechauns giggled. Pierre uttered our favorite words in the english language: free, discount, free, and free all while speaking enthusiastically about custom (we're fancy!) kit(chen) and kaboodle cabinets for our naked room. The deal we got was incredible. Wanna hear? Of course you do! Let me mesmerize you with our unicorn and rainbow filled results...


Discount: 

• $500 right off the top due to a Labor Day promotion the cabinet company already had running - spend $xxxx.xx get $xxx.xx off bringing our linear square foot price down $25 per linear square foot.

Freebees:

• Free upgrade to a premium finish. This saved us from buying cabinets in a finish we didn't like and having to spend a lot extra on a finish we did like. Savings: an extra $20 linear sq ft.
• Free hardware - door/drawer knobs and pulls. With 28 knobs and 9 pulls, this saved us $210.
• Free sink base cabinet 36". Savings $200.
• Free garbage/recycle pull out cabinet. Savings $900.
• Free fancy pants 2-tier in drawer cutlery divider. Savings $85
• Free cushion-close drawers and cabinet doors. You can't slam these babies. Savings: $?. 

So, as you can see, for custom fancy kitchen cabinets, we made out like freakin' bandits. Seriously, I kind of feel like we should have been wearing masks and carrying a big bag that could be filled with goodies much like thieves do. However, I have to point out that this endeavor, while fun, was still expensive despite all our discounts and freebees, and we still went about $800 over our original intended budget. (I know everyone is rolling their eyes saying, well duh, idiot. It's a kitchen. Of course it's expensive. Well, we are still newbies and still greatly play into sticker shock. Give us a break, here.) Now we have to get a sink and a new window and then figure out how to build our countertops and then, my dear Watson, we will have a spankin' new complete kitchen. 

C'Mon Irene! Well, I swear what I mean. At this moment...

Paint, paint, paint, all day long...paint, paint, paint while I sing this song.  Cman's room is painted. Donezo.  No mas painting needed in Cman's room.  About 90% of the rest of the trim in the house is painted too. Yay!


Remember how I said we I had a plan for the interior color of the front door? No? Let me remind you...

Well, it was vetoed 2-1. I lost. However, it's ok. No, really, I promise. I LOVE, love, love that green door a LOT, but it wasn't jivin' with the rest of the hizzy. Oh!! I'm going to derail for a few minutes and tell you a story of fabulous deals happening in the world of RHN. So, our ceilings are a short 7.5 feet high; short because I am 5'11" and Ed is just about 6'1". So, what that meant was any ceiling light we installed realistically couldn't be any more than 7.5" in height off the ceiling to make sure us giants of RHN clear said lighting apparatus. Does anyone know how hard it is to find a non-boob-resembling-modern-looking-attrictive flush mount light?! Well, three weeks of Google-ing proved to me there isn't a lot out there, yet a local-ish Brooklyn based company proved me wrong and for a steal! I ended up finding a 6" in height flush mount light that is modern, clean, and a deal! The light was $90 base price; $140 with a "designer" shade. After Google-ing a little more I found the exact same light for $59 + NYS sales tax. I ordered two - one for each hallway - and paid $113 total including shipping. But $59 + $59 does not = $113. That's because I found a coupon, although no cash back, but savings of about $90. Anyway, these two lights cost the same as some single lighting we were considering. What? Too much babble and no pictures? Ok, ok. 

So, back to the interior no-more-green door... wanna see what we decided on?

Black semi-gloss fabulousness. See the light? It's at least 1.5' above our heads and it all. just. meshes. Ok, well except for the plastic on the floor and the fan and lack of added accessories. Imagine, people, imagine. 

Ok, what's next?  Hurricane Irene... um, Hurri-what? We suffered horridly. We lost another tree (yes that was growing in our gutter) and suffered extreme flooding. (disclaimer: I'm not poking fun at those who did suffer; I'm simply poking fun at the hype that was stirred up for Dutchess Co. and didn't obviously happen.)  There was flooding in some areas - especially around streams, creeks, and ponds, but around here all-in-all it was just wet. Very wet. (Haha!! On our way back to Fishkill we were on Robinson Lane and the creek and adjoining pond flooded the road. The flooding was up to my doors and front grill on the GTI and my dad yells out: "can I use my seat as a flotation device?!" We laughed pretty hard because the water was that deep.)

Another tree lost.

Major flood!

Dad and Ed worked on tiling the shower today and got a lot done until the power went out when they were about 20min out of finishing. Thanks, Irene. There's always tomorrow.


On Saturday we sat down with our friend, Pierre. Who's Pierre you ask? Well, Pierre and I go back - waaaaay back. We began working together in 2000-ish and after years and years we both divorced the car business and went our merry ways. Well, Pierre is a kitchen specialist/designer at Home Depot and he's also our knight in kitchen shining armor. That's right kids, we have cabinets. We have beautiful, classy, already finished, ALL-inclusive, premium cabinets that we thought we could never afford. No, I'm not kidding and yes we are beyond ecstatic. Hi, we have cushion-close drawers and cabinets. You cannot slam them shut! Oh!! And we have hidden garbage and recycling cabinet. And crown moulding. We gave Pierre a budget and magic happened. In about a month.5 we should have pretty much an awesome kitchen. Thanksgiving, we will own you.


So, that's what happened this weekend at RHN. Oh, one last note - the pears on our tree are really close to ripe. I found one so big it filled my hand. I bit into it and it was a Bartlett Pear all the way. It was delicious. Not even kidding. Next year lateish-summer party will include pears and apples (and plain prosecco for Katie).

Giant pear on the left; Regular sized pear on the right

Delicious!

O.M.G. That's A Tree. It's Growing To Be Like Five-Foot-Three.

(the title was my attempt at gangsta rap. think Jay-Z would approve? does he even sing gangsta rap?)


This weekend at RHN was insane. And gross. And unbelievable. And served up a healthy helping of OMG WTF ARE YOU EVEN KIDDING RIGHT NOW?!


Remember that ridiculous air conditioner that was protruding obnoxiously out of the side of the wall in the dining room and out of the side of the house?  Oh, right, and it didn't even work.  Well, we took that out this weekend and woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. Houston we had a problem. Where do I begin?  (Your answer: 'at the beginning'. Thanks smart aleck.)

When the moulding around the AC came off it didn't look too bad. Then the AC unit removal came in and disastrous is an understatement. Ok, think I'm being a drama llama queen? I'll prove it. There was a birch tree growing in our wall. No, not a weed, a tree, with roots, in our wall. The wood frame built to sturdy it up was so rotted due to water damage and eaten away by who knows what. Then came the cringing what's behind door #2. My dad began to take down some of the interior holy sheet!rock because it had been so wet for so long that it was mushy and had turned the consistency of paste. Not too bad. Then came the outside. The water/rot damage was significant. As in Ed had to take out about double the amount of the wall around where the small AC hole was. Ed was a champ on that ladder - it was high up and he was a circular saw/sawzall/caulk gooper/drill user/screw putter-inner rock star.

After our gawking at the amount of grossness subsided, we (dad and Ed) built the stud back in, filled the gaping hole with insulation, put ply wood on the exterior and holy sheet!rock on the interior, caulked, and re-sided the exterior and mudded the interior.  It's like magic! Magic with power tools! The Harry Potter of RHN. (he uses magic, right? maybe I should stop referencing things I don't know much about. Nah, that takes all the fun out of it.)

While the boys were screwin' around (get it? screwin' around? because they were using screws to put the interior & exterior back together? bad joke? thought so) I was painting my little heart out. I painted the kitchen ceiling, the attic access point in the front  hallway, the trim all throughout the up and downstairs, Cman's bedroom trim and the front door threshold trim. Phew! That's a lot of painting! Oh and in our broken down festering rain filled pile of a 'pool' in the backyard, we have a new resident. 

We have chosen a definite paint color for the giant room and have found our kitchen floor tile at a steal!!! (like hows $3.99 sq ft for 12x12 tile on sale for $1.99 sq ft plus an extra 6% cash back and I'm on the hunt for an extra coupon.) We haven't yet bought the cabinets for the kitchen and have good reason to wait. Lowes has fantastic deals come holidays and Labor Day is less than 2 weeks away. Bye-bye, summer. Hello, cabinets.