home renovation

Home Update: Siding Work & We Removed A Door!

October 27, 2022 by jessica Leave a Comment

Sources: Mailbox (similar) | Sconces | Storm Door | Welcome Mat

While a full bathroom remodel this year was incredibly exciting, the smaller improvements around the house are just as satisfying and deserve fanfare! Our latest update happened this Tuesday when we finally removed the inoperable door on our front porch.

As you may recall, this is what we were working with. For some background, our house was built in 1929 and would have originally had a porch to the right of the entry. Our neighbor has lived next door since he was a child and remembers that the space had double-hung windows all along the front of the house until the 1990s when George, a previous owner, decided to close it all up and reduce the window count to just two ugly block windows: one of them is plexiglass and the exterior framing on them doesn’t even match. The window situation is clearly an expensive problem for another day. (Thanks, George.) Our pressing annoyance was that door and since I don’t want a window in that spot, we decided to have it filled in now as we tend to have drafts leak through the gaps and insects making their way in for the winter.

A challenge that we ran into with hiring a siding company is that many don’t take on smaller jobs unless they did the work to begin with — even though we had piles of extra siding in our garage. Fortunately, our neighbor recalled that the siding was done by the person we bought the house from and he was gracious enough to dig through his records to find the company’s information for me. (This is precisely why I’ve started a home binder with things like contact information for tradespeople and paint colors that I can hand off to the next owner.)

The company we hired framed in the gap, insulated it, added the siding, and put up drywall on the interior side. They don’t do interior work, so I’ll be trying my hand at taping, mudding, and sanding this down the road. I don’t feel pressured to do a great job, since this will all be redone at some point when we invest in revamping this space. It’s a huge improvement over that janky door, though, and that posh screwdriver-through-hinge locking system.

Left: The “Before-Before” shortly after closing on the house, and mounting the mailbox. Right: Where we are today.

The team took down all of the siding on the right side and rehung it with some of the long pieces we had in the garage, so there isn’t an obvious patch. You’d never know the door was there!

More posts about the front porch:

Additionally, we had to address the exterior of our bathroom’s shower window. During our remodel, we reduced the size of the existing window (which you can see here). Our contractor ran into the aforementioned issue of siding companies turning down the work because we weren’t sure who had done it originally. Apparently the metal framing around the windows is impossible to do without the proper tools that our contractor would have to rent — and, I’ll be honest, since siding wasn’t their area of expertise, we decided it’d likely be cheaper to have an actual siding company do it eventually. Our contractor insulated the area below and put up the waterproof board at the bottom of our new window. We had him paint it black, which made it look like a regular window from far away and that’s what we lived with for the last five months.

And, here it is now! They really did such a wonderful job to make sure that the patching work was disguised. All in, the project cost $2,800, which I thought was reasonable.

If you’re wondering about that door up there, it’s from when the house was a two-flat and stairs led up to it. We had to install a permanent barrier in front for insurance reasons and found a gate that could be screwed in, but easily removed when we embark on that ordeal. The joys of an old house and correcting someone else’s choices, huh?

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5 Tips for Surviving a Home Renovation

June 22, 2022 by jessica Leave a Comment

^{My favorite sneakers are $20 off with this link! You can toss them in the washing machine if they get dirty!}

It has officially been five years since we closed on our house! It feels both like time has dragged on and flown by — and I think that has a lot to do with whatever stage of home improvement we’re in at the time! 2022 has been our home’s most transformative year yet with two bathroom renovations. I have a lot of emotions as a reflect back on the past five years: excitement, pride, frustration, annoyance, exasperation, appreciation … and so many more, but thankfully I’ve circled back to excitement and pride after we handed off our final check to our contractor and finally got to enjoy the end result of the projects that took so much time and money. Renovations aren’t easy and I wanted to share five tips for surviving a renovation if you have one of your own on the horizon.

PLAN CAREFULLY

I can’t overstate the importance of planning when it comes to your renovation, and it’s going to impact all aspects of the project. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Save more money than you think you’ll need, and have a plan in place if your project creeps and goes beyond what you hoped to spend. We ended up getting a HELOC to allow for cushion when our project went 100% over anticipated costs.
General contractors are in high demand right now. Expect to book at least six months out.
While you’re getting quotes from contractors, work on creating a mood board or source list for your project. (Here’s mine for the main bathroom and the one for the powder room.) You’ll want to have all of your products selected before work begins. While you’ll have some wiggle room when nailing down things like paint colors, it’s easier to have a solid direction right out of the gate.
Decide who is responsible for ordering products, materials, and fixtures. Is it going to be you or your contractor? For our project, I purchased the fixtures and our contractor was responsible for securing the other items. We had a shared Google spreadsheet to track my product selections, colors and finishes, who was responsible for ordering it, and where it was in the delivery process. Many products have a long lead time that you’ll need to account for. Other items, like a bathtub or vanity, are oversize and heavy. Do you have a place to store it if you order it? Can you even move it to the storage location if the shipper leaves it on a pallet outside of your home?
Make sure all of our items are in-hand by the time your project begins. Construction takes a long time as it is and you don’t want an unnecessary delay if something hasn’t arrived in time.
Consider pet or child care. Demo day is especially loud and not the best environment for sensitive ears. Can you spend the day elsewhere?
If your bathroom or kitchen is under construction, plan how you’re going to accommodate for those missing utilities. Do you have another bathroom you can use? Do you need a gym membership so you can shower? Do you need to find more slow cooker recipes so you can “cook” in another room?
Protect your home’s surfaces, especially the flooring. We had our contractor put down X-Board surface protector on each surface the team would be walking on to protect our hardwood floors and stairs. We ended up having one ding on the floor where something was dropped, but managed to avoid any additional scratches.

Minimize Construction Dust

Everyone warned me about construction dust, but I had no idea how bad it would be until we were in the midst of things — and that was even with daily vacuuming by our construction team! Talk to your contractor up front about ways to mitigate dust. They will likely be putting up a plastic barrier, but there may be other things they can do. On demo day for our main bathroom, they put a filter in our window that blew air out of the house and we turned the furnace off to avoid having too much dust circulating. Keep doors to your other rooms closed and consider getting an air purifier for your bedroom (we have this one). Despite all of that, though, you’ll have dust to clean up after your project is complete. Use that as an opportunity to do a deep “spring” clean, no matter what season it is! And, don’t forget to change your furnace filter afterward!

Communicate Clearly

The success of your project is going to rely on your ability to communicate with your contractor about expectations, design, and timelines. Choose a contractor who has a communication style that matches your own. Our contractor was around our age and would text updates and questions, and had read receipts on so I knew when my own comments had been seen. He was also respectful and receptive to my thoughts and concerns when hiccups inevitably happened. I’d also urge you to check in with your contractor whenever you have a question about the process or if something doesn’t seem like it’s going how you expected. You’re the client and you’re paying a lot of money, so you should feel good about the work that’s being done. It’s easier — and oftentimes cheaper — to correct a mistake or change course when you first notice an issue than it is to wait.

Clear communication also extends to your relationship if you’re embarking on a renovation with a partner. Renovations are inherently stressful with money concerns and routines upended — and you two might have different ideas of what’s “good enough” if you hit a snafu. Recognize that your partner may also be overwhelmed and do what you can to empathize with them rather than misdirect any reno frustrations. You’ll be a stronger team at the end of it!

Be Flexible

There will be hiccups along the way. There might be a product that’s out of stock or an item you ordered that just won’t work in your space due to what’s going on behind the walls — or, in my case, the brand of tile you picked for your walls doesn’t have a matching bullnose option and you have to figure out a new trim solution. Despite your best laid plans, something will come up that will throw you off course. Be nimble and open to your contractor’s suggestions — and be willing and able to make decisions on the fly (or at least after sleeping on it). I know you might want to replicate your inspiration board to a T, but every house is different and has different challenges to work around. The longer you wait to make a decision, the longer the timeline gets and the more expensive the project becomes.

And, even if you’re quick to change course, accept early on that the project will cost more than the quote. Save another 50% before beginning the work to allow yourself a cushion if it comes to that. If you don’t need to spend it, you’ve just given yourself a sweet little vacation fund to celebrate!

Create Renovation-Free Zones

Create a space in your home that’s free from renovation reminders — and renovation discussions. Your life is going to be chaotic during the process, so give yourself a refuge to mentally check out and enjoy your evenings!

Please leave any additional advice in the comments!

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Two Years Later: How Sherwin Williams SuperDeck Stain is Holding Up

June 1, 2022 by jessica Leave a Comment

We stained our front porch two years ago with Sherwin Williams SuperDeck stain in Wet Clay. Now that it’s been a couple of years, I wanted to give you an update on how it looks after being walked on and exposed to harsh Wisconsin winters.

To refresh your memory, here’s where we started. I had painted the bottom of our house white the week we moved in, but that was initially raw wood as well. I had toyed with the idea of painting the stairs, but had conflicting input from people as to whether stain or paint was the better option — and then I gave up entirely on this project and focused my attention to the interior as I only had so much bandwidth for house projects! Eventually I decided on the best of both world: a solid deck stain.

(I also painted the railings black that summer. I used Rust-Oleum rusty metal primer and the brand’s protective enamel in a satin finish.)

Here’s what it looked like right after staining it. Click here for the full post — and to see the awful color I tried first.

And here are some unedited photos of where we are after two years:

(Note: It rained the night before I took these photos, so the wood is darker than it usually is after a dry day.)

Clearly the treads have seen better days, but I do think the stain has held up pretty well considering it’s been through two winters with shovels scraping against the risers after each snowfall. The edges by the railing that don’t get walked on or shoveled have remained in good shape, as well as the porch floor that’s protected by the overhang.

In the next few weeks, I’m going to give the risers a quick sand and put a new coat of stain on. I can’t imagine it’ll take more than an hour of work, which is what I expected for a colored stain instead of going with a traditional wood stain.

Our bathroom contactor had his team cut some of the tile on the front porch when it was pouring out, so those white marks on the deck are actually tile dust that hasn’t been swept away by the wind. The stain color hasn’t faded.

Now that we’ve had the stain for two years, I do feel comfortable recommending it — so long as you’re aware that there will be maintenance to keep it looking great (which is something you’d have to with any paint or stain anyway). Let me know if you have questions! (And let me know if you have a recommendation for a good power washer. Our house needs it!)

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Powder Room Progress: The Tile is in!

March 18, 2022 by jessica Leave a Comment

It’s been awhile since I’ve checked in! Our computer malfunctioned so I was MIA for a little while until we could get that back in working order and it couldn’t have come back at a better time when I have some updates to share with you from my last progress report on our powder room.

First things first, a peek of that easy-to-clean, flat-sided toilet was my most commented-on Instagram story ever. I love that we’re at the age where stuff like this excites us! If you’re the market for a toilet, you can find it here and here. I bought the recommended toilet seat for it.

Shortly after we left off, the drywall went up and it finally felt like a room again! We had a few days of mudding and sanding. In a perfect world, we would have primed and painted before the tile went in, but we had some scheduling delays that moved the tile up on the priority list. And trust me, I was not mad at it. Seeing the tile installed made my heart soar and I could finally see my vision board come together. It’s one thing to make a collage in Photoshop, but it’s another to see your selections actually take shape and work together.

It was around this point where I snuck downstairs and smugly smiled to myself thinking “I have good taste.” Haha. But it felt so good to see the pieces fall into place so well — and quite literally at that. You’ll see that we lucked out and were able to place a full tile at each corner and along the sides of the room. We did have a delay with the grout, so after the tile set in mortar, the floor was covered and attention moved to the walls and woodwork.

One of the things I really wanted to do in this space was make the millwork mimic that of the original trim in the house. They removed the frame and sill of the existing window in the half bath and rebuilt trim to match our window casings elsewhere. The window itself is pretty crappy and we’ll probably replace it down the road, but the new trim makes it seem so much larger and adds much-needed architectural detail in this space. The team still has some work to do with it to add a sill and a finishing piece over the seam, but I’m just so happy with it. They did a similar trim around the doorframe, and they put in baseboards that match the profile of our original trim on the first floor. (You can see these in the opening photo.) Our contractor’s team is so talented and they have such acute attention to detail that makes my perfectionist-heart sing!

The grout arrived on Friday of last week, which allowed the team to get that taken care of fairly quickly. This week was all about dehazing the grout, placing the finishing pieces like the trim, and starting to install fixtures. We still have to seal the floor and finalize locations of things like the mirrors and towel bars, but we’re getting there! The team also moved to the main bathroom on Monday and have already completed demo and leveled the floor. I’ll share more about that space in the coming weeks!

Until then, here’s a tiny peek at how far along this room has come. I’ll do a reveal post once we’re complete with a full source list.

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Powder Room Progress: The “Good Stuff” Isn’t the Pretty Stuff

February 25, 2022 by jessica Leave a Comment

Interior blogs often focus on the pretty stuff — the “good stuff.” The stuff that comes after new drywall is placed and construction debris has long been cleared away. After beginning our own home renovations last week, I’ve come to realize that the pretty stuff isn’t the “good stuff.” The good stuff is the opportunity to improve your home’s mechanics, electrical, and plumbing to make a century home last another hundred years.

Before I tested positive for a COVID breakthrough infection and before our contractor’s crew began work, we estimated that our powder room would take two weeks from start to finish. That’s not quite how things actually went and I wanted to take a moment to document the progress we have made over the past couple of weeks. The crew did take a few days off from work over the past two weeks. There was an ice storm and a couple of the crew members that are on-deck weren’t comfortable with my COVID-positive status until I cleared the 10 days (can’t blame ’em). We’ll be at it full time starting Monday until both bathrooms are complete, barring any additional illnesses.

First up, here are some of the before images:

The powder room is off of the kitchen on the first floor. The kitchen and this powder room are both part of an addition to the house. Judging by the product selections, I’d guess this happened in the ’90s or early aughts. The room is approximately 25 square feet, which is a pretty decent size for a half bath, but the space wasn’t utilized effectively. When we started this project, we figured we’d keep the plumbing in the same locations — and for the most part that ended up being the case. It would be too pricey to move the toilet, even if it’s not in the ideal location for this space. That’s just a reality of renovations and budgets. The sink, as we came to learn was not correctly plumbed and would need to be moved. We’re going to center it with the door frame, so when you look into the room, you’ll see a pedestal sink, the mirror, and a sconce. You’ll still see that peek of the toilet seat, but eh, whatcha gonna do?

Here’s what we had when we opened up the walls. The pipe that ran to the sink was drilled through the floor, which apparently isn’t legal, and it wasn’t vented at all. The previous owner had also sealed an unused pipe with a wad of plastic. There was some minor water damage by the sink and toilet, which is to be expected. There was shockingly insufficient insulation on the exterior wall. And, of course, we had galvanized pipes. Replacing the pipes wasn’t part of the original scope of the project, but galvanized pipes can rust and crack over time. Having the walls already open is by far the best opportunity we’d have to proactively take care of a future problem. Our contractor said that it would cost another $500 to replace it all with modern PVC plumbing. The plumber was here longer than the half day that they anticipated, so I expect the final dollar amount to be higher. Still worth it because look at the grossness that’s inside of those pipes:

Ew. Haha. So, the thing with galvanized pipes is that they’ll rust on the inside of the pipe, too. The inside then becomes rough, making it more likely that hair and other gunk will get stuck leading to frequent clogs. And let me tell you, we are very familiar with this issue. Our upstairs shower connects to this plumbing and for the past four years we’ve lived here, we’ve been standing in ankle-deep water after a shower every single time. Snaking the pipes and Draino didn’t do much — it was a bigger problem that we are so grateful to have taken care of. You wouldn’t believe my excitement the first time I showered upstairs after the new pipes were in and the water drained like it should! I told our contractor later that it I didn’t know what kind of witchcraft the plumber did, but I’m a fan — to which he said “it’s the magic of PVC pipes.” Money well spent.

Here’s where we decided to move the sink. It’s a pedestal sink that will now be centered across from the doorway rather than being centered on the wall. This opens up space to the right where we can put a basket of towels or toilet paper. We’re also considering installing some floating corner shelves for plants.

You can see all of our beautiful new pipes and supply lines here — the real “good stuff.” Those remaining galvanized supply lines will be pulled when we’re working on the upstairs main bathroom. They’ve since insulated all of the hot water lines. (You can learn about the benefits of pipe insulation here.) There’s also new insulation in the exterior wall and the tile-ready subfloor has been laid. (And look at that bold red ceiling that used to be in the original galley kitchen! I had no idea!)

As you may recall from my product overview for the space, I had hoped we’d be able to add an inset medicine cabinet. Sadly, my dreams of having guests low-key snoop through my meds has been dashed. There isn’t any room in the walls to make an inset cabinet work and I’m not keen on the wall-mounted versions. I found this mirror on Overstock while I grumpily looked for an alternative. I had low expectations for it, despite the glowing reviews, but I forgot all about the medicine cabinet once the new mirror arrived. It’s hefty and well made and I just love it so much — plus it’s cheaper than the original one I wanted at just $130. It has the vintage-inspired look I was going for when paired with the sconce.

Even if the “good stuff” is the practical improvements, I’m still excited about the pretty stuff.

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