A Little Bit of This...

Welcome back to another week of renovation progress over at the casa! 

With most of the major demo (and dust) behind us on Day 1 and Day 2 of this remodel, we could finally turn our attention to things a little more appealing to this DIY-but not manual labor-loving girl. Like paint! And hardware! Pretty things! Gimme all the heart eyed emojis puhlease!

But first: dumping all that construction debris. #boring!

After the floor demo was completed we were left with all the demo debris and no real way to dispose of them. I'm kicking myself because I never took a picture of the giant pile of tile we tore out! Our original thought was to rent a dumpster through our local waste management company but without a decent sized area to park the size dumpster that was recommended, and the weight limitations on the size dumpster our small driveway would accommodate, we had to find another solution.

We contacted the contractor who quoted us $1700 to demo and dump to see if they would be willing to dispose of the material for us but they weren't interested (I don't blame them). After running into dead end after dead end, we started inquiring with companies that specialized in large item disposal. 

We had one company out and got an estimate upwards of $600 to haul away all our debris and at that point we were beginning to second guess our decision not to hire the whole thing out for $1700. But if I've learned anything so far in this entire renovation process, it's to never take the first quote and always shop around!

So we did.

The 2nd company that we called out quoted us $500 right off the bat. Seeing as they were already cheaper than the first company, we were willing to consider them. We asked if they would take $400 (it never hurts to ask), they said they couldn't but would do it for $465. S and I both gave each other a look, not wanting to wait any longer to get rid of this junk, so we said "DEAL"!

They got to work right away and as we watched them for a few minutes, we started to feel bad that they were out there sweating in the hot sun tossing our junk. Plus - throwing tiles down below into the bed of their truck looked super fun too! 

So we put on our work gloves and decided to lend them a hand. With the 4 of us it only took about 30 minutes to get all the debris loaded up in their big red truck.

After we had everything loaded they let us know that we had nearly 3 tons worth of material. Wow! I'm glad we decided to hire these guys instead of trying to haul this by ourselves! The best part? Because we lent a hand and saved them some time they decided to pass the savings onto us and we ended up paying $400 after all! #allinaharddayswork

When all that demo mess was finally GONE it was full steam ahead to painting. You may have seen here in this Instagram post that we tested out some different grays on the wall and you guys! The right gray is so hard to choose (more on that in a future post).

Once we I eventually decided on a color and I slapped on a coat of paint in the main living area over the course of a lazy afternoon. Still haven’t decided on paint for any of the bedrooms, bathrooms, or sun room. Indecisive party of one?

See that white bit of wall down at the bottom? The result of the best decision ever! Because we're installing new baseboard and crown means no cutting in! Makes painting almost enjoyable. #isaidalmost

After our little painting party I turned my attention to the interior doors. They were in rough shape and just your typical builder grade slab doors – totally unfancy. And in total need of some attention.

We didn't exactly have a whole lot of extra money (read none) in the budget to outfit the entire house with all new doors (that actually matched) so we DIY-ed our way to what will be some fabulous looking doors. #ifidosaysomyself

Here’s a little sneaky peak:

 

Then when all the fun was over we got schooled in all things "home owner". See that guy there? With that fancy saw thingamajig? Yeah...he's cutting out our soggy drywall that resulted from an upstairs leak. Cool. And mold? Real cool.

And that about brings you up to date on the home-reno front. Things have been slow moving this last week but we did manage to install a new toilet. And it was equal parts gross and hilarious! We're chipping away at that to-do list little by little each night but there's still a whole lot of not-so-fun things to tackle before the fun stuff can begin.

Living in a construction zone is starting to take it's toll. Living without any furniture, TV, any real kitchen stuff has forced us to get creative. Have you been here too? How did you survive? Suggestions welcome and WANTED!

More on that later. Till next time...