Rub a dub dub... the laundry room

Believe it or not, this blog is coming to a close. I have a couple of more posts I want to write after the last remaining items are taken care of. (We're still waiting on our built-in bookcase unit for the bedroom.) And I want to write a longish retrospective concluding post on the lessons learned during the renovation. With any luck, Jon and I will never have to face as time-consuming and complex of a construction project again in our lives, but if we did, I feel like I've learned a lot and would be able to do it much more efficiently the second time around.

But the subject of this post today is to show off pics of our new laundry room. I knew when planning the project that I was quite frustrated with our old laundry arrangement (washer and dryer shoved in closet off kitchen, with annoying bifold doors that continually got in the way). So I knew I would be looking forward to having a dedicated laundry room.

What I didn't realize is just how much I would appreciate this new room. The photos above don't really get across how nice and big it is. Just having space to maneuver laundry baskets and sort/fold laundry is wonderful. Wagner installed a bar across one wall where we can hang-dry items. We re-used our former kitchen cabinets and counter, and they work well in the space. Being able to close off the doors to the laundry room (and also the addition) cuts out all noise entirely of the machines, yay!

But my favorite part of the room are my new Electrolux machines. You read in an earlier post how I was intending to buy a more economical set but was compelled to go with the Electrolux because they were one of the few models that allowed people to reverse hinges. After I bit the bullet and ordered them I wondered if I would regret the extravagance and wish I had gone for a top-loading model instead.

Well, maybe I'm just reducing post-decision dissonance, but I absolutely love the Electroluxes. They clean everything well, and because the washer has such an efficient spinning mechanism (more on that, later), it saves me 20 or more minutes of drying time. The capacity is huge, too, so I'm probably doing 1/2 as many loads. With the lessened energy and water consumption, I'm feeling good about the reduced impact on the environment. The pedestals seemed outrageously expensive at the time (they added maybe another $500 to the price), but they're worth it. No tiresome bending over to move stuff in and out of the units.

But that spin cycle: Wow. High-efficiency washers will spin very very fast, which they can do given their design and the lack of a center agitator. What do I mean by "very very fast"? 1200 revolutions per minute. When that thing gets going, it's like watching the inside of a jet engine. The first couple of weeks we had the washer, we'd all stand there transfixed, mouth open, gazing in awe as the spin cycle progressed. (Okay, so maybe we're easily amused, but you have to trust me that it's pretty darn amazing.) When I did research on HE models on the internet, I was a bit alarmed by some highly critical reviews I read where people complained about excessive vibration and noise. All I can say is that this has been a complete non-issue for me, and these machines just hum along and are substantially quieter and shake less than my 15-year-old Kenmores ever did.
And perhaps the best thing about it is that Isaac is captivated by the new machines and is actually eager to do laundry. He'll do all his clothes by himself, loading and starting the machines, and taking out and putting away his clothes. In fact, he'll even come to me and ask if there's anything else that needs washing because he likes to operate the equipment.

And that's just fine by me. ;-)

The cat has been acquitted

The analysis of the carpet sample from our mystery stain showed that it was not caused by animal fluids, so our cat Slippers has been cleared of any and all crimes involving the new carpet. She is greatly relieved.

However, the carpet manufacturer rejected our claim, anyway, on the grounds that there was no evidence that the stain occurred during the milling process. They have a point, I guess, but I also know that *we* didn't make the stain, and I feel just as confident that it wasn't Wagner's crew or the carpet installer.

I didn't want to press the issue with the carpet manufacturer because there really is no way to tell when or how the stain happened, seeing as the carpet had been in the house for two days before I noticed it. So I was just going to let the matter drop, when Wagner said that he and the flooring wholesaler we bought the carpet from had agreed to split a $500 credit to return to us. I thought this was very gracious but not fair to them, as I was convinced neither of them was responsible for the stain. He insisted that we deserved some kind of credit, though. But then I pointed out that Jon and I shared some responsibility as well, because I didn't inspect the carpet thoroughly right after the installation and only noticed the spot a couple of days later.

So we decided to reduce the credit to $200 each from Wagner and the carpet store, which I still don't feel entirely right about, as it seems to me that it's the carpet manufacturer who should be paying.

We also decided not to attempt a repair through plugging in a new patch of carpet. The carpet installer said that over time the seams would become visible, and I'm guessing the cure will be worse than the problem. The spot really isn't noticeable unless you look carefully for it, and I am sure it is just the first of many spots this carpet will attract over its lifetime.

The important moral I learned from this incident is this: Take the time to inspect all work done very carefully, just as soon as it is completed. If I had gone to the effort to look the carpet over closely the day it was installed (instead of just poking my head in and saying "Looks great!" the way I had done), I would've noticed the spot right then and there, leaving no ambiguity about when it had occurred.

Of course, it's not exactly helpful that this lesson was learned at the tail end of our renovation and not the beginning. *sigh*

Our first night in the new room

So Jonathan and I had our first night in the new bedroom. We're still only partially moved in, but we got the essentials taken care of and can move the remaining items more leisurely over the next few days. We were particularly looking forward to trying out our new mattress set. After decades of experimenting with different--and progressively more expensive--mattress brands but always being disappointed with the permanent gullies that would form where our bodies would lie, we decided to spring big time for TempurPedic mattresses, which are made of the memory foam that was guaranteed never to form any gullies. Jon had been waking up with back pain, too, and TempurPedic mattresses are supposed to help out with that as well. They were hideously expensive, but they came with a 90-day free trial, so if it doesn't work out we can exchange them for something else.

I think I was so keyed up over the big move that I had a hard time falling asleep, so it wasn't the most restful night's sleep I ever had. Our poor cat, Slippers, was even more keyed up. She started out sleeping on our old bed upstairs, but then she got lonely and came looking for us, meowing plaintively and loudly. I called out to her, but when she jumped up on the bed she got even more confused because Jon and I had decided to switch sides. (I wanted the side with the shortest distance to the bathroom.) I am more willing than Jon to devote the bottom 1/3 of the bed space to the cat, so she has learned to stick to my side. But all this disruption was too much for her, so she just meowed and crawled around on the night tables until I scooped her up and shut her down in the basement. Maybe I'll have Athena switch over to sleeping in our old room right away, and she can be the one to give up foot space and Slippers will have company...

The photos above (taken before the blinds were installed) show our room with the new furniture. Athena said, "Wow, mom, this is the first room in our house we've ever had where all the furniture matches." Sad to say, this is true. ;-) The top photo shows the fancy glass door to the bedroom. This is not as revealing as it appears, as we also have a solid wood door leading from the kitchen to the addition foyer, which can be closed for additional privacy and noise reduction.

Getting punchy

It's hard to believe that this renovation is just about completely finished. Right now Wagner is just working on his punch list. (A "punch list" is the final list of tiny details that need to be fixed, like touching up painting, adjusting doors, and the like.) The other weekend he came over to the house and spent 3 or 4 hours going through the addition, waving a hand-held light over every inch of the walls to look for drywall or paint issues that needed touching up, trying out every door, etc., and taking notes for his punch list. Anything he saw that needed work got marked with a little piece of blue masking tape.


Progress accomplished this week:

--Touch up painting/drywall work, lots of it.
--Sconce in bedroom replaced; it had a faulty ballast so we swapped it out under warranty.
--Wagner moved out most of his stuff stored in the garage, so now Jonathan can park in there, too.
--New vinyl flooring installed in former laundry closet. (We had some left over from the garage study.)
--Washer and dryer hookups in former laundry closet dismantled, water line capped, spot where hookups were drywalled over. Closet repainted. We now have a large, functional backup pantry; see photo above.
--I was so pleased by how the new laundry closet floor came out that I asked Wagner to put down a new floor in our main pantry.
--Cleaned out main pantry; sorted and transferred all the household maintenance items (tools, light bulbs, etc.) to new closet; pantry will now be devoted solely to food items. Went overboard and sorted canned goods according to food type, though I stopped short of alphabetizing it all. I'm not quite finished (there's still a shelf of vitamins/medicines I need to reorganize), but my pantry has *never* looked this good. (See photo; you can't tell from this angle, but the pantry stretches out about 8 more feet to the right around the corner.)



--New bedroom furniture delivered. It looks great, and to my relief, the dressers/armoire etc. match the new bed very well in terms of color and style. I was a little nervous about it given that I had only the digital photos of the bed to go by when shopping for the rest of the furniture. We're shopping for mattresses today; I'll post photos of the furnished room after they get delivered.
--Blinds ordered. I was overwhelmed by all the window treatment options and the cost, so I ended up going very basic: cellular (honeycomb) blinds on the bedroom and closet windows, wood blinds for the garage study. I went ahead and paid extra to get the cordless option for the honeycomb blinds, because I have never liked the look of strings hanging down, and our old blinds inevitably got the strings all tangled up. We also decided to pay extra for an "operational" blind covering for the fancy arch on our bedroom window, so we can open and close it, rather than getting a fan-shaped blind that would be permanently closed. So we'll start with that for our window treatments, and if later on it looks too industrial, we can add draperies.

Obstacles encountered this week:

--We had an episode of extremely heavy rain accompanied by strong wind. The new skylight leaked about 5 drops from one corner. This did not concern me. However, we got a veritable downpour for about 5 minutes coming through the doorway between our dining room and family room. Although this was completely unrelated to the renovation/addition, Wagner--bless his heart--sprang into action and got a roofing company to come out and investigate. Turns out that we had a roof vent that needed replacement. We also had to go through and replace a big chunk of insulation in the attic that had gotten soaked. The roofers also redid the flashing around the skylight. I wasn't sure it was necessary to go to all that effort (it had been a ferocious downfall, and we only had a couple of drops coming through), but Wagner just said sternly, "Skylights should NEVER leak" and insisted that it would be fixed.

--Two days after the carpet was installed, I noticed a small spot on it where the color is different, almost like a bleach stain. It is barely perceptible (Jonathan swears he can't see it at all), but... it is there. And it was a brand new, expensive carpet. We reported it to the carpet company, who have sent out two people investigating it. They even took a sample of the fiber to analyze it to see if they can determine the source of the discoloration. The guy who installed the carpet says it looks to him like it was a flaw of the milling process. The carpet people are eager to suggest that it occurred AFTER installation, perhaps by one of Wagner's men, or they even had the temerity to suggest that our cat had peed on it. I've seen how careful Wagner and his crew have been about cleanliness throughout this job, so I'm quite convinced the carpet came this way. And our cat has been so freaked out by the renovation process that she never even goes in the addition (besides, most of the time the door to that area stays closed).

So, we'll see. I have no stomach for making them replace the entire carpet. And the spot is barely perceptible. Unfortunately, it is located in a high visibility area of the room, not in some corner or where it would be hidden under furniture, drat it. But as Jonathan said, we're going to be making plenty of more obvious stains at some point in the future. On the other hand, we paid a lot for the carpet, darn it, and it should have been unblemished. The carpet guy said he could just plug in a replacement patch (we have plenty of leftover pieces), which would look better in the short term, but the seams could become visible after a year or two with repeated vacuuming or cleaning.

We'll wait to see what the carpet analysis shows, but at this point I'm leaning toward NOT doing the repair and just taking some kind of credit for having a new carpet installed with a blemish.

The garage "this is not an apartment" study

I'm behind on posting some photos. The garage study, which--for the benefit of any Fayette County Building Inspectors who might be reading this blog--I will emphasize is not a garage apartment but rather a guestroom or study, was actually finished some weeks ago. Here's what it looks like. The first shot shows the kitchen area. These were our old cabinets we had in the main house kitchen before we renovated. The flooring came out great, I think. We ended up using a brand called "Konecto," and it sure looks like hardwood from a distance but is instead practical and easy-to-maintain vinyl. The refrigerator was a floor model clearance deal we got for a bargain because it had a small, imperceptible chip on one corner:




This shows the room taken from a different angle and gives a good view of the built-in bookcases that run all along one side of the room:



And here's the small but serviceable bathroom:

My gorgeous new kitchen backsplash

Larry the tile guy and his assistant finished putting up the beautiful tile accent for the area above the kitchen sink. It's made out of hand-carved marble. We added the decorative picture-frame border around it, and then set a tile made of travertine to provide a backsplash in that area. An employee at the tile store had the good idea to set the tiles on the diagonal, which I think really adds to the visual appeal.

All in all, this really provides a beautiful focus to the kitchen and makes up for losing the window over the sink. And it's *infinitely* better than looking at a blank wall while I'm washing the dishes!

Certified for Occupancy!

The building inspector came by on Monday and conducted the final inspection and issued our final occupancy certificate. WOOT!!! The finish line for the renovation is now in sight, and we are so close to being done that I can taste it.

The amount of work that has been done this past week is amazing, and I doubt I'll be able to remember or list it all:

Progress accomplished this week:

--Shelves installed in computer room closet
--Carpeting installed in computer room and both master closets. Wagner is holding off on the carpet in the bedroom proper until the very end, so as to minimize odds of staining it.
--Computer room and closet repainted.
--Closet hardware installed in both closets. The photos above are from Jon's closet.
--Lights over vanity installed. See pic above.
--Laundry room finished and turned over to me. Washer and dryer delivered and installed. Despite one minor setback (see below), many loads of laundry done, accompanied by tears of happiness.
--Old washer and dryer taken out and donated to 72 year old woman who has none at the moment so doesn't mind having to duct tape the dryer closed.
--New shelving installed in former laundry closet. We're going to use it as a backup pantry.
--Prep work for installing fancy tile mosaic above sink. The mosaic is hand-carved form marble and very very heavy, so Wagner had to cut out the drywall and install a kind of concrete board to attach it to.
--Mirror over vanity and full-length mirror in bathroom being installed even as I type.
--Furniture stores that are warehousing all the bedroom furniture we bought have been called and delivery scheduled, for April 7th. We're going to be out of town much of next week and I figured it was best to have a few extra days Just In Case.
--All sorts of minor drywall and painting touch up going on.
--General clean-up of Wagner's tools and stuff stored in garage.

Obstacles encountered this week:

--Ceiling over vanity is not level. This was the pre-existing ceiling of the (former) garage, so there was not much we could do about it. We opted to keep the bathroom mirror level to the floor, but it means one of the vanity lights will have to be relocated upwards about half an inch.
--My failure to research washer/dryers and thus realize that the dryer should go on the RIGHT, not LEFT, led to my having to pay a lot more than I wanted to for a set with reversible hinges.
--Pedestals for washer/dryer were back-ordered. The salesguy asked, hopefully, if I could just wait two weeks or so to have everything delivered. I had four loads of laundry already piled up and no washer/dryer, so my reply was: No frigging way. He was not happy, but since it was their mistake (they had originally told me everything was in stock), they agreed to deliver the washer and dryer first and come back a second time to install the pedestals.
--Washer and dryer got installed, and they look beautiful. Deliverymen left. I started my first of 4 loads. It got through exactly 1/2 of the first load, and then the washer started beeping at me and flashing an error message: No water. Much gnashing of teeth. I called Pieratt's, distraught, and told them my beautiful new washer wasn't working and I had a load of sopping wet laundry in it, and three more on the floor. We purchased from Pieratt's (a small local business) rather than a big box store because they have given us great service in the past on other appliances. They came through this time, too: Within ten minutes of my call, I had a repairman at the door. It took him an hour to figure out what was wrong, which turned out to be that the fancy "Flood Safe" reinforced hoses I had bought for the washer and dryer (to protect against a hose breaking and gushing water all over the house) were incompatible with the Electrolux model. Hot water was going through but, for some reason inexplicable to the repair guy, not the cold water. Something about the fail-safe valve on the hose. We put the original hoses back on and all was fine.