as promised, pics of a work in progress and the long saga of Murphy's Laws

grab a cuppa and pull up your chair, here's the saga of the move in 1000 words or less LOL

We were suposed to close in AZ on the 11th and here on the 12th. On the 11th we had no loan docs from our buyer's lender :cry:

we finally signed on the 12th over there but no funding (tommorrow they said) so we loaded up the 24 foot truck (sacrificing my BBQ and a few other things) and the car with 3 dogs and the cat and left PHX 10PM on Wednesday night. Drove all night (that hour before dawn was the hardest to stay awake) and poor Mr K had a truck with the loosest steering on the planet so he was fighting the whole way (680 miles) to keep it on the road.

Arrived at 11AM with still no funding, the contractors had already pulled all the carpet on a house we didn't own yet! they were only supposed to finish the tiling in the kitchen that was the seller's responsibility but NO! they decide to start the floors. Not good!

We dumped the dogs in the back yard and starting trying to chase down the $$$. Nothing. at 5PM we went and got a hotel room with the dogs (not fun I might add). the contractors said they'd have the floor in by Monday if we could keep the truck (at $50 a day) but it seemed worth it not to move every thing twice.

FridayAM still no $$$, but the seller felt so bad for us she said to go ahead and camp in the house. Finally Friday late in the day the $$ hit escrow in PHX in time for my buyers to get possesion but too late to send it to NM. So I am homeless, no house in PHX and no house in NM but the floor was started, I had a key and one room to camp in over the weekend. oh joy!

By Saturday evening we moved into the living room (note the rabbit ears on the TV, we got CBS only and badly at that LOL)



the movers came Monday as did the $$ at about 11AM :woohoo:



I spent the weekend scrubbing 15 years of grime off the bathroom and the kitchen. I couldn't move in a thing it was so FILTHY!

all the doors had these ghastly gold leaf flowered glass doors which we removed ASAP

here on the china hutch (note the grime on the chandelier)



and here on the doors into the master bath



so here's where we're at in the kitchen, the walls from the sink to the pantry will be tile like behind the stove with a very nice decorative back splash by next week.

before



today





the island works well as an appliance "garage" with power on the back side



and a close up of my $20 pot rack. Mr. K notched some scrap 2x4s to hold it in place, a $12 piece of pipe and some "s" hooks and "o" rings and it works awesome! I bought some more hooks to add now that we know the theory works.



still lots to do, but definate progress. when the tiling is done it will look great and other than figuring out how to store my silverware I'm gonna be loving the kitchen. I got the new micrwave stove hood so my espresso machine didn't have to live on my counter, a new ceiling fan and refer did wonders for the look (and gave me two less things I'd have to clean

what a week!

Yowch, that's a heap of work. I sure hope you get settled in soon :pals:

Nice pot rack! Very clever.

Silverware ...... get a self-contained drawer unit and place it under your Saeco.

Alternatively, if you can match reasonably well the finish of your cabinets, add a 'shelf' fully across the opening in which the Saeco is located and then build a drawer using full extension slides. Store the silverware in there. Now, if you can't find a material to match your cabinets, make the 'shelf' of a material that matches your counters and use some sort of open baskets in place of a drawer and store the silver in that.

Here are some links from a quick google search just to illustrate what I'm thinking.

http://www.homefocuscatalog.com/home/cleaning-and-storage/96244-Add-On-Drawers.html


Here's an idea of a silverware 'basket' (really a bin)
http://www.food-equipment.com/stainless_flatware_dispenser.htm

use for any food stuffs (but it will be a great place for the bread to rise hehe)

that's excellent advice H2S! no wonder you get the BIG $$$$ :rofl:

edit to add, I actually have a roll of contact paper that matches the cabinets almost exactly! it should hold up until I get around to re-doing the cabinet fronts :bounce:

these should fit fine and give me a bunch more storage to get some of the utensils off the counters too!

http://www.homefocuscatalog.com/Parent.asp?product=239069x&dept%5Fid=540&subdept%5Fid=541

You've done so good so far. Take a breather - you're going to be there for a long, long time! I hope you can dig out the telescope soon and have enough energy to stay awake to enjoy the night sky.

took out the HUGH street/security light out of the back yard. the deck is up but not finished so I fully expect to help him lug all the astronomy stuff out tonight. he's in taking a nap now cuz I think he's got plans for this evening :evilgrin:

edit to add, I haven't lifted a finger today except to make french toast for breakfast

I may do some steaks for dinner... or not

:hide:

I know you must be sore, getting all that moved in, cleaned, and settled! But it looks gorgeous! I envy you all that storage space.

filling two rooms instead of every room in the house LOL

and the storage is not more, but just different. the island is nice though....

May you get all the grunge work done ASAP so you can enjoy it!

PS I know what you mean about that gold-leaf; what were they thinking? I hope it came off fairly easily.

:rofl:

we'll hang on to the doors and if we decide we need them, we'll replace the glass before we rehang them

it is bright but no direct sun which is perfect, it means we'll gets loads of sunshine in the house in the winter when we need it to help warm it up. it appears the house is set just right for passive solar :bounce:

we'll be battling grunge for the next several years (or until I replace cabinets) but since we are going through the house a room at a time for the next few months it will be cleaned and painted eventually. but I have washed the walls in the bathroom and got the cabinets clean enough to live with for now. they'll get cleaner as I go and wipe them again and again as I use them. I swear this woman didn't know (or care) that there are VERTICAL surfaces too!

putting in all new flooring helped a LOT!

when I finally got around to cleaning the dining room light fixture (it came out amazingly well) dear Mr. K said "Dang! I didn't realize it had etched glass in a pattern!" :rofl:

...as our own move is so recent. It only takes the word "Chase" (as in CHASEFUCKINGMORTGAGE) to make steam pour out of my ears, and I am generally a most easygoing individual. They hosed up the various money transfers, loan docs, etc., so badly I was about ready to hire a lawyer.

We were lucky, though, in that we bought a nearly new place, built less than a year previously. Unfortunately, the person the developer sold it to was a single guy who *intended* to live there, but acquired a girlfriend, and so moved a bunch of his stuff in and then (as far as we can tell,) used it as a place to do laundry, take showers, and keep junk food in the fridge, NOTHING else. He'd either had it staged or the realtor had 'decorated' it before putting it on the market, but we did have to clean out the refrigerator, laundry room, bathroom, cupboards, etc., before unpacking. Not too bad compared to what you went through!

The kitchen looks very functional, good workspace, and I am AMAZED at what you managed to unpack in such a short time! WOW!! Kudos to ya!

The pot rack is starting to give me ideas, too, if I can find a place in my kitchen. We have a spot for an island but no island, maybe above that if/when we get one.

admiringly,
Bright

miss them one little bit! The words "attorney" and "lawsuit" passed our lips more than once, but the agent said there is no law on the books in AZ to make them responsible for their screwups

I looked at putting the rack above the island but I think a woman of my indeterminate age will appreciate the fan there more :evilgrin:

the one we devised works well in here. the cabinet fascia wasn't strong enough to handle the weight but my DH's idea of notching 2x4s fixed that and they are high enough not to impede the window but low enough to be handy.

I'll be quite pleased once the tiling is all done, it will be CLEAN and really make the space nice. the contractors are going to do all the tile work at once. they have the kitchen to finish, my new shower (look for a long DIY thread on that one next week) and finishing the tile into the guest bath.

the old owners put beautiful saltillo style 12" tile in the entry way and all the way down the hall and then she stopped and left the NASTY FILTHY carpet in the Bathroom!! I pulled that up the first day and have been on the plywood subfloor and several throw rugs since. I did order the two boxes of tile to finish it out which will be here next week.

That yellowish, sticky film on everything, yuck.

You were right about that awful gold leaf on those doors. If you scrape off the gold leaf, you may be left with either plain glass or a frosted pattern, both of which would be quite tolerable.

I actually envy you that trailer. Wait until you see the "before" piccies of this disaster of a house.

I keep taking carloads to the thrift shop, but it doesn't look like I've made a dent!

it's looks a combo of grease, dirt and the sandy dust around here, but mostly grease :shrug:

I'm gonna wait on the doors, I may not need them. but if I do for dust control I'll definately do something with the glass on them

what are you hauling to the thrift stores?? and I can't wait for pics. did you land on a contractor yet?

I've liked one contractor so far. Another one didn't seem all that interested in a small job (big to me, but I'm not bulldozing the place and starting over) and another tripped my sleaze meter, NOT a good sign.

If that kitchen window is facing anywhere but north, you're going to need some mini blinds. I also suggest putting the "eyebrow" window treatments at the top of the cabinets, above the windows. I'tll help the ceiling look a bit higher there.

And yes, you will want doors for dust control if you're putting your dishes in that hutch. If they can't be salvaged, you can get some really nice textured or frosted lucite panels if glass is too much to cope with. I don't know why that do that awful stuff to perfectly nice glass panels in trailers, but they all seem to.

Mine had frosted fleur de lis patterns. I coped until I took a crowbar and got rid of the whole thing. my French doors to the bath were hollow core doors and plain, thank goodness.

I'm hauling clothing, household gear, bedding for the single futon I don't have, books, music, anything I can get rid of to lighten the load. As I clean out the loom room, I'll be calling Aunt Sally's Boutique again to pick up the cheap shelving I'm going to replace.

Maybe in 3 or 4 months when the work gets started, I'll have this place cleaned out enough to cram 5 rooms of junk into 2.

and I'll probably put the doors back on once I get some time to give them some attention. they were groady and ugly so it seemed easier just to remove them for right now

smart idea to lighten up your 'stuff' it will make the re-do go much easier

we are demoing the useless little cabinets above the washer dryer tomorrow and replacing them with three white coated shelves we brought from AZ that we had in the store as fixtures. it will give me 10 times the storage in there and I need it!

good luck on your project and keep us posted!

Keep some towels handy for the daily sand-storms.. We had them almost every afternoon at the same time..damp towels by windows & doors keeps a lot of the microscopic sandy grit out :)_

and the spring winds are horrendous they tell us

Spring winds, that is. Truly awful. And if you don't have everything around the house landscaped to the point where there ISN'T any dust to blow around, you'll get half an inch of it through the infinitesmal cracks around windows and doors before you know it!

I made the mistake of leaving the windows open when I went to the grocery store once this spring and came back to find the place literally black with dust on every surface. A whole day's worth of hoovering and wiping and dusting... ouch...

Now I understand why people pour a 2" layer of gravel over every non-landscaped surface adjacent to their houses here! We are doing a build-out late summer/fall of a sunroom/dining area extension, and can't really landscape until it's done. But the minute they are done, BANG! In comes the gravel and the flagstone and the topsoil plus chunky bark mulch!

Wish I'd thought of damp towels during the April/May daily dust blows!

regretfully,
Bright

Moving is such a pain. I am glad you finally got in. Can't wait for the bathroom pics. Did you decide to go with the glass block?

Our last move was a lending nightmare. The day of closing, we get a call that our buyer's paperwork isn't ready and won't be ready for another TWO WEEKS! Luckily we were planning to rent back from the new buyers for a few weeks while we completed work on the new house, but we just as easily could have been completely packed up and ready to go :crazy:

of lighting in there

but i better go make some decisions soon, the guys will be ready by Wednesday or so...